[4]:79 The height of biblical criticism's influence is represented by the history of religions school [note 1] a group of German Protestant theologians associated with the University of Gttingen. HIGHER CRITICISM. Five major categories of biblical criticism, described, including the Documentary. Herrick references the German theologian Henning Graf Reventlow (19292010) as linking deism with the humanist world view, which has been significant in biblical criticism. history [122]:16,17 Susan Niditch concluded from her orality studies that: "no longer are many scholars convinced that the most seemingly oral-traditional or formulaic pieces are earliest in date". [4]:21,22, One legacy of biblical criticism in American culture is the American fundamentalist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. [25]:862 Reimarus had left permission for his work to be published after his death, and Lessing did so between 1774 and 1778, publishing them as Die Fragmente eines unbekannten Autors (The Fragments of an Unknown Author). They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. In reality, biblical criticism or various critical approaches to the Bible are not about attacking the Bible but rather relate to the careful, academic study of it. But Fr. [118] Donald Guthrie says no single theory offers a complete solution as there are complex and important difficulties that create challenges to every theory. [81]:212215 Based on his study of Cicero, Clark argued omission was a more common scribal error than addition, saying "A text is like a traveler who goes from one inn to another losing an article of luggage at each halt". Yet according to Sanders, "we know quite a lot" about Jesus. [81]:214 [92] Some twenty-first century scholars have advocated abandoning these older approaches to textual criticism in favor of new computer-assisted methods for determining manuscript relationships in a more reliable way. [13]:4648 Reimarus's central question, "How political was Jesus? The existence of separate sources explained the inconsistent style and vocabulary of Genesis, discrepancies in the narrative, differing accounts and chronological difficulties, while still allowing for Mosaic authorship. [133]:47[134], According to religion scholar Werner H. Kelber, form critics throughout the mid-twentieth century were so focused on finding each pericope's original form, that they were distracted from any serious consideration of memory as a dynamic force in the construction of the gospels or the early church community tradition. Hermeneutics and Bible Study Methods: A study of principles or sound interpretation and application of the Bible, including analysis of presuppositions, general rules and specialized principles for the various biblical genre and phenomena and the development of an exegetical method. The term "biblical criticism" refers to the process of establishing the plain meaning of biblical texts and of assessing their historical accuracy. For this reason Armerding's work . [98]:4[102]:36[note 4], Problems and criticisms of the Documentary hypothesis have been brought on by literary analysts who point out the error of judging ancient Eastern writings as if they were the products of western European Protestants; and by advances in anthropology that undermined Wellhausen's assumptions about how cultures develop; and also by various archaeological findings showing the cultural environment of the early Hebrews was more advanced than Wellhausen thought. Different types of criticism: constructive criticism. Updates? [4]:21,22 Biblical criticism's central concept changed from neutral judgment to beginning from a recognition of the various biases the reader brings to the study of the texts. The major types of biblical criticism are: (1) textual criticism, which is concerned with establishing the original or most authoritative text, (2) philological criticism, which is the study of the biblical languages for an accurate knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and style of the period, (3) literary criticism. [11]:214, Communications scholar James A. Herrick (b. [44], In 1896, Martin Khler (18351912) wrote The So-called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ. [102]:93, Advocates of Wellhausen's hypothesis contend it accounts well for the differences and duplication found in the Pentateuchal books. [61][62] Sanders also advanced study of the historical Jesus by putting Jesus's life in the context of first-century Second-Temple Judaism. [4]:21,22 New perspectives from different ethnicities, feminist theology, Catholicism and Judaism offered insights previously overlooked by the majority of white male Protestants who had dominated biblical criticism from its beginnings. [16][17]:1315 Matthew Tindal (16571733), as part of British deism, asserted that Jesus taught an undogmatic natural religion that the Church later changed into its own dogmatic form. Historical-biblical criticism includes a wide range of approaches and questions within four