From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 08:04:43 EDT
bivalve wrote:
>
> > I wonder, did the Higher Critics of Scripture evolve the
> technique of the "Just So Story" by themselves, or did they borrow it
> from the Evolutionary Biologists? Or could it have been the other
> way around? Or, as the Cladists would have us include, was it an
> example of Convergent Evolution? In any case, we should never lack a
> Naturalistic explanation for its Origin.<
>
> Actually, it appears to be a case of agressive mimicry, in which a
> harmful form disguises itself as something harmless or beneficial,
> like a wolf in sheep's clothing. In the present case, it is
> Enlightenment scepticism masquerading as science.
It's easy to satirize "higher criticism," JEPD, &c. Critical
attempts to
assign individual sentences & words to different sources have sometimes been
overdone. But anyone who who has been alerted to the bare
possibility that there are
different sources behind the Pentateuch & who reads it open eyes &
mind will see places
where different traditions have been combined. The 2 & 7 of every
kind in the flood
story, the Midianites & Ishamaelites of Gen.37:25-28, & Moses'
multiple ascents of Mt.
Sinai are just a few obvious examples.
Of course I can anticipate the cry, "We can harmonize it!"
But the attempts to
do so produce results that are sometimes as funny as any parody of
critical scholarship.
E.g., the picture of Hagar carrying her 17 year old son through the
wilderness is rather
odd. (I know: If we don't believe this we can't believe in the resurrection.)
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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