SOURCE CRITICISM
Source Criticism was originally applied to non-religious texts, for example the classical literature of Ancient Greece. In the 18th century, Jean Astruc [right] took the techniques that Source Critics had used on Homer's Iliad and applied the to the Old Testament, demonstrating that several different sources had been used to create the Book of Genesis. Since then, Source Criticism has identified the Synoptic Problem as involving different sources being used by Mathew, Mark and Luke. Source Critics propose solutions involving proto-Gospels, Markan Priority and the Q-source.
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YES
Source Criticism is elegant (leaving few remaining questions) and has great explanatory power. It offers a view of how the Gospels were composed that doesn't involve guidance by the Holy Spirit, amazing coincidence in wording or miraculous prophecies.
Source Criticism explains the similar material in the Synoptic Gospels by proposing these writers shared the same sources. The alternatives are much harder to believe: that the Gospel-writers were mystically controlled by the Holy Spirit or just coincidentally used the same words to describe things. Occam's Razor tells us to prefer the simpler explanation.
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NO
Source Criticism is a bunch of wild theories that cannot be backed up. None of the 'sources' has been discovered - we have no records of Q or any of the so-called proto-Gospels and they are never mentioned by early Christian authors either.
Source Criticism often has an agenda: to undermine Christian faith by presenting the Bible as a flawed, human document and break up its unity and coherence into a set of contradictory 'sources' that disagree with each other. Instead of helping, this makes it impossible to interpret the New Testament as relevant to living today; it just becomes another old book.
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