One of the major sources of problems between conservative biblical scholars and critical scholars is how they approach the Bible. The tersest form of the problem (which can be reductionistic) is that conservative biblical scholars approach the Bible as Scripture and critical scholars approach the Bible as historical texts (not in the sense that they convey actual history, but in the sense that they are a phenomena of history, that they were written within a historical context and reflect a certain subcultures understanding of reality). This is something, I think, that needs to be approached before someone from either side starts to argue over certain passages, books, or theological points made by the text.
What sparks my curiosity in this problem is how these two viewpoints interact or if an interaction is even possible. As Jon Levenson points out in his essay “The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism” (the first essay in a book by the same name), each “camp” is guided by a different context in their reading of the Bible. This is reflected in his title: the Jewish community reads Genesis-2 Chronicles as “the Hebrew Bible,” Christians read Genesis-Malachi as “the Old Read the rest of this entry »
