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132-418: The historian applying historical criticism has several goals in mind. One is to understand what the text itself is saying in the context of its own time and place, and as it would have been intended to and received by its original audience (sometimes called the sensus literalis sive historicus , i.e. the "historical sense" or the "intended sense" of the meaning of the text). The historian also seeks to understand

264-409: A Wheaton College philosopher. Both Schafersman and Strahler assert that it is illogical to try to decouple the two senses of naturalism. "While science as a process only requires methodological naturalism, the practice or adoption of methodological naturalism entails a logical and moral belief in philosophical naturalism, so they are not logically decoupled." This “[philosophical] naturalistic view

396-492: A continuum . "Naturalism is not so much a special system as a point of view or tendency common to a number of philosophical and religious systems; not so much a well-defined set of positive and negative doctrines as an attitude or spirit pervading and influencing many doctrines. As the name implies, this tendency consists essentially in looking upon nature as the one original and fundamental source of all that exists, and in attempting to explain everything in terms of nature. Either

528-450: A "critical edition" containing a text most closely approximating the original. There are three fundamental approaches to textual criticism: eclecticism, stemmatics, and copy-text editing. Techniques from the biological discipline of cladistics are currently also being used to determine the relationships between manuscripts. The phrase "lower criticism" is used to describe the contrast between textual criticism and " higher criticism ", which

660-422: A coherent narrative onto the text. The more coherent the final structure is, the more of a "composition" it is, whereas the less coherent the material has been welded, the more it should be seen as a "redaction". Nevertheless, there is no precise boundary in which a text can be said to have moved from a redaction to a composition. Another difference between the two is that redaction criticism is diachronic, looking at

792-458: A contrast to "naturalism" in general, but there the idea was not really developed to its more recent distinctions. According to Steven Schafersman , naturalism is a philosophy that maintains that; Or, as Carl Sagan succinctly put it: " The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be ." In addition Arthur C. Danto states that naturalism, in recent usage, is a species of philosophical monism according to which whatever exists or happens

924-424: A difficult predicament." W. V. O. Quine describes naturalism as the position that there is no higher tribunal for truth than natural science itself. In his view, there is no better method than the scientific method for judging the claims of science, and there is neither any need nor any place for a "first philosophy", such as (abstract) metaphysics or epistemology , that could stand behind and justify science or

1056-507: A distinct personal anthropomorphic god – theists challenge the idea that nature contains all of reality. According to some theists, natural laws may be viewed as secondary causes of God(s). In the 20th century, Willard Van Orman Quine , George Santayana , and other philosophers argued that the success of naturalism in science meant that scientific methods should also be used in philosophy. According to this view, science and philosophy are not always distinct from one another, but instead form

1188-536: A divine Artisan , contrasts sharply with the various mechanistic Weltanschauungen , of which atomism was, by the fourth century at least, the most prominent ... This debate was to persist throughout the ancient world. Atomistic mechanism got a shot in the arm from Epicurus ... while the Stoics adopted a divine teleology ... The choice seems simple: either show how a structured, regular world could arise out of undirected processes, or inject intelligence into

1320-457: A few difficulties when it comes to analyzing the Old Testament as a historical text. New Testament historical analysis is also difficult due to the nature of the original texts that we can analyze, specifically their translatability as well as how oral tradition had effects on written tradition during the formation and canonization of gospel texts and the teachings of Jesus. The Hebrew Bible,

1452-520: A field to be self-correcting, as mistakes in earlier work can be corrected in subsequent work, and some have argued that this clarifies the level of confidence that someone today is capable of attaining when it comes to what happened in the past. The sense of the historical-critical method involves an application of both a critical and a historical reading of a text. To read a text critically means to suspend inherited presuppositions about its origin, transmission, and meaning, and to assess their adequacy in

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1584-549: A highly symbolic book, there will be different outcomes in the interpretation of particular sections. Additionally, one's view of the scriptures as sacred and written by God or as a historical text has implications on one's interpretation of text. Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in texts, both manuscripts and printed books. Ancient scribes made errors or alterations when copying manuscripts by hand. Given

1716-412: A historical character to them (such as the historical circumstances or motivations that led authors to making specific literary decisions), but more importantly, that the term "historical-critical method" need not refer to all critical approaches but only the ones with an interest in historical questions. Therefore, "biblical criticism" may be adopted as a broader term referring to all critical approaches to

1848-405: A manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original document, the textual critic seeks to reconstruct the original text (the urtext , archetype or autograph ) as closely as possible. The same processes can be used to attempt to reconstruct intermediate editions, or recensions, of a document's transcription history. The ultimate objective of the textual critic's work is the production of

1980-495: A methodology based on falsifiability for demarcation , because no number of experiments can ever prove a theory, but a single experiment can contradict one. Popper holds that scientific theories are characterized by falsifiability. Alvin Plantinga , Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Notre Dame , and a Christian , has become a well-known critic of naturalism. He suggests, in his evolutionary argument against naturalism , that

2112-542: A naturalistic framework. An example of a more progressive naturalistic philosophy is secular humanism . The current usage of the term naturalism "derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. Currently, metaphysical naturalism is more widely embraced than in previous centuries, especially but not exclusively in the natural sciences and the Anglo-American, analytic philosophical communities. While

2244-436: A paradigm – comprise a collection of beliefs, values and techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation. For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the "correct" paradigm, and there is no such thing as supernatural , i.e. anything above, beyond, or outside of nature. The scientific method is to be used to investigate all reality, including

