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.
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