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Criticism of the Bible

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This article is about criticisms of the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance. For the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document, see Biblical criticism.

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The view that the Bible should be accepted as historically accurate and as a reliable guide to morality has been questioned by many scholars in the field of biblical criticism. In addition to concerns about morality, inerrancy, or historicity, there remain some questions of which books should be included in the Bible (see canon of scripture). Jews discount the New Testament and Old Testament Deuterocanonicals, Jews and most Christians discredit the legitimacy of New Testament apocrypha, and a view sometimes referred to as Jesusism does not affirm the scriptural authority of any biblical text other than the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.


Contents  [hide]
1 Bible history issues
2 Translation issues
3 Ethics in the Bible
4 Internal consistency
5 The Bible and science
6 The Bible and archaeology
7 Unfulfilled prophecies 7.1 Messianic prophecies
7.2 Prophecies after the event
7.3 The success of Joshua
7.4 The destruction of Tyre
7.5 The protection of the King of Judah
7.6 The death of the king of Judah
7.7 The death of Josiah
7.8 The land promised to Abraham
7.9 The fate of Damascus
7.10 The fate of Jews who stay in Egypt
7.11 The return of Jewish prisoners of war
7.12 The strength of Judah
7.13 The identity of the conquerors of Babylon
7.14 Jehoiakim prophecies
7.15 New Testament 7.15.1 The imminence of the second coming

8 Notable critics
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links

Bible history issues[edit]



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Main articles: Biblical Criticism and Higher Criticism
The Hebrew Bible and Christian Bibles are works considered sacred and authoritative writings by their respective faith groups that revere their specific collections of biblical writings.[1] The Hebrew Bible, upon which the Christian Old Testament is based, was originally composed in Biblical Hebrew, except for parts of Daniel and Ezra that were written in Biblical Aramaic. These writings depict Israelite religion from its beginnings to about the 2nd century BC. The Christian New Testament was written in Koine Greek. (See Language of the New Testament for details.)
At the end of the 17th century few Bible scholars would have doubted that Moses wrote the Torah, but in the late 18th century some liberal scholars began to question his authorship, and by the end of the 19th century some went as far as to claim that as a whole the work was of many more authors over many centuries from 1000 BC (the time of David) to 500 BC (the time of Ezra), and that the history it contained was often more polemical rather than strictly factual. By the first half of the 20th century Hermann Gunkel had drawn attention to mythic aspects, and Albrecht Alt, Martin Noth and the tradition history school argued that although its core traditions had genuinely ancient roots, the narratives were fictional framing devices and were not intended as history in the modern sense.

While the limits of the canon were effectively set in these early centuries, the status of scripture has been a topic of scholarly discussion in the later church. Increasingly, the biblical works have been subjected to literary and historical criticism in efforts to interpret the texts independent of Church and dogmatic influences. Different views of the authority and inspiration of the Bible also continue to be expressed in liberal and fundamentalist churches today. What cannot be denied, however, is the enormous influence which the stories, poetry, and reflections found in the biblical writings have had, not only on the doctrines and practices of two major faiths, but also on Western culture, its literature, art, and music.[1]
In the 2nd century, the gnostics often claimed that their form of Christianity was the first, and they regarded Jesus as a teacher, or allegory.[2] Elaine Pagels has proposed that there are several examples of gnostic attitudes in the Pauline Epistles.[citation needed] Bart D. Ehrman and Raymond E. Brown note that some of the Pauline epistles are widely regarded by scholars as pseudonymous,[3] and it is the view of Timothy Freke, and others, that this involved a forgery in an attempt by the Church to bring in Paul's Gnostic supporters and turn the arguments in the other Epistles on their head.
Some critics have alleged that Christianity is not founded on a historical figure, but rather on a mythical creation.[4] This view proposes that the idea of Jesus was the Jewish manifestation of a pan-Hellenic cult, known as Osiris-Dionysus,[5] which acknowledged the non-historic nature of the figure, using it instead as a teaching device.
Translation issues[edit]
Main articles: Biblical manuscripts, Textual criticism and Biblical inerrancy
Some critics express concern that none of the original manuscripts of the books of the Bible still exist. All translations of the Bible have been made from well-respected but centuries-old copies. Religious communities value highly those who interpret their scriptures at both the scholarly and popular levels. Translation of scripture into the vernacular (such as English and hundreds of other languages), though a common phenomenon, is also a subject of debate and criticism.[6]
Translation has led to a number of issues, as the original languages are often quite different in grammar and word meaning. While the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states that "inerrancy" applies only to the original languages, some believers trust their own translation as the truly accurate one—for example, the King-James-Only Movement. For readability, clarity, or other reasons, translators may choose different wording or sentence structure, and some translations may choose to paraphrase passages.
Because many of the words in the original language have ambiguous or difficult to translate meanings, debates over correct interpretation occur. For instance, at creation(Gen 1:2), is רוח אלהים (ruwach 'elohiym) the "wind of god", "spirit of god"(i.e., the Holy Spirit in Christianity), or a "mighty wind" over the primordial deep? In Hebrew, רוח(ruwach) can mean "wind","breath" or "spirit". Both ancient and modern translators are divided over this and many other such ambiguities.[7][8][9][10] Another example is the word used in the Masoretic Text [Isa 7:14] to indicate the woman who would bear Immanuel is alleged to mean a young, unmarried woman in Hebrew, while Matthew 1:23 follows the Septuagint version of the passage that uses the Greek word parthenos, translated virgin, and is used to support the Christian idea of virgin birth. Those who view the masoretic text, which forms the basis of most English translations of the Old Testament, as being more accurate than the Septuagint, and trust its usual translation, may see this as an inconsistency, whereas those who take the Septuagint to be accurate may not.
In the History of the English Bible, there have been many changes to the wording, leading to several competing versions. Many of these have contained Biblical errata—typographic errors, such as the phrases Is there no treacle in Gilead?, Printers have persecuted me without cause, and Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?, and even Thou shalt commit adultery.[11]
More recently, several discoveries of ancient manuscripts such as the Dead Sea scrolls, and Codex Sinaiticus, have led to modern translations like the New International Version differing somewhat from the older ones such as the 17th century King James Version, removing verses not present in the earliest manuscripts (see List of omitted Bible verses), some of which are acknowledged as interpolations, such as the Comma Johanneum, others having several highly variant versions in very important places, such as the resurrection scene in Mark 16. The King-James-Only Movement rejects these changes and uphold the King James Version as the most accurate.[12]
Ethics in the Bible[edit]
Main article: Ethics in the Bible
Certain moral decisions in the Bible are questioned by many modern groups. Some of the most commonly criticized ethical choices include subjugation of women, religious intolerance, use of capital punishment as penalty for violation of Mosaic Law, sexual acts like incest,[13] toleration of the institution of slavery in both Old and New Testaments,[14] obligatory religious wars and the order to commit the genocide of the Canaanites and the Amalekites. Christian Apologists support the Bible's decisions by reminding critics that they should be considered from the author's point of view and that Mosaic Law applied to the Israelite people (who lived before the birth of Jesus). Other religious groups see nothing wrong with the Bible's judgments.[15] One example that is often cited is the biblical law of the rebellious son:[16]

"If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear." (Deut. 21:18-21)
Other critics of the Bible, such as Friedrich Nietzsche who popularized the phrase "God is dead",[17] have questioned the morality of the New Testament, regarding it as weak and conformist-oriented.
Internal consistency[edit]
Main article: Internal consistency of the Bible
There are many places in the Bible in which inconsistencies—such as different numbers and names for the same feature, and different sequences for the same events—have been alleged and presented by critics as difficulties.[18] Responses to these criticisms include the modern documentary hypothesis, the two-source hypothesis and theories that the Pastoral Epistles are pseudonymous.[19]:p.47 Contrasting with these critical stances are positions supported by other authorities that consider the texts to be consistent. Such advocates maintain that the Torah was written by a single source, the Gospels by four independent witnesses, and all of the Pauline Epistles to have been written by the Apostle Paul.[citation needed]
However authors such as Raymond Brown have presented arguments that the Gospels actually contradict each other in various important respects and on various important details.[20] W. D. Davies and E. P. Sanders state that: "on many points, especially about Jesus’ early life, the evangelists were ignorant … they simply did not know, and, guided by rumour, hope or supposition, did the best they could".[21] More critical scholars see the nativity stories either as completely fictional accounts,[22] or at least constructed from traditions that predate the Gospels.[23][24]
For example, many versions of the Bible specifically point out that the most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses did not include Mark 16:9-20, i.e., the Gospel of Mark originally ended at Mark 16:8, and additional verses were added a few hundred years later. This is known as the "Markan Appendix".[25][26][27]
Mosaic authorship, authorship of the Gospels and authorship of the Pauline Epistles are topics that remain widely debated.
The Bible and science[edit]
Main article: Science and the Bible
The universe, as presented literally in the Bible, consists of a flat earth within a geocentric arrangement of planets and stars (e.g. Joshua 10:12–13, Eccles. 1:5, Isaiah 40:22, 1 Chron. 16:30, Matthew 4:8, Rev. 7:1).


Joshua 10:12 On the day that the Lord gave up the Amorites to the Israelites, Joshua stood before all the people of Israel and said to the Lord: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon. Moon, stand still over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the people defeated their enemies.
Eccles. 1:5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
Isaiah 40:22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
1 Chron. 16:30 Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
Rev. 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
[28] Modern astronomy has provided overwhelming evidence that this model is false. The spherical shape of the earth was established with certainty by Hellenistic astronomers in the 3rd century BCE. The heliocentric nature of the solar system was conclusively established in the 16th century CE. Many modern Christians and Jews assert that these passages are written as metaphorical or phenomenological descriptions and not meant to be taken literally.[29] This response is intuitive given the modern prevalence of the expression "the sun rises" despite that it is common knowledge in the English speaking world that the sun does not, in fact, rise.
Another common point of criticism regards the Genesis creation narrative. According to young Earth creationism, which takes a literal view of the book of Genesis, the universe and all forms of life on Earth were created directly by God sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago. (The Bible traces back to Adam's creation around 4000 BCE. There is debate over the 24 hour earth-days in which the earth was created as only on the fourth day were the sun, moon and stars created - without the sun a 24 hour earth-day is impossible. Genesis 1:16-19) This assertion is contradicted by radiocarbon dating of fossils, as well as modern understanding of genetics, evolution, and cosmology.[30] For instance, astrophysical evidence suggests that the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old.[31] Moreover, it would require an impossibly high rate of mutation to account for the current amount of genetic variation in humans if all humans were descended from two individuals several thousand years ago.[32]

The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents.
— Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen Jay Gould
Science-faith think tanks such as the Biologos foundation and Reasons to Believe have sought to reconcile these scientific challenges with the Christian faith.
The Bible and archaeology[edit]
Main articles: The Bible and history and Biblical archaeology
According to one of the world's leading biblical archaeologists, William G. Dever,

"Archaeology certainly doesn't prove literal readings of the Bible...It calls them into question, and that's what bothers some people. Most people really think that archaeology is out there to prove the Bible. No archaeologist thinks so."[33] From the beginnings of what we call biblical archeology, perhaps 150 years ago, scholars, mostly western scholars, have attempted to use archeological data to prove the Bible. And for a long time it was thought to work. William Albright, the great father of our discipline, often spoke of the "archeological revolution." Well, the revolution has come but not in the way that Albright thought. The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people.[34]
Dever also wrote:

Archaeology as it is practiced today must be able to challenge, as well as confirm, the Bible stories. Some things described there really did happen, but others did not. The biblical narratives about Abraham, Moses, Joshua and Solomon probably reflect some historical memories of people and places, but the 'larger than life' portraits of the Bible are unrealistic and contradicted by the archaeological evidence....[35] I am not reading the Bible as Scripture… I am in fact not even a theist. My view all along—and especially in the recent books—is first that the biblical narratives are indeed 'stories,' often fictional and almost always propagandistic, but that here and there they contain some valid historical information...[36]
Tel Aviv University archaeologist Ze'ev Herzog wrote in the Haaretz newspaper:

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, YHWH, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.[37][38]
Professor Finkelstein, who is known as "the father of biblical archaeology", told the Jerusalem Post that Jewish archaeologists have found no historical or archaeological evidence to back the biblical narrative on the Exodus, the Jews' wandering in Sinai or Joshua's conquest of Canaan. On the alleged Temple of Solomon, Finkelstein said that there is no archaeological evidence to prove it really existed.[39] Professor Yoni Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist who has worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed with Israel Finkelstein.[39]
Regarding the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said:

“Really, it’s a myth,”... “This is my career as an archaeologist. I should tell them the truth. If the people are upset, that is not my problem.”[40]
Unfulfilled prophecies[edit]
See also: Bible prophecy
The alleged fulfillment of biblical prophecies is a popular argument used as evidence by Christian apologists to support the claimed divine inspiration of the Bible. They see the fulfillment of prophecies as proof of God's direct involvement in the writing of the Bible.[41]
Messianic prophecies[edit]
See also: Jesus and messianic prophecy and Judaism's view of Jesus
According to Christian apologists, the alleged fulfillment of the messianic prophecies in the mission, death, and resurrection of Jesus proves the accuracy of the Bible. However, according to Jewish scholars, Christian claims that Jesus is the messiah of the Hebrew Bible are based on mistranslations[42][43][44] and Jesus did not fulfill the qualifications for Jewish Messiah.
An example of this is Isaiah 7:14. Christians read Isaiah 7:14 as a prophetic prediction of Jesus' birth from a virgin, while Jews read it as referring to the birth of Ahaz's son, Hezekiah.[45][46] They also point out that the word Almah, used in Isaiah 7:14, is part of the Hebrew phrase ha-almah hara, meaning "the almah is pregnant." Since the present tense is used, they maintain that the young woman was already pregnant and hence not a virgin. This being the case, they claim the verse cannot be cited as a prediction of the future.[46][47]
Prophecies after the event[edit]
Main articles: Postdiction and Vaticinium ex eventu
An example of an alleged after-the-fact prophecy is the Little Apocalypse recorded in the Olivet Discourse of the Gospel of Mark. It predicts the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the Jewish Temple at the hands of the Romans in 70 AD. Most mainstream New Testament scholars concede this is an ex eventu (foretelling after the event), as are many of the prophecies in the Old Testament such as Daniel 11.[48][49][50][51][52][53][54]
Another example is Isaiah's prophecy about Cyrus the Great. Traditionally, the entire book of Isaiah is believed to pre-date the rule of Cyrus by about 120 years. These particular passages (Isaiah 40-55, often referred to as Deutero-Isaiah) are believed by most modern critical scholars to have been added by another author toward the end of the Babylonian exile (ca. 536 BC).[55] Whereas Isaiah 1-39 (referred to as Proto-Isaiah) saw the destruction of Israel as imminent, and the restoration in the future, Deutero-Isaiah speaks of the destruction in the past (Isa 42:24-25), and the restoration as imminent (Isiah 42:1-9). Notice, for example, the change in temporal perspective from (Isiah 39:6-7), where the Babylonian Captivity is cast far in the future, to (Isaiah 43:14), where the Israelites are spoken of as already in Babylon.[56]
The success of Joshua[edit]
The Book of Joshua describes the Israelite conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, the son of one of the aides to Moses. After Moses' death, God tells Joshua to conquer Canaan and makes predictions of his success.[57] Amongst other things, Joshua was to be given a vast dominion that included all of the Hittite land, and the advantage of facing no one who could stand up to him.
While the Book of Joshua delineates many successful conquerings, the Canaanites were not amongst those conquered and the Israelites did suffer defeat. Judah, a leader of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, is unable to dislodge the Jebusites from Jerusalem and was forced to cohabit,[58] while the Manassites, another of the twelve tribes, lack the strength to occupy several Canaan towns.[59] Other bastions of resistance dot the landscape.[60][61] Even after Joshua's death, the land is only partially conquered with the Canaanites remaining a significant external threat.[62][63][64] Critics argue that Joshua never lives to see the full territory God promises him and that the substantial resistance put up by the indigenous population violates God's promise of battles in which no enemy was his equal.
The destruction of Tyre[edit]



Tyre harbourEzekiel predicts that the ancient city of Tyre will be utterly destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and "made a bare rock" that will "never be rebuilt" (Ezekiel 26:1, 26:7-14). However, Tyre withstood Nebuchadrezzar's siege for 13 years, ending in a compromise in which the royal family was taken into exile but the city survived intact.
Apologists cite the text as saying that the prophecy states that "many nations" would accomplish the destruction of Tyre, and claim that this refers to later conquerors (Ezekiel 26:3), but skeptics[65][66] counter that this was a reference to the "many nations" of Nebuchadrezzar's multinational force (Nebuchadrezzar was described by Ezekiel as "king of kings", i.e., an overking, a ruler over many nations), and that subsequent conquerors didn't permanently destroy Tyre either (it is now the fourth-largest city in Lebanon). Ezekiel himself admitted later that Nebuchadnezzar could not defeat Tyre (Ezekiel 29:18).
Ezekiel said Egypt would be made an uninhabited wasteland for forty years (Ezekiel 29:10-14), and Nebuchadnezzar would be allowed to plunder it (Ezekiel 29:19-20) as compensation for his earlier failure to plunder Tyre (see above). However, the armies of Pharaoh Amasis II defeated the Babylonians. History records that this Pharaoh (also known as Ahmose II) went on to enjoy a long and prosperous reign; Herodotus writes that:

It is said that it was during the reign of Ahmose II that Egypt attained its highest level of prosperity both in respect of what the river gave the land and in respect of what the land yielded to men and that the number of inhabited cities at that time reached in total 20,000.[67]
The prophecy in chapter 29 dates in December 588—January 587. 20 years later, in the year 568, Nebuchadnezzar attacked Egypt.[68] F.F. Bruce writes still more exactly that the Babylonian king invaded Egypt already after the siege of Tyre 585—573 BC and replaced the Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) by Amasis:

The siege of Tyre was followed by operations against Egypt itself. Hophra was defeated, deposed and replaced by Amasis, an Egyptian general. But in 568 BC Amasis revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, who then invaded and occupied part of the Egyptian frontier lands.[69]
Flavius Josephus even writes in his Antiquities, citing the 4th century Greek writer Megasthenes that Nebuchadnezzar had control of all northern Africa unto present day Spain:

Megasthenes also, in his fourth book of his Accounts of India, makes mention of these things, and thereby endeavours to show that this king (Nebuchadnezzar) exceeded Hercules in fortitude, and in the greatness of his actions; for he saith that he conquered a great part of Libya and Iberia.[70]
On the other hand Nebuchadnezzar makes no mention of this campaign against Egypt in his inscriptions, at least that are currently known. It is too simple to argue with Herodotus, especially because his credibility was ever since contested.[71] The forty years are not to understand as an exact number. This figure became a significant period of chastisement to the Hebrews remembering the forty years in the desert after the exodus from Egypt.[72]
The protection of the King of Judah[edit]
Isaiah spoke of a prophecy God made to Ahaz, the King of Judah that he would not be harmed by his enemies (Isaiah 7:1-7), yet according to 2 Chronicles, the king of Aram and Israel did conquer Judah (2 Chronicles 28:1-6).
In Isaiah (Isaiah 7:9) the prophet says clearly that a prerequisite for the fulfillment of the prophecy is that Ahaz stands firm in his faith. F.F. Bruce claims that this means Ahaz should trust God and not seek military help in the Assyrians, which Ahaz did.[73]
The death of the king of Judah[edit]
In predicting Jerusalem's fall to Babylon, Jeremiah prophesied that Zedekiah, the king of Judah, would "die in peace" (Jeremiah 34:2-5). However, according to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 52:9-11), he was put in prison until the day of his death.
Apologists maintain that Zedekiah did not suffer the same terrible death as all the other nobles of Judah did when Nebuchadnezzar killed them in Riblah. Jeremiah also told Zedekiah in his prophecy that he would have to go to Babylon, which the Apologists claim implies that he will be imprisoned. There are no historical records of what happened with Zedekiah in Babylon[74] and a peaceful death is not ruled out.[citation needed]
The death of Josiah[edit]
Prophetess Huldah prophesied that Josiah would die in peace (2 Kings 22:18-20), but rather than dying in peace, as the prophetess predicted, Josiah was probably killed at Megiddo in a battle with the Egyptian army (2 Chronicles 35:20-24).[75]
Apologists allege that the prophecy of Huldah was partially fulfilled because Josiah did not see all the disaster the Babylonians brought over Jerusalem and Judah. The prophetess clearly stated that because of Josiah's repentance, he will be buried in peace. But the king did not keep his humble attitude. As mentioned in 2 Chronicles (2 Chronicles 35:22), he did not listen to God's command and fought against the Egyptian pharaoh Necho. It is quite possible that he did this "opposing the faithful prophetic party".[76] Prophecy in the biblical sense is except in some very few cases never a foretelling of future events but it wants to induce the hearers to repent, to admonish and to encourage respectively; biblical prophecy includes almost always a conditional element.[77]



 Map showing the borders of the Promised Land, based on God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:18-21: In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
The land promised to Abraham[edit]
Main article: Promised Land
According to Genesis and Deuteronomy (Genesis 15:18, 17:8 and Deuteronomy 1:7-8), Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites will unconditionally (Deuteronomy 9:3-7) own all the land between the Nile River and the Euphrates River for an everlasting possession. But a critic says it never happened, that they never owned all that land forever.[78]
An apologist's counter-claim would be that a reading of Davidic conquests tells of the Israelite occupation of all the promised lands. F.F. Bruce writes:

David's sphere of influence now extended from the Egyptian frontier on the Wadi el-Arish (the "brook of Egypt") to the Euphrates; and these limits remained the ideal boundaries of Israel's dominion long after David's empire had disappeared.[79]
Acts 7:5 and Hebrews 11:13 are taken out of context if used as evidence against the fulfillment of these prophecies. Stephen does not state in Acts that the prophecy was not fulfilled. Moreover, it does not seem any problem for him to mention side by side the promise to Abraham himself and that Abraham did not get even a foot of ground. This becomes understandable with the concept of corporate personality. Jews are familiar with identifying individuals with the group they belong to. H. Wheeler Robinson writes that

Corporate personality is the important Semitic complex of thought in which there is a constant oscillation between the individual and the group—family, tribe, or nation—to which he belongs, so that the king or some other representative figure may be said to embody the group, or the group may be said to sum up the host of individuals.[80]
The letter to the Hebrews speaks about the promise of the heavenly country (Hebrews 11:13-16).
The fate of Damascus[edit]
According to Isaiah 17:1, "Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins", but in fact Damascus is considered among the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.
An apologist's response to this statement is that this verse refers to the destruction of Damascus as a strong capital of Syria. This was fulfilled during the Syro-Ephraimite War.

The prophecy perhaps dates from about 735 BC, when Damascus and Israel were allied against Judah (Isaiah 7:1). Damascus was taken by Tiglath-Pileser in 732, and Samaria by Sargon in 721.[81]
The passage is consistent with 2 Kings 16:9, which states that Assyria defeated the city and exiled the civilians to Kir.
The fate of Jews who stay in Egypt[edit]
According to Jeremiah 42:17, Jews who choose to live in Egypt will all die and leave no remnant. But history shows that Jews continued to live there for centuries, later establishing a cultural center at Alexandria. A Jewish community exists at Alexandria even to this day.[82]
According to apologists, a more thorough examination of the surrounding text suggests that Jeremiah is stating that no refugees who flee to Egypt would return to Israel except for few fugitives. Jeremiah 42-44 had relevance mainly to the group of exiles who fled to Egypt. It emphasizes that the future hopes of a restored Israel lay elsewhere than with the exiles to Egypt.[83]
The return of Jewish prisoners of war[edit]
Isaiah and Jeremiah (Isaiah 27:12-13, Jeremiah 3:18, Jeremiah 31:1-23, and Jeremiah 33:7) predicted the return of the exiles taken from Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BC. It never happened. Following the conquest of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians in 721 BC, the 10 tribes were gradually assimilated by other peoples and thus disappeared from history.[84] Unlike the Kingdom of Judah, which was able to return from its Babylonian Captivity in 537 BC, the 10 tribes of the Kingdom of Israel never had a foreign edict granting permission to return and rebuild their homeland. Assyria has long since vanished, its capital, Nineveh, destroyed in 612 BC.
Apologists, however, charge that Luke 2:36 states that Anna the Prophetess, daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, was living as a widow in the sanctuary ministering to God with and fastings and petitions night and day. Thus, at least some (tiny) portion of Israel returned, since it was unlikely that a lone female would return to the land of Israel unaccompanied by kinsmen as safe escort.
Although the exiled Israelites from the Northern kingdom did not return from Assyria, apologists state that it must be considered that these passages also contain the expectation of the messianic days. Theologians point out that in Isaiah 27:12-13 Euphrates and the Wadi of Egypt represent the northern and southern borders of the Promised Land in its widest extent (Genesis 15:18) and thus they refer these verses to the return of the Israelites to Jerusalem in the last days, in the messianic time. Israelites will be gathered from wherever they have been expelled from the north, Assyria, to the south, Egypt.[85] Jeremiah's prophecy of Israel's and Judah's return from the north in Jeremiah 3:18 is preceded by the request of Yahweh to the Israelites to come back (verse 14). After fulfilling this condition God will increase their number and none will miss the ark of the covenant (verse 16). All nations will then honour the Lord (verse 17). Consequently Christian scholars refer verse 18 to messianic times when there will be a kingdom united as in the days of David and Solomon.[86] Jeremiah 31 should be seen in context with chapter 30. Some scholars argue that these chapters were written early in Jeremiah's ministry and refer to Northern Israel. Later these poems were updated and referred to Judah as well, probably by Jeremiah himself, when it was realized that Judah had passed through similar experiences to those of Israel.[87] The Book of Consolation (Jeremiah 30:1—31:40) reaches his final, messianic scope in the establishment of a New Covenant between Yahweh and the House of Israel and the House of Judah.[88]
The strength of Judah[edit]
Isaiah 19:17 predicted that "the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt". Assuming that the 'terror' implied was a large-scale military attack of Egypt, it never happened.
According to theologians, the statement that the "land of Judah" will terrify the Egyptians is not a reference to a large army from Judah attacking Egypt, but a circumlocution for the place where God lives; it is God and his plans that will terrify Egypt. Verse 17 has to be understood in its context. The second "in that day" message from verse 18 announces the beginning of a deeper relationship between God and Egypt, which leads to Egypt's conversion and worshiping God (verses 19-21). The last "in that day" prophecy (verses 23-25) speaks about Israel, Assyria and Egypt as God's special people, thus, describing eschatological events.[89][90]
The identity of the conquerors of Babylon[edit]
Isaiah 13:17, Isaiah 21:2, Jeremiah 51:11, and Jeremiah 51:27-28 predicted that Babylon would be destroyed by the Medes, Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz and Elamites. The Persians under Cyrus the Great captured Babylon in 539 BC. Daniel 5:31 incorrectly stated that it was Darius the Mede who captured Babylon.
Christian apologists state that the prophecy in Isaiah 13:21 could possibly have been directed originally against Assyria, whose capital Ninive was defeated 612 BC by a combined onslaught of the Medes and Babylonians. According to this explanation the prophecy was later updated and referred to Babylon[91] not recognizing the rising power of Persia. On the other hand it can be mentioned that the Persian king Cyrus after overthrowing Media in 550 BC did not treat the Medes as a subject nation.

