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There are several key theories of biblical criticism, each focused on different methods of analyzing and interpreting the Bible. Some prominent ones include:
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Historical-Critical Method: This approach examines the historical context in which biblical texts were written, seeking to understand the cultural, social, and political factors influencing the authors. It includes:
- Source Criticism: Identifying the original sources used by the biblical writers.
- Form Criticism: Analyzing the literary forms (e.g., parables, hymns, myths) used in the Bible.
- Redaction Criticism: Studying how the text was edited and compiled over time by different authors or editors.
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Textual Criticism: Focuses on comparing ancient manuscripts of the Bible to determine the most accurate original text. It deals with variations in early copies and strives to recover the authentic wording of the scriptures.
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Literary Criticism: Analyzes the Bible as a literary work, focusing on its narrative structure, themes, symbols, and character development. It emphasizes the artistry of the biblical text rather than its historical or theological context.
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Canonical Criticism: Examines the Bible as a unified whole, emphasizing how the final canon was formed and how its books interpret one another. It focuses on the theological message and the role of the Bible in the church’s tradition.
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Redemption-Historical Criticism: Focuses on God's plan of salvation (redemption) through the history of the Bible, seeing the scriptures as a coherent narrative of God's work to save humanity.
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Feminist Biblical Criticism: Analyzes the Bible from a feminist perspective, questioning the patriarchal structures in the text and how women are portrayed, as well as exploring the ways the Bible can empower women.
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Liberation Biblical Criticism: Emphasizes the liberation of oppressed people, interpreting the Bible in ways that highlight themes of social justice, freedom, and the empowerment of marginalized groups.
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Social-Scientific Criticism: Uses methods from sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences to understand the Bible in its cultural context, exploring social structures, customs, and dynamics in biblical times.
These theories offer various ways to interpret the Bible, each focusing on different aspects of the text's origins, meaning, and impact.
HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM
The Pre-18th Century Stage
If one would make a general comment, one would agree that criticism as is known today is almost non-existent. This is because the early ecclesiastical writers were unconscious of nearly all the problems to which criticism has given rise. Their attention was concentrated on the Divine content and authority of sacred Scripture, and, looking almost
exclusively at the Divine side, they deemed as of trifling account, questions of authorship, date, composition, accepting unreservedly for these points such traditions as the Jewish tradition had handed down, all the more readily that Christ Himself seemed to have given various of these traditions His supreme confirmation. As far as they were
concerned tradition was the determining factor.
The only exceptions in record to this general anti-criticism mood were Origen and Dionysius. Origen concluded partly from internal evidence that St. Paul could scarcely have written the Epistle to the Hebrews, and his disciple Dionysius adduced linguistic grounds for rejecting the Apocalypse as a work of St. John.
It has to be mentioned however that during this period, the preservation of the sacred text was the only thing that elicited a critical view of the Bible in the age of the Fathers, and this applies also to the Scholastic period. For example, Irenaeus noted that there are differences in the number of the Beast in Revelation 13:8. Like modern critics, he however adopted “666” because it was contained in the oldest manuscripts known to him. Even the Humanist movement preceding the Reformation gave no impulse to the critical spirit beyond fostering the study of the Scriptures in their original languages.
The 18th and Post-18th Century Stage
The Eighteenth Century New Testament criticism began as the outgrowth of philosophic speculations of a distinctly anti-Christian character. It was conducted by rationalists and liberal Protestants. To date, the discipline has not yet freed itself from the sway of such a priori principles, though it has tended to grow more positive, that is, more
genuinely critical, in its methods.
When the German Rationalism of the eighteenth century, in imitation of the English Deism of the seventeenth, had discarded the supernatural, the New Testament became the first object of a systematic attack.
Reimarus assailed the motives of its writers and cast aspersions on the
honesty of Jesus Himself. J.S. Semler used the greatest latitude in discussing the origin and credibility of the sacred Scriptures, arguing that these subjects should be dealt with without regard to any Divine content. Semler was the first to question the authenticity of New
Testament books from a critical standpoint. His exegetical principles, if
admitted, would largely destroy the authority of the Gospels. Paulus
professor at Jena and Heidelberg, granted the genuineness of the Gospels, and their authors’ honesty of purpose, but taught that in narrating the miraculous and supernatural the Apostles and Evangelists recorded their delusions, and that all the alleged superhuman
occurrences are to be explained by merely natural causes. Eichhorn, the
pioneer of modern German criticism, carried his inquiries into the field of the New Testament and, beginning with 1794, proposed a theory to explain the similarities and differences of the Synoptic Gospels.
The problem was first clearly formulated by Lachmann in 1835.
Schleiermacher was the earliest of those German theologians who acknowledge the religious force of the sacred writings, but imperil their authority by a free and independent treatment of their origin and historical contents. His view of the New Testament was influenced by
Semler's criticisms. Somewhat akin to Schleiermacher's attitude is that of De Wette, but his conclusions are often negative and doubtful. The Evangelistic school of Protestant German commentators, represented earliest by Guericke, Olshausen, Neander, and Bleek, were in the main adherents to the genuineness and truthfulness of the Gospels, though influenced by the mediating rationalistic tendencies of Schleiermacher.
As New Testament scholars they belong between 1823 and 1859.
The Life of Jesus by David Friedrich Strauss, which appeared in 1835, marked a new departure of view with regard to the New Testament, and made a great sensation. Strauss was a Hegelian. He held that the orthodox conception of Christ was the creature of the ardent Messianic hopes of the Jewish-Christians of the primitive Church, who imagined that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, and who, soon after His death, invested His personality and the whole tenor of His life with
mythical qualities, in which there was nothing but a bare kernel of objective truth- the existence of a rabbi named Jesus, who was a man of extraordinary spiritual power and penetration, and who had gathered about him a band of disciples. Strauss's relatively refined philosophy of religion was more in the spirit of the age than the moribund, crude naturalism of Paulus, though it only substituted one form of rationalism
for another.