2376-432: A particularly strong form of ontological naturalism, namely the physicalist doctrine that any state that has physical effects must itself be physical. From the 1950s onwards, philosophers began to formulate arguments for ontological physicalism. Some of these arguments appealed explicitly to the causal closure of the physical realm (Feigl 1958, Oppenheim and Putnam 1958). In other cases, the reliance on causal closure lay below

2508-497: A problem with comparing the translation to the original Hebrew (because we have it). This may lead to problems of establishing the reliability of translations like the Septuagint. In order to overcome this, researches have come up with methods to use the very few manuscripts we have and continually draw conclusions and compare to original texts using those conclusions to provide more reliability to available texts. In order to indicate if

2640-468: A replacement, of historical criticism. Second, postcolonial and feminist readings of the Bible are easily integrated as a part of historical criticism, and these can play their role as a corrective of argumentation in the field that has proceeded from ideological influences. As such, historical criticism has been adopted by its critics, as in the case of feminist theologians who seek to recover the views of women in

2772-515: A response to 'negative higher criticism.' On the other hand, attempts to revive the extreme historical criticism of the Dutch Radical School by Robert M. Price , Darrell J. Doughty and Hermann Detering have also been met with strong criticism and indifference by mainstream scholars. Such positions are nowadays confined to the minor Journal of Higher Criticism and other fringe publications. Biblical studies Biblical studies

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2904-437: A secular worldview, ruling out the possibility of any transcendental truth to the claims of the text being studied. David Law has argued that this criticism is a strawman. Law argues that the method only eliminates a theological worldview as a presupposition, not as a conclusion. What the historical-critical method does, therefore, is allow one to study the text without prejudice as to what conclusion they will arrive at. Similarly,

3036-405: A translation is authentic or not, it is crucial to look for keywords that may seem unique and that are not translated from a root language such as Hebrew or any of the other original languages. This shows that there are many other languages present in the translations that seems as if it was reinvented over and over again. However, it is normal to see such a change, and it shows the difference between

3168-447: Is natural in the sense of being susceptible to explanation through methods which, although paradigmatically exemplified in the natural sciences, are continuous from domain to domain of objects and events. Hence, naturalism is polemically defined as repudiating the view that there exists or could exist any entities which lie, in principle, beyond the scope of scientific explanation. Arthur Newell Strahler states: "The naturalistic view

3300-529: Is a consequence of the build-up of scientific evidence during the twentieth century for the " causal closure of the physical", the doctrine that all physical effects can be accounted for by physical causes. By the middle of the twentieth century, the acceptance of the causal closure of the physical realm led to even stronger naturalist views. The causal closure thesis implies that any mental and biological causes must themselves be physically constituted, if they are to produce physical effects. It thus gives rise to

3432-432: Is commonly referred to as metaphysical naturalism . On the other hand, the more moderate view that naturalism should be assumed in one's working methods as the current paradigm, without any further consideration of whether naturalism is true in the robust metaphysical sense, is called methodological naturalism . With the exception of pantheists – who believe that nature is identical with divinity while not recognizing

3564-419: Is employed, and (3) oral prehistory of forms, which tend to be short and stereotypical, and so easy to memorize and pass on to others, and their (4) history of transmission. 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. Whereas source and form criticism are concerned with

3696-445: Is equivalent to the demand, frequently reiterated by Biblical scholars from the eighteenth century onwards, that the Bible is to be interpreted in the same manner as any other text. By contrast, to read a text historically would mean to require the meanings ascribed to it to have been humanly 'thinkable' or 'sayable' within the text's original historical environment, as far as the latter can be retrospectively reconstructed. At least for

3828-658: Is espoused by science as its fundamental assumption." But Eugenie Scott finds it imperative to do so for the expediency of deprogramming the religious. "Scientists can defuse some of the opposition to evolution by first recognizing that the vast majority of Americans are believers, and that most Americans want to retain their faith." Scott apparently believes that "individuals can retain religious beliefs and still accept evolution through methodological naturalism. Scientists should therefore avoid mentioning metaphysical naturalism and use methodological naturalism instead." "Even someone who may disagree with my logic … often understands

3960-642: Is founded upon historical-literary dynamics, either using scripture to interpret history and science, or using science and history to interpret scripture. This is particularly important when applied to the person of Jesus Christ and the Gospels in the New Testament. Many people agree that Jesus was a real historical person, but whether he was truly the Son of God is debatable among many people, and this distinction proves to be important for one's interpretation of texts and whether

4092-484: Is most notably a Western phenomenon, but an equivalent idea has long existed in the East . Naturalism was the foundation of two out of six orthodox schools and one heterodox school of Hinduism. Samkhya , one of the oldest schools of Indian philosophy puts nature ( Prakriti ) as the primary cause of the universe, without assuming the existence of a personal God or Ishvara . The Carvaka, Nyaya, Vaisheshika schools originated in

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4224-550: Is much more recent, though. According to Ronald Numbers , it was coined in 1983 by Paul de Vries, a Wheaton College philosopher. De Vries distinguished between what he called "methodological naturalism", a disciplinary method that says nothing about God's existence, and "metaphysical naturalism", which "denies the existence of a transcendent God". The term "methodological naturalism" had been used in 1937 by Edgar S. Brightman in an article in The Philosophical Review as

4356-416: Is not held by the preponderance of contemporary scholars affiliated to major universities. Gleason Archer Jr. , O. T. Allis , C. S. Lewis , Gerhard Maier, Martyn Lloyd-Jones , Robert L. Thomas, F. David Farnell , William J. Abraham , J. I. Packer , G. K. Beale and Scott W. Hahn rejected the historical-critical hermeneutical method as evangelicals. Evangelical Christians have often partly attributed

