what are the four types of biblical criticism
By then, it became necessary to acknowledge that "the upshot of the first two quests was to reveal the frustrating limitations of the historical study of any ancient person". Other schools of biblical criticism that are more exegetical in intentthat is, concerned with recovering original meanings of textsinclude redaction criticism, which studies how the documents were assembled by their final authors and editors, and historical criticism, which seeks to interpret biblical writings in the context of their historical settings. Reimarus distinguished between what Jesus taught and how he is portrayed in the New Testament. In the 1980s, Phyllis Trible and Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza reframed biblical criticism by challenging the supposed disinterest and objectivity it claimed for itself and exposing how ideological-theological stances had played a critical role in interpretation. [152]:7 Christopher T. Paris says that, "narrative criticism admits the existence of sources and redactions but chooses to focus on the artistic weaving of these materials into a sustained narrative picture". Lower biblical criticism has actually made several valuable contributions to biblical studies, since its only aim is to make certain that what we are reading are the actual words that the prophets and apostles wrote. In fact, like the related term "literary criticism," it refers not to hostility towards the text, but the application of one's critical faculties to reading it. Exemplars drawn from the Bible provided models for contemporary human activity, in part by embodying types of ideal behaviour. [129]:15 Two concerns give it its value: concern for the nature of the text and for its shape and structure. [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. [187]:215 According to Aly Elrefaei, the strongest refutation of Wellhausen's Documentary theory came from Yehezkel Kaufmann in 1937. [84][85] Alan Cooper discusses this difficulty using the example of Amos 6.12 which reads: "Does one plough with oxen?" Using the perspectives, theories, models, and research of the social sciences to determine what social norms may have influenced the growth of biblical tradition, it is similar to historical biblical criticism in its goals and methods and has less in common with literary critical approaches. [96]:20, As a type of literary criticism, canonical criticism has both theological and literary roots. [78] The impact of variants on the reliability of a single text is usually tested by comparing it to a manuscript whose reliability has been long established. Over time the texts descended from 'A' that share the error, and those from 'B' that do not share it, will diverge further, but later texts will still be identifiable as descended from one or the other because of the presence or absence of that original mistake. "It also means that the fourth century 'best texts', the 'Alexandrian' codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, have roots extending throughout the entire third century and even into the second". [44], In 1896, Martin Khler (18351912) wrote The So-called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ. "[It] is safe to conclude that in many measurable features contemporary evangelical scholarship on the scriptures enjoys a considerable good health". [27]:25,26 Reimarus's writings, on the other hand, did have a long-term effect. Some variants represent a scribal attempt to simplify or harmonize, by changing a word or a phrase. [86], This contributes to textual criticism being one of the most contentious areas of biblical criticism, as well as the largest, with scholars such as Arthur Verrall referring to it as the "fine and contentious art". Form criticism is a method of biblical study that seeks to categorize units of Scripture according to their literary pattern or genre and then attempt to trace this pattern to its point of oral communication. [9]:204,217,210. [54]:99 Frei was one of several external influences that moved biblical criticism from a historical to a literary focus. Canonical criticism "signaled a major and enduring shift in biblical studies". [121]:242[122]:1 Bible scholar Richard Bauckham says this "most significant insight," which established the foundation of form criticism, has never been refuted. [202], Post-critical interpretation, according to Ken and Richard Soulen, "shares postmodernism's suspicion of modern claims to neutral standards of reason, but not its hostility toward theological interpretation". While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Evaluation of the Scriptures to uncover evidence about historical matters was formerly called higher criticism, a term first used with reference to writings of the German biblical scholar J.G. [173]:301. [138]:98 As in source criticism, it is necessary to identify the traditions before determining how the redactor used them. Textual criticism Main article: Textual criticism [22]:298 A similar view was later advocated by the Primitive Methodist biblical scholar A. S. Peake (18651929). Tony Campbell says, "form criticism has a future "if its past is allowed a decent burial"; Erhard Blum observes problems, and he wonders if one can speak of a current form-critical method at all; Bob Becking calls the question of the validity of. Biblical criticism is also known as higher criticism (as opposed to "lower" textual criticism), historical criticism, and the historical-critical