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Does anyone mind if I move this page back to Higher criticism? It was moved here last summer with no discussion I don't think, and an independent higher criticism article was started. However, now the two have been re-merged again, and this article is clearly discussing higher criticism. So I propose we move it back, at the very least to merge the page histories for GFDL purposes, but also because I believe the other title is more common. - Andrew c [talk] 14:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I still have problems with the article. The first few words are: "Historical criticism or Higher criticism..." In other words, it equates higher criticism with historical criticism. Given that "higher criticism"is the better-known term, why not use that for the title? Then it says"that higher/historical criticism "investigates the origins of a text, ... focus[ing] on the sources of a document to determine who wrote it, when it was written, and where." In my book that's a description of source criticism. The term "higher criticism" really belongs to the late 19th century, when it was the only academic game in town, but during the 20th century a whole new corpus of critical methods and objectives came into existence. Form criticism and tradition history brought new methodologies that the "higher criticism" had never heard of, while today you find feminist scholarship, liberation scholarship, and a whole host of other scholarships which have no interest at all in who, when and where, but focus instead on the meaning of the text. So in short, I find this article a duplication of the article about source criticism on level, and at another, quite misleading in that it treats "higher criticism" as if it were a term still relevant in the 21st century. It should be deleted, and any useful material moved to other articles. PiCo ( talk) 04:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I've deleted material dealing with a variety of critical forms and strategies which have no connection with historical criticism - canonical criticism, feminist criticism etc study the meaning of texts, not their origins.
There are so many other things wrong with this article I don't want to get into correcting them, but this is so egregious it just has to be done. PiCo ( talk) 18:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Section Protestant Christian view says:
If that formulation is the "proof", then it is not valid. That Luther said
doesn't imply he "believed strongly in the literal truth of scripture". I think that statement is deeply unjustified (very low-church bias, with tendencies to non-Lutheranism) unless citations from Luther himself can be provided. Simply put, Luther's statement cannot be interpreted that way - the section misleads the reader. Said: Rursus ☻ 10:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I must disagree with your statement where you imply that Martin Luther mean what he said. He did definitely imply a literal interpretation of scripture. In the book, "The Reformation: The Story of Civilization, Volume VI," By Will Durant, Luther is quoted as saying, "You cannot accept both the Bible and reason, one of the other must go." As Luther states it, "All articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd, and false. What (thinks that cunning little fool) can be more absurd and impossible than that Christ should give us in the last supper His body and blood to eat and drink?...or that the dead should rise again at the Last day? - or that Christ the Son of God should be conceived, borne in the womb of the Virgin Mary, become man, suffer, and die a shameful death on the cross?...Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has. ...She is the Devil's greatest whore...a whore eaten by scab and leprosy, who ought to be trodden underfoot and destroyed, she and her wisdom...Throw dung in her face...drown her in baptism."
Luther so condemned the Scholastic philosophers for making so many concessions to reason, for trying to prove Christian dogmas rationally, for trying to harmonize Christianity with the philosophy of that "cursed, conceited, wily heathen" Aristotle.
It seems to me that the second sentence is intended to expand on rather than support the first, the point being that the methods of Higher Criticism would be unacceptable to many followers of Martin Luther. But the first sentence certainly needs a footnote. I'll try to find one. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Provided a source and a direct quote from Luther regarding his stance on literal meaning. All the Reformers, including Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Calvin held to the same view. Lamorak ( talk) 17:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
As this issue is played out, I removed the POV tag. I also removed the first paragraph, which never deals directly with higher criticism. If someone can quote a scholar saying that higher criticism contradicts the teachings of the Reformers, that would be worth including. Here's the excised material.