4488-403: Is that the particular universe we observe came into existence and has operated through all time and in all its parts without the impetus or guidance of any supernatural agency." "The great majority of contemporary philosophers urge that that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing 'supernatural', and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including

4620-699: Is the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Bible , with Bible referring to the books of the canonical Hebrew Bible in mainstream Jewish usage and the Christian Bible including the canonical Old Testament and New Testament , respectively. For its theory and methods, the field draws on disciplines ranging from ancient history , historical criticism , philology , theology , textual criticism , literary criticism , historical backgrounds, mythology , and comparative religion . The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies defines

4752-480: Is the best way to explore the processes of the universe and that those processes are what modern science is striving to understand. Karl Popper equated naturalism with inductive theory of science. He rejected it based on his general critique of induction (see problem of induction ), yet acknowledged its utility as means for inventing conjectures. A naturalistic methodology (sometimes called an "inductive theory of science") has its value, no doubt. ... I reject

4884-504: Is the endeavor to establish the authorship, date, and place of composition of the original text. 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

5016-471: Is the idea that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe . In its primary sense, it is also known as ontological naturalism , metaphysical naturalism , pure naturalism , philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism . "Ontological" refers to ontology , the philosophical study of what exists. Philosophers often treat naturalism as equivalent to materialism , but there are important distinctions between

5148-664: The Bible . The latter scholars built on the tradition of Enlightenment and Rationalist thinkers such as John Locke (1632–1704), David Hume , Immanuel Kant , Gotthold Lessing , Gottlieb Fichte , G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) and the French rationalists . Such ideas influenced thought in England through the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and, in particular, through George Eliot 's translations of Strauss's The Life of Jesus (1846) and Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). In 1860, seven liberal Anglican theologians began

5280-448: The Books of Kings and the Books of Chronicles . With the progression of scholarship, some have begun to distinguish redaction criticism into redaction criticism and composition criticism. Composition criticism more strictly focuses on the final stages of the redaction of a text, in which the various materials are brought together and fused into a unified whole, and whence the author has imposed

5412-691: The Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels , which confirmed the method and delineated how its tools can be used to aid in exegesis . The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) reconfirmed this approach. Another reiteration of this came with The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church by the Pontifical Biblical Commission . Due to these trends, Roman Catholic scholars entered into academia and have since made substantial contributions to

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5544-508: The Milesians ( Thales , Anaximander , and Anaximenes ) and the atomists ( Leucippus and Democritus ), were labeled by their peers and successors "the physikoi " (from the Greek φυσικός or physikos , meaning "natural philosopher" borrowing on the word φύσις or physis , meaning "nature") because they investigated natural causes, often excluding any role for gods in the creation or operation of

5676-485: The Q source . In recent years, source-critical approaches have been increasingly applied in Quranic studies . Form criticism is the identification and analysis of "forms" in a text, defined by the use of recognizable and conventional patterns. For example, letters, court archives, hymns, parables, sports reports, wedding announcements, and so forth are recognizable by their use of standardized formulae and stylized phrases. In

5808-557: The School of Alexandria , viewed as being contrary to the original sense of the text. In 1440, Lorenzo Valla demonstrated that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery on the basis of linguistic, legal, historical, and political arguments. The Protestant Reformation saw an increase in efforts to plainly interpret the text of the Bible without the overriding lenses of tradition. The Middle Ages saw several trends that increasingly de-prioritized

5940-531: 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 and its preservation, history and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a wide range of scholarly disciplines, including archaeology , anthropology , folklore , comparative religion , oral tradition studies and historical and religious studies. New Testament and Old Testament rhetorical analysis differ because of

6072-595: The creation of the world and the flood of Noah . The use of terms like "myth" vs "history" also creates controversy due to some connotations that each word has. Oftentimes "myth" or "mythical" texts are seen as not true stories, where as "history" or "historical" texts are seen as fact. Mythical stories can also sometimes be seen as stories which serve some sort of religious or moral lesson, but are not necessarily true, however this does not mean that true historical stories do not have religious and moral lessons that accompany them. These views on myth and history are examples of

6204-651: The documentary hypothesis , which suggests that the Pentateuch was compiled from four different written sources, and different reconstructions of "the historical Jesus", which are based primarily on the differences between the canonical Gospels. There is much controversy around using the Bible as a historical source. The Old Testament is supposed to serve as a continuous account of the establishment of ancient Israel . While many historians agree that figures like King David and King Solomon are real historical figures, there comes trouble when seeking to affirm or deny events like

6336-465: The story of Susanna in the Book of Daniel was not authentic. Augustine stressed the use of secular learning in interpreting the Bible against those who would instead follow the interpretation of the claimants of divine inspiration. Many have viewed the exegetical School of Antioch as strikingly critical, especially with respect to their confutation of various allegorical readings of the Bible as advanced in

6468-508: The 'human spirit'." Philosophers widely regard naturalism as a "positive" term, and "few active philosophers nowadays are happy to announce themselves as 'non-naturalists'". "Philosophers concerned with religion tend to be less enthusiastic about 'naturalism'" and that despite an "inevitable" divergence due to its popularity, if more narrowly construed, (to the chagrin of John McDowell , David Chalmers and Jennifer Hornsby , for example), those not so disqualified remain nonetheless content "to set

