The Problems with Higher Criticism

Perhaps a definition is in order:

Higher criticism, the name given in the 19th century to a branch of biblical scholarship concerned with establishing the dates, authorship, sources, and interrelations of the various books of the Bible, often with disturbing results for orthodox Christian dogma. It was ‘higher’ not in status but in the sense that it required a preliminary basis of ‘lower’ textual criticism which reconstructed the original wording of biblical texts from faulty copies. Answers.com

Now what are the methods of higher criticism. Well -- If your asking if they find old texts that actually support their views -- you will be disappointed. The methods are usually to look at a text make judgements based on style alone compared to the style of other literature from the periods in question.

For instance -- the deutero (two) Isaiah theory. This is the belief that Isaiah was written by two different guys named Isaiah. Why -- because chapters 1-39 are judgment and then chapter 40 begins with comfort. Somehow it is unbelievable to the higher critic that a single individual could do both. Problems:
1. Is there a text of Isaiah that only has chapters 1-39 and then another text separate that has 40-66 only? -- NOPE.
2. The theory (and it is totally theory) is based on style and opinion about words an style that cannot be verified.
3. Somehow we who are farther removed from the actual writing of Isaiah are better judges than people who were closer who said it was written by one guy.
4. Textual Criticism has actually produced texts of Isaiah that are completely unified but no text of Isaiah has shown division in any way other than functional and this goes all the way back to the Dead Sea Scrolls (hidden at the time of Christ) at least probably further back.
5. The Dead Sea Scrolls do divide Isaiah in half but at chapter 33 -- putting 34-39 with the rest in a second scroll. This actually supports that the two Isaiah theory is false but do the higher critics change -- nope.

In short, the two Isaiah theory has no smoking gun at all. In fact this it true of almost all the Higher Criticism theories. The problem is that these theories are taught as fact based on 'reason' alone and no actual facts or texts that support them. It is all pure theory on theoretics and stylistic OPINION.

One other problem I have had with Higher criticism is that the assumption that church and Jewish tradition are lying and that no text of Scripture is what it says it is. The fact is the higher critics seek to divorce the Bible from its historical nature and in so doing remove its authority since that authority derives from the Bible being historical fact.

I really have never had much use for higher criticism -- it just has too many problems for me.