Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

Have been re-reading through John Collins’ Introduction to the Hebrew Bible off and on lately.  Here is a passage I read last night I thought worthy of citation:

The Biblical text that resulted from this process (the final editing together of diverse material) is not a consistent systematic treatise.  Rather, it is a collection of traditional materials that places different viewpoints in dialogue with one another and offers the readers a range of points of view.  It is not a text that lends itself to imposing orthodoxy, or even orthopraxy, despite (perhaps because of) the proliferation of laws.  Rather, it should stimulate reflection and debate by the unreconciled diversity of its content.

I would give the page number with the citation, but I read it on my Kindle 2.  That’s one of things that would definitely make these difficult to use in an academic context … No page numbers.  The citation is from Chapter 2, “The Nature of the Pentateuchal Narrative” from the section entitled “Criticism of the Documentary Hypothesis.”

Okay this is one of those things that got me laughing.  I realize that my sense of humor is not normal, but that’s okay.  This may not be for everyone.  I read this title on one of James McGrath’s posts in the RSS feed for his blog – “Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch.”  I have read James’ blog enough to know that he doesn’t think Moses wrote the Pentateuch.  So, I thought that I might be clicking a link to a good quick resource I could point people to explaining why Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch.  And, what I came upon was THIS.  Got me.

Recently, I posted pointed out what I felt was an instance of fundamentalism on the Desiring God blog. And, after a bit of conversation on FaceBook I think it might be helpful to explain the way that I use the term fundamentalism. For this term, I follow the approach of Harriet A. Harris who has written an excellent book entitled Fundamentalism and Evangelicals.  In her book she states that she uses the term “fundmentalist” in three ways:

I will employ the term ‘fundamentalist’ in three main ways, each of which should be clear from the context. I will use it when referring to the fundamentalist mentality which prevails in contemporary evangelicalism. Secondly, I will retain the label ‘fundamentalist’ for those involved in the controversies with ‘modernism’ in the 1920s. Thirdly, I will call ‘fundamentalist’ particular separatist groups who regard themselves as fundamentalist (and I do not, by virtue of this label, judge that selfproclaimed fundamentalists lack the advantages of a personal, evangelical faith) (Harris 1998, 17).

Do I think the writer at Desiring God blog whose post I critiqued is a fundamentalist?  Not really in the strictest (third) sense above, though I do agree with James Barr that modern evangelicalism has done very little to distinguish itself from fundamentalism (I also recommend Barr’s work entitled Fundamentalism to the reader, though it can be difficult to come by).  In the previous post, I was using the term “fundamentalism” in the first sense above, namely an evangelical reflecting the fundamentalist mentality that still prevails in modern evangelicalism.

PS – I believe the critique of blatant anachronism in the above mentioned post stands without need for clarification.

Yesterday there was a post on the Desiring God blog about “boring” passages in the Bible (why they put boring in quotes I don’t know; I would just call them boring), especially the Pentateuch.  There is so much wrong with the particular details of this post that it is difficult to really know where to go with this.  Do you deal with the fundamentalism or the anachronism or both?  I’ll try both.  I’ll just say a brief word about the fundamentalism.  Moses wrote the Pentateuch?  Really?  I’ll provide two quotes from the post, though there are a number:

For example, when listing out the instructions for how to build the tabernacle, Moses goes into great detail about all the materials and measurements. Did he intend for the reader of Exodus to actually build a tabernacle? No! That was Bezalel and Oholiab’s job (Exodus 31:1-11).

Rather, it appears that Moses included the full set of blueprints in order to convey to us, as we literally labor to read them, a greater sense of the weight and worth of God.

I thought that even the most conservative scholars that I respect were past this.  If you still think this, I recommend you read all of  Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch by Jean-Louis Ska.    Or, you should at the very, very least read chapter 3 of the book free HERE (or as much as you can free it’s probably my favorite book on the Pentateuch).  This is the best advice that I can give since most people who still believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch may take a lot of convincing otherwise.

Okay. Now, for anachronism.  How about this quote:

Consider this: Why does the Pentateuch contain so much material that describes the old covenant and its laws? One reason is that Moses wanted to increase our anticipation and appreciation of a new covenant.

Really?  Moses wanted to do that.  The covenant wasn’t even “old” yet; It was just the covenant.  Unless “Moses” was going 007, I really, really doubt this is what was going on.  “Okay I’m going to write down these laws, so that these people will think they are for them.  But, what I’m really doing is writing them to increase the anticipation and appreciation of some people over 3000 years from now.”  Maybe that’s being a little unfair, but that is literally what the post says is one thing that “Moses” wanted to do.  Do you truly think that “Moses” had anything to do with a “new” covenant in mind before the covenant was even “old.”