Historical criticism in Bible studies Totally Explained

Everything about Historical-critical Method totally explained

Historical criticism or Higher criticism as applied in biblical studies, is a branch of literary analysis that investigates the origins of a text, especially the books of the Bible. Higher criticism, in particular, focuses on the sources of a document to determine who wrote it, when it was written, and where. For example, higher criticism deals with the synoptic problem, the question of how Matthew, Mark, and Luke relate to each other. In some cases, such as with several Pauline epistles, higher criticism confirms the traditional understanding of authorship. In other cases, higher criticism contradicts church tradition (as with the gospels) or even the words of the Bible itself (as with 2 Peter). The documentary hypothesis, which attempts to chart the origins of the Torah, is another key issue in higher criticism.
   The Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466? - 1536) is usually credited as the first to study the Bible in this light, although many of his methods are also found in the much earlier writing of Saint Augustine (354 - 430).
Higher criticism is used in contrast with Lower criticism (or textual criticism), the endeavour to determine what a text originally said before it was altered (through error or intent). Once lower critics have done their job and we've a good idea of what the original text looked like, higher critics can then compare this text with the writing of other authors.
   Higher criticism treats the Bible as a text created by human beings at a particular historical time and for various human motives, in contrast with the treatment of the Bible as the inerrant word of God. Lower criticism is used for attempts to interpret Biblical texts based only on the internal evidence from the texts themselves.
   As an example, consider the treatment of Noah's Ark in various editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the first edition, in 1771, the story of Noah and the Ark is treated as essentially factual, and the following scientific evidence is offered, "...Buteo and Kircher have proved geometrically, that, taking the common cubit as a foot and a half, the ark was abundantly sufficient for all the animals supposed to be lodged in it..., the number of species of animals will be found much less than is generally imagined, not amounting to an hundred species of quadrupeds... ." By the eighth edition, however, the encyclopedia says of the Noah story, "The insuperable difficulties connected with the belief that all other existing species of animals were provided for in the ark are obviated by adopting the suggestion of Bishop Stillingfleet, approved by Matthew Poole...and others, that the Deluge didn't extend beyond the region of the earth then inhabited..." By the ninth edition, in 1875, there's no attempt to reconcile the Noah story with scientific fact, and it's presented without comment. In the 1960 edition, in the article Ark, we find the following, "Before the days of "higher criticism" and the rise of the modern scientific views as to the origin of the species, there was much discussion among the learned, and many ingenious and curious theories were advanced, as to the number of animals on the ark..."

History of Higher criticism

   The phrase "the higher criticism" became popular in Europe from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century, to describe the work of such scholars as Jean Astruc (mid-18th cent.), Johann Salomo Semler (1725-91), Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827), Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), and Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918). In academic circles today, this is the body of work properly considered "the higher criticism", though the phrase is sometimes applied to earlier or later work using similar methods.
   Higher criticism originally referred to the work of German Biblical scholars, of the Tübingen School. After the path-breaking work on the New Testament by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), the next generation which included scholars such as David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72) in the mid-nineteenth century analyzed the historical records of the Middle East from Christian and Old Testament times in search of independent confirmation of events related in the Bible. These latter scholars built on the tradition of Enlightenment and Rationalist thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Gotthold Lessing, Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Hegel and the French rationalists.
   These ideas were imported to England by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and, in particular, by George Eliot's translations of Strauss's Life of Jesus (1846) and Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). In 1860 seven liberal Anglican theologians began the process of incorporating this historical criticism into Christian doctrine in Essays and Reviews, causing a five year storm of controversy which completely overshadowed the arguments over Darwin's newly published On the Origin of Species. Two of the authors were indicted for heresy and lost their jobs by 1862, but in 1864 had the judgement overturned on appeal. La Vie de Jésus (1863), the seminal work by a Frenchman, Ernest Renan (1823–92), continued in the same tradition as Strauss and Feuerbach. In Catholicism, L'Evangile et l'Eglise (1902), the magnum opus by Alfred Loisy against the Essence of Christianity of Adolf von Harnack and La Vie de Jesus of Renan, gave birth to the modernist crisis (1902–61). Some scholars, such as Rudolf Bultmann, have used higher criticism of the Bible to "demythologize" it.