The Tübingen School
The "Life of Jesus" soon called forth refutations, but in the advanced circles of German thought the finishing stroke was not given to it until Ferdinand Christian Baur, the founder of the Tübingen School (the school of exegesis and criticism), published the mature fruit of his speculation under the title “Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ”, in 1845.
Baur, like Strauss, was a disciple of Hegel, but had taken from that philosopher a different key to the significance of the New Testament.
This is the principle of the evolution of all truth through the conciliation of contradictions. He taught that the New Testament is the outcome of an antagonism between Jewish, or Petrine, and Pauline tendencies in the primitive Church. The Pauline concept of Christianity (one of a philosophic and universal order) is represented by the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, which alone Baur admitted as the certainly authentic works of St. Paul. The Apocalypse was composed in direct opposition to the spirit of the Pauline writings. The above works were written before A. D. 70. Between 70 and 140 appeared St. Matthew's Gospel (though some argue that it could have been written between A. D. 40 and A. D. 60), Petrine in character; St. Luke's Gospel,
Pauline, though retouched in a conciliatory spirit; Acts, adapted
similarly to St. Luke; and latest the Gospel of St. Mark, also of an irenic type. This second period is one of transition between antagonism and complete reconciliation. This latter is the note of the third period, reaching to about A. D. 170, which produced the Gospel and Epistles bearing the name of St. John, and the Pastoral Epistles, which therefore cannot have come from St. Paul. The scheme excluded the authenticity of all the Gospels. Baur's theory has not survived except in the mitigated form seen in the works of Hilgenfeld and Pfleiderer. Nevertheless, aside from his philosophic assumptions, the principles and methods of Baur
have left a deep impress on later New Testament criticism. He first practised on a consistent and developed plan the habit of scrutinizing the sacred documents themselves for evidences of the times which gave them birth, and led the way in the present critical trend towards a division of the New Testament into Judaistic, Pauline, and Johannine
elements.
The Tübingen ideas evoked a reaction against their destructive and purely rationalistic conclusions. This movement has been twofold: on one side it is orthodox Protestant, though critical in its method; this section is the natural continuation of the earlier Evangelistic exegesis, and counts as its ablest representatives Zahn, B. Weiss, and Godet; the other branch is partly the outgrowth of the Schleiermacher school and acknowledges as its founder Albert Ritschl, whose defection from the
Tübingen group proved a serious blow to Baur's system. The Ritschlian theology insists on the religious value of the New Testament, especially in the impression its picture of Christ makes on the individual soul, and on the other hand allows a free rein to the boldest and most searching criticism of the origin and historical worth of the New Testament books, in a blind mystic confidence that nothing that criticism can do will impair their religious value. The indifference of the Ritschlians to the consequences of criticism is also shown towards the miraculous element in our Lord's life and in the New Testament in general. This tendency is very manifest among other contemporary German critics, who, while
influenced by Ritschlianism, belong rather to the "scientific" and evolutionary school. Holtzmann, Bousset, Jülicher, Harnack, Schmiedel by critical procedure eliminate from the Gospels, or at least call into doubt, all the miraculous elements, and reduce the Divinity of Christ to a moral, pre-eminent sonship to God, and yet, by a strange inconsequence, exalt the saving and enlightening power of His personality. This latest school, however, admit dates which approach much nearer to the traditional ones than to those of Baur. Harnack, besides affirming the
genuineness of all the Pauline Epistles except the pastoral ones, and of Mark and Luke, places the Synoptic Gospels between A. D. 65 and 93, and fixes the year 110 as the latest limit for the Gospel and Epistles of St. John and the Apocalypse.
In Great Britain, New Testament criticism with few exceptions has been moderate and, on the whole, conservative. Excellent service has been done in the defence of contested books by the British divines J. B. Lightfoot, B. F. Westcott, W. H. Sanday, and others. Holland has produced a small group of radical critics, Van Manen, Pierson, Loman, who, with Steck in Germany, have revived Bruno Bauer's total denial of
authenticity to St. Paul's Letters. In France and French Switzerland
conservatism has been the keynote of the Protestant scholars Pressensé and Godet; a rationalizing evolutionism that of Sabatier. Abbé Loisy's work will be spoken of below.
The Contemporary New Testament Criticism
In the area of textual criticism, there are four major approaches today.
They are as follows:
Radical Eclecticism
This approach is championed by G. P. Kilpatrick and S. K. Elliott. The approach holds to a purely eclectic text and prefers a text based on internal evidence. The main argument is that since the history of the New Testament text is untraceable no text type should carry any weight.
A radical eclectic scholar will thus choose a reading that bests suits the
context either in style or in thought.
Reasoned Eclecticism
This approach is led by B. M. Metzger and Kurt Aland. The approach holds that the text of the New Testament should be based on both internal and external evidence without a preference for any text type.
Reasoned Conservatism
This approach is led by H. A. Sturz. The approach holds that each of the main text types is early and independent and calls for both internal and external evidence. It also emphasizes geographical distribution of text types.
Radical Conservatism
This approach is led by Z. Hodges and A. Farstad. It holds that the Byzantine text most represents the original text. The New King James’ Version is a product of this approach.
