Historical Criticism

What is Form Criticism?

Form Criticism was applied to the New Testament by K. L. Schmidt, Martin Dibelius, and Rudolf Bultmann. Their work was based on the form criticism popular in Old Testament studies which divided the text into individual sections (pericope, plural, pericopae) and determined a “mini-genre” for each pericope. These sub-genres included proverb, wisdom saying, I-saying, myths, legends, etc. Once a pericope has been determined and a sub-genre assigned, the form critic would then attempt to construct a plausible Sitz im Leben for the pericope – the “situation-in-life” that might have generated the story.  For example, a miracle story could have been invented in a situation where the divinity of Christ was in doubt. Such a “legend” attempted to give Jesus divine qualities in order to support developing Christology of the early church.

Not all form-critical studies assume stories are fabrications, it is possible a story is a genuine recollection of an event. It is possible to ask why was “a particular story was remembered, retold, and adapted for teaching and preaching in the church. Not everything Jesus said and did was recorded, the things that were served some purpose for the writer. Form Criticism is therefore a logical step from Source Criticism.  If the writers were using sources, what can we know about the sources? It is at least possible to trace the origins back to a pre-textual, oral phase. In order to achieve this, Form critics make a few assumptions.

Assumptions of Form Criticism

Oral TraditionFirst, early form critics assumed no one wrote anything down during Jesus’ life time or in the early years of the church. The assumption is that the early Christians relied on oral tradition and at all on written documents. The reason often given for this is the belief that the earliest Christians were convinced that Jesus was going to return very soon and establish his kingdom, thus there is no need to write books.

Second, oral traditions are seen as discrete, independently circulating rather than a larger narrative. The units circulated among story-tellers and teachers who incorporated them into their teaching, The model for this process is the history of oral folklore in other cultures such as European or African story telling. Since stories developed in Europe in this fashion, so to must have the Christian mythology.

Third, the material preserved had some sort of function in the life of the community that preserved it. This makes sense since it is obvious not every word Jesus said was preserved. But the situation of the community preserving the material is more important than the context of the life of Jesus. The question shifts from “what did Jesus mean?” to “how did the community use a particular saying?”

Fourth, some Form critics assumed very few details of the life of Jesus were preserved. As a result, we cannot really know much about a Historical Jesus from these stories since the oral transmission of stories tends to strip away actual biographical historical or geographical information in favor of local church contexts. Again, it is possible to use some methods and language Form critics and argue the Gospels preserve real history, but that was not the original intention of the Form critics.

Like Source Criticism, Form Criticism can be useful because it establishes a connection between the original event (Jesus tells a parable) and the eventual writing of that parable, fixing the form in a text. Like Source Criticism, the Form Critics are studying the forty or so years between the events and the writing of the Synoptic Gospels. But the assumption that the stories floated freely and were greatly adapted and changed (or created) to fit new situations is problematic. As Michael Bird says in The Gospel of the Lord (Eerdmans, 2014), if this process happens within forty years (A.D. 33-70), then there are eyewitnesses to “police” the developing oral tradition.

Oral Tradition?

What sort of traditions would the Gospel writers have used? We cannot imagine they found boxes of unused tradition stored away in the back of a teacher’s house (Michael Bird, p. 66, citing James Dunn). The traditions preserved through the early, oral period used because they were the stories used in the regular preaching and teaching of the church! While not precisely “Form criticism” in the traditional sense, scholarship has been working on the “oral period” quite a bit lately, attempting to describe how people remembered Jesus and how those memories were passed along to the next generation.

Like other forms of “higher criticism,” Form Criticism is not necessarily a destructive project. It can serve those who study the Gospels well by shedding light on the time between Jesus’ life and ministry and the writing of the Gospels.

Evangelical Faith and Historical Criticism

Evangelical FaithJust yesterday I received a new book edited by Christopher M. Hays and Christopher B. Ansberry, The Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2013). The book is a collection of essays on somewhat controversial topics raised by biblical scholars who attempt to study the Bible as a historical document and covers some of the same ground as my list few posts. This is just a quick overview of the book although I plan a full review soon. I have only read the chapter on Historical Jesus studies since I am covering that topic right now.

