_{Handout 60}

The General Effect of the Critical Approach to the Bible (also known as “Historical Criticism”) on How Critical Scholars Viewed the Pentateuch

Sections A through D below admittedly overlap a fair amount with H/O #40.

That has been done so that the present handout can be read on its own.

A. The Major Development in Western History that the Stage for the “Scientific” Approach (= the Critical Approach) to the Bible: The Enlightenment

In H/O #40, we pointed out that there was a major intellectual & cultural development in the West from the mid-1600’s until about 1800 that has come to be called “the Enlightenment.”

The Enlightenment itself grew out of a considerable increase in scientific knowledge and mathematical skills in the 1500’s and the 1600’s.

In general, these developments greatly benefitted the western world. But there was a “downside,” so to speak, namely: that among intellectuals, as their trust in science & math increased, their trust in the church decreased. Sadly, there were some understandable reasons for this. In particular, science was disproving things that the church had taught. Three examples:

• The earth is flat.
• The earth is the center of the universe.
• The sun orbits around the earth.

In view of this, among the educated classes, there was a growing question:

• Should our beliefs be governed by religion (= by what the church tells us), or, by science and reason?

The Enlightenment is sometimes described as the time in the West when → “we learned to think for ourselves.”

B. The Effect of The Enlightenment on How Intellectuals Viewed the Bible:

• There was a growing assumption that even Scripture must agree with reason, with science.

  And, eventually, by ±1720, the leading intellectuals concluded that → reason has the right to judge everything, including the Bible.

• “Rationalism”: In its full extent, the Enlightenment led to rationalism, the philosophical position which holds that:

  only that which can be derived by reason or by scientific observation can be accepted as true.

• According to rationalism, the very idea of revelation from God was rejected, because it cannot be derived by pure logic, nor verified by scientific observation.

• Definition: A “rationalist” is . . . a person who believes in rationalism.

• So for rationalists, the Bible was no longer viewed as authoritative revelation from God; it was no longer viewed as “God’s word to man.” Rather, they say the Bible is → man’s word about God.

C. Rationalism / The “Scientific Approach” to the Study of the Bible / Critical Scholars

1. Bible scholars who accepted rationalism continued to study the Bible. But again, they no longer viewed the Bible as revelation from God. Rather, they now viewed the Bible as → the product of human authors who were themselves products of their times.

2. And they will now study the Bible “scientifically”; this means:

   1. The Bible will be studied for what it really says, rather than having the Church tell you what it means. [Note: This does sound a little like Martin Luther–but Luther believed the Bible was true.]

   2. They will not interpret it allegorically; they will not spiritualize it.

      Rather, they will interpret it → according to normal ways that literature is read, and with a definite emphasis on its historical setting. // Does this sound a little like what I have taught you? Yes.

      But here is the big difference between the critical approach vs. what I have been teaching you:

   3. In particular, they now interpret the Bible . . . according to only what reason & science can allow.

      Another way to say this is: They no longer read the Bible “uncritically”; rather, . . . reason and science are now the judge over the Bible. In their view, reason & science tell us what can and what cannot actually happen. They sometimes refer to the earlier approach to understanding the Bible as “pre-critical.”

3. Over time, scholars who studied the Bible “scientifically”, who held a generally rationalistic worldview, came to be called “critical scholars.” That is a label they accept.

   To Note:

   Many critical scholars are not thorough-going rationalists; that is, many of them still believe that God created the universe, or that Jesus rose from the grave. Many are church members.

   However, even for such ‘moderate’ critical scholars, they are generally very skeptical of the miracles reported in the Bible, and also of the possibility that there could be such a thing as true predictive prophecy. Additionally, even for such moderate critical scholars, they generally approach and interpret the Bible from a critical “scientific” perspective.

D. Two Major Specific Effects that Rationalism / the Scientific Approach Had on How Critical Scholars Studied and Interpreted the Bible:

The fact that critical scholars read the Bible through the grid of what science and reason can allow had two very specific effects, already referred to above:

• There are no miracles;
• There is no truly predictive prophecy.

1. [For the most part] The miracles recorded in the Bible were rejected as impossible.

   In brief, their logic is as follows:

   – Everything in the world is obviously governed by the laws of nature.

