History of Biblical Theology (Part 2)
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II. Literary and Historical Criticism
A. Higher CriticismIf textual criticism represents the lower courses of the critical structure, the upper courses consist of those critical studies that can best be pursued when a trustworthy text is established — those which used to be lumped together under the designation “higher criticism.” This designation appears to have been first used in the context of biblical study by J. G. Eichhorn, in the preface to the 2nd edition of his OT introduction (1787): “I have been obliged to bestow the greatest amount of labour on a hitherto entirely unworked field, the investigation of the inner constitution of the individual books of the Old Testament by the aid of the higher criticism — a new name to no humanist.” By the “inner constitution” he meant the structure of a book, including a study of the sources on which the author drew and the way in which he used or combined them. This last aspect of the study is commonly called “source criticism.”
The structure of a biblical book is sometimes illuminated by internal evidence. From the narrative of Jer. 36, for example, we learn of the first edition of the collected oracles of Jeremiah, dictated to his secretary Baruch in 604 b.c., containing his spoken ministry of the past twenty-three years. This edition, which consisted of a single copy, was almost immediately destroyed by King Jehoiakim, but it was quickly followed by a second and enlarged edition (Jer. 36:32). Even the second edition was by no means the final one, for Jeremiah continued to prophesy for nearly twenty years after that. We have two extant editions of the posthumous collection of his oracles, together with some biographical and other historical material — a longer one preserved in the MT and a shorter one in the LXX. Fragmentary Hebrew copies have been found at Qumrân representing both the longer and the shorter editions.
The structure of many other books of the Bible is not so apparent from the record, and a greater measure of conjecture is necessary for reconstructing the history of their composition.
It is plain, too, from the book of Jeremiah that the author or editor of a prophetical book need not be the prophet himself; in this case the oracles are Jeremiah’s but it is to Baruch, who committed them to writing, that we should probably ascribe the authorship of the narrative sections of the book and the publication of the whole.
When a book actually claims to be written by a specific person, that is substantial prima-facie evidence for its authorship. In some categories of literature, however, such as wisdom books and apocalypses, a name may sometimes (but not invariably) be employed for dramatic purposes or the like: a good canonical example is Ecclesiastes, a postexilic series of meditations put into the mouth of Solomon. (Two examples in the Apocrypha are Wisdom of Solomon and the apocalyptic 2 Esdras, ascribed respectively to Solomon and Ezra.) Again, in Jewish schools a disciple was apt to ascribe his dicta to his master, on the ground that “whosoever says a thing in the name of him who said it brings salvation to the world” (Mish Pirke Aboth vi.6). It is noteworthy that a number of the most important books of the Bible are, strictly speaking, anonymous; this is so, for example, with the four Gospels and Acts. Their authorship has to be determined as far as possible by a consideration of relevant internal and external evidence.
B. Source CriticismSource criticism can be pursued most confidently when a documentary source has survived alongside the later work that has drawn upon it. In the OT the most obvious example of this is seen in the books of Chronicles. The books of Samuel and Kings were the Chronicler’s principal sources, and as they have survived we can make rather definite statements about his use of them. (It is specially interesting that an early MS of Samuel found at Qumrân, 4QSama, exhibits a type of text closer to that which the Chronicler appears to have used than to the MT.) In the NT the Gospel of Mark is generally recognized to have been a major source of the other two Synoptic Gospels, and since the source survives alongside the works that drew upon it we can without difficulty study the use Matthew and Luke made of Mark.
Where, on the other hand, the sources do not survive, source criticism is a much more uncertain and speculative business. In the 2nd cent a.d. Tatian unstitched the contents of our four Gospels and rewove them (with minor additions from another document) into one continuous narrative, the Diatessaron. If the four separate Gospels had disappeared completely and only the Diatessaron survived, it would be impossible to reconstruct the four in anything like their original form. It would be clear that the Diatessaron was a composite work, and it would be relatively easy to isolate most of the Johannine element in it, but to disentangle the three Synoptic records would defy the keenest critical skill, not least because of the large amount of material common to the three. It might be possible in some degree to distinguish Matthaean from Lukan material, but the very existence of Mark’s record would probably be unsuspected. Exponents of the four-document analysis of the Pentateuch have at times aptly compared their task of distinguishing these four lost documents to the hypothetical task of reconstituting the four Gospels on the basis of the Diatessaron.
C. Criteria for DatingStructure, date, and authorship are the three principal concerns of the “higher criticism.” The criteria for dating an ancient work are partly external and partly internal. If a work is quoted or alluded to in a reliably dated document, we conclude that it is earlier than that document. The work may mention persons or events whose date is clearly indicated by other documents; thus some parts of the OT can be dated from their reference to people or incidents mentioned in Mesopotamian or Egyptian historical records. Contemporary Assyrian records enable us to date the oracles of Isaiah at various points within the forty years or so preceding 701 b.c., the year of Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah.
A work may date itself; thus some prophetical books of the OT name the actual years in which successive oracles were uttered or the reign or reigns within which certain prophets prophesied (cf. Isa. 1:1; Hos. 1:1; Am. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; Zeph. 1:1; Hag. 1:1, etc.; Zec. 1:1, etc.). As the history of the ancient Near East is reconstructed in ever more precise detail, it becomes increasingly possible to put the various books of the OT into their appropriate historical settings.