6600-431: The 17th and 18th centuries. In this period, some metaphysical naturalists adhered to a distinct doctrine, materialism , which became the dominant category of metaphysical naturalism widely defended until the end of the 19th century. Thomas Hobbes was a proponent of naturalism in ethics who acknowledged normative truths and properties. Immanuel Kant rejected ( reductionist ) materialist positions in metaphysics, but he

6732-420: The 1907 Lamentibili sane exitu . However, around the time of the mid-twentieth century, attitudes changed. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu , making historical criticism not only permissible but "a duty". Catholic biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown described this encyclical as a " Magna Carta for biblical progress". In 1964, the Pontifical Biblical Commission published

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6864-579: The 19th and 20th centuries. The perspective of the early historical critic was influenced by the rejection of traditional interpretations that came about with the Protestant Reformation . With each passing century, historical criticism became refined into various methodologies used today: philology , textual criticism , literary criticism , source criticism , form criticism , redaction criticism , tradition criticism , canonical criticism , and related methodologies. Historical-critical methods are

6996-628: The 7th, 6th, and 2nd century BCE, respectively. Similarly, though unnamed and never articulated into a coherent system, one tradition within Confucian philosophy embraced a form of Naturalism dating to the Wang Chong in the 1st century, if not earlier, but it arose independently and had little influence on the development of modern naturalist philosophy or on Eastern or Western culture. Western metaphysical naturalism originated in ancient Greek philosophy . The earliest pre-Socratic philosophers , especially

7128-536: The Bible to " demythologize " it. The Catholic Church did not adopt historical criticism as an approach until the twentieth century. The method was rejected by the Council of Trent in 1546, stressing the interpretation promoted by the Church as opposed to personal interpretation. The earlier decision was confirmed at the First Vatican Council in 1869–1870. In 1907, Pope Pius X condemned historical criticism in

7260-448: The Bible, whereas "historical criticism" only refers to those that relate back to the happenings of history. Others have been concerned in that the word "critical" might sound as though it implies a critique , or a hostile judgement of the text. However, in the context of the historical-critical method, the term "critical" is more appropriately understood as referring to an act of objective evaluation, and an approach that stresses not only

7392-423: The Bible. Therefore, as opposed to being in crisis, historical criticism can be said to have been "expanded, corrected and complemented by the introduction of new methods." A number of authors, throughout history, have applied methods that resembled the approaches used with the historical-critical method. For example, some Church Fathers engaged in disputes regarding some of the authorship attributions of some of

7524-889: The European Association of Biblical Studies, the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies , the Evangelical Theological Society , the Institute for Biblical Research , the American Schools of Oriental Research , and the Catholic Biblical Association . Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings". Viewing biblical texts as being ordinary pieces of literature, rather than set apart from other literature, as in

7656-423: The Gospels should be read literally or symbolically. The Book of Revelation is very different from the other books of the Bible, drawing need for additional analysis to determine whether it should be read literally or symbolically. The goals of the author of the book (John) also have implications toward how one reads the book. If one reads Revelation as a literal unfolding of the end times vs reading Revelation as

7788-423: The Old Testament, including historical accounts, proverbs , poetic texts, praise texts (such as psalms ) and prophetic texts. The New Testament is different in that it has primarily two styles present: the gospels , which are mostly historical accounts, and the letters, or epistles . When it comes to textually analyzing and criticizing the New Testament, there are a couple of eclectic approaches to understanding

7920-654: The Old Testament, prophetic forms are typically introduced by the formula "Thus says the Lord". Many sayings of Jesus have a recognizable formulaic structure, including the Beatitudes and the woe pronouncements upon the Pharisees . Form critics are especially interested in (1) the genre of a text, such as 'letter', 'parable', etc (2) Sitz im leben ("setting in life") referring to the real-life contexts or settings (be they cultural, social, or religious) in which particular forms or language

8052-527: The Universe, and plays no part in constructing or arranging it ... But, although he rejects the divine Artificer, Aristotle does not resort to a pure mechanism of random forces. Instead he seeks to find a middle way between the two positions, one which relies heavily on the notion of Nature, or phusis . With the rise and dominance of Christianity in the West and the later spread of Islam , metaphysical naturalism

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8184-488: The allegorical readings, but it took until the Renaissance for them to lose their dominance. Approaches in this period saw an attitude that stressed going "back to the sources", collecting manuscripts (whose authenticity was assessed), establishing critical editions of religious texts, the learning of original languages, etc. The rise of vernacular translations of the Bible, alongside the rise of Protestantism, also challenged

8316-610: The bar for 'naturalism' higher." Alvin Plantinga stated that Naturalism is presumed to not be a religion. However, in one very important respect it resembles religion by performing the cognitive function of a religion. There is a set of deep human questions to which a religion typically provides an answer. In like manner naturalism gives a set of answers to these questions". According to Robert Priddy, all scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that cannot be tested by scientific processes; that is, that scientists must start with some assumptions as to

8448-523: The bar for 'naturalism' higher." In contrast to Schafersman, Strahler, and Scott, Robert T. Pennock, an expert witness at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial and cited by the Judge in his Memorandum Opinion . described "methodological naturalism" stating that it is not based on dogmatic metaphysical naturalism. Pennock further states that as supernatural agents and powers "are above and beyond

8580-403: The behaviour of past agents, like that of contemporary ones, is at least partly explicable by recourse to certain social and economic factors. Historical phenomena are accepted to be interrelated in a cause-and-effect relationship, and therefore modifications in putative causes will correlate to modifications in putative effects. In this context, an approach called historicism may be applied, where

