A Criticism of Higher Criticism by slaveofone
The historicity of the Tabernacleis a question to be decided by evidence; and questions of the kind should be left to men who have practical experience in dealing with evidence―a category which does not include the Critics.Sir Robert Anderson, in response to Orr’sHistoricity of the Mosaic Tabernacle
I had to laugh when I read this… While critically examining the Documentary Hypothesis, I had suddenly stumbled onto the mirror image of a situation occurring in New Testament studies in the second Quest of the Historical Jesus. Burton Mack, for example, had presented the text of Mark as a historical fiction, which Mark based not on any actual evidence, but on an elaborate reconstruction of hypothetical traditions. And lo and behold, when the historical evidence was looked at, it became apparent that Mark and Mack were the same! Out of either sheer genius or complete blindness to his own presuppositions, Mack had gone about and created that vision of the Markan author weaving traditions without recourse to actual history by leaving historical evidence behind and weaving together elaborate reconstructions of hypothetical traditions.
In the same manner, the Higher Critics of old who fragmented the Hebrew text into several different traditions and presented us with an incoherent and a-historical picture of ancient Israel were themselves the very incoherent and a-historical authors they created. Without recourse to any actual historic evidence, they fragmented texts and explained inconsistencies in their fragmentation by appealing to a historically unknown Redactor.
So through incredible imaginary feats of intellect without basis in any real evidence, the Higher Critics crafted Pentateuchal Authors who had crafted incredible imaginary feats of intellect without basis in any real evidence.
The scientific person who does not laugh at the absurdity of it all would at least be dumbfounded at the lack of any grounding in Modern methods of rationally critical analysis by these so-called Moderns and their criticism.
Indeed, what were the Higher Critics actually criticizing if not the method of rational, scientific criticism itself? How can one defend a historical position about a text without any appeal to actual historical evidence of the text and then in many cases even in complete contradiction to the evidence which does exist? One can hardly blame the rise of fundamentalist Christianity in response. After all, what more native human reaction is there than to reproduce the error of your opponent in the opposite direction like a small child who wants his way and doesn’t care if it’s nonsense? Let us, like any good judge and jury, throw out those cases that mere imagination provides and build on the secure foundations of those things which exist in truth before us and by that token compel us in the direction implied by their evidential nature.