From the overall view of New Testament criticism, especially, Higher Criticism; one would toe the position of Richard Heard. He opines that the present position of New Testament criticism cannot be easily defined, although the later chapters of this book attempt to summarise some of the more generally accepted views, and to indicate the main issues of present controversy. There are many important points on which critical opinion is likely to continue divided, but there are good grounds
for thinking that we can still get from the New Testament a knowledge of Jesus and of his Church different in some respects from that of earlier days but with the same power to inspire men to follow him in their lives.
TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Introducing New Testament Textual Criticism
Let us begin this introduction to textual criticism by drawing an illustration that would be easily understood by even a layman. In Acts 8, there is the story of the Ethiopian eunuch that Philip was led to preach to by the Holy Spirit. In verse 37 of the King James’ Version the
confession of the Ethiopian eunuch was stated as follows: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God”. If you read the same account in the Revised Standard Version, you will discover that the confession is not in the text. Instead, it is placed in a footnote with the remark: “other ancient authorities add all or most of verse 37”. Again, King James Version reads “For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatever disease he had”. This verse is missing from Revised Standard Version and other later versions.
Apart from these examples of cross-version references, some versions of
the Bible like Revised Standard Version (RSV), New English Bible (NEB), Jerusalem Bible (JB), New International Version (NIV) and New American Bible (NAB) along with other modern versions always contain footnotes or list of symbols that usually refer the reader to
explanations about the text.
The question that most critical readers of the Bible and opponents of the Bible usually ask is this: why are there variants in the readings of the versions of the Bible. This is the question your study of textual criticism would attempt to answer.
The Necessity for New Testament Textual Criticism
The Non-Existence of the Autographs
One major reason that makes textual criticism necessary is that the church has no autographs (that is, the original manuscripts written by the authors) of the books of the New Testament that we have today. Some of the reasons that account for the loss of the autographs are listed as follows. One, the ancients do not believe that superstitious veneration for original manuscripts which we have to-day. In very early times the
Jews used to destroy the sacred books no longer in use, either by burying them with the remains of holy personages or by hiding them in what was called a ghenizah. Two, in the first centuries of the Christian era the Greeks and Latins generally used papyrus, a material that quickly wears out and falls to pieces. It was not until the fourth century that
parchment was commonly used, and it is also from that time that our oldest manuscripts of the Septuagint and the New Testament date.
Nothing short of a continuous miracle could have brought the text of the
inspired writers down to us without alteration or corruption, and Divine
Providence, who exercises, as it were, an economy of the supernatural, and never needlessly multiplies prodigies, did not will such a miracle.
The Nature of the Copies
By the simple reason stated above, what the church had was the copies of the autographs. The nature of these copies can be appreciated when one realizes that the copies we have are not even the firsthand or secondhand copies but copies of copies that have been handwritten by scribes.
Two, the oldest surviving manuscript of the New Testament is a fragment of John which is dated the early second century. Thus, if Jesus finished his ministry around 29 CE and the first copy of the scripture we have is around 100 CE, this tells us that there is a chronological gap of not less than 50 years between the original manuscript written by a biblical author and the earliest copy preserved.
The most astounding thing to know about these copies is that despite the fact that they are numerous and runs into thousands no two of these manuscripts are identical in every detail. The translations that were made of these writings are also not identical. Consequently, the textual variants for biblical materials are of four types:
a. Variation among manuscripts in the original language
b. Variation among manuscripts in early translations
c. Variation between ancient manuscripts in the original languages and
manuscripts of early translations, and
d. Variant quotations in early Jewish and Christian writings.
Errors in the Process of Copying
Textual variants within manuscripts of the original biblical languages are often due to corruptions of the text that occurred during the process of copying the manuscripts. The two kinds of corruption that have been detected are classified as unintentional and intentional errors. These will be discussed fully at the unit designated for it.
The Tasks of New Testament Textual Criticism
New Testament criticism actually involves three main tasks, and they
are as follows:
The Gathering and Organisation of Evidence
This first task includes the collation and comparison of manuscripts with one another with the aim of ascertaining where errors and alterations have produced variations in the text. It also includes the study of how and why these variations happened. It has to be stated that it is the process of gathering and organization of manuscripts that have given birth to text families and the use of the textual families have greatly
impacted the field of textual criticism. This grouping is done based on
genealogical relationships. If a particular variant was introduced in the fourth century CE and the same variant is introduced in an entire set of manuscripts and this was done repeatedly in a certain number of times,
all the manuscripts showing these tendencies would be grouped into the
same family. For example, some text families are said to be expansionist
because they will consistently contain variant readings that are longer than those in the other groups.
The Evaluation and Assessment
At this point the various manuscripts are evaluated and assessed along with their variants with the aim of determining the significance and implications of the evidences. This is to help the critics to determine which of the variant is likely to represent the original text.
Reconstruction of the History of the Text
At this point the critics attempt to reconstruct the history of the
transmission of the text to the extent allowed by the evidence. If this is done, the point at which various variants crept in can be determined.
The Significance of New Testament Textual Criticism
New Testament as an academic discipline has greatly influenced New Testament studies of the contemporary days. The following are some of the advantages of the discipline.
The Reconstruction of the New Testament Text
This is the most significant importance of textual criticism. Thus, one can safely conclude that textual criticism is foundational to all other studies of the New Testament. This is because without a reliable text of the New Testament all other studies are of no use be it source or redaction studies. In fact there can be no meaningful worship because there would be no reliable text to read in the church.
Knowledge of Text History
The development of textual criticism as a scientific enterprise across the decades has developed our knowledge of the process through which early manuscripts of the New Testament have been preserved and transmitted. This includes a fair knowledge of date of writing, place of origin, peculiarity and style, particular manuscripts and the relationship
of these manuscripts to other manuscripts. At another unit, we will
study some of these manuscripts and make references to some of their
characteristics and this have been made possible through the discipline called textual criticism.