major methodologies: textual, source, form, and literary criticism. "[27]:22,16 According to Schweitzer, Reimarus was wrong in his assumption that Jesus's end-of-world eschatology was "earthly and political in character" but was right in viewing Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher, as evidenced by his repeated warnings about the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of time. [93][94]:1 The French physician Jean Astruc presumed in 1753 that Moses had written the book of Genesis (the first book of the Pentateuch) using ancient documents; he attempted to identify these original sources and to separate them again. [161], the traditional sacrality of the Bible is at once simple and symbolic, individual and communal, practical and paradoxical. . As John Niles indicates, the "older idea of 'an ideal folk communityan undifferentiated company of rustics, each of whom contributes equally to the process of oral tradition,' is no longer tenable". Biblical criticism is also known as higher criticism (as opposed to "lower" textual criticism), historical criticism, and the historical-critical method. [201]:67 It questions anything that claims "objectively secured foundations, universals, metaphysics, or analytical dualism". There are also approximately a million direct New Testament quotations in the collected writings of the Church Fathers of the first four centuries. [143]:425, Structuralism looks at the language to discern "layers of meaning" with the goal of uncovering a work's "deep structures" the premises as well as the purposes of the author. [95]:95[100] The Wellhausen hypothesis (also known as the JEDP theory, or the Documentary hypothesis, or the GrafWellhausen hypothesis) proposes that the Pentateuch was combined out of four separate and coherent (unified single) sources (not fragments). 20. [64], By 1990, biblical criticism as a primarily historical discipline changed into a group of disciplines with often conflicting interests. [113]:86, If this document existed, it has now been lost, but some of its material can be deduced indirectly. Biblical studies is the study of the Bible. "[4]:22, Biblical criticism not only made study of the Bible secularized and scholarly, it also went in the other direction and made it more democratic. students. Fundamentalism began, at least partly, as a response to the biblical criticism of nineteenth century liberalism. [168]:135 Edwin M. Yamauchi is a recognized expert on Gnosticism; Gordon Fee has done exemplary work in textual criticism; Richard Longenecker is a student of Jewish-Christianity and the theology of Paul. [4]:22 One way of understanding this change is to see it as a cultural enterprise. [173]:301. This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 21:09. Source criticism attempts to determine the various sources, oral or written, that were used to write a particular book. After close study of multiple New Testament papyri, he concluded Clark was right, and Griesbach's rule of measure was wrong. Funk explains that, when it is used properly, the. 1954) says that even though most scholars agree that biblical criticism evolved out of the German Enlightenment, there are some historians of biblical criticism that have found "strong direct links" with British deism. [102]:92 This observation led to the idea there was such a thing as a Deuteronomist school that had originally edited and kept the document updated. Hence, "Wellhausen's theology is based upon an anthropological theory which most anthropologists no longer endorse". Tannehill. Right is now wrong, and wrong is right. 8 Practical criticism. II. [170] In 1864, Pope Pius IX promulgated the encyclical letter Quanta cura ("Condemning Current Errors"), which decried what the Pontiff considered significant errors afflicting the modern age. 6 Constructive criticism. [138]:99[139] Redaction critics reject source and form criticism's description of the Bible texts as mere collections of fragments. [140]:335,336 In the New Testament, redaction critics attempt to discern the original author/evangelist's theology by focusing and relying upon the differences between the gospels, yet it is unclear whether every difference has theological meaning, how much meaning, or whether any given difference is a stylistic or even an accidental change. [4]:21[note 2] Globalization also brought different worldviews, while other academic fields such as Near Eastern studies, sociology, and anthropology became active in expanding biblical criticism as well. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). This was due to a shift in perception of the critical effort as being possible on the basis of premises other than liberal Protestantism. [194]:11 According to Laura E. Donaldson, postcolonial criticism is oppositional and "multidimensional in nature, keenly attentive to the intricacies of the colonial situation in terms of culture, race, class and gender". According to Simon, parts of the Old Testament were not written by individuals at all, but by scribes recording the[which?] Frequent political revolutions, bitter opposition of "liberalism" to the Church, and the expulsion of religious orders from France and Germany, made the church understandably suspicious of the new intellectual currents. [96]:136138, Mark is the shortest of the four gospels with only 661 verses, but 600 of those verses are in Matthew and 350 of them are in Luke. This is called the synoptic problem, and explaining it is the single greatest dilemma of New Testament source criticism. These types of criticisms assume that people agree that there is a reality which is beyond personal experience. [187]:267, Biblical criticism impacted feminism and was impacted by it. A brief treatment of biblical criticism follows. [53][54]:443, The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran in 1948 renewed interest in archaeology's potential contributions to biblical studies, but it also posed challenges to biblical criticism. [157]:129 The Bible's cultural impact is studied in multiple academic fields, producing not only the cultural Bible, but the modern academic Bible as well. The Absurdity of "Higher Criticism" of the Gospels as Illustrated in a Novel. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. This. The following forms are common to folklore: legends, superstitions, songs, tales, proverbs, riddles, spells, nursery rhymes; pseudo-scientific lore about weather, plants, animals; customary activities at births, marriages, deaths; traditional dances and forms of drama. Say scribe 'A' makes a mistake and scribe 'B' does not. Scholars began writing in their common languages making their works available to a larger public.[14]. [182][183] Meier is also the author of a multi-volume work on the historical Jesus, A Marginal Jew. -modern historians are more objective than their ancient counterparts, suspicious of the supernatural, establishes historicity of a biblical text by means of comparative study (religion, historiography, archaeology) Source Criticism: -assumes isolating literary sources in a written document unlocks meaning of a text [81]:205 Sorting out the wealth of source material is complex, so textual families were sorted into categories tied to geographical areas. The presence of contradictions and repetitions doesn't necessarily prove separate sources, since they are "to be expected given the cultural background of the Old Testament and the long period of time during which the text was in formation and being passed on orally". Interest waned again by the 1970s. [150] Phyllis Trible, a student of Muilenburg, has become one of the leaders of rhetorical criticism and is known for her detailed literary analysis and her feminist critique of biblical interpretation. 4. For example, the seventeenth-century French priest Richard Simon (16381712) was an early proponent of the theory that Moses could not have been the single source of the entire Pentateuch. Description, reviews, and scrollable preview. In societies where the "lay person" often has a passionate relationship with the Bible, it has been controversial to examine the book through historical types of literary criticism.Even though, as religious experts explain, historical criticism is used in seminaries, it is not popular in non-academic environments, where many people . They made a lasting change in the practice of biblical criticism by making it clear it could exist independently of theology and faith. [172], That began to change in the final decades of the nineteenth century when, in 1890, the French Dominican Marie-Joseph Lagrange (18551938) established a school in Jerusalem called the cole prtique d'tudes biblique, which became the cole Biblique in 1920, to encourage study of the Bible using the historical-critical method. [22]:297298[2]:189 Long before Richard Simon, the historical context of the biblical texts was important to Joachim Camerarius (15001574) who wrote a philological study of figures of speech in the biblical texts using their context to understand them. to the Bible), (3) developing sensitivity to the various types of literature present in the Bible (another application of literary criticism), (4) considering the "what" and the "how" of canon, and (5) cultivating a robust sense of curiosity with regard to the biblical text. [3][2]:27, By 1990, new perspectives, globalization and input from different academic fields expanded biblical criticism, moving it beyond its original criteria, and changing it into a group of disciplines with different, often conflicting, interests. The documentary theory has been undermined by subdivisions of the sources and the addition of other sources, since: "The more sources one finds, the more tenuous the evidence for the existence of continuous documents becomes". [13]:43[15] Semler argued for an end to all doctrinal assumptions, giving historical criticism its nonsectarian character. Emendation is the attempt to eliminate the errors which are found even in the best manuscripts. Exemplars drawn from