Instead of treating the Medes as a beaten foe and a subject nation, he had himself installed as king of Media and governed Media and Persia as a dual monarchy, each part of which enjoyed equal rights.[92]
Jeremiah prophesied at the height of the Median empire's power, and thus he was probably influenced to see the Medes as the nation that will conquer Babylon. Several proposals were brought forth for "Darius the Mede" out of which one says that Cyrus the Great is meant in Daniel 5:31.
Jehoiakim prophecies[edit]
The prophet Daniel states that in the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah (Daniel 1:1-2). The third year of Jehoiakim's reign was 605 BC, at which time Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king of Babylon. It was in 597 BC that Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem, by then Jehoiakim had died.
Apologists respond that this is not a prophecy but a statement. Daniel 1:1 is a problem of dating. But already F.F. Bruce solved this problem explaining that when Nebuchadnezzar, son of king Nabopolassar, was put in charge over a part of his forces, he defeated Necho in the battle of Carchemish 605 BC. In this situation his father Nabopolassar died. Before Nebuchadnezzar as heir apparent returned to Babylon he settled the affairs in the Asiatic countries bordering the Egyptian frontier, which means also Judah, and took captives from several countries as, for example, also from the Jews.[93]
Jeremiah prophesied that the body of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, would be desecrated after his death (Jeremiah 22:18-19, Jeremiah 36:30-31). However, his death was recorded in 2 Kings 24:6 where it says that "Jehoiakim slept with his fathers". This is a familiar Bible expression that was used to denote a peaceful death and respectful burial. David slept with his fathers (1 Kings 2:10) and so did Solomon (1 Kings 11:43). On the other hand, 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 states that Nebuchadnezzar came against Jehoiakim, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon. Judging from the treatment Zedekiah was accorded when the Babylonians bound him and carried him away to Babylon (Jeremiah 52:9-11), one might justifiably argue that his body probably was desecrated after his death. Jeremiah, however, predicted that Jehoiakim's own people would be his desecraters, that his own people would not accord him lamentations appropriate for a king, that his own people would cast his body "out beyond the gates of Jerusalem".
Apologists proposal for a partial solution:

In the 7th year of his reign, in the month of Kislev (December/January 598/97), Nebuchadnezzar himself left Babylon and undertook the subjection of rebellious Judah. In that same month, King Jehoiakim died in Jerusalem. (On the basis of a comparison with 2 Kings 24:6,8,10ff, with the Babylonian Chronicle, Wiseman 73, lines 11-13, Kislev is the ninth month. In the twelfth month, Adar, Jerusalem was taken. Jehoiachin's reign falls in these three months.) It is not impossible that he was murdered by a political faction who thereby sought more mild treatment for their country. His 18-year old son Jehoiachin was raised to the throne (2 Kings 24:8). Three months later Jerusalem was entirely surrounded by Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the city of Judah (al-ya-ahu-du), and on the second day of the month of Adar he comquered the city and took its king prisoner.[94]
Also F.F. Bruce writes that Jehoiakim died in Juda before the siege of Jerusalem began.[95] This would mean that Jehoiakim was desecrated after his death and in this way the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled. The passage in 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 does not speak explicitly about Jehoiakim's death. Thus, it can be seen as a parallel to Daniel 1:1-2[96] which speaks about an event in the lifetime of the king of Judah (see paragraph above). 2 Kings 24:6, nevertheless, remains unclear.
Part of the desecration prophecy was that Jehoiakim would "have no one to sit upon the throne of David" (Jeremiah 36:30), but this too was proven false. Upon Jehoiakim's death, his son Jehoiachin "reigned in his stead" for a period of three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:8-9, 2 Kings 24:6-8). Also, there are biblical genealogies that purport to show Jehoiakim as a direct ancestor of Jesus (1 Chronicles 3:16-17, Matthew 1:11-12).[75]
Apologists say that if Jehoiakim had not been killed by his own people, on the condition that this supposition is true (see preceding paragraph), in all likelihood, Jehoiakim would have been put to death by the Babylonians. The Israelites anticipated what Nebuchadnezzar intended to do. In this case, most probable, Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin would not have become king and Jeremiah's prophecy would have been fulfilled in its full sense. Jehoiachin's successor, Zedekiah, was no descendant of Jehoiakim, but his brother.
The double reckoning of Jehoiachin in Matthew 1:11-12 is made possible by the fact that the same Greek name can translate the two similar Hebrew names Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin.[97] In this way in verse 11 Jehoiakim and in verse 12 Jehoiachin is meant. The verse Jeremiah 36:30 says that Jehoiakim's descendants will not be kings in Judah anymore. This does not mean that he cannot be an ancestor of the Messiah.
New Testament[edit]



 The Wailing Wall by night. According to Luke 19:41-44: As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.
Jesus said in Matt. 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44; Luke 21:6 that "no stone" of Jerusalem or of the Second Temple would be left upon another. This prophecy failed, as the wailing wall (a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple's courtyard,) still remains.
In reply, John Robinson writes that

it was the temple that perished by fire while the walls of the city were thrown down.[98]
The imminence of the second coming[edit]
See also: Second coming
Jesus prophesied that the second coming would occur during the lifetime of his followers and Caiphas, and immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE (referred to as abomination of desolation in Matt 24:15).

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:27-28)

"When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes." (Matthew 10:23)

..Again the high priest (Caiphas) asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?""I am", said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:61-62)

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us", they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now-and never to be equaled again. Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. (Matthew 24)

(see also Mark 13:1-30, Luke 21:5-35, Mark 13:30-31, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27, John 21:22, Matthew 26:62-64, Mark 14:62)
It may be argued that Jesus was not speaking of the second coming in Matthew 16:28 but instead referred to a demonstration of his or God's might; a viewpoint which allows the fulfillment of the prophesy through a variety of traumatic events, notably, the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. The temple's destruction is held by proponents to demonstrate that God was on the side of the Christian people rather than that of the Jews. However, at that time only some of Jesus' disciples still lived.[99] In the same way Matthew 10:23 should be understood.[100] Note, however, that this view (referred to as Preterism) is not the majority view among American denominations, especially by denominations that espouse Dispensationalism.[101][102][103] Furthermore it is a misunderstanding that Jesus meant Caiphas in Mark 14:62. The word "you will see" is in Greek "ὄψεσθε" [opsesthe, from the infinitive optomai],[104] which is plural and not singular. Jesus meant that the Jews, and not just the high priest, will see his coming.
This prophecy is also seen in the Revelation of Jesus to John.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,... Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. (Revelation 1:1,7)

"Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book. ... Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done." ... He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:7,12,20)

Despite the strongly repeated promises to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 1:4,11) in the 1st century CE, Jesus has not come quickly or shortly according to critics.
Apologists respond that the word "soon" (other translations use "shortly" or "quickly") does not have to be understood in the sense of close future. The Norwegian scholar Thorleif Boman explained that the Israelites, unlike Europeans or people in the West, did not understand time as something measurable or calculable according to Hebrew thinking but as something qualitative.

We have examined the ideas underlying the expression of calculable time and more than once have found that the Israelites understood time as something qualitative, because for them time is determined by its content.[105]

...the Semitic concept of time is closely coincident with that of its content without which time would be quite impossible. The quantity of duration completely recedes behind the characteristic feature that enters with time or advances in it. Johannes Pedersen comes to the same conclusion when he distinguishes sharply between the Semitic understanding of time and ours. According to him, time is for us an abstraction since we distinguish time from the events that occur in time. The ancient Semites did not do this; for them time is determined by its content.[106]
In this way expressions of time, such as "soon", do not mean that the denoted event will take place in close future but that it will be the next significant event.[107]
The Apostle Paul also predicted that the second coming would be within his own lifetime, 1 Thessalonians 4:17:

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
[108]

The philosopher Porphyry (232-305 CE), in his Kata Christianon (Against the Christians), a book burned and banned by the church in 448 CE writes of Paul:

Another of his astonishingly silly comments needs to be examined: I mean that wise saying of his, to the effect that, We who are alive and persevere shall not precede those who are asleep when the lord comes—for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout... and the trumpet of god shall sound, and those who have died in Christ shall rise first- then we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in a cloud to meet the lord in the air... Indeed—there is something here that reaches up to heaven: the magnitude of this lie. When told to dumb bears, to silly frogs and geese—they bellow or croak or quack with delight to hear of the bodies of men flying through the air like birds or being carried about on the clouds. This belief is quackery of the first rate.
The apologists answer for the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is that Paul speaks about his own presence at the last day only hypothetically. He identifies himself with those Christians who will still live in the time of Jesus' return but does not want to express that he himself will still experience this.[109] That becomes fully clear some verses later in which he says that the Day of the Lord comes like a thief (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2). The comparison of the Day of the Lord with a thief is a word of Jesus himself (Matthew 24:43-44), which expresses the impossibility to say anything about the date of his second coming (Matthew 24:36).
Notable critics[edit]
Isaac Asimov
Richard Dawkins
Albert Einstein [110]
Christopher Hitchens
Robert G. Ingersoll[111]
Thomas Paine
Bertrand Russell
Mark Twain
Voltaire
See also[edit]
Bible conspiracy theory
Criticism of the Book of Mormon
Criticism of the Talmud
Criticism of the Qur'an
Christ myth theory
Misquoting Jesus
Tahrif
References[edit]
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77.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; page 1189—introduction to the book of Jonah.
78.Jump up ^ "Yahweh's Failed Land Promise, Farrell Till". Theskepticalreview.com. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
79.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, page 32.
80.Jump up ^ Greidanus, Sidney (1999). Preaching Christ from the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-8028-4449-1. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
81.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Isaiah 17:1
82.Jump up ^ "The Argument from the Bible (1996)". Infidels.org. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
83.Jump up ^ John Arthur Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1980, page 141.
84.Jump up ^ "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel". Britannica Online. Britannica.com. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
85.Jump up ^ Herbert M. Wolf, Interpreting Isaiah, published by Zondervan, 1985, page 146
86.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Jeremiah 3:18
87.Jump up ^ John Arthur Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1980, page 552
88.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Jeremiah 30
89.Jump up ^ Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1-39, B&H Publishing Group, 2007, pages 360-363
90.Jump up ^ John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1986, pages 375-381
91.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Isaiah 21:1.
92.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, page 96.
93.Jump up ^ Daniel's First Verse by F.F.Bruce
94.Jump up ^ Claus Schedl, History of the Old Testament, Volume IV, Translation of 'Geschichte des Alten Testaments', Society of St.Paul, Staten Island, New York 10314, 1972, pages 349-350
95.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, pages 88.
96.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to 2 Chronicles 36:6
97.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Matthew 11:1.
98.Jump up ^ John A.T., Robinson, Redating the New Testament, London, 1976, page 20
99.Jump up ^ Dr. Knox Chamblin, Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary: Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28—see last 4 paragraphs
100.Jump up ^ Theodor Zahn, F.F. Bruce, J. Barton Payne, etc. hold this opinion is the meaning of Matthew 10:23?
101.Jump up ^ Riemer, Michael (2000). IT Was At Hand. p. 12.
102.Jump up ^ Garland, Anthony (2007). A Testimony of Jesus Christ—Volume 1. p. 114.
103.Jump up ^ Sproul, RC (1998). The Last Days According to Jesus. p. 156.
104.Jump up ^ Online Interlinear New Testament in Greek—Matthew 26
105.Jump up ^ Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought compared with Greek, W.W.Norton & Company, New York—London, 1970, page 137
106.Jump up ^ Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought compared with Greek, W.W.Norton & Company, New York—London, 1970, page 139
107.Jump up ^ Witherington, III, The Paul Quest, InterVarsity Press, 2001, page 140
108.Jump up ^ See also 1Cor7:29-31, 15:51-54 andRomans 13:12
109.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to 1 Thessalonians 4:15: "Paul includes himself among those who will be present at the parousia: more by aspiration, however, than by conviction."
110.Jump up ^ Einstein: "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."
111.Jump up ^ Brandt, Eric T., and Timothy Larsen (2011). "The Old Atheism Revisited: Robert G. Ingersoll and the Bible". Journal of the Historical Society 11 (2): 211–238. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5923.2011.00330.x.
Further reading[edit]
The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, by C. Dennis McKinsey (Prometheus Books 1995)
The Historical Evidence for Jesus, by G.A. Wells (Prometheus Books 1988)
The Bible unearthed, by I. Finkelstein and N. Asherman (Touchstone 2001)
David and Solomon, by I. Finkelstein and N. Asherman (Freepress 2006)
The Jesus Mysteries, by T. Freke and P. Gandy (Element 1999)
The Jesus Puzzle, by Earl Doherty (Age of Reason Publications 1999)
Not the Impossible Faith, by R. Carrier (Lulu 2009)
BC The archaeology of the Bible lands, by Magnus Magnusson (Bodley Head 1977)
godless, by Dan Barker (Ulysses Press 2008)
Why I became an Atheist, by John W. Loftus (Prometheus books 2008)
The greatest show on earth, by Richard Dawkins (Blackswan 2007)
The god delusion, by Richard Dawkins (Blackswan 2010)
101 myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (Sourcebooks 2000)
Secret origins of the Bible by Tim Callahan (Millennium Press 2002)
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism by Mark S. Smith (Oxford University Press 2001)
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Criticism of the Bible
Bible Research —The Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy
Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Problems, Internet Infidels website
Examination of the Prophecies —Examination of the Old Testament Prophecies of Jesus by Thomas Paine


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Criticism of the Bible

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This article is about criticisms of the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance. For the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document, see Biblical criticism.

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The view that the Bible should be accepted as historically accurate and as a reliable guide to morality has been questioned by many scholars in the field of biblical criticism. In addition to concerns about morality, inerrancy, or historicity, there remain some questions of which books should be included in the Bible (see canon of scripture). Jews discount the New Testament and Old Testament Deuterocanonicals, Jews and most Christians discredit the legitimacy of New Testament apocrypha, and a view sometimes referred to as Jesusism does not affirm the scriptural authority of any biblical text other than the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.


Contents  [hide]
1 Bible history issues
2 Translation issues
3 Ethics in the Bible
4 Internal consistency
5 The Bible and science
6 The Bible and archaeology
7 Unfulfilled prophecies 7.1 Messianic prophecies
7.2 Prophecies after the event
7.3 The success of Joshua
7.4 The destruction of Tyre
7.5 The protection of the King of Judah
7.6 The death of the king of Judah
7.7 The death of Josiah
7.8 The land promised to Abraham
7.9 The fate of Damascus
7.10 The fate of Jews who stay in Egypt
7.11 The return of Jewish prisoners of war
7.12 The strength of Judah
7.13 The identity of the conquerors of Babylon
7.14 Jehoiakim prophecies
7.15 New Testament 7.15.1 The imminence of the second coming

8 Notable critics
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links

Bible history issues[edit]



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Main articles: Biblical Criticism and Higher Criticism
The Hebrew Bible and Christian Bibles are works considered sacred and authoritative writings by their respective faith groups that revere their specific collections of biblical writings.[1] The Hebrew Bible, upon which the Christian Old Testament is based, was originally composed in Biblical Hebrew, except for parts of Daniel and Ezra that were written in Biblical Aramaic. These writings depict Israelite religion from its beginnings to about the 2nd century BC. The Christian New Testament was written in Koine Greek. (See Language of the New Testament for details.)
At the end of the 17th century few Bible scholars would have doubted that Moses wrote the Torah, but in the late 18th century some liberal scholars began to question his authorship, and by the end of the 19th century some went as far as to claim that as a whole the work was of many more authors over many centuries from 1000 BC (the time of David) to 500 BC (the time of Ezra), and that the history it contained was often more polemical rather than strictly factual. By the first half of the 20th century Hermann Gunkel had drawn attention to mythic aspects, and Albrecht Alt, Martin Noth and the tradition history school argued that although its core traditions had genuinely ancient roots, the narratives were fictional framing devices and were not intended as history in the modern sense.

While the limits of the canon were effectively set in these early centuries, the status of scripture has been a topic of scholarly discussion in the later church. Increasingly, the biblical works have been subjected to literary and historical criticism in efforts to interpret the texts independent of Church and dogmatic influences. Different views of the authority and inspiration of the Bible also continue to be expressed in liberal and fundamentalist churches today. What cannot be denied, however, is the enormous influence which the stories, poetry, and reflections found in the biblical writings have had, not only on the doctrines and practices of two major faiths, but also on Western culture, its literature, art, and music.[1]
In the 2nd century, the gnostics often claimed that their form of Christianity was the first, and they regarded Jesus as a teacher, or allegory.[2] Elaine Pagels has proposed that there are several examples of gnostic attitudes in the Pauline Epistles.[citation needed] Bart D. Ehrman and Raymond E. Brown note that some of the Pauline epistles are widely regarded by scholars as pseudonymous,[3] and it is the view of Timothy Freke, and others, that this involved a forgery in an attempt by the Church to bring in Paul's Gnostic supporters and turn the arguments in the other Epistles on their head.
Some critics have alleged that Christianity is not founded on a historical figure, but rather on a mythical creation.[4] This view proposes that the idea of Jesus was the Jewish manifestation of a pan-Hellenic cult, known as Osiris-Dionysus,[5] which acknowledged the non-historic nature of the figure, using it instead as a teaching device.
Translation issues[edit]
Main articles: Biblical manuscripts, Textual criticism and Biblical inerrancy
Some critics express concern that none of the original manuscripts of the books of the Bible still exist. All translations of the Bible have been made from well-respected but centuries-old copies. Religious communities value highly those who interpret their scriptures at both the scholarly and popular levels. Translation of scripture into the vernacular (such as English and hundreds of other languages), though a common phenomenon, is also a subject of debate and criticism.[6]
Translation has led to a number of issues, as the original languages are often quite different in grammar and word meaning. While the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states that "inerrancy" applies only to the original languages, some believers trust their own translation as the truly accurate one—for example, the King-James-Only Movement. For readability, clarity, or other reasons, translators may choose different wording or sentence structure, and some translations may choose to paraphrase passages.
Because many of the words in the original language have ambiguous or difficult to translate meanings, debates over correct interpretation occur. For instance, at creation(Gen 1:2), is רוח אלהים (ruwach 'elohiym) the "wind of god", "spirit of god"(i.e., the Holy Spirit in Christianity), or a "mighty wind" over the primordial deep? In Hebrew, רוח(ruwach) can mean "wind","breath" or "spirit". Both ancient and modern translators are divided over this and many other such ambiguities.[7][8][9][10] Another example is the word used in the Masoretic Text [Isa 7:14] to indicate the woman who would bear Immanuel is alleged to mean a young, unmarried woman in Hebrew, while Matthew 1:23 follows the Septuagint version of the passage that uses the Greek word parthenos, translated virgin, and is used to support the Christian idea of virgin birth. Those who view the masoretic text, which forms the basis of most English translations of the Old Testament, as being more accurate than the Septuagint, and trust its usual translation, may see this as an inconsistency, whereas those who take the Septuagint to be accurate may not.
In the History of the English Bible, there have been many changes to the wording, leading to several competing versions. Many of these have contained Biblical errata—typographic errors, such as the phrases Is there no treacle in Gilead?, Printers have persecuted me without cause, and Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?, and even Thou shalt commit adultery.[11]
More recently, several discoveries of ancient manuscripts such as the Dead Sea scrolls, and Codex Sinaiticus, have led to modern translations like the New International Version differing somewhat from the older ones such as the 17th century King James Version, removing verses not present in the earliest manuscripts (see List of omitted Bible verses), some of which are acknowledged as interpolations, such as the Comma Johanneum, others having several highly variant versions in very important places, such as the resurrection scene in Mark 16. The King-James-Only Movement rejects these changes and uphold the King James Version as the most accurate.[12]
Ethics in the Bible[edit]
Main article: Ethics in the Bible
Certain moral decisions in the Bible are questioned by many modern groups. Some of the most commonly criticized ethical choices include subjugation of women, religious intolerance, use of capital punishment as penalty for violation of Mosaic Law, sexual acts like incest,[13] toleration of the institution of slavery in both Old and New Testaments,[14] obligatory religious wars and the order to commit the genocide of the Canaanites and the Amalekites. Christian Apologists support the Bible's decisions by reminding critics that they should be considered from the author's point of view and that Mosaic Law applied to the Israelite people (who lived before the birth of Jesus). Other religious groups see nothing wrong with the Bible's judgments.[15] One example that is often cited is the biblical law of the rebellious son:[16]

"If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear." (Deut. 21:18-21)
Other critics of the Bible, such as Friedrich Nietzsche who popularized the phrase "God is dead",[17] have questioned the morality of the New Testament, regarding it as weak and conformist-oriented.
Internal consistency[edit]
Main article: Internal consistency of the Bible
There are many places in the Bible in which inconsistencies—such as different numbers and names for the same feature, and different sequences for the same events—have been alleged and presented by critics as difficulties.[18] Responses to these criticisms include the modern documentary hypothesis, the two-source hypothesis and theories that the Pastoral Epistles are pseudonymous.[19]:p.47 Contrasting with these critical stances are positions supported by other authorities that consider the texts to be consistent. Such advocates maintain that the Torah was written by a single source, the Gospels by four independent witnesses, and all of the Pauline Epistles to have been written by the Apostle Paul.[citation needed]
However authors such as Raymond Brown have presented arguments that the Gospels actually contradict each other in various important respects and on various important details.[20] W. D. Davies and E. P. Sanders state that: "on many points, especially about Jesus’ early life, the evangelists were ignorant … they simply did not know, and, guided by rumour, hope or supposition, did the best they could".[21] More critical scholars see the nativity stories either as completely fictional accounts,[22] or at least constructed from traditions that predate the Gospels.[23][24]
For example, many versions of the Bible specifically point out that the most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses did not include Mark 16:9-20, i.e., the Gospel of Mark originally ended at Mark 16:8, and additional verses were added a few hundred years later. This is known as the "Markan Appendix".[25][26][27]
Mosaic authorship, authorship of the Gospels and authorship of the Pauline Epistles are topics that remain widely debated.
The Bible and science[edit]
Main article: Science and the Bible
The universe, as presented literally in the Bible, consists of a flat earth within a geocentric arrangement of planets and stars (e.g. Joshua 10:12–13, Eccles. 1:5, Isaiah 40:22, 1 Chron. 16:30, Matthew 4:8, Rev. 7:1).


Joshua 10:12 On the day that the Lord gave up the Amorites to the Israelites, Joshua stood before all the people of Israel and said to the Lord: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon. Moon, stand still over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the people defeated their enemies.
Eccles. 1:5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
Isaiah 40:22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
1 Chron. 16:30 Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
Rev. 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
[28] Modern astronomy has provided overwhelming evidence that this model is false. The spherical shape of the earth was established with certainty by Hellenistic astronomers in the 3rd century BCE. The heliocentric nature of the solar system was conclusively established in the 16th century CE. Many modern Christians and Jews assert that these passages are written as metaphorical or phenomenological descriptions and not meant to be taken literally.[29] This response is intuitive given the modern prevalence of the expression "the sun rises" despite that it is common knowledge in the English speaking world that the sun does not, in fact, rise.
Another common point of criticism regards the Genesis creation narrative. According to young Earth creationism, which takes a literal view of the book of Genesis, the universe and all forms of life on Earth were created directly by God sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago. (The Bible traces back to Adam's creation around 4000 BCE. There is debate over the 24 hour earth-days in which the earth was created as only on the fourth day were the sun, moon and stars created - without the sun a 24 hour earth-day is impossible. Genesis 1:16-19) This assertion is contradicted by radiocarbon dating of fossils, as well as modern understanding of genetics, evolution, and cosmology.[30] For instance, astrophysical evidence suggests that the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old.[31] Moreover, it would require an impossibly high rate of mutation to account for the current amount of genetic variation in humans if all humans were descended from two individuals several thousand years ago.[32]

The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents.
— Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen Jay Gould
Science-faith think tanks such as the Biologos foundation and Reasons to Believe have sought to reconcile these scientific challenges with the Christian faith.
The Bible and archaeology[edit]
Main articles: The Bible and history and Biblical archaeology
According to one of the world's leading biblical archaeologists, William G. Dever,

"Archaeology certainly doesn't prove literal readings of the Bible...It calls them into question, and that's what bothers some people. Most people really think that archaeology is out there to prove the Bible. No archaeologist thinks so."[33] From the beginnings of what we call biblical archeology, perhaps 150 years ago, scholars, mostly western scholars, have attempted to use archeological data to prove the Bible. And for a long time it was thought to work. William Albright, the great father of our discipline, often spoke of the "archeological revolution." Well, the revolution has come but not in the way that Albright thought. The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people.[34]
Dever also wrote:

Archaeology as it is practiced today must be able to challenge, as well as confirm, the Bible stories. Some things described there really did happen, but others did not. The biblical narratives about Abraham, Moses, Joshua and Solomon probably reflect some historical memories of people and places, but the 'larger than life' portraits of the Bible are unrealistic and contradicted by the archaeological evidence....[35] I am not reading the Bible as Scripture… I am in fact not even a theist. My view all along—and especially in the recent books—is first that the biblical narratives are indeed 'stories,' often fictional and almost always propagandistic, but that here and there they contain some valid historical information...[36]
Tel Aviv University archaeologist Ze'ev Herzog wrote in the Haaretz newspaper:

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, YHWH, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.[37][38]
Professor Finkelstein, who is known as "the father of biblical archaeology", told the Jerusalem Post that Jewish archaeologists have found no historical or archaeological evidence to back the biblical narrative on the Exodus, the Jews' wandering in Sinai or Joshua's conquest of Canaan. On the alleged Temple of Solomon, Finkelstein said that there is no archaeological evidence to prove it really existed.[39] Professor Yoni Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist who has worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed with Israel Finkelstein.[39]
Regarding the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said:

“Really, it’s a myth,”... “This is my career as an archaeologist. I should tell them the truth. If the people are upset, that is not my problem.”[40]
Unfulfilled prophecies[edit]
See also: Bible prophecy
The alleged fulfillment of biblical prophecies is a popular argument used as evidence by Christian apologists to support the claimed divine inspiration of the Bible. They see the fulfillment of prophecies as proof of God's direct involvement in the writing of the Bible.[41]
Messianic prophecies[edit]
See also: Jesus and messianic prophecy and Judaism's view of Jesus
According to Christian apologists, the alleged fulfillment of the messianic prophecies in the mission, death, and resurrection of Jesus proves the accuracy of the Bible. However, according to Jewish scholars, Christian claims that Jesus is the messiah of the Hebrew Bible are based on mistranslations[42][43][44] and Jesus did not fulfill the qualifications for Jewish Messiah.
An example of this is Isaiah 7:14. Christians read Isaiah 7:14 as a prophetic prediction of Jesus' birth from a virgin, while Jews read it as referring to the birth of Ahaz's son, Hezekiah.[45][46] They also point out that the word Almah, used in Isaiah 7:14, is part of the Hebrew phrase ha-almah hara, meaning "the almah is pregnant." Since the present tense is used, they maintain that the young woman was already pregnant and hence not a virgin. This being the case, they claim the verse cannot be cited as a prediction of the future.[46][47]
Prophecies after the event[edit]
Main articles: Postdiction and Vaticinium ex eventu
An example of an alleged after-the-fact prophecy is the Little Apocalypse recorded in the Olivet Discourse of the Gospel of Mark. It predicts the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the Jewish Temple at the hands of the Romans in 70 AD. Most mainstream New Testament scholars concede this is an ex eventu (foretelling after the event), as are many of the prophecies in the Old Testament such as Daniel 11.[48][49][50][51][52][53][54]
Another example is Isaiah's prophecy about Cyrus the Great. Traditionally, the entire book of Isaiah is believed to pre-date the rule of Cyrus by about 120 years. These particular passages (Isaiah 40-55, often referred to as Deutero-Isaiah) are believed by most modern critical scholars to have been added by another author toward the end of the Babylonian exile (ca. 536 BC).[55] Whereas Isaiah 1-39 (referred to as Proto-Isaiah) saw the destruction of Israel as imminent, and the restoration in the future, Deutero-Isaiah speaks of the destruction in the past (Isa 42:24-25), and the restoration as imminent (Isiah 42:1-9). Notice, for example, the change in temporal perspective from (Isiah 39:6-7), where the Babylonian Captivity is cast far in the future, to (Isaiah 43:14), where the Israelites are spoken of as already in Babylon.[56]
The success of Joshua[edit]
The Book of Joshua describes the Israelite conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, the son of one of the aides to Moses. After Moses' death, God tells Joshua to conquer Canaan and makes predictions of his success.[57] Amongst other things, Joshua was to be given a vast dominion that included all of the Hittite land, and the advantage of facing no one who could stand up to him.
While the Book of Joshua delineates many successful conquerings, the Canaanites were not amongst those conquered and the Israelites did suffer defeat. Judah, a leader of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, is unable to dislodge the Jebusites from Jerusalem and was forced to cohabit,[58] while the Manassites, another of the twelve tribes, lack the strength to occupy several Canaan towns.[59] Other bastions of resistance dot the landscape.[60][61] Even after Joshua's death, the land is only partially conquered with the Canaanites remaining a significant external threat.[62][63][64] Critics argue that Joshua never lives to see the full territory God promises him and that the substantial resistance put up by the indigenous population violates God's promise of battles in which no enemy was his equal.
The destruction of Tyre[edit]