The predictive element in biblical prophecy necessitates special dating criteria for the prophetical oracles. To interpret all fulfilled predictions as prophecies made after the event is a completely uncritical procedure. A genuine piece of predictive prophecy will be dated before the events it predicts but after those which it records or presupposes as having taken place. Thus, if Nahum’s oracle is a prediction of the fall of Nineveh (as seems probable) and not simply an outburst of exultation over its fall, it will be dated before the destruction of the city in 612 b.c. but after the fall of Thebes in 663 b.c., to which it refers as a past event (Nah. 3:8f). Again, the oracles of Jeremiah and Ezekiel must be dated to the years preceding, during, and immediately following the Chaldean siege of Jerusalem in 588–587 b.c., since they record the happenings of those years as historical events, but before the return from exile and reconstitution of the Jewish commonwealth (537 b.c. and the years following), which they definitely predict.
D. OT CriticismThe central issue in OT criticism is that of the structure of the Pentateuch.
1. Early PeriodDiscussions of the authorship of the Pentateuch took place among the Jewish rabbis, but the main question debated by them was whether the account of Moses’ death (Dt. 34:5–12) was written by Moses himself, which was the opinion of Rabbi Simeon (“Moses wrote with tears”), or by Joshua — a view ascribed to Rabbi Judah or, according to others, Rabbi Nehemiah (cf. T.B. Baba Bathra 15a; Menahoth 30a). An interesting anticipation of a phase of later pentateuchal criticism is the remark ascribed to Ben Azzai that where sacrifices are mentioned in the Pentateuch God is always called Yahweh (Midrash Siphre on Numbers, 293).
Later Jewish scholars made further critical observations. Isaac ben Yasos (Yiṣḥaqi) of Toledo (d 1057) pointed out that the list of kings of Edom in Gen. 36:31ff must be later than the rise of the Hebrew monarchy, and dated it not earlier than Jehoshaphat’s reign; he identified Hadad of Gen. 36:35 with Hadad of 1 K. 11:14.
Abraham ibn Ezra (d 1167), commenting on Dt. 1:1, where Moses is said to have spoken to Israel “beyond the Jordan,” adds that his readers will learn the truth if they understand “the mystery of the twelve [probably the twelve verses of Dt. 34], ‘and Moses wrote’ [Ex. 24:4; Nu. 33:2; Dt. 31:9, 22], ‘and the Canaanite was then in the land’ [Gen. 12:6, a verse that he says “contains a mystery, concerning which the prudent man will hold his peace”], ‘in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen’ [Gen. 22:14], ‘and his [Og’s] bed was a bedstead of iron’ [Dt. 3:11].” What he is hinting at is that these passages are later than Moses.
Isaac Abrabanel (d 1509) adumbrated the theory that the books as they stand were later compilations out of earlier archives.
Christian scholars were making similar observations throughout these centuries. Jerome (d 420) discerned that the law book discovered in the Jerusalem temple in Josiah’s day (2 K. 22:8) was Deuteronomy (comm on Ezk. 1:1). Commenting on the phrase “unto this day” (Gen. 35:20; Dt. 34:6) he says: “We must certainly take ‘this day’ to refer to the time when the history was composed; whether you take it as said by Moses, the author of the Pentateuch, or by Ezra, the restorer of Moses’ work, I have no objection” (Against Helvidius 7). But he vigorously defended the authenticity of Daniel against Porphyry the Neoplatonist who, mainly on the evidence of ch 11, dated it in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (a dating revived in 1726 by Anthony Collins in his Literal Scheme of Prophecy Considered).
Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141) thought that the list of kings of Edom in Gen. 36:21ff was inserted by Ezra, “for it seems frivolous to say that Moses narrated it by the spirit of prophecy” (PL, CLXXV, 36 d).
Luther drew similar inferences from Gen. 36:31. His contemporary Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt (1480–1541) said that no sane person would suppose that Moses recorded his own death, and since the style of Dt. 34 was that of the Pentateuch generally, the Pentateuch in its completed form was not the work of Moses, but was earlier than Josiah’s time.
Other biblical scholars of the 16th and 17th cents, both Roman and Reformed, made further contributions to the question, as did also Thomas Hobbes in England (Leviathan [1650]) and Benedict Spinoza in the Netherlands (Tractatus Theologicopoliticus [1671]). But thus far pentateuchal criticism was concerned with detecting the presence of post-Mosaic elements in the Pentateuch, the conclusion being that the tradition of Mosaic authorship could not be maintained without qualification.
2. Old Documentary HypothesisR. Simon, priest of the Oratory, argued in Histoire critique de l’AT (1682) that the duplication of certain narratives in the Pentateuch (e.g., the Creation and Flood narratives), accompanied by diversity of style, pointed to diversity of authorship.
H. B. Witter (Iura Israelitarum in Palestina [1711]) pointed out that the duplicate accounts of the Creation were marked by the use of two different divine names, ’Elohim and Yahweh. This last point was taken up by the French court physician Jean Astruc, who used it as a criterion to distinguish two sources (A and B) throughout Genesis — pre-Mosaic sources on which Moses drew (Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il paroît que Moyse s’est most servi pour composer le livre du Genèse [1753]).
