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. 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". During the latter half of the twentieth century, field studies of cultures with existing oral traditions directly impacted many of these presuppositions. [27]:25,26 Reimarus's writings, on the other hand, did have a long-term effect. 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. Scholars began writing in their common languages making their works available to a larger public.[14]. [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 is an umbrella term covering various techniques used mainly by mainline and liberal Christian . In 1974, Hans Frei pointed out that a historical focus neglects the "narrative character" of the gospels. For others biblical criticism "proved to be a failure, due principally to the assumption that diachronic, linear research could master any and all of the questions and problems attendant on interpretation". These new points of view created awareness that the Bible can be rationally interpreted from many different perspectives. Turretin believed that the Bible was divine revelation, but insisted that revelation must be consistent with nature and in harmony with reason, "For God who is the author of revelation is likewise the author of reason". [147]:156, Rhetorical criticism is also a type of literary criticism. If the encrustations can be scraped away, the good stuff may still be there. Yet according to Sanders, "we know quite a lot" about Jesus. This theory argues that fragments of documents rather than continuous, coherent documents are the sources for the Pentateuch. [4]:21,22, In the Enlightenment era of the European West, philosophers and theologians such as Thomas Hobbes (15881679), Benedict Spinoza (16321677), and Richard Simon (16381712) began to question the long-established Judeo-Christian tradition that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch. [51] Bultmann claimed myths are "true" anthropologically and existentially but not cosmologically. [4]:82, Many insights in understanding the Bible that began in the nineteenth century continue to be discussed in the twenty-first; in some areas of study, such as linguistic tools, scholars merely appropriate earlier work, while in others they "continue to suppose they can produce something new and better". This indicates additional separate sources for Matthew and for Luke. The biblical scholar Hans Frei wrote that what he refers to as the "realistic narratives" of literature, including the Bible, don't allow for such separation. [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. 3 Factual 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. [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). Historical-biblical criticism includes a wide range of approaches and questions within four major methodologies: textual, source, form, and literary criticism. It became both longer and shorter, both more and less detailed, and both more and less Semitic". -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 [107]:15 As Nicholson says: "it is in sharp declinesome would say in a state of advanced rigor mortisand new solutions are being argued and urged in its place". [157]:121 He compares biblical criticism to Job, a prophet who destroyed "self-serving visions for the sake of a more honest crossing from the divine textus to the human one". Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. What are the four types of biblical criticism? 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, [152]:3 The New Critics, (whose views were absorbed by narrative criticism), rejected the idea that background information holds the key to the meaning of the text, and asserted that meaning and value reside within the text itself. The process of redaction seeks the historical community of the final redactors of the gospels, though there are often no textual clues. [163]:6[164] "There are those who regard the desacralization of the Bible as the fortunate condition for the rise of new sensibilities and modes of imagination" that went into developing the modern world. While taking a stand against discrimination in society, Semler also wrote theology that was strongly negative toward the Jews and Judaism. This article is about the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document. [113]:86, If this document existed, it has now been lost, but some of its material can be deduced indirectly. This theory uses the initials JEDP to identify what it considers to be four different hands involved in the composition of . [149]:29 Rhetorical criticism is a qualitative analysis. The scientific principles on which modern criticism is based depend in part upon viewing the Bible as a suitable object for literary study, rather than as an exclusively sacred text. [25]:888 It began with the publication of Hermann Samuel Reimarus's work after his death. Wellhausen argued that P had been composed during the exile of the 6th century BCE, under the influence of Ezekiel. The Old and New Testaments were thought to constitute a single story, which was historically accurate and which taught clear lessons for moral practice. "[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. [157]:121 For many, biblical criticism "released a host of threats" to the Christian faith. Further, it is not at all clear whether the difference was made by the evangelist, who could have used the already changed story when writing a gospel. archetypal criticism, cultural criticism, feminist criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, Marxist