The book is concerned with evangelical scholarship and the findings of historical criticism and argues that a conservative interpreter of the Bible can be both “critical” and “evangelical.” Two clarifications are necessary before reading this book, however. By critical (or “historical criticism” in the title), this book means contemporary scholarship rather than nineteenth century Protestant liberalism. Those two are not always the same. The authors of the essays in this collection are discussing the current state of critical scholarship rather than examples of older Historical Criticism. By evangelical, this book means orthodox Protestants who believe the Bible has authority in matters of faith and practice. Evangelicals are those who understand the Gospel as something that reconciles people to God through the atoning death of Jesus. What is missing in the definition as given on pages 17-18 is a direct reference to inerrancy as defined by the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy. Nor does “evangelical” refer to political conservatism. It is unfortunate that the label “evangelical” has been co-opted by the media to describe American political conservatives from Fred Phelps to George W. Bush.

After an introduction by Hays, there are four chapters covering Old Testament issues (historical Adam, The Exodus, Deuteronomic Covenant, and Prophecy). The sixth chapter on pseudepigraphy and canon is mainly concerned with the idea of an author and the problem of some Pauline letters, James, 2 Peter and the traditional authors of the Gospels. Chapter 8 treats the problem of Paul in his letters versus Paul in Acts. Ansberry and Hays offer some concluding comments on doing “faithful criticism.” These are all current issues in conservative scholarship and most have generated a fairly substantial secondary literature. Google “historical Adam” for example, or read some of the reviews of Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. I cannot recommend using the word “myth” in some institutions; even talking about Q is enough to cause problems in some academic circles. For the most part, these are not just controversial: they are raging bitter debates among conservatives, the sorts of issues that can get you fired from a conservative church or seminary.

Every chapter in the book is interesting and worthy of in-depth discussion, but I want to focus my attention on the seventh chapter, which is devoted to studying the Historical Jesus. I asked in the previous post whether an evangelical can use the tools of historical criticism without accepting all the philosophical foundations lurking in the background of these methods. Michael J. Daling and Christopher Hays contribute the chapter on Jesus studies in the book and begin with the simple observation that Historical Jesus studies are among the most productive in biblical scholarship. There are dozens of monographs and essay collections published each year making significant contributions to the study of Jesus and the Gospels and many more less significant contributions. Daling and Hays therefore summarize four particular areas that seem to be perennial points of interest for scholars working in and around the Gospels, although three of their points are all related to miracles.

First, what did Jesus claim about himself? For much of the last 100 years, scholars have read Jesus’ self-designation “son of man” either as eschatological (usually citing Dan 7:14) or as meaning “human” (non-eschatological). If it is eschatological, is Jesus claiming to be a messiah, and if he is, what exactly does “messiah” mean to a first century Jewish audience? Since we are reading the words of Jesus as reported by his later followers, some scholars dismiss Jesus as an eschatological teacher. He was not trying to “establish the kingdom of God” nor did he see himself as fulfilling prophecy in any way.  His later followers thought that about him, but Jesus did not think he was a messiah. On the other hand, it is at least possible Jesus had some messianic self-awareness. Even the most skeptical of scholars will accept as fact that Jesus gathered followers, and that he designated twelve of them as his “apostles.” Almost everyone agrees Jesus taught something about the “kingdom of God,” although there is a great deal of ink spilt on defining what the kingdom was. What would a Jewish audience in Galilee think of a Jewish teacher who gathered twelve disciples and taught about the kingdom of God? It is at least possible (if not likely) they would have heard echoes of the Hebrew Bible and the twelve tribes of Israel. I would include Jesus’ description of his ministry in terms of a wedding celebration another echo of messianic ideas from the Hebrew Bible, and there are many others as well.

