-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
how SHOLD Evangelicals View the process of OT texts Transmission?
- Thread starter DaChaser1
- Start date
Greektim
Well-Known Member
I like how a growing stream of evangelical thinkers are moving towards a compositional/canonical understanding of inspiration. Thank you, John Sailhamer (or should I credit Brevard Childs???).
Although I've never heard it argued here or anywhere else, I think it would make a dandy argument for the Majority text (or even KJVO).
Sailhamer's book is milktoast compared to Peter Enns presentation in his recent "The Evolution of Adam".
Rob
I can hold to editing done by say a 'school" of isaiah/jeremiah, ot else Joshua editing to final form moses record, but would not be in for saying centuries past from oroginal to final compliation/form!
Tip of the day. (and it's free btw)
If you are going to put a word in all caps, be sure you spell it correctly.
oh, and I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. Are you talking about the canon and the correct books?
thanks!
just was asking IF we should hold to the OT books being written by author, and having minimal re editing into final canon form by contempories associated with events recorded, or else have a kernal of truth that kept compiling centuries later into final form?
Last edited by a moderator:
Greektim
Well-Known Member
Which of the many Sailhamer book are you talking about??? Have you read him?
Last edited by a moderator:
I've got quite a few of his works, the one I'm writing about is "The Meaning of the Pentateuch" where he compares todays Pentateuch to Moses 2.0 - an upgraded version.
The "milktoast" reference concerned palitability - Sailhamer's conculsion are very easy to accept - Enns on the other hand is more in your face and blatant .
Rob
Last edited by a moderator:
Greektim
Well-Known Member
I think that is largely b/c we have such a NT understanding of the way the OT was compiled, redacted, and theologically arranged. We think the product we refer to as "Genesis" we now have was what Moses penned in the same way Paul penned (through an amanuensis) Romans - an instant final form. But there are numerous editorial remarks in Genesis, some that bear signs of a later redactor by virtue of dialect. Thus, we evangelicals have contrived a process for OT books that is historically inaccurate & theologically misleading.
Maybe we could start w/ some examples from the Psalms.
One might argue that a psalm was "inspired" when it was first composed. Perhaps it was "inspired" later when written down (which is not the same thing as composed). But there is no telling when or how long after the actual composing of the song and its writing was. Even more, perhaps it was "inspired" in the sense where the individual psalm takes its final form and thus gains its final and total meaning - i.e. when it is theologically arranged in the book of the Psalms.
Part of the process certainly included arranging to a particular order. Even the 5 books of the Psalms shows that. But many see a great theological truth between psalm 1 & 2 and even broader between 1-8. If this was intended by the AUTHOR himself, then that means the individual psalm had more meaning to gain by awaiting its arrangement in the psalter. It also means that the full force of theological significance did not come at the point of composing or writing but later in arranging. Thus you could argue that the final form, the composition of the entirety of the canon, is the "inspired" text.
Last edited by a moderator:
upgraded by whom?
Greektim
Well-Known Member
Ezra was probably one of the redactors. In fact, he might have been the final compiler of the TaNaKh
an editor of the already written source doc would NOT be adding in additional revelation/theology at that point would he?
Greektim
Well-Known Member
Why not??? Part of what makes obvious linguistic allusions to older OT texts is the probable likelihood that a redactor had the text in front of him and matched it (not in every case, but in some). So Exodus allusions in Judges to 1 Samuel could be part of the product of a later redactor adding theological significance to the text.
The question is, why is this concept so difficult to (1) accept & (2) consider valid? I think in part it goes to a tacit assumption that the OT was written near about the same as the NT (1 writer, perhaps an amanuensis, 1 perfect copy then produced). But if we allow the evidence we see in the text to direct our theology (instead of vice-versa), then we may need to adjust our understanding of inspiration for the OT.
I will say this, though, I've not come down on this issue 100%. But I am a NT studies guy, so that is expected, right?
jonathan.borland
Active Member
The reason it's hard to accept goes back to American evangelicals' unwitting imbibing of German rationalism, the goal of which was to get back to the source of known inspired authors. But when scholars found that later editors (we would say inspired prophets) had theologized the text, the Germans would cut out all that "uninspired" text (which is actually the most theologically relevant often times, because it was not "original" and therefore not inspired. The only counter attack evangelical minds could offer was to deny any redaction and thus maintain on this basis the inspiration of the "apparent" edited material. But the truth is it's impossible to verify whether a book's author was inspired or not. Who wrote Job or 1/2 Chronicles, for example? The truth is God through his inspired prophets handed to mankind a canon that was guarded and arranged and theologized under his providential care. The issue then becomes, at what point was the OT canon closed? The same might be asked for the NT.
Wasn't the OT canon for producing inspired books closed when malachi died?
NT when Apostle John passed away?
would it be the equivalent to saying that Luke used various sources to write his Gosple, and that he edited down what he wanted to record, under inspiration of the HS?
So in same fashion, Moses would have wrote down the bulk of first 5 books, and he used oral and written sorces, added in his own, under inspired of the HS?
jonathan.borland
Active Member
For the OT, more like when the prophet ended the OT canon with, "And he went up!" For the NT, perhaps as you say, or perhaps we should say not when John finished Revelation but when he (or some other apostolic figure) finished arranging and, perhaps, touching up the entire NT and thrusting it upon the church with a holy Force behind it that no bickering or questioning of man could ever hope to undo or overcome.
All I know is that revelation was the LAST inspired cannonical book, and that there were NONE after that!
jonathan.borland
Active Member
Although it may indeed be the last inspired canonical book, such an assertion is not only difficult if not impossible to prove but also cannot negate the equally strong assertion that certain inspired authorities, I mean under the direct guidance of God himself through the Holy Spirit, got together in a back room somewhere and with perhaps faulty copies of works already in circulation they used their collective "remembrance of all things" to correct, adjust, perfect, compile those now deficient copies until the final letter-perfect edition of all 27 books was complete, and then in the spirit of their Jewish upbringing, they chanted to one another in their spirits, "If this really be of God it will prevail, and if of men it will fail." And with that they thrust this onto the church, and people are still debating to this day the legitimacy of that authoritative but unseen TESTAMENT that was forced onto the church.
Greektim
Well-Known Member
You are doing exactly as I have been saying. You are comparing the OT formation and composition to the NT. Even your concept of a closed canon is based largely on the NT ideal. What is to say that redaction didn't take place after Malachi under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? B/c it doesn't fit w/ our contrived NT model that we assert back into the OT.
You don't KNOW that any more than we do. And it is also possible that it was written before 70 AD meaning it may not have been last.
As for the NT, the closing canon concept should have little to do w/ timing or dating and more to do w/ content and apostolic authority (IMO).