A Symbiotic Relationship with Archaeology
Textual criticism and archaeology have both influenced the development and importance of one another, hence the term symbiotic relationship.
Textual criticism in the earlier centuries increased the urge for archaeological expeditions in that people went for digging in the Holy Land areas for the purpose of looking for manuscripts and have in the process found other landmark discoveries. Also some archaeological
discoveries have led to breakthroughs in the field of textual criticism.
For example, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (also called the Qumran Cave Scrolls) has provided valuable information for textual criticism.
The Basis of Good Exegesis
Observing textual criticism leads to great textual insights. This is because textual decisions require close attention to an author’s style, thought and argument and all these are in turn crucial to exegesis. In order words, you can in the process of observing textual analysis discover truths that can make your interpretation of the Bible very unique. For example, my study of the textual analysis of the parable of the Good Samaritan made me to understand that the Greek word
translated “and he brought him to an inn” can also be interpreted “and he led it to an inn”. This shows that in the process of demonstrating or showing love one may have to become a servant. Good exegesis in turn can lead to good sermons and also good doctrines or theologies.
TYPES OF SCRIBAL ERRORS IN THE NEW
TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS
Scribal errors are the errors that have crept into the New Testament in the process of copying the text of the New Testament. There are two classes of
Scribal errors. They are:
1. Unintentional Errors
2. Intentional Errors
UNINTENTIONAL OR ACCIDENTAL ERRORS
In this class there are errors of the eyes, error of the ears, errors of memory and errors of judgement.
1. Error of the Eyes
Errors of the eyes are errors that occur if the manuscript is copied by one man from one manuscript into another manuscript. The following are examples of errors of the eyes:
•Different Word Divisions
As we have indicated earlier, the uncial manuscripts are written in capitals and also continuously without any break in between words either for punctuation or to indicate different words. As a result, at times scribes could not tell where one word is expected to end and where
another should begin. For example, in the hypothetical phrase GODISNOWHERE, you may find it difficult to determine whether the writer wants to say “God is now here” or “God is nowhere”. A biblical
example of this would be found in 1st Timothy 3:16. In the said verse, there is a Greek word “omologoumenos”. If this word is taken as one word, it will be translated “confessedly” in English as in the King James Version and if it is taken as two words, it would be translated “we
confess”. To avoid this problem, most modern translators avoid the use of direct translation. For example, the New International Version uses “beyond all questions”.
•Misinterpretation of Abbreviations
It was common for scribes in those days to use abbreviations for certain words. When such manuscripts are being copies however, the other scribes may not be able to recognize the presence of abbreviations and confuse the words with other words of the same spelling. Note that abbreviations then consist in the use of the first and the last letter of the word. Let us take an example from 1st Timothy 3:16 where such confusions occurred. The hymn that was quoted in the verse begins with Os. Since theos, the Greek word for God could have been abbreviated as such, it was difficult for some scribes to distinguish between “who” and “God” in that verse. This is the reason behind the King James’
Version use of “God” and the New International Version use of “he” which would apparently refer to God. It should be noted however that some
manuscripts uses “who”.
•Identical Letters
As you have learnt earlier, both the papyri and the early parchments were written in a style of writing known as "uncial" (also sometimes called "majuscule"). This is, more or less, what we would call "uppercase letters." The letters were large, and the various letterforms were not connected. For the most part, the letters fall between two lines. In the earliest manuscripts, there were no accents, no breathings, no
punctuation, and no spaces between words. This doubtless led to certain
errors, as scribes misread undivided words and sentences. These include the possibility of confusing Greek capital letter sigma ( ) for capital letter ( ) and capital letter ( ) for capital letter ( ). For example, in Romans 6:5 there is a Greek word ama ( ) and this had been rendered by some manuscripts as alla ( ). ama means ‘together’ and alla means ‘but’. This confusion is obvious because the Greek L, when unconnected and doubles actually looks like M.
•Homoeuteleuton and Haplography
These are normal errors that occur especially when there is fatigue when
one is reading. These might have occurred to you too as you read. At
times when you get tired and you still want to read you discover that you begin to omit or repeat some phrases or lines. These have caused some errors in the sacred writings too.
Homoeuteleuton is the repetition of some words or phrases when two lines or clauses end with identical words or phrases while haplography is the omission of some words or phrases when two lines or clauses end with identical words or letters. Haplography is the opposite of homoeuteleuton.
2.Error of the Ears
Unlike the errors of the eyes, the errors of the ears occur when copying is done by dictation. It has to be stated that there are times that in the quest for multiple copies, scribes would have some people doing the copying of the manuscripts while there is the head of the team reading the manuscripts out to the copyists.
The basic problem is that some Greek vowels have identical sounds like (eta) and (iota). This is the problem that occurred in 1 John 1:4.
Some manuscripts use and others use . This is the reason why King James’ Version reads “your joy” and the New International Version and New American Standard Bible read “our joy”. Another
example is in Romans 5:1. In this verse, some manuscripts have (which is a present active indicative verb) that will be translated as “we have” while others have (which is a participle form) that will be translated as “let us go on having”.
3.Error of the memory
The errors of memory take many forms but the principle is identical. It was common for the scribes to change the readings in the Gospel to agree with the reading of a similar passage from another passage of the gospel known to them. For example, the Lord’s Prayer in the King James’ Version as it appears in Matthew 6:9 and Luke 11:2-4 are
identical. This is because in the manuscript upon which the King James’
Version was based, the Luke’s edition of the prayer has been adapted to the Matthew edition. If one takes up the Revised Standard Version and check the two passages, the difference in the rendering of the two gospel accounts would be obvious.
