Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Martin A. Shields" <mshields AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

>> From a literary-critical point of view the overall disunity of the
>> composition may be attributed to the schema imposed upon the final material
>> by the modern form critics.
> 
> Au contraire, mon frére.  The form-critic does not impose any disunity but
> discerns how disparate units came to be conjoined.  The form-critic may not 
> so
> specifically deal with the documents of the DH, but rests upon the results 
> of
> textual criticism.  In other words, for form-critics the DH is a given.

Yet I suspect that the methodology underlying the way in which the form
critic "discerns how disparate units came to be conjoined" is precisely
where the problems lie. And if the "DH is a given" for the form critic, and
the DH is suspect, is not the form critic building on sand (perhaps even
quicksand)?

Regards,

Martin Shields.