8712-473: The belief that our cognitive faculties are reliable", i.e., a skeptical argument along the lines of Descartes' evil demon or brain in a vat . Take philosophical naturalism to be the belief that there aren't any supernatural entities – no such person as God, for example, but also no other supernatural entities, and nothing at all like God. My claim was that naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory are at serious odds with one another – and this despite

8844-524: The canonical biblical books, such as whether Paul was the author of Epistle to the Hebrews , or whether the author of the Gospel of John was also the author of the Book of Revelation , on the basis of stylistic criteria. Jerome reports widespread doubt concerning whether Peter was the true author of 2 Peter . Julius Africanus advanced several critical arguments in a letter to Origen as to why he believed that

8976-408: The content and nature of the texts. Things like the literary style and the theology of the author may affect how one reads the text. That may require some external criticism knowledge since who the author is will shine light on why they may be saying what they are saying. Biblical exegesis is the explanation or interpretation of the scriptures traditionally known as The Bible. Much biblical exegesis

9108-497: The context in which they were written. The New Testament was written during a time that had many new Greek and Roman ideas on literature and rhetoric , which provide an avenue for what was known and give additional resources to study New Testament texts in those contexts. Old Testament texts were not written in the same context, and due to their ancient nature have few additional resources to refer to for common themes in rhetoric and literature. There are many abstract text styles in

9240-566: The credibility and reliability of the sources in question, understanding sources as akin to witnesses to the past as opposed to straightforward narrations of it. In this process, it is important to understand the intentions, motivations, biases, prejudices, internal consistency, and even the truthfulness of the sources being studied. Involuntary witnesses that did not intend to transmit a piece of information or present it to an external audience, but end up doing so nonetheless, are considered greatly valuable. All possible explanations must be considered by

9372-666: The decline of the Christian faith (i.e. declining church attendance, fewer conversions to faith in Christ and biblical devotion, denudation of the Bible's supernaturalism, syncretism of philosophy and Christian revelation etc.) in the developed world to the consequences of historical criticism. Acceptance of historical critical dogmas engendered conflicting representations of Protestant Christianity . The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in Article XVI affirms traditional inerrancy, but not as

9504-426: The development of the layers of the text through time, whereas composition criticism is synchronic, focusing on the structure of the final text. Controversy has emerged emerged regarding terms "historical" and "critical" in the historical-critical method. Two concerns exist surrounding "historical": (1) Critical approaches are not only historical but also literary and (2) The word "history" is too broad. It can refer to

9636-425: The editorial links, summaries and comments, expansions, additions, and clarifications" on the part of the redactor. Redaction criticism can become complicated when multiple redactors are involved, especially over the course of time, producing an iteration of stages or recension s of the text. An investigation of such a process can rely on internal features of the text and, when available, parallel texts, such as between

9768-484: The ending of Mark 16 and the Johannine Comma . The task of the textual critic is to compare all the variants and establish which reading is the original. Source criticism is the search for the original sources which lie behind a given text. Source criticism focuses on textual or written sources, whereas the consideration of oral sources lies in the domain of form criticism. A prominent example of source criticism in

9900-623: The exegetical monopoly of the Catholic Church . Joachim Camerarius argued that scriptures needed to be interpreted from the perspective of the authors, and Hugo Grotius argued that they needed to be interpreted in light of their ancient setting. John Lightfoot stressed the Jewish background of the New Testament , whose understanding would involve the study of texts included in the rabbinic literature . The rise of Deism and Rationalism added to

10032-424: The fact that the latter is ordinarily thought to be one of the main pillars supporting the edifice of the former. (Of course I am not attacking the theory of evolution, or anything in that neighborhood; I am instead attacking the conjunction of naturalism with the view that human beings have evolved in that way. I see no similar problems with the conjunction of theism and the idea that human beings have evolved in

10164-454: 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. These disciplines include but are not limited to historical criticism , archaeology , hermeneutics , textual criticism , cultural anthropology , history , the history of interpretation, sociology , theology , and patristics . Several academic associations and societies promote research in

10296-603: The field of biblical studies. In 1966, the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Luthern Church-Missouri Synod approved the steps taken towards acceptance of historical criticism as had been done earlier by the Catholic Church. Beginning in the nineteenth century, effort on the part of evangelical scholars and writers was expended in opposing theories of historical critical scholars. Evangelicals at

10428-552: 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. Others include

10560-457: The form of a deus ex machina or simply involve special pleading in the favor of a religious position. Likewise, present experience suggests that known events are associated with natural causes, and this in turn increases the weight of natural explanations for phenomena in the past when they are competed with supernatural explanations. Therefore, without being excluded, natural explanations may still be favored due to their being more in line with

10692-425: The functioning of the cosmos, they do not appeal to the supernatural. They agree that allowing "science to appeal to untestable supernatural powers to explain how nature functions would make the scientist's task meaningless, undermine the discipline that allows science to make progress, and would be as profoundly unsatisfying as the ancient Greek playwright's reliance upon the deus ex machina to extract his hero from

10824-436: The hegemony of the interests of Western males. No reading of a text is free from ideological influences, including the readings produced by historians who apply historical criticism: just as with the texts they read, they too have social, political, and class interests. Proponents of historical criticism have responded to both of these charges. First, literary criticism has been emphasized as a supplement, as opposed to acting as