Second, Daling and Hays list miracles as a major problem for historical studies of Jesus based on the assumption miracles do not occur. I plan on returning to this issue later, but for now let me observe this is a major dividing point between an evangelical biblical scholar and a non-evangelical since most evangelicals do not dismiss the possibility of miracles occurring before reading the text of the Gospels. This is true for the two “big miracles” Daling and Hays discuss, the virgin birth and the resurrection. For many Christians, these are non-negotiable miracles involving Jesus, so to deny the virgin birth is tantamount to denying the faith! Since we are reading reports of miracles by devoted followers of Jesus, many scholars dismiss them as legend-making. However, if we understand miracles in the context of a messianic Jesus, then healing and resurrection are part of the eschatological landscape. A messiah that does not do miracles is more suspicious, at least from a Second Temple Period perspective. Since the virgin birth became a kind of litmus test to detect liberalism in the early twentieth century, few conservative scholars would openly question why Jesus is presented as “born of a virgin” in Matthew and Luke.

I can certainly recommend The Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism for readers who want to read more deeply on these controversial topics. The essays are excellent examples of faithful Christians interacting with the tools and methods of historical criticism, asking questions of the text and struggling with issues on an academic level. In most cases, they are open to the possibility that a faithful Christian can hold views that are “less than conservative.”

 

The Gospels and Historical Criticism

“…in the second half of the eighteenth century, in connection with the intellectual movement of the Enlightenment, within Protestant theology the insight began to prevail that the Bible is a book written by men, which, like any product of the human mind, can properly be made understandable only from the times in which it appeared and therefore only with the methods of historical science.” Werner Kümmel, The Theology of the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), 14.

Historical Criticism makes several assumptions. First, the church has historically misread the Bible.  Modern readers need to strip away the theological layers that have accumulated over centuries.  Christians are people that are irrational and believe in a God without rational reasons It is true many Christians have an irrational belief in God and the deity of Jesus. They believe, although they might not be able to give a clear reason why they believe what they do. In the post-modern world in which we live, there are many who would say that it does not really matter what you believe in as long as you believe in something.

Old BibleSecond, Historical Criticism is philosophical naturalism applied to the New Testament Naturalism is the belief that all there is in the world is this world.  There is no spiritual plane of existence, there are no angels or demons, there is no devil nor is there a god.  Only things that can be submitted for scientific investigation are “real.” In fact, most of the claims of the Bible are impossible to test scientifically, so they are rejected. What sort of test could the Myth Busters create to test the claim Jesus walked on the water?

When naturalism is applied to the Bible, several classic doctrines of the Christian church come under criticism, primarily the deity of Jesus. Jesus Christ was not the Son of God, nor did he ever claim to be.  He might have been a moral teacher, a philosopher, or an ethical example, but he was not divine.  This means that predictions of Jesus are later inventions of the church.  The death of Christ on the cross has nothing to do with atonement for sin. Miracles and supernatural events are assumed to be myths.  Scholars denied that anything can happen outside of the natural laws of science.  Nothing, not even God, can suspend the law of nature.

Third, Historical Criticism the Bible, therefore, is to be interpreted as any book.  For these scholars, the “historical method” became the only way to approach the Bible in an intelligent and modern way.  Notice that this use of the word historical is skewed by the assumption that the Bible has not claim on authority. The claims the Bible makes for itself are not of importance.

Despite these negative comments, I think Historical Criticism has been helpful for New Testament scholarship in a number of ways.  It cannot be said that everything produced by even the likes of the Jesus Seminar or Bart Ehrman are without merit–some of the scholarship by the most liberal scholars is useful for studying Jesus.

First, Historical Criticism has aided in the discovery and interpretation of historical details that relate to the world of the Bible.  Because these scholars were reading the Bible “just like any other book,” they often grounded their studies in the Greco-Roman world, shedding a great deal of light on the text. Second, Historical Critical scholars have been extremely helpful in developing major tools for interpreting the language of the Bible. It is impossible to work with a Greek New Testament or lexicon does not have its origin in historical-critical methods. For example, most of the articles in the TDNT are from advocates of Historical Criticism. While the TDNT has been rightly criticized, it is still a major tool for exegesis. Third, New Testament scholars have paid closer attention to the “Jewishness” of Jesus as a result of Historical Criticism, although this is sometimes in reaction to nineteenth century “lives of Jesus.”  The trend among modern writers is to read Jesus in the light of the contemporary Jewish culture rather than a 20th century political philosophy.