Tyre harbourEzekiel predicts that the ancient city of Tyre will be utterly destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and "made a bare rock" that will "never be rebuilt" (Ezekiel 26:1, 26:7-14). However, Tyre withstood Nebuchadrezzar's siege for 13 years, ending in a compromise in which the royal family was taken into exile but the city survived intact.
Apologists cite the text as saying that the prophecy states that "many nations" would accomplish the destruction of Tyre, and claim that this refers to later conquerors (Ezekiel 26:3), but skeptics[65][66] counter that this was a reference to the "many nations" of Nebuchadrezzar's multinational force (Nebuchadrezzar was described by Ezekiel as "king of kings", i.e., an overking, a ruler over many nations), and that subsequent conquerors didn't permanently destroy Tyre either (it is now the fourth-largest city in Lebanon). Ezekiel himself admitted later that Nebuchadnezzar could not defeat Tyre (Ezekiel 29:18).
Ezekiel said Egypt would be made an uninhabited wasteland for forty years (Ezekiel 29:10-14), and Nebuchadnezzar would be allowed to plunder it (Ezekiel 29:19-20) as compensation for his earlier failure to plunder Tyre (see above). However, the armies of Pharaoh Amasis II defeated the Babylonians. History records that this Pharaoh (also known as Ahmose II) went on to enjoy a long and prosperous reign; Herodotus writes that:

It is said that it was during the reign of Ahmose II that Egypt attained its highest level of prosperity both in respect of what the river gave the land and in respect of what the land yielded to men and that the number of inhabited cities at that time reached in total 20,000.[67]
The prophecy in chapter 29 dates in December 588—January 587. 20 years later, in the year 568, Nebuchadnezzar attacked Egypt.[68] F.F. Bruce writes still more exactly that the Babylonian king invaded Egypt already after the siege of Tyre 585—573 BC and replaced the Pharaoh Hophra (Apries) by Amasis:

The siege of Tyre was followed by operations against Egypt itself. Hophra was defeated, deposed and replaced by Amasis, an Egyptian general. But in 568 BC Amasis revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, who then invaded and occupied part of the Egyptian frontier lands.[69]
Flavius Josephus even writes in his Antiquities, citing the 4th century Greek writer Megasthenes that Nebuchadnezzar had control of all northern Africa unto present day Spain:

Megasthenes also, in his fourth book of his Accounts of India, makes mention of these things, and thereby endeavours to show that this king (Nebuchadnezzar) exceeded Hercules in fortitude, and in the greatness of his actions; for he saith that he conquered a great part of Libya and Iberia.[70]
On the other hand Nebuchadnezzar makes no mention of this campaign against Egypt in his inscriptions, at least that are currently known. It is too simple to argue with Herodotus, especially because his credibility was ever since contested.[71] The forty years are not to understand as an exact number. This figure became a significant period of chastisement to the Hebrews remembering the forty years in the desert after the exodus from Egypt.[72]
The protection of the King of Judah[edit]
Isaiah spoke of a prophecy God made to Ahaz, the King of Judah that he would not be harmed by his enemies (Isaiah 7:1-7), yet according to 2 Chronicles, the king of Aram and Israel did conquer Judah (2 Chronicles 28:1-6).
In Isaiah (Isaiah 7:9) the prophet says clearly that a prerequisite for the fulfillment of the prophecy is that Ahaz stands firm in his faith. F.F. Bruce claims that this means Ahaz should trust God and not seek military help in the Assyrians, which Ahaz did.[73]
The death of the king of Judah[edit]
In predicting Jerusalem's fall to Babylon, Jeremiah prophesied that Zedekiah, the king of Judah, would "die in peace" (Jeremiah 34:2-5). However, according to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 52:9-11), he was put in prison until the day of his death.
Apologists maintain that Zedekiah did not suffer the same terrible death as all the other nobles of Judah did when Nebuchadnezzar killed them in Riblah. Jeremiah also told Zedekiah in his prophecy that he would have to go to Babylon, which the Apologists claim implies that he will be imprisoned. There are no historical records of what happened with Zedekiah in Babylon[74] and a peaceful death is not ruled out.[citation needed]
The death of Josiah[edit]
Prophetess Huldah prophesied that Josiah would die in peace (2 Kings 22:18-20), but rather than dying in peace, as the prophetess predicted, Josiah was probably killed at Megiddo in a battle with the Egyptian army (2 Chronicles 35:20-24).[75]
Apologists allege that the prophecy of Huldah was partially fulfilled because Josiah did not see all the disaster the Babylonians brought over Jerusalem and Judah. The prophetess clearly stated that because of Josiah's repentance, he will be buried in peace. But the king did not keep his humble attitude. As mentioned in 2 Chronicles (2 Chronicles 35:22), he did not listen to God's command and fought against the Egyptian pharaoh Necho. It is quite possible that he did this "opposing the faithful prophetic party".[76] Prophecy in the biblical sense is except in some very few cases never a foretelling of future events but it wants to induce the hearers to repent, to admonish and to encourage respectively; biblical prophecy includes almost always a conditional element.[77]



 Map showing the borders of the Promised Land, based on God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:18-21: In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
The land promised to Abraham[edit]
Main article: Promised Land
According to Genesis and Deuteronomy (Genesis 15:18, 17:8 and Deuteronomy 1:7-8), Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites will unconditionally (Deuteronomy 9:3-7) own all the land between the Nile River and the Euphrates River for an everlasting possession. But a critic says it never happened, that they never owned all that land forever.[78]
An apologist's counter-claim would be that a reading of Davidic conquests tells of the Israelite occupation of all the promised lands. F.F. Bruce writes:

David's sphere of influence now extended from the Egyptian frontier on the Wadi el-Arish (the "brook of Egypt") to the Euphrates; and these limits remained the ideal boundaries of Israel's dominion long after David's empire had disappeared.[79]
Acts 7:5 and Hebrews 11:13 are taken out of context if used as evidence against the fulfillment of these prophecies. Stephen does not state in Acts that the prophecy was not fulfilled. Moreover, it does not seem any problem for him to mention side by side the promise to Abraham himself and that Abraham did not get even a foot of ground. This becomes understandable with the concept of corporate personality. Jews are familiar with identifying individuals with the group they belong to. H. Wheeler Robinson writes that

Corporate personality is the important Semitic complex of thought in which there is a constant oscillation between the individual and the group—family, tribe, or nation—to which he belongs, so that the king or some other representative figure may be said to embody the group, or the group may be said to sum up the host of individuals.[80]
The letter to the Hebrews speaks about the promise of the heavenly country (Hebrews 11:13-16).
The fate of Damascus[edit]
According to Isaiah 17:1, "Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins", but in fact Damascus is considered among the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.
An apologist's response to this statement is that this verse refers to the destruction of Damascus as a strong capital of Syria. This was fulfilled during the Syro-Ephraimite War.

The prophecy perhaps dates from about 735 BC, when Damascus and Israel were allied against Judah (Isaiah 7:1). Damascus was taken by Tiglath-Pileser in 732, and Samaria by Sargon in 721.[81]
The passage is consistent with 2 Kings 16:9, which states that Assyria defeated the city and exiled the civilians to Kir.
The fate of Jews who stay in Egypt[edit]
According to Jeremiah 42:17, Jews who choose to live in Egypt will all die and leave no remnant. But history shows that Jews continued to live there for centuries, later establishing a cultural center at Alexandria. A Jewish community exists at Alexandria even to this day.[82]
According to apologists, a more thorough examination of the surrounding text suggests that Jeremiah is stating that no refugees who flee to Egypt would return to Israel except for few fugitives. Jeremiah 42-44 had relevance mainly to the group of exiles who fled to Egypt. It emphasizes that the future hopes of a restored Israel lay elsewhere than with the exiles to Egypt.[83]
The return of Jewish prisoners of war[edit]
Isaiah and Jeremiah (Isaiah 27:12-13, Jeremiah 3:18, Jeremiah 31:1-23, and Jeremiah 33:7) predicted the return of the exiles taken from Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BC. It never happened. Following the conquest of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians in 721 BC, the 10 tribes were gradually assimilated by other peoples and thus disappeared from history.[84] Unlike the Kingdom of Judah, which was able to return from its Babylonian Captivity in 537 BC, the 10 tribes of the Kingdom of Israel never had a foreign edict granting permission to return and rebuild their homeland. Assyria has long since vanished, its capital, Nineveh, destroyed in 612 BC.
Apologists, however, charge that Luke 2:36 states that Anna the Prophetess, daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, was living as a widow in the sanctuary ministering to God with and fastings and petitions night and day. Thus, at least some (tiny) portion of Israel returned, since it was unlikely that a lone female would return to the land of Israel unaccompanied by kinsmen as safe escort.
Although the exiled Israelites from the Northern kingdom did not return from Assyria, apologists state that it must be considered that these passages also contain the expectation of the messianic days. Theologians point out that in Isaiah 27:12-13 Euphrates and the Wadi of Egypt represent the northern and southern borders of the Promised Land in its widest extent (Genesis 15:18) and thus they refer these verses to the return of the Israelites to Jerusalem in the last days, in the messianic time. Israelites will be gathered from wherever they have been expelled from the north, Assyria, to the south, Egypt.[85] Jeremiah's prophecy of Israel's and Judah's return from the north in Jeremiah 3:18 is preceded by the request of Yahweh to the Israelites to come back (verse 14). After fulfilling this condition God will increase their number and none will miss the ark of the covenant (verse 16). All nations will then honour the Lord (verse 17). Consequently Christian scholars refer verse 18 to messianic times when there will be a kingdom united as in the days of David and Solomon.[86] Jeremiah 31 should be seen in context with chapter 30. Some scholars argue that these chapters were written early in Jeremiah's ministry and refer to Northern Israel. Later these poems were updated and referred to Judah as well, probably by Jeremiah himself, when it was realized that Judah had passed through similar experiences to those of Israel.[87] The Book of Consolation (Jeremiah 30:1—31:40) reaches his final, messianic scope in the establishment of a New Covenant between Yahweh and the House of Israel and the House of Judah.[88]
The strength of Judah[edit]
Isaiah 19:17 predicted that "the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt". Assuming that the 'terror' implied was a large-scale military attack of Egypt, it never happened.
According to theologians, the statement that the "land of Judah" will terrify the Egyptians is not a reference to a large army from Judah attacking Egypt, but a circumlocution for the place where God lives; it is God and his plans that will terrify Egypt. Verse 17 has to be understood in its context. The second "in that day" message from verse 18 announces the beginning of a deeper relationship between God and Egypt, which leads to Egypt's conversion and worshiping God (verses 19-21). The last "in that day" prophecy (verses 23-25) speaks about Israel, Assyria and Egypt as God's special people, thus, describing eschatological events.[89][90]
The identity of the conquerors of Babylon[edit]
Isaiah 13:17, Isaiah 21:2, Jeremiah 51:11, and Jeremiah 51:27-28 predicted that Babylon would be destroyed by the Medes, Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz and Elamites. The Persians under Cyrus the Great captured Babylon in 539 BC. Daniel 5:31 incorrectly stated that it was Darius the Mede who captured Babylon.
Christian apologists state that the prophecy in Isaiah 13:21 could possibly have been directed originally against Assyria, whose capital Ninive was defeated 612 BC by a combined onslaught of the Medes and Babylonians. According to this explanation the prophecy was later updated and referred to Babylon[91] not recognizing the rising power of Persia. On the other hand it can be mentioned that the Persian king Cyrus after overthrowing Media in 550 BC did not treat the Medes as a subject nation.

Instead of treating the Medes as a beaten foe and a subject nation, he had himself installed as king of Media and governed Media and Persia as a dual monarchy, each part of which enjoyed equal rights.[92]
Jeremiah prophesied at the height of the Median empire's power, and thus he was probably influenced to see the Medes as the nation that will conquer Babylon. Several proposals were brought forth for "Darius the Mede" out of which one says that Cyrus the Great is meant in Daniel 5:31.
Jehoiakim prophecies[edit]
The prophet Daniel states that in the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah (Daniel 1:1-2). The third year of Jehoiakim's reign was 605 BC, at which time Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king of Babylon. It was in 597 BC that Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem, by then Jehoiakim had died.
Apologists respond that this is not a prophecy but a statement. Daniel 1:1 is a problem of dating. But already F.F. Bruce solved this problem explaining that when Nebuchadnezzar, son of king Nabopolassar, was put in charge over a part of his forces, he defeated Necho in the battle of Carchemish 605 BC. In this situation his father Nabopolassar died. Before Nebuchadnezzar as heir apparent returned to Babylon he settled the affairs in the Asiatic countries bordering the Egyptian frontier, which means also Judah, and took captives from several countries as, for example, also from the Jews.[93]
Jeremiah prophesied that the body of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, would be desecrated after his death (Jeremiah 22:18-19, Jeremiah 36:30-31). However, his death was recorded in 2 Kings 24:6 where it says that "Jehoiakim slept with his fathers". This is a familiar Bible expression that was used to denote a peaceful death and respectful burial. David slept with his fathers (1 Kings 2:10) and so did Solomon (1 Kings 11:43). On the other hand, 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 states that Nebuchadnezzar came against Jehoiakim, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon. Judging from the treatment Zedekiah was accorded when the Babylonians bound him and carried him away to Babylon (Jeremiah 52:9-11), one might justifiably argue that his body probably was desecrated after his death. Jeremiah, however, predicted that Jehoiakim's own people would be his desecraters, that his own people would not accord him lamentations appropriate for a king, that his own people would cast his body "out beyond the gates of Jerusalem".
Apologists proposal for a partial solution:

In the 7th year of his reign, in the month of Kislev (December/January 598/97), Nebuchadnezzar himself left Babylon and undertook the subjection of rebellious Judah. In that same month, King Jehoiakim died in Jerusalem. (On the basis of a comparison with 2 Kings 24:6,8,10ff, with the Babylonian Chronicle, Wiseman 73, lines 11-13, Kislev is the ninth month. In the twelfth month, Adar, Jerusalem was taken. Jehoiachin's reign falls in these three months.) It is not impossible that he was murdered by a political faction who thereby sought more mild treatment for their country. His 18-year old son Jehoiachin was raised to the throne (2 Kings 24:8). Three months later Jerusalem was entirely surrounded by Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the city of Judah (al-ya-ahu-du), and on the second day of the month of Adar he comquered the city and took its king prisoner.[94]
Also F.F. Bruce writes that Jehoiakim died in Juda before the siege of Jerusalem began.[95] This would mean that Jehoiakim was desecrated after his death and in this way the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled. The passage in 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 does not speak explicitly about Jehoiakim's death. Thus, it can be seen as a parallel to Daniel 1:1-2[96] which speaks about an event in the lifetime of the king of Judah (see paragraph above). 2 Kings 24:6, nevertheless, remains unclear.
Part of the desecration prophecy was that Jehoiakim would "have no one to sit upon the throne of David" (Jeremiah 36:30), but this too was proven false. Upon Jehoiakim's death, his son Jehoiachin "reigned in his stead" for a period of three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:8-9, 2 Kings 24:6-8). Also, there are biblical genealogies that purport to show Jehoiakim as a direct ancestor of Jesus (1 Chronicles 3:16-17, Matthew 1:11-12).[75]
Apologists say that if Jehoiakim had not been killed by his own people, on the condition that this supposition is true (see preceding paragraph), in all likelihood, Jehoiakim would have been put to death by the Babylonians. The Israelites anticipated what Nebuchadnezzar intended to do. In this case, most probable, Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin would not have become king and Jeremiah's prophecy would have been fulfilled in its full sense. Jehoiachin's successor, Zedekiah, was no descendant of Jehoiakim, but his brother.
The double reckoning of Jehoiachin in Matthew 1:11-12 is made possible by the fact that the same Greek name can translate the two similar Hebrew names Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin.[97] In this way in verse 11 Jehoiakim and in verse 12 Jehoiachin is meant. The verse Jeremiah 36:30 says that Jehoiakim's descendants will not be kings in Judah anymore. This does not mean that he cannot be an ancestor of the Messiah.
New Testament[edit]



 The Wailing Wall by night. According to Luke 19:41-44: As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.
Jesus said in Matt. 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44; Luke 21:6 that "no stone" of Jerusalem or of the Second Temple would be left upon another. This prophecy failed, as the wailing wall (a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple's courtyard,) still remains.
In reply, John Robinson writes that

it was the temple that perished by fire while the walls of the city were thrown down.[98]
The imminence of the second coming[edit]
See also: Second coming
Jesus prophesied that the second coming would occur during the lifetime of his followers and Caiphas, and immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE (referred to as abomination of desolation in Matt 24:15).

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:27-28)

"When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes." (Matthew 10:23)

..Again the high priest (Caiphas) asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?""I am", said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:61-62)

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. "Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us", they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now-and never to be equaled again. Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. (Matthew 24)

(see also Mark 13:1-30, Luke 21:5-35, Mark 13:30-31, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27, John 21:22, Matthew 26:62-64, Mark 14:62)
It may be argued that Jesus was not speaking of the second coming in Matthew 16:28 but instead referred to a demonstration of his or God's might; a viewpoint which allows the fulfillment of the prophesy through a variety of traumatic events, notably, the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. The temple's destruction is held by proponents to demonstrate that God was on the side of the Christian people rather than that of the Jews. However, at that time only some of Jesus' disciples still lived.[99] In the same way Matthew 10:23 should be understood.[100] Note, however, that this view (referred to as Preterism) is not the majority view among American denominations, especially by denominations that espouse Dispensationalism.[101][102][103] Furthermore it is a misunderstanding that Jesus meant Caiphas in Mark 14:62. The word "you will see" is in Greek "ὄψεσθε" [opsesthe, from the infinitive optomai],[104] which is plural and not singular. Jesus meant that the Jews, and not just the high priest, will see his coming.
This prophecy is also seen in the Revelation of Jesus to John.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,... Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. (Revelation 1:1,7)

"Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book. ... Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done." ... He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:7,12,20)

Despite the strongly repeated promises to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 1:4,11) in the 1st century CE, Jesus has not come quickly or shortly according to critics.
Apologists respond that the word "soon" (other translations use "shortly" or "quickly") does not have to be understood in the sense of close future. The Norwegian scholar Thorleif Boman explained that the Israelites, unlike Europeans or people in the West, did not understand time as something measurable or calculable according to Hebrew thinking but as something qualitative.

We have examined the ideas underlying the expression of calculable time and more than once have found that the Israelites understood time as something qualitative, because for them time is determined by its content.[105]

...the Semitic concept of time is closely coincident with that of its content without which time would be quite impossible. The quantity of duration completely recedes behind the characteristic feature that enters with time or advances in it. Johannes Pedersen comes to the same conclusion when he distinguishes sharply between the Semitic understanding of time and ours. According to him, time is for us an abstraction since we distinguish time from the events that occur in time. The ancient Semites did not do this; for them time is determined by its content.[106]
In this way expressions of time, such as "soon", do not mean that the denoted event will take place in close future but that it will be the next significant event.[107]
The Apostle Paul also predicted that the second coming would be within his own lifetime, 1 Thessalonians 4:17:

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
[108]

The philosopher Porphyry (232-305 CE), in his Kata Christianon (Against the Christians), a book burned and banned by the church in 448 CE writes of Paul:

Another of his astonishingly silly comments needs to be examined: I mean that wise saying of his, to the effect that, We who are alive and persevere shall not precede those who are asleep when the lord comes—for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout... and the trumpet of god shall sound, and those who have died in Christ shall rise first- then we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in a cloud to meet the lord in the air... Indeed—there is something here that reaches up to heaven: the magnitude of this lie. When told to dumb bears, to silly frogs and geese—they bellow or croak or quack with delight to hear of the bodies of men flying through the air like birds or being carried about on the clouds. This belief is quackery of the first rate.
The apologists answer for the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is that Paul speaks about his own presence at the last day only hypothetically. He identifies himself with those Christians who will still live in the time of Jesus' return but does not want to express that he himself will still experience this.[109] That becomes fully clear some verses later in which he says that the Day of the Lord comes like a thief (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2). The comparison of the Day of the Lord with a thief is a word of Jesus himself (Matthew 24:43-44), which expresses the impossibility to say anything about the date of his second coming (Matthew 24:36).
Notable critics[edit]
Isaac Asimov
Richard Dawkins
Albert Einstein [110]
Christopher Hitchens
Robert G. Ingersoll[111]
Thomas Paine
Bertrand Russell
Mark Twain
Voltaire
See also[edit]
Bible conspiracy theory
Criticism of the Book of Mormon
Criticism of the Talmud
Criticism of the Qur'an
Christ myth theory
Misquoting Jesus
Tahrif
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b "Bible." The Crystal Reference Encyclopedia. West Chiltington: Crystal Reference, 2005. Credo Reference. 29 July 2009
2.Jump up ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (2003). Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York: Oxford. pp. 122–123, 185. ISBN 0-19-514183-0.
3.Jump up ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (2004). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York: Oxford. pp. 372–3. ISBN 0-19-515462-2. Brown, Raymond E. (1997). Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Anchor Bible. pp. 621, 639, 654. ISBN 0-385-24767-2. Scholars who hold to Pauline authorship include Wohlenberg, Lock, Meinertz, Thornell, Schlatter, Spicq, Jeremais, Simpson, Kelly, and Fee. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, p. 622.
4.Jump up ^ Examples of authors who argue the Jesus myth hypothesis: Thomas L. Thompson The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David (Jonathan Cape, Publisher, 2006); Michael Martin, The Case Against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 36–72; John Mackinnon Robertson
5.Jump up ^ Freke, Timothy and Gandy, Peter (1999) The Jesus Mysteries. London: Thorsons (Harper Collins)
6.Jump up ^ "Bible." The Columbia Encyclopedia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Credo Reference. 29 July 2009
7.Jump up ^ The Bible in the Syriac tradition, Sebastian P. Brock, p. 13
8.Jump up ^ God's conflict with the dragon and the sea: echoes of a Canaanite myth, John Day
9.Jump up ^ Understanding Biblical Israel: a reexamination of the origins of monotheism, Stanley Ned Rosenbaum
10.Jump up ^ The Jewish religion: a companion By Louis Jacobs, p. 251
11.Jump up ^ Exod. 20:14, 1631 edition of the King James Version of the Bible.
12.Jump up ^ Eric Pement, Gimme the Bible that Paul used: A look at the King James Only debate online.
13.Jump up ^ Genesis 19:30-36
14.Jump up ^ "How Can We Trust a Bible that Tolerated Slavery?" Discovery Series, RBC Ministries. July 27, 2009.
15.Jump up ^ [1][dead link]
16.Jump up ^ Schulweis, Harold M. (2009). Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey. Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights. pp. 28–30. ISBN 1-58023-419-4.
17.Jump up ^ Saugstad, Andreas. "Nietzsche & Christianity" July 28, 2009.
18.Jump up ^ "Contradictions from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible". Skepticsannotatedbible.com. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
19.Jump up ^ Knight, George William, Howard Marshall, and W. Ward Gasque. The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text (New International Greek Testament Commentary). William. B. Eerdmans, 1997. ISBN 0-8028-2395-5 / 9780802823953
20.Jump up ^ Brown, Raymond Edward (1999-05-18). The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library). Yale University Press. p. 36. ISBN 0-300-14008-8.
21.Jump up ^ W.D Davies and E. P. Sanders, 'Jesus from the Jewish point of view', in The Cambridge History of Judaism ed William Horbury, vol 3: the Early Roman Period, 1984.
22.Jump up ^ Sanders, Ed Parish (1993). The Historical Figure of Jesus. London: Allen Lane. p. 85. ISBN 0-7139-9059-7.
23.Jump up ^ Hurtado, Larry W. (June 2003). Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans. p. 319. ISBN 0-8028-6070-2.
24.Jump up ^ Brown, Raymond Edward (1977). The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. pp. 104–121. ISBN 0-385-05907-8.
25.Jump up ^ The role and function of repentance in Luke-Acts, by Guy D. Nave, pg 194 – see http://books.google.com/books?id=4CGScYTomYsC&pg=PA194&lpg=PA194&dq=%2B%22markan+appendix%22&source=bl&ots=ex8JIDMwMD&sig=oCI_C1mXVSZYoz34sVlgRDaO__Q&hl=en&ei=3pq_St6aGYnSjAefnOU2&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=%2B%22markan%20appendix%22&f=false
26.Jump up ^ The Continuing Christian Need for Judaism, by John Shelby Spong, Christian Century September 26, 1979, p. 918. see http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1256
27.Jump up ^ Feminist companion to the New Testament and early Christian writings, Volume 5, by Amy-Jill Levine, Marianne Blickenstaff, pg175 – see http://books.google.com/books?id=B2lfhy5lvlkC&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=%2B%22markan+appendix%22&source=bl&ots=vp5GVlmghC&sig=XN1KJCsBkTWO2Fot4SBhnpWoRkY&hl=en&ei=3pq_St6aGYnSjAefnOU2&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=%2B%22markan%20appendix%22&f=false
28.Jump up ^ Driscoll, J.F. (1909). "Firmament". In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 26 May 2008 from New Advent. ("That the Hebrews entertained similar ideas appears from numerous biblical passages...").
29.Jump up ^ The Galileo Controversy at Catholic Answers
30.Jump up ^ http://ncse.com/cej/3/2/answers-to-creationist-attacks-carbon-14-dating
31.Jump up ^ "Cosmic Detectives". The European Space Agency (ESA). 2013-04-02. Retrieved 2013-04-15.
32.Jump up ^ Barbara Bradley Hagerty (August 9, 2011). "Evangelicals Question The Existence Of Adam And Eve". All Things Considered.
33.Jump up ^ Bible gets a reality check, MSNBC, Alan Boyle
34.Jump up ^ The Bible's Buried Secrets, PBS Nova, 2008
35.Jump up ^ Dever, William G. (March–April 2006). "The Western Cultural Tradition Is at Risk". Biblical Archaeology Review 32 (2): 26 & 76.
36.Jump up ^ Dever, William G. (January 2003). "Contra Davies". The Bible and Interpretation. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
37.Jump up ^ The Nature of Home: A Lexicon of Essays, Lisa Knopp, p. 126
38.Jump up ^ Deconstructing the walls of Jericho
39.^ Jump up to: a b http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2705-senior-israeli-archaeologist-casts-doubt-on-jewish-heritage-of-jerusalem
40.Jump up ^ Did the Red Sea Part? No Evidence, Archaeologists Say, The New York Times, April 3, 2007
41.Jump up ^ Nathan Busenitz, John MacArthur. Reasons We Believe. Crossway, 2008. ISBN 1-4335-0146-5 / 9781433501463. Aug. 6, 2009: [2]
42.Jump up ^ Why did the majority of the Jewish world reject Jesus as the Messiah, and why did the first Christians accept Jesus as the Messiah? by Rabbi Shraga Simmons (about.com)
43.Jump up ^ Michoel Drazin (1990). Their Hollow Inheritance. A Comprehensive Refutation of Christian Missionaries. Gefen Publishing House, Ltd. ISBN 965-229-070-X.
44.Jump up ^ Troki, Isaac. "Faith Strengthened".
45.Jump up ^ Glaser, Zhava. "Almah: Virgin or Young Maiden?" Issues—A Messianic Jewish Perspective. July 30, 2009.
46.^ Jump up to: a b "The Jewish Perspective on Isaiah 7:14". Messiahtruth.com. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
47.Jump up ^ Why do Jews reject the Christian dogma of the virgin birth? The Second Jewish Book Of Why p.66 by Alfred J. Kolatch 1985
48.Jump up ^ Peter, Kirby (2001–2007). "Early Christian Writings: Gospel of Mark". Retrieved 2008-01-15.
49.Jump up ^ Achtemeier, Paul J. (1992). "The Gospel of Mark". The Anchor Bible Dictionary 4. New York, New York: Doubleday. p. 545. ISBN 0-385-19362-9.
50.Jump up ^ Meier, John P. (1991). A Marginal Jew. New York, New York: Doubleday. pp. v.2 955–6. ISBN 0-385-46993-4.
51.Jump up ^ Helms, Randel (1997). Who Wrote the Gospels?. Altadena, California: Millennium Press. p. 8. ISBN 0-9655047-2-7.
52.Jump up ^ Funk, Robert W.; Hoover, Roy W.; The Jesus Seminar (1993). The five Gospels: the search for the authentic words of Jesus: new translation and commentary. New York, New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-541949-8.
53.Jump up ^ Crossan, John Dominic (1991). The historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish peasant. San Francisco, California: HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 0-06-061629-6.
54.Jump up ^ Eisenman, Robert J. (1998). James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Penguin Books. p. 56. ISBN 0-14-025773-X.
55.Jump up ^ Simon John De Vries: From old Revelation to new: a tradition-historical and redaction-critical study of temporal transitions in prophetic prediction. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1995, ISBN 978-0-8028-0683-3, p. 126
56.Jump up ^ Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard: Mercer dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press 1990, ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7, p. 414
57.Jump up ^ Joshua 1:1-9
58.Jump up ^ Joshua 15:63
59.Jump up ^ Joshua 17:12-13
60.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, page 19.
61.Jump up ^ Judges 3:5-6
62.Jump up ^ Biblical peoples and ethnicity: an archaeological study of Egyptians, Ann E. Killebrew, pp. 152-154, 2005
63.Jump up ^ International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, p. 1136
64.Jump up ^ The Old Testament world, By John Rogerson, Philip R. Davies, 1989, p. 358
65.Jump up ^ "The Tyre Prophecy Again". The Skeptical Review. March–April 1999. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
66.Jump up ^ "Ezekiel and the Oracles against Tyre". CRI/Voice Institute. 2006. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
67.Jump up ^ Herodotus, (II, 177, 1)
68.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Ezekiel 29:1,19.
69.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, pages 94.
70.Jump up ^ "Flavius Josephus, Antiquities Book X, chapter 11, first paragraph". Ccel.org. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
71.Jump up ^ John Marincola, Classical Association, Greek historians, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pages 37-39. Books.google.com. ISBN 978-0-19-922501-9. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
72.Jump up ^ Frederic Charles Cook, ed. (2006-10-04). "Bible Commentary: Proverbs-Ezekiel—footnote to Ezekiel 29:10-12". Ccel.org. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
73.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, pages 62-67
74.Jump up ^ Siegfried Herrmann, A history of Israel in Old Testament times, London, 1981, SCM Press Ltd, page 284.
75.^ Jump up to: a b "Prophecies: Imaginary and fulfilled". Infidels.org. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
76.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, page 84.
77.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; page 1189—introduction to the book of Jonah.
78.Jump up ^ "Yahweh's Failed Land Promise, Farrell Till". Theskepticalreview.com. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
79.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, page 32.
80.Jump up ^ Greidanus, Sidney (1999). Preaching Christ from the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-8028-4449-1. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
81.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Isaiah 17:1
82.Jump up ^ "The Argument from the Bible (1996)". Infidels.org. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
83.Jump up ^ John Arthur Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1980, page 141.
84.Jump up ^ "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel". Britannica Online. Britannica.com. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
85.Jump up ^ Herbert M. Wolf, Interpreting Isaiah, published by Zondervan, 1985, page 146
86.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Jeremiah 3:18
87.Jump up ^ John Arthur Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1980, page 552
88.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Jeremiah 30
89.Jump up ^ Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1-39, B&H Publishing Group, 2007, pages 360-363
90.Jump up ^ John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1-39, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1986, pages 375-381
91.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Isaiah 21:1.
92.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, page 96.
93.Jump up ^ Daniel's First Verse by F.F.Bruce
94.Jump up ^ Claus Schedl, History of the Old Testament, Volume IV, Translation of 'Geschichte des Alten Testaments', Society of St.Paul, Staten Island, New York 10314, 1972, pages 349-350
95.Jump up ^ F.F. Bruce, Israel and the nations, Michigan, 1981, pages 88.
96.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to 2 Chronicles 36:6
97.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to Matthew 11:1.
98.Jump up ^ John A.T., Robinson, Redating the New Testament, London, 1976, page 20
99.Jump up ^ Dr. Knox Chamblin, Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary: Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28—see last 4 paragraphs
100.Jump up ^ Theodor Zahn, F.F. Bruce, J. Barton Payne, etc. hold this opinion is the meaning of Matthew 10:23?
101.Jump up ^ Riemer, Michael (2000). IT Was At Hand. p. 12.
102.Jump up ^ Garland, Anthony (2007). A Testimony of Jesus Christ—Volume 1. p. 114.
103.Jump up ^ Sproul, RC (1998). The Last Days According to Jesus. p. 156.
104.Jump up ^ Online Interlinear New Testament in Greek—Matthew 26
105.Jump up ^ Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought compared with Greek, W.W.Norton & Company, New York—London, 1970, page 137
106.Jump up ^ Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought compared with Greek, W.W.Norton & Company, New York—London, 1970, page 139
107.Jump up ^ Witherington, III, The Paul Quest, InterVarsity Press, 2001, page 140
108.Jump up ^ See also 1Cor7:29-31, 15:51-54 andRomans 13:12
109.Jump up ^ New Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition published 1985, introductions and notes are a translation of those that appear in La Bible de Jerusalem—revised edition 1973, Bombay 2002; footnote to 1 Thessalonians 4:15: "Paul includes himself among those who will be present at the parousia: more by aspiration, however, than by conviction."
110.Jump up ^ Einstein: "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."
111.Jump up ^ Brandt, Eric T., and Timothy Larsen (2011). "The Old Atheism Revisited: Robert G. Ingersoll and the Bible". Journal of the Historical Society 11 (2): 211–238. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5923.2011.00330.x.
Further reading[edit]
The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, by C. Dennis McKinsey (Prometheus Books 1995)
The Historical Evidence for Jesus, by G.A. Wells (Prometheus Books 1988)
The Bible unearthed, by I. Finkelstein and N. Asherman (Touchstone 2001)
David and Solomon, by I. Finkelstein and N. Asherman (Freepress 2006)
The Jesus Mysteries, by T. Freke and P. Gandy (Element 1999)
The Jesus Puzzle, by Earl Doherty (Age of Reason Publications 1999)
Not the Impossible Faith, by R. Carrier (Lulu 2009)
BC The archaeology of the Bible lands, by Magnus Magnusson (Bodley Head 1977)
godless, by Dan Barker (Ulysses Press 2008)
Why I became an Atheist, by John W. Loftus (Prometheus books 2008)
The greatest show on earth, by Richard Dawkins (Blackswan 2007)
The god delusion, by Richard Dawkins (Blackswan 2010)
101 myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg (Sourcebooks 2000)
Secret origins of the Bible by Tim Callahan (Millennium Press 2002)
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism by Mark S. Smith (Oxford University Press 2001)
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Criticism of the Bible
Bible Research —The Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy
Introduction to the Bible and Biblical Problems, Internet Infidels website
Examination of the Prophecies —Examination of the Old Testament Prophecies of Jesus by Thomas Paine


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Psychological biblical criticism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search



 This article has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (January 2013)
Psychological biblical criticism [1] is a re-emerging field within biblical criticism that seeks to examine the psychological dimensions of scripture through the use of the behavioral sciences. The title itself involves a discussion about "the intersections of three fields: psychology, the Bible, and the tradition of rigorous, critical reading of the biblical text." (Kille, 2001). Known figures within biblical scholarship advocating this interdisciplinary field in the United States include Rev. D. Andrew Kille (2001; 2004), J. Harold Ellens (2004), Wayne G. Rollins (1983; 1999; 2004), and, in Europe, Eugen Drewermann (Beier, 2004), Gerd Theissen (1983, 1987, 2007).
Rollins was the first to define psychological biblical criticism as having the hermeneutical intent of examining

"... texts, their origination, authorship, modes of expression, their construction, transmission, translation, reading, interpretation, their transposition into kindred and alien forms, and the history of their personal and cultural effect, as expressions of the structure, processes, and habits of the human psyche, both in individual and collective manifestations, past and present." (1999:77–78)


Contents  [hide]
1 The worlds of Scripture 1.1 The world behind the text
1.2 The world of the text
1.3 The world in front of the text
2 The Bible and psychology in transition
3 See also
4 Bibliography

The worlds of Scripture[edit]
Unlike many other forms of biblical criticism, psychological biblical criticism is not a particular method for interpretation, but is rather a perspective (Kille, 2001). This approach to the biblical text seeks to complement studies on the cultural, sociological, and anthropological influences on scripture, by discussing the psychological dimensions of: the authors of the text, the material they wish to communicate to their audience, and the reflections and meditations of the reader. As a result, the material under study involves three dimensions of text (Rollins, 1983; Kille, 2001; 2004).
The world behind the text[edit]
What was the author of the text thinking? What was their background, why were they writing? What situations drove them to put pen to paper and produce this work? Although traditional uses of psychological theory in the study of ancient texts have sought to generate a complete psychoanalysis of scriptural writers, there has always been the hindrance of temporal and cultural distance between the analyst and analysand. Psychological biblical criticism best serves not as a reductionistic tool (reducing the person and spirit of a Scriptural author to mere psychology), but as another heuristic for use alongside traditional methods of historical and cultural criticism, illuminating aspects of purpose and meaning in the language and cognition of texts (Kille, 2001: 22–23; 2004: 23–25). In essence, a study of the world behind the text involves such questions as "... what makes them write the way they do and what realities, truths, and insights they want to share with us." (Rollins, 1983: 99).
The world of the text[edit]
Why did King Saul decide try to skewer David—his greatest warrior—with a spear? Why did Judas hand Jesus over? What is the meaning of Genesis Chapter 1? To analyze the world of the text is to "describe the qualities of a character as he or she is presented in the text" (Kille, 2001:24), their actions and relationships, as well as develop insight into the motivations the writer has programmed into them. Kille in particular warns that one should be wary of trying to reach beyond the world of the text to the actual historical persons, since one may accidentally perform the function of eisegesis (personal interpretation of a text) rather than exegesis (critical analysis of the meaning inherent to the text). The world of the text may also shine light on the conditions and intent of the writer. On the one hand the characters and events within the text may reflect more the writer's socio-cultural situation than actual events, while at the same time they may inform us as to what the writer desires from us—transformation, repentance, enlightenment, etc. (Kille, 2004).
The world in front of the text[edit]

"... we often come to Scripture with the question 'What is this book?', but discover that this book asks us, 'Who is this that reads it?' ... Each of us carries... a set of values, a list of personal problems, a well seasoned worldview, and a large dose of humanity, wherever we go and to whatever task we undertake. When we approach Scripture we come with the same baggage. It is not possible to come in any other way."
—Wayne G. Rollins, 1983:98
How do I approach the text? What does the text ask of me? How do I respond to it? What meaning do I give to this relationship? The world in front of the text discusses the interplay between the text before our very eyes and the eisegetical processes that take place within our mind. In this exchange the interest is not in the psychological world of the writer, or the original meaning of the text and the characters displayed, but in how the reader manipulates, interprets, and is filled by the text; how they make it relevant to their lives, how it "speaks" to them, and how this relationship reflects their personal world (Rollins 1983: 97–100; Kille, 2001: 25–27; 2004: 27–29).
The Bible and psychology in transition[edit]

"Psychology and Biblical studies are thus inevitably interlinked, regardless of what the immediate focus or concern of either is. Hence, whether we are exploring the biblical text or the living human document, the mutual illumination of psychology and biblical studies is imperative because a properly enlightened anthropology is required for both ... Because both disciplines deal with the psycho-spiritual domains, neither of these can ignore the other or it is not adequately serious about itself."
—J. Harold Ellens, 2004:284
A psychological study of the hermeneutical levels of religious texts has the capability of granting a better understanding not only of the text itself, but also of the mind that produced it, the mind that it describes, and the mind that interacts with it. This knowledge has promise for interdisciplinary application as well, by informing the field of religious studies, the psychotherapeutic encounter, and the psychology of religion. Hence, proponents of psychological biblical criticism argue that it has the potential of crossing the gap between psychology and religion, providing a platform for dialogue without reducing religion to mere drives and internal objects, but by discussing the aspects of this very human mode of meaning (Ellens, 2004).
There is a website sponsored by the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section of the Society of Biblical Literature which is devoted to psychological biblical criticism at www.psybibs.org.
See also[edit]
Biblical criticism
Bibliography[edit]
Beier, Matthias. (2004). A Violent God-Image: An Introduction to the Work of Eugen Drewermann. New York, London: Continuum. Review by Wayne G. Rollins in the Review of Biblical Literature (PDF) ISBN 0-8264-1584-9.
Eugen Drewermann Pages
Ellens, J. Harold. (2004). The Bible and Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Pilgrimage. In Ellens & Rollins Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. v.1, pgs. 277–287. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Ellens, J. Harold, & Rollins, Wayne G., eds. (2004). Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. v.1–4. Westport: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-98347-1
Kille, D. Andrew Kille. (2001). Psychological Biblical Criticism. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers. (PDF) ISBN 0-8006-3246-X
_____________________. (2004). Reading the Bible in Three Dimensions: Psychological Biblical Interpretation. In Ellens & Rollins Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. v.1, pgs. 17–32. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Rollins, Wayne G. (1983). Jung and the Bible. Atlanta: John Knox Press. ISBN 0-8042-1117-5
_______________. (1999). Soul and Psyche: The Bible in Psychological Perspective. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers. ISBN 0-8006-2716-4
Rollins, Wayne G. & D. Andrew Kille, Eds. (2007) Psychological Insight into the Bible: Texts and Readings. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
  


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Psychological biblical criticism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search



 This article has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (January 2013)
Psychological biblical criticism [1] is a re-emerging field within biblical criticism that seeks to examine the psychological dimensions of scripture through the use of the behavioral sciences. The title itself involves a discussion about "the intersections of three fields: psychology, the Bible, and the tradition of rigorous, critical reading of the biblical text." (Kille, 2001). Known figures within biblical scholarship advocating this interdisciplinary field in the United States include Rev. D. Andrew Kille (2001; 2004), J. Harold Ellens (2004), Wayne G. Rollins (1983; 1999; 2004), and, in Europe, Eugen Drewermann (Beier, 2004), Gerd Theissen (1983, 1987, 2007).
Rollins was the first to define psychological biblical criticism as having the hermeneutical intent of examining

"... texts, their origination, authorship, modes of expression, their construction, transmission, translation, reading, interpretation, their transposition into kindred and alien forms, and the history of their personal and cultural effect, as expressions of the structure, processes, and habits of the human psyche, both in individual and collective manifestations, past and present." (1999:77–78)


Contents  [hide]
1 The worlds of Scripture 1.1 The world behind the text
1.2 The world of the text
1.3 The world in front of the text
2 The Bible and psychology in transition
3 See also
4 Bibliography

The worlds of Scripture[edit]
Unlike many other forms of biblical criticism, psychological biblical criticism is not a particular method for interpretation, but is rather a perspective (Kille, 2001). This approach to the biblical text seeks to complement studies on the cultural, sociological, and anthropological influences on scripture, by discussing the psychological dimensions of: the authors of the text, the material they wish to communicate to their audience, and the reflections and meditations of the reader. As a result, the material under study involves three dimensions of text (Rollins, 1983; Kille, 2001; 2004).
The world behind the text[edit]
What was the author of the text thinking? What was their background, why were they writing? What situations drove them to put pen to paper and produce this work? Although traditional uses of psychological theory in the study of ancient texts have sought to generate a complete psychoanalysis of scriptural writers, there has always been the hindrance of temporal and cultural distance between the analyst and analysand. Psychological biblical criticism best serves not as a reductionistic tool (reducing the person and spirit of a Scriptural author to mere psychology), but as another heuristic for use alongside traditional methods of historical and cultural criticism, illuminating aspects of purpose and meaning in the language and cognition of texts (Kille, 2001: 22–23; 2004: 23–25). In essence, a study of the world behind the text involves such questions as "... what makes them write the way they do and what realities, truths, and insights they want to share with us." (Rollins, 1983: 99).
The world of the text[edit]
Why did King Saul decide try to skewer David—his greatest warrior—with a spear? Why did Judas hand Jesus over? What is the meaning of Genesis Chapter 1? To analyze the world of the text is to "describe the qualities of a character as he or she is presented in the text" (Kille, 2001:24), their actions and relationships, as well as develop insight into the motivations the writer has programmed into them. Kille in particular warns that one should be wary of trying to reach beyond the world of the text to the actual historical persons, since one may accidentally perform the function of eisegesis (personal interpretation of a text) rather than exegesis (critical analysis of the meaning inherent to the text). The world of the text may also shine light on the conditions and intent of the writer. On the one hand the characters and events within the text may reflect more the writer's socio-cultural situation than actual events, while at the same time they may inform us as to what the writer desires from us—transformation, repentance, enlightenment, etc. (Kille, 2004).
The world in front of the text[edit]

"... we often come to Scripture with the question 'What is this book?', but discover that this book asks us, 'Who is this that reads it?' ... Each of us carries... a set of values, a list of personal problems, a well seasoned worldview, and a large dose of humanity, wherever we go and to whatever task we undertake. When we approach Scripture we come with the same baggage. It is not possible to come in any other way."
—Wayne G. Rollins, 1983:98
How do I approach the text? What does the text ask of me? How do I respond to it? What meaning do I give to this relationship? The world in front of the text discusses the interplay between the text before our very eyes and the eisegetical processes that take place within our mind. In this exchange the interest is not in the psychological world of the writer, or the original meaning of the text and the characters displayed, but in how the reader manipulates, interprets, and is filled by the text; how they make it relevant to their lives, how it "speaks" to them, and how this relationship reflects their personal world (Rollins 1983: 97–100; Kille, 2001: 25–27; 2004: 27–29).
The Bible and psychology in transition[edit]

"Psychology and Biblical studies are thus inevitably interlinked, regardless of what the immediate focus or concern of either is. Hence, whether we are exploring the biblical text or the living human document, the mutual illumination of psychology and biblical studies is imperative because a properly enlightened anthropology is required for both ... Because both disciplines deal with the psycho-spiritual domains, neither of these can ignore the other or it is not adequately serious about itself."
—J. Harold Ellens, 2004:284
A psychological study of the hermeneutical levels of religious texts has the capability of granting a better understanding not only of the text itself, but also of the mind that produced it, the mind that it describes, and the mind that interacts with it. This knowledge has promise for interdisciplinary application as well, by informing the field of religious studies, the psychotherapeutic encounter, and the psychology of religion. Hence, proponents of psychological biblical criticism argue that it has the potential of crossing the gap between psychology and religion, providing a platform for dialogue without reducing religion to mere drives and internal objects, but by discussing the aspects of this very human mode of meaning (Ellens, 2004).
There is a website sponsored by the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section of the Society of Biblical Literature which is devoted to psychological biblical criticism at www.psybibs.org.
See also[edit]
Biblical criticism
Bibliography[edit]
Beier, Matthias. (2004). A Violent God-Image: An Introduction to the Work of Eugen Drewermann. New York, London: Continuum. Review by Wayne G. Rollins in the Review of Biblical Literature (PDF) ISBN 0-8264-1584-9.
Eugen Drewermann Pages
Ellens, J. Harold. (2004). The Bible and Psychology: An Interdisciplinary Pilgrimage. In Ellens & Rollins Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. v.1, pgs. 277–287. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Ellens, J. Harold, & Rollins, Wayne G., eds. (2004). Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. v.1–4. Westport: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-98347-1
Kille, D. Andrew Kille. (2001). Psychological Biblical Criticism. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers. (PDF) ISBN 0-8006-3246-X
_____________________. (2004). Reading the Bible in Three Dimensions: Psychological Biblical Interpretation. In Ellens & Rollins Psychology and the Bible: A New Way to Read the Scriptures. v.1, pgs. 17–32. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Rollins, Wayne G. (1983). Jung and the Bible. Atlanta: John Knox Press. ISBN 0-8042-1117-5
_______________. (1999). Soul and Psyche: The Bible in Psychological Perspective. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers. ISBN 0-8006-2716-4
Rollins, Wayne G. & D. Andrew Kille, Eds. (2007) Psychological Insight into the Bible: Texts and Readings. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
  


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Psychology of religion







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Biblical studies

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For other uses, see Bible study (disambiguation).
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Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the Bible.[1][2] For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from archaeology, literary criticism, history, philology, and social sciences.[1]
Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses in biblical studies, usually in departments of religious studies, theology, Judaic studies, history, or comparative literature. Biblical scholars do not necessarily have a faith commitment to the texts they study, but many do.


Contents  [hide]
1 Definition
2 Academic societies
3 Biblical criticism
4 History of the Bible
5 Original languages
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links

Definition[edit]
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies defines the field as a set of various, and in some cases independent disciplines for the study of the collection of ancient texts generally known as the Bible.[1] These disciplines include but are not limited to archaeology, Egyptology, textual criticism, linguistics, history, sociology and theology.[1]
Academic societies[edit]
Several academic associations and societies promote research in the field. The largest is the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) with around 8,500 members in more than 80 countries. It publishes many books and journals in the biblical studies, including its flagship, the Journal of Biblical Literature. SBL hosts one academic conference in North America and another international conference each year, as well as smaller regional meetings.
Biblical criticism[edit]
The research of biblical scholars is frequently called biblical criticism. It does not presuppose, but also does not deny, belief in the supernatural origins of the scriptures. Instead, it applies to the Bible methods of textual analysis used in other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. Many biblical scholars also interact with traditional Jewish and Christian interpreters and methods of interpretation, which may be called biblical exegesis or hermeneutics and history of interpretation or reception history.
History of the Bible[edit]
Historical research has often dominated modern biblical studies. Biblical scholars usually try to interpret a particular text within its original historical context and use whatever information is available to reconstruct that setting. Historical criticism aims to determine the provenance, authorship, and process by which ancient texts were composed. Famous theories of historical criticism include the documentary hypothesis which suggests that the Pentateuch was compiled from four different written sources, and different reconstructions of "the historical Jesus" based primarily on the differences among the canonical Gospels.
Original languages[edit]
Most of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, which is the basis of the Christian Old Testament, was written in Biblical Hebrew, though a few chapters were written in Biblical Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, with possible Aramaic undertones, as was the first translation of the Jewish Bible known as the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament. Therefore, Hebrew, Greek and sometimes Aramaic continue to be taught in most universities, colleges and seminaries with strong programs in biblical studies.
See also[edit]
The Bible and history
Biblical hermeneutics
Chronology of the Bible
Higher criticism
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies by J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu (May 18, 2006) ISBN 0199254257 page xvii
2.Jump up ^ Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) ISBN 0567083977 pages 11–12
Further reading[edit]
The Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 vols., eds. P. R. Ackroyd, C. F. Evans, S. L. Greenslade and G. W. H. Lampe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963, 1969, 1970.
Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale, 1974.
Greenspahn, Frederick E. "Biblical Scholars, Medieval and Modern," in J. Neusner et al. (eds.), Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 245–258.
Harrison, Peter. The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
Harrisville, Roy A. & Walter Sundberg. The Bible in Modern Culture: Baruch Spinoza to Brevard Childs. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
Knight, Douglas A. and Gene M. Tucker, eds. The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters. Philadelphia: Fortress/Chico: Scholars Press, 1985.
Nicholson, Ernest W. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
Noll, Mark A. Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America. Harper & Row, 1986.
Reventlow, Henning Graf. The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World. Tr. J. Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
Sherwood, Yvonne and Stephen D. Moore. The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto. Fortress, 2011.
Sperling, S. David. Students of the Covenant: A History of Jewish Biblical Scholarship in North America. Atlanta Scholars Press, 1992.
Sugirtharajah, R.S. The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
External links[edit]
Bible Studies - Staying in the Word
Society of Biblical Literature
AcademicBible.com from the German Bible Society
Wabash Center's Internet Guid to Religion: Bible


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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_studies










Biblical studies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Bible study (disambiguation).
Part of a series on the
Bible
The Malmesbury Bible


Canons and books
 [show]






















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 [show]












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Biblical studies[show]
































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Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the Bible.[1][2] For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from archaeology, literary criticism, history, philology, and social sciences.[1]
Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses in biblical studies, usually in departments of religious studies, theology, Judaic studies, history, or comparative literature. Biblical scholars do not necessarily have a faith commitment to the texts they study, but many do.