   Part of their argument was that → they did not see any miracles happening in their own time. The operation of the laws of nature, as far as the entire intellectual and scientific community observed, was completely dependable. And if miracles did not happen in their time, then they concluded that miracles never actually happened before their time.

   – The laws of nature cannot be broken.

   – A miracle would constitute a violation of the laws of nature;

   – Therefore miracles are impossible.

2. In specific: The idea of genuinely predictive prophecy was also rejected, because it is not possible for anyone to have detailed information about specific events in the far future. That is to say: for a person to have detailed information about specific events in the far future would be a miracle, and since miracles are impossible, therefore, genuinely predictive prophecy is also impossible.

• Q: So how do critical scholars deal with the prophecies in the Bible?

  They handle them in one of two ways:

  1. If event that was prophesied took place during the OT, they will say that the passage was written after the event. So for them, for example, any passage that seems to predict the exile → was actually written after the exile. This greatly affected their assessment as to whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

  2. If the events that are apparently predicted take place after the end of the OT, . . . they re-interpret the prophecy to be about something else. Because for them, the OT cannot possibly predict the distant future. // In particular, they deny that any OT passage is a genuine prophecy about Jesus.

E. Their Rejection of the Mosaic Authorship, and their Subsequent Search for the “Real” Author(s) / Source(s) of the Pentateuch

By the early 1800’s, many critical scholars had rejected the traditional view that Moses was the main author of the Pentateuch. Some critical scholars allowed that perhaps some of the material in the Pentateuch came from oral accounts that dated back to Moses. But by the early 1800’s, most critical scholars held that Moses did not actually write any of the Pentateuch.

• Q: Why?

  We will look at this more in the next handout, but in brief, one major reason is the following:

  • In the Pentateuch, Moses seems to predict the exile and the return from exile (Lev 26 & Deut 28).

  • But for critical scholars, the only way that the author of those passages can know about the exile is that → they were written after the exile happened.

  • The account in the Bible indicates that Moses lived around 1500 – 1400 BC. The exile & return occurred nearly 1,000 year later. For critical scholars, there is no way that Moses could have known such information 1,000 years in advance, because that would be a miracle, and miracles are impossible. So for critical scholars, Moses cannot possibly the author of such passages. And eventually, for that and other reasons, critical scholars concluded that Moses probably wrote none of the Pentateuch.

• Q: But if Moses did not write the Pentateuch, who did?

  For reasons we will look at more in the next handouts, critical scholars began to conclude that the Pentateuch did not have one main author, but had been compiled from multiple sources. They did not hope to identify the actual persons who authored these sources; their goal, instead, was to identify what parts of the Pentateuch came from which source. They subsequently went on massive hunts to look for clues to identify the various sources, and to try to determine approximately when each source was originally written. They read the text of the Pentateuch in remarkable detail; they looked for features such as: different writing styles, different vocabulary, and different theologies.

Their “critical method” of studying the Bible, esp. the Pentateuch, generated an entire field of critical studies.

F. Method, or, Worldview?

Is the “Critical Approach” to the Bible Simply a Method of Interpreting the Bible?

We pause to remind the reader–

Critical scholars commonly refer to their approach as the critical method of interpreting the Bible. For example, they pay close attention to: the meanings of the words, the context, the genre, the historical setting, etc. Conservatives agree that all of those are valid factors when it comes to interpreting the Bible.

• Q: So is the to interpreting the Bible simply a method? A: __ __ .

  No; it is not simply a method, it is driven by an underlying worldview: rationalism.

  And that worldview rejects miracles / rejects the possibility of real prophecy.

  Again: it is not their interpretive method (pay attention to context, genre, semantics, history, etc.) that leads them to reject miracles and prophecy; it is their underlying worldview: rationalism.

  That worldview is the primary driver in why they reject the traditional authorship of many books of the Old Testament. After that, they seek to find factors such as those listed above to further justify their conclusions (differences in vocabulary, writing styles, theology, etc.). And those studies have grown to be massive. But the pivotal factor, again, is their underlying rationalistic worldview.

We will look at their views of who actually wrote the Pentateuch, and their reasons for thinking so, in more detail in the next handout.