#35 Genesis Post #15

I'm familiar with J, E, P, and D as you've described them. I find the whole theory humorous at best. The entire argument, when used as an attempt to undermine scriptural authority, is weak in my opinion. First of all, that the five books of Moses were entirely written by Moses is obviously false. The end of Deuteronomy tells of Moses' death and burial. There was clearly some redactor involved there. I wouldn't argue otherwise and nothing hangs on it in my opinion.

Secondly, the whole argument fails to note the obvious. A writer's agenda and bias in different pieces of writing can dramatically influence the final product. In Genesis 1 the writer is clearly paralleling and, in the distinctions, correcting the contemporary Babylonian and Mesopotamian creation stories. In Genesis 2, the agenda is independent of any thought of the Babylonian stories and therefore free to take on another shape. To note differences between Genesis 1 & 2 stylistically is most simply explained by understanding that the two sections have distinct purposes. Occam's Razor would lead me to this explanation over the overly complex JEPD theories any day.

The writer of Genesis is BIASED. He has a theological, philosophical, and political agenda in every word. Find me a history that doesn't and I'll give you a dollar. None of this has anything to do with the writing's value or accuracy as history. If it did, history would be impossible in any setting. It's just that in reading history, the reader will be well served to acknowledge and attempt to identity the writer's bias and to admit his own as well.

The argument you present is an argument against a fundamentalist and positivistic view of scripture, one that I don't share. In arguing against that you are not arguing with me at all. The view you are in disagreement with fails to see that the text of scripture does not give us direct access to the events described. They think that:

1) The event occurs.
2) The writer records the event in scripture.
3) The reader reads and understands the event.

This is ludicrous and naive. Reality looks more like this:

1) The event occurs.
2) The historian brings his own bias and agenda to the evaluation of the event.
3) The historian works through a particular process of research, analysis, and selection to process the event through the filter of his own bias and agenda.
4) The text itself is a multi layered and nuanced concrete item where genre, the function of language, the nature of referent, and layers of possible meeting both denoted and connoted.
5) The reader brings their own approach to the reading. Some read to control. Others read to surrender. They both tend to find what they're looking for.
6) The reader brings their own bias and agenda to the reading.
7) Meaning is defined.

And the above doesn't even address the complexities of language, translation, reproduction, and redaction. I'm no scholar on this stuff, but I have spent some time in the text and dealing with these issues. I am convinced that:
1) There is no possibility of a text that would give us direct access to events. Bias cannot be eliminated.
2) We have exactly the text God wants us to have.

This entire process demands:
1) Surrender. If I come to the text committed to my a priori agendas and assumptions looking to validate my already settled position (whether belief or unbelief) then the text will serve me well either way. I'll find what I'm looking for. When I come to the Bible, not just to read it, but to let it read me, I find all kinds of things getting adjusted and changed in me all the time, even my fundamentalist assumptions about the Bible.
2) An epistemology of Critical Realism. I must abandon positivism and adopt the mindset that there is a concrete reality I can truly know while humbly maintaining my awareness of personal bias.
3) An epistemology of Love. The Bible doesn't work well as a tool to validate my "rightness" (either direction). It works great when Love is the filter through which all knowledge must pass. If my agenda is to love God and others, then all the Law will be fulfilled in that. If the kind of knowledge I'm looking for is a relational and experiential knowledge of God, the Bible works very well for that.