Contents  [hide]
1 Definition
2 Academic societies
3 Biblical criticism
4 History of the Bible
5 Original languages
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links

Definition[edit]
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies defines the field as a set of various, and in some cases independent disciplines for the study of the collection of ancient texts generally known as the Bible.[1] These disciplines include but are not limited to archaeology, Egyptology, textual criticism, linguistics, history, sociology and theology.[1]
Academic societies[edit]
Several academic associations and societies promote research in the field. The largest is the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) with around 8,500 members in more than 80 countries. It publishes many books and journals in the biblical studies, including its flagship, the Journal of Biblical Literature. SBL hosts one academic conference in North America and another international conference each year, as well as smaller regional meetings.
Biblical criticism[edit]
The research of biblical scholars is frequently called biblical criticism. It does not presuppose, but also does not deny, belief in the supernatural origins of the scriptures. Instead, it applies to the Bible methods of textual analysis used in other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. Many biblical scholars also interact with traditional Jewish and Christian interpreters and methods of interpretation, which may be called biblical exegesis or hermeneutics and history of interpretation or reception history.
History of the Bible[edit]
Historical research has often dominated modern biblical studies. Biblical scholars usually try to interpret a particular text within its original historical context and use whatever information is available to reconstruct that setting. Historical criticism aims to determine the provenance, authorship, and process by which ancient texts were composed. Famous theories of historical criticism include the documentary hypothesis which suggests that the Pentateuch was compiled from four different written sources, and different reconstructions of "the historical Jesus" based primarily on the differences among the canonical Gospels.
Original languages[edit]
Most of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, which is the basis of the Christian Old Testament, was written in Biblical Hebrew, though a few chapters were written in Biblical Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, with possible Aramaic undertones, as was the first translation of the Jewish Bible known as the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament. Therefore, Hebrew, Greek and sometimes Aramaic continue to be taught in most universities, colleges and seminaries with strong programs in biblical studies.
See also[edit]
The Bible and history
Biblical hermeneutics
Chronology of the Bible
Higher criticism
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies by J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu (May 18, 2006) ISBN 0199254257 page xvii
2.Jump up ^ Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) ISBN 0567083977 pages 11–12
Further reading[edit]
The Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 vols., eds. P. R. Ackroyd, C. F. Evans, S. L. Greenslade and G. W. H. Lampe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963, 1969, 1970.
Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale, 1974.
Greenspahn, Frederick E. "Biblical Scholars, Medieval and Modern," in J. Neusner et al. (eds.), Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 245–258.
Harrison, Peter. The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
Harrisville, Roy A. & Walter Sundberg. The Bible in Modern Culture: Baruch Spinoza to Brevard Childs. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
Knight, Douglas A. and Gene M. Tucker, eds. The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters. Philadelphia: Fortress/Chico: Scholars Press, 1985.
Nicholson, Ernest W. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
Noll, Mark A. Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America. Harper & Row, 1986.
Reventlow, Henning Graf. The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World. Tr. J. Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
Sherwood, Yvonne and Stephen D. Moore. The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto. Fortress, 2011.
Sperling, S. David. Students of the Covenant: A History of Jewish Biblical Scholarship in North America. Atlanta Scholars Press, 1992.
Sugirtharajah, R.S. The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
External links[edit]
Bible Studies - Staying in the Word
Society of Biblical Literature
AcademicBible.com from the German Bible Society
Wabash Center's Internet Guid to Religion: Bible


[show]
v ·
 t ·
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Christian theology




































































































































































































































































































































P christianity.svg




[show]
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The Bible and history











Bible.malmesbury.arp.jpg


























  


Categories: Biblical studies
Christian terminology


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Biblical criticism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Biblical scholarship)
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This article is about the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document. For criticisms made against the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance, see Criticism of the Bible.



 The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings".[1] Viewing biblical texts as having human rather than supernatural origins, it asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources were used in its composition; and what message it was intended to convey. It will vary slightly depending on whether the focus is on the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the letters of New Testament or the Canonical gospels. It also plays an important role in the quest for a Historical Jesus.
It also addresses the physical text, including the meaning of the words and the way in which they are used, its preservation, history and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a wide range of scholarly disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, Oral Tradition studies, and historical and religious studies.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 History 2.1 Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
2.2 New Testament
3 Methods and perspectives 3.1 Textual criticism
3.2 Source criticism
3.3 Form criticism and tradition history
3.4 Redaction criticism
3.5 Canonical criticism
3.6 Rhetorical criticism
3.7 Narrative criticism
3.8 Psychological criticism
3.9 Socio-scientific criticism
3.10 Postmodernist criticism
3.11 Feminist exegesis
4 New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus 4.1 Multiple attestation
4.2 Tendencies of the developing tradition
4.3 Embarrassment
4.4 Coherence
4.5 The Crucifixion
4.6 Semitisms
4.7 Sitz im Leben
5 Notable biblical scholars
6 See also
7 Notes
8 Further reading
9 External links

Background[edit]



 Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School.
Biblical criticism, defined as the treatment of biblical texts as natural rather than supernatural artifacts, grew out of the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century it was divided between the higher criticism, the study of the composition and history of biblical texts, and lower criticism, the close examination of the text to establish their original or "correct" readings. These terms are largely no longer used, and contemporary criticism has seen the rise of new perspectives which draw on literary and multidisciplinary sociological approaches to address the meaning(s) of texts and the wider world in which they were conceived.
A division is still sometimes made between historical criticism and literary criticism. Historical criticism seeks to locate the text in history: it asks such questions as when the text was written, who the author/s might have been, and what history might be reconstructed from the answers. Literary criticism asks what audience the authors wrote for, their presumptive purpose, and the development of the text over time.
Historical criticism was the dominant form of criticism until the late 20th century, when biblical critics became interested in questions aimed more at the meaning of the text than its origins and developed methods drawn from mainstream literary criticism. The distinction is frequently referred to as one between diachronic and synchronic forms of criticism, the former concerned the development of texts through time, the latter treating texts as they exist at a particular moment, frequently the so-called "final form", meaning the Bible text as we have it today.
History[edit]
Part of a series on the
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Both Old Testament and New Testament criticism originated in the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries and developed within the context of the scientific approach to the humanities (especially history) which grew during the 19th. Studies of the Old and New Testaments were often independent of each other, largely due to the difficulty of any single scholar having a sufficient grasp of the many languages required or of the cultural background for the different periods in which texts had their origins.
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament[edit]



 Title page of Richard Simon's "Critical History" (1685), an early work of biblical criticism.
Modern biblical criticism begins with the 17th century philosophers and theologians—Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, Richard Simon and others—who began to ask questions about the origin of the biblical text, especially the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament, i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). They asked specifically who had written these books; according to tradition their author was Moses, but these critics found contradictions and inconsistencies in the text that they concluded made Mosaic authorship improbable. In the 18th century Jean Astruc (1684–1766), a French physician, set out to refute these critics. Borrowing methods of textual criticism already in use to investigate Greek and Roman texts, he discovered what he believed were two distinct documents within Genesis. These, he felt, were the original scrolls written by Moses, much as the four Gospel writers had produced four separate but complementary accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus. Later generations, he believed, had conflated these original documents to produce the modern book of Genesis, producing the inconsistencies and contradictions noted by Hobbes and Spinoza.
Astruc's methods were adopted by German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827) and Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849) in a movement which became known as the higher criticism (to distinguish it from the far longer-established close examination and comparison of individual manuscripts, called the lower criticism); this school reached its apogee with the influential synthesis of Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) in the 1870s, at which point it seemed to many that the Bible had at last been fully explained as a human document.
The implications of "higher criticism" were not welcomed by many religious scholars, not least the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) condemned secular biblical scholarship in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus;[2] but in 1943 Pope Pius XII gave license to the new scholarship in his encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu: "textual 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 had recourse and the forms of expression he employed".[3] Today the modern Catechism states: "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".[4]
New Testament[edit]



Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). His The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) demonstrated that 19th century "lives of Jesus" were reflections of the authors' own historical and social contexts.
The seminal figure in New Testament criticism was Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768), who applied to it the methodology of Greek and Latin textual studies and became convinced that very little of what it said could be accepted as incontrovertibly true. Reimarus's conclusions appealed to the rationalism of 18th century intellectuals, but were deeply troubling to contemporary believers. Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) - "Ecce Homo -The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry" (1769), the first Life of Jesus described as a mere historical man, published anonymously in Amsterdam. George Houston translated the work into English—published in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, and New York in 1827—for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison. In the 19th century important scholarship was done by David Strauss, Ernest Renan, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer and others, all of whom investigated the "historical Jesus" within the Gospel narratives. In a different field the work of H. J. Holtzmann was significant: he established a chronology for the composition of the various books of the New Testament which formed the basis for future research on this subject, and established the two-source hypothesis (the hypothesis that the gospels of Matthew and Luke drew on the gospel of Mark and a hypothetical document known as Q). By the first half of the 20th century a new generation of scholars including Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, in Germany, Roy Harrisville and others in North America had decided that the quest for the Jesus of history had reached a dead end. Barth and Bultmann accepted that little could be said with certainty about the historical Jesus, and concentrated instead on the kerygma, or message, of the New Testament. The questions they addressed were: What was Jesus’s key message? How was that message related to Judaism? Does that message speak to our reality today?
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 revitalised interest in the possible contribution archaeology could make to the understanding of the New Testament. Joachim Jeremias and C. H. Dodd produced linguistic studies which tentatively identified layers within the Gospels that could be ascribed to Jesus, to the authors, and to the early Church; Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan assessed Jesus in the cultural milieu of first-century Judea; and the scholars of the Jesus Seminar assessed the individual tropes of the Gospels to arrive at a consensus on what could and could not be accepted as historical.
Contemporary New Testament criticism continues to follow the synthesising trend set during the latter half of the 20th century. There continues to be a strong interest in recovering the "historical Jesus", but this now tends to set the search in terms of Jesus' Jewishness (Bruce Chilton, Geza Vermes and others) and his formation by the political and religious currents of first-century Palestine (Marcus Borg).
Methods and perspectives[edit]



Source criticism: diagram of the two-source hypothesis, an explanation for the relationship of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The critical methods and perspectives now to be found are numerous, and the following overview should not be regarded as comprehensive.
Textual criticism[edit]
Textual criticism (sometimes still referred to as "lower criticism") refers to the examination of the text itself to identify its provenance or to trace its history. It takes as its basis the fact that errors inevitably crept into texts as generations of scribes reproduced each other's manuscripts. For example, Josephus employed scribes to copy his Antiquities of the Jews. As the scribes copied the Antiquities, they made mistakes. The copies of these copies also had the mistakes. The errors tend to form "families" of manuscripts: scribe A will introduce mistakes which are not in the manuscript of scribe B, and over time the "families" of texts descended from A and B will diverge further and further as more mistakes are introduced by later scribes, but will always be identifiable as descended from one or the other. Textual criticism studies the differences between these families to piece together a good idea of what the original looked like. The more surviving copies, the more accurately can they deduce information about the original text and about "family histories".
Textual criticism is a rigorously objective[clarification needed] discipline using a number of specialized methodologies, including eclecticism, stemmatics, copy-text editing and cladistics. A number of principles have also been introduced for use in deciding between variant manuscripts, such as Lectio difficilior potior: "The harder of two readings is to be preferred".[5] Nevertheless, there remains a strong element of subjectivity, areas where the scholar must decide his reading on the basis of taste or common-sense: Amos 6.12, for example, reads: "Does one plough with oxen?" The obvious answer is "yes", but the context of the passage seems to demand a "no"; the usual reading therefore is to amend this to, "Does one plough the sea with oxen?" The amendment has a basis in the text, which is believed to be corrupted, but is nevertheless a matter of judgement.[6]
Source criticism[edit]
Source criticism is the search for the original sources which lie behind a given biblical text. It can be traced back to the 17th-century French priest Richard Simon, and its most influential product is Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1878), whose "insight and clarity of expression have left their mark indelibly on modern biblical studies".[7] An example of source criticism is the study of the Synoptic problem. Critics noticed that the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were very similar, indeed, at times identical. The dominant theory to account for the duplication is called the two-source hypothesis. This suggests that Mark was the first gospel to be written, and that it was probably based on a combination of early oral and written material. Matthew and Luke were written at a later time, and relied primarily on two different sources: Mark and a written collection of Jesus's sayings, which has been given the name Q by scholars. This latter document has now been lost, but at least some of its material can be deduced indirectly, namely through the material that is common in Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. In addition to Mark and Q, the writers of Matthew and Luke made some use of additional sources, which would account for the material that is unique to each of them.
Form criticism and tradition history[edit]
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.[8] 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 methodology in biblical studies.[9]
Redaction criticism[edit]
Redaction criticism studies "the collection, arrangement, editing, and modification of sources", and is frequently used to reconstruct the community and purposes of the authors of the text.[10] It is based on the comparison of differences between manuscripts and their theological significance.[11]
Canonical criticism[edit]
Associated particularly with the name of Brevard S. Childs, who has written prolifically on the subject, canonical criticism is "an examination of the final form of the text as a totality, as well as the process leading to it".[12] Where previous criticism asked questions about the origins, structure and history of the text, canonical criticism addresses questions of meaning, both for the community (and communities—subsequent communities are regarded as being as important as the original community for which it was produced) which used it, and in the context of the wider canon of which it forms a part.[1]
Rhetorical criticism[edit]
Rhetorical criticism of the Bible dates back to at least Saint Augustine. Modern application of techniques of rhetorical analysis to biblical texts dates to James Muilenberg in 1968 as a corrective to form criticism, which Muilenberg saw as too generalized and insufficiently specific. For Muilenberg, rhetorical criticism emphasized the unique and unrepeatable message of the writer or speaker as addressed to his audience, including especially the techniques and devices which went into crafting the biblical narrative as it was heard (or read) by its audience. "What Muilenberg called rhetorical criticism was not exactly the same as what secular literary critics called rhetorical criticism, and when biblical scholars became interested in "rhetorical criticism", they did not limit themselves to Muilenberg's definition...In some cases it is difficult to distinguish between rhetorical criticism and literary criticism, or other disciplines". Unlike canonical criticism, rhetorical criticism (at least as defined by Muilenberg) takes a special interest in the relationship between the biblical text and its intended audience within the context of the communal life setting. Rhetorical criticism asks how the text functions for its audience, including especially its original audience: to teach, persuade, guide, exhort, reproach, or inspire, and it concentrates especially on identifying and elucidating unique features of the situation, including both the techniques manifest in the text itself and the relevant features of the cultural setting, through which this purpose is pursued.[13]
Narrative criticism[edit]
Narrative criticism is one of a number of modern forms of criticism based in contemporary literary theory and practice—in this case, from narratology. In common with other literary approaches (and in contrast to historical forms of criticism), narrative criticism treats the text as a unit, and focuses on narrative structure and composition, plot development, themes and motifs, characters, and characterization.[14] Narrative criticism is a complex field, but some central concerns include the reliability of the narrator, the question of authorial intent (expressed in terms of the context in which the text was written and its presumed intended audience), and the implications of multiple interpretation—i.e., an awareness that a narrative is capable of more than one interpretation, and thus of the implications of each.[15]
Psychological criticism[edit]
Psychological biblical criticism is a perspective rather than a method. It discusses the psychological dimensions of the authors of the text, the material they wish to communicate to their audience, and the reflections and meditations of the reader.
Socio-scientific criticism[edit]
Socio-scientific criticism (also known as socio-historical criticism and social-world criticism) is a contemporary form of multidisciplinary criticism drawing on the social sciences, especially anthropology and sociology. A typical study will draw on studies of contemporary nomadism, shamanism, tribalism, spirit-possession, and millenarianism to illuminate similar passages described in biblical texts. Socioscientific criticism is thus concerned with the historical world behind the text rather than the historical world in the text.[16]
Postmodernist criticism[edit]



 The "Tomb of Joshua" at Kifl Haris, a Palestinian village located northwest of the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. Postmodernist criticism frequently locates biblical references in a modern setting.
Postmodernist biblical criticism treats the same general topics addressed in broader postmodernist scholarship, "including author, autobiography, culture criticism, deconstruction, ethics, fantasy, gender, ideology, politics, postcolonialism, and so on". It asks questions like: What are we to make, ethically speaking, of the program of ethnic cleansing described in the book of Joshua? What does the social construction of gender mean for the depiction of male and female roles in the Bible?[17]
In textual criticism, postmodernist criticism rejects the idea of an original text (the traditional quest of textual criticism, which marginalised all non-original manuscripts), and treats all manuscripts as equally valuable; in the "higher criticism" it brings new perspectives to theology, Israelite history, hermeneutics, and ethics.[18]
Feminist exegesis[edit]
Feminist criticism of the Bible utilizes the same means and essentially strives for the same ends as feminist literary criticism. It is therefore made up of a variety of peoples, including, but not limited to, Jews, people of color, and feminist Christians such as Elisabeth Fiorenza.
New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus[edit]
Multiple attestation[edit]
The criterion of multiple attestation or "independent attestation" is an important tool used by scholars. Simply put, the more independent witnesses that report an event or saying, the better.
The gospels are not always independent of each other. There is a possibility that Matthew and Luke copied contents from Mark's gospel.[19] There are, however, at least four early, independent sources. The criterion of multiple attestation focuses on the sayings or deeds of Jesus that are attested to in more than one independent literary source such as the Apostle Paul, Josephus, Q, and/or the Gospel of the Hebrews. The force of this criterion is increased if a given motif or theme is also found in different literary forms such as parables, dispute stories, miracle stories, prophecy, and/or aphorism.[20][21]
Multiple attestation has a certain kind of objectivity. Given the independence of the sources, satisfaction of the criterion makes it harder to maintain that it was an invention of the Church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Tendencies of the developing tradition[edit]
It is important that scholars research the earliest testimonies. To do this, they need to figure out the earliest gospel and the earliest parts of the gospels. Ideally, this material would come from eyewitnesses, but that is not always possible.
The writings of the Church Fathers are helpful in this regard. They wrote that the Hebrew Gospel was the first written while the Gospel of John was later. Also, because certain "laws" govern the transmission of tradition during the oral period, we can, by understanding these "laws", determine which tradition is early and which is late.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
Embarrassment[edit]
The criterion of embarrassment, also known as the "criterion of dissimilarity", is an analytical tool that biblical scholars use in assessing whether the New Testament accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically accurate. Simply put, trust the embarrassing material. If something is awkward for an author to say and he does anyway, it is more likely to be true.[30]
The essence of the criterion of embarrassment is that the Early Church would hardly have gone out of its way to "create" or "falsify" historical material that only embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. Rather, embarrassing material coming from Jesus would naturally be either suppressed or softened in later stages of the Gospel tradition, and often such progressive suppression or softening can be traced through the Gospels.
The evolution of the depiction of the Baptism of Jesus exhibits the criterion of embarrassment. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin, but sin nonetheless). Matthew's description of the Baptism adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you", attempting to do away with the embarrassment of John baptising Jesus, implying John's seniority. Similarly, it resolves the embarrassment of Jesus undergoing baptism "for the forgiveness of sin", the purpose of John's baptising in Mark, by omitting this phrase from John's proclamations. The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain, and then suppress, a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Coherence[edit]
The Criterion of coherence (also called consistency or conformity) can be used only when other material has been identified as authentic. This criterion holds that a saying and action attributed to Jesus may be accepted as authentic if it coheres with other sayings and actions already established as authentic. While this criterion cannot be used alone, it can broaden the database for what Jesus actually said and did.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
The Crucifixion[edit]
The criterion of the Crucifixion emphasizes that Jesus met a violent death at the hands of Jewish and Roman officials and that the authentic words and actions of Jesus would alienate people, especially powerful people.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Semitisms[edit]
Since Jesus spoke in Aramaic, traces of Aramaic in the Gospels argue in favor of a primitive tradition that may go back to Jesus. Semitisms are structured according to general rules that allow Hebrew speakers and hearers to say and hear things according to predictable patterns. Hebrew and Aramaic are linguistically very closely related and they follow similar elementary rules. For example, the pun in Matt 23:24, "straining out the gnat (galma) and swallowing a camel (gamla)" points in the direction of the historical Jesus.[22][31]
Sitz im Leben[edit]
Main article: Sitz im Leben
The sayings and actions of the historical Jesus must reflect the Sitz im Leben or the concrete social, political, economic, agricultural, and religious conditions of ancient Palestine, while sayings and actions of Jesus that reflect social, political, economic, agricultural, or religious conditions that existed only outside Palestine or only after the death of Jesus are to be considered inauthentic.[20][21][23][24][25][26][27][28][32]
Notable biblical scholars[edit]
William Albright (1891–1971): Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of American biblical archaeology
Albrecht Alt (1883–1956): prominent in early debates about the religion of the biblical patriarchs; he was also an important influence on the generation of mid-20th century German scholars like Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad
Jean Astruc (1684–1776): early French biblical critic, who adapted source criticism to the study of Genesis
Margaret Barker (1944–): maintains that the polytheistic practices of the First Jewish Temple survived and influenced gnosticism and early Christianity
Walter Bauer (1877–1960): redefined the parameters of orthodoxy and heresy with his multiregional hypothesis for the origins of early Christianity
F. C. Baur (1792–1860): explored the secular history of the primitive church
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884–1976): New Testament scholar who defined an almost complete split between history and faith, called demythology
D. A. Carson (1946–): Canadian New Testament scholar of the Gospel of John
John J. Collins (1946–): Irish scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism; he has worked extensively on Jewish messianism and apocalypticism
Frank Moore Cross (1921–2012): American biblical scholar and Harvard professor notable for his interpretations of the Deuteronomistic History, the Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as his work in Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
William G. Dever (1933–): American biblical archaeologist, known for his contributions to the understanding of early Israel
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827): applied source criticism to the entire Bible, decided against Mosaic authorship
Alvar Ellegård (1919–2008): linguist who reordered the chronology of New Testament texts and a proponent of the "Jesus Myth Theory"
Bart D. Ehrman (1955–): University of North Carolina professor, who has examined issues of textual corruption and authorship in New Testament and Early Christian texts
Israel Finkelstein (1949–): Israeli archaeologist and Professor at Tel Aviv University, an advocate for re-dating remains previously ascribed to King Solomon to the rule of the Omrides
Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812): pioneered the Griesbach hypothesis, which supports the primacy of the Gospel of Matthew
Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932): father of form criticism, the study of the oral traditions behind the text of the Pentateuch
Niels Peter Lemche (1945– ): biblical scholar at the University of Copenhagen associated with biblical minimalism, which warns against uncritical acceptance of the Bible as history
Bruce Metzger (1914–2007): biblical scholar sometimes referred to as "the dean" of New Testament textual criticism and wrote the definitive The Text of the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 1964)
Martin Noth (1902–1968): developed tradition history and scholar on the origins of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History
Robert M. Price ( 1954–): American theologian and philosopher
Rolf Rendtorff (1925–): German critic who advanced an influential non-documentary hypothesis for the origins of the Pentateuch
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834): German theologian and philosopher whose theoretical hermeneutics underlie much of modern biblical exegesis
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965): German theologian who was a pioneer in the quest for the historical Jesus
John Van Seters (1935–): American Hebrew Bible scholar who favors a supplementary model for the creation of the Pentateuch
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677): Dutch philosopher, who collected discrepancies, contradictions, and anachronisms from the Torah to show that it could not have been written by Moses
Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789): leading French/German encyclopedist, published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1769 "Ecce Homo: The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry", the first Life of Jesus describing him as a mere historical man. Translated into English by George Houston and published by him in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, (for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison), and New York, 1827
David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874): German critic who published influential work on the historical origins of Christian beliefs, most notably in his Das Leben Jesu
Thomas L. Thompson (1939–): outspoken critic of Albright's conclusions about archaeology and the historicity of the Pentateuch
Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918): German biblical critic and popularizer of a four-source documentary hypothesis
Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849): early German contributor to higher criticism and the study of Pentateuchal origins
Joseph Wheless (1868–1950): American lawyer who traced origins of the scriptures, examining original Hebrew and Greek meanings, and the translations into Latin and English
R. N. Whybray (1923–1997): critiqued the assumptions of source criticism underlying the documentary hypothesis
N. T. Wright (1948-):a retired Anglican bishop and current professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, Wright is known for the New Perspective on Paul and his Christian Origins and the Question of God series.[33][34]
See also[edit]
Detailed Christian timeline
Essays and Reviews
Gospel harmony
Christian heresy in the modern era - theologians tried for supporting biblical criticism
Historical method
New Testament places associated with Jesus
Pentateuchal criticism
Parallelomania
Timeline of the Bible
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Harper's Bible Dictionary, 1985
2.Jump up ^ Fogarty, page 40.
3.Jump up ^ Encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, 1943.
4.Jump up ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article III, section 110
5.Jump up ^ Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812) published several editions of the New Testament. In his 1796 edition, he established fifteen critical rules, including a variant of Bengel's rule, Lectio difficilior potior, "the hardest reading is best." Another was Lectio brevior praeferenda, "the shorter reading is best," based on the idea that scribes were more likely to add than to delete. "Critical Rules of Johann Albrecht Bengel". Bible-researcher.com. Archived from the original on 13 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
6.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "Methods in Old Testament Study", section Textual Criticism, in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 23–45.
7.Jump up ^ Antony F. Campbell, SJ, "Preparatory Issues in Approaching Biblical Texts", in The Hebrew Bible in Modern Study, p.6. Campbell renames source criticism as "origin criticism".
8.Jump up ^ Bibledudes.com
9.Jump up ^ Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003
10.Jump up ^ Religious Studies Department, Santa Clara University.
11.Jump up ^ Redaction Criticism.
12.Jump up ^ Norman K. Gottwald, "Social Matrix and Canonical Shape", Theology Today, October 1985.
13.Jump up ^ M.D. Morrison, "Rhetorical Criticism of the Hebrew Bible"
14.Jump up ^ Johannes C. De Klerk, "Situating biblical narrative studies in literary theory and literary approaches", Religion & Theology 4/3 (1997).
15.Jump up ^ Christopher Heard, "Narrative Criticism and the Hebrew Scriptures: A Review and Assessment", Restoration Quarterly, Vol. 38/No.1 (1996)
16.Jump up ^ Frank S. Frick, Response: Reconstructing Israel's Ancient World, SBL[dead link]
17.Jump up ^ David L. Barr, review of A. K. M. Adam (ed.), Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, 2000
18.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "The Pyramid and the Net", On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
19.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14 Google Link
20.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14, 61-77
21.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Yale University Press, 2009.
22.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: a comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. pp 54-56
23.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Blue Butler Education, Historical Study of Jesus of Nazareth: An Introduction
24.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f N. S. Gill, Discussion of the Historical Jesus
25.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Oxford, 1999. pp 90–91.
26.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Doubleday, 1991. v. 1, pp 174–175, 317
27.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).
28.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Gerd Thiessen & Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2002).
29.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 1-118
30.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14
31.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 127-128
32.Jump up ^ Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. p 55
33.Jump up ^ [1]
34.Jump up ^ [2]
Further reading[edit]
Barton, John (1984). "Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, Philadelphia, Westminster, ISBN 0-664-25724-0".
Barenboim Peter, Biblical Roots of Separation of Powers, Moscow : Letny Sad, 2005, ISBN 5-94381-123-0, http://lccn.loc.gov/2006400578
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".
McKenzie, Steven L., and Stephen R. Haynes, 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".
Levenson, Jon D. The Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies, 1993, Westminister/John Knox Press, ISBN 0-664-25407-1
Rogerson, John (1984). Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century. ISBN 978-0-8006-0737-1.
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, Avigdor, and Yair Zakovitch (2004). That's Not What the Good Book Says, Miskal-Yediot Ahronot Books and Chemed Books, Tel-Aviv
External links[edit]
David J. A. Clines, "Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation in an International Perspective", in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 46–68 See Section 6, Future Trends in Biblical Interpretation, overview of some current trends in biblical criticism.
Philip Davies, review of John J. Collins, "The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age", 2005 Reviews a survey of postmodernist biblical criticism.
Allen P. Ross (Beeson Divinity School, Samford University), "The Study of Textual Criticism" Guide to the methodology of textual criticism.
Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003 Discusses contemporary form criticism.
Exploring Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations on the Internet Introduction to biblical criticism
Library of latest modern books of biblical studies and biblical criticism


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Biblical criticism

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This article is about the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document. For criticisms made against the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance, see Criticism of the Bible.



