Historical Criticism Flashcards
What is historical criticism?
Historical criticism is a method of biblical interpretation in which the true meaning of a given text is seen as depending on the context of its composition.
-A branch of study that investigates the world behind the text.
How long has historical criticism been popular?
50 years
What is the argument behind historical criticism?
To understand the meaning of a biblical passage requires knowledge not of Christian doctrine, but rather of the historical and social condition in which it was written.
What are 4 generic questions that historical critics ask?
1) How we came to have the Bible?
2) When and by whom the texts were written?
3) What was their intended readership?
4) What were the stages by which they come into being?
Why is historical criticism important?
- taking biblical passages out of context may lead to misunderstanding, if not error
- to ignore context is to put ourselves at a disadvantage
What is the origin of historical criticism?
- 18th-19th century context, when ‘history’ became the ruling intellectual discipline
- it is rooted in Protestant Reformation ideology; freeing the texts from traditional interpretation
Why didn’t we have the question of historical criticism prior to the reformation period?
Started immediately when the social and political condition in Europe allowed them to have this type of conversation. Only after the region was stabilized did people have the opportunity to ask this question.
Describe “the Bible is a composite document”?
- based on the historical and social conditions in which the texts were written, the Bible, including the New Testament is a composite
- these texts were put together out of a number of separate documents by different authors
What is the ‘true’ meaning of the Bible?
the original meaning of the texts (the final product seemed tone different from the underlying sources).
What is the “original” meaning of the text?
What it had meant to its first readers, and not what it might mean for contemporary readers.
What was used to establish the original meaning in its own historical context?
Sophisticated study of philology, linguistics, and social history were used.
How is historical criticism also concerned with “history” in the straight forward sense of the term
what really happened in the past
- try to recreate or reconstruct real history of one figure (ex. Jesus), the genuine history, the real history, rather than following what the text says.
What do scholars refuse to accept in the studio the Bible?
What ancient writers believed (or wanted their readers to believe).
What was the problem with historical criticism and the story of the sayings of Jesus?
The re-creation of Jesus that no Christian could possibly be attracted to.
What is the neutral observer?
- historical criticism was meant to be value-neutral or disinterested
- against “pious reading, it argued that the “holiness” attributed by Christian stop the Bible might be the reason why people rad them in the first place.
- it asked not what it meant “for me” but simply what it meant
