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Biblical criticism

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Biblical criticism today may be viewed as an umbrella term covering various techniques for applying literary historical-critical methods in analyzing and studying the Bible and its textual content. The word "criticism" is not to be taken in the negative sense of attempting to denigrate the Bible, although this motive is found in its history. Technically, biblical criticism simply refers to the scholarly approach of studying, evaluating and critically assessing the Bible as literature in order to understand it better.

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Biblical criticism today may be viewed as an umbrella term covering various techniques for applying literary historical-critical methods in analyzing and studying the Bible and its textual content. The word "criticism" is not to be taken in the negative sense of attempting to denigrate the Bible, although this motive is found in its history. Technically, biblical criticism simply refers to the scholarly approach of studying, evaluating and critically assessing the Bible as literature in order to understand it better. Originally synonymous with “higher criticism,” the term biblical criticism is now seen to encompass the whole spectrum of critical methods for applying general literary historical principles to evaluate the Bible and its text. Higher criticism, arising from 19th century European rationalism, generally takes a secular approach asking questions regarding the origin and composition of the text, including when and where it originated, how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced, what influences were at work in its production, and what original oral or written sources may have been used in its composition; and the message of the text as expressed in its language, including the meaning of the words as well as the way in which they are arranged in meaningful forms of expression. The principles of higher criticism are based on reason rather than revelation and are also speculative by nature. Lower criticism, also called Textual criticism, generally asks questions having to do with the preservation and transmission of the biblical text, including in what manuscripts the text has been preserved, their date, setting, and relationship to each other, and therefore what is the most reliable