It is possible to use many of the tools of Historical Criticism without accepting every Enlightenment philosophical assumption. But not all evangelicals would agree with this assessment. Norman Geisler addressed this topic in his 1998 Evangelical Theological Society presidential address.  Geisler essentially said that any scholar who uses any of the methods of Historical Criticism is tainted by the philosophical assumptions of the enlightenment. While Geisler made a number of other statements in this paper I wholeheartedly agree with (and was deeply moved by at the time), I think he goes too far in his rejection of many of the “tools of scholarship” in his defense of Evangelicalism and inerrancy. I find myself in agreement with Grant Osborne’s response to Geisler, who accepts the warnings against extremism but concludes that Geisler “unfortunately go too far in their complete rejection of critical tools and their imputation of rationalist tendencies to evangelical scholars not guilty of them” (209).

As Carl Henry said, “What is objectionable is not the historical-critical method, but rather the alien presuppositions to which neo-protestant scholars subject it.”

Is Geisler correct? If we use the some of the methods of Historical Criticism are we (implicitly) accepting all the baggage of philosophical naturalism? Is “evangelical critical scholarship” an oxymoron? Or worse, is it a “a deal with the devil”?

 

 

Bibliography: Norman L. Geisler, “Beware Of Philosophy: A Warning To Biblical Scholars,” JETS 42 (1999): 1-18.

Grant R. Osborne, “Historical Criticism And The Evangelical,” JETS 42 (1999): 188-206.

 

Critical Methods and the Evangelical

In my years teaching Gospels, I have found that the single most frustrating section of the course is section on Historical Criticism.  Usually students do not see the point of the discussion and would prefer to leave it to the professionals. My purpose here is to give a light summary and definition of three key critical methods and then assess the value of these methods for the evangelical.

The dangers of higher criticism

Source Criticism is the study of the use of literary sources by the Gospel writers including the order the in which the gospels were written and the use of hypothetical sources.  It seems somewhat obvious that there is a literary relationship between the three synoptic gospels – why does Matthew look a great deal like Mark?  Why are there verses that are word-for-word the same in Matthew and Luke?

Form Criticism is the study of the per-literary sources use in the Gospels with an emphasis on the forms which these elements appeared in the “life setting of the early church.”  This is more or less a step backwards from Source Criticism since Form critics asked what elements of tradition a writer might have had at his disposal as he created his gospel.  This method begins with the assumption that no one wrote down what Jesus said and did for a very long time but people circulated stories of what did and did orally.  This units were subject to the sorts of changes that affect any folklore, so the units develop until they were eventually collected into the gospels as we know them.  The Form Critic is interested in the earliest possible “form” of a story and determining what situation might have led to the development of the original story.

Redaction Criticism is the study of the way in which the Gospel writers used their sources.  The focus here is on how they edited the sources and the individual contributions of the writers to their sources, or better, the communities in which the gospel was developed.  A position on Source criticism must be taken:  who wrote first, Mark or Matthew?  Then a Redaction critic will study how Matthew adapted mark for his (new) church situation.

Can these methods be used by evangelical scholars who have a commitment to inspiration and inerrancy? I believe that they can, but judiciously.  First, there is a literary relationship between the three synoptic gospels.  To deny that seems to me to be purposely ignoring the obvious because you are afraid of what the explanation might be.  Second, if there is a literary relationship, then it is obvious that the gospel writers used at least one other gospel as a source, and may have had other sources as well.  Luke states this in his prologue, so I see no trouble in the observation that Matthew used Mark, or Luke used Matthew.  I see no problem with Matthew using a sayings document for that matter if such a thing existed.  Third, that there were orally transmitted stories about Jesus seems equally obvious. The existence of these stories is one of Luke’s motivations for writing an “orderly account.” And it is a fact that some of the stories grew to legendary and fanciful myths, as we find in the (much later) New Testament Apocrypha.

However, just because we can use these methods does not mean we should. It seems to me that every Bible reader has to have some basic idea of the literary relationship and an understanding that the writers were highly creative, Spirit-lead individuals who sought to explain who Jesus was in a way which impacted their community.  The problem comes when we get stuck on Source, Form, or Redaction Criticism to the point that we never actually read the text of the gospel with understanding.  These methods usually obscure and distract as much as the help us understand the words of the Gospels.