Another common error is to make quotations from the Old Testament to
agree with the exact words of the Old Testament text. For example, in some manuscripts of Matthew, the quotation of Isaiah 29:13 in Matthew 15:8 has been elongated to contain the exact words of Prophet Isaiah.
4.Error of the Judgement
Some people write marginal notes in their manuscripts as it is still the practice with many people today. However, because the writing of the notes and the actual readings are handwritten, when such manuscripts are to be copied, the scribe is faced with a decision as to whether to
delete the marginal notes or incorporate them into the text as if they are part of the text. In some cases, these marginal notes have been incorporated into the text of the new copy which in turn becomes a copy for new copies. An example can be found in John 5:4 which the King James’ Version rendered as follows:
For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the
troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
The later versions of the Bible like the Revised Standard Version and the New International Version among others omit this verse (that is, John 5:4) and explains at the footnote that it comes from unreliable manuscripts.
Intentional Errors
This occurs when a scribe intentionally tinkered with or altered the readings of a passage of the scriptures for any reason whatsoever. This can be done however to justify a doctrinal position as is the case in 1 John 5:7 of the King James’ Version which reads: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one”. It is glaring from the above passage that whosoever emended the passage is actually interested in showing that the doctrine of Trinity (which many still argue today as not being explicitly taught in the Bible) is actually biblical. The New International
Version renders the same passage thus: “For there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement”.
THE PROCESS OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM
In the last sub-topic, you have been exposed to the various types of scribal
errors that have crept into the manuscripts of the New Testament during the process of copying. In this sub-topic, you will be exposed to the processes involved in textual criticism and the various principles that are employed. As such you will be introduced to methods like eclecticism,stemmatcics, copy-text editing and cladistics. The
presentation will attempt to highlight the weaknesses of each of these methods of textual criticism.
The Process of Textual Criticism
As you have studied earlier, the raw materials used in the process of textual criticism are the manuscripts that are available as evidence or witness for the text of the New Testament. It is these manuscripts that are judged according to some criteria to arrive at the current text as we have it.
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is the practice of examining a wide number of witnesses and selecting the variant that seems best. The result of the process is a text with readings drawn from many witnesses. In a purely eclectic approach, no single witness is theoretically favored. Instead, the critic
forms opinions about individual witnesses, relying on both external and
internal evidence.
Since the mid-19th century, eclecticism, in which there is no a priori bias to a single manuscript, has been the dominant method of editing the Greek text of the New Testament (currently, the United Bible Society, 4th ed. and Nestle-Aland, 27th ed.). Even so, the oldest manuscripts, being of the Alexandrian text-type, are the most favored, and the critical text has an Alexandrian disposition.
The external evidence is that furnished by documents reproducing the text in whole or in part, in the original or in a translation-diplomatic evidence-and the internal is that resulting from the examination of the text itself, independently of its extrinsic attestation-paradiplomatic evidence. We shall consider them separately.
External (Diplomatic) Evidence
In using external evidence, the evidence for a work of which the original
manuscript is lost is furnished by; (a) copies, (manuscripts), (b) versions, and (c) quotations. These three do not always exist simultaneously, and the order in which they are here enumerated does not indicate their relative authority.
Manuscripts
With regards to the copies of ancient works three things are to be considered, namely: (i) age, (ii) value, and (iii) genealogy.
Age
Age is sometimes indicated by a note in the manuscript itself; but the date, when not suspected of falsification, may simply be transcribed from the exemplar. However, as dated manuscripts are usually not very old, recourse must be had to various palæographic indications which generally determine with sufficient accuracy the age of Greek and Latin
manuscripts. Besides, the exact age of a copy is, after all, only of minor
importance, as it is quite possible that an ancient manuscript may be very corrupt while a later one, copied from a better exemplar, may come nearer to the primitive text. However, other things being equal, the presumption is naturally in favour of the more ancient document, since it is connected with the original by fewer intervening links and consequently has been exposed to fewer possibilities of error.
Value
It is more important to ascertain the relative value than the age of a
manuscript. Some evidences inspire but little confidence, because they have frequently been found to be defective, while others are readily accepted because critical examination has in every instance shown them to be veracious and exact. But how is the critic to discriminate? Prior to examination, the readings of a text are divided into three or four classes: the certainly or probably true, the doubtful, and the certainly or probably false. A manuscript is rated good or excellent when it presents in general true readings and contains few or none that are certainly false; under
contrary conditions it is considered mediocre or worthless. Needless to add, the intrinsic excellence of a manuscript is not measured according to the greater or less care exercised by the scribes; a manuscript may teem with copyist's errors, though it be made from a very correct exemplar; and one transcribed from a defective exemplar may be
considered merely as a copy, but quite faultless.
Genealogy
The genealogy of documents, from a critical view-point, is most interesting and important. As soon as it is proven that a manuscript, no matter what its antiquity, is simply a copy of another existing manuscript, the former should evidently disappear from the list of
authorities, since its particular testimony is of no value in establishing the primitive text. This, for instance, is what happened to the "Codex
Sangermanensis" (E of the Pauline Epistles) when it was proven to be a
defective copy of the "Codex Claromontanus" (D of the Pauline
Epistles). Now, if a text were preserved in ten manuscripts, nine of which had sprung from a common ancestor, we would not therefore have ten independent testimonies but two, as the first nine would count for only one, and could not, therefore, outweigh the tenth, unless it were shown that the common exemplar of the nine was a better one than that from which the tenth was taken. The consequences of this principle are obvious, and the advantage and necessity of grouping the testimonies for a text into families is readily understood.