[[Martin Luther]], [[Zwingli]], [[John Calvin]] and other leaders of the [[Protestant Reformation]] believed strongly in a literal interpretation of scripture.<ref> {{Cite book | edition = Rev. and expanded ed | publisher = Zondervan | isbn = 0310279518 | last = Kaiser | first = Walter C | coauthors = Moisés Silva | title = Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics: The Search for Meaning | location = Grand Rapids, Mich. | year = 2007 }} pages 269-270</ref> Luther wrote, "The Holy Ghost is the all-simplest writer that is in heaven or earth; therefore his words can have no more than one simplest sense, which we call the scriptural or literal meaning."<ref> {{Cite book | publisher = Baker Book House | last = Farrar | first = F. W. Frederic William | title = History of Interpretation: Bampton Lectures 1885 | location = Grand Rapids, Mich. | year = 1961 }} page 329</ref> The Reformers rejected the church tradition of the Roman Catholic Church as well as the allegorical interpretations associated with it. They held to the principle of ''[[sola scriptura]]'', that Scripture alone is the divinely inspired authority for Christians.
Hope that's OK. Leadwind ( talk) 01:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The example in the lead is long-winded (not a good trait in a lead!) and it's not clear what it's an example of. If it is intended to be an example of higher criticism performed by Wikipedia editors on an Encyclopedia Britannica article, then it doesn't do a very good job of it - all it does is quote passages from various editions of the encyclopedia, with short summaries. If that were an example of higher criticism, we might as well point to the history of the corresponding Wikipedia article as an even more detailed example of higher criticism. If it's intended to exemplify higher criticism done by or alluded to by Encyclopedia Britannica, then it doesn't do a good job either, as higher criticism appears only in the last sentence, and even that uses it only to be able to speak of the time before higher criticism. Wouldn't simply deleting this example produce a better article? -- Coffee2theorems ( talk) 11:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
This article needs a disambiguiation page. "Higher criticism is also a mathematical method for statistical model selection, simply google for: "higher criticism" + Donoho + Jin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.53.103.102 ( talk) 10:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Osprey9713's changes made the "Author according to scholarship" section more in line with the "Author according to tradition". It is my understanding, through reading John Meiers, Raymond Brown, Bart Ehrman, Stephen Harris, etc. (scholars ranging from conservative, to moderate, to liberal) that the longstanding version is more inline with the mainstream, consensus view of critical, academic scholarship (and these views are cited in more detail in each individual book's article). I'm not sure of many sources, besides Donald Guthrie, N.T. Wright, and Ben Witherington, who defend the traditional view, and these scholars are extremely on the conservative side (and the former two are of an older generation). I believe Osprey's changes skewed the weight away from a more moderate, mainstream, consensus view to that of the more extreme conservative scholars. Furthermore, all of the content was unsourced, and some of it was news to me. I'd like to see Osprey's sources, and I'd like to hear specific issues with the current content. I'd be glad to dig up sources as well (especially because the sources are already provided in other articles). - Andrew c [talk] 22:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Well I'll be darned! I still don't think it's a term in wide use, but those guys sure are using it. PiCo ( talk) 07:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) OK you see the distinction. At least in evangelical circles as they moved from the TR to the NA27 lower criticism has been accepted. So for example in the s:Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy "Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. " Also things like form criticism are accepted, "So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth." So what higher criticism seems to mean today however is coming to the text with something other than a philosophy in accordance with Chicago. "Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single divine mind, interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy of Scripture and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical passage by another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer's mind." So I do think that usage is current. jbolden1517 Talk 12:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) I see your point. Here are the 3 options:
Do you see others? If not I'd lean towards #3 but I'd open this up to anyone who is watching this forum right now. jbolden1517 Talk 16:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I consider the following statement confused:
Now, consider the vision of a God giving instructions to a believer speaking what that believer must know/do at that specific historical time in the symbology specific for that time, in order to make the believer achieve a certain effect in the plan of God, then the "human motive" for "higher criticism" precludes a historicist interpretation from being "higher criticism". I think it should suffice to say that "higher criticism" reinterprets bible contents according to a specific historical/cultural context, so that
OK, "inerrant" actually seem to contradict "human interpretation", unless of course God, in some way, intended the human interpretation as a planned effects to be repeated by other adherents... ... said: Rursus ( mbork³) 12:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Please see my proposal here and comment/vote. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:45, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
The exclusive reference to Bart Ehrman's work and scholastics on the New Testament section under "Conclusions of Higher Criticism" puts the neutrality of this portion of the article in great dispute, and paints a less than accurate picture. Mr. Ehrman's ideology is not in line with many New Testament scholar's, and the singular inclusion of his Table on each of the books of the New Testament, to the detriment of all other view points, represents a fundamental flaw in this section of the article. While one sentence does mention that he is "controversial", the Table presented hints toward an affirmative conclusion that his scholarly research is correct, or more accepted, among New Testament scholars, which is not the case. A footnote in the Table addressing the issue may be sufficient to qualify it. But a better way to handle this would be the inclusion of 2 or 3 other viewpoints that represent the mainstream view, as well as the conservative view, rather than just the liberal view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jburg6 ( talk • contribs) 18:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
We definitely need other voices in this section. Bart Ehrman is one of countless critical biblical scholars - he just happens to be a "pop" scholar who has found a market by taking on fundamentalists. The title of the section also gives the unfortunate impression that *all* higher criticism has concluded after 150+ years is when texts were written and who wrote them. I propose that if we need this section in this article it should be encompassed in a wider 'Conclusions of Higher Criticism' section with a subtitle 'Dating and Authorship'. 87.112.68.20 ( talk) 20:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Higher criticism is 18th-19th century termonology.1 It is now predominantly referred to as "historical criticism".2 I propose this page be redirected back to the Historical criticism page.
