From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Mon Nov 25 2002 - 13:13:57 EST
This connects back to the higher criticism thread of a month ago.
Having taken plenty of time to think over the issue of source
criticism, I realized that some components of the argument are
inherently circular. On the one hand, it is necessary to assume that
a passage is a coherent whole in order to argue that apparent
conflicts should be resolved in their shared context. On the other
hand, it is necessary to assume that a passage is composite in order
to claim that apparent conflicts represent independent contradictory
accounts. Thus, in the account of the Flood, if the passage is taken
as a whole, then there are no separate accounts of pairs versus pairs
and sevens, because both are part of the same account. If the
passage is divided, then there is a detail in one that is lacking in
the other.
As for the issue of evolution, the misuse of source criticism makes
it understandably suspect. In noting that he assigned a bit more to
Amos than prevailing liberal models, my religion professor said that
the criterion for assigning authorship of a passage to the prophet
rather than to some redactor was whether you liked the passage or
not. He happened to like a bit more of Amos than average.
Jefferson, with his physical cut and paste approach to editing out
the parts he did not like, was merely more obvious. Looking for
sources is potentially very informative, but the popular criteria for
JPED etc. seem to me to be of highly dubious merit, as is the extreme
fragmentation. The only objective evidence that we have on the above
divide versus unite dilema is that the present text is united and
therefore was presumably regarded by the final editors as a coherent
unit.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted
Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at
Droitgate Spa
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