Criticism, New Criticism (formalism/structuralism), New Historicism, post-structuralism, and reader-response criticism. [174]:18 He recommended that the student of scripture be first given a sound grounding in the interpretations of the Fathers such as Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Augustine and Jerome,[174]:7 and understand what they interpreted literally, and what allegorically; and note what they lay down as belonging to faith and what is opinion. Studies of the literary structure of the Pentateuch have shown J and P used the same structure, and that motifs and themes cross the boundaries of the various sources, which undermines arguments for their separate origins. Tannehill. [99][95]:95 Wellhausen correlated the history and development of those five books with the development of the Jewish faith. [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. He saw it as a "necessary tool to enable intelligent churchgoers" to understand the Bible, and was a pioneer in establishing the final form of the supplementary hypothesis of the documentary hypothesis. [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. [39] In The Essence of Christianity (1900), Adolf Von Harnack (18511930) described Jesus as a reformer. Theological studies is topical. William Robertson Smith (18461894) is an example of a nineteenth century evangelical who believed historical criticism was a legitimate outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation's focus on the biblical text. ", continues to be debated by theologians and historians such as Wolfgang Stegemann[de], Gerd Theissen and Craig S. 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. [167]:29 There have also been conservative Protestants who accepted biblical criticism, and this too is part of biblical criticism's legacy. As such, this A brief treatment of biblical criticism follows. [91], Latin scholar Albert C. Clark challenged Griesbach's view of shorter texts in 1914. [191]:9 Feminist scholars of second-wave feminism appropriated it. [28] Schweitzer records that Semler "rose up and slew Reimarus in the name of scientific theology". 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. [102]:93, Advocates of Wellhausen's hypothesis contend it accounts well for the differences and duplication found in the Pentateuchal books. [142][143]:34 Hans Frei proposed that "biblical narratives should be evaluated on their own terms" rather than by taking them apart in the manner we evaluate philosophy or historicity. [153], Narrative criticism was first used to study the New Testament in the 1970s, with the works of David Rhoads, Jack D. Kingsbury, R. Alan Culpepper, and Robert C. Biblical criticism is the use of critical analysis to understand and explain the Bible. [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. Form criticism then theorizes concerning the individual pericope's Sitz im Leben ("setting in life" or "place in life"). Nearly eighty years later, the theologian and priest James Royse took up the case. [174]:19 Although Providentissimus Deus tried to encourage Catholic biblical studies, it created also problems. [59] Biblical criticism began to apply new literary approaches such as structuralism and rhetorical criticism, which concentrated less on history and more on the texts themselves. No conclusive evidence has yet been produced to settle the question of genre, and without genre, no adequate parallels can be found, and without parallels "it must be considered to what extent the principles of literary criticism are applicable". [165][166]:4 Some fundamentalists believed liberal critics had invented an entirely new religion "completely at odds with the Christian faith". [14]:117 117,149150,188191, George Ricker Berry says the term "higher criticism", which is sometimes used as an alternate name for historical criticism, was first used by Eichhorn in his three-volume work Einleitung ins Alte Testament (Introduction to the Old Testament) published between 1780 and 1783. 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. [149]:29 In that essay, Wichelns says that rhetorical criticism and other types of literary criticism differ from each other because rhetorical criticism is only concerned with "effect. [187]:215 According to Aly Elrefaei, the strongest refutation of Wellhausen's Documentary theory came from Yehezkel Kaufmann in 1937. Daniel J. Harrington defines biblical criticism as "the effort at using scientific criteria (historical and literary) and human reason to understand and explain, as objectively as possible, the meaning intended by the biblical writers. [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. Newer methods brought about by the globalization of biblical studies and by concerns with the 'world in front of the text' - like new historicism, feminist criticism, postcolonial/liberationist criticism, and rhetorical criticism - are well represented in the series. The Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible), and the New Testament, as distinct bodies of literature, each raise their own problems of interpretation - the two are therefore generally studied separately. Fundamentalism began, at least partly, as a response to the biblical criticism of nineteenth century liberalism. [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. [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. 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". Many variants are simple misspellings or mis-copying. [97]:62[98]:5 Old Testament scholar Karl Graf (18151869) suggested an additional priestly source in 1866; by 1878, Wellhausen had incorporated this source, P, into his theory, which is thereafter sometimes referred to as the GrafWellhausen hypothesis. [203]:120. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [138]:99[139] Redaction critics reject source and form criticism's description of the Bible texts as mere collections of fragments. Anders Gerdmar[de] uses the legal meaning of emancipation, as in free to be an adult on their own recognizance, when he says the "process of the emancipation of reason from the Bible runs parallel with the emancipation of Christianity from the Jews". 5 Negative criticism. Most scholars agree that this indicates Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke. [105]:95 It has been criticized for its dating of the sources, and for assuming that the original sources were coherent or complete documents. [187]:213 In the early twentieth century, historical criticism of the Pentateuch became mainstream among Jewish scholars. biblical "criticism" does not mean "criticizing" the text (i.e. Criticism by outsiders accused the phenomenon as manufactured emotionalism and sensationalism. The rapid development of philology in the 19th century together with archaeological discoveries of the 20th century revolutionized biblical criticism. In general, there are four types of Bible commentaries, each useful for the intended purpose to aid in the study of Scripture. [4]:21 Redaction criticism also began in the mid-twentieth century. [140]:336 Harrington says, "over-theologizing, allegorizing, and psychologizing are the major pitfalls encountered" in redaction criticism. 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, which focuses on the various literary genres embedded in the text in order to uncover evidence concerning date of composition, authorship, and original function of the various types of writing that constitute the Bible, (4) tradition criticism, which attempts to trace the development of the oral traditions that preceded written texts, and (5) form criticism, which classifies the written material according to the preliterary forms, such as parable or hymn. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. 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. [38]:viixiii, The late-nineteenth century saw a renewed interest in the quest for the historical Jesus which primarily involved writing versions of the life of Jesus. and M.A. Keener. Clark responded, but disagreement continued. "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. another term for biblical exegesis. The detailed analysis of biblical books and passages as written texts has benefited from the study of literature in classical philology, ancient rhetoric, and modern literary criticism. [138]:98[13]:181 Form critics saw the synoptic writers as mere collectors and focused on the Sitz im Leben as the creator of the texts, whereas redaction critics have dealt more positively with the Gospel writers, asserting an understanding of them as theologians of the early church. [113]:8587 In 1838, the religious philosopher Christian Hermann Weisse developed a theory about this. (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. Copies of scribe 'A's text with the mistake will thereafter contain that same mistake. [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". [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". This qualitative analysis involves three primary dimensions: (1) analyzing the act of criticism and what it does; (2) analyzing what goes on within the rhetoric being analyzed and what is created by that rhetoric; and (3) understanding the processes involved in all of it. [140]:336 The evangelist's theology more likely depends on what the gospels have in common as well as their differences. [147]:155 (3) Canonical criticism opposes form criticism's isolation of individual passages from their canonical setting. [113]:87 Multiple theories exist to address the dilemma, with none universally agreed upon, but two theories have become predominant: the two-source hypothesis and the four-source hypothesis. The divisions of the New Testament textual families were Alexandrian (also called the "Neutral text"), Western (Latin translations), and Eastern (used by churches centred on Antioch and Constantinople). [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". [168]:140142 Mark Noll says that "in recent years, a steadily growing number of well qualified and widely published scholars have broadened and deepened the impact of evangelical scholarship". "[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. [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. [4]:108, A twentyfirst century view of biblical criticism's origins, that traces it to the Reformation, is a minority position, but the Reformation is the source of biblical criticism's advocacy of freedom from external authority imposing its views on biblical interpretation. [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. [17], Albert Schweitzer in The Quest of the Historical Jesus, acknowledges that Reimarus's work "is a polemic, not an objective historical study", while also referring to it as "a masterpiece of world literature. But Fr. 4 Positive criticism. [96]:19 The validity of using the same critical methods for novels and for the Gospels, without the assurance the Gospels are actually novels, must be questioned. [54]:69[97]:5 These sources are supposed to have been edited together by a late final Redactor (R) who is only imprecisely understood. [178], Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy were the most famous Catholic