Higher criticism also has a bad name in the Jewish community and has been referred to as "Higher Anti-Semitism". 3
References:
Thanks, Jasonasosa ( talk) 03:12, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I nominate to delete this section: Higher criticism#The influence of higher criticism. It is not properly referenced and makes a poor point of this critical method. Jasonasosa ( talk) 03:29, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I've added new content and modified some of the layout to be cleaner and more coherent. Thanks, Jasonasosa ( talk) 06:00, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I have marked the section titled "Theological reception" for cleanup. Prior to the first subsection, this section contains four paragraphs of mostly unsourced claims, most of which don't sound NPOV, and some of which I can't see how they are even relevant to historical criticism. Aardvark92 ( talk) 17:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I need to have several things clarified:
Thank you for your time, Wordreader ( talk) 07:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
1) The so-called "higher criticism" was a movement which, unlike previous intellectual attempts to understand the Bible, did not take as its basic assumption the idea that the Bible was the divinely inspired word of God. (Such writing would most likely have gotten you killed at an earlier time.) Thus the phrase "higher criticism" is usually applied to writing from an earlier time rather than to current historical criticism.
2) Good question. I'll leave it to someone more expert than I.
3) By and large, the "canonical" books have attracted the most attention, with some discussion of the difference between the Roman canon and the Protestant canon, but the same methods have been used on many ancient texts purporting to be either divinely inspired or, in a few cases, written by Jesus Himself.
4) Sections on the writings of other religions would be of great interest. What little we have in Wikipedia is highly unsatisfactory. Such sections could only be written by experts in those areas. They probably aren't there because no experts have chosen to write them.
5) Anyone may delete unreferenced material. The "reference-needed" tag is a polite way of asking first, but certainly you may delete a sentence with a "reference-needed" tag going back to 2010.
6) There is always middle ground. Writers on any subject must walk the fine line between being exhaustive and being only exhausting.
Thank you for drawing attention to the fact that this entire article, and most of the articles on religion in Wikipedia, especially those about Islam, are badly in need of rewriting by somebody who knows what they are talking about.
Rick Norwood ( talk) 12:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Sure, you can quote me. And if you want to preface it by "Rick Norwood says," I won't object to that. I am sure there are journals of religious criticism (criticism in the sense of critique rather than the sense of criticize) but I don't know any. You could probably find some using Google Scholar. I tend to read books on the subject. Rick Norwood ( talk) 11:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
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This diff called my attention, and I reverted it. The editor than immediately reverted me accusing me, totally of of the blue, of being "vindictive." Please note that they did not come here to discuss, but just immediately reverted, and with a completely unwarranted accusation also, Is anyone other than me paying attention to the recent activity of this new editor? Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 21:55, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
@ Warshy: @ Tgeorgescu: I propose we simply eliminate the part about "Protestant evangelical reaction": the scholars quoted there are largely from the 19th century and are obviously not relevant to current biblical scholarship.- Karma1998 ( talk) 22:30, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
It's a tad more complicated:
tgeorgescu July 30, 2021 at 3:34 pm - Reply
Quote: This isn’t simply the approach of “liberal” Bible professors. It’s the way historians always date sources. If you find a letter written on paper that is obviously 300 years old or so, and the author says something about the “United States” — then you know it was written after the Revolutionary War. So too if you find an ancient document that describes the destruction of Jerusalem, then you know it was written after 70 CE. It’s not rocket science! But it’s also not “liberal.” It’s simply how history is done. If someone wants to invent other rules, they’re the ones who are begging questions!
