Higher Crititicism == fake science

[Stargazer]

Just now, mfbukowski said:

Is this the set for Jimmy Kimmel Live or something?

We are going to ridicule Trump right into re-election.  

Sure, why not? No, seriously, Mr. Trump is to blame for the word "fake" being pummeled into meaninglessness. That's all.

[Glenn101]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Is this the set for Jimmy Kimmel Live or something?

We are going to ridicule Trump right into re-election.  Half of America just doesn't get it. And I'm not going to say which half.

Just the half that you are not in, of course.  Sort of like everyone is crazy but me and thee, and I am not so sure about thee.

Glenn

[mfbukowski]

3 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Just the half that you are not in, of course.  Sort of like everyone is crazy but me and thee, and I am not so sure about thee.

Glenn

Exactimundo!

 

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Sure, why not? No, seriously, Mr. Trump is to blame for the word "fake" being pummeled into meaninglessness. That's all.

Oh there is enough word pummeling into meaninglessness going around for all to share!

There are no facts, only interpretations.   Seems like I have heard that some where....

I see a lot of "interpreting" going on of late.  If this doesn't prove that we all live in our own separate worlds, I don't know what will.

One man's "fake" is another man's "reality".

At least now even those who regard themselves as seeing hard "reality" might now have a glimpse how subjective it all is.   We all have our own faith based realities even if we are atheists, religious, Trump supporters or Trump haters, liberals or conservatives.

It's a great time for postmodernists to sit back and say "I told you so".

 

Edited October 15, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 10/14/2017 at 1:51 PM, cdowis said:

Of course,  and he is using contemporary documents with a relatively known history.    Making a comparison with Skousen is comparing astronomy with astrology.  In this case, some of the yokels have a PhD with distinguished credentials and reputations.

No less a yokel was Newton himself in his persistent pursuit of alchemy.

You keep using this analogy with which I strongly disagree.

Clearly interpreting a text is not an empirical science unless you are begging the question by simply stating it is, without empirical science backing you up

In fact- please use empirical science to back up your assertion to make your point, if it is correct.  That means measurable data which is objective and can be tested by anyone and reach the same conclusion.

Please.

 

[mfbukowski]

20 hours ago, cdowis said:

 In this field there are both the competent and the hack, but the discipline itself does not lend itself to distinguishing between the two by scientific principles.  There is only "peer review" which can be....gasp.... notoriously flawed even in the hard sciences.

Ah, so your statement therefore that one is like alchemy and the other like astronomy is wrong, correct?

 

[clarkgoble]

On 10/14/2017 at 8:25 AM, cdowis said:

Please help me.  Tell us exactly what we KNOW from higher criticism.  Please convince us that, like physics, chemistry, astronomy, quantum physics, that higher criticism "tells" us anything.  It is a fake science similar to alchemy and astrology.

This seems a false dichotomy. Source criticism isn't a science at all in any of the narrow senses of the term. I'm not sure that entails it's like alchemy or astrology. Rather it's probably more like psychology, only without a ton of data to work with. It's hard after all to make predictions in source criticism when there's not a constant source of texts coming out allowing one to formalize ones methods. So I think it's fair to be skeptical of overly precise claims. However some arguments are much stronger than others. To simply dismiss the entire movement as if the arguments were akin to alchemy and astrology seems quite wrong. After all those disciplines assumed occult influences as an assumption to work - an assumption most find wrong. There's no such assumption in say noting part of Isaiah seems tied to Aramaic. 

[cdowis]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Ah, so your statement therefore that one is like alchemy and the other like astronomy is wrong, correct?

 

It is a rhetorical technique hyperbole, which requires a knowledge of  textual analysis to discern.

[mfbukowski]

48 minutes ago, cdowis said:

It is a rhetorical technique hyperbole, which requires a knowledge of  textual analysis to discern.

Ah, so it's hyperbole and not an accurate analogy then.

Gosh you are so smart I will have to look up that big word!

I guess all my study of Gadamer was insufficient then.  Woe is me!

 

[Gray]

On 10/15/2017 at 2:36 AM, mfbukowski said:

Is this the set for Jimmy Kimmel Live or something?

We are going to ridicule Trump right into re-election.  Half of America just doesn't get it. And I'm not going to say which half.

If that's how it worked, Hillary would be president. She surely was ridiculed sufficiently.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Quote

Please help me.  Tell us exactly what we KNOW from higher criticism.  Please convince us that, like physics, chemistry, astronomy, quantum physics, that higher criticism "tells" us anything.  It is a fake science similar to alchemy and astrology.

The thing about higher criticism is that it isn't a science. But it does provide us with all sorts of things that we can know. Higher criticism (although that label is largely considered obsolete in many ways) is more accurately termed the historical-critical method, and perhaps more generally as literary criticism. And while it is often used in the context of biblical studies, it is regularly used in the study of all ancient literature. And it actually covers a range of applications - including source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, and so on. Perhaps a generalization is to suggest that by this higher criticism we attempt to establish authorship, as well as dates and the place of the authorship of a text.

It is, of course, mostly just a collection of tools. And you use those tools makes a difference. After all, higher criticism can be used to point out issues that speak to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon just as it can be used to question it. Of course, as with any set of scientific tools, there is a lot that goes in to data analysis. And in science, we are regularly confronted with theories that cannot immediately be proven (although we don't dismiss those theories as "fake science" as cdowis does here).

These tools aren't just in the toolbox of those who study ancient texts either. They fit well into the study of more recent texts. They are especially useful, for example, in analyzing the Joseph Smith Papers collection. The fact that these tools are effect in analyzing more recent texts gives us some degree of confidence in looking at ancient texts.

But, we end up with a problem in this specific circumstance. After all, as cdowis himself points out:

Quote

Of course,  and he is using contemporary documents with a relatively known history.    Making a comparison with Skousen is comparing astronomy with astrology.  In this case, some of the yokels have a PhD with distinguished credentials and reputations.

There is no question (or there shouldn't be a question) that the Book of Mormon is a relatively contemporary documents with a relatively known history. cdowis's complaint stems from a problematic assertion that the Book of Mormon should be seen as somehow equivalent to the gold plates, and shouldn't be treated as a modern document at all. When in fact, the Book of Mormon doesn't claim this for itself. It claims to be a translation of ancient document, and we use the tools of higher criticism to help us understand the relationship between the Book of Mormon (as a modern text) and the source it was translated from. And those tools that get used range from textual analysis to attempts to locate that source text in a cultural and historical milieu (a time and place) like we see with many attempts (the most extensive of these attempts have been made by Brant Gardner and Sorenson). These attempts fit squarely into the principles of higher criticism (as does any attempt to try and locate a geography of the text that involves the text itself and historical geographies).

So when I read these sorts of dismissive comments about higher criticism, what I see has little to do with what higher criticism can tell us about the text, but rather a sort of gut response to a very narrow part of higher criticism. I think that there is more to it than cdows implies. And I think that I am personally unwilling to concede the idea that we can know nothing from the text about its authorship, or the historical milieu in which its source(s) were written.

[cdowis]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Gosh you are so smart I will have to look up that big word!

I guess all my study of Gadamer was insufficient then.  Woe is me!

 

OK

Edited October 16, 2017 by cdowis