My Take: It doesn't matter who wrote the Bible (By David Hazony, Special to CNN)
Interesting, but attacking what used to be one of my main academic focuses! I agree, that for the regular reader, the authorship is really not that important, but I believe that it is an important area of scholarship. Yes, the current theories, shifting and complex, will never be more than that most likely... It is a hall of mirrors where "correct" answers are probably impossible to find, let alone to prove, but as we learn more about the history of those times, this sort of textual analysis is very important. It can help us understand details revealed through archeology and other textual sources, and vice versa...
Essentially, I think the author is missing the whole point of these studies. And yes, some of the details suggested by some scholars about the writers are pretty long stretches, but these exercises are less about actually tying to know the authors of the Bible than they are about trying to understand the world that produced it.
No comments:
Post a Comment