Can I receive a formal confirmation that you have actually written this? It has been lost somewhere in comments and I cannot find it again. It is important because I quoted it inside Wikipedia and needs a source.
BDEhrman BDEhrman July 31, 2021 at 7:35 am - Reply
The first part sounds like something I would have said. The second part not so much. BUt I sometimes do say things that are phrased more strongly than I would typically phrase them (unless it’s over drinks). Are you quoting this from one of my comments? Then yes, that’s what I said. If I did, I was stressing the point “describes.” THat is, if you have an account that refers in some detail to airplanes striking the Twin Towers, then the account was certainly written after 9/11, even if it is phrased as a prophecy.
Source: https://ehrmanblog.org/comments-on-blog-comments/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comments-on-blog-comments tgeorgescu ( talk) 17:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
How many atheist/agnostic mainstream Bible scholars (MBS) do I know? Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Bart Ehrman, and maybe the recently deceased John Shelby Spong (of which I'm unsure if he was an atheist or agnostic).
Of course, many of them subscribe to liberal theology, but not always, e.g. Shaye J. D. Cohen is a conservative Jew in his private life. N. T. Wright is also a conservative Bible scholar.
Oh, yes, William G. Dever, who is an atheist, but leans very much to the conservative side of mainstream scholars. So, Christians who want to learn an informed conservative opinion which is not WP:FRINGE should read Dever.
Fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals see MBS as bashing the Bible, but MBS do real research, of which Bible bashing is only a byproduct. People like Dawkins bash the Bible without doing any real scholarship about it. tgeorgescu ( talk) 22:03, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
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Does anyone mind if I move this page back to Higher criticism? It was moved here last summer with no discussion I don't think, and an independent higher criticism article was started. However, now the two have been re-merged again, and this article is clearly discussing higher criticism. So I propose we move it back, at the very least to merge the page histories for GFDL purposes, but also because I believe the other title is more common. - Andrew c [talk] 14:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I still have problems with the article. The first few words are: "Historical criticism or Higher criticism..." In other words, it equates higher criticism with historical criticism. Given that "higher criticism"is the better-known term, why not use that for the title? Then it says"that higher/historical criticism "investigates the origins of a text, ... focus[ing] on the sources of a document to determine who wrote it, when it was written, and where." In my book that's a description of source criticism. The term "higher criticism" really belongs to the late 19th century, when it was the only academic game in town, but during the 20th century a whole new corpus of critical methods and objectives came into existence. Form criticism and tradition history brought new methodologies that the "higher criticism" had never heard of, while today you find feminist scholarship, liberation scholarship, and a whole host of other scholarships which have no interest at all in who, when and where, but focus instead on the meaning of the text. So in short, I find this article a duplication of the article about source criticism on level, and at another, quite misleading in that it treats "higher criticism" as if it were a term still relevant in the 21st century. It should be deleted, and any useful material moved to other articles. PiCo ( talk) 04:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I've deleted material dealing with a variety of critical forms and strategies which have no connection with historical criticism - canonical criticism, feminist criticism etc study the meaning of texts, not their origins.