Astruc’s work was epoch-making, and marks the beginning of the continuous history of modern pentateuchal criticism. His criterion was a limited one, which could not be applied to the whole Pentateuch, since it fails after Ex. 6. The real question raised by the use of the divine names in Gen. 1-Ex. 6 was later seen to be the question of when the name Yahweh is represented as first coming into use — whether in primeval times (Gen. 4:26) or in the days of Moses (Ex. 3:14f; 6:2f). But Astruc introduced on this basis the rudiments of a documentary analysis of the Pentateuch whose influence remains to this day. His general results were adopted by J. G. Eichhorn (Einleitung in das AT [1780]), who continued Simon’s investigation into stylistic diversities in Genesis and found that they corresponded largely to Astruc’s analysis.
K. D. Ilgen, in Die Urkunden des jerusalemischen Tempelarchivs in ihrer Urgestalt (1798), wrote out the documents from which he believed Genesis was compiled, and distinguished two unrelated documents that used the divine name ’Elohim.
3. Fragmentary HypothesisThe fragmentary hypothesis, propounded by a Scots Roman Catholic priest, Alexander Geddes (Biblia Sacra [1792–1797]; Critical Remarks [1800]), envisaged a much greater number of sources. The Pentateuch, he argued, was not in its present form the work of Moses; together with Joshua, it was written, probably at Jerusalem, not before David nor after Hezekiah but preferably under Solomon, and it was compiled from a large number of short documents or fragments. There is an obvious similarity between Geddes’ hypothesis and F.A. Wolf’s contemporary view about the composition of the Homeric epics (Prolegomena ad Homerum [1795]). Geddes’ hypothesis was introduced into Germany by J. S. Vater in his three-volume commentary on the Pentateuch (1802–1805).
Vater’s work greatly influenced W. M. L. de Wette. In his Beiträge zur Einl. in das AT (1806–1807), de Wette accepted Vater’s views, except that he envisaged one fundamental Elohist document in Genesis which was expanded by the addition of other “fragment.” This fundamental document was continued in the middle books of the Pentateuch — “the epos of the Hebrew theocracy,” into which collections of laws, etc., were inserted from time to time.
4. Supplementary HypothesisDe Wette thus marks the transition from the fragmentary to the supplementary hypothesis — so called because it postulates one main document supplemented by others. But his chief importance in biblical criticism lies in his work on Deuteronomy. At the age of twenty-five he published his Dissertatio qua Deuteronomium a prioribus Pentateuchi libris diversum alius cuiusdam recentioris auctoris opus esse demonstratur (1805), in which, accepting Jerome’s identification of Josiah’s law book (2 K. 22:8ff) with Deuteronomy, he went on to date the composition of the book in that period (7th cent b.c.).
The chief name associated with the supplementary hypothesis is that of Heinrich Ewald. In his History of Israel (Engtr 1867–1883) Ewald identified the foundation document (Grundschrift) with the “Book of Origins,” so called because it was marked by the recurring formula “These are the origins” (Heb tôleḏôṯ, RV “generations”). Into this, he held, other (later) documents were fitted.
The foundation-document was also characterized (in Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus) by the use of ’Elohim for the divine name. But exactly a century after Astiruc’s work, Herman Hupfeld, in Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung (1857), distinguished two documents in Genesis that used the name ’Elohim. One of these was the primary “Book of Origins,” which formed the framework of the whole Pentateuch; the other he called “the later Elohist.” In addition two other documents had already been isolated in the Pentateuch — the Yahwist (so called from the use of the name Yahweh) and the Deuteronomist. These four were placed in that order, and indicated by the letters E1 E2 J D. The four-document analysis thus propounded by Hupfeld has been widely adopted in pentateuchal criticism ever since.
5. Development HypothesisThus far the analysis of the Pentateuch was conducted in terms of literary criticism alone. A new stage now appears in which literary criticism was supplemented by historical (especially religious-historical) criticism. This stage saw the emergence of the development hypothesis, in which the laws and institutions of the Pentateuch, classified in three distinct codes, are correlated with three distinct periods of Israel’s religious development.
The development hypothesis took over the four-document hypothesis, but treated the fundamental document (E1) as the latest, not the earliest, of the four. Indeed, this had been done as early as 1834 by E. G. Reuss in lectures at Strasbourg, although he did not publish his views until 1879, in L’Histoire sainte et la loi. In 1835 W. Vatke (Die Religion des AT nach den kanonischen Büchern entwickelt) and J. F. L. George (Die älteren jüdischen Feste mit einer Kritik der Gesetzgebung des Pentateuchs) argued that Israel’s religions development was gradual and that the Levitical legislation (i.e., the laws of Leviticus and kindred sections of Exodus and Numbers) was not only post-Mosaic but later than Deuteronomy, belonging, in fact, to the exilic period. Vatke and George were both greatly influenced by Hegel’s philosophy of history, with its pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; Vatke in turn exercised considerable influence on Julius Wellhausen.
K. H. Graf, in Die geschichtlichen Bücher des AT (1866), dated much of the Levitical legislation to the age of Ezra (5th cent b.c.) He ascribed the greater part of Lev. 17–26 to Ezekiel, thus largely anticipating August Klostermann (“Beiträge zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Pentateuchs: Ezechiel und das Heiligkeitsgesetz,” Zeitschrift für Lutherische Theologie und Kirche, 38 [1877], 401ff), who marked off these chapters as a separate law code, the “Law of Holiness” (H). It was objected to Graf’s late dating of the Levitical legislation that, on literary-critical grounds, this legislation could not be divorced from the narrative of the foundation-document (E1), and must therefore be dated early. Graf replied that since the Levitical legislation was later than anything else in the Pentateuch, therefore the whole of E1 must be dated late. E1, as containing the “priestly” legislation, came later to be known as P, and E2 accordingly was thenceforth designated simply as E.