10956-407: The historian, and data and argumentation must be used in order to rule out various options. In the context of biblical studies , an appeal to canonical texts is insufficient to settle what actually happened in biblical history. A critical inspection of the canon, as well as extra-biblical literature, archaeology , and all other available sources, is also needed. Likewise, a "hermeneutical autonomy" of

11088-564: The historical interpretation of cause-and-effect relationships takes place under the framework of methodological naturalism . Methodological naturalism is an approach taken from the natural sciences that excludes supernatural or transcendental hypotheses from consideration as hypotheses. Nevertheless, the historical-critical method can also be pursued independently of methodological naturalism. Approaches that do not methodologically exclude supernatural causes may still take issue with instances of their use as hypotheses, as such hypotheses can take on

11220-407: The human spirit. Some claim that naturalism is the implicit philosophy of working scientists, and that the following basic assumptions are needed to justify the scientific method: Methodological naturalism , the second sense of the term "naturalism", (see above) is "the adoption or assumption of philosophical naturalism … with or without fully accepting or believing it.” Robert T. Pennock used

11352-435: The judgements of historical critics. Some of these counter-views still have support in the more conservative evangelical circles today. There has never been a centralised stance on historical criticism, and Protestant denominations divided over the issue (e.g. Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy , Downgrade controversy etc.). The historical-grammatical method of biblical interpretation has been preferred by evangelicals, but

11484-475: The light of a close reading of that text itself as well as other relevant sources ... This is not to say that scripture should conversely be assumed to be false and mortal, but it does open up the very real possibility that an interpreter may find scripture to contain statements that are, by his own standards, false, inconsistent, or trivial. Hence, a fully critical approach to the Bible, or to the Qur’an for that matter,

11616-419: The limits of nature are also the limits of existing reality, or at least the first cause, if its existence is found necessary , has nothing to do with the working of natural agencies. All events, therefore, find their adequate explanation within nature itself. But, as the terms nature and natural are themselves used in more than one sense, the term naturalism is also far from having one fixed meaning". Naturalism

11748-401: The mainstream of historical-critical scholarship, the notion of possibility underlying the words 'thinkable' and 'sayable' is informed by the principle of historical analogy – the assumption that past periods of history were constrained by the same natural laws as the present age, that the moral and intellectual abilities of human agents in the past were not radically different from ours, and that

11880-491: The natural world and its agents and powers" and "are not constrained by natural laws", only logical impossibilities constrain what a supernatural agent cannot do. In addition he says: "If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural." "Because the supernatural is necessarily a mystery to us, it can provide no grounds on which one can judge scientific models." "Experimentation requires observation and control of

12012-471: The natural world and its agents and powers" and "are not constrained by natural laws", only logical impossibilities constrain what a supernatural agent cannot do. He says: "If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural." As the supernatural is necessarily a mystery to us, it can provide no grounds on which one can judge scientific models. "Experimentation requires observation and control of

12144-434: The naturalistic view: It is uncritical. Its upholders fail to notice that whenever they believe to have discovered a fact, they have only proposed a convention. Hence the convention is liable to turn into a dogma. This criticism of the naturalistic view applies not only to its criterion of meaning, but also to its idea of science, and consequently to its idea of empirical method. Popper instead proposed that science should adopt

12276-465: The notion of the inspiration of a religious text is not rejected, but is treated with indifference insofar as it does not act as a guiding hand for the examination of the text. Since the 1970s, historical criticism has been said by some to be on the decline or even in "crisis" in the face of two trends. The first is the shift, by many scholars, away from studying historical questions related to past texts, and instead to literary questions that center around

12408-399: The original sense of the " scientific method ". Further, argues Barton, the scientific method is applied methodically and an understanding is only extracted from the results produced by the method, whereas the application of, say, source criticism, presupposes a prior understanding of the text. In response, Law has argued that the historical-critical method is similar as opposed to dissimilar to

12540-554: The original writings versus the final outcome of the translations. Although the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, it was first translated into Old Greek in the 3rd century BC. This was still translated into the Old Testament. However, when the Bible was translated into the New Testament, it was now in Greek, or in other words, Koine Greek which is also known as Biblical Greek. Methodological naturalism In philosophy , naturalism

12672-442: The philosophies. For example, philosopher Paul Kurtz argues that nature is best accounted for by reference to material principles. These principles include mass , energy , and other physical and chemical properties accepted by the scientific community . Further, this sense of naturalism holds that spirits, deities , and ghosts are not real and that there is no " purpose " in nature. This stronger formulation of naturalism

12804-453: The pressure exerted on traditional views of the Bible. For example, Johann August Ernesti sought to see the Bible not as a homogeneous whole but as a collection of distinct pieces of literature. Historical criticism as applied to the Bible began with Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677). The phrase "higher criticism" became popular in Europe from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century to describe

12936-570: The probability that evolution has produced humans with reliable true beliefs , is low or inscrutable, unless the evolution of humans was guided (for example, by God). According to David Kahan of the University of Glasgow , in order to understand how beliefs are warranted, a justification must be found in the context of supernatural theism, as in Plantinga's epistemology. (See also supernormal stimuli ). Plantinga argues that together, naturalism and evolution provide an insurmountable " defeater for

13068-514: The process of incorporating this historical criticism into Christian doctrine in Essays and Reviews , causing a five-year storm of controversy, which completely overshadowed the arguments over Charles Darwin 's newly published On the Origin of Species . Two of the authors were indicted for heresy and lost their jobs by 1862, but in 1864, they had the judgement overturned on appeal. La Vie de Jésus (1863),