There are so many other things wrong with this article I don't want to get into correcting them, but this is so egregious it just has to be done. PiCo ( talk) 18:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Section Protestant Christian view says:
If that formulation is the "proof", then it is not valid. That Luther said
doesn't imply he "believed strongly in the literal truth of scripture". I think that statement is deeply unjustified (very low-church bias, with tendencies to non-Lutheranism) unless citations from Luther himself can be provided. Simply put, Luther's statement cannot be interpreted that way - the section misleads the reader. Said: Rursus ☻ 10:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
I must disagree with your statement where you imply that Martin Luther mean what he said. He did definitely imply a literal interpretation of scripture. In the book, "The Reformation: The Story of Civilization, Volume VI," By Will Durant, Luther is quoted as saying, "You cannot accept both the Bible and reason, one of the other must go." As Luther states it, "All articles of our Christian faith, which God has revealed to us in His word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible, absurd, and false. What (thinks that cunning little fool) can be more absurd and impossible than that Christ should give us in the last supper His body and blood to eat and drink?...or that the dead should rise again at the Last day? - or that Christ the Son of God should be conceived, borne in the womb of the Virgin Mary, become man, suffer, and die a shameful death on the cross?...Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has. ...She is the Devil's greatest whore...a whore eaten by scab and leprosy, who ought to be trodden underfoot and destroyed, she and her wisdom...Throw dung in her face...drown her in baptism."
Luther so condemned the Scholastic philosophers for making so many concessions to reason, for trying to prove Christian dogmas rationally, for trying to harmonize Christianity with the philosophy of that "cursed, conceited, wily heathen" Aristotle.
It seems to me that the second sentence is intended to expand on rather than support the first, the point being that the methods of Higher Criticism would be unacceptable to many followers of Martin Luther. But the first sentence certainly needs a footnote. I'll try to find one. Rick Norwood ( talk) 13:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Provided a source and a direct quote from Luther regarding his stance on literal meaning. All the Reformers, including Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Calvin held to the same view. Lamorak ( talk) 17:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
As this issue is played out, I removed the POV tag. I also removed the first paragraph, which never deals directly with higher criticism. If someone can quote a scholar saying that higher criticism contradicts the teachings of the Reformers, that would be worth including. Here's the excised material.
[[Martin Luther]], [[Zwingli]], [[John Calvin]] and other leaders of the [[Protestant Reformation]] believed strongly in a literal interpretation of scripture.<ref> {{Cite book | edition = Rev. and expanded ed | publisher = Zondervan | isbn = 0310279518 | last = Kaiser | first = Walter C | coauthors = Moisés Silva | title = Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics: The Search for Meaning | location = Grand Rapids, Mich. | year = 2007 }} pages 269-270</ref> Luther wrote, "The Holy Ghost is the all-simplest writer that is in heaven or earth; therefore his words can have no more than one simplest sense, which we call the scriptural or literal meaning."<ref> {{Cite book | publisher = Baker Book House | last = Farrar | first = F. W. Frederic William | title = History of Interpretation: Bampton Lectures 1885 | location = Grand Rapids, Mich. | year = 1961 }} page 329</ref> The Reformers rejected the church tradition of the Roman Catholic Church as well as the allegorical interpretations associated with it. They held to the principle of ''[[sola scriptura]]'', that Scripture alone is the divinely inspired authority for Christians.
Hope that's OK. Leadwind ( talk) 01:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The example in the lead is long-winded (not a good trait in a lead!) and it's not clear what it's an example of. If it is intended to be an example of higher criticism performed by Wikipedia editors on an Encyclopedia Britannica article, then it doesn't do a very good job of it - all it does is quote passages from various editions of the encyclopedia, with short summaries. If that were an example of higher criticism, we might as well point to the history of the corresponding Wikipedia article as an even more detailed example of higher criticism. If it's intended to exemplify higher criticism done by or alluded to by Encyclopedia Britannica, then it doesn't do a good job either, as higher criticism appears only in the last sentence, and even that uses it only to be able to speak of the time before higher criticism. Wouldn't simply deleting this example produce a better article? -- Coffee2theorems ( talk) 11:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
This article needs a disambiguiation page. "Higher criticism is also a mathematical method for statistical model selection, simply google for: "higher criticism" + Donoho + Jin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.53.103.102 ( talk) 10:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Osprey9713's changes made the "Author according to scholarship" section more in line with the "Author according to tradition". It is my understanding, through reading John Meiers, Raymond Brown, Bart Ehrman, Stephen Harris, etc. (scholars ranging from conservative, to moderate, to liberal) that the longstanding version is more inline with the mainstream, consensus view of critical, academic scholarship (and these views are cited in more detail in each individual book's article). I'm not sure of many sources, besides Donald Guthrie, N.T. Wright, and Ben Witherington, who defend the traditional view, and these scholars are extremely on the conservative side (and the former two are of an older generation). I believe Osprey's changes