My goals in teaching Biblical materials.

Why should we bother with questions of authorship and sources of Biblical books?

In the introductory Bible courses I teach, I usually set forth the goals for the course in a class syllabus:

To introduce the student to the complex cultural, religious, and historical contexts out of which the Scriptures arose; to introduce the student to the various critical methods used by Biblical interpreters in the scholarly investigation of the Bible; to introduce the student to the basic data concerning questions of authorship, intended audience(s), date and historical/sociological setting(s), and the major themes and distinctive content of the books of the Hebrew Bible (the “TaNaKh,” commonly referred to as the “Old Testament”) and the Christian New Testament.

Certain words in that statement should be emphasized.

The first of these is “introduce.” There is no way we could go into full detail on these matters within the time allowed to teach this course. We will only scratch the surface here. A lot more background than I have time to provide will be needed to go into these questions thoroughly, but it is necessary for us to start somewhere. I suggest you consult some of the more substantial books (from all points of view) about the Pentateuch, including Bible dictionaries [now I would add also the Internet] for more detail.

A second important word is “complex.” All of the material being presented is extremely complex. And, unfortunately, in our modern world, we generally prefer simple answers that do not tax our brains too much. But there are very few simple answers. Thinking does tire out the brain, just as exercise tires out the body. But it is good to exercise both the brain and the body regularly. Sometimes it is necessary for us to drink deeply from the fountain of knowledge, and not just gargle!

A third important word is “contexts.” It is important for us to understand the literary and historical backgrounds of our Biblical materials. It could be important in the Book of Job, for example, to know whether a speech in that book is being expressed by the character Job, whose words, defiant as they are, end up being approved by God, or whether the speech is spoken by one of Job’s “friends,” whose words end up being disapproved by God, even though those words appear to be very devout and reverent.

If we know just who is speaking, or, at least, from what background(s) and ways of thinking the speaker comes, and if we know something of the needs and concerns of the audience being addressed, we may be able to understand more clearly just what meaning was intended by the speaker or the writer. Remember the apocryphal story of the seminary professor of Biblical interpretation, who was challenged, “You don’t need to ‘interpret’ the Bible. You should just read it and do what it says!” So the professor then quoted three Biblical passages and suggested that the challenger might just “read it and do what it says”: (1) Judas went and hanged himself. (2) Go and do thou likewise. (3) What thou doest, go and do quickly. You see, it does matter whether we know the contexts of those words—who said them, to whom, at what time, with what presuppositions, for what purpose, and so forth.

A fourth important word is “critical.” As the word is used in common parlance, most people think it means to make a negative judgment. But actually, it comes from the Greek word “kritikos,” which means any judgment, based on an examination of all the evidence. And in the technical usage of scientists and theologians, it refers to the examination of all evidence, leading to a judgment of the facts of a situation, and a reasoned conclusion based on all the evidence.