BIBLICAL CRITICISM:
a type of academic inquiry which arose in the nineteenth century
through the application of eighteenth century RATIONALIST assumptions to the study of the BIBLE.
It originated with ANTI-CHRISTIAN writers who sought to discredit the Biblical text by
ridiculing on the basis of arguments derived from a Newtonian WORLDVIEW and DEISTIC
ETHICS. More sympathetic scholars developed Biblical criticism to accommodate CHRISTIANITY
to the Newtonian worldview by deleting the SUPERNATURAL from the Biblical text by
explaining away references to PROPHECY and MIRACLES on literary and textual grounds.
Eventually ORTHODOX scholars also accepted the validity of many methods created by the
Biblical critics to answer such questions as: "What are the most reliable and
trustworthy texts of the HEBREW BIBLE and NEW TESTAMENT? What is the
relationship between the various books? When and by whom were the texts written and for
what purpose? What are the sources, if any, the authors used? What is the relationship of
these sources to other oral and written materials of the time?" Biblical criticism
today is understood as the application of general historical principles and RATIONALIST
assumptions to the BIBLE and has evolved into various sub-disciplines such as redaction
criticism, source criticism, form criticism, literary criticism, etc.
CONSERVATIVE scholars often make a distinction between "higher criticism" which n
they see as essentially rationalist and "lower criticism" which is understood as
a legitimate quest for textual purity.