method. What are the five basic types of biblical criticism? As such, this Biblical criticism is an umbrella term covering various techniques for applying literary historical-critical methods in analyzing and studying the Bible and its textual content. Lower criticism: the discipline and study of the actual wording of the Bible; a quest for textual purity and understanding. Historical-biblical criticism includes a wide range of approaches and questions within four major methodologies: textual, source, form, and literary criticism. [32]:38,39 Alexander Geddes and Johann Vater proposed that some of these fragments were quite ancient, perhaps from the time of Moses, and were brought together only at a later time. Source criticism attempts to determine the various sources, oral or written, that were used to write a particular book. [186]:42,83, One of the earliest historical-critical Jewish scholars of Pentateuchal studies was M. M. Kalisch, who began work in the nineteenth century. [192]:2 Feminist criticism embraces the inter-disciplinary approach to biblical criticism, encouraging a reader-response approach to the text that includes an attitude of "dissent" or "resistance". In Old Testament studies, source criticism is generally focused on identifying sources of a single text. It regards a speech as a communication to a specific audience, and holds its business to be the analysis and appreciation of the orator's method of imparting his ideas to his hearers". 5) Constructive Criticism : This type of Criticism aims to show the purpose of something which is but achieved by a different approach. [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. Textual criticism examines biblical manuscripts and their content to identify what the original text probably said. [105]:vi, In New Testament studies, source criticism has taken a slightly different approach from Old Testament studies by focusing on identifying the common sources of multiple texts instead of looking for the multiple sources of a single set of texts. "[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. Biblical scholar Hermann Gunkel's system covers the following categories: Hymns: Many of the psalms are simple hymns or songs of praise. This. [43] While at Gttingen, Johannes Weiss (18631914) wrote his most influential work on the apocalyptic proclamations of Jesus. [154]:167 Stephen D. Moore has written that "as a term, narrative criticism originated within biblical studies", but its method was borrowed from narratology. It then charts the writer's thought progression from one unit to the next, and finally, assembles the data in an attempt to explain the author's intentions behind the piece. In this way, biblical criticism also led to conflict. [179][180] The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, a third fully revised edition, will be published in 2022 and will be edited by John J. Collins, Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid and Donald Senior. In the end, Kuphaldt concludes that "God" was only an imaginary friend. [182][183] Meier is also the author of a multi-volume work on the historical Jesus, A Marginal Jew. [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). The Old and New Testaments were thought to constitute a single story, which was historically accurate and which taught clear lessons for moral practice. 15 Comments. Its origins are found in the Church's views of the biblical writings as sacred, and in the secular literary critics who began to influence biblical scholarship in the 1940s and 1950s. [29][30][31], In addition to overseeing the publication of Reimarus's work, Lessing made contributions of his own, arguing that the proper study of biblical texts requires knowing the context in which they were written. [135][130]:278. 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. Higher criticism deals with the genuineness of the text. Nestl. A monk called John Cassian (360-435 AD), took the discussion to the next level by bringing both kinds of interpretation together. [143]:374,410, New Testament scholar Donald Guthrie highlights a flaw in the literary critical approach to the Gospels: the genre of the Gospels has not been fully determined. [141], In the mid-twentieth century, literary criticism began to develop, shifting scholarly attention from historical and pre-compositional matters to the text itself, thereafter becoming the dominant form of biblical criticism in a relatively short period of about thirty years. [149]:29 Rhetorical criticism is a qualitative analysis. Funk explains that, when it is used properly, the. [121]:243 Hermann Gunkel (18621932) and Martin Dibelius (18831947) built from this insight and pioneered form criticism. [14]:201,118 He distinguished between "inward" and "outward" religion: for some people, their religion is their highest inner purpose, while for others, religion is a more exterior practice a tool to accomplish other purposes more important to the individual, such as political or economic goals. "The analogy between the development of the gospel pericopae and folklore needed reconsideration because of developments in folklore studies: it was less easy to assume steady growth of an oral tradition in stages; significant steps were sometimes large and sudden; the length of time needed for the 'laws' of oral transmission to operate, such as the centuries of Old Testament or Homeric transmission, was greater than that taken by the gospels; even the existence of such laws was questioned