Biblical Criticism

Biblical criticism is a form of historical criticism that seeks to analyze the Bible through asking certain questions about the text, such as who wrote it, when it was written, for whom was it written, why was it written, what was the historical and cultural setting of the text, how well preserved is the original text, how unified is the text, what sources were used by the author, how was the text transmitted over time, what is the text's literary genre, and how did it come to be accepted as part of the Bible?

Biblical criticism has been traditionally divided into textual criticism—also called lower criticism—which seeks to establish the original text out of the variant readings of ancient manuscripts, and higher criticism, which focuses on identifying the author, date, and place of writing for each book of the Bible. In the twentieth-century a number of specific critical methodologies have been developed to address such questions in greater depth.

What passed for ancient history was at times uncritical, prejudiced and many times just copied from an earlier writer. Historical criticism can not determine if the events that are recorded in the Bible are entirely accurate or clothed with material from another time such as myth, theology or tradition. It is evident that in Biblical literature the authors were comfortable with teaching theology in story form.

History of Biblical criticism

A historical overview can be found in the article on the documentary hypothesis. The article on higher criticism is also useful.

Other useful articles are:

• Ancient history
• Andreas Karlstadt
• Thomas Hobbes
• Isaac de la Peyrère
• Baruch Spinoza (collected discrepencies, contradictions, anachronisms etc from the Torah to show that it couldnot have been written by Moses)
• Richard Simon (the Bible consists of numerous archival documents that were rather artificially combined by editors without any addition or intervention in the text)
• John Hampden
• Jean Astruc (adapted the methods used by Classics scholars to analyse the Oddyssey etc. to refute Spinoza and others by identifying original source-texts used by Moses, but inadvertently began the development of the documentary hypothesis)
• Johann Gottfried Eichhorn
• Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette
• Friedrich Schleiermacher
• David Friedrich Strauss
• Ludwig Feuerbach
• F. C. Baur
• Julius Wellhausen (presented influential syntheses of the documentary hypothesis and the evolution of Judaism based on biblical texts)
• Albert Schweitzer
• Herman Gunkel
• Albrecht Alt
• Martin Noth
• William Albright
• Rolf Rendtorff
• Thomas L. Thompson
• Yehezkel Kauffman
• John Van Seters (rejects the documentary hypothesis and the concept of redaction; favours a supplementary hypothesis for the creation of biblical texts)
• Niels Peter Lemche (representative of biblical minimalsm, the bible as a very late composition, c. 400-100 B.C.E.)
• Richard Elliott Friedman (revised and updated the documentary hypothesis in answer to increasing criticism)
• Harold Bloom ("The Book of J": a reconstruction of the Jahwist source according to the documentary hypothesis)

Types of Biblical criticism

• Textual criticism
• Higher criticism
• Source criticism
• Documentary hypothesis
• Form criticism
• Redaction criticism
• Socio-historical criticism
• Rhetorical criticism
• Narrative criticism
• Tradition history
• Psychological Biblical Criticism
• Linguistic Criticism
• Canonical Criticism

See also

• Biblical studies
• Internal consistency of the Bible
• Science and the Bible
• The Bible and history
• Biblical archaeology
• The Gospel of Mark
• 40th century B.C.E.

Further reading

• Barton, John (1984). Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, Philadelphia, Westminster, ISBN 0-664-25724-0.
• Birch, Bruce C., Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen (1999). A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, ISBN 0-687-01348-8. 
• Coggins, R. J., and J. L. Houlden, eds. (1990). Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International. ISBN 0-334-00294-X. 
• Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-073817-0. 

• Fuller, Reginald H. (1965). The Foundations of New Testament Christology. Scribners. ISBN 0-684-15532-X. 
• Goldingay, John (1990). Approaches to Old Testament Interpretation. Rev. ed. Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity, ISBN 1-894667-18-2.
• Hayes, John H., and Carl R. Holladay (1987). Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner's Handbook, Rev. ed. Atlanta, GA, John Knox, ISBN 0-8042-0031-9.
• Knight, Douglas A., and Gene M. Tucker, eds. (1993). To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Applications, Louisville, KY, Westminster/John Knox, ISBN 0-664-25784-4.
• Morgan, Robert, and John Barton (1988). Biblical Interpretation, New York, Oxford University, ISBN 0-19-213257-1.
• Soulen, Richard N. (1981). Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 2nd ed. Atlanta, Ga, John Knox, ISBN 0-664-22314-1.
• Stuart, Douglas (1984). Old Testament Exegesis: A Primer for Students and Pastors, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, Westminster, ISBN 0-664-24320-7.

• Shinan, Avigdir, and Yair Zakovitch (2004). That's Not What the Good Book Says, Miskal-Yediot Ahronot Books and Chemed Books, Tel-Aviv

External links

• PDF Teaching Bible from the point of view of Biblical criticism.
• A good introduction at Theopedia
• History of Jewish Secular Thought, Chapter 4: Bible, from Oberlin College Jewish studies program.

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