Graf’s thesis was strengthened by the Dutch scholar Abraham Kuenen (Religion of Israel) [Engtr 1874–1875]; Historich-critisch Onderzoek naar het Ontstaan en de Verzameling van de Boeken des Ouden Verbonds [2nd ed 1885], pt. 1 of which appeared in English as An Historico-Critical Enquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch [1886]).
But the long regnancy of the development hypothesis is due mainly to Julius Wellhausen. He related the order JE-D-P to the religious history of Israel, paying special attention to the laws regarding sanctuary and sacrifice. “I differ from Graf chiefly in this,” he wrote, “that I always go back to the centralisation of the cultus and deduce from it the particular divergences” (Historyof Israel [Engtr 1885], p. 368). Following Vatke’s Hegelian pattern, he distinguished the following stages in the history of Israelite worship:
(1)Thesis. JE corresponds to the period of the settlement and early monarchy, when there were many local sanctuaries at which sacrifice was offered by local priesthoods or chosen members of local families.
(2)Antithesis. The eighth-century prophets attacked the whole institution of sanctuary and sacrifice as an obstacle in the path of true ethical religion.
(3)Synthesis of “cultic” and “prophetic” positions.
(a)Preexilic. The Deuteronomic law code prescribed the concentration of national worship at one sanctuary only; the Levitical priests who served the local sanctuaries (suppressed in Josiah’s reformation, 621 b.c.) were to be attached to the staff of the central sanctuary.
(b)Postexilic.The Priestly law code, which takes for granted a single central sanctuary, makes much more elaborate cultic regulations. The priesthood is restricted to the family of Aaron; the supremacy of the high priest reflects the postexilic situation in which he was head of the Judean temple-state. The Levitical priests of the older local sanctuaries are depressed to the status of temple servants (Levites) with no sacerdotal functions.
The Graf-Wellhausen development hypothesis speedily attained a dominant position because of the apparent success with which it correlated the main strata of the Pentateuch with successive phases of Israel’s religious history. But it was constructed on the basis of an excessively doctrinaire philosophy of history, and at a time when hardly any external evidence for the historical setting of the religion of Israel and her neighbors before the 9th cent b.c. was available.
The increasing evidence brought to light by archeological research, and most of all the discovery and decipherment from 1929 onward of the Ugaritic texts, with their wealth of information about Canaanite myth and ritual, have revolutionized the situation. While Wellhausen’s documentary analysis of the Pentateuch and his relative order of the documents (JE-D-P) are still widely adopted as a convenient framework, his reconstruction of the religious history of Israel has gone by the board, and many would agree with H. H. Rowley: “A mere concentration on the acknowledged difficulties of the Graf-Wellhausen view, and then on a selection of points that may seem to give support to a rival view, will not do. For none of the rival views can accommodate so many of the facts, or can escape far more difficulties than the view it seeks to replace. Yet having said this, it remains true that the Graf-Wellhausen view is only a working hypothesis, which can be abandoned with alacrity when a more satisfying view is found, but cannot with profit be abandoned until then” (Growth of the OT [1950], p. 46).
6. Since WellhausenMany others, however, reject the Graf-Wellhausen scheme even as a working hypothesis. Even in its heyday there were some who refused it completely and maintained the substantial Mosaicity of the Pentateuch, like W. H. Green (Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch [1895]), J. Orr (Problem of the OT [1900]), and A. H. Finn (Unity of the Pentateuch[1917]); more recently, similar positions have been defended by O. T. Allis (The Five Books of Moses [1943]), E. J. Young (intro to the OT [repr [1963]), and G. C. Aalders (A Short intro to the Pentateuch [1949]). Of these three Aalders allows a larger post-Mosaic element than the others do; he looks on David’s capture of Jerusalem in the seventh year of his reign as the terminus ad quem for the final redaction of the Pentateuch.
Others have moved in the opposite direction and posited further documentary sources, subdividing J (e,g., O. Eissfeldt,Hexateuchsynopse [1922]; J. Morgenstern, HUCA, 4 [1927], 1ff; R. H. Pfeiffer, ZAW, 48 [1930], 66ff) or P (e.g., G. von Rad,Die Priesterschrift im Hexateuch [1934]). The seventh-century date of the Deuteronomic Code, the linchpin of the Graf-Wellhausen scheme, has been called in question — some making it postexilic, like G. Hölscher (ZAW, 40 [1920], 161ff), R. H. Kennett (Deuteronomy and the Decalogue [1920]), and J. N. Schofield (Studies in History and Religion, ed E. A. Payne [1942], pp. 44ff), while others such as T. Oestreicher (Das deuteronomische Grundgesetz [1923]) and A. C. Welch (The Code of Deuteronomy [1924]) have pushed it back to the early monarchy; and E. Robertson (The OT Problem [1950]) dates it in Samuel’s time. The very existence of one or another of the four documents has been doubted: M. Löhr (Untersuchungen zum Hexateuchproblem [1924]) denied that there was ever an independent source P, and P. Volz and W. Rudolph (Der Elohist als Erzähler [1933]) have argued that the hypothesis of a separate E narrative represented a false turning in pentateuchal criticism.