Further the transition from individual units of oral tradition into a written document had an important effect on the interpretation of the material. [4]:21,22 Newer forms of biblical criticism are primarily literary: no longer focused on the historical, they attend to the text as it exists now. Such analysis may be based on a variety of critical approaches or movements, e.g. There are also approximately a million direct New Testament quotations in the collected writings of the Church Fathers of the first four centuries. Meaning, an approach to theological knowledge (found primarily in the Bible) that involves arranging the data into well-ordered categories and . [157]:126,129, By the end of the twentieth century, multiple new points of view changed biblical criticism's central concepts and its goals, leading to the development of a group of new and different biblical-critical disciplines. [97]:64[102]:39,80[107]:11[108][note 5] As a result, few biblical scholars of the twenty-first century hold to Wellhausen's Documentary hypothesis in its classical form. [154]:166 It was also influenced by New Criticism which saw each literary work as a freestanding whole with intrinsic meaning. [9]:204,217 Astruc believed that, through this approach, he had identified the separate sources that were edited together into the book of Genesis. If there is no original text, the entire purpose of textual criticism is called into question. [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). All together, these various methods of biblical criticism permanently changed how people understood and saw the Bible. Contents 1 Aesthetic criticism. [46] Schweitzer revolutionized New Testament scholarship at the turn of the century by proving to most of that scholarly world that the teachings and actions of Jesus were determined by his eschatological outlook; he thereby finished the quest's pursuit of the apocalyptic Jesus. Thomas Rmer questions the assumption that form reflects any socio-historical reality; Such is the question asked by Won Lee: "one wonders whether Gunkel's form criticism is still viable today". [4]:21, Around the midcentury point the denominational composition of biblical critics began to change. 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. This eschatological approach to understanding Jesus has since become universal in modern biblical criticism. Many variants are simple misspellings or mis-copying. [58] New historicism, a literary theory that views history through literature, also developed. [200]:288, Postmodern biblical criticism began after the 1940s and 1950s when the term postmodern came into use to signify a rejection of modern conventions. In general, there are four types of Bible commentaries, each useful for the intended purpose to aid in the study of Scripture. [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. It analyzes the social and cultural dimensions of the text and its environmental context. Thus, we may say that the Bible itself may help to retrieve the notion of a sacred text. [176][36]:99,100, but also took a more moderate line than his predecessor, allowing Lagrange to return to Jerusalem and reopen his school and journal. [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. [40] William Wrede (18591906) rejected all the theological aspects of Jesus and asserted that the "messianic secret" of Jesus as Messiah emerged only in the early community and did not come from Jesus himself. In the encyclical, Leo XIII excluded the possibility of restricting the inspiration and inerrancy of the bible to matters of faith and morals. Traditionally, the Church has used the four senses of Scripture to interpret the Bible: literal, christological, moral, and anagogical. Culturally, society has plunged headlong into radical pluralism. The 'ideal' of higher criticism, originally, was to study the Bible without biasand there's nothing wrong with thatin theory. This is called the synoptic problem, and explaining it is the single greatest dilemma of New Testament source criticism. Higher criticism is an umbrella term that encompasses the more sophisticated types of biblical criticism, such as source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism. 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. Scholars continue to discuss and debate the evidence for variants of all kinds. to be the most primitive in style and therefore the oldest. [38]:25,27 He saw Christianity as something that 'superseded' all that came before it. another term for biblical exegesis. There are five highly detailed arguments in favor of Q's existence: the verbal agreement of Mark and Luke, the order of the parables, the doublets, a discrepancy in the priorities of each gospel, and each one's internal coherence. For example, Psalm 8 is a hymn that begins, "Lord, our Lord, / how majestic is your name in all the earth!" (verse 1). [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. See also: Biblical Errancy. Higher criticism. The book was culturally significant because it contributed to weakening church authority, and it was theologically significant because it challenged the divinity of Christ. [13]:46[27]:2326 His work also showed biblical criticism could serve its own ends, be governed solely by rational criteria, and reject deference to religious tradition. These types of criticisms assume that people agree that there is a reality which is beyond personal experience. [45]:10, The Old Quest was not considered closed until Albert Schweitzer (18751965) wrote Von Reimarus zu Wrede which was published in English as The Quest of the Historical Jesus in 1910. [18] British deism was also an influence on the philosopher and writer Hermann Samuel Reimarus (16941768) in developing his criticism of revelation. Say scribe 'A' makes a mistake and scribe 'B' does not. [7], Jean Astruc (16841766), a French physician, believed these critics were wrong about Mosaic authorship. [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. Form criticism then theorizes concerning the individual pericope's Sitz im Leben ("setting in life" or "place in life"). 