Versions
The importance of the ancient versions in the textual criticism of the New Testament arises from the fact that the versions are often far anterior to the most ancient manuscripts. For the New Testament the Italic and the Peshito versions are of the second century, the Coptic is of the third, while the “Vaticanus” and the “Sinaiticus”, which are our oldest manuscripts, date only from the fourth. These translations,
moreover, made on the initiative and under the superintendence of the
ecclesiastical authorities, or at least approved and sanctioned by the
Churches that made public use of them, have undoubtedly followed the exemplars which were esteemed the best and most correct; and this is a guarantee in favour of the purity of the text they represent.
Unfortunately, the use of versions in textual criticism offers numerous and sometimes insurmountable difficulties. First of all, unless the version be quite literal and scrupulously faithful, one is often at a loss to determine with certainty which reading it represents. And besides, we have few or no ancient versions edited according to the exigencies of rigorous criticism; the manuscripts of these versions differ from one another considerably, and it is often hard to trace the primitive reading.
When there have been several versions in the same language, as is the case, for example, in Latin, Syriac, and Coptic, it is seldom that one version has not in the long run reacted on the other. Again, the different copies of a version have frequently been retouched or corrected
according to the original, and at various epochs some sorts of recessions have been made.
Quotations
That the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament, the Septuagint and the Vulgate has profited by quotations from the Fathers is beyond question; but in using this authority there is need for caution and reserve. Very often Biblical texts are quoted from memory, and many writers have the habit of quoting inaccurately. In his Prolegomena to the
eighth edition of Tischendorf (pp. 1141-1142), Gregory gives three very
instructive examples on this subject. Charles Hodge, the author of highly
esteemed commentaries, when informed that his quotation from Genesis, iii, 15, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head", was a serious inaccuracy, refused to change it on the ground that his translation had passed into use. In his history of the Vulgate the learned Kaulen twice quoted the well-known saying of St. Augustine, once
accurately, and once inaccurately. Furthermore, it should be noted that
the text of our editions is not always to be depended upon. We know that copyists, when transcribing the works of the Fathers, whether Greek or Latin, frequently substitute for Biblical quotations that form of text with which they are most familiar, and even the editors of former times were not very scrupulous in this respect. Quotations have a greater value in the eyes of the critic when a commentary fully guarantees the text; and the authority of a quotation is highest when a writer whose reputation for critical habits is well established, such as Origen or St.
Jerome, formally attests that a given reading was to be found in the best
or most ancient manuscripts of his time. It is obvious that such evidence
overrules that furnished by a simple manuscript of the same epoch.
Internal or Paradiplomatic Evidence
Internal evidence is evidence that comes from the text itself, independent of the physical characteristics of the document. Various considerations can be used to decide which reading is the most likely to be original. Though internal evidence seldom suffices for a firm decision, it nevertheless corroborates, and sometimes modifies, the verdict of the documents. The rules of internal criticism are simply the axioms of good sense, whose application calls for large experience and consummate judgment to ward off the danger of arbitrariness amid subjectivism. The following are the rules that can be considered as very
important.
Rule 1
Among several variants that is to be preferred which best agrees with the
context and most closely conforms to the style and mental habits of the author.
Hort in The New Testament in the Original Greek explains this rule as
follows:
The decision may be made either by an immediate and as it were intuitive judgment, or by weighing cautiously
various elements which go to make up what is called sense, such as conformity to grammar and congruity to the
purport of the rest of the sentence and of the larger context; to which may rightly be added congruity to the usual style of the author and to his matter in other passages. The process may take the form either of simply comparing two or more rival readings under these
heads, and giving the preference to that which appears to have the advantage, or of rejecting a reading absolutely for
violation of one or more of the congruities, or of adopting a reading absolutely for perfection of congruity.
Rule 2
Among several readings that is preferable which explains all others and
is explained by none.
The basis for the rule is that the reading that is not explained by any other readings may have been the root for the ones that it explains. This rule has to be subjected to careful use because it is subject to arbitrary applications.
Rule 3
The more difficult reading is also the more probable.
Although it may seem entirely paradoxical, this rule is, in a certain
measure, founded on reason. Copyists usually never change their text merely for the pleasure of rendering it obscure or of corrupting it; on the contrary, they rather try to explain or correct it. Hence a harsh expression, an irregular phrase, and an unlooked-for thought are
possibly primitive. It has to be noted however that the difficulty of the reading may arise from other causes, such as the ignorance of the scribe or the defects of the exemplar which he copies.
Rule 4
The shortest reading is, in general, the best.
The basis for this rule is that copyists are prone to elongate rather than
summarize the readings of a given text.
Stemmatics
Stemmatics is a rigorous approach to textual criticism developed by Karl
Lachmann (1793–1851) and others. It takes its name from the stemma, or "family tree," which shows the relationships of the surviving witnesses. The method works from the principle that "community of error implies community of origin." That is, if two witnesses have a number of errors in common, it may be presumed that they were derived from a common intermediate source, called a hyparchetype. Relations between the lost intermediates are determined by the same process, placing all extant manuscripts in a family tree or stemma codicum descended from a single archetype.
Having completed the stemma, the critic proceeds to the next step, called selection or selectio, where the text of the archetype is determined by examining variants from the closest hyparchetypes to the archetype
and selecting the best ones. If one reading occurs more often than
another at the same level of the tree, then the dominant reading is selected. If two competing readings occur equally often, then the editor uses his judgment to select the correct reading.
