James Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament (1906)
James Orr
A Scottish answer to the German scheme that does not dispute the results one at a time, because there are ten thousand of them.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Orr taught in Glasgow, wrote for The Fundamentals, and went at the critical case where it is weakest — not its readings but its assumption. The developmental ladder was imported from comparative religion and never argued for from the text, and a theory that redates its evidence whenever the evidence disagrees is not being tested by anything.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 20 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 44 | The Text Refuses | Biblical Theology | Argument | 88 | 100% | 12 |
| 46 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 48 | The Scheme, Not the Text | Presupposition | Argument | 100 | 100% | 8 |
| 52 | Ruled Out in Advance | Presupposition | Argument | 104 | 95% | 8 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.
“The critical treatment breaks down the Biblical narratives, disintegrates them, causes them to crumble to pieces. But there are features in the narratives which resist this treatment, and constitute a standing protest against it.”
James Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament III (1906), public domain.public domain
In the gameRead the seams the other way. The doublets are older than the scheme that dates them, and a book edited as clumsily as this one is alleged to be would not have kept the things that embarrass it.
Orr’s other half, and the one the scheme has no answer for: an editor as clumsy as this theory needs would not have kept the passages that embarrass him.
Orr points to features of the stories that resist being broken into pieces. The narratives hold together better than the theory says they should.
“…the persistent reading into the history, in the interest of some fancy, of a meaning which it cannot be made to bear.”
James Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament V (1906), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameThe developmental ladder was not found in the Old Testament. It was carried in from comparative religion and the text was cut to fit it — and where the text will not sit on the ladder, it is the text that gets redated.
The ladder was never in the text. It was brought to it.
Orr shows that the scheme came first. Scholars brought a theory of development to the text and cut the text to fit it.
“To a large and influential school of critical inquirers… this question of a supernatural origin for the religion of Israel is already foreclosed; is ruled out at the start.”
James Orr, The Problem of the Old Testament I (1906), public domain. (trimmed quote)public domain
In the gameA miracle was impossible before a single page was opened. Everything after that is not a finding about the documents; it is the consequence of a decision taken before the documents were read.
Myth was the only category left once the other one was shut.
Orr notes that this school ruled out anything supernatural before looking. Once that is decided, every parallel looks like a source.
Orr notes that miracles were ruled out before the first page was read. Renan’s gentle Jesus is the result of that decision, not of the evidence.
The ladder is one assumption. Underneath it is an older one, and it was made before the Pentateuch was opened.