1956) calls this periodization "untenable and belied by all of the pertinent facts",[25]:697,698 arguing that people were searching for the historical Jesus before Reimarus, and that there never has been a period when scholars weren't doing so. Different types of criticism: constructive criticism. The letter gave the first formal authorization for the use of critical methods in biblical scholarship. [140]:336 The evangelist's theology more likely depends on what the gospels have in common as well as their differences. and M.A. . [11]:6 Rationalism also became a significant influence:[12][13]:8,224 Swiss theologian Jean Alphonse Turretin (16711737) is an example of the "moderate rationalism" of the era. Tylor's theory had, in the meantime, been picked up and used in other fields beyond anthropology. [32]:38, One can see the Supplementary hypothesis as yet another evolution of Wellhausen's theory that solidified in the 1970s. The term "biblical criticism" refers to the process of establishing the plain meaning of biblical texts and of assessing their historical accuracy. HIGHER CRITICISM is a term applied to a type of biblical studies that emerged in mostly German academic circles in the late eighteenth century, blossomed in English-speaking academies during the nineteenth, and faded out in the early twentieth. Biblical scholar B.H. Streeter used this insight to refine and expand the two-source theory into a four-source theory in 1925. The rise of redaction criticism closed this debate by bringing about a greater emphasis on diversity. [11]:214, Communications scholar James A. Herrick (b. It has often been used in attempts to categorize the supposed sources within the Torah or Books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy . Fundamentalism began, at least partly, as a response to the biblical criticism of nineteenth century liberalism. 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". [140]:336 Harrington says, "over-theologizing, allegorizing, and psychologizing are the major pitfalls encountered" in redaction criticism. [194]:56 It has a focus on the indigenous and local with an eye toward recovering those aspects of culture that Colonialism had erased or suppressed. (As a comparison, the next best-sourced ancient text is the Iliad, presumably written by the ancient Greek Homer in the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, which survives in more than 1,900 manuscripts, though many are of a fragmentary nature. Yet any of these principlesand their conclusionscan be contested. 1. [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. [171] Similarly, the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius ("Son of God"), approved by the First Vatican Council in 1871, rejected biblical criticism, reaffirming that the Bible was written by God and that it was inerrant. [203]:119 Subject matter is identical to verbal meaning and is found in plot and nowhere else. Proponents of this view assert three sources for the Pentateuch: the Deuteronomist as the oldest source, the Elohist as the central core document, with a number of fragments or independent sources as the third. [35]:89 According to Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, "One of the most striking features of the development of biblical interpretation during the nineteenth century was the way in which philosophical presuppositions implicitly guided it". Higher criticism: the study of the sources and literary methods employed by the biblical authors. 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 . His disciples then stole the body and invented the story of the resurrection for personal gain. What is it called to study the Bible? [45]:10 Bultmann had claimed that, since the gospel writers wrote theology, their writings could not be considered history, but Ksemann reasoned that one does not necessarily preclude the other. [2]:119,120 So biblical criticism became, in the perception of many, an assault on religion, especially Christianity, through the "autonomy of reason" which it espoused. [71] While scholars rarely agree about what is known or unknown about the historical Jesus, according to Witherington, scholars do agree that "the historic questions should not be dodged". [187]:213 In the early twentieth century, historical criticism of the Pentateuch became mainstream among Jewish scholars. He says all Bible readings are contextual, in that readers bring with them their own context: perceptions and experiences harvested from social and cultural situations. Tradition played a central role in their task of producing a standard version of the Hebrew Bible. What are the four types of biblical criticism? It can be said to have begun in 1957 when literary critic Northrop Frye wrote an analysis of the Bible from the perspective of his literary background by using literary criticism to understand the Bible forms.
