what are the four types of biblical criticism

Biblical criticism can be broken into two major forms: higher and lower criticism. 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. Corrections? June 3, 2015 by Roger E. Olson. Wellhausen's and Kaufmann's methods were similar yet their conclusions were opposed. [143]:8,9 Critics of rhetorical analysis say there is a "lack of a well-developed methodology" and that it has a "tendency to be nothing more than an exercise in stylistics". [149]:ix,9, Biblical rhetorical criticism makes use of understanding the "forms, genres, structures, stylistic devices and rhetorical techniques" common to the Near Eastern literature of the different ages when the separate books of biblical literature were written. 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". "[1] The original biblical criticism has been mostly defined by its historical concerns. Historical-biblical criticism includes a wide range of approaches and questions within four major methodologies: textual, source, form, and literary criticism. [155], Ken and Richard Soulen say that "biblical criticism has permanently altered the way people understand the Bible". Higher criticism is an umbrella term that encompasses the more sophisticated types of biblical criticism, such as source criticism, form criticism, and redaction 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. Many like Roy A. Harrisville believe biblical criticism was created by those hostile to the Bible. [52] As a major proponent of form criticism, Bultmann "set the agenda for a subsequent generation of leading NT [New Testament] scholars". [45]:10, In the early twentieth century, biblical criticism was shaped by two main factors and the clash between them. [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. [169] In his 1829 encyclical Traditi humilitati, Pope Pius VIII lashed against "those who publish the Bible with new interpretations contrary to the Church's laws", arguing that they were "skillfully distort[ing] the meaning by their own interpretation", in order to "ensure that the reader imbibes their lethal poison instead of the saving water of salvation". By the Middle Ages, these four methods of interpretation (or 'senses') had become fairly . [191]:11 Feminist theology has since responded to globalization, making itself less specifically Western, thereby moving beyond its original narrative "as a movement defined by the USA". This theory uses the initials JEDP to identify what it considers to be four different hands involved in the composition of . Biblical criticism is also known as higher criticism (as opposed to "lower" textual criticism), historical criticism, and the historical-critical method. 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. Some of these verses are verbatim. 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. Unfortunately, due to the antisupernatural presup-positions of many prominent biblical scholars in the last 250 years, bib-lical criticism has gotten a bad name. [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. The Hebrew text they produced stabilized by the end of the second century, and has come to be known as the Masoretic text, the source of the Christian Old Testament. [38]:39,40 This stark contrast between Judaism and Christianity produced increasingly antisemitic sentiments. Contextual methods emphasize the context of the reader. Literary criticism also offers many possibilities for enriching the devotional and . [25]:34, After 1970, biblical criticism began to change radically and pervasively. Biblical criticism is also known as higher criticism (as opposed to "lower" textual criticism), historical criticism, and the historical-critical method. Notes: Required of M.Div. [185] Some Jewish scholars, such as rabbinicist Solomon Schechter, did not participate in biblical criticism because they saw criticism of the Pentateuch as a threat to Jewish identity. [187]:215 According to Aly Elrefaei, the strongest refutation of Wellhausen's Documentary theory came from Yehezkel Kaufmann in 1937. [145]:4 Canonical criticism does not reject historical criticism, but it does reject its claim to "unique validity". His disciples then stole the body and invented the story of the resurrection for personal gain. [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. HIGHER CRITICISM. The situation precipitated after the election of Pope Pius X: a staunch traditionalist, Pius saw biblical criticism as part of a growing destructive modernist tendency in the Church. The term was originally used to differentiate higher criticism, the term for historical criticism, from lower, which was the term commonly used for textual criticism at the time. [note 8] Bible scholar Tony Campbell says: Form criticism had a meteoric rise in the early part of the twentieth century and fell from favor toward its end. [159], Fishbane asserts that the significant question for those who continue in any community of Jewish or Christian faith is, after 200 years of biblical criticism: can the text still be seen as sacred? What are the five basic types of biblical criticism? Emendation is the attempt to eliminate the errors which are found even in the best manuscripts. Form criticism then theorizes concerning the individual pericope's Sitz im Leben ("setting in life" or "place in life"). [54]:69[97]:5 These sources are supposed to have been edited together by a late final Redactor (R) who is only imprecisely understood. [13]:4648 Reimarus's central question, "How political was Jesus? Form criticism identifies short units of text seeking the setting of their origination. [187]:218 In 1905, Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann wrote an extensive, two-volume, philologically based critique of the Wellhausen theory, which supported Jewish orthodoxy. [138]:98 As in source criticism, it is necessary to identify the traditions before determining how the redactor used them. G. E. Lessing (17291781) claimed to have discovered copies of Reimarus's writings in the library at Wolfenbttel when he was the librarian there. 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. [101], Later scholars added to and refined Wellhausen's theory. 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. It remained the dominant theory until Wilhelm Schmidt produced a study on "native monotheism" in 1912 titled. [2]:31 Biblical critics used the same scientific methods and approaches to history as their secular counterparts and emphasized reason and objectivity. Meaning, an approach to theological knowledge (found primarily in the Bible) that involves arranging the data into well-ordered categories and . "[70], Sanders explains that, because of the desire to know everything about Jesus, including his thoughts and motivations, and because there are such varied conclusions about him, it seems to many scholars that it is impossible to be certain about anything. 4. It became both longer and shorter, both more and less detailed, and both more and less Semitic". [121]:243 Hermann Gunkel (18621932) and Martin Dibelius (18831947) built from this insight and pioneered form criticism. Expository Expository commentaries are typically written by pastors and expository Bible teachers who teach verse by verse through the Bible. [22]:298 A similar view was later advocated by the Primitive Methodist biblical scholar A. S. Peake (18651929). Diagram showing the authors and editors of the Pentateuch (Torah) according to the. Herrick references the German theologian Henning Graf Reventlow (19292010) as linking deism with the humanist world view, which has been significant in biblical criticism. The errancy of the Bible, the fact of no extant originals, the compilation and inclusion of the books of the Bible are almost never discussed from the Pulpit, leaving the ordinary Christian in the dark. Redaction criticism later developed as a derivative of both source and form criticism. In so far as it depends on the use of Mark and Q by Matthew and Luke, the second is circular and therefore questionable. A brief treatment of biblical criticism follows. [58] New historicism, a literary theory that views history through literature, also developed. [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. Some variants represent a scribal attempt to simplify or harmonize, by changing a word or a phrase. 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. [32]:23 In 1835, and again in 1845, theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur postulated the apostles Peter and Paul had an argument that led to a split between them thereby influencing the mode of Christianity that followed. He identified four ways in which the Bible could be understood: the literal, the symbolic, the ethical and the mystical. The bottom line though is that biblical studies focuses on the Bible as a book. 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. 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. [4]:21 Redaction criticism also began in the mid-twentieth century. 20. 4 Positive criticism. [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. [49][50] Demythologizing refers to the reinterpretation of the biblical myths (stories) in terms of the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger (18891976). [33]:286287 Albrecht Ritschl's challenge to orthodox atonement theory continues to influence Christian thought. II. Early modern biblical studies were customarily divided into two branches. [182][183] Meier is also the author of a multi-volume work on the historical Jesus, A Marginal Jew. [14]:xiii For example, some modern histories of Israel include historical biblical research from the nineteenth century. Literary criticism, which emerged in the twentieth century, differed from these earlier methods. [60] In the 1970s, the New Testament scholar E. P. Sanders (b. [113]:8587 In 1838, the religious philosopher Christian Hermann Weisse developed a theory about this. [124]:296298 In 1978, research by linguists Milman Parry and Albert Bates Lord was used to undermine Gunkel's belief that "short narratives evolved into longer cycles". Both forms of historical criticism . Contents 1 Aesthetic criticism. Viviano says: "While source criticism has always had its detractors, the past few decades have witnessed an escalation in the level of dissatisfaction". [122]:10 Within these oral cultures, literacy did not replace memory in a natural evolution. Recension is the selection of the most trustworthy evidence on which to base a text. [124]:298[note 6], Scholars from the 1970s and into the 1990s, produced an "explosion of studies" on structure, genre, text-type, setting and language that challenged several of form criticism's aspects and assumptions. [76], The exact number of variants is disputed, but the more texts survive, the more likely there will be variants of some kind. 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. It "rejects both traditional historicism's marginalization of literature and New Criticism's enshrinement of the literary text in a timeless dimension beyond history". 1. [129]:15 Two concerns give it its value: concern for the nature of the text and for its shape and structure. [203]:119 Subject matter is identical to verbal meaning and is found in plot and nowhere else. [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. German pietism played a role in its development, as did British deism, with its greatest influences being rationalism and Protestant scholarship. [203]:120. [17]:13, The biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis (17171791) advocated the use of other Semitic languages in addition to Hebrew to understand the Old Testament, and in 1750, wrote the first modern critical introduction to the New Testament. Biblical studies is the study of the Bible. Why is archetypal criticism used? [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. [81]:213 Clark's claims were criticized by those who supported Griesbach's principles. "Higher" criticism is used in contrast with Lower criticism (or textual criticism), whose goal is to determine the original form of a text from among the variants. [25]:698,699, In 1953, Ernst Ksemann (19061998), gave a famous lecture before the Old Marburgers, his former colleagues at the University of Marburg, where he had studied under Bultmann. [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. [32]:38, One can see the Supplementary hypothesis as yet another evolution of Wellhausen's theory that solidified in the 1970s. [147]:155 (3) Canonical criticism opposes form criticism's isolation of individual passages from their canonical setting. [25]:34 This quest focused largely on the teachings of Jesus as interpreted by existentialist philosophy. [87][88][89] It uses specialized methodologies, enough specialized terms to create its own lexicon,[90] and is guided by a number of principles. [102]:32 This accounts for diversity but not structural and chronological consistency. [81]:205 Sorting out the wealth of source material is complex, so textual families were sorted into categories tied to geographical areas. Browse the Bookstore for books on biblical criticism and biblical errancy. [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. [38]:228 Supersessionism, instead of the more traditional millennialism, became a common theme in Johann Gottfried Herder (17441803), Friedrich Schleiermacher (17681834), Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (17801849), Ferdinand Christian Baur (17921860), David Strauss (18081874), Albrecht Ritschl (18221889), the history of religions school of the 1890s, and on into the form critics of the twentieth century until World War II. This backlash produced a fierce internal battle for control of local churches, national denominations, divinity schools and seminaries. 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. While form criticism had divided the text into small units, redaction emphasized the literary integrity of the larger literary units instead. [4]:21,22, One legacy of biblical criticism in American culture is the American fundamentalist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. This "leads naturally to a second indictment against biblical criticism: that it is the preserve of a small coterie of people in the rich Western world, trying to legislate for how the vast mass of humanity ought to read the Bible. Right is now wrong, and wrong is right. . [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. [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, discipline that studies textual, compositional, and historical questions surrounding the Old and New Testaments. 5. another term for biblical exegesis. The ramifications of postmodernism have been catastrophic not only in hermeneutics but across society. 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. 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. "[It] is safe to conclude that in many measurable features contemporary evangelical scholarship on the scriptures enjoys a considerable good health". This has revealed that the Gospels are both products of sources and sources themselves. Thus, he explicitly condemned it in the papal syllabus Lamentabili sane exitu ("With truly lamentable results") and in his papal encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis ("Feeding the Lord's Flock"), which labelled it as heretical. 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. [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. [133]:46 New Testament scholar N. T. Wright says, "The earliest traditions of Jesus reflected in the Gospels are written from the perspective of Second Temple Judaism [and] must be interpreted from the standpoint of Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism". 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. Grade Mode: A . Understanding and evaluating modern critical approaches to the study of the Old Testament can be a very real problem for any theological student; however, for the evangelical student, committed to the belief that the Bible is the Word of God, the problems raised are manifold. [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. [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. [152]:4 It is now accepted as "axiomatic in literary circles that the meaning of literature transcends the historical intentions of the author". [147]:156 (5) "Canonical criticism is overtly theological in its approach". The amendment has a basis in the text, which is believed to be corrupted, but is nevertheless a matter of personal judgment. [154]:166 Scholars such as Robert Alter and Frank Kermode sought to teach readers to "appreciate the Bible itself by training attention on its artfulnesshow [the text] orchestrates sound, repetition, dialogue, allusion, and ambiguity to generate meaning and effect". [195], Michael Joseph Brown writes that African Americans responded to the assumption of universality in biblical criticism by challenging it. [141] Mark Goodacre says "Some scholars have used the success of redaction criticism as a means of supporting the existence of Q, but this will always tend toward circularity, particularly given the hypothetical nature of Q which itself is reconstructed by means of redaction criticism". [8] Biblical criticism is often said to have begun when Astruc borrowed methods of textual criticism (used to investigate Greek and Roman texts) and applied them to the Bible in search of those original accounts. The trouble, as always, came with human execution. [24]:140, The first quest for the historical Jesus is also sometimes referred to as the Old Quest. [13]:viiiix, Textual criticism involves examination of the text itself and all associated manuscripts with the aim of determining the original text. 2 Logical criticism. biblical "criticism" does not mean "criticizing" the text (i.e. Nearly eighty years later, the theologian and priest James Royse took up the case. [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. Critics began asking if these texts should be understood on their own terms before being used as evidence of something else. [43] While at Gttingen, Johannes Weiss (18631914) wrote his most influential work on the apocalyptic proclamations of Jesus. [157]:121 For many, biblical criticism "released a host of threats" to the Christian faith. [127]:42,70[note 7] For example, the period of the twentieth century dominated by form criticism is marked by Bultmann's extreme skepticism concerning what can be known about the historical Jesus and his sayings. Different types of criticism: constructive criticism. Biblical criticism The word criticism does not mean to be negative or critical of the bible but rather refers to the application of scholarly methods and approaches to study, analyze, and interpret biblical texts. 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. Not only has such criticism detached the Bible from believing communities, it has also appropriated it for a particular group: namely white, male, Western scholars". [189]:8 Kaufmann was the first Jewish scholar to fully exploit higher criticism to counter Wellhausen's theory. The first article labeled narrative criticism was "Narrative Criticism and the Gospel of Mark," published in 1982 by Bible scholar David Rhoads. Arlington, Virginia. By the end of the eighteenth century, advanced liberals had abandoned the core of Christian beliefs. ", continues to be debated by theologians and historians such as Wolfgang Stegemann[de], Gerd Theissen and Craig S. In the end, Kuphaldt concludes that "God" was only an imaginary friend. [154]:167 Stephen D. Moore has written that "as a term, narrative criticism originated within biblical studies", but its method was borrowed from narratology. During the eighteenth century, when it began as historical-biblical criticism, it was based on two distinguishing characteristics: (1) the scientific concern to avoid dogma and bias by applying a neutral, non-sectarian, reason-based judgment to the study of the Bible, and (2) the belief that the reconstruction of the historical events behind the texts, as well as the history of how the texts themselves developed, would lead to a correct understanding of the Bible. 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. 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". In the encyclical, Leo XIII excluded the possibility of restricting the inspiration and inerrancy of the bible to matters of faith and morals. For this reason Armerding's work . Destructive criticism on the other hand . What are the four types of criticism? [138]:100, Followers of other theories concerning the Synoptic problem, such as those who support the Greisbach hypothesis which says Matthew was written first, Luke second, and Mark third, have pointed to weaknesses in the redaction-based arguments for the existence of Q and Markan priority. [24]:820, Redaction critics assume an extreme skepticism toward the historicity of Jesus and the gospels, just as form critics do, which has been seen by some scholars as a bias. [190] For example, the patriarchal model of ancient Israel became an aspect of biblical criticism through the anthropology of the nineteenth century. Biblical criticism lays the groundwork for meaningful interpretation of the Bible. 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, This statement reveals just how [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". https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-criticism, The Catholic Encyclopedia - Biblical Criticism. [158][156]:9 Soulen adds that biblical criticism's "leading practitioners have set standards of industry, acumen, and insight that remain pace-setting today. Wellhausen argued that P had been composed during the exile of the 6th century BCE, under the influence of Ezekiel. For example, Psalm 8 is a hymn that begins, "Lord, our Lord, / how majestic is your name in all the earth!" (verse 1). 1937) advanced the New Perspective on Paul, which has greatly influenced scholarly views on the relationship between Pauline Christianity and Jewish Christianity in the Pauline epistles. It is important to understand the meaning of these terms in relation to the exegetical process. 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. 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.

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