Unaided documentary analysis has plainly reached the limit of its powers. Other critical approaches have been made in recent years to supplement the limitations of source criticism. The cultic and liturgical influence on the grouping of the material has been emphasized; e.g., Gen. 1:1–2:4a has been looked upon as a liturgical text for the Hebrew New Year’s Festival (cf. S. H. Hooke, In the Beginning [1947], p. 36); the whole complex of Ex. 1–15 has been regarded as a liturgical text or “cult legend” of the Passover, which has not been compiled out of originally distinct documents but has been modified and added to in the course of time (ILC, III–IV, 726ff).
The “traditio-historical” school of Uppsala has presented a radical challenge of a different kind to the basic principles of classical OT criticism; it lays great emphasis on the part played by oral tradition, and on the great reliability of such tradition. The leading exponent of this “traditio-historical” criticism, I. Engell, distinguishes in the Torah and the Former Prophets two collections — the Tetrateuch (Genesis-Numbers) and the Deuteronomic history (Deuteronomy-2 Kings) — which originally had no connection with one another (Gamla Testamentet: En traditionshistorisk inledning [1945], I).
The reconstruction of the early history of Israel, based on an evaluation of the OT texts in the light of archeological research, has made its impact on criticism. Among the pioneers in this field are: A. Alt (Essays on OT History and Religion [Engtr 1966]), M. Noth (History of Israel [Engtr, 2nd ed 1960]; Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Studies [Engtr 1966]; OT World[Engtr 1966]); and the versatile genius of W. F. Albright, whose influence has been exercised not only in his written works (e.g., From the Stone Age to Christianity [1940]; Archaeology and the Religion of Israel [1942]; Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan [1968]), but also through his brilliant disciples (e.g., John Bright, History of Israel [2nd ed 1972]). But the radical differences between the historical conclusions reached by them has emphasized the need for more stringent methodological controls.
The situation in OT criticism is thus completely fluid, and a new school has yet to appear whose findings will command acceptance as a fresh “regnant hypothesis.”
E. NT Criticism
1. Paul and the NTIn the NT the Pauline collection of letters constitutes the critical pivot that Deuteronomy has long provided in OT criticism. A new and vitally important phase of NT criticism was launched in 1831 when F. C. Baur contributed his paper “Die Christuspartei in der korinthischen Gemeinde” to the Tübinger Zeitschrift (4 [1831], 61ff). Baur, whose theological position in Tübingen University caused the movement he unconsciously started to be called the “Tübingen school,” tended increasingly, as time went on, to interpret NT history as Vatke and others interpreted OT history. The thesis and antithesis in NT history were represented on the one hand by Paul, with his liberal policy of the free admission of gentile believers into the Church, and on the other by the reactionary disciples in Jerusalem, headed by James the Just and the apostles Peter and John, with their insistence that only by accepting circumcision and other obligations of the Jewish law could Gentiles be admitted to the new Israel. The conflict between the two parties he saw most clearly in 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans, which were, in the Tübingen view, the only authentic writings of Paul and moreover the oldest books of the NT. The only other Pre-a.d. 70 NT book was Revelation, the one surviving document representing the opposite position. The remaining NT books reflected the outlook of a later generation, after a.d. 70, when the old conflict was not so sharp and the heirs of the two opposed parties tended to close their ranks in the face of imperial persecution and Gnostic deviations. The crowning literary manifestation of this later “synthesis” is Acts, in which Paul and the Jerusalem leaders are portrayed as maintaining harmonious relations throughout, and which was accordingly dated about the middle of the 2nd century.
Brilliant as the Tübingen reconstruction of NT history was, it was too vulnerable to endure in its pristine form. The historical and textual research of J. B. Lightfoot, A. Harnack, W. M. Ramsay, and others undermined its case for the late dating of the Gospels and Acts, and the antithesis that it postulated between the church of Jerusalem as a whole and the Pauline mission proved to be much exaggerated; in particular, the idea of a Judaizing Peter was little more than a figment of the imagination. But NT criticism has never ceased to be influenced by the work of the Tübingen school; witness the protest against its continuing influence by J. Munck in Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (Engtr 1959). Indeed, it has enjoyed a substantial and vigorous revival at the hands of S. G. F. Brandon (The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church [1951]), with arguments that, if not acceptable, demand a freshly reasoned confutation.
Even more radical than the Tübingen criticism was that of the Dutch scholar W. C. van Manen, who treated all the Pauline Epistles as pseudepigraphs. His views were popularized in the English-speaking world through his contributions to EB, but retain little more than curiosity value.
2. Gospel CriticismSome rudimentary Gospel criticism was practiced in the patristic age. The difficulty of harmonizing the order of events in the Synoptic and Johannine Gospels was discussed by Eusebius, who, in reply to arguments that the Evangelists disagree with one another, points out that the events in the earlier chapters of John antedate the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Jn. 3:24), whereas the Synoptists record that phase of Jesus’ ministry which began after the Baptist’s imprisonment (HE iii.24.8–13). Augustine (De consensu evangelistarum) deals in detail with the relations between the Gospels; on the most frequently quoted remark in this work (i.4), that “Mark followed Matthew as his lackey and abbreviator, so to speak,” B. H. Streeter observed that if only Augustine had had a synopsis of the Gospels in parallel columns before him, he would have seen at a glance that, where Matthew and Mark have material in common, it is not Mark who abridges it.