13200-404: The reader. As part of this trend, postmodernist scholars have sought to challenge the concept of "meaning" itself as interpreted by historical critics who seek to study the historical, intended, or original meaning of a text. The second trend emerges from the work of feminist theologians who have argued that historical criticism is not impartial or objective, but instead is a tool for reasserting

13332-418: The reconstruction of the historical events behind the text, a study of the history of the text itself, the historical (or intended) sense of the text, or a historicist approach that excludes consideration of the supernatural in the interpretation of the past. John Barton has instead preferred the term " biblical criticism " for these reasons. In response, it has been argued that literary approaches may also have

13464-437: The regular scientific and historical understanding of reality. Historical criticism comprises several disciplines, including textual criticism , source criticism , form criticism , redaction criticism , tradition criticism , and radical criticism . Textual criticism seeks to reconstruct the original form of a text. This is often a prerequisite for the application of downstream critical methods, as some confidence in what

13596-399: The scientific method in this regard, and that neither are theory-free. Instead, in using both, the investigator begins with a hypothesis, tests it by applying the method to what is being studied, and in light of the data produced, may either accept the initial hypothesis or revise it if needed. Another concern expressed by some is that the historical-critical method commits the investigator to

13728-441: The scientific method. Therefore, philosophy should feel free to make use of the findings of scientists in its own pursuit, while also feeling free to offer criticism when those claims are ungrounded, confused, or inconsistent. In Quine's view, philosophy is "continuous with" science, and both are empirical. Naturalism is not a dogmatic belief that the modern view of science is entirely correct. Instead, it simply holds that science

13860-486: The seminal work by a Frenchman, Ernest Renan (1823–1892), continued in the same tradition as Strauss and Feuerbach. In Catholicism, L'Evangile et l'Eglise (1902), the magnum opus by Alfred Loisy against the Essence of Christianity of Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) and La Vie de Jesus of Renan, gave birth to the modernist crisis (1902–61). Some scholars, such as Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) have used higher criticism of

13992-473: The specific procedures used to examine the text's historical origins, such as the time and place in which the text was written, its sources, and the events, dates, persons, places, things, and customs that are mentioned or implied in the text. Investigations using the historical-critical method are open to being challenged and re-examined by other scholars, and so some conclusions may be probable or more likely than others, but not certain. This, nevertheless, enables

14124-656: The strategic reasons for separating methodological from philosophical naturalism—if we want more Americans to understand evolution." Scott’s approach has found success as illustrated in Ecklund’s study where some religious scientists reported that their religious beliefs affect the way they think about the implications – often moral – of their work, but not the way they practice science within methodological naturalism. Papineau notes that "Philosophers concerned with religion tend to be less enthusiastic about metaphysical naturalism and that those not so disqualified remain content "to set

14256-532: The study of the Old Testament is the Documentary Hypothesis , a theory proposed to explain the origins of the Pentateuch in five earlier written sources denoted J, E, P, and D. Source criticism also figures in attempts to resolve the Synoptic problem , which concerns the textual relationships between the Gospel of Mark , the Gospel of Matthew , and the Gospel of Luke , as well as hypothetical documents like

14388-566: The surface. However, it is not hard to see that even in these latter cases the causal closure thesis played a crucial role. In contemporary continental philosophy , Quentin Meillassoux proposed speculative materialism , a post-Kantian return to David Hume which can strengthen classical materialist ideas. This speculative approach to philosophical naturalism has been further developed by other contemporary thinkers including Ray Brassier and Drew M. Dalton . The term "methodological naturalism"

14520-464: The system. This was how Aristotle… when still a young acolyte of Plato, saw matters. Cicero … preserves Aristotle's own cave-image : if troglodytes were brought on a sudden into the upper world, they would immediately suppose it to have been intelligently arranged. But Aristotle grew to abandon this view; although he believes in a divine being, the Prime Mover is not the efficient cause of action in

14652-405: The term naturalism "derives from debates in America in the first half of the 20th century. The self-proclaimed 'naturalists' from that period included John Dewey , Ernest Nagel , Sidney Hook , and Roy Wood Sellars ." A politicized version of naturalism that has arisen in contemporary philosophy is Ayn Rand 's Objectivism . Objectivism is an expression of capitalist ethical idealism within

14784-435: The term to clarify that the scientific method confines itself to natural explanations without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural. "We may therefore be agnostic about the ultimate truth of [philosophical] naturalism, but nevertheless adopt it and investigate nature as if nature is all that there is." According to Ronald Numbers , the term "methodological naturalism" was coined in 1983 by Paul de Vries,

14916-482: The text must be respected, insofar as the meaning of the text should be found within it as opposed to being imported into it, whether that is from one's conclusions, presuppositions, or something else. The beginnings of historical criticism are often associated with the Age of Enlightenment , but it is more appropriately related to the Renaissance . Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in

15048-461: The text on a deeper level. External criticism in the context of biblical studies involves understanding the who, what, and when of New Testament texts. It does not analyze within the text itself, which is referred to as internal criticism. External criticism focuses on the source and dates of text and what type of text it is (in the New Testament, that is mostly a gospel account or a letter to a church or person). Internal criticism focuses specifically on

15180-466: The text originally said is needed before dissecting it for its sources, form, and editorial history. The challenge of textual criticism is that the original manuscripts ( autographs ) of the texts of the Bible have not survived, and that the copies of them (manuscripts) are not identical (as they contain variants). Variants range from spelling mistakes, to accidental omissions of words, to (albeit more rarely) more substantial variants such as those involved in

