Comments on: Brief review: Alfred Edersheim by Marianna Edwards Richardson

By: Ronan

Ronan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:07:00 +0000

Blimey. A heretic then.

By: matt b

matt b — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:05:59 +0000

Heh. For ‘genealogy’ read ‘geology.’

By: matt b

matt b — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:05:39 +0000

Ronan – In the book I linked to Farrar argues that Job, Daniel, Jonah, and Esther are all “wisdom” fiction; that the Bible contains uneven and contradictory teachings on morality; that any sort of “spiritual diction” theory of scripture is implausible and silly and tends toward disaster; and that that Genesis 1 must be read in the context of the truths taught by genealogy. He’s not David Strauss, but he’s not one of the people in my Sunday school classes either.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:53:56 +0000

A thousand thanks, Kevin Barney and Ronan, for the reading ideas and recommendations.

By: Ronan

Ronan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:18:48 +0000

Matt,
If Farrar is to the left of most Mormons, then we are indeed off-the-chart biblical literalists!

It’s worth re-emphasising how influential this stuff has been. The Bible Institute manuals channel Edersheim far more than they do any other subsequent non-Mormon writer.

By: annegb

annegb — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:17:51 +0000

Big words aside, I have decided that if I ever leave the church, I’m going to become a “Jew for Jesus.”

By: matt b

matt b — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:59:11 +0000

Farrar was an Anglican, a theological liberal but in a somewhat genteel Victorian sort of way. He was a fan of the higher criticism insofar as it aided him in interpreting the Bible as a story of progressively widening revelation that culminated in Christ, and tended to (like other Victorian liberals, such as Henry van Dyke of 'The Other Wise Man' fame) approach the Bible as a collection of aesthetically powerful narratives that contained spiritual power rather than a set of propositional doctrines. His Life of Christ is somewhat hagiographic, but his views on scriptural authorship would probably put him somewhere to the left of most Mormons. His book on the Bible is here.

By: Ronan

Ronan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:47:09 +0000

In the article Kevin links to, Farrar’s book is described as “safe, orthodox opinion.” It scrupulously avoids the new German textual criticism of the age. Mainstream LDS engagement with the Bible is still rooted in the Farrar/Edersheim school. I’ll leave readers to formulate their own opinion about that.

None of this is really of interest to Richardson, whose book is an unoffensive narration of Edersheim among the Mormons. Thorp probably tells you all you need to know; Richardson would be for any Edersheim completists out there.

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:44:10 +0000

Farrar was indeed another source for Talmage, so it would be the same sort of thing.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:36:43 +0000

I was thinking that in On the Road with Joseph Smith, Richard Bushman said that before he started Rough Stone Rolling he received a blessing from Elder Packer. In that meeting Elder Packer gave Bushman a copy of The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah as an example of the kind of history he should aspire to. Upon checking though, I was mistaken. It was the introduction to Frederic Farrar's (another nineteenth-century writer) Life of Christ. I don't know anything Farrar.