Biblical Higher Criticism

From pragmatical point of view there are three ways to read the Bible. The first, here called philological or analytical, has been cultivated in the Bible departments of continental theological schools since the Enlightenment.  According to it, the Bible is to be read like any other ancient document. To Interpret it  means to reconstruct its original meaning(s)  using the tools of the historical-critical method (Biblia a se). In contrast to it, the theological way of reading the Bible understands the Bible as a part of the tradition of a believing community. As such, it is to be read synthetically or holistically, on the tacit assumption of its general consent with -- or even normative function for --  the teaching of the believing community (Biblia pro nobis).  Finally, the spiritual way of reading the Bible represents an existential appropriation of a particular biblical text by an individual reader (Biblia pro me).
As this study argues,  each one of the three ways of reading the Bible is motivated by different question and yields different results. Yet they complement each other and all three belong to the repertoire of responsible theological exegesis.

Throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, higher criticism's identification of JEDPH sources provided a then-compelling model for the literary development of the Pentateuch. Since the 1970s, the acknowledgment of serious difficulties in the Documentary Hypothesis have undermined the earlier consensus and led to a number of competing models, several of which deny the viability of separating out distinct JEDPH sources. In the present article, I call into question a central feature of Documentary and Supplementary Hypotheses, namely that the JEDPH sources represent different historical stages in the creation of the Pentateuch. Instead, I propose a new model in which these represent contemporary literary voices in the collaborative creation of the Pentateuch by a team of authors. This new model allows for a new interpretation of the JEDPH sources that overcomes the various objections raised against the Documentary Hypothesis in recent years.

Higher criticism may be used effectively in the study of God’s holy word as it offers tools of study that are consistent with an orthodox view of inerrancy and may be used within the historical-grammatical method of hermeneutics. Much of the struggle for many evangelicals stems from an improper understanding of many terms involved.

Therefore, this position paper proceeds first by examining several definitions pertaining to higher criticism including a peripheral look at the principles and distinctions of historical-grammatical interpretation and historical-critical hermeneutics. Secondly, the higher critical tools for studying the Bible are briefly defined and examples are given.

It is not the purpose of this paper to examine all the pros and cons of the various fields of higher criticism. Nor does it attempt to examine the full use or misuse of these tools. Instead, it remains the goal of this project to define certain terms, distinguish various presuppositions and positions, and to provide a few examples of some of the legitimate instruments which have been packaged for the modern student of the Bible. The purpose of this paper is to articulate this writer’s position on these matters and to provide a hermeneutical base from which he and other evangelicals might work in their future interpretation of Scripture.

In 2008, evangelical professor Kenton Sparks published a book entitled "God's Word in Human Words". Its 400 pages included a very useful historical survey of various interpretive approaches to the Bible over the centuries, as well as discussion of numerous controversies over how the Bible should be understood. Sparks argued in favour of studying the Bible with the techniques of Higher Criticism, a thought alarming to many Christians.

What was radical was Sparks' proposal that the traditional doctrine of Biblical inerrancy should be abandoned. He was not suggesting it should be refined or replaced with a more sophisticated view. On the contrary, he argued that Christians should accept that no meaningful definition of inerrancy could be defended.

Four years later a formal response to Sparks' book was published, “Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture” (2012). This article reviews that response.

Christopher Buck, Review of Daniel Grolin, Jesus and Early Christianity in the Gospels: A New Dialogue. Baha’i Studies Review 11 (2003): 108–112.

Jesus and Early Christianity in the Gospels: A New Dialogue. By Daniel J. Grolin. Oxford: George Ronald, 2002. 522 pp. + 2 indexes (21 pp.) ISBN 0-85398-462-X. Price: £19.95, $38.95

What is the value of scholarship for interfaith dialogue? Ideally, scholarship can provide a common ground of expertise from which dialogue might proceed. Scholars may be regarded as arbiters (but not the sole judges) of textual authenticity and of the contemporary–historical interpretation of sacred text. These experts themselves are in dialogue. Their investigations, which are methodologically self- conscious, virtual discussions, constitute a ‘community of discourse’ within a given ‘research tradition’. While their personal beliefs are supposed to be ‘bracketed’ in favour of achieving a ‘critical empathy’ for the religious traditions they study, biases may be disguised and insinuated into research results. Still, one could hardly ask for a more dispassionate inquiry into matters of sacred text. In Baha’i parlance, one might say that academic scholarship is a corporate form of the ‘independent investigation of truth’. And it is into this world of scholarship that author Daniel Grolin invites us to participate as active spectators – in preparation for both a search after truth and a Baha’i–Christian dialogue.

Jesus and Early Christianity in the Gospels is an introduction to the gospel narratives (both canonical and apocryphal), with an overarching interest in interfaith dialogue, as indicated by the subtitle, A New Dialogue.

One may even speak of a certain ‘globalization’ of the figure of Jesus, as theologians in nearly every major world religion have reflected on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus has become universalized in ways quite unanticipated by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – and Thomas.

Any interfaith dialogue in which Jesus is at the heart of the matter necessarily involves Christians as a party to the discussion. For the dialogue to be meaningful, each party must ‘witness’ to his or her own understanding of the salvific and vivifying role of Jesus Christ. For interfaith dialogue to be constructive and productive, it must agree to rules – ideally, to a certain procedure for reaching common ground.

The pericope in which Jesus cures the fever of the mother-in-law of Simon Peter in a town called Capernaum is a complete fiction. In the first century, there was no place that was called Capernaum. Even though the Israeli tourist site now given that name may have been in existence at that time, there is no good reason to identify it with the gospel town. Simon Peter is a pre-Christian deity who was (like John the Baptizer) subdued and incorporated into the Christian system. Simon Peter is a solar city equivalent to the Samitan Simon "Magus," The Syro-Phoenician Semo, Samson, Hercules, Mithra, and Janus. Peter's possession of the keys of heaven and his association with rock, ships and water, and pillars can be explained by his derivation from the gods just mentioned. The absence of Peter's wife in the gospels is probably due to the fact that the consort of his previous incarnation, Simon Magus, was reputed to be a prostitute. Whereas Peter could be Christianized easily, his "wife" couldn't—and the only thing left of his marriage is his mother-in-law.

Capernaum was unknown to the Hebrew Bible and geographers of the first century CE. It is unknown in the NT outside the Gospels—not even in Acts. The supposed allusions to Capernaum in Josephus prove to be nothing of the sort. The Kapharnaum/noun of "The Jewish War" is the name of a spring famed for its harboring of a black fish. The Kepharnokon/nakon of "The Life" cannot be equated linguistically to Capernaum. Origen, who lived in Caesarea—just 30 miles or so from the sites considered to be possible locations of the Gospel village—and made an effort to locate the places mentioned in scripture, did not know where Capernaum was and concluded that it, like most Gospel places, was a symbol rather than a place. I argue that the name should be understood as "Village of the Paraclete," not "Village of Nahum." Examination of all references to Capernaum in the Gospels yields geographically contradictory ideas of where the village should be sought. Finally, I show that the archaeological investigations at Telhum—the only site currently thought to have been the location of Capernaum—were unscientific and possibly fraudulent to some degree.