11 Facts About Historical criticism

Historical criticism, known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text".

Primary goal of historical criticism is to discover the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense or sensus literalis historicus.

Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Where historical investigation was unavailable, historical criticism rested on philosophical and theological interpretation.

In some cases, such as with several Pauline epistles, higher Historical criticism can confirm or challenge the traditional or received understanding of authorship.

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Historical criticism has been applied to other religious writings from Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam.

Source Historical criticism is the search for the original sources which lie behind a given biblical text.

Tradition history is a specific aspect of form Historical criticism, which aims at tracing the way in which the pericopes entered the larger units of the biblical canon, especially the way in which they made the transition from oral to written form.

The belief in the priority, stability and even detectability, of oral traditions is recognised to be so deeply questionable as to render tradition history largely useless, but form Historical criticism itself continues to develop as a viable methodology in biblical studies.

Historical criticism as applied to the Bible began with Benedict Spinoza.

Phrase "higher Historical criticism" became popular in Europe from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century to describe the work of such scholars as Jean Astruc, Johann Salomo Semler, Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, Ferdinand Christian Baur, and Wellhausen.