 The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings".[1] Viewing biblical texts as having human rather than supernatural origins, it asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources were used in its composition; and what message it was intended to convey. It will vary slightly depending on whether the focus is on the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the letters of New Testament or the Canonical gospels. It also plays an important role in the quest for a Historical Jesus.
It also addresses the physical text, including the meaning of the words and the way in which they are used, its preservation, history and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a wide range of scholarly disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, Oral Tradition studies, and historical and religious studies.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 History 2.1 Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
2.2 New Testament
3 Methods and perspectives 3.1 Textual criticism
3.2 Source criticism
3.3 Form criticism and tradition history
3.4 Redaction criticism
3.5 Canonical criticism
3.6 Rhetorical criticism
3.7 Narrative criticism
3.8 Psychological criticism
3.9 Socio-scientific criticism
3.10 Postmodernist criticism
3.11 Feminist exegesis
4 New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus 4.1 Multiple attestation
4.2 Tendencies of the developing tradition
4.3 Embarrassment
4.4 Coherence
4.5 The Crucifixion
4.6 Semitisms
4.7 Sitz im Leben
5 Notable biblical scholars
6 See also
7 Notes
8 Further reading
9 External links

Background[edit]



 Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School.
Biblical criticism, defined as the treatment of biblical texts as natural rather than supernatural artifacts, grew out of the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century it was divided between the higher criticism, the study of the composition and history of biblical texts, and lower criticism, the close examination of the text to establish their original or "correct" readings. These terms are largely no longer used, and contemporary criticism has seen the rise of new perspectives which draw on literary and multidisciplinary sociological approaches to address the meaning(s) of texts and the wider world in which they were conceived.
A division is still sometimes made between historical criticism and literary criticism. Historical criticism seeks to locate the text in history: it asks such questions as when the text was written, who the author/s might have been, and what history might be reconstructed from the answers. Literary criticism asks what audience the authors wrote for, their presumptive purpose, and the development of the text over time.
Historical criticism was the dominant form of criticism until the late 20th century, when biblical critics became interested in questions aimed more at the meaning of the text than its origins and developed methods drawn from mainstream literary criticism. The distinction is frequently referred to as one between diachronic and synchronic forms of criticism, the former concerned the development of texts through time, the latter treating texts as they exist at a particular moment, frequently the so-called "final form", meaning the Bible text as we have it today.
History[edit]
Part of a series on the
Bible
The Malmesbury Bible


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Both Old Testament and New Testament criticism originated in the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries and developed within the context of the scientific approach to the humanities (especially history) which grew during the 19th. Studies of the Old and New Testaments were often independent of each other, largely due to the difficulty of any single scholar having a sufficient grasp of the many languages required or of the cultural background for the different periods in which texts had their origins.
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament[edit]



 Title page of Richard Simon's "Critical History" (1685), an early work of biblical criticism.
Modern biblical criticism begins with the 17th century philosophers and theologians—Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, Richard Simon and others—who began to ask questions about the origin of the biblical text, especially the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament, i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). They asked specifically who had written these books; according to tradition their author was Moses, but these critics found contradictions and inconsistencies in the text that they concluded made Mosaic authorship improbable. In the 18th century Jean Astruc (1684–1766), a French physician, set out to refute these critics. Borrowing methods of textual criticism already in use to investigate Greek and Roman texts, he discovered what he believed were two distinct documents within Genesis. These, he felt, were the original scrolls written by Moses, much as the four Gospel writers had produced four separate but complementary accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus. Later generations, he believed, had conflated these original documents to produce the modern book of Genesis, producing the inconsistencies and contradictions noted by Hobbes and Spinoza.
Astruc's methods were adopted by German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827) and Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849) in a movement which became known as the higher criticism (to distinguish it from the far longer-established close examination and comparison of individual manuscripts, called the lower criticism); this school reached its apogee with the influential synthesis of Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) in the 1870s, at which point it seemed to many that the Bible had at last been fully explained as a human document.
The implications of "higher criticism" were not welcomed by many religious scholars, not least the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) condemned secular biblical scholarship in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus;[2] but in 1943 Pope Pius XII gave license to the new scholarship in his encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu: "textual 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 had recourse and the forms of expression he employed".[3] Today the modern Catechism states: "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".[4]
New Testament[edit]



Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). His The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) demonstrated that 19th century "lives of Jesus" were reflections of the authors' own historical and social contexts.
The seminal figure in New Testament criticism was Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768), who applied to it the methodology of Greek and Latin textual studies and became convinced that very little of what it said could be accepted as incontrovertibly true. Reimarus's conclusions appealed to the rationalism of 18th century intellectuals, but were deeply troubling to contemporary believers. Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) - "Ecce Homo -The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry" (1769), the first Life of Jesus described as a mere historical man, published anonymously in Amsterdam. George Houston translated the work into English—published in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, and New York in 1827—for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison. In the 19th century important scholarship was done by David Strauss, Ernest Renan, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer and others, all of whom investigated the "historical Jesus" within the Gospel narratives. In a different field the work of H. J. Holtzmann was significant: he established a chronology for the composition of the various books of the New Testament which formed the basis for future research on this subject, and established the two-source hypothesis (the hypothesis that the gospels of Matthew and Luke drew on the gospel of Mark and a hypothetical document known as Q). By the first half of the 20th century a new generation of scholars including Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, in Germany, Roy Harrisville and others in North America had decided that the quest for the Jesus of history had reached a dead end. Barth and Bultmann accepted that little could be said with certainty about the historical Jesus, and concentrated instead on the kerygma, or message, of the New Testament. The questions they addressed were: What was Jesus’s key message? How was that message related to Judaism? Does that message speak to our reality today?
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 revitalised interest in the possible contribution archaeology could make to the understanding of the New Testament. Joachim Jeremias and C. H. Dodd produced linguistic studies which tentatively identified layers within the Gospels that could be ascribed to Jesus, to the authors, and to the early Church; Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan assessed Jesus in the cultural milieu of first-century Judea; and the scholars of the Jesus Seminar assessed the individual tropes of the Gospels to arrive at a consensus on what could and could not be accepted as historical.
Contemporary New Testament criticism continues to follow the synthesising trend set during the latter half of the 20th century. There continues to be a strong interest in recovering the "historical Jesus", but this now tends to set the search in terms of Jesus' Jewishness (Bruce Chilton, Geza Vermes and others) and his formation by the political and religious currents of first-century Palestine (Marcus Borg).
Methods and perspectives[edit]



Source criticism: diagram of the two-source hypothesis, an explanation for the relationship of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The critical methods and perspectives now to be found are numerous, and the following overview should not be regarded as comprehensive.
Textual criticism[edit]
Textual criticism (sometimes still referred to as "lower criticism") refers to the examination of the text itself to identify its provenance or to trace its history. It takes as its basis the fact that errors inevitably crept into texts as generations of scribes reproduced each other's manuscripts. For example, Josephus employed scribes to copy his Antiquities of the Jews. As the scribes copied the Antiquities, they made mistakes. The copies of these copies also had the mistakes. The errors tend to form "families" of manuscripts: scribe A will introduce mistakes which are not in the manuscript of scribe B, and over time the "families" of texts descended from A and B will diverge further and further as more mistakes are introduced by later scribes, but will always be identifiable as descended from one or the other. Textual criticism studies the differences between these families to piece together a good idea of what the original looked like. The more surviving copies, the more accurately can they deduce information about the original text and about "family histories".
Textual criticism is a rigorously objective[clarification needed] discipline using a number of specialized methodologies, including eclecticism, stemmatics, copy-text editing and cladistics. A number of principles have also been introduced for use in deciding between variant manuscripts, such as Lectio difficilior potior: "The harder of two readings is to be preferred".[5] Nevertheless, there remains a strong element of subjectivity, areas where the scholar must decide his reading on the basis of taste or common-sense: Amos 6.12, for example, reads: "Does one plough with oxen?" The obvious answer is "yes", but the context of the passage seems to demand a "no"; the usual reading therefore is to amend this to, "Does one plough the sea with oxen?" The amendment has a basis in the text, which is believed to be corrupted, but is nevertheless a matter of judgement.[6]
Source criticism[edit]
Source criticism is the search for the original sources which lie behind a given biblical text. It can be traced back to the 17th-century French priest Richard Simon, and its most influential product is Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1878), whose "insight and clarity of expression have left their mark indelibly on modern biblical studies".[7] An example of source criticism is the study of the Synoptic problem. Critics noticed that the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were very similar, indeed, at times identical. The dominant theory to account for the duplication is called the two-source hypothesis. This suggests that Mark was the first gospel to be written, and that it was probably based on a combination of early oral and written material. Matthew and Luke were written at a later time, and relied primarily on two different sources: Mark and a written collection of Jesus's sayings, which has been given the name Q by scholars. This latter document has now been lost, but at least some of its material can be deduced indirectly, namely through the material that is common in Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. In addition to Mark and Q, the writers of Matthew and Luke made some use of additional sources, which would account for the material that is unique to each of them.
Form criticism and tradition history[edit]
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.[8] 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 methodology in biblical studies.[9]
Redaction criticism[edit]
Redaction criticism studies "the collection, arrangement, editing, and modification of sources", and is frequently used to reconstruct the community and purposes of the authors of the text.[10] It is based on the comparison of differences between manuscripts and their theological significance.[11]
Canonical criticism[edit]
Associated particularly with the name of Brevard S. Childs, who has written prolifically on the subject, canonical criticism is "an examination of the final form of the text as a totality, as well as the process leading to it".[12] Where previous criticism asked questions about the origins, structure and history of the text, canonical criticism addresses questions of meaning, both for the community (and communities—subsequent communities are regarded as being as important as the original community for which it was produced) which used it, and in the context of the wider canon of which it forms a part.[1]
Rhetorical criticism[edit]
Rhetorical criticism of the Bible dates back to at least Saint Augustine. Modern application of techniques of rhetorical analysis to biblical texts dates to James Muilenberg in 1968 as a corrective to form criticism, which Muilenberg saw as too generalized and insufficiently specific. For Muilenberg, rhetorical criticism emphasized the unique and unrepeatable message of the writer or speaker as addressed to his audience, including especially the techniques and devices which went into crafting the biblical narrative as it was heard (or read) by its audience. "What Muilenberg called rhetorical criticism was not exactly the same as what secular literary critics called rhetorical criticism, and when biblical scholars became interested in "rhetorical criticism", they did not limit themselves to Muilenberg's definition...In some cases it is difficult to distinguish between rhetorical criticism and literary criticism, or other disciplines". Unlike canonical criticism, rhetorical criticism (at least as defined by Muilenberg) takes a special interest in the relationship between the biblical text and its intended audience within the context of the communal life setting. Rhetorical criticism asks how the text functions for its audience, including especially its original audience: to teach, persuade, guide, exhort, reproach, or inspire, and it concentrates especially on identifying and elucidating unique features of the situation, including both the techniques manifest in the text itself and the relevant features of the cultural setting, through which this purpose is pursued.[13]
Narrative criticism[edit]
Narrative criticism is one of a number of modern forms of criticism based in contemporary literary theory and practice—in this case, from narratology. In common with other literary approaches (and in contrast to historical forms of criticism), narrative criticism treats the text as a unit, and focuses on narrative structure and composition, plot development, themes and motifs, characters, and characterization.[14] Narrative criticism is a complex field, but some central concerns include the reliability of the narrator, the question of authorial intent (expressed in terms of the context in which the text was written and its presumed intended audience), and the implications of multiple interpretation—i.e., an awareness that a narrative is capable of more than one interpretation, and thus of the implications of each.[15]
Psychological criticism[edit]
Psychological biblical criticism is a perspective rather than a method. It discusses the psychological dimensions of the authors of the text, the material they wish to communicate to their audience, and the reflections and meditations of the reader.
Socio-scientific criticism[edit]
Socio-scientific criticism (also known as socio-historical criticism and social-world criticism) is a contemporary form of multidisciplinary criticism drawing on the social sciences, especially anthropology and sociology. A typical study will draw on studies of contemporary nomadism, shamanism, tribalism, spirit-possession, and millenarianism to illuminate similar passages described in biblical texts. Socioscientific criticism is thus concerned with the historical world behind the text rather than the historical world in the text.[16]
Postmodernist criticism[edit]



 The "Tomb of Joshua" at Kifl Haris, a Palestinian village located northwest of the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. Postmodernist criticism frequently locates biblical references in a modern setting.
Postmodernist biblical criticism treats the same general topics addressed in broader postmodernist scholarship, "including author, autobiography, culture criticism, deconstruction, ethics, fantasy, gender, ideology, politics, postcolonialism, and so on". It asks questions like: What are we to make, ethically speaking, of the program of ethnic cleansing described in the book of Joshua? What does the social construction of gender mean for the depiction of male and female roles in the Bible?[17]
In textual criticism, postmodernist criticism rejects the idea of an original text (the traditional quest of textual criticism, which marginalised all non-original manuscripts), and treats all manuscripts as equally valuable; in the "higher criticism" it brings new perspectives to theology, Israelite history, hermeneutics, and ethics.[18]
Feminist exegesis[edit]
Feminist criticism of the Bible utilizes the same means and essentially strives for the same ends as feminist literary criticism. It is therefore made up of a variety of peoples, including, but not limited to, Jews, people of color, and feminist Christians such as Elisabeth Fiorenza.
New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus[edit]
Multiple attestation[edit]
The criterion of multiple attestation or "independent attestation" is an important tool used by scholars. Simply put, the more independent witnesses that report an event or saying, the better.
The gospels are not always independent of each other. There is a possibility that Matthew and Luke copied contents from Mark's gospel.[19] There are, however, at least four early, independent sources. The criterion of multiple attestation focuses on the sayings or deeds of Jesus that are attested to in more than one independent literary source such as the Apostle Paul, Josephus, Q, and/or the Gospel of the Hebrews. The force of this criterion is increased if a given motif or theme is also found in different literary forms such as parables, dispute stories, miracle stories, prophecy, and/or aphorism.[20][21]
Multiple attestation has a certain kind of objectivity. Given the independence of the sources, satisfaction of the criterion makes it harder to maintain that it was an invention of the Church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Tendencies of the developing tradition[edit]
It is important that scholars research the earliest testimonies. To do this, they need to figure out the earliest gospel and the earliest parts of the gospels. Ideally, this material would come from eyewitnesses, but that is not always possible.
The writings of the Church Fathers are helpful in this regard. They wrote that the Hebrew Gospel was the first written while the Gospel of John was later. Also, because certain "laws" govern the transmission of tradition during the oral period, we can, by understanding these "laws", determine which tradition is early and which is late.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
Embarrassment[edit]
The criterion of embarrassment, also known as the "criterion of dissimilarity", is an analytical tool that biblical scholars use in assessing whether the New Testament accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically accurate. Simply put, trust the embarrassing material. If something is awkward for an author to say and he does anyway, it is more likely to be true.[30]
The essence of the criterion of embarrassment is that the Early Church would hardly have gone out of its way to "create" or "falsify" historical material that only embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. Rather, embarrassing material coming from Jesus would naturally be either suppressed or softened in later stages of the Gospel tradition, and often such progressive suppression or softening can be traced through the Gospels.
The evolution of the depiction of the Baptism of Jesus exhibits the criterion of embarrassment. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin, but sin nonetheless). Matthew's description of the Baptism adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you", attempting to do away with the embarrassment of John baptising Jesus, implying John's seniority. Similarly, it resolves the embarrassment of Jesus undergoing baptism "for the forgiveness of sin", the purpose of John's baptising in Mark, by omitting this phrase from John's proclamations. The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain, and then suppress, a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Coherence[edit]
The Criterion of coherence (also called consistency or conformity) can be used only when other material has been identified as authentic. This criterion holds that a saying and action attributed to Jesus may be accepted as authentic if it coheres with other sayings and actions already established as authentic. While this criterion cannot be used alone, it can broaden the database for what Jesus actually said and did.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
The Crucifixion[edit]
The criterion of the Crucifixion emphasizes that Jesus met a violent death at the hands of Jewish and Roman officials and that the authentic words and actions of Jesus would alienate people, especially powerful people.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Semitisms[edit]
Since Jesus spoke in Aramaic, traces of Aramaic in the Gospels argue in favor of a primitive tradition that may go back to Jesus. Semitisms are structured according to general rules that allow Hebrew speakers and hearers to say and hear things according to predictable patterns. Hebrew and Aramaic are linguistically very closely related and they follow similar elementary rules. For example, the pun in Matt 23:24, "straining out the gnat (galma) and swallowing a camel (gamla)" points in the direction of the historical Jesus.[22][31]
Sitz im Leben[edit]
Main article: Sitz im Leben
The sayings and actions of the historical Jesus must reflect the Sitz im Leben or the concrete social, political, economic, agricultural, and religious conditions of ancient Palestine, while sayings and actions of Jesus that reflect social, political, economic, agricultural, or religious conditions that existed only outside Palestine or only after the death of Jesus are to be considered inauthentic.[20][21][23][24][25][26][27][28][32]
Notable biblical scholars[edit]
William Albright (1891–1971): Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of American biblical archaeology
Albrecht Alt (1883–1956): prominent in early debates about the religion of the biblical patriarchs; he was also an important influence on the generation of mid-20th century German scholars like Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad
Jean Astruc (1684–1776): early French biblical critic, who adapted source criticism to the study of Genesis
Margaret Barker (1944–): maintains that the polytheistic practices of the First Jewish Temple survived and influenced gnosticism and early Christianity
Walter Bauer (1877–1960): redefined the parameters of orthodoxy and heresy with his multiregional hypothesis for the origins of early Christianity
F. C. Baur (1792–1860): explored the secular history of the primitive church
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884–1976): New Testament scholar who defined an almost complete split between history and faith, called demythology
D. A. Carson (1946–): Canadian New Testament scholar of the Gospel of John
John J. Collins (1946–): Irish scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism; he has worked extensively on Jewish messianism and apocalypticism
Frank Moore Cross (1921–2012): American biblical scholar and Harvard professor notable for his interpretations of the Deuteronomistic History, the Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as his work in Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
William G. Dever (1933–): American biblical archaeologist, known for his contributions to the understanding of early Israel
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827): applied source criticism to the entire Bible, decided against Mosaic authorship
Alvar Ellegård (1919–2008): linguist who reordered the chronology of New Testament texts and a proponent of the "Jesus Myth Theory"
Bart D. Ehrman (1955–): University of North Carolina professor, who has examined issues of textual corruption and authorship in New Testament and Early Christian texts
Israel Finkelstein (1949–): Israeli archaeologist and Professor at Tel Aviv University, an advocate for re-dating remains previously ascribed to King Solomon to the rule of the Omrides
Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812): pioneered the Griesbach hypothesis, which supports the primacy of the Gospel of Matthew
Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932): father of form criticism, the study of the oral traditions behind the text of the Pentateuch
Niels Peter Lemche (1945– ): biblical scholar at the University of Copenhagen associated with biblical minimalism, which warns against uncritical acceptance of the Bible as history
Bruce Metzger (1914–2007): biblical scholar sometimes referred to as "the dean" of New Testament textual criticism and wrote the definitive The Text of the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 1964)
Martin Noth (1902–1968): developed tradition history and scholar on the origins of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History
Robert M. Price ( 1954–): American theologian and philosopher
Rolf Rendtorff (1925–): German critic who advanced an influential non-documentary hypothesis for the origins of the Pentateuch
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834): German theologian and philosopher whose theoretical hermeneutics underlie much of modern biblical exegesis
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965): German theologian who was a pioneer in the quest for the historical Jesus
John Van Seters (1935–): American Hebrew Bible scholar who favors a supplementary model for the creation of the Pentateuch
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677): Dutch philosopher, who collected discrepancies, contradictions, and anachronisms from the Torah to show that it could not have been written by Moses
Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789): leading French/German encyclopedist, published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1769 "Ecce Homo: The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry", the first Life of Jesus describing him as a mere historical man. Translated into English by George Houston and published by him in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, (for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison), and New York, 1827
David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874): German critic who published influential work on the historical origins of Christian beliefs, most notably in his Das Leben Jesu
Thomas L. Thompson (1939–): outspoken critic of Albright's conclusions about archaeology and the historicity of the Pentateuch
Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918): German biblical critic and popularizer of a four-source documentary hypothesis
Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849): early German contributor to higher criticism and the study of Pentateuchal origins
Joseph Wheless (1868–1950): American lawyer who traced origins of the scriptures, examining original Hebrew and Greek meanings, and the translations into Latin and English
R. N. Whybray (1923–1997): critiqued the assumptions of source criticism underlying the documentary hypothesis
N. T. Wright (1948-):a retired Anglican bishop and current professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, Wright is known for the New Perspective on Paul and his Christian Origins and the Question of God series.[33][34]
See also[edit]
Detailed Christian timeline
Essays and Reviews
Gospel harmony
Christian heresy in the modern era - theologians tried for supporting biblical criticism
Historical method
New Testament places associated with Jesus
Pentateuchal criticism
Parallelomania
Timeline of the Bible
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Harper's Bible Dictionary, 1985
2.Jump up ^ Fogarty, page 40.
3.Jump up ^ Encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, 1943.
4.Jump up ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article III, section 110
5.Jump up ^ Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812) published several editions of the New Testament. In his 1796 edition, he established fifteen critical rules, including a variant of Bengel's rule, Lectio difficilior potior, "the hardest reading is best." Another was Lectio brevior praeferenda, "the shorter reading is best," based on the idea that scribes were more likely to add than to delete. "Critical Rules of Johann Albrecht Bengel". Bible-researcher.com. Archived from the original on 13 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
6.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "Methods in Old Testament Study", section Textual Criticism, in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 23–45.
7.Jump up ^ Antony F. Campbell, SJ, "Preparatory Issues in Approaching Biblical Texts", in The Hebrew Bible in Modern Study, p.6. Campbell renames source criticism as "origin criticism".
8.Jump up ^ Bibledudes.com
9.Jump up ^ Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003
10.Jump up ^ Religious Studies Department, Santa Clara University.
11.Jump up ^ Redaction Criticism.
12.Jump up ^ Norman K. Gottwald, "Social Matrix and Canonical Shape", Theology Today, October 1985.
13.Jump up ^ M.D. Morrison, "Rhetorical Criticism of the Hebrew Bible"
14.Jump up ^ Johannes C. De Klerk, "Situating biblical narrative studies in literary theory and literary approaches", Religion & Theology 4/3 (1997).
15.Jump up ^ Christopher Heard, "Narrative Criticism and the Hebrew Scriptures: A Review and Assessment", Restoration Quarterly, Vol. 38/No.1 (1996)
16.Jump up ^ Frank S. Frick, Response: Reconstructing Israel's Ancient World, SBL[dead link]
17.Jump up ^ David L. Barr, review of A. K. M. Adam (ed.), Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, 2000
18.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "The Pyramid and the Net", On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
19.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14 Google Link
20.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14, 61-77
21.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Yale University Press, 2009.
22.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: a comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. pp 54-56
23.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Blue Butler Education, Historical Study of Jesus of Nazareth: An Introduction
24.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f N. S. Gill, Discussion of the Historical Jesus
25.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Oxford, 1999. pp 90–91.
26.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Doubleday, 1991. v. 1, pp 174–175, 317
27.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).
28.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Gerd Thiessen & Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2002).
29.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 1-118
30.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14
31.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 127-128
32.Jump up ^ Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. p 55
33.Jump up ^ [1]
34.Jump up ^ [2]
Further reading[edit]
Barton, John (1984). "Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, Philadelphia, Westminster, ISBN 0-664-25724-0".
Barenboim Peter, Biblical Roots of Separation of Powers, Moscow : Letny Sad, 2005, ISBN 5-94381-123-0, http://lccn.loc.gov/2006400578
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".
McKenzie, Steven L., and Stephen R. Haynes, 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".
Levenson, Jon D. The Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies, 1993, Westminister/John Knox Press, ISBN 0-664-25407-1
Rogerson, John (1984). Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century. ISBN 978-0-8006-0737-1.
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, Avigdor, and Yair Zakovitch (2004). That's Not What the Good Book Says, Miskal-Yediot Ahronot Books and Chemed Books, Tel-Aviv
External links[edit]
David J. A. Clines, "Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation in an International Perspective", in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 46–68 See Section 6, Future Trends in Biblical Interpretation, overview of some current trends in biblical criticism.
Philip Davies, review of John J. Collins, "The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age", 2005 Reviews a survey of postmodernist biblical criticism.
Allen P. Ross (Beeson Divinity School, Samford University), "The Study of Textual Criticism" Guide to the methodology of textual criticism.
Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003 Discusses contemporary form criticism.
Exploring Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations on the Internet Introduction to biblical criticism
Library of latest modern books of biblical studies and biblical criticism


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Biblical studies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For other uses, see Bible study (disambiguation).
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 [show]






















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Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the Bible.[1][2] For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from archaeology, literary criticism, history, philology, and social sciences.[1]
Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses in biblical studies, usually in departments of religious studies, theology, Judaic studies, history, or comparative literature. Biblical scholars do not necessarily have a faith commitment to the texts they study, but many do.


Contents  [hide]
1 Definition
2 Academic societies
3 Biblical criticism
4 History of the Bible
5 Original languages
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links

Definition[edit]
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies defines the field as a set of various, and in some cases independent disciplines for the study of the collection of ancient texts generally known as the Bible.[1] These disciplines include but are not limited to archaeology, Egyptology, textual criticism, linguistics, history, sociology and theology.[1]
Academic societies[edit]
Several academic associations and societies promote research in the field. The largest is the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) with around 8,500 members in more than 80 countries. It publishes many books and journals in the biblical studies, including its flagship, the Journal of Biblical Literature. SBL hosts one academic conference in North America and another international conference each year, as well as smaller regional meetings.
Biblical criticism[edit]
The research of biblical scholars is frequently called biblical criticism. It does not presuppose, but also does not deny, belief in the supernatural origins of the scriptures. Instead, it applies to the Bible methods of textual analysis used in other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. Many biblical scholars also interact with traditional Jewish and Christian interpreters and methods of interpretation, which may be called biblical exegesis or hermeneutics and history of interpretation or reception history.
History of the Bible[edit]
Historical research has often dominated modern biblical studies. Biblical scholars usually try to interpret a particular text within its original historical context and use whatever information is available to reconstruct that setting. Historical criticism aims to determine the provenance, authorship, and process by which ancient texts were composed. Famous theories of historical criticism include the documentary hypothesis which suggests that the Pentateuch was compiled from four different written sources, and different reconstructions of "the historical Jesus" based primarily on the differences among the canonical Gospels.
Original languages[edit]
Most of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, which is the basis of the Christian Old Testament, was written in Biblical Hebrew, though a few chapters were written in Biblical Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, with possible Aramaic undertones, as was the first translation of the Jewish Bible known as the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament. Therefore, Hebrew, Greek and sometimes Aramaic continue to be taught in most universities, colleges and seminaries with strong programs in biblical studies.
See also[edit]
The Bible and history
Biblical hermeneutics
Chronology of the Bible
Higher criticism
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies by J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu (May 18, 2006) ISBN 0199254257 page xvii
2.Jump up ^ Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) ISBN 0567083977 pages 11–12
Further reading[edit]
The Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 vols., eds. P. R. Ackroyd, C. F. Evans, S. L. Greenslade and G. W. H. Lampe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963, 1969, 1970.
Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale, 1974.
Greenspahn, Frederick E. "Biblical Scholars, Medieval and Modern," in J. Neusner et al. (eds.), Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 245–258.
Harrison, Peter. The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
Harrisville, Roy A. & Walter Sundberg. The Bible in Modern Culture: Baruch Spinoza to Brevard Childs. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
Knight, Douglas A. and Gene M. Tucker, eds. The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters. Philadelphia: Fortress/Chico: Scholars Press, 1985.
Nicholson, Ernest W. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
Noll, Mark A. Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America. Harper & Row, 1986.
Reventlow, Henning Graf. The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World. Tr. J. Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
Sherwood, Yvonne and Stephen D. Moore. The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto. Fortress, 2011.
Sperling, S. David. Students of the Covenant: A History of Jewish Biblical Scholarship in North America. Atlanta Scholars Press, 1992.
Sugirtharajah, R.S. The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
External links[edit]
Bible Studies - Staying in the Word
Society of Biblical Literature
AcademicBible.com from the German Bible Society
Wabash Center's Internet Guid to Religion: Bible


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Biblical studies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Bible study (disambiguation).
Part of a series on the
Bible
The Malmesbury Bible


Canons and books
 [show]






















Authorship and development
 [show]












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 [show]














Biblical studies[show]
































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Wikipedia book Bible book    Portal icon Bible portal
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Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the Bible.[1][2] For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from archaeology, literary criticism, history, philology, and social sciences.[1]
Many secular as well as religious universities and colleges offer courses in biblical studies, usually in departments of religious studies, theology, Judaic studies, history, or comparative literature. Biblical scholars do not necessarily have a faith commitment to the texts they study, but many do.