skewed the weight away from a more moderate, mainstream, consensus view to that of the more extreme conservative scholars. Furthermore, all of the content was unsourced, and some of it was news to me. I'd like to see Osprey's sources, and I'd like to hear specific issues with the current content. I'd be glad to dig up sources as well (especially because the sources are already provided in other articles). - Andrew c [talk] 22:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Well I'll be darned! I still don't think it's a term in wide use, but those guys sure are using it. PiCo ( talk) 07:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) OK you see the distinction. At least in evangelical circles as they moved from the TR to the NA27 lower criticism has been accepted. So for example in the s:Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy "Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. " Also things like form criticism are accepted, "So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth." So what higher criticism seems to mean today however is coming to the text with something other than a philosophy in accordance with Chicago. "Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single divine mind, interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy of Scripture and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical passage by another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer's mind." So I do think that usage is current. jbolden1517 Talk 12:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
(outdenting) I see your point. Here are the 3 options:
Do you see others? If not I'd lean towards #3 but I'd open this up to anyone who is watching this forum right now. jbolden1517 Talk 16:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I consider the following statement confused:
Now, consider the vision of a God giving instructions to a believer speaking what that believer must know/do at that specific historical time in the symbology specific for that time, in order to make the believer achieve a certain effect in the plan of God, then the "human motive" for "higher criticism" precludes a historicist interpretation from being "higher criticism". I think it should suffice to say that "higher criticism" reinterprets bible contents according to a specific historical/cultural context, so that
OK, "inerrant" actually seem to contradict "human interpretation", unless of course God, in some way, intended the human interpretation as a planned effects to be repeated by other adherents... ... said: Rursus ( mbork³) 12:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Please see my proposal here and comment/vote. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:45, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
The exclusive reference to Bart Ehrman's work and scholastics on the New Testament section under "Conclusions of Higher Criticism" puts the neutrality of this portion of the article in great dispute, and paints a less than accurate picture. Mr. Ehrman's ideology is not in line with many New Testament scholar's, and the singular inclusion of his Table on each of the books of the New Testament, to the detriment of all other view points, represents a fundamental flaw in this section of the article. While one sentence does mention that he is "controversial", the Table presented hints toward an affirmative conclusion that his scholarly research is correct, or more accepted, among New Testament scholars, which is not the case. A footnote in the Table addressing the issue may be sufficient to qualify it. But a better way to handle this would be the inclusion of 2 or 3 other viewpoints that represent the mainstream view, as well as the conservative view, rather than just the liberal view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jburg6 ( talk • contribs) 18:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
We definitely need other voices in this section. Bart Ehrman is one of countless critical biblical scholars - he just happens to be a "pop" scholar who has found a market by taking on fundamentalists. The title of the section also gives the unfortunate impression that *all* higher criticism has concluded after 150+ years is when texts were written and who wrote them. I propose that if we need this section in this article it should be encompassed in a wider 'Conclusions of Higher Criticism' section with a subtitle 'Dating and Authorship'. 87.112.68.20 ( talk) 20:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Higher criticism is 18th-19th century termonology.1 It is now predominantly referred to as "historical criticism".2 I propose this page be redirected back to the Historical criticism page.
Higher criticism also has a bad name in the Jewish community and has been referred to as "Higher Anti-Semitism". 3
References:
Thanks, Jasonasosa ( talk) 03:12, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I nominate to delete this section: Higher criticism#The influence of higher criticism. It is not properly referenced and makes a poor point of this critical method. Jasonasosa ( talk) 03:29, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I've added new content and modified some of the layout to be cleaner and more coherent. Thanks, Jasonasosa ( talk) 06:00, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I have marked the section titled "Theological reception" for cleanup. Prior to the first subsection, this section contains four paragraphs of mostly unsourced claims, most of which don't sound NPOV, and some of which I can't see how they are even relevant to historical criticism. Aardvark92 ( talk) 17:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I need to have several things clarified:
Thank you for your time, Wordreader ( talk) 07:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
1) The so-called "higher criticism" was a movement which, unlike previous intellectual attempts to understand the Bible, did not take as its basic assumption the idea that the Bible was the divinely inspired word of God. (Such writing would most likely have gotten you killed at an earlier time.) Thus the phrase "higher criticism" is usually applied to writing from an earlier time rather than to current historical criticism.
2) Good question. I'll leave it to someone more expert than I.
3) By and large, the "canonical" books have attracted the most attention, with some discussion of the difference between the Roman canon and the Protestant canon, but the same methods have been used on many ancient texts purporting to be either divinely inspired or, in a few cases, written by Jesus Himself.
4) Sections on the writings of other religions would be of great interest. What little we have in Wikipedia is highly unsatisfactory. Such sections could only be written by experts in those areas. They probably aren't there because no experts have chosen to write them.
5) Anyone may delete unreferenced material. The "reference-needed" tag is a polite way of asking first, but certainly you may delete a sentence with a "reference-needed" tag going back to 2010.
6) There is always middle ground. Writers on any subject must walk the fine line between being exhaustive and being only exhausting.
Thank you for drawing attention to the fact that this entire article, and most of the articles on religion in Wikipedia, especially those about Islam, are badly in need of rewriting by somebody who knows what they are talking about.
Rick Norwood ( talk) 12:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
Sure, you can quote me. And if you want to preface it by "Rick Norwood says," I won't object to that. I am sure there are journals of religious criticism (criticism in the sense of critique rather than the sense of criticize) but I don't know any. You could probably find some using Google Scholar. I tend to read books on the subject. Rick Norwood ( talk) 11:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
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This diff called my attention, and I reverted it. The editor than immediately reverted me accusing me, totally of of the blue, of being "vindictive." Please note that they did not come here to discuss, but just immediately reverted, and with a completely unwarranted accusation also, Is anyone other than me paying attention to the recent activity of this new editor? Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 21:55, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
@ Warshy: @ Tgeorgescu: I propose we simply eliminate the part about "Protestant evangelical reaction": the scholars quoted there are largely from the 19th century and are obviously not relevant to current biblical scholarship.- Karma1998 ( talk) 22:30, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
It's a tad more complicated:
tgeorgescu July 30, 2021 at 3:34 pm - Reply
Quote: This isn’t simply the approach of “liberal” Bible professors. It’s the way historians always date sources. If you find a letter written on paper that is obviously 300 years old or so, and the author says something about the “United States” — then you know it was written after the Revolutionary War. So too if you find an ancient document that describes the destruction of Jerusalem, then you know it was written after 70 CE. It’s not rocket science! But it’s also not “liberal.” It’s simply how history is done. If someone wants to invent other rules, they’re the ones who are begging questions!
Can I receive a formal confirmation that you have actually written this? It has been lost somewhere in comments and I cannot find it again. It is important because I quoted it inside Wikipedia and needs a source.
BDEhrman BDEhrman July 31, 2021 at 7:35 am - Reply
The first part sounds like something I would have said. The second part not so much. BUt I sometimes do say things that are phrased more strongly than I would typically phrase them (unless it’s over drinks). Are you quoting this from one of my comments? Then yes, that’s what I said. If I did, I was stressing the point “describes.” THat is, if you have an account that refers in some detail to airplanes striking the Twin Towers, then the account was certainly written after 9/11, even if it is phrased as a prophecy.
Source: https://ehrmanblog.org/comments-on-blog-comments/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comments-on-blog-comments tgeorgescu ( talk) 17:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
How many atheist/agnostic mainstream Bible scholars (MBS) do I know? Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Bart Ehrman, and maybe the recently deceased John Shelby Spong (of which I'm unsure if he was an atheist or agnostic).
Of course, many of them subscribe to liberal theology, but not always, e.g. Shaye J. D. Cohen is a conservative Jew in his private life. N. T. Wright is also a conservative Bible scholar.
Oh, yes, William G. Dever, who is an atheist, but leans very much to the conservative side of mainstream scholars. So, Christians who want to learn an informed conservative opinion which is not WP:FRINGE should read Dever.
Fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals see MBS as bashing the Bible, but MBS do real research, of which Bible bashing is only a byproduct. People like Dawkins bash the Bible without doing any real scholarship about it. tgeorgescu ( talk) 22:03, 23 October 2021 (UTC)