Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism refers to the scholarly technique of examining the Bible as one would any piece of literature. Scholars engaged in biblical criticism seek to understand what the Bible is saying by understanding who wrote it, for whom it was written, what was happening in that time period, and what message the author was trying to convey. The practice of examining a biblical text in the context of its historical, linguistic, and other origins is also called exegesis. Biblical criticism is an important discipline because it helps in understanding what the Bible was meant to say when it was written and allows the reader to better understand how that relates to the present day and age.

Background

People have most likely offered interpretations of the Bible since it was written. This is evidenced in the Bible itself when persons written about in the New Testament explain what was meant by portions of the Old Testament. There are numerous examples where New Testament authors cite events of their time as fulfillments of prophecies or statements made in the Old Testament, including Matthew 1:21–23, John 1:45, and Acts 2:14–18. Biblical criticism goes beyond pointing to a portion of the Bible and offering an explanation or interpretation, however. It involves the disciplines of history, linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, folklore, and theology. It delves into what was happening at the time the text was written and what the words used in the text meant at that time. To gain an understanding of biblical meaning, critics look at what evidence archaeologists have found in examining the locations where the biblical events took place and what anthropologists have uncovered in their study of the way the people lived and in what they believed.

In the early centuries after the events surrounding the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ, it was not unusual for people to look back at the events of the newly forming Bible and review the dates and timelines. They also looked for other corroboration of the events described. Justin Martyr and the Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria provided some of the earliest examples of biblical criticism. Theologians in the Middle Ages also examined the Bible with an eye toward understanding its message in context.

Formal biblical criticism began in the 1500s after the invention of the printing press in the 1440s made copies of the Bible written in languages other than Latin more widely available. During the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, this easier access to written copies of the Bible allowed more people, including those outside the established churches, to study the Bible. Beginning with the first acknowledged biblical critic, French Roman Catholic priest Richard Simon, biblical scholars started careful reading and historical research to determine who really wrote the various books of the Bible and to understand the circumstances under which the books were written.

The growing emphasis on rational thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries led to an increase in the number of individuals examining the Bible in a scholarly and critical manner. There was an increased focus on the words that were used and their origins, on the historical accuracy of events mentioned in the Bible as compared to archeological evidence and other historical records, and more scrutiny of variations and discrepancies between various parts of the Bible, particularly the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that were part of the biblical canon, or the official accepted Bible.

Biblical scholars examined both the Old and the New Testaments. During the nineteenth century, biblical critics such as Karl Graf and Julius Wellhausen discovered many new facts about the Bible, including identifying that different writers wrote the Pentateuch, or first five books, over many years, and that several books were actually written several centuries later than had been previously thought. New technology and discoveries in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have allowed biblical critics even more resources for determining the origins and original meaning of the Bible. One key discovery was the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are copies of ancient Hebrew texts dating mostly from the third to the first centuries before the birth of Christ, that were found in caves in the Israeli desert between 1947 and 1956. These shed new light on the history of that era and helped scholars determine when some books of the Bible were written. Computerized imaging and related technology have also helped by providing new ways to examine old texts to find clues as to their origin and authors.

Overview

There are a number of different approaches to studying biblical texts. One of the earliest and most used is the historical-critical method, which examines the texts in light of what is known about the events they include from other sources. This form of criticism acknowledges that the world in which the author wrote affects what and how that author chose to tell his story and looks for how that influenced the text.

Another common form of biblical criticism is form criticism. Hermann Gunkel, Martin Dibelius, K. L. Schmidt, and Rudolf Bultmann were all well known for using this form, which examines how the original oral form of sharing the stories influenced the versions that have survived and became accepted biblical texts.

There are a number of other types of biblical criticism as well. Textual criticism examines various known ancient versions of a part of the Bible to see how they are alike and different to discern how and when they were written, and why the variations might exist. Source criticism looks at the original material a biblical author had to work from and how that influenced the writing, while redaction or editorial criticism compares versions over time to see how changes, particularly what has been deleted, affect the text as it is now known. Other forms of criticism look at how the evolution of language has affected biblical understanding, how issues such as gender bias and prejudice are expressed, and how interpretation changes when one looks at the stories figuratively versus literally.

Bibliography

"Approaching the Biblical Studies Paper." Westminster Theological Seminary, www.wts.edu/resources/westminster‗center‗for‗theolog/paper‗formatshtml/wc‗exegisis2/approaching‗the‗biblical‗studi.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.

"Biblical Criticism and Study of the Old Testament." Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com/resources/asbury-bible-commentary/Biblical-Criticism-Study-Old. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.

"Historical Criticism." Oxford Bible Studies Online, www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com/article/opr/t94/e883. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.

Just, Felix. "Biblical Exegesis: An Introductory Overview." Catholic Resources, catholic-resources.org/Bible/Exegesis.htm. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.

"Literary Criticism." Quartz Hill School of Theology, www.theology.edu/b725b.htm. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.

Sommer, Benjamin. "Biblical Criticism Hasn't Negated the Exodus." Mosaic, mosaicmagazine.com/response/2015/03/biblical-criticism-hasnt-negated-the-exodus/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.

Sussman, Ayala, and Ruth Peled. "The Dead Sea Scrolls: History & Overview." Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/deadsea.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.

"What Is the Historical-Critical Method?" Wake Forest University, users.wfu.edu/horton/r102/hc-method.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2016.