Contents  [hide]
1 Definition
2 Academic societies
3 Biblical criticism
4 History of the Bible
5 Original languages
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links

Definition[edit]
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies defines the field as a set of various, and in some cases independent disciplines for the study of the collection of ancient texts generally known as the Bible.[1] These disciplines include but are not limited to archaeology, Egyptology, textual criticism, linguistics, history, sociology and theology.[1]
Academic societies[edit]
Several academic associations and societies promote research in the field. The largest is the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) with around 8,500 members in more than 80 countries. It publishes many books and journals in the biblical studies, including its flagship, the Journal of Biblical Literature. SBL hosts one academic conference in North America and another international conference each year, as well as smaller regional meetings.
Biblical criticism[edit]
The research of biblical scholars is frequently called biblical criticism. It does not presuppose, but also does not deny, belief in the supernatural origins of the scriptures. Instead, it applies to the Bible methods of textual analysis used in other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. Many biblical scholars also interact with traditional Jewish and Christian interpreters and methods of interpretation, which may be called biblical exegesis or hermeneutics and history of interpretation or reception history.
History of the Bible[edit]
Historical research has often dominated modern biblical studies. Biblical scholars usually try to interpret a particular text within its original historical context and use whatever information is available to reconstruct that setting. Historical criticism aims to determine the provenance, authorship, and process by which ancient texts were composed. Famous theories of historical criticism include the documentary hypothesis which suggests that the Pentateuch was compiled from four different written sources, and different reconstructions of "the historical Jesus" based primarily on the differences among the canonical Gospels.
Original languages[edit]
Most of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, which is the basis of the Christian Old Testament, was written in Biblical Hebrew, though a few chapters were written in Biblical Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, with possible Aramaic undertones, as was the first translation of the Jewish Bible known as the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament. Therefore, Hebrew, Greek and sometimes Aramaic continue to be taught in most universities, colleges and seminaries with strong programs in biblical studies.
See also[edit]
The Bible and history
Biblical hermeneutics
Chronology of the Bible
Higher criticism
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies by J. W. Rogerson and Judith M. Lieu (May 18, 2006) ISBN 0199254257 page xvii
2.Jump up ^ Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004) ISBN 0567083977 pages 11–12
Further reading[edit]
The Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 vols., eds. P. R. Ackroyd, C. F. Evans, S. L. Greenslade and G. W. H. Lampe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963, 1969, 1970.
Frei, Hans. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale, 1974.
Greenspahn, Frederick E. "Biblical Scholars, Medieval and Modern," in J. Neusner et al. (eds.), Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 245–258.
Harrison, Peter. The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
Harrisville, Roy A. & Walter Sundberg. The Bible in Modern Culture: Baruch Spinoza to Brevard Childs. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
Knight, Douglas A. and Gene M. Tucker, eds. The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters. Philadelphia: Fortress/Chico: Scholars Press, 1985.
Nicholson, Ernest W. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
Noll, Mark A. Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America. Harper & Row, 1986.
Reventlow, Henning Graf. The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World. Tr. J. Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
Sherwood, Yvonne and Stephen D. Moore. The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto. Fortress, 2011.
Sperling, S. David. Students of the Covenant: A History of Jewish Biblical Scholarship in North America. Atlanta Scholars Press, 1992.
Sugirtharajah, R.S. The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial, and Postcolonial Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2001.
External links[edit]
Bible Studies - Staying in the Word
Society of Biblical Literature
AcademicBible.com from the German Bible Society
Wabash Center's Internet Guid to Religion: Bible


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Christian theology




































































































































































































































































































































P christianity.svg




[show]
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The Bible and history











Bible.malmesbury.arp.jpg


























  


Categories: Biblical studies
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Biblical criticism

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Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document. For criticisms made against the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance, see Criticism of the Bible.



 The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings".[1] Viewing biblical texts as having human rather than supernatural origins, it asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources were used in its composition; and what message it was intended to convey. It will vary slightly depending on whether the focus is on the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the letters of New Testament or the Canonical gospels. It also plays an important role in the quest for a Historical Jesus.
It also addresses the physical text, including the meaning of the words and the way in which they are used, its preservation, history and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a wide range of scholarly disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, Oral Tradition studies, and historical and religious studies.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 History 2.1 Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
2.2 New Testament
3 Methods and perspectives 3.1 Textual criticism
3.2 Source criticism
3.3 Form criticism and tradition history
3.4 Redaction criticism
3.5 Canonical criticism
3.6 Rhetorical criticism
3.7 Narrative criticism
3.8 Psychological criticism
3.9 Socio-scientific criticism
3.10 Postmodernist criticism
3.11 Feminist exegesis
4 New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus 4.1 Multiple attestation
4.2 Tendencies of the developing tradition
4.3 Embarrassment
4.4 Coherence
4.5 The Crucifixion
4.6 Semitisms
4.7 Sitz im Leben
5 Notable biblical scholars
6 See also
7 Notes
8 Further reading
9 External links

Background[edit]



 Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School.
Biblical criticism, defined as the treatment of biblical texts as natural rather than supernatural artifacts, grew out of the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century it was divided between the higher criticism, the study of the composition and history of biblical texts, and lower criticism, the close examination of the text to establish their original or "correct" readings. These terms are largely no longer used, and contemporary criticism has seen the rise of new perspectives which draw on literary and multidisciplinary sociological approaches to address the meaning(s) of texts and the wider world in which they were conceived.
A division is still sometimes made between historical criticism and literary criticism. Historical criticism seeks to locate the text in history: it asks such questions as when the text was written, who the author/s might have been, and what history might be reconstructed from the answers. Literary criticism asks what audience the authors wrote for, their presumptive purpose, and the development of the text over time.
Historical criticism was the dominant form of criticism until the late 20th century, when biblical critics became interested in questions aimed more at the meaning of the text than its origins and developed methods drawn from mainstream literary criticism. The distinction is frequently referred to as one between diachronic and synchronic forms of criticism, the former concerned the development of texts through time, the latter treating texts as they exist at a particular moment, frequently the so-called "final form", meaning the Bible text as we have it today.
History[edit]
Part of a series on the
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Both Old Testament and New Testament criticism originated in the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries and developed within the context of the scientific approach to the humanities (especially history) which grew during the 19th. Studies of the Old and New Testaments were often independent of each other, largely due to the difficulty of any single scholar having a sufficient grasp of the many languages required or of the cultural background for the different periods in which texts had their origins.
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament[edit]



 Title page of Richard Simon's "Critical History" (1685), an early work of biblical criticism.
Modern biblical criticism begins with the 17th century philosophers and theologians—Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, Richard Simon and others—who began to ask questions about the origin of the biblical text, especially the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament, i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). They asked specifically who had written these books; according to tradition their author was Moses, but these critics found contradictions and inconsistencies in the text that they concluded made Mosaic authorship improbable. In the 18th century Jean Astruc (1684–1766), a French physician, set out to refute these critics. Borrowing methods of textual criticism already in use to investigate Greek and Roman texts, he discovered what he believed were two distinct documents within Genesis. These, he felt, were the original scrolls written by Moses, much as the four Gospel writers had produced four separate but complementary accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus. Later generations, he believed, had conflated these original documents to produce the modern book of Genesis, producing the inconsistencies and contradictions noted by Hobbes and Spinoza.
Astruc's methods were adopted by German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827) and Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849) in a movement which became known as the higher criticism (to distinguish it from the far longer-established close examination and comparison of individual manuscripts, called the lower criticism); this school reached its apogee with the influential synthesis of Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) in the 1870s, at which point it seemed to many that the Bible had at last been fully explained as a human document.
The implications of "higher criticism" were not welcomed by many religious scholars, not least the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) condemned secular biblical scholarship in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus;[2] but in 1943 Pope Pius XII gave license to the new scholarship in his encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu: "textual 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 had recourse and the forms of expression he employed".[3] Today the modern Catechism states: "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".[4]
New Testament[edit]



Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). His The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) demonstrated that 19th century "lives of Jesus" were reflections of the authors' own historical and social contexts.
The seminal figure in New Testament criticism was Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768), who applied to it the methodology of Greek and Latin textual studies and became convinced that very little of what it said could be accepted as incontrovertibly true. Reimarus's conclusions appealed to the rationalism of 18th century intellectuals, but were deeply troubling to contemporary believers. Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) - "Ecce Homo -The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry" (1769), the first Life of Jesus described as a mere historical man, published anonymously in Amsterdam. George Houston translated the work into English—published in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, and New York in 1827—for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison. In the 19th century important scholarship was done by David Strauss, Ernest Renan, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer and others, all of whom investigated the "historical Jesus" within the Gospel narratives. In a different field the work of H. J. Holtzmann was significant: he established a chronology for the composition of the various books of the New Testament which formed the basis for future research on this subject, and established the two-source hypothesis (the hypothesis that the gospels of Matthew and Luke drew on the gospel of Mark and a hypothetical document known as Q). By the first half of the 20th century a new generation of scholars including Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, in Germany, Roy Harrisville and others in North America had decided that the quest for the Jesus of history had reached a dead end. Barth and Bultmann accepted that little could be said with certainty about the historical Jesus, and concentrated instead on the kerygma, or message, of the New Testament. The questions they addressed were: What was Jesus’s key message? How was that message related to Judaism? Does that message speak to our reality today?
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 revitalised interest in the possible contribution archaeology could make to the understanding of the New Testament. Joachim Jeremias and C. H. Dodd produced linguistic studies which tentatively identified layers within the Gospels that could be ascribed to Jesus, to the authors, and to the early Church; Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan assessed Jesus in the cultural milieu of first-century Judea; and the scholars of the Jesus Seminar assessed the individual tropes of the Gospels to arrive at a consensus on what could and could not be accepted as historical.
Contemporary New Testament criticism continues to follow the synthesising trend set during the latter half of the 20th century. There continues to be a strong interest in recovering the "historical Jesus", but this now tends to set the search in terms of Jesus' Jewishness (Bruce Chilton, Geza Vermes and others) and his formation by the political and religious currents of first-century Palestine (Marcus Borg).
Methods and perspectives[edit]



Source criticism: diagram of the two-source hypothesis, an explanation for the relationship of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The critical methods and perspectives now to be found are numerous, and the following overview should not be regarded as comprehensive.
Textual criticism[edit]
Textual criticism (sometimes still referred to as "lower criticism") refers to the examination of the text itself to identify its provenance or to trace its history. It takes as its basis the fact that errors inevitably crept into texts as generations of scribes reproduced each other's manuscripts. For example, Josephus employed scribes to copy his Antiquities of the Jews. As the scribes copied the Antiquities, they made mistakes. The copies of these copies also had the mistakes. The errors tend to form "families" of manuscripts: scribe A will introduce mistakes which are not in the manuscript of scribe B, and over time the "families" of texts descended from A and B will diverge further and further as more mistakes are introduced by later scribes, but will always be identifiable as descended from one or the other. Textual criticism studies the differences between these families to piece together a good idea of what the original looked like. The more surviving copies, the more accurately can they deduce information about the original text and about "family histories".
Textual criticism is a rigorously objective[clarification needed] discipline using a number of specialized methodologies, including eclecticism, stemmatics, copy-text editing and cladistics. A number of principles have also been introduced for use in deciding between variant manuscripts, such as Lectio difficilior potior: "The harder of two readings is to be preferred".[5] Nevertheless, there remains a strong element of subjectivity, areas where the scholar must decide his reading on the basis of taste or common-sense: Amos 6.12, for example, reads: "Does one plough with oxen?" The obvious answer is "yes", but the context of the passage seems to demand a "no"; the usual reading therefore is to amend this to, "Does one plough the sea with oxen?" The amendment has a basis in the text, which is believed to be corrupted, but is nevertheless a matter of judgement.[6]
Source criticism[edit]
Source criticism is the search for the original sources which lie behind a given biblical text. It can be traced back to the 17th-century French priest Richard Simon, and its most influential product is Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1878), whose "insight and clarity of expression have left their mark indelibly on modern biblical studies".[7] An example of source criticism is the study of the Synoptic problem. Critics noticed that the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were very similar, indeed, at times identical. The dominant theory to account for the duplication is called the two-source hypothesis. This suggests that Mark was the first gospel to be written, and that it was probably based on a combination of early oral and written material. Matthew and Luke were written at a later time, and relied primarily on two different sources: Mark and a written collection of Jesus's sayings, which has been given the name Q by scholars. This latter document has now been lost, but at least some of its material can be deduced indirectly, namely through the material that is common in Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. In addition to Mark and Q, the writers of Matthew and Luke made some use of additional sources, which would account for the material that is unique to each of them.
Form criticism and tradition history[edit]
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.[8] 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 methodology in biblical studies.[9]
Redaction criticism[edit]
Redaction criticism studies "the collection, arrangement, editing, and modification of sources", and is frequently used to reconstruct the community and purposes of the authors of the text.[10] It is based on the comparison of differences between manuscripts and their theological significance.[11]
Canonical criticism[edit]
Associated particularly with the name of Brevard S. Childs, who has written prolifically on the subject, canonical criticism is "an examination of the final form of the text as a totality, as well as the process leading to it".[12] Where previous criticism asked questions about the origins, structure and history of the text, canonical criticism addresses questions of meaning, both for the community (and communities—subsequent communities are regarded as being as important as the original community for which it was produced) which used it, and in the context of the wider canon of which it forms a part.[1]
Rhetorical criticism[edit]
Rhetorical criticism of the Bible dates back to at least Saint Augustine. Modern application of techniques of rhetorical analysis to biblical texts dates to James Muilenberg in 1968 as a corrective to form criticism, which Muilenberg saw as too generalized and insufficiently specific. For Muilenberg, rhetorical criticism emphasized the unique and unrepeatable message of the writer or speaker as addressed to his audience, including especially the techniques and devices which went into crafting the biblical narrative as it was heard (or read) by its audience. "What Muilenberg called rhetorical criticism was not exactly the same as what secular literary critics called rhetorical criticism, and when biblical scholars became interested in "rhetorical criticism", they did not limit themselves to Muilenberg's definition...In some cases it is difficult to distinguish between rhetorical criticism and literary criticism, or other disciplines". Unlike canonical criticism, rhetorical criticism (at least as defined by Muilenberg) takes a special interest in the relationship between the biblical text and its intended audience within the context of the communal life setting. Rhetorical criticism asks how the text functions for its audience, including especially its original audience: to teach, persuade, guide, exhort, reproach, or inspire, and it concentrates especially on identifying and elucidating unique features of the situation, including both the techniques manifest in the text itself and the relevant features of the cultural setting, through which this purpose is pursued.[13]
Narrative criticism[edit]
Narrative criticism is one of a number of modern forms of criticism based in contemporary literary theory and practice—in this case, from narratology. In common with other literary approaches (and in contrast to historical forms of criticism), narrative criticism treats the text as a unit, and focuses on narrative structure and composition, plot development, themes and motifs, characters, and characterization.[14] Narrative criticism is a complex field, but some central concerns include the reliability of the narrator, the question of authorial intent (expressed in terms of the context in which the text was written and its presumed intended audience), and the implications of multiple interpretation—i.e., an awareness that a narrative is capable of more than one interpretation, and thus of the implications of each.[15]
Psychological criticism[edit]
Psychological biblical criticism is a perspective rather than a method. It discusses the psychological dimensions of the authors of the text, the material they wish to communicate to their audience, and the reflections and meditations of the reader.
Socio-scientific criticism[edit]
Socio-scientific criticism (also known as socio-historical criticism and social-world criticism) is a contemporary form of multidisciplinary criticism drawing on the social sciences, especially anthropology and sociology. A typical study will draw on studies of contemporary nomadism, shamanism, tribalism, spirit-possession, and millenarianism to illuminate similar passages described in biblical texts. Socioscientific criticism is thus concerned with the historical world behind the text rather than the historical world in the text.[16]
Postmodernist criticism[edit]



 The "Tomb of Joshua" at Kifl Haris, a Palestinian village located northwest of the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. Postmodernist criticism frequently locates biblical references in a modern setting.
Postmodernist biblical criticism treats the same general topics addressed in broader postmodernist scholarship, "including author, autobiography, culture criticism, deconstruction, ethics, fantasy, gender, ideology, politics, postcolonialism, and so on". It asks questions like: What are we to make, ethically speaking, of the program of ethnic cleansing described in the book of Joshua? What does the social construction of gender mean for the depiction of male and female roles in the Bible?[17]
In textual criticism, postmodernist criticism rejects the idea of an original text (the traditional quest of textual criticism, which marginalised all non-original manuscripts), and treats all manuscripts as equally valuable; in the "higher criticism" it brings new perspectives to theology, Israelite history, hermeneutics, and ethics.[18]
Feminist exegesis[edit]
Feminist criticism of the Bible utilizes the same means and essentially strives for the same ends as feminist literary criticism. It is therefore made up of a variety of peoples, including, but not limited to, Jews, people of color, and feminist Christians such as Elisabeth Fiorenza.
New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus[edit]
Multiple attestation[edit]
The criterion of multiple attestation or "independent attestation" is an important tool used by scholars. Simply put, the more independent witnesses that report an event or saying, the better.
The gospels are not always independent of each other. There is a possibility that Matthew and Luke copied contents from Mark's gospel.[19] There are, however, at least four early, independent sources. The criterion of multiple attestation focuses on the sayings or deeds of Jesus that are attested to in more than one independent literary source such as the Apostle Paul, Josephus, Q, and/or the Gospel of the Hebrews. The force of this criterion is increased if a given motif or theme is also found in different literary forms such as parables, dispute stories, miracle stories, prophecy, and/or aphorism.[20][21]
Multiple attestation has a certain kind of objectivity. Given the independence of the sources, satisfaction of the criterion makes it harder to maintain that it was an invention of the Church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Tendencies of the developing tradition[edit]
It is important that scholars research the earliest testimonies. To do this, they need to figure out the earliest gospel and the earliest parts of the gospels. Ideally, this material would come from eyewitnesses, but that is not always possible.
The writings of the Church Fathers are helpful in this regard. They wrote that the Hebrew Gospel was the first written while the Gospel of John was later. Also, because certain "laws" govern the transmission of tradition during the oral period, we can, by understanding these "laws", determine which tradition is early and which is late.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
Embarrassment[edit]
The criterion of embarrassment, also known as the "criterion of dissimilarity", is an analytical tool that biblical scholars use in assessing whether the New Testament accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically accurate. Simply put, trust the embarrassing material. If something is awkward for an author to say and he does anyway, it is more likely to be true.[30]
The essence of the criterion of embarrassment is that the Early Church would hardly have gone out of its way to "create" or "falsify" historical material that only embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. Rather, embarrassing material coming from Jesus would naturally be either suppressed or softened in later stages of the Gospel tradition, and often such progressive suppression or softening can be traced through the Gospels.
The evolution of the depiction of the Baptism of Jesus exhibits the criterion of embarrassment. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin, but sin nonetheless). Matthew's description of the Baptism adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you", attempting to do away with the embarrassment of John baptising Jesus, implying John's seniority. Similarly, it resolves the embarrassment of Jesus undergoing baptism "for the forgiveness of sin", the purpose of John's baptising in Mark, by omitting this phrase from John's proclamations. The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain, and then suppress, a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Coherence[edit]
The Criterion of coherence (also called consistency or conformity) can be used only when other material has been identified as authentic. This criterion holds that a saying and action attributed to Jesus may be accepted as authentic if it coheres with other sayings and actions already established as authentic. While this criterion cannot be used alone, it can broaden the database for what Jesus actually said and did.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
The Crucifixion[edit]
The criterion of the Crucifixion emphasizes that Jesus met a violent death at the hands of Jewish and Roman officials and that the authentic words and actions of Jesus would alienate people, especially powerful people.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Semitisms[edit]
Since Jesus spoke in Aramaic, traces of Aramaic in the Gospels argue in favor of a primitive tradition that may go back to Jesus. Semitisms are structured according to general rules that allow Hebrew speakers and hearers to say and hear things according to predictable patterns. Hebrew and Aramaic are linguistically very closely related and they follow similar elementary rules. For example, the pun in Matt 23:24, "straining out the gnat (galma) and swallowing a camel (gamla)" points in the direction of the historical Jesus.[22][31]
Sitz im Leben[edit]
Main article: Sitz im Leben
The sayings and actions of the historical Jesus must reflect the Sitz im Leben or the concrete social, political, economic, agricultural, and religious conditions of ancient Palestine, while sayings and actions of Jesus that reflect social, political, economic, agricultural, or religious conditions that existed only outside Palestine or only after the death of Jesus are to be considered inauthentic.[20][21][23][24][25][26][27][28][32]
Notable biblical scholars[edit]
William Albright (1891–1971): Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of American biblical archaeology
Albrecht Alt (1883–1956): prominent in early debates about the religion of the biblical patriarchs; he was also an important influence on the generation of mid-20th century German scholars like Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad
Jean Astruc (1684–1776): early French biblical critic, who adapted source criticism to the study of Genesis
Margaret Barker (1944–): maintains that the polytheistic practices of the First Jewish Temple survived and influenced gnosticism and early Christianity
Walter Bauer (1877–1960): redefined the parameters of orthodoxy and heresy with his multiregional hypothesis for the origins of early Christianity
F. C. Baur (1792–1860): explored the secular history of the primitive church
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884–1976): New Testament scholar who defined an almost complete split between history and faith, called demythology
D. A. Carson (1946–): Canadian New Testament scholar of the Gospel of John
John J. Collins (1946–): Irish scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism; he has worked extensively on Jewish messianism and apocalypticism
Frank Moore Cross (1921–2012): American biblical scholar and Harvard professor notable for his interpretations of the Deuteronomistic History, the Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as his work in Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
William G. Dever (1933–): American biblical archaeologist, known for his contributions to the understanding of early Israel
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827): applied source criticism to the entire Bible, decided against Mosaic authorship
Alvar Ellegård (1919–2008): linguist who reordered the chronology of New Testament texts and a proponent of the "Jesus Myth Theory"
Bart D. Ehrman (1955–): University of North Carolina professor, who has examined issues of textual corruption and authorship in New Testament and Early Christian texts
Israel Finkelstein (1949–): Israeli archaeologist and Professor at Tel Aviv University, an advocate for re-dating remains previously ascribed to King Solomon to the rule of the Omrides
Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812): pioneered the Griesbach hypothesis, which supports the primacy of the Gospel of Matthew
Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932): father of form criticism, the study of the oral traditions behind the text of the Pentateuch
Niels Peter Lemche (1945– ): biblical scholar at the University of Copenhagen associated with biblical minimalism, which warns against uncritical acceptance of the Bible as history
Bruce Metzger (1914–2007): biblical scholar sometimes referred to as "the dean" of New Testament textual criticism and wrote the definitive The Text of the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 1964)
Martin Noth (1902–1968): developed tradition history and scholar on the origins of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History
Robert M. Price ( 1954–): American theologian and philosopher
Rolf Rendtorff (1925–): German critic who advanced an influential non-documentary hypothesis for the origins of the Pentateuch
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834): German theologian and philosopher whose theoretical hermeneutics underlie much of modern biblical exegesis
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965): German theologian who was a pioneer in the quest for the historical Jesus
John Van Seters (1935–): American Hebrew Bible scholar who favors a supplementary model for the creation of the Pentateuch
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677): Dutch philosopher, who collected discrepancies, contradictions, and anachronisms from the Torah to show that it could not have been written by Moses
Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789): leading French/German encyclopedist, published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1769 "Ecce Homo: The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry", the first Life of Jesus describing him as a mere historical man. Translated into English by George Houston and published by him in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, (for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison), and New York, 1827
David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874): German critic who published influential work on the historical origins of Christian beliefs, most notably in his Das Leben Jesu
Thomas L. Thompson (1939–): outspoken critic of Albright's conclusions about archaeology and the historicity of the Pentateuch
Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918): German biblical critic and popularizer of a four-source documentary hypothesis
Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849): early German contributor to higher criticism and the study of Pentateuchal origins
Joseph Wheless (1868–1950): American lawyer who traced origins of the scriptures, examining original Hebrew and Greek meanings, and the translations into Latin and English
R. N. Whybray (1923–1997): critiqued the assumptions of source criticism underlying the documentary hypothesis
N. T. Wright (1948-):a retired Anglican bishop and current professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, Wright is known for the New Perspective on Paul and his Christian Origins and the Question of God series.[33][34]
See also[edit]
Detailed Christian timeline
Essays and Reviews
Gospel harmony
Christian heresy in the modern era - theologians tried for supporting biblical criticism
Historical method
New Testament places associated with Jesus
Pentateuchal criticism
Parallelomania
Timeline of the Bible
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Harper's Bible Dictionary, 1985
2.Jump up ^ Fogarty, page 40.
3.Jump up ^ Encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, 1943.
4.Jump up ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article III, section 110
5.Jump up ^ Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812) published several editions of the New Testament. In his 1796 edition, he established fifteen critical rules, including a variant of Bengel's rule, Lectio difficilior potior, "the hardest reading is best." Another was Lectio brevior praeferenda, "the shorter reading is best," based on the idea that scribes were more likely to add than to delete. "Critical Rules of Johann Albrecht Bengel". Bible-researcher.com. Archived from the original on 13 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
6.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "Methods in Old Testament Study", section Textual Criticism, in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 23–45.
7.Jump up ^ Antony F. Campbell, SJ, "Preparatory Issues in Approaching Biblical Texts", in The Hebrew Bible in Modern Study, p.6. Campbell renames source criticism as "origin criticism".
8.Jump up ^ Bibledudes.com
9.Jump up ^ Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003
10.Jump up ^ Religious Studies Department, Santa Clara University.
11.Jump up ^ Redaction Criticism.
12.Jump up ^ Norman K. Gottwald, "Social Matrix and Canonical Shape", Theology Today, October 1985.
13.Jump up ^ M.D. Morrison, "Rhetorical Criticism of the Hebrew Bible"
14.Jump up ^ Johannes C. De Klerk, "Situating biblical narrative studies in literary theory and literary approaches", Religion & Theology 4/3 (1997).
15.Jump up ^ Christopher Heard, "Narrative Criticism and the Hebrew Scriptures: A Review and Assessment", Restoration Quarterly, Vol. 38/No.1 (1996)
16.Jump up ^ Frank S. Frick, Response: Reconstructing Israel's Ancient World, SBL[dead link]
17.Jump up ^ David L. Barr, review of A. K. M. Adam (ed.), Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, 2000
18.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "The Pyramid and the Net", On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
19.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14 Google Link
20.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14, 61-77
21.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Yale University Press, 2009.
22.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: a comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. pp 54-56
23.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Blue Butler Education, Historical Study of Jesus of Nazareth: An Introduction
24.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f N. S. Gill, Discussion of the Historical Jesus
25.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Oxford, 1999. pp 90–91.
26.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Doubleday, 1991. v. 1, pp 174–175, 317
27.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).
28.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Gerd Thiessen & Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2002).
29.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 1-118
30.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14
31.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 127-128
32.Jump up ^ Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. p 55
33.Jump up ^ [1]
34.Jump up ^ [2]
Further reading[edit]
Barton, John (1984). "Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, Philadelphia, Westminster, ISBN 0-664-25724-0".
Barenboim Peter, Biblical Roots of Separation of Powers, Moscow : Letny Sad, 2005, ISBN 5-94381-123-0, http://lccn.loc.gov/2006400578
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".
McKenzie, Steven L., and Stephen R. Haynes, 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".
Levenson, Jon D. The Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies, 1993, Westminister/John Knox Press, ISBN 0-664-25407-1
Rogerson, John (1984). Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century. ISBN 978-0-8006-0737-1.
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, Avigdor, and Yair Zakovitch (2004). That's Not What the Good Book Says, Miskal-Yediot Ahronot Books and Chemed Books, Tel-Aviv
External links[edit]
David J. A. Clines, "Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation in an International Perspective", in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 46–68 See Section 6, Future Trends in Biblical Interpretation, overview of some current trends in biblical criticism.
Philip Davies, review of John J. Collins, "The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age", 2005 Reviews a survey of postmodernist biblical criticism.
Allen P. Ross (Beeson Divinity School, Samford University), "The Study of Textual Criticism" Guide to the methodology of textual criticism.
Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003 Discusses contemporary form criticism.
Exploring Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations on the Internet Introduction to biblical criticism
Library of latest modern books of biblical studies and biblical criticism


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Biblical criticism

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This article is about the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document. For criticisms made against the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance, see Criticism of the Bible.