the Bible provided models for contemporary human activity, in part by embodying types of ideal behaviour. What are the four types of biblical criticism? Some variants represent a scribal attempt to simplify or harmonize, by changing a word or a phrase. [63] The third period of focused study on the historical Jesus began in 1988. For criticisms of the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance, see, The widely accepted two-source hypothesis, showing two sources for both Matthew and Luke, Source criticism of the Old Testament: Wellhausen's hypothesis, Source criticism of the New Testament: the synoptic problem. [147]:155 (4) Canonical criticism emphasizes the relationship between the text and its reader in an effort to reclaim the relationship between the texts and how they were used in the early believing communities. [38]:39,40 This stark contrast between Judaism and Christianity produced increasingly antisemitic sentiments. The questioning of religious authority common to German Pietism contributed to the rise of biblical criticism. Redaction criticism later developed as a derivative of both source and form criticism. [124]:265,298304 According to Eddy and Boyd, these various conclusions directly undermine assumptions about Sitz im leben: "In light of what we now know of oral traditions, no necessary correlation between [the literary] forms and life situations [sitz im leben] can be confidently drawn". and M.A. Fiorenza says, "Christian male theologians have formulated theological concepts in terms of their own cultural experience, insisting on male language relating to God, and on a symbolic universe in which women do not appear Feminist scholars insist that religious texts and traditions must be reinterpreted so that women and other "non-persons" can achieve full citizenship in religion and society". When examining a text, the term criticism is a reference to analysis, related to the idea of a "critique.". These changes would both "complement and reconfigure conventional African American religious life". Historical criticism can refer to a method of studying the Bible or to a particular view of Scripture used to select interpretations. Globalization brought a broader spectrum of worldviews into the field, and other academic disciplines as diverse as Near Eastern studies, psychology, cultural anthropology and sociology formed new methods of biblical criticism such as social scientific criticism and psychological biblical criticism. This was based on the assumption that scribes were more likely to add to a text than omit from it, making shorter texts more likely to be older. [152]:6 A decade later, this new approach in biblical criticism included the Old Testament as well. "The Challenges of Darwinism and Biblical Criticism to American Judaism", "Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society? [5][6] Spinoza wrote that Moses could not have written the preface to the fifth book, Deuteronomy, since he never crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land. [94]:2 He did this by identifying repetitions of certain events, such as parts of the flood story that are repeated three times, indicating the possibility of three sources. [121]:243 Hermann Gunkel (18621932) and Martin Dibelius (18831947) built from this insight and pioneered form criticism. A prerequisite for the exegetical study of the biblical writings, and even for the establishment of hermeneutical principles, is their critical examination. [18] British deism was also an influence on the philosopher and writer Hermann Samuel Reimarus (16941768) in developing his criticism of revelation. [27]:25 Respect for Semler temporarily repressed the dissemination and study of Reimarus's work, but Semler's response had no long-term effect. For example, in the late 1700s, textual critic Johann Jacob Griesbach (1745 1812) developed fifteen critical principles for determining which texts are likely the oldest and closest to the original. Textual methods emphasize on the text itself. Both personal and professional success depend on being able to take criticism in your stride. Methods of biblical scholarship are rapidly changing, but one can safely predict that viewing the biblical texts as literature and using the critical methods commonly applied to non-biblical literature will obtain a prominent place in academic study of the Bible. In the 20th century, Rudolf Bultmann and Martin Dibelius initiated form criticism as a different approach to the study of historical circumstances surrounding biblical texts. [143]:4,11 Rhetorical analysis divides a passage into units, observes how a single unit shifts or breaks, taking special note of poetic devices, meter, parallelism, word play and so on. Since Mark was believed to be the first gospel, the form critics looked for the addition of proper names for anonymous characters, indirect discourse being turned into direct quotation, and the elimination of Aramaic terms and forms, with details becoming more concrete in Matthew, and then more so in Luke. [101], Later scholars added to and refined Wellhausen's theory. [140]:336 The evangelist's theology more likely depends on what the gospels have in common as well as their differences. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Next, a scholarly effort to reclaim the Bible's theological relevance began. Tindal's view of Christianity as a "mere confirmation of natural religion and his resolute denial of the supernatural" led him to conclude that "revealed religion is superfluous". Though many new early manuscripts have been discovered since 1881, there are critical editions of the Greek New Testament, such as NA28 and UBS5, that "have gone virtually unchanged" from these discoveries. 2. Source criticism's most influential work is Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prologue to the History of Israel, 1878) which sought to establish the sources of the first five books of the Old Testament - collectively known as the Pentateuch. JEDP are initials representing the four hypothetical sources as follows: J awist (or Yahwist, from Yahweh) - describes God as Yahweh, starting in Gen 2:4, it includes much of Genesis and parts of Exodus and Numbers. Historical-biblical criticism includes a wide range of approaches and questions within four major methodologies: textual, source, form, and literary criticism. Culturally, society has plunged headlong into radical pluralism. [102]:32 Deuteronomy is seen as a single coherent document with a uniformity of style and language in spite of also having different literary strata. [87][88][89] It uses specialized methodologies, enough specialized terms to create its own lexicon,[90] and is guided by a number of principles. "[It] is safe to conclude that in many measurable features contemporary evangelical scholarship on the scriptures enjoys a considerable good health". [169], The Church showed strong opposition to biblical criticism during that period. It focused on the literary structure of the texts as they currently exist, determining, where possible, the author's purpose, and discerning the reader's response to the text through methods such as rhetorical criticism, canonical criticism, and narrative criticism. In this way, biblical criticism also led to conflict. [143]:102 In 1981 literature scholar Robert Alter also contributed to the development of biblical literary criticism by publishing an influential analysis of biblical themes from a literary perspective. Most scholars believe the German Enlightenment (c.1650 c.1800) led to the creation of biblical criticism, although some assert that its roots reach back to the Reformation. It could no longer be a Catholic Bible or a Lutheran Bible but had to be divested of its scriptural character within specific confessional hermeneutics. [155], Ken and Richard Soulen say that "biblical criticism has permanently altered the way people understand the Bible". The Quest for the Historical Jesus- Before anything else, let me say that I do not reject all "biblical . [9]:166168[95]:7,8, Examples of source criticism include its two most influential and well-known theories, the first concerning the origins of the Pentateuch in the Old Testament (Wellhausen's hypothesis); and the second tracing the sources of the four gospels of the New Testament (two-source hypothesis). [55]:9,149 For example, the majority of the Dead Sea texts are closely related to the Masoretic Text that the Christian Old Testament is based upon, while other texts bear a closer resemblance to the Septuagint (the ancient Greek version of the Hebrew texts) and still others are closer to the Samaritan Pentateuch. This sets it apart from earlier, pre-critical methods; from the anti-critical methods of those who oppose criticism-based study; from later post-critical orientation, and from the many different types of criticism which biblical criticism transformed into in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. [52] As a major proponent of form criticism, Bultmann "set the agenda for a subsequent generation of leading NT [New Testament] scholars". [191]:2425 Carol L. Meyers says feminist archaeology has shown "male dominance was real; but it was fragmentary, not hegemonic" leading to a change in the anthropological description of ancient Israel as heterarchy rather than patriarchy. Biblical scholar Hermann Gunkel's system covers the following categories: Hymns: Many of the psalms are simple hymns or songs of praise. [184], Biblical criticism posed unique difficulties for Judaism. [138]:99, Norman Perrin defines redaction criticism as "the study of the theological motivation of an author as it is revealed in the collection, arrangement, editing, and modification of traditional material, and in the composition of new material redaction criticism directs us to the author as editor. Based on their understanding of folklore, form critics believed the early Christian communities formed the sayings and teachings of Jesus themselves, according to their needs (their "situation