After selectio, the text may still contain errors, since there may be passages where no source preserves the correct reading. The step of examination, or examinatio is applied to find corruptions. Where the editor concludes that the text is corrupt, it is corrected by a process
called "emendation," or emendatio (also sometimes called divinatio).
Emendations not supported by any known source are sometimes called
conjectural emendations.
The process of selectio resembles eclectic textual criticism, but applied
to a restricted set of hypothetical hyparchetypes. The steps of examinatio and emendatio resemble copy-text editing. In fact, the other techniques can be seen as special cases of stemmatics, but in which a rigorous family history of the text cannot be determined but only
approximated. If it seems that one manuscript is by far the best text, then
copy text editing is appropriate, and if it seems that a group of manuscripts are good, then eclecticism on that group would be proper.
Copy-Text Editing
In using copy-text editing, the textual critic selects a base text from a
manuscript thought to be reliable. Often, the base text is selected from the oldest manuscript of the text.
The critic then examines the base text and makes corrections (called
emendations) in places where the base text appears wrong to the critic.
This can be done by looking for places in the base text that do not make sense or by looking at the text of other witnesses for a superior reading.
The first published, printed edition of the Greek New Testament was produced by this method. Erasmus, the editor, selected a manuscript from the local Dominican monastery in Basle and corrected its obvious errors by consulting other local manuscripts. The Westcott and Hort text, which was the basis for the Revised Version of the English bible, also used the copy-text method, using the Codex Vaticanus as the base manuscript.
Clasdistics
Cladistics is a technique borrowed from biology, where it is used to determine the evolutionary relationships between different species. The text of a number of different manuscripts is entered into a computer, which records all the differences between them. The manuscripts are then grouped according to their shared characteristics. The difference between cladistics and more traditional forms of statistical analysis is
that, rather than simply arranging the manuscripts into rough groupings
according to their overall similarity, cladistics assumes that they are part
of a branching family tree and uses that assumption to derive relationships between them. This makes it more like an automated approach to stemmatics. However, where there is a difference, the computer does not attempt to decide which reading is closer to the original text, and so does not indicate which branch of the tree is the "root" - which manuscript tradition is closest to the original. Other types of evidence must be used for that purpose.
The major theoretical problem with applying cladistics to textual criticism is that cladistics assumes that, once a branching has occurred in the family tree, the two branches cannot rejoin; so all similarities can be taken as evidence of common ancestry. While this assumption is applicable to the evolution of living creatures, it is not always true of manuscript traditions, since a scribe can work from two different manuscripts at once, producing a new copy with characteristics of both.
Definition of Source Criticism
Source Criticism is an aspect of historical criticism, a method of literary
study used especially in the field of biblical criticism that seeks to
understand a literary piece better by attempting to establish the sources used by the author and or redactor who put the literary piece together.
Sometimes biblical scholars use the term literary criticism as a synonym for source criticism.
In biblical studies, source criticism is tied to the historical-critical approach which is heavily historical in orientation. Source criticism has its origins in the attempt by historians to reconstruct biblical history. 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 identity and date those sources used by biblical writers as the first step in evaluating their historical reliability.
Source Criticism begins with the hypothesis that the biblical writings as
we now have them are a combination of once distinct written documents that were only later brought together. So today source critics try to decipher as much as they can about these original documents or sources and the authors who wrote them.
History of Source Criticism
Source criticism has a long history, and is one of the foundational methodologies of the historical critical method. Spinoza's preliminary analysis of the Bible was an early form of this method combined with elements of what would now be termed ‘redaction criticism' (a study of how the documents were edited and came to their final form). The early
conclusions of the source critics of the Jewish Testament, which were widely accepted until recent times, became known as the Documentary Hypothesis, the contribution of Wellhausen. The theory postulated four separate sources, the ‘J' document (or Yahwist) document and the ‘E' (or ‘Elohim') document, the ‘D' or Deuteronomist source (found, of course in Deuteronomy, but also to be found in redactional additions, during or
after the exile, to the historical books of Kings, usually in the form of ‘D' type polemics intended to ‘correct' the earlier belief in the Divine Protection of the Jewish people by adding commentary on the subject of ‘sin' and ‘punishment' to bring the earlier and more optimistic traditions into line with the experience of conquest and exile while still
maintaining the earlier faith in God), and a fourth source, ‘P' or the Priestly source consisted of ritual laws and various retelling of parables from the perspective of the Levitical priesthood.
Methodology in Source Criticism
Before focusing on the methodology in source criticism it is important to point out the two main problems that source criticism is concerned with. These are the problems of locating the source for a single document (as in the case of the book of Genesis) as well as sources and
relationships between sources for independent documents (as in the
synoptic gospels).
To discern the discrete sources of a text, these three steps are usually
applied to it:
Step 1: Searching for textual anomalies or irregularities
The source critic would be on the lookout for what can be described as
irregularities in the reading of the text. These can feature in any of the
following:
Thematic inconsistency
Thematic inconsistency shows itself in abrupt changes in the main theme or in the tone of the text change.
Repetition
This happens when you suddenly find yourself reading another version of a previous story. In most cases, there
would be a contradiction in the two accounts. For example there seems to be a very close relationship between the Parable of the Wedding of the King’s Son in Matthew and the Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke.
Digression
This occurs when there seems to be some explanatory comment or story
interrupting the main text. For example, in John 1, verse 3-13 seems to be some sort of explanation disrupting the flow of John 1: 2-14.
Different vocabulary or style
There are times when the text includes certain words, expressions and idioms characteristic of a certain group’s perspective. There are times also that the text shift "persons" as in the book of Acts from the 3rd person narrative to the 1st person narrative. These can be indications of different sources.
Step 2: Isolating the anomaly from the surrounding text
When these anomalies are found, they are listed and isolated for careful
examination. For example, if a repetition is found, the accounts are laid out side-by-side, so that the differences and similarities can be seen more easily.
Step 3: Discerning and listing the themes important to the anomalous passage and to the surrounding text.
A source critic would then integrate these results with his or her knowledge of Israelite history and literary production, in order to discern the date and meaning of each passage.
Definition of Form Criticism
Form criticism is a method of biblical criticism adopted as a means of
analyzing the typical features of texts, especially their conventional forms or structures, in order to relate them to their sociological contexts.
‘Form Criticism’ is the English rendering of the German Formgeschichte “form history” or Gattungsforschung “genre research.”
It is an attempt to analyze oral materials (or written materials that have been transmitted orally) by identifying their literary form(s) and reconstructing them in their most primitive versions.
History of Form Criticism
Form Criticism berthed when Hermann Gunkel espoused that it is possible for scholars to pry into the pre-literary stages of the synoptic gospels by applying form criticism to the book of Genesis. This attempt by Gunkel spurred New Testament scholars into action.
Three scholars are credited with the beginning of form criticism in the New Testament. In 1919 K. L. Schmidt published The Framework of the Story of Jesus. Schmidt’s work was a
comprehensive study of the entire gospel tradition and his conclusions gingered other New Testament scholars to action. The following are the key conclusions of
Schmidt:
Mark was the earliest of the synoptic gospels and it was used by Matthew and Luke along with non-Markan materials.
Mark was made up of short episodes linked together by a series of bridge passages which provide chronology, geography and a movement of Jesus’ life from the early point of his ministry to his arrest. This leads to his final submission that the oldest tradition of Jesus consisted of individual stories which have been united by early Christians with their different religious, apologetic and missionary interest.
Despite all this, it has to be noted that Schmidt did not really utilize the tools of form criticism. This was taken up by Martin Dibelius and Rudolf Bultmann.
Martin Dibelius was the first to apply form criticism to the gospel tradition. In fact, the term form criticism
(formgeschichte) came into use as a result of the title of his work Form Traditon to the Gospels. The aim of Dibelius was to explain by reconstruction and analysis the origins of the tradition about Jesus and to penetrate into the pre-literary period of the gospel.
Bultmann published his work titled History of the Synoptic Tradition in 1921. His aim was to discover the original units of the synoptic gospels and to establish what their historical setting was, whether it was primary or secondary tradition or whether they were products of
editorial activity. As a consequence of this, Bultmann’s name and method have been more closely associated with form critcism than that of Dibelius.
PRESUPPOSITIONS OF FORM CRITICISM
Source Criticism
The early form critics accepted and built upon the conclusions of source
criticism. The literary interdependence of the gospels provided a profitable tool for form criticism. It has to be noted however that source criticism is only the starting point for form criticism.
Independent Unit of Tradition
The fundamental assumption which in fact makes form criticism necessary and possible in that the traditon consists basically of individual sayings and narratives joined together in the gospel by the works of editor.
The Passion Narrative
The Passion narrative is the only form of the gospel material that seems as an exception to the assumption that there were no connected narratives of the life of Jesus in the earliest period. Both Dibelius and Bultmann agree that the Passion narrative of the synoptics is an early composition of a connected narrative.
The Tradition and the Church
The traditon served the needs and purposes of the church. They assume
that the tradition is thus church oriented.
Classification of Forms
Both Dibelius and Bultmann assume that the materials can be classified into forms and that these classfications can enable the students to reconstruct the history of the tradition. It is accepted that each unit has a form to which it is put. The following are the forms according to
Bultmann:
SAYINGS/DISCOURSE
The discourses of Jesus are divided into two main groups: apophthegms and dominical sayings.
Apophthegms
These are the short sayings of Jesus that are set in a brief context.
Bultmann identified three different types of this class. They are as follows:
Controversy Dialogues
These are the dialogues that are occasioned by conflicts over such
matters as healings and conduct of the disciples of Jesus. An example of this is the healing of the man with dropsy on the sabbath day.
Scholastic Dialogues
These are the dialogues that arise through questions from opponnets of
Jesus. An example is “Which of the commandments is the greatest” and the ensuing dialogue.
Biographical Apophthegms
These are forms of historical reports.
Dominical Sayings
Proverbs
These are the sayings that show Jesus as a teacher of wisdom in comparison with the teachers of Israel. They are often declarative statements given as a principle. For example, “for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”. They also come in the form of
imperatives like, “physician, heal yourself,” as well as interrogatives like “can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them”?
Prophetic/Apocalyptic Sayings
These are sayings that procalimaed the coming of God’s kingdom, call to repentance and woes upon the
unrepentant. Examples are, “repent, for
the kingdom of God is at hand”.
“I” Sayings
These are the sayings attributed to Jesus in which he speaks of himself, his work and his destiny. For example, “I have not come to abolish the law”.
The Parables
The parables are concise and simple story which is much like a popular story in its concrete language, its use of dialectical language and soliloquy as well as repetition. It is usually acepted that though Jesus spoke in parables, the church transmitted the parables and used them for their owm purpose.
Narratives
Narrative materials are divided into two classes by Bultmann. They are miracle stories and historical narratives and legends.
Miracle Stories
These are stories of healing and nature miracles in which the miracle constitutes the main theme and is described with considerable detail. It has to be noted that miracle stories may occur under the apophthegms, but in that case the miracle is subordinated to the point of the apophthegm.
Historical Narratives and Legends
These are religious and edifying narratives which are not properly miracle stories although they may include
something miraculous and are not basically historical although they may not be based on historical happenings.