TheTorah.com has published a number of brief commendations under the title:
Seven Years of Critical Torah Study - Scholars and Rabbis Reflect
I found most of them interesting but the one that resonated with me the most was that offered by Professor Tamar Ross. She begins by noting:
I simply never thought of it in that way. By clearly specifying these distinct disciplines her comments helped me recognize the extent to which I tend to be focused on the former and deficient when it comes to the latter.
At the same time, I deeply appreciate her conclusion:
Seven Years of Critical Torah Study - Scholars and Rabbis Reflect
I found most of them interesting but the one that resonated with me the most was that offered by Professor Tamar Ross. She begins by noting:
There is a discipline entitled “critical biblical scholarship,” and another practice known as “learning” or “studying Torah.” The two have different functions and aims. Through literary, historical and linguistic analysis, critical scholarship strives, in the main, to reconstruct the original intent and meaning of the Bible, in light of the “when and how” it was written and compiled. The student or scholar of Torah, by contrast, is interested in all that has accrued to the original text since its final formulation, and its contribution and relevance to the significance of Jewish/human experience, or—to put it differently—to the life of the soul.
I simply never thought of it in that way. By clearly specifying these distinct disciplines her comments helped me recognize the extent to which I tend to be focused on the former and deficient when it comes to the latter.
At the same time, I deeply appreciate her conclusion:
... awareness and acknowledgement of the accomplishments of critical biblical scholarship are crucial for the development of a mature and sober theology relevant for our times. In an age where apologetics (attempting to disprove the findings of science and reason on their own grounds, or to avoid them by invoking allegoric or symbolic interpretation as a general panacea for every clash that remains) have outlived their plausibility, honestly confronting the conclusions of historicist and scientific endeavors not only forces simple believers to wrestle with inadequate understandings of religious truth statements regarding the nature of the Torah, revelation, and divine authorship. It also encourages those attached to such faith to grope for more adequate formulations of the ultimate meaning of their continued attachment to these doctrines. While by no means a substitute for traditional Torah study, critical scholarship in this indirect sense fulfills a vital religious function.