15312-676: The textual basis of the Christian Old Testament (although with order rearranged and some books split into two), was written in Biblical Hebrew , although a few chapters were written in Biblical Aramaic . Deuterocanonical books removed from the Old Testament in some Protestant Christian Bibles are variously written in Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek , with possible Aramaic undertones , as

15444-414: The time accused the 'higher critics' of representing their dogmas as indisputable facts. Bygone churchmen such as James Orr , William Henry Green , William M. Ramsay , Edward Garbett , Alfred Blomfield , Edward Hartley Dewart , William B. Boyce , John Langtry , Dyson Hague , D. K. Paton, John William McGarvey , David MacDill, J. C. Ryle , Charles Spurgeon and Robert D. Wilson pushed back against

15576-537: The traditional view, biblical criticism 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 varies slightly depending on whether the focus is on the Hebrew Bible , the Old Testament , the letters of New Testament or

15708-467: The ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions would then be justified partly by their adherence to the types of occurrence of which we are directly conscious, and partly by their success in representing the observed facts with a certain generality, devoid of ad hoc suppositions." Kuhn also claims that all science is based on assumptions about the character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These assumptions –

15840-434: The units out of which the text originated, redaction criticism shifts the focus to how the author has, by the time of the final composition of the text, modified earlier forms of the text. This editing process of the text is called redaction, and the author redacting the text is called the redactor (or editor). The redactor may be the same figure as the original author. Instances of redaction may cover "the selection of material,

15972-424: The use of particular methods but in following them through to their conclusions, regardless of what those conclusions are. The status of the historical-critical method as a "method" has been questioned. For the theologian Andrew Louth , it presupposes objective reality and an objective meaning embedded within a text that can be extracted by a skillful interpreter. John Barton argues that it is not so systematic as in

16104-430: The variables.... But by definition we have no control over supernatural entities or forces." The position that the study of the function of nature is also the study of the origin of nature is in contrast with opponents who take the position that functioning of the cosmos is unrelated to how it originated. While they are open to supernatural fiat in its invention and coming into existence, during scientific study to explain

16236-418: The variables.... But by definition we have no control over supernatural entities or forces." Science does not deal with meanings; the closed system of scientific reasoning cannot be used to define itself. Allowing science to appeal to untestable supernatural powers would make the scientist's task meaningless, undermine the discipline that allows science to make progress, and "would be as profoundly unsatisfying as

16368-661: The vast majority of the population of the world remains firmly committed to non-naturalistic worldviews, contemporary defenders of naturalism and/or naturalistic theses and doctrines today include Kai Nielsen , J. J. C. Smart , David Malet Armstrong , David Papineau , Paul Kurtz , Brian Leiter , Daniel Dennett , Michael Devitt , Fred Dretske , Paul and Patricia Churchland , Mario Bunge , Jonathan Schaffer , Hilary Kornblith , Leonard Olson , Quentin Smith , Paul Draper and Michael Martin , among many other academic philosophers. According to David Papineau , contemporary naturalism

16500-508: The way contemporary evolutionary science suggests.) More particularly, I argued that the conjunction of naturalism with the belief that we human beings have evolved in conformity with current evolutionary doctrine ... is in a certain interesting way self-defeating or self-referentially incoherent. The argument is controversial and has been criticized as seriously flawed, for example, by Elliott Sober . Robert T. Pennock states that as supernatural agents and powers "are above and beyond

16632-546: The work of German biblical scholars of the Tübingen School . After the groundbreaking work on the New Testament by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), the next generation, which included scholars such as David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), analyzed in the mid-19th century the historical records of the Middle East from biblical times, in search of independent confirmation of events in

16764-416: The work of such scholars as Jean Astruc (1684–1766), Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791), Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827), Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860), and Wellhausen (1844–1918). In academic circles, it now is the body of work properly considered "higher criticism", but the phrase is sometimes applied to earlier or later work using similar methods. "Higher criticism" originally referred to

16896-415: The world. This eventually led to fully developed systems such as Epicureanism , which sought to explain everything that exists as the product of atoms falling and swerving in a void. Aristotle surveyed the thought of his predecessors and conceived of nature in a way that charted a middle course between their excesses. Plato's world of eternal and unchanging Forms , imperfectly represented in matter by

17028-484: Was Ludwig Feuerbach 's anthropological materialism , which influenced Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 's historical materialism , Engels's "materialist dialectic" philosophy of nature ( Dialectics of Nature ), and their follower Georgi Plekhanov 's dialectical materialism . Another notable school of late modern philosophy advocating naturalism was German materialism : members included Ludwig Büchner , Jacob Moleschott , and Carl Vogt . The current usage of

17160-448: Was generally abandoned by intellectuals. Thus, there is little evidence for it in medieval philosophy . It was not until the early modern era of philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment that naturalists like Benedict Spinoza (who put forward a theory of psychophysical parallelism ), David Hume , and the proponents of French materialism (notably Denis Diderot , Julien La Mettrie , and Baron d'Holbach ) started to emerge again in

17292-446: Was not hostile to naturalism. His transcendental philosophy is considered to be a form of liberal naturalism . In late modern philosophy , Naturphilosophie , a form of natural philosophy , was developed by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as an attempt to comprehend nature in its totality and to outline its general theoretical structure. A version of naturalism that arose after Hegel

17424-567: Was the first translation of the Hebrew 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. There are few original Old Testament/Hebrew Bible manuscripts, and while the ancient translations (such as the Septuagint) are available, there comes

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