The Old Testament and criticism / by Carl E. Armerding.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Armerding, Carl Edwin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bible. Old Testament--Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bible.

Bible. Old Testament.

Evangelicalism.

Physical Description:

vii, 134 pages ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Grand Rapids, Mich. : Eerdmans Pub. Co., [1983]

Summary:

Although Many Conservative scholars have had reservations about biblical criticism since its rise a century ago, Carl Armerding contends that critical rationalism need not be antithetical to belief in a divinely inspired Word of God. Indeed, says Armerding, the evangelical scholar - mediating the traditional conservative view and the rational critical view of Scripture - is able to use all the tools of historical, philological, and literary study, while still retaining biblical categories of revelation, inspiration, and history.

Armerding applies this synthesis of approaches - the traditional and the critical - to four major branches of criticism: literary (or source) criticism, form criticism, structural analysis, and textual criticism. Cautioning against misuse of these critical methods, he demonstrates how each method can be conscientiously used by faithful scholars to enrich their understanding of the Old Testament text.

Contents:

I. An Evangelical Old Testament Criticism? 1

The Word of God, the Words of Men, and the Critical Task 4

Traditional Conservative 4

Rational Critical 6

Evangelical 7

History, Revelation, and Inspiration 11

The Old Testament and Various Forms of Criticism 15

II. Literary Criticism 21

Purpose 21

Method 23

Literary Criticism and the Documents 28

Criteria for Separating the Documents 29

Divine Names 29

Doublets 32

Differences in Detail 36

Theological Viewpoint 37

Style 39

III. Form Criticism 43

Origin 44

Relation to Revelation 45

Method 49

Define the Unit 49

Describe the Genre 50

Determine the Life-Setting 52

Determine the Function 54

Further Examples of an Evangelical Form Criticism 56

Prose Genres 56

Poetic Genres 59

Prophetic Speech 61

Benefits 63

Cautions 63

IV. Structural Analysis 67

Structural Analysis: The Discipline 69

Professional Semiology 69

Propositions and Assumptions 70

Method 72

Synchronic and Diachronic Research 72

Steps in Structural Exegesis 74

Other "Structural" Methods 78

Literary Approaches and Structural Analysis 84

Structural Analysis in the Pentateuch 86

Recent Approaches 89

What is Structural Exegesis? 92

Structural Analysis and the Quest for Meaning 93

V. Text Criticism 97

Development of the Old Testament Text 100

Early Period 100

Masoretic Period 107

Hebrew Texts and English Versions 112

Hebrew Texts 112

English Versions 114

Kinds of Textual Errors 119

Unintentional Changes 119

Intentional Changes 123

Rules for Text Criticism 125.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Local Notes:

Acc.# 7794

ISBN:

0802819516

OCLC:

9281591