Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures?

I basically took three classes my first semester, Old Testament, Early and Medieval Church History and Systematic Theology (I also took a one hour speech class, but it wasn't exactly an academic endeavor).  The one that I struggled with the most was Old Testament.  

The difficulty of Old Testament had little to do with the course assignments.  The class was difficult, but manageable.  The tests required a lot of memorization and a lot of preparation, but not so much that I felt inadequate.  The real difficulty lay in two areas.  The first was a classic problem for first year seminarians, especially at a seminary like PTS; the problem of historical criticism.  The second was the division introduced between Old and New testaments.  

Old Testament class at IWU was about knowing what the OT said, and what we could learn about God, humanity, creation, etc.  At PTS, OT covered the content a little and applications/implications for faith even less.  The real goal of the class, seemingly, was to introduce the scholarly issues and debates surrounding the OT from a historical-critical perspective.  Questions like who really wrote the Pentateuch, how many Isaiahs there were, and what really happened to the Israelite nation in history claimed the position of prominence in lecture and in the reading.  The focus always seems to be on what lies behind, beneath and beyond the text, rather than the text itself.  The question always seems to be, "yeah, but what REALLY happened?"  This sort of question, along with the conclusions at which scholars have arrived, have devastated many young seminarians.  The PTS chaplain, a woman named Jan, has said that the issue that comes up most often in her ministry to students in this very one.  The historical basis and validation of the Scripture is questioned, and many student's faith loses a major foundation block.

This focus on historical criticism frustrated me.  First, I'm very skeptical about our ability to reach beyond or behind the text.  I don't think the tools of historical inquiry allow us to ascertain that sort of knowledge with any degree of certainty.  When one looks at the conclusions scholars make upon the tiniest bits of evidence, it beggars belief, especially in light of the confidence, bordering on arrogance, with which those conclusions are stated.  I also don't see the value of studying the Bible as a historical document ALONE.  So what if we actually could find out who really wrote the Pentateuch?  Stripped of significance for faith, I simply don't care.  This relates to the second issue as well.

The second problem I had with OT, the division between testaments, was typified by the text book we were assigned, How to Read the Bible by James Kugel.  I actually think its a very interesting book, written to be interesting as well as thorough, but its definitely not concerned with faith.  In fact, the author is Jewish; he is writing about Hebrew Scripture, not the Old Testament.  The "Old" Testament is only "old" if you acknowledge the new.  The OT class essentially tried severing the ties between Old and New Testaments.  Any sort of christological interpretive move was immediately ruled out as illegitimate.  "The Old Testament has to be read on its own terms!" seemed to be the rallying cry.

Now, a caveat.  I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with historical criticism, nor with reading the OT on its own terms, in light of its historical context.  Both of these methods are useful tools for Biblical interpretation, perhaps even necessary tools (although I'm not willing to go quite that far).  The point, for me, is that they must always remain tools for Biblical interpretation, not boundary markers or tests of validity.

For Christian faith, the canonical form of the Bible constitutes our Scriptures.  Not one testament without the other (either old or new).  Not the "real" events of history.  These things may be interesting subjects of inquiry, or even ways of getting leverage on the text, but the Scripture as such must always remain at the center of our inquiry if it is to remain Christian inquiry.  I had a professor, Bruce McCormack, say in class a few days ago that if an OT prof is actually teaching Hebrew Scripture and not the OT, they may be drawing pay under false pretenses.  I couldn't agree more.

Now, OT wasn't a completely negative experience, far from it.  These two concerns, however, were seemingly ubiquitous in my OT experience.  These issues reached a zenith in a class I took in short term, Issues in the Theology of Scripture, which I'll address later.  The question of how to justify a text historically, how a text is validated, is important, but I'll look at those issues when I discuss that class.  For now, I think it is sufficient to say that in my OT class I gained a little knowledge about the content of the OT, a lot of knowledge of scholarly issues surrounding the OT, and most of all a new perspective on OT studies.  

I'd be interested to see the thoughts of anyone who reads this.  I know there are many people who would disagree with my desire to see the OT and NT held together, at least in scholarly circles.  Should the OT be read separately from the NT?  Can we gain knowledge of issues which lie "behind" the text?  How much do those issues matter?