It is available here: http://www.amazon.com/
Part One: Development of Old Testament Study
1. Background through the Eighteenth Century, 3-18
Early/medieval period
• 1st century church accepted the “law, prophets, and writings” as divinely “inspired and authoritative”
• Gnosticism brought “an onslaught of destructive criticism of the Old Testament”
• Epiphanius in the Clementine Homilies cites Simon as criticizing the Old Testament “anthropomorphisms,” e.g. God has hands, feet, etc. Interesting that he “names names” of destructive critics in this “generous orthodoxy” [our sarcastic term for a certain occupant of Canterbury who used the term "generous orthodox" to allow any old-flea-bitten dog, or, bad idea, into the Christian sanctuary].
• Satornilus of Antioch, a contemporary of Ignatius (c. 110), stated that certain OT prophecies were interpolated by Satan. He also was a Gnostic.
• Even Tatian the Syrian, compiler of the Diatessaron, believed the OT was compiled by an “inferior deity” (4).
• Valentinus of Alexandria, Egypt, another version or variety of Gnosticism, directed an “assault on the text of the Old Testament” (4). He rejected the Torah and Prophets as unauthentic. We would add the following. Well, at least he made a conscious decision on the issue; the moderns presume to simply dismiss the Old Testament, by and large. Or, the lectionaries are anorexic and near-death-thin. We get "10-verse snippets" and expect Biblical literacy? Functional Marcionites, but we get ahead of ourselves.
• Marcion railed against the “authority and authenticity of the Scriptures.” He was the son of a Christian bishop. He took up residence in Rome about 138 B.C. Like other Gnostics, he held a complicated version of philosophic dualism. His approach was entirely subjective and his posture “entirely presupposed”…as are all systems of belief—chockfull of assumed presuppositions and predispositions often not consciously known. Marcion thought “God was weak, unjust, lacking in prescience and essentially fickle” (4). He threw out the entire Old Testament and all Gospels except an expurgated version of Luke.
• The Ebionites, an early Christian sect, rejected certain parts of the Torah and “completed disregarded the writings of the prophets” (5). Rather modern, actually.
• Celsus, c. 180. We learn of him through Origen’s rebuttal in "Contra Celsum." While he disparages the ancient Jews and their Bible, he actually reveals that he knows little of them. We would add that he sounds like some FB chaps—all talk, little learning and no bibliographies. Mr. Harrison summarizes Mr. Celsus this way: he has “the dubious distinction of assembling most of the arguments which have been leveled against Christians by subsequent generations of rationalists, atheists, and agnostics” (5).
• Cassiodorus, from an orthodox perspective in the fifth century, gathered up the varied views on “text and canon” in De Institutione Divinarum Scriptuarum. There are several sections on guidance for “textual transmission” and the “study of the text.” Mr. Harrison puts it this way: “…a valuable contribution to the beginnings of Biblical criticism, as applied specifically to the text of the Hebrew Bible…in a later age which came to be known as `lower criticism’” (6-7). A lovely little find here on Mr. Cassidorus.
Cassiodorus. Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning and On the Soul. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004. http://www.amazon.com/
• 10th/11th centuries. Ibn Hazam of Cordova (994) stated that the Pentateuch was written by Ezra. Mr. Harrison attributes this to his wider effort to defend Islam. A Spanish exegete, Ibn Ezra (1092-1167), rebutted him and defended essential Mosaicity of the Pentateuch.
• Reformation period. Luther (1483-1546). Luther’s infamous rejection of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the NT canon, a difficult moment for his admirers and other enthusiasts. His was another subjectivist canon, albeit theological: admission “to the extent they promoted Christ” (7).
• Calvin (1509-1564). Was not convinced that Joshua and Samuel was penned by the names of the books. But, he had a “high view of the inspiration of the Scripture” and saw “the essential spiritual unity of the Old and New Testaments” (8).
• Andreas Rudolf Bodenstein (1580-1541). Denied Pentateuchal Mosaic authorship.
• 16th-17th centuries. Papal Roman lawyer, Andreas Masius (d. 1573). Ezra penned Pentateuch. Hugo Grotius (1683-1645) followed his arguments. Thomas Hobbes, followed both the above and believed that Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were post-exilic.
• Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) also rejected Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and believed Genesis to 2 Kings were penned by Ezra. On a better hand or another hand, Mr. Spinoza also issued this interpretative canon: “…consideration of the life, character and aims of each author of the various books as means of determining their purpose, occasion and date of writing” (10). That might be stated as an excellent hermeneutical canon, but it needs modification to include the "history of exegesis," that is, the history of views on any given text.
• Source Criticism, 18th century and the Enlightenment. Mr. Harrison says the “Enlightenment was the enthroning of human reason accompanied by a revolt against external authority" (13).
• Campegius Vitringa, an orthodox theologian, 1689, in Observationes Sacrae believed Moses had access to earlier documents or written memoirs. For the record, that is our view, although we refuse to repeat what Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Young called “the dreary monotony”—the dreary monotony of domineering doctoral discourses of theorems piled upon theorems ad infinitum ad nauseum, e.g. Graf-Welhausen’s notoriously subjectivistic scissors-and-paste-model-of-ho
• J.S. Semler (1725-1791), Professor at Halle, played the Elohim-Jehovah card for source analysis. Mr. Harrison calls him a “rationalist.”
• J.G. Eichhorn (1762-1827), a “conservative rationalist” (13). He was called the “Father of Old Testament criticism.” He reacted "against the position of the Reformers and orthodox theology generally regarding inspiration and authority” (13).
• W.M.L. De Wette developed in “fragmentary theory of the Old Testament” in 1807 in Beitrage zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament.
• A number of scholars “vigourously opposed” these developments. Georg Henri Ewald issued a “devastating attack upon the fragmentary theory,” holding to “essential Mosaic authorship” based on the “underlying unity on philological and other grounds” (15).
• J.F. Tuch in his Kommentar uber die Genesis (1838) continued a 2-sources view, but Mr. (Dr. Prof.) J.H. Kurtz (whom we are reviewing elsewhere) gave “heavy criticism” to Mr. Tuch.
• Other orthodox scholars arose. Ernst Hengstenberg (1802-1869), a distinguished classical scholar, turned himself to Semitic studies at Berlin. He “disliked every form of rationalism” and was a “consistent challenger to Biblical liberalism” (17).
• Other famed scholars in the True Catholic (= Non-Papal and Non-Roman) tradition were Misters (Profs.) M. Drechsler, H. Ch. Havernick, C.F. Keil, and F. Delitsch.
Two volumes of interest emerged from digging here. These are on the "buy list."
Hengstenberg, Ernst Wkilhelm. History of the Kingdom of God Under the Old Testament. No location: Forgotten Books, 2012. There are 2 volumes. http://www.amazon.com/
Lichtenberger, Frederic Auguste. History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century. No location cited: Filiquarian Legacy Publishing, 2012. http://www.amazon.com/
However, in this handy little summary, suitable as it is, Mr. Harrison has failed, entirely, to account for Misters (Rev. Dr. Profs.) William Henry Green and Robert Dick Wilson of old Princeton who indeed stand, as ably and as notably, as Old Testament scholars, right alongside Misters Hengstenberg, Keil and Delitzsch. Odd and needs correction. And even more odd, no mention of the Tudor theologian, Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) William Whittaker, and his Disputations on Holy Scripture, one of those premiere documents that crosses the centuries backwards and forwards.
But, this old Canadian Anglican Professor of Old Testament, Mr. Harrison, in his summary, does all a good service here.
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