The Synoptic Gospels were so designated by J. J. Griesbach in 1774, because they have so much material in common that they lend themselves to a “synoptic” arrangement where the three can be studied side by side. Some 606 out of Mark’s 661 verses reappear in somewhat condensed form in Matthew; some 350 of Mark’s verses are paralleled in Luke. Matthew and Luke, again, have about 250 verses in common that are not paralleled in Mark. The approximate number of verses in each Gospel not paralleled in another is 31 in Mark, 300 in Matthew, and 550 in Luke. The interpretation of this distribution of common and special material in the three Gospels has been the principal task of Synoptic criticism for nearly two centuries. An epoch-making contribution to this study was made in 1835 by C. Lachmann in Studien und Kritiken, when he argued that Mark was the earliest Gospel and was a principal source of Matthew and Luke. His main argument, that Mark’s order is the common order of the three, is not so conclusive as has often been supposed; but his thesis has been supported by other and weightier arguments, and enjoys general, almost universal, acceptance. It is also fairly generally agreed — though here the area of dissent is wider — that the common non-Markan material of Matthew and Luke was derived by these two from another documentary source, a compilation of sayings of Jesus, called Q about the beginning of the 20th cent independently by J. Armitage Robinson and J. Wellhausen. Whether the special material in Matthew and Luke is derived from earlier documentary sources must remain very doubtful, although we have the assurance of Luke himself that, at the time when he wrote, many had taken in hand to draw up a narrative of the gospel events.
Source criticism in the Fourth Gospel (cf. R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John [Engtr 1971]) has never been carried out convincingly; the criticism of this Gospel has centered round its historical character, purpose, theology, date, and authorship.See articles on the individual Gospels, and see Gospels, Synoptic.
III. Form Criticism
Form criticism (Ger Formgeschichte, “form history”) represents an endeavor to determine the oral prehistory of written documents or sources, and to classify the material according to the various “forms” or categories of narrative, discourse, and so forth.
A. In the OT This approach has proved particularly fruitful in the study of the Psalms; their classification according to their principal types (Ger Gattungen), where each type is related to a characteristic life-setting — e.g., Psalms of lament and thanksgiving, both individual and communal; royal Psalms; liturgical Psalms; etc. — has done more for the understanding of the Psalter than almost anything else in the 20th century.
H. Gunkel also applied form critical methods to the creation narratives and to the apocalyptic symbolism that later drew upon the ancient cosmogonic imagery (compare the overthrow of the primeval dragon of chaos in Ps. 74:13f and Isa. 51:9 with the downfall of the great red dragon of Rev. 12:3, 7–9).
More recently form criticism has illuminated the OT law codes. Albrecht Alt pointed out in Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts (1934) that the pentateuchal laws fall mainly into two categories — case law (beginning with a phrase like “If a man do so-and-so …”) and apodictic law (“Thou shalt …,” “Thou shalt not …,” or “He that doeth so-and-so shall surely be put to death”). The case-law category reproduces the form known from the other ancient Near Eastern law codes; the apodictic category is not found in these. Apodictic law does, however, resemble in form the conditions embodied in interstate treaties of the ancient Near East, especially treaties between an imperial power and its vassal states. Since such treaties are essentially covenants, concluded in the names of the deities of the high contracting parties, it is evident that the apodictic laws of the OT (among which the Ten Commandments are the most prominent) represent Israel’s distinctive covenant law, imposed on the nation by Yahweh. See also Covenant, Book of the.
B. In the NT Form criticism has been intensively applied to the Gospels from 1919 onward. The pioneer in this study is usually reckoned to have been Martin Dibelius, whose Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums appeared in 1919 (Engtr From Tradition to Gospel), followed in 1921 by Rudolf Bultmann’s Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (Engtr HST). But several important aspects of this form-critical approach had been anticipated as early as 1902 by Allan Menzies in The Earliest Gospel (a comm on Mark).
1. ClassificationThe main division in form classification of the Gospel material is that between narratives about Jesus and sayings of Jesus. Narratives have been subdivided into (1) pronouncement stories, (2) miracle stories, and (3) “legends”; sayings into (1) wisdom sayings, (2) prophetic and apocalyptic sayings, (3) law pronouncements and community rules, (4) “I”-sayings, and (5) parables.
Pronouncement stories (which is Vincent Taylor’s name for them; Dibelius called them “paradigms”) partake of the character of both narratives and sayings. In them a situation develops that elicits from Jesus a pithy saying (an “apophthegm,” in Bultmann’s terminology), which constitutes the point of the story. Frequently the situation is a controversial one; some action or utterance of Jesus or His disciples arouses criticism, and Jesus replies to the criticism with a decisive pronouncement, e.g., “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk. 2:17).
A narrative may be assignable to more than one “form”; thus the incident of the paralyzed man (Mk. 2:1–12) is a pronouncement story because the criticism that breaks out when Jesus forgives the man’s sins is silenced by Jesus’ pronouncement that “the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mk. 2:10); but it can also be classified as a miracle story, more specifically a healing story. Healing stories are readily recognizable; all over the world from early times to the present day they follow a well-established form which emphasizes the interactability of the disease, the despair of the patient, the completeness of the cure, and sometimes the impression produced on the bystanders. But that a healing story conforms to this pattern tells us nothing conclusive about its historical truth.
“Legends,” as Dibelius calls them, are such stories about Jesus as the baptism, temptation, transfiguration, and resurrection narratives. Bultmann, who calls them “myths,” says that they are not “historical in character [but] are religious and edifying” (HST, p. 244). But this is not a form critical judgment; form criticism as such makes judgments about form, not substance.
Similarly, the classification of the sayings of Jesus according to form can throw but little light on the authenticity of individual sayings. Sometimes, when what is substantially the same saying or discourse has been preserved in two different “forms,” it may be possible to penetrate behind both to an earlier “unformed” stage of the tradition of what He said. At other times, however, the probability is that the form in which His words have been preserved is the form He Himself gave them. Much of His recorded teaching reproduces the well-known forms of OT poetry, as found, for example, in many of the prophetic oracles. Since Jesus was recognized by His contemporaries as a prophet, it is reasonable to conclude that here we have something approaching His ipsissima verba.
T. W. Manson, who himself operated very fruitfully in The Teaching of Jesus (1931) with a classification of the sayings of Jesus based on the different kinds of audience addressed, remarked in characteristically down-to-earth language that “if Form-criticism had stuck to its proper business, it would not have made any real stir. We should have taken it as we take the forms of Hebrew poetry or the forms of musical composition. But,” he went on, “Form-criticism got mixed up with two other things. One was K. L. Schmidt’s full-scale attack on the Marcan framework; the other was the doctrine of the Sitz im Leben” (Studies in the Gospels and Epistles [1962], p. 5).
2. FrameworkMany form critics, and outstandingly K. L. Schmidt (RGJ), have envisaged the Synoptic, and primarily the Markan, tradition as consisting of originally unrelated units of narrative or discourse, joined together into a continuous narrative by means of connecting editorial summaries devoid of independent historical value. (It is conceded that the Passion narrative existed as a continuous record from early days.) An impressive answer to this argument was made in 1932 by C. H. Dodd (repr in his NT Studies [1953], pp. 1ff), who argued that the “editorial summaries” in Mark, when put together by themselves, constitute a coherent outline of the ministry of Jesus, comparable to those outlines of the early apostolic preaching which can be recovered from the speeches in Acts and various passages in the Epistles. Moreover, the general Markan picture of the ministry suggests a sequence and development too spontaneous to be artificial and too logical to be accidental.
3. Life-SettingIt has become common practice among form critics to explain the various elements in the Gospels as called forth by some “life-setting” (Ger Sitz im Leben) in the early Church. For example, the mission charge in Mt. 10 has been held to reflect the methods used by Jewish Christians who evangelized Palestine between a.d. 30 and 66; likewise the controversial discussions that end with some authoritative pronouncement of Jesus are said to reflect disputes in the same period between Jewish Christians and other Jews, or between legalist and libertarian groups within the Christian community. An extreme example in this last respect is the argument that the warning in Mt. 5:19 about the man who “relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so” is a covert attack by stricter Jewish Christians on Paul.
But one might ask why this practice was not carried on more widely and helpfully. The circumcision question, for example, was a live issue in Christian debate in the quarter century between a.d. 45 and 70; why has it not left a more distinct mark in the Gospels?
Early Christians, in fact, probably made a clearer distinction between their own views on disputed points and the teaching of Jesus than they are sometimes given credit for. Paul, for instance, in answering questions about marriage and divorce, distinguishes sharply between those matters on which he can quote an authoritative saying of Jesus and those on which he can express only his own judgment (1 Cor. 7:10, 12, 25).
It must not be forgotten that during the period a.d. 30–70 many people could remember what Jesus had said, and attempts to claim His authority for things that He had not in fact said could not have been so successful as is often thought. The presence of eyewitnesses would certainly place a check on the free creation of the early Church in the manner presupposed by many form critics. If the evidence of Acts can be accepted, the appeal to public recollection of the ministry of Jesus is a recurring feature of early apostolic preaching (Acts 2:29; 10:36; 26:26).
A life-setting in the early Church — in preaching, in worship, in debate, in the training of catechists — will certainly explain why many Gospel incidents and sayings were preserved and recorded. When a question arose about divorce, or fasting, or sabbath observance, or the payment of the temple tax, it was natural to remember what Jesus had said on the subject. But such a setting in the life of the early Church does not account for the origin of the saying; its origin must be sought in a setting in the life of Jesus.
4. ConclusionThe sweeping claims that have been made by some form critics for the value of their discipline must be subjected to a heavy discount. It cannot of itself, no matter what is said to the contrary, lead to conclusions about the historical genuineness of the material. Even the modest claim of J. Jeremias that it helps us to remove a later Hellenistic layer which has overlaid an earlier Palestinian layer, and so to move back from a setting in the life of the early Church to a setting in the life of Jesus, must be treated with caution (ExposT, 69 [1957/58], 337), if only because Palestine itself was not free of Hellenistic influences, and there were Hellenists in the primitive Jerusalem church, if not indeed in the entourage of Jesus Himself.
