First Thoughts on Source Criticism

Something that irritates me when I hear arguments against Mormonism is the mis-representation of the Bible. All too often people claim things about the Bible that the Bible never, ever claimed about itself. And this is frustrating.

But Mormons do it too. We buy into things, theories, ideas, traditions, etc. about the Bible that may or may not be accurate, and we do this because it has been the predominant theory for thousands of years.

But it may not make it right.

Take, for example, the authorship of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Most Mormons, I assume, if asked who wrote these books, would readily answer, "Moses." These books, are after all, called the Five Books of Moses. For centuries, millennia really, the majority Judeo-Christian belief has been that Moses authored the first five books of the Bible. Many Mormon leaders have referred to Moses as the author of the books, and Joseph Smith never said Moses was not the author, so it just makes sense that Moses was the author of these books.

Except that it doesn't make sense.

Please note one really crucial missing thing in these books to assume Mosaic authorship: Moses never claims to be the author.

In truth, no one at all claims authorship, at least by name. No one writes, "And I, _______, write this record."

The narratives that tell the story of Moses all speak in the third person. I was actually just blown away by a stark realization: this is the same in the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. It's all in the third person, except in Moses 4:1 when God speaks in the first person.

Hmm.

Anyway, suffice it to say, that though there was a time that claiming that Moses did not author the Pentateuch would have caused me great anxiety, now I find myself very much on the side of those who believe that Moses was not the author.

And I actually feel my testimony increase--my belief in the power and the beauty and the miracle of the Hebrew Bible as God's word.

Hmm.

I've really got to spend some time on this Book of Moses thing. For two years I had made the assumption that though the Pentateuch was not authored by Moses, yet as Latter-day Saints we have a work actually written by the man Moses and restored to us through Joseph Smith. But now, after having actually read the Book of Moses with the intent of discovering authorship, I have discovered that Moses is likely not its author either.

And that excites me somehow. Because it's a new discovery!

Old Testament Post 1

It's still July, you say? There are still five more months of D&C and Church History?

This is all true, but in order to get ready to teach the oldest and probably most complex of the Standard Works, I'm going to start now to make notes and to refresh my memory from my years of study at BYU when the Old Testament (which I will refer to sometimes, maybe most of the time, as the Hebrew Bible) was at the fore of my mind at all times. Since graduating two years ago, I haven't given it much attention, which is a cardinal sin, but that's why I'm repenting as of now.

So forgive me for some preempting Old Testament posts, but this will hopefully benefit us all in 2010.

In school I learned about different ways, methodologies we sometimes called them, to approach the study of the Bible. These methodologies were separated into two general categories: Lower and Higher Criticism.

Lower Criticism consists mostly of textual criticism, which is the comparison of varying versions of the same text to discover similarities and differences. For the most part, it is objective in nature, simply looking at extant texts.

Higher Criticism, sometimes also called Literary Criticism, is much more subjective and includes a number of specific disciplines geared at discovering texts' origins, authorship, genres, themes, and intents.

To start my own personal reintroduction to the Hebrew Bible, I'm going to begin with one of the higher criticisms, one called source criticism, which looks specifically at what sources were used to create a text. The dominant theory in source criticism of the Hebrew Bible currently is the Documentary Hypothesis, and my plan of action for studying will be to read Richard Elliott Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible.

This post is mostly a way of committing myself to reading this book.