Source Criticism and Theology
When Julius Wellhausen published his major work on source criticism, it was entitled Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prolegomena to the History of Israel). It explored source criticism as something that had to be done before a history of Israel could be written. Once the texts had been set in historical order, we could write a history of Israel based on those texts.
Today we recognize that source criticism and history are so intertwined that we cannot study them in isolation. We cannot, for instance, posit a priestly source without being able at the same time being able to say something about priests in ancient Israel. Although not all historians of ancient Israel will deal with source criticism, very few source critics would do their work apart from talking about history.
The question I wanted to address in this post, however, is whether source criticism must be done before theology can be done. Some people are thinking this way, as can be seen from the title of one of Campbell and O’Brien’s books on the Pentateuch entitled Rethinking the Pentateuch: Prolegomena to the Theology of Ancient Israel. Although they see it as a first step towards a theology of ancient Israel, I want to address source criticism as a prolegomena to modern theology.
In Walter Brueggeman’s book Theology of the Old Testament, he uses a dialogic approach that sees different parts of the OT as proposing different theologies which are held in tension within the text. The canon never resolves these tensions, but neither does it ignore them.
It seems to me that one of the best ways to follow such an approach is through source criticism. The different layers of the text offer different theologies. The tension is created when those layers are combined to give us the text we have now. Doing source criticism, therefore, not only gives us a way to identify the different theologies but also shows us how the tension between them is to be maintained. The different layers are not just randomly thrown together. Instead, they have been shaped into the canon that we have now.
In paying attention to the canonical shape of the theologies in the Bible and the way they interact with each other, we have a model for how we can move forward with our own theology.
On August 24th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I think you are right. In fact, I think starting with the acknowledgment of sources even changes where you start to do theology. You’re already entered into an extended dialog with numerous partners from the past who often critique and even rewrite eachother’s words.
It’s a wild concept for those of us who grew up in fundamentalist traditions!
On August 25th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Thanks for the post.
How should we use source criticism to determine which parts of the text are authoritative? Should our goal be to peel back subsequent layers and recover an earlier, pristine theology, as Wellhausen does when he presents P as a degeneration of Israelite religion from a better, freer form? Should we accept the final redactors or later authors as authoritative, as some do when they prefer Deuteronomyy’s reworkings of Exodus laws (since Deuteronomy is more egalitarian)? Or should we try to balance the difference perspectives against each other, recognizing them all as simultaneously true in some sense?
On August 27th, 2007 at 8:38 am
[…] Pate left a comment on my prior post about source criticism and theology. He asked how source criticism determines which layers of the text are authoritative. In other […]
On October 16th, 2007 at 11:58 am
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