scholars to apply biblical criticism and the historical-critical method in analyzing the Bible: together, they authored The Jerome Biblical Commentary and The New Jerome Biblical Commentary the later of which is still one of the most used textbooks in Catholic Seminaries of the United States. But if form criticism embodies an essential insight, it will continue. students. [7], Jean Astruc (16841766), a French physician, believed these critics were wrong about Mosaic authorship. [37]:2 African-American biblical criticism is based on liberation theology and black theology, and looks for what is potentially liberating in the texts. [14]:92, Nineteenth-century biblical critics "thought of themselves as continuing the aims of the Protestant Reformation". Meaning, an approach to theological knowledge (found primarily in the Bible) that involves arranging the data into well-ordered categories and . According to Old Testament scholar Edward Young (19071968), Astruc believed that Moses assembled the first book of the Pentateuch, the book of Genesis, using the hereditary accounts of the Hebrew people. [77] Variants are not evenly distributed throughout any set of texts. The bottom line though is that biblical studies focuses on the Bible as a book. It remained the dominant theory until Wilhelm Schmidt produced a study on "native monotheism" in 1912 titled. Biblical scholar Hermann Gunkel's system covers the following categories: Hymns: Many of the psalms are simple hymns or songs of praise. 9 It is no longer acceptable to hold exclusive beliefs. [4]:22, There is no general agreement among scholars on how to periodize the various quests for the historical Jesus. [45]:10, In the early twentieth century, biblical criticism was shaped by two main factors and the clash between them. The student body was hurt by these accusations as it seemed to impugn their motives and sincerity. Higher criticism, whether biblical, classical . 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. Biblical criticism is also known as higher criticism (as opposed to "lower" textual criticism), historical criticism, and the historical-critical method. [1] [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. [45]:12 Paul Montgomery in The New York Times writes that "Through the ages scholars and laymen have taken various positions on the life of Jesus, ranging from total acceptance of the Bible to assertions that Jesus of Nazareth is a creature of myth and never lived. [13]:viiiix, Textual criticism involves examination of the text itself and all associated manuscripts with the aim of determining the original text. Wellhausen's hypothesis, for example, depends upon the notion that polytheism preceded monotheism in Judaism's development. [37]:2, According to Episcopalian priest and queer theologian Patrick S. Cheng (Episcopal Divinity School): "Queer biblical hermeneutics is a way of looking at the sacred text through the eyes of queer people. [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. [2]:31 Biblical critics used the same scientific methods and approaches to history as their secular counterparts and emphasized reason and objectivity. 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. It does not mean the same thing as a complaint or disapproval. Meanwhile, post-modernism and post-critical interpretation began questioning whether biblical criticism had a role and function at all. [201]:73 Many of these early postmodernist views came from France following World War II. Thus, the geographical labels should be used with caution; some scholars prefer to refer to the text types as "textual clusters" instead. [160] Part of the legacy of biblical criticism is that, as it rose, it led to the decline of biblical authority. "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". [135][130]:278. [145]:4 Canonical criticism does not reject historical criticism, but it does reject its claim to "unique validity". By the end of the nineteenth century, these principles were recognized by Ernst Troeltsch in an essay, Historical and Dogmatic Method in Theology, where he described three principles of biblical criticism: methodological doubt (a way of searching for certainty by doubting everything); analogy (the idea that we understand the past by relating it to our present); and mutual inter-dependence (every event is related to events that proceeded it). [32]:38, One can see the Supplementary hypothesis as yet another evolution of Wellhausen's theory that solidified in the 1970s. "[T]his question affects our innermost cultural being and traces our relationship to the foundational text of our religious and cultural origins". [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". According to Spinoza: "All these details, the manner of narration, the testimony, and the context of the whole story lead to the plain conclusion that these books were written by another, and not by Moses in person". [129]:15 Two concerns give it its value: concern for the nature of the text and for its shape and structure. [47]:1318 In 1974, the theologian Hans Frei published The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, which became a landmark work leading to the development of post-critical interpretation. Lower criticism is an attempt to find the original wording of the text since we no longer have the original writings. [145]:4 Brevard S. Childs (19232007) proposed an approach to bridge that gap that came to be called canonical criticism. [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. ", "Truth or Meaning: Ricoeur versus Frei on Biblical Narrative".