In the last chapter of my book, I dissect Q, Burkett, and the Farrer theories using an evaluation process that comes form science.
Science and the bible. On dear…
Anyway, I want your thoughts on the validity of it. I haven’t much of a suggestion in examining critical theories in regards to the bible by scientific means… so…
The first one is comprehensiveness in which the theorist much have a theory that is large enough to examine various aspects of the issue, say, such as the synoptic problem. In other words, the theory must be encompassing of a wide and diverse range of data.
Following this is precision and testability. In other words, the theory should be well defined. The constructs of the theory are laid out and easily replicated. I would suggest that the testing be able to be replicated across non-biblical texts as well.
Parsimony requires that the theory should be focused. In other words, no theology, I believe.
The theory must have data to support it.
Heuristic value comes into play if the theory can not only be proved, but can be used to develop other theories and hypotheses.
Not sure about an applied value, since for me, the applied value of historical criticism is more sound theology.
Anyway… what do you think?
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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Key statement, “In other words, the theory must be encompassing of a wide and diverse range of data”. I’d suggest someone put all the “data” into an excel spreadsheet. Columns sorted by types of data; hard data (scientific and measurable data) , opinion data (someone’s writings), hand-waving data (data based upon a multitude of unproven assumptions). Probably a bunch of other categories I can’t think of. Then for each piece of data, identify which are consistent, repeatable, and testable. Unfortunately, the column with hard data will probably be rather sparse. Regardless of a person’s opinion on the subject, it seems like the community ought to have a common list of data to work with. Without that, everyone is going off in different directions with their own unique set of “data”. And mostly their opinions, based upon other people’s opinions. Where’s the meat, where’s the data, in a concise, presentable form?
We need to be open about what data is as well. Data cannot be just self-contained nuggets – because the bible says so and the such