 The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings".[1] Viewing biblical texts as having human rather than supernatural origins, it asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources were used in its composition; and what message it was intended to convey. It will vary slightly depending on whether the focus is on the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the letters of New Testament or the Canonical gospels. It also plays an important role in the quest for a Historical Jesus.
It also addresses the physical text, including the meaning of the words and the way in which they are used, its preservation, history and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a wide range of scholarly disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, Oral Tradition studies, and historical and religious studies.


Contents  [hide]
1 Background
2 History 2.1 Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
2.2 New Testament
3 Methods and perspectives 3.1 Textual criticism
3.2 Source criticism
3.3 Form criticism and tradition history
3.4 Redaction criticism
3.5 Canonical criticism
3.6 Rhetorical criticism
3.7 Narrative criticism
3.8 Psychological criticism
3.9 Socio-scientific criticism
3.10 Postmodernist criticism
3.11 Feminist exegesis
4 New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus 4.1 Multiple attestation
4.2 Tendencies of the developing tradition
4.3 Embarrassment
4.4 Coherence
4.5 The Crucifixion
4.6 Semitisms
4.7 Sitz im Leben
5 Notable biblical scholars
6 See also
7 Notes
8 Further reading
9 External links

Background[edit]



 Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School.
Biblical criticism, defined as the treatment of biblical texts as natural rather than supernatural artifacts, grew out of the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century it was divided between the higher criticism, the study of the composition and history of biblical texts, and lower criticism, the close examination of the text to establish their original or "correct" readings. These terms are largely no longer used, and contemporary criticism has seen the rise of new perspectives which draw on literary and multidisciplinary sociological approaches to address the meaning(s) of texts and the wider world in which they were conceived.
A division is still sometimes made between historical criticism and literary criticism. Historical criticism seeks to locate the text in history: it asks such questions as when the text was written, who the author/s might have been, and what history might be reconstructed from the answers. Literary criticism asks what audience the authors wrote for, their presumptive purpose, and the development of the text over time.
Historical criticism was the dominant form of criticism until the late 20th century, when biblical critics became interested in questions aimed more at the meaning of the text than its origins and developed methods drawn from mainstream literary criticism. The distinction is frequently referred to as one between diachronic and synchronic forms of criticism, the former concerned the development of texts through time, the latter treating texts as they exist at a particular moment, frequently the so-called "final form", meaning the Bible text as we have it today.
History[edit]
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Both Old Testament and New Testament criticism originated in the rationalism of the 17th and 18th centuries and developed within the context of the scientific approach to the humanities (especially history) which grew during the 19th. Studies of the Old and New Testaments were often independent of each other, largely due to the difficulty of any single scholar having a sufficient grasp of the many languages required or of the cultural background for the different periods in which texts had their origins.
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament[edit]



 Title page of Richard Simon's "Critical History" (1685), an early work of biblical criticism.
Modern biblical criticism begins with the 17th century philosophers and theologians—Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, Richard Simon and others—who began to ask questions about the origin of the biblical text, especially the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament, i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). They asked specifically who had written these books; according to tradition their author was Moses, but these critics found contradictions and inconsistencies in the text that they concluded made Mosaic authorship improbable. In the 18th century Jean Astruc (1684–1766), a French physician, set out to refute these critics. Borrowing methods of textual criticism already in use to investigate Greek and Roman texts, he discovered what he believed were two distinct documents within Genesis. These, he felt, were the original scrolls written by Moses, much as the four Gospel writers had produced four separate but complementary accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus. Later generations, he believed, had conflated these original documents to produce the modern book of Genesis, producing the inconsistencies and contradictions noted by Hobbes and Spinoza.
Astruc's methods were adopted by German scholars such as Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827) and Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849) in a movement which became known as the higher criticism (to distinguish it from the far longer-established close examination and comparison of individual manuscripts, called the lower criticism); this school reached its apogee with the influential synthesis of Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) in the 1870s, at which point it seemed to many that the Bible had at last been fully explained as a human document.
The implications of "higher criticism" were not welcomed by many religious scholars, not least the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) condemned secular biblical scholarship in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus;[2] but in 1943 Pope Pius XII gave license to the new scholarship in his encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu: "textual 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 had recourse and the forms of expression he employed".[3] Today the modern Catechism states: "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".[4]
New Testament[edit]



Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). His The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) demonstrated that 19th century "lives of Jesus" were reflections of the authors' own historical and social contexts.
The seminal figure in New Testament criticism was Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768), who applied to it the methodology of Greek and Latin textual studies and became convinced that very little of what it said could be accepted as incontrovertibly true. Reimarus's conclusions appealed to the rationalism of 18th century intellectuals, but were deeply troubling to contemporary believers. Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) - "Ecce Homo -The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry" (1769), the first Life of Jesus described as a mere historical man, published anonymously in Amsterdam. George Houston translated the work into English—published in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, and New York in 1827—for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison. In the 19th century important scholarship was done by David Strauss, Ernest Renan, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer and others, all of whom investigated the "historical Jesus" within the Gospel narratives. In a different field the work of H. J. Holtzmann was significant: he established a chronology for the composition of the various books of the New Testament which formed the basis for future research on this subject, and established the two-source hypothesis (the hypothesis that the gospels of Matthew and Luke drew on the gospel of Mark and a hypothetical document known as Q). By the first half of the 20th century a new generation of scholars including Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, in Germany, Roy Harrisville and others in North America had decided that the quest for the Jesus of history had reached a dead end. Barth and Bultmann accepted that little could be said with certainty about the historical Jesus, and concentrated instead on the kerygma, or message, of the New Testament. The questions they addressed were: What was Jesus’s key message? How was that message related to Judaism? Does that message speak to our reality today?
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 revitalised interest in the possible contribution archaeology could make to the understanding of the New Testament. Joachim Jeremias and C. H. Dodd produced linguistic studies which tentatively identified layers within the Gospels that could be ascribed to Jesus, to the authors, and to the early Church; Burton Mack and John Dominic Crossan assessed Jesus in the cultural milieu of first-century Judea; and the scholars of the Jesus Seminar assessed the individual tropes of the Gospels to arrive at a consensus on what could and could not be accepted as historical.
Contemporary New Testament criticism continues to follow the synthesising trend set during the latter half of the 20th century. There continues to be a strong interest in recovering the "historical Jesus", but this now tends to set the search in terms of Jesus' Jewishness (Bruce Chilton, Geza Vermes and others) and his formation by the political and religious currents of first-century Palestine (Marcus Borg).
Methods and perspectives[edit]



Source criticism: diagram of the two-source hypothesis, an explanation for the relationship of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
The critical methods and perspectives now to be found are numerous, and the following overview should not be regarded as comprehensive.
Textual criticism[edit]
Textual criticism (sometimes still referred to as "lower criticism") refers to the examination of the text itself to identify its provenance or to trace its history. It takes as its basis the fact that errors inevitably crept into texts as generations of scribes reproduced each other's manuscripts. For example, Josephus employed scribes to copy his Antiquities of the Jews. As the scribes copied the Antiquities, they made mistakes. The copies of these copies also had the mistakes. The errors tend to form "families" of manuscripts: scribe A will introduce mistakes which are not in the manuscript of scribe B, and over time the "families" of texts descended from A and B will diverge further and further as more mistakes are introduced by later scribes, but will always be identifiable as descended from one or the other. Textual criticism studies the differences between these families to piece together a good idea of what the original looked like. The more surviving copies, the more accurately can they deduce information about the original text and about "family histories".
Textual criticism is a rigorously objective[clarification needed] discipline using a number of specialized methodologies, including eclecticism, stemmatics, copy-text editing and cladistics. A number of principles have also been introduced for use in deciding between variant manuscripts, such as Lectio difficilior potior: "The harder of two readings is to be preferred".[5] Nevertheless, there remains a strong element of subjectivity, areas where the scholar must decide his reading on the basis of taste or common-sense: Amos 6.12, for example, reads: "Does one plough with oxen?" The obvious answer is "yes", but the context of the passage seems to demand a "no"; the usual reading therefore is to amend this to, "Does one plough the sea with oxen?" The amendment has a basis in the text, which is believed to be corrupted, but is nevertheless a matter of judgement.[6]
Source criticism[edit]
Source criticism is the search for the original sources which lie behind a given biblical text. It can be traced back to the 17th-century French priest Richard Simon, and its most influential product is Julius Wellhausen's Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1878), whose "insight and clarity of expression have left their mark indelibly on modern biblical studies".[7] An example of source criticism is the study of the Synoptic problem. Critics noticed that the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were very similar, indeed, at times identical. The dominant theory to account for the duplication is called the two-source hypothesis. This suggests that Mark was the first gospel to be written, and that it was probably based on a combination of early oral and written material. Matthew and Luke were written at a later time, and relied primarily on two different sources: Mark and a written collection of Jesus's sayings, which has been given the name Q by scholars. This latter document has now been lost, but at least some of its material can be deduced indirectly, namely through the material that is common in Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark. In addition to Mark and Q, the writers of Matthew and Luke made some use of additional sources, which would account for the material that is unique to each of them.
Form criticism and tradition history[edit]
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.[8] 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 methodology in biblical studies.[9]
Redaction criticism[edit]
Redaction criticism studies "the collection, arrangement, editing, and modification of sources", and is frequently used to reconstruct the community and purposes of the authors of the text.[10] It is based on the comparison of differences between manuscripts and their theological significance.[11]
Canonical criticism[edit]
Associated particularly with the name of Brevard S. Childs, who has written prolifically on the subject, canonical criticism is "an examination of the final form of the text as a totality, as well as the process leading to it".[12] Where previous criticism asked questions about the origins, structure and history of the text, canonical criticism addresses questions of meaning, both for the community (and communities—subsequent communities are regarded as being as important as the original community for which it was produced) which used it, and in the context of the wider canon of which it forms a part.[1]
Rhetorical criticism[edit]
Rhetorical criticism of the Bible dates back to at least Saint Augustine. Modern application of techniques of rhetorical analysis to biblical texts dates to James Muilenberg in 1968 as a corrective to form criticism, which Muilenberg saw as too generalized and insufficiently specific. For Muilenberg, rhetorical criticism emphasized the unique and unrepeatable message of the writer or speaker as addressed to his audience, including especially the techniques and devices which went into crafting the biblical narrative as it was heard (or read) by its audience. "What Muilenberg called rhetorical criticism was not exactly the same as what secular literary critics called rhetorical criticism, and when biblical scholars became interested in "rhetorical criticism", they did not limit themselves to Muilenberg's definition...In some cases it is difficult to distinguish between rhetorical criticism and literary criticism, or other disciplines". Unlike canonical criticism, rhetorical criticism (at least as defined by Muilenberg) takes a special interest in the relationship between the biblical text and its intended audience within the context of the communal life setting. Rhetorical criticism asks how the text functions for its audience, including especially its original audience: to teach, persuade, guide, exhort, reproach, or inspire, and it concentrates especially on identifying and elucidating unique features of the situation, including both the techniques manifest in the text itself and the relevant features of the cultural setting, through which this purpose is pursued.[13]
Narrative criticism[edit]
Narrative criticism is one of a number of modern forms of criticism based in contemporary literary theory and practice—in this case, from narratology. In common with other literary approaches (and in contrast to historical forms of criticism), narrative criticism treats the text as a unit, and focuses on narrative structure and composition, plot development, themes and motifs, characters, and characterization.[14] Narrative criticism is a complex field, but some central concerns include the reliability of the narrator, the question of authorial intent (expressed in terms of the context in which the text was written and its presumed intended audience), and the implications of multiple interpretation—i.e., an awareness that a narrative is capable of more than one interpretation, and thus of the implications of each.[15]
Psychological criticism[edit]
Psychological biblical criticism is a perspective rather than a method. It discusses the psychological dimensions of the authors of the text, the material they wish to communicate to their audience, and the reflections and meditations of the reader.
Socio-scientific criticism[edit]
Socio-scientific criticism (also known as socio-historical criticism and social-world criticism) is a contemporary form of multidisciplinary criticism drawing on the social sciences, especially anthropology and sociology. A typical study will draw on studies of contemporary nomadism, shamanism, tribalism, spirit-possession, and millenarianism to illuminate similar passages described in biblical texts. Socioscientific criticism is thus concerned with the historical world behind the text rather than the historical world in the text.[16]
Postmodernist criticism[edit]



 The "Tomb of Joshua" at Kifl Haris, a Palestinian village located northwest of the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. Postmodernist criticism frequently locates biblical references in a modern setting.
Postmodernist biblical criticism treats the same general topics addressed in broader postmodernist scholarship, "including author, autobiography, culture criticism, deconstruction, ethics, fantasy, gender, ideology, politics, postcolonialism, and so on". It asks questions like: What are we to make, ethically speaking, of the program of ethnic cleansing described in the book of Joshua? What does the social construction of gender mean for the depiction of male and female roles in the Bible?[17]
In textual criticism, postmodernist criticism rejects the idea of an original text (the traditional quest of textual criticism, which marginalised all non-original manuscripts), and treats all manuscripts as equally valuable; in the "higher criticism" it brings new perspectives to theology, Israelite history, hermeneutics, and ethics.[18]
Feminist exegesis[edit]
Feminist criticism of the Bible utilizes the same means and essentially strives for the same ends as feminist literary criticism. It is therefore made up of a variety of peoples, including, but not limited to, Jews, people of color, and feminist Christians such as Elisabeth Fiorenza.
New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus[edit]
Multiple attestation[edit]
The criterion of multiple attestation or "independent attestation" is an important tool used by scholars. Simply put, the more independent witnesses that report an event or saying, the better.
The gospels are not always independent of each other. There is a possibility that Matthew and Luke copied contents from Mark's gospel.[19] There are, however, at least four early, independent sources. The criterion of multiple attestation focuses on the sayings or deeds of Jesus that are attested to in more than one independent literary source such as the Apostle Paul, Josephus, Q, and/or the Gospel of the Hebrews. The force of this criterion is increased if a given motif or theme is also found in different literary forms such as parables, dispute stories, miracle stories, prophecy, and/or aphorism.[20][21]
Multiple attestation has a certain kind of objectivity. Given the independence of the sources, satisfaction of the criterion makes it harder to maintain that it was an invention of the Church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Tendencies of the developing tradition[edit]
It is important that scholars research the earliest testimonies. To do this, they need to figure out the earliest gospel and the earliest parts of the gospels. Ideally, this material would come from eyewitnesses, but that is not always possible.
The writings of the Church Fathers are helpful in this regard. They wrote that the Hebrew Gospel was the first written while the Gospel of John was later. Also, because certain "laws" govern the transmission of tradition during the oral period, we can, by understanding these "laws", determine which tradition is early and which is late.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
Embarrassment[edit]
The criterion of embarrassment, also known as the "criterion of dissimilarity", is an analytical tool that biblical scholars use in assessing whether the New Testament accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically accurate. Simply put, trust the embarrassing material. If something is awkward for an author to say and he does anyway, it is more likely to be true.[30]
The essence of the criterion of embarrassment is that the Early Church would hardly have gone out of its way to "create" or "falsify" historical material that only embarrassed its author or weakened its position in arguments with opponents. Rather, embarrassing material coming from Jesus would naturally be either suppressed or softened in later stages of the Gospel tradition, and often such progressive suppression or softening can be traced through the Gospels.
The evolution of the depiction of the Baptism of Jesus exhibits the criterion of embarrassment. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus is but a man (see adoptionism) submitting to another man for the forgiveness of the "sin of ignorance" (a lesser sin, but sin nonetheless). Matthew's description of the Baptism adds John's statement to Jesus: "I should be baptized by you", attempting to do away with the embarrassment of John baptising Jesus, implying John's seniority. Similarly, it resolves the embarrassment of Jesus undergoing baptism "for the forgiveness of sin", the purpose of John's baptising in Mark, by omitting this phrase from John's proclamations. The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism. This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain, and then suppress, a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Coherence[edit]
The Criterion of coherence (also called consistency or conformity) can be used only when other material has been identified as authentic. This criterion holds that a saying and action attributed to Jesus may be accepted as authentic if it coheres with other sayings and actions already established as authentic. While this criterion cannot be used alone, it can broaden the database for what Jesus actually said and did.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
The Crucifixion[edit]
The criterion of the Crucifixion emphasizes that Jesus met a violent death at the hands of Jewish and Roman officials and that the authentic words and actions of Jesus would alienate people, especially powerful people.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
Semitisms[edit]
Since Jesus spoke in Aramaic, traces of Aramaic in the Gospels argue in favor of a primitive tradition that may go back to Jesus. Semitisms are structured according to general rules that allow Hebrew speakers and hearers to say and hear things according to predictable patterns. Hebrew and Aramaic are linguistically very closely related and they follow similar elementary rules. For example, the pun in Matt 23:24, "straining out the gnat (galma) and swallowing a camel (gamla)" points in the direction of the historical Jesus.[22][31]
Sitz im Leben[edit]
Main article: Sitz im Leben
The sayings and actions of the historical Jesus must reflect the Sitz im Leben or the concrete social, political, economic, agricultural, and religious conditions of ancient Palestine, while sayings and actions of Jesus that reflect social, political, economic, agricultural, or religious conditions that existed only outside Palestine or only after the death of Jesus are to be considered inauthentic.[20][21][23][24][25][26][27][28][32]
Notable biblical scholars[edit]
William Albright (1891–1971): Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of American biblical archaeology
Albrecht Alt (1883–1956): prominent in early debates about the religion of the biblical patriarchs; he was also an important influence on the generation of mid-20th century German scholars like Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad
Jean Astruc (1684–1776): early French biblical critic, who adapted source criticism to the study of Genesis
Margaret Barker (1944–): maintains that the polytheistic practices of the First Jewish Temple survived and influenced gnosticism and early Christianity
Walter Bauer (1877–1960): redefined the parameters of orthodoxy and heresy with his multiregional hypothesis for the origins of early Christianity
F. C. Baur (1792–1860): explored the secular history of the primitive church
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (1884–1976): New Testament scholar who defined an almost complete split between history and faith, called demythology
D. A. Carson (1946–): Canadian New Testament scholar of the Gospel of John
John J. Collins (1946–): Irish scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism; he has worked extensively on Jewish messianism and apocalypticism
Frank Moore Cross (1921–2012): American biblical scholar and Harvard professor notable for his interpretations of the Deuteronomistic History, the Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as his work in Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
William G. Dever (1933–): American biblical archaeologist, known for his contributions to the understanding of early Israel
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827): applied source criticism to the entire Bible, decided against Mosaic authorship
Alvar Ellegård (1919–2008): linguist who reordered the chronology of New Testament texts and a proponent of the "Jesus Myth Theory"
Bart D. Ehrman (1955–): University of North Carolina professor, who has examined issues of textual corruption and authorship in New Testament and Early Christian texts
Israel Finkelstein (1949–): Israeli archaeologist and Professor at Tel Aviv University, an advocate for re-dating remains previously ascribed to King Solomon to the rule of the Omrides
Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812): pioneered the Griesbach hypothesis, which supports the primacy of the Gospel of Matthew
Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932): father of form criticism, the study of the oral traditions behind the text of the Pentateuch
Niels Peter Lemche (1945– ): biblical scholar at the University of Copenhagen associated with biblical minimalism, which warns against uncritical acceptance of the Bible as history
Bruce Metzger (1914–2007): biblical scholar sometimes referred to as "the dean" of New Testament textual criticism and wrote the definitive The Text of the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 1964)
Martin Noth (1902–1968): developed tradition history and scholar on the origins of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History
Robert M. Price ( 1954–): American theologian and philosopher
Rolf Rendtorff (1925–): German critic who advanced an influential non-documentary hypothesis for the origins of the Pentateuch
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834): German theologian and philosopher whose theoretical hermeneutics underlie much of modern biblical exegesis
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965): German theologian who was a pioneer in the quest for the historical Jesus
John Van Seters (1935–): American Hebrew Bible scholar who favors a supplementary model for the creation of the Pentateuch
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677): Dutch philosopher, who collected discrepancies, contradictions, and anachronisms from the Torah to show that it could not have been written by Moses
Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789): leading French/German encyclopedist, published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1769 "Ecce Homo: The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry", the first Life of Jesus describing him as a mere historical man. Translated into English by George Houston and published by him in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, (for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison), and New York, 1827
David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874): German critic who published influential work on the historical origins of Christian beliefs, most notably in his Das Leben Jesu
Thomas L. Thompson (1939–): outspoken critic of Albright's conclusions about archaeology and the historicity of the Pentateuch
Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918): German biblical critic and popularizer of a four-source documentary hypothesis
Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849): early German contributor to higher criticism and the study of Pentateuchal origins
Joseph Wheless (1868–1950): American lawyer who traced origins of the scriptures, examining original Hebrew and Greek meanings, and the translations into Latin and English
R. N. Whybray (1923–1997): critiqued the assumptions of source criticism underlying the documentary hypothesis
N. T. Wright (1948-):a retired Anglican bishop and current professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, Wright is known for the New Perspective on Paul and his Christian Origins and the Question of God series.[33][34]
See also[edit]
Detailed Christian timeline
Essays and Reviews
Gospel harmony
Christian heresy in the modern era - theologians tried for supporting biblical criticism
Historical method
New Testament places associated with Jesus
Pentateuchal criticism
Parallelomania
Timeline of the Bible
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Harper's Bible Dictionary, 1985
2.Jump up ^ Fogarty, page 40.
3.Jump up ^ Encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, 1943.
4.Jump up ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article III, section 110
5.Jump up ^ Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812) published several editions of the New Testament. In his 1796 edition, he established fifteen critical rules, including a variant of Bengel's rule, Lectio difficilior potior, "the hardest reading is best." Another was Lectio brevior praeferenda, "the shorter reading is best," based on the idea that scribes were more likely to add than to delete. "Critical Rules of Johann Albrecht Bengel". Bible-researcher.com. Archived from the original on 13 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-16.
6.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "Methods in Old Testament Study", section Textual Criticism, in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 23–45.
7.Jump up ^ Antony F. Campbell, SJ, "Preparatory Issues in Approaching Biblical Texts", in The Hebrew Bible in Modern Study, p.6. Campbell renames source criticism as "origin criticism".
8.Jump up ^ Bibledudes.com
9.Jump up ^ Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003
10.Jump up ^ Religious Studies Department, Santa Clara University.
11.Jump up ^ Redaction Criticism.
12.Jump up ^ Norman K. Gottwald, "Social Matrix and Canonical Shape", Theology Today, October 1985.
13.Jump up ^ M.D. Morrison, "Rhetorical Criticism of the Hebrew Bible"
14.Jump up ^ Johannes C. De Klerk, "Situating biblical narrative studies in literary theory and literary approaches", Religion & Theology 4/3 (1997).
15.Jump up ^ Christopher Heard, "Narrative Criticism and the Hebrew Scriptures: A Review and Assessment", Restoration Quarterly, Vol. 38/No.1 (1996)
16.Jump up ^ Frank S. Frick, Response: Reconstructing Israel's Ancient World, SBL[dead link]
17.Jump up ^ David L. Barr, review of A. K. M. Adam (ed.), Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, 2000
18.Jump up ^ David J. A. Clines, "The Pyramid and the Net", On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
19.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14 Google Link
20.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14, 61-77
21.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Yale University Press, 2009.
22.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: a comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. pp 54-56
23.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Blue Butler Education, Historical Study of Jesus of Nazareth: An Introduction
24.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f N. S. Gill, Discussion of the Historical Jesus
25.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, Oxford, 1999. pp 90–91.
26.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Doubleday, 1991. v. 1, pp 174–175, 317
27.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).
28.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Gerd Thiessen & Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2002).
29.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 1-118
30.Jump up ^ Catherine M. Murphy, The Historical Jesus For Dummies, For Dummies Pub., 2007. p 14
31.Jump up ^ James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2009. pp 127-128
32.Jump up ^ Maureen W. Yeung, Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison, Volume 147, Mohr Siebeck Pub, 2002. p 55
33.Jump up ^ [1]
34.Jump up ^ [2]
Further reading[edit]
Barton, John (1984). "Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, Philadelphia, Westminster, ISBN 0-664-25724-0".
Barenboim Peter, Biblical Roots of Separation of Powers, Moscow : Letny Sad, 2005, ISBN 5-94381-123-0, http://lccn.loc.gov/2006400578
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".
McKenzie, Steven L., and Stephen R. Haynes, 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".
Levenson, Jon D. The Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies, 1993, Westminister/John Knox Press, ISBN 0-664-25407-1
Rogerson, John (1984). Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century. ISBN 978-0-8006-0737-1.
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, Avigdor, and Yair Zakovitch (2004). That's Not What the Good Book Says, Miskal-Yediot Ahronot Books and Chemed Books, Tel-Aviv
External links[edit]
David J. A. Clines, "Possibilities and Priorities of Biblical Interpretation in an International Perspective", in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 46–68 See Section 6, Future Trends in Biblical Interpretation, overview of some current trends in biblical criticism.
Philip Davies, review of John J. Collins, "The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age", 2005 Reviews a survey of postmodernist biblical criticism.
Allen P. Ross (Beeson Divinity School, Samford University), "The Study of Textual Criticism" Guide to the methodology of textual criticism.
Yair Hoffman, review of Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (eds.), The Changing Face of Form-Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, 2003 Discusses contemporary form criticism.
Exploring Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations on the Internet Introduction to biblical criticism
Library of latest modern books of biblical studies and biblical criticism


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