Form criticism does, however, make one more aware of the influence of early Christian life and witness on the shaping of the Gospel tradition. It underlines the inadequacy of documentary hypotheses alone to account for the composition of the four Gospels, and provides a fresh classification of their material which sometimes, when comparative study is possible, helps one to penetrate behind written sources to the oral stage of the tradition. It then becomes clearer than ever that no discernible stratum of Gospel tradition, written or oral, knows any Jesus but the one whom the NT presents as Messiah and Son of God.
A particular variety of form criticism relates to the study of the structure of the NT epistles. An impetus to this approach was given by Paul Schubert in his Form and Function of the Pauline Thanksgiving (1939). Until this work appeared, it was widely supposed that, apart from the conventional salutation and thanksgiving at the beginning and the greetings at the end, Paul’s letters were unstructured for the most part; study since then has brought to light fairly well-defined structures in the main body of the letters. It is precarious, however, to use this recognition of structural forms as a means of removing as unauthentic passages which do not fit these structures easily; the structural forms are Paul’s servants, not his masters.
IV. Redaction Criticism
What is called redaction criticism has been pressed into service more recently to do more justice to the authors and redactors of biblical documents than they received in the heyday of source criticism and form criticism. This discipline has been applied to various parts of the OT, as for example to the Chronicler’s use of the material which he inherited — much of it still extant in earlier OT writings — so as to present his distinctive understanding of Israel’s history. But it has proved particularly fruitful in Gospel study, with reference to the way in which the individual evangelists shaped and presented, in accordance with their distinctive perspectives, the “tradition” which was delivered to them.
Thus, the First Evangelist, perhaps the spokesman of a school or other Christian community in a specific area, is well described as a “scribe … trained for the kingdom of heaven … who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt. 13:52); he arranges the teaching of Jesus according to its subject matter in composite discourses which might serve, among other things, as a manual of instruction for catechists and catechumens. He is clearly interested in the Church as a fellowship in which the teaching of Jesus is to be embodied and handed down from His resurrection to the end of the age. Mark not only writes to encourage Christians suffering for their faith (in Rome and elsewhere) to think of this as taking up their cross in the way of Jesus; he also gives prominence to the “messianic secret” — the veiling of the true nature of Jesus’ person and ministry even from His disciples until it is divulged in His death, as is symbolically indicated by the rending of the temple veil and by the centurion’s confession, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mk. 15:38f). Luke views the ministry of Jesus at the midpoint of time as the continuation and consummation of the mighty works and prophetic words in which God revealed Himself in OT times and also as being itself continued and amplified in the apostolic witness. John restates the essential gospel without changing its essence; its permanent and universal validity is brought out by its portrayal of Jesus as the eternal Logos or self-expression of God, incarnated in a real human life, active now in the new, spiritual creation as earlier in the old, material creation. Here, in the ministry and supremely in the death of Jesus, the glory of God is manifested to all who are given the power of seeing it.
V. Criticism and Christology
In all this we have dealt with criticism as it affects the external features of the biblical record, rather than its revelational essence. But, since the biblical revelation is so closely interwoven with the historical record, historical criticism in particular can become extremely relevant to the heart of the biblical message. Above all, when we consider the biblical presentation of Christ’s incarnation, earthly ministry, death, and resurrection as the midpoint of history, historical criticism, when it sets to work on the gospel story, may affect our understanding of the gospel itself. This is no reason for telling historical criticism to approach thus far and no farther; on the contrary, we must be grateful for historical criticism and all the help it can give in showing the historical Jesus in His own times. “It would seem that the only healthy attitude for conservatives is to welcome criticism and be willing to join in it. No view of Scripture can indefinitely be sustained if it runs counter to the facts. That the Bible claims inspiration is patent. The problem is to define the nature of that inspiration in the light of the phenomena contained therein” (E. F. Harrison, in C. F. H. Henry, ed, Revelation and the Bible [1958], p. 239).
Historical critics are not free from the influence of their intellectual milieu, and it is not to be greatly wondered at if Jesus, who a couple of generations ago was portrayed as the ideal of nineteenth-century liberalism, tends to be pictured today as a twentieth-century existentialist or as a social revolutionary. It takes a bold and independent spirit like that of Albert Schweitzer to break loose from contemporary influences in this regard as in others; but even boldness and independence are no guarantee of truth, and Schweitzer’s portrayal of Jesus as an apocalyptic visionary (cf. QHJ) has inadequacies of its own.
The tone and thrust of biblical criticism cannot remain unaffected by the critic’s own attitude; it will in the end make some difference whether or not he adopts a theistic viewpoint in harmony with that which informs the biblical record. And when the critical issue relates to the Jesus of history it will in the end make a considerable difference whether the critic is content to know Christ “after the flesh” or shares the estimate of Him reflected in the apostolic witness.
Criticism can carry us so far in bringing us face to face with the Jesus of history; but when it has brought us there, it brings us up against the christological question: “Who then is this?” The various critical presentations or reconstructions of the Jesus of history have been deeply influenced by the critics’ Christology, realized or unrealized, false or true. That is why Lives of Jesus so often tell us more about their authors than they do about their subject; as T. W. Manson put it, “By their Lives of Jesus ye shall know them” (C. W. Dugmore, ed, Interpretation of the Bible [1944], p. 92). If the Jesus of history is the Christ of the Bible, when we are brought to Him we are brought to the very vantage point from which history must be reviewed if it is to be understood aright. Criticism has then done its perfect work, and Christology takes over.
F. F. Bruce
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