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Source criticism (biblical studies)
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Source criticism (biblical studies)
Source criticism, in biblical criticism, refers to the attempt to establish the sources used by the authors and redactors of a biblical text. It originated in the 18th century with the work of Jean Astruc, who adapted the methods already developed for investigating the texts of classical antiquity (in particular, Homer's Iliad) to his own investigation into the sources of the Book of Genesis. It was subsequently considerably developed by German scholars in what was known as "the higher criticism", a term no longer in widespread use. The ultimate aim of these scholars was to reconstruct the history of the biblical text and also the religious history of ancient Israel.
In general, the closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened. In the Bible where a variety of earlier sources have been quoted, the historian seeks to identify and date those sources used by biblical writers as the first step in evaluating their historical reliability.
In other cases, Bible scholars use the way a text is written (changes in style, vocabulary, repetitions, and the like) to determine what sources may have been used by a biblical author. With some reasonable guesswork it is possible to deduce sources not identified as such (e.g., genealogies). Some inter-biblical sources can be determined by virtue of the fact that the source is still extant, for example, where the Books of Chronicles quotes or retells the accounts of the books of Samuel and Kings.
Source criticism has been applied to several parts of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament).
The documentary hypothesis considers the sources for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), claiming that it derives from four separate sources: the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly:
For example, of the two creation stories at the start of Genesis, the first is ascribed to P, while the second (the creation of Adam and Eve in chapter 2) is ascribed to J.
While the documentary hypothesis has widespread support among biblical scholars, other hypotheses such as the "fragmentary" and "supplementary" have also been proposed.[citation needed]
The writers of the Tanakh sometimes mention sources they use. These include Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29 and in a number of other places), Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (1 Kings 14:19 and in a number of other places), the Book of Jashar (Josh 10:12–14, 2 Sam 1:18–27, and possibly to be restored via textual criticism to 1 Kings 8:12), and Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14).
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Source criticism (biblical studies)
Source criticism, in biblical criticism, refers to the attempt to establish the sources used by the authors and redactors of a biblical text. It originated in the 18th century with the work of Jean Astruc, who adapted the methods already developed for investigating the texts of classical antiquity (in particular, Homer's Iliad) to his own investigation into the sources of the Book of Genesis. It was subsequently considerably developed by German scholars in what was known as "the higher criticism", a term no longer in widespread use. The ultimate aim of these scholars was to reconstruct the history of the biblical text and also the religious history of ancient Israel.
In general, the closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened. In the Bible where a variety of earlier sources have been quoted, the historian seeks to identify and date those sources used by biblical writers as the first step in evaluating their historical reliability.
In other cases, Bible scholars use the way a text is written (changes in style, vocabulary, repetitions, and the like) to determine what sources may have been used by a biblical author. With some reasonable guesswork it is possible to deduce sources not identified as such (e.g., genealogies). Some inter-biblical sources can be determined by virtue of the fact that the source is still extant, for example, where the Books of Chronicles quotes or retells the accounts of the books of Samuel and Kings.
Source criticism has been applied to several parts of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament).
The documentary hypothesis considers the sources for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), claiming that it derives from four separate sources: the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly:
For example, of the two creation stories at the start of Genesis, the first is ascribed to P, while the second (the creation of Adam and Eve in chapter 2) is ascribed to J.
While the documentary hypothesis has widespread support among biblical scholars, other hypotheses such as the "fragmentary" and "supplementary" have also been proposed.[citation needed]
The writers of the Tanakh sometimes mention sources they use. These include Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29 and in a number of other places), Chronicles of the Kings of Israel (1 Kings 14:19 and in a number of other places), the Book of Jashar (Josh 10:12–14, 2 Sam 1:18–27, and possibly to be restored via textual criticism to 1 Kings 8:12), and Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14).