in life"), and that each form could be identified by the situation in which it had been created and vice versa. Any explanation offered must "account for (a) what is common to all the Gospels; (b) what is common to any two of them; (c) what is peculiar to each". community's oral tradition. [91], Latin scholar Albert C. Clark challenged Griesbach's view of shorter texts in 1914. It critiqued the quest's methodology, with a reminder of the limits of historical inquiry, saying it is impossible to separate the historical Jesus from the Jesus of faith, since Jesus is only known through documents about him as Christ the Messiah. [82]:213[note 3], Forerunners of modern textual criticism can be found in both early Rabbinic Judaism and in the early church. [191]:15 Third wave feminists began raising concerns about its accuracy. It was derived from a combination of both source and form criticism. Included are examples of biblical racism, wishful thinking, subjugation of women, contradictions, failed prophecies and other biblical problems. "Lower" or textual criticism addressed critical issues . [25]:697 However, Stanley E. Porter (b. Reimarus distinguished between what Jesus taught and how he is portrayed in the New Testament. Critics are interested in what the text means for the community"the community of faith whose predecessors produced the canon, that was called into existence by the canon, and seeks to live by the canon". [131] Some form critics assumed these same skeptical presuppositions[132] based largely on their understanding of oral transmission and folklore. [114]:12[115]:fn.6 There is also material unique to each gospel. On 18 November 1893, Pope Leo XIII promulgated the encyclical letter Providentissimus Deus ('The most provident God'). What are the five basic types of biblical criticism? It remained the dominant theory until Wilhelm Schmidt produced a study on "native monotheism" in 1912 titled. [191]:27, Feminist criticism is an aspect of the feminist theology movement which began in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the feminist movement in the United States. The term "biblical criticism" is an unfortunate one, because it gives the impression that the scholars who practice it are engaged in criticizing the Bible, in a hostile sense. Robinson. [121]:242[122]:1 Bible scholar Richard Bauckham says this "most significant insight," which established the foundation of form criticism, has never been refuted. [4]:20 Karl Barth (18861968), Rudolf Bultmann (18841976), and others moved away from concern over the historical Jesus and concentrated instead on the kerygma: the message of the New Testament. [192]:1 Three phases of feminist biblical interpretation are connected to the three phases, or 'waves', of the movement. These new points of view created awareness that the Bible can be rationally interpreted from many different perspectives. 7 Destructive criticism. See also: Biblical Errancy. [129]:15 Two concerns give it its value: concern for the nature of the text and for its shape and structure. There is also some verbatim agreement between Matthew and Luke of verses not found in Mark. Cooper explains that a recombination of the consonants allows it to be read "Does one plough the sea with oxen?" Early modern biblical studies were customarily divided into two branches. This indicates additional separate sources for Matthew and for Luke. Biblical criticism, in particular higher criticism, covers a variety of methods used since the Enlightenment in the early 18th century as scholars began to apply to biblical documents the same methods and perspectives which had already been applied to other literary and philosophical texts. The Enlightenment age, and its skepticism of biblical and church authority, ignited questions concerning the historical basis for the human Jesus separately from traditional theological views concerning his divinity. [4]:22 In turn, this awareness changed biblical criticism's central concept from the criteria of neutral judgment to that of beginning from a recognition of the various biases the reader brings to the study of the texts. [197][198] It grew out of form criticism's Sitz im Leben and the sense that historical form criticism had failed to adequately analyze the social and anthropological contexts which form critics claimed had formed the texts. The ramifications of postmodernism have been catastrophic not only in hermeneutics but across society. [13]:82 Rabbis addressed variants in the Hebrew texts as early as 100CE. [96]:208[119] One example is Basil Christopher Butler's challenge to the legitimacy of two-source theory, arguing it contains a Lachmann fallacy[120]:110 that says the two-source theory loses cohesion when it is acknowledged that no source can be established for Mark. [181], This tradition is continued by Catholic scholars such as John P. Meier, and Conleth Kearns, who also worked with Reginald C. Fuller and Leonard Johnston preparing A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture.