RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Biblical Archeology Biblical Criticism
this separation. Religious occurrences it must seek to explain upon psychological, pathological, and historico-religious grounds. Lessing says that "the dramatic poet is not a historian; historical verity is not his purpose, only the means to it." Is this poet then a falsifier of history? Similarly for the Biblical writers historical truth is only a means for offering religious truth; it is the channel of the revelation from God. Consequently the task is to examine case by case in order to determine how far historical reality carries revelation. Its own standpoint, therefore, is assured to this science. It asks with what right and under what conditions and limitations the Scriptures exist as a religious collection. It gives historical rating to the contents. Its leading word is — discriminate, which it uses in promoting recognition of worth or its opposite, of fact or mere appearance.
II. The Critical Method : To achieve real service in Biblical criticism appreciation of the religious factor is necessary. The critic, however, may not walk in a rut if he is to attain a right position. After he has through interpretation grasped the object of investigation, he gives it rating according to the conditions and warrant of the 1. Funda- facts of the case. He proceeds upon
menta _ the immanent, not the transcendent, tions. And after the right criterion is found, he has to remember that a complete and not a partial or fragmentary investigation is required, and further that fast hold must be laid upon equipoise between critical acuteness and the perception of what is possible and plain. Eccles. vii, 20 has its application here, " God made man upright, but he has sought out many inventions." What is the inherent standard of Biblical criticism? The historical narratives of the Bible are, so far as they deal with religious life, interpretations of history and testimonies to faith. To express a right judgment the critic must determine the relation between the historical and the religious and decide which is the more prominent. De Wette regarded the Pentateuch as poetry; the opposite view makes the Bible historical only. Between these extremes lies the recognition that the Bible employs history for religious purposes. Is this religious significance to be regarded as expert emphasis upon the worth and force of a real occurrence or was it used to support some dogmatic purpose? Is it found in or read into the case? Is it in the main possible to recognize the fact in the religious dress?
These possibilities the critic must take into account as he holds the scales of truth, testing the composite parts of the Bible and proceeding thence to a consideration of the Bible as a whole. Upon this ground only can the decision be rendered how far the historic facts which the Bible reports stand in organic connection with their religious valuation and whether they may be regarded as history or as legend, fable, or myth. The varying ratio of the admixture of the historical and the religious and the degree of its significance must be observed; and especially the interval between the Old Testament and the New in their historical relations, original limitations, and purposes must be kept in
mind. It is one thing to appreciate the essential qualities of Hebrew national literature, covering a thousand years in its development, and another to apprehend the worth and character of the New Testament, which is the literature of a religious propaganda covering but two generations. Yet the critic's methods are essentially the same, corresponding to the varied historical limitations of the subject-matter. When the question of the essence of Christianity arises, the bearing of the Old Testament religion upon Christianity is to be decided and grasped.
The fundamental axiom shows that each literary
production, as well as each body of writings which
has a common bond, requires its ap-
2. Classi- propriate method both of interprefication. tation and of criticism. Means and
end will agree when the character of the whole presents itself in the parts; the last-named will separate and individualize themselves where origins and relations differ. The classifications of Biblical criticism arise not out of logical abstractions but out of the demands made by the individualistic Biblical qualities. Criticism of the canon asks how and with what right the two Testaments were united in one book, how and by what methods the correct text of that which has come down is to be ascertained, what was the origin and what is the historical worth and what the relation of the present form of the books to the original form. It draws conclusions from the data furnished by interpretation. On the basis of the recognition (1) of the suitability of means to ends and (2) of the literary individuality, it pronounces upon the worth of a document as a source and upon its relation to the whole to which it belongs and which it serves. The science divides, therefore, into criticism of the text, of the language, of the history, of the style, and constructive criticism.
Since subjectively criticism finds its occasion in the limits of the understanding, its starting-point
is doubt about the trustworthiness
3. Fimc- and the arrangement of what has come tion. down. This doubt proceeds to ask
the reason for this impression. If the reason lies not in the spiritual being of the doubter but in the object, then some defect is understood to exist in expression, contents, or style. The critic has then to discover the kind of defect and to discern its cause. As a means to this, Jerome directs the critic to digest, arrange, deduce, construct. In other words, the critic first diagnoses the case and then applies the remedy. And in this process comparison is constantly employed, holding in view the separate parts and the united whole. The division of the field of the critic into external and internal, higher and lower, does not have any essential truth at its root, and should be rejected for that given at the end of the last paragraph.
III. The Departments of Criticism: That the Old Testament existed as a holy authority for the synagogue and that the New in connection with the Old had the same value for the Church is the fact the success and the right of which criticism has to investigate. It notes the process of
Biblical Criticism.