Theological responses

The questions of higher criticism are widely recognized by Orthodox Jews and many traditional Christians as legitimate questions, yet they often find the answers given by the higher critics unsatisfactory or even heretical. In particular, religious conservatives object to the rationalistic and naturalistic presuppositions of a large number of practitioners of higher criticism that lead to conclusions that conservative religionists find unacceptable. Nonetheless, conservative Bible scholars practice their own form of higher criticism within their supernaturalist and confessional frameworks. In contrast, other biblical scholars believe that the evidence uncovered by higher criticism undermines such confessional frameworks. In addition, religiously liberal Christians and religiously liberal Jews typically maintain that belief in God has nothing to do with the authorship of the Pentateuch. Most serious Christian scholars accept many of the methods and conclusions that were so shocking when they were first introduced.

Roman Catholic view

Pope Leo XIII (1810 - 1903) condemned secular biblical scholarship in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus;, but in 1943 Pope Pius XII gave license to the new scholarship in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu: "[T]extual criticism ... [is] quite rightly employed in the case of the Sacred Books ... Let the interpreter then, with all care and without neglecting any light derived from recent research, endeavor to determine the peculiar character and circumstances of the sacred writer, the age in which he lived, the sources written or oral to which he'd recourse and the forms of expression he employed." Today the modern Catechism states: "#110 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."

Protestant Christian view

Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation, believed strongly in the literal truth of scripture. He wrote, "All the articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His Word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd and false." But at other times, he accepted the authority of reason, so long as it didn't contradict scripture. "Unless I'm convicted by the testimony of Sacred Scripture or by evident reason... my conscience is captive to the Word of God." He even used some of the methods that would later be called "higher criticism" in his study of the Bible. He wrote, "The discourses of the Prophets were none of them regularly committed to writing at the time; their disciples and hearers collected them subsequently. ... Solomon's Proverbs were not the work of Solomon."
   Around the end of the 18th century Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, "the founder of modern Old Testament criticism", produced works of "investigation of the inner nature of the Old Testament with the help of the Higher Criticism". Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher also influenced the development of Higher Criticism.
   A group of German biblical scholars at Tübingen University formed the Tübingen school of theology under the leadership of Ferdinand Christian Baur, with important works being produced by Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach and David Strauss. In the early 19th century they sought independent confirmation of the events related in the Bible through Hegelian analysis of the historical records of the Middle East from Christian and Old Testament times.
   Their ideas were brought to England by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, then in 1846 George Eliot translated David Strauss's sensational Leben Jesu as the Life of Jesus Critically Examined, a quest for the historical Jesus. In 1854 she followed this with a translation of Feuerbach's even more radical Essence of Christianity which held that the idea of God was created by man to express the divine within himself, though Strauss attracted most of the controversy.
   Today, some Protestants oppose the methods of the higher criticism, and hold that the Bible is divinely inspired and incapable of error, at least in its original form.

Types of higher criticism

Higher criticism is divided up into sub-categories, including primarily source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism.

Source criticism

Richard Simon, and its most influential product is undoubtably Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1878), whose "insight and clarity of expression have left their mark indelibly on modern biblical studies."

Redaction criticism

Redaction criticism studies "the collection, arrangement, editing and modification of sources", and is frequently used to reconstruct the community and purposes of the author/s of the text.

Form criticism and tradition history

Form criticism breaks the Bible down into sections (pericopes, stories) which are analyzed and categorized by genres (prose or verse, letters, laws, court archives, war hymns, poems of lament, etc). The form critic then theorizes on the pericope's Sitz im Leben ("setting in life"), the setting in which it was composed and, especially, used. Tradition history is a specific aspect of form criticism which aims at tracing the way in which the pericopes entered the larger units of the biblical canon, and especially the way in which they made the transition from oral to written form. The belief in the priority, stability, and even detectability, of oral traditions is now recognised to be so deeply questionable as to render tradition history largely useless, but form criticism itself continues to develop as a viable methodolgy in biblical studies.

Radical criticism

Radical Criticism, around the end of the nineteenth century, typically tried to show that none of the Pauline epistles are authentic; that Paul is nothing but a controverted authorial token. This group of scholars often postulated the ahistoricity of Jesus and the apostles.

Findings of higher criticism

Scholars of higher criticism have sometimes upheld and sometimes challenged the traditional authorship of various books of the Bible.

Old Testament

Book	Author according to tradition	Author according to scholarship
Torah (Pentateuch, Books of Moses)	Moses, c 1300 BC	Documentary hypothesis: Four independent documents (the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist and the Priestly source), composed between 900-550 BC, redacted c 450 BC, possibly by Ezra Supplementary models (for example John Van Seters): Torah composed as a series of authorial expansions of an original source document, usually identified as J or P, largely during the 7th and 6th centuries BC, final form achieved c. 450 BC. Fragmentary models (for example Rolf Rendtorff, Erhard Blum): Torah the product of the slow accretion of fragmentary traditions, (no documents), over period 850-550 BC, final form c. 450 BC. Biblical minimalism: Torah composed in Hellenistic-Hasmonean period, c. 300-140 BC.
Joshua	Joshua with a portion by Phinehas or Eleazar	Deuteronomist using material from the Yahwist and Elohist
Judges	Samuel	Deuteronomist
Ruth	Samuel	A later author, writing after the time of David
1 Samuel	Samuel, Gad, and Nathan	Deuteronomist as a combination of a Jerusalem source, republican source, the court history of David, the sanctuaries source, and the monarchial source
2 Samuel	Samuel, Gad, and Nathan
1 Kings	Perhaps Ezra	Deuteronomist
2 Kings	Perhaps Ezra	Deuteronomist
1 Chronicles	Ezra	The Chronicler, writing between 450 and 435 BC, after the Babylonian captivity
2 Chronicles	Ezra
Ezra	Ezra	The Chronicler, writing between 450 and 435 BC, after the Babylonian captivity
Nehemiah	Nehemiah using some material by Ezra	The Chronicler, writing between 450 and 435 BC, after the Babylonian captivity
Tobit		A writer in the second century BC
Judith	Eliakim (Joakim), the high priest of the story
Esther	The Great Assembly using material from Mordecai	An unknown author writing between 460 and 331 BC
1 Maccabees	A devout Jew from the Holy Land.	An unknown Jewish author, writing around 100 BC
2 Maccabees	Based on the writing of Jason of Cyrene	An unknown author, writing in the second or 1st century BC
3 Maccabees		An Alexandrian Jew writing in Greek in the first century BC or first century AD
4 Maccabees	Josephus	An Alexandrian Jew writing in the first century BC or first century AD
Job	Moses	A writer in the 4th century BC.
Psalms	Mainly David and also Asaph, sons of Korah, Moses, Heman the Ezrahite, Ethan the Ezrahite and Solomon	Various authors recording oral tradition. Portions from 1000BC to 200BC.
Proverbs	Solomon, Agur son of Jakeh, Lemuel and other wise men	An editor compiling from various sources well after the time of Solomon
Ecclesiastes	Solomon	A Hebrew poet of the third or second centuries BC using the life of Solomon as a vista for the Hebrews' pursuit of Wisdom. An unknown author in Hellenistic period from two older oral sources (Eccl1:1-6:9 which claims to be Solomon, Eccl6:10-12:8 with the theme of non-knowing)
Song of Solomon	Solomon
Wisdom	Solomon	An Alexandrian Jew writing during the Jewish Hellenistic period
Sirach	Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem
Isaiah	Isaiah	Three main authors and an extensive editing process. Is1-39 "Historical Isaiah" with multiple layers of editing. Is40-55 Exilic(Deutero-Isaiah) & Is56-66 post-exilic(Trito-Isaiah).
Jeremiah	Jeremiah	Baruch ben Neriah
Lamentations	Jeremiah	Disupted and perhaps based on the older Mesopotamian genre of the "city lament", of which the Lament for Ur is among the oldest and best-known
Letter of Jeremiah	Jeremiah	A Hellenistic Jew living in Alexandria
Baruch	Baruch ben Neriah	An author writing during or shortly after the period of the Maccabees
Ezekiel	Ezekiel	Disputed, with varying degrees of attribution to Ezekiel
Daniel	Daniel, sixth century BC	An editor/author in the mid-second century BC, using older folk-tales for the first half of the book
Hosea	Hosea
Joel	Joel
Amos	Amos
Obadiah	Obadiah
Jonah	Jonah	Possibly a post-exilic (after 530 BC) editor recording oral traditions passed down from the eighth century BC
Micah	Micah	The first three chapters by Micah and the remainder by a later writer
Nahum	Nahum
Habakkuk	Habakkuk
Zephaniah	Zephaniah	Disputed; possibly a writer after the time period indicated by the text
Haggai	Haggai
Zechariah	Zechariah	Zechariah (chapters 1-8); the later remaining designated Deutero-Zechariah, were possibly written by disciples of Zechariah
Malachi	Malachi or Ezra	Possibly the author of Deutero-Zechariah

New Testament

Book	Author according to tradition	Author according to scholarship
Gospel of Mark	Mark, follower of Peter; mid 1st century	anonymous, perhaps Mark, follower of Peter; mid to late 1st century; the first written gospel
Gospel of Matthew	The Apostle Matthew	An unknown author who borrowed from both Mark and a source called Q, late 1st century
Gospel of Luke	Luke, companion of Paul	Luke or an unknown author who borrowed from both Mark and a source called Q, late 1st century
Gospel of John	Apostle John	An unknown author with no direct connection to the historical Jesus; John 21 finished after death of primary author by follower(s); the last written gospel
Acts of the Apostles	Luke, companion of Paul	Luke or an unknown author who also wrote the Gospel of Luke
Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Epistle to Philemon	Paul the Apostle, see Pauline epistles	Paul
Ephesians	Paul the Apostle	Paul or edited dictations from Paul
Colossians	Paul the Apostle	Disputed; perhaps Paul coauthoring with Timothy
2 Thessalonians	Paul the Apostle	An associate or disciple after his death, representing what they believed was his message
1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, see Pastoral epistles	Paul the Apostle	pseudepigraphal, perhaps someone associated with Paul, writing at a later date see Authorship of the Pauline epistles
Epistle to the Hebrews	Paul the Apostle (disputed)	An unknown author, but almost certainly not Paul, c 95
James	James the Just	A writer in the late first or early second centuries, after the death of James the Just
1 Peter	Apostle Peter, before 64 (Peter's martyrdom)	pseudepigraphal or perhaps Silas, proficient with Greek writing, 70-90
2 Peter	Apostle Peter, before 64	pseudepigraphal, certainly not Peter, perhaps as late as c 150 AD, the last-written book of the Bible
1 John	Apostle John	An unknown author with no direct connection to the historical Jesus Same as Gospel of John, late 1st century
2 John, 3 John	Apostle John (sometimes disputed)	An unknown author with no direct connection to the historical Jesus, final Editor of John 21, c 100-110
Jude	Jude the Apostle or Jude, brother of Jesus	A pseudonymous work written between the end of the first century and the first quarter of the 2nd century
Book of Revelation	Apostle John(sometimes disputed)	distinct author, perhaps John of Patmos (not the same author as the Gospel of John or 2 & 3 John) see Authorship of the Johannine works

Higher criticism of other religious texts

Both higher and lower forms of criticism are carried out today with the religious writings of many religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

Qur'an

Modern higher criticism is just beginning for the Qur'an. This scholarship questions some traditional claims about its composition and content, contending that the Qur'an incorporates material from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament; however, other scholars argue that it cites examples from previous texts, as the New Testament did to the Old Testament. For example, Islamic history records that Uthman collected all variants of the Qur'an and destroyed those that he didn't approve of.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Historical-critical Method'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://historical_criticism_in_bible_studies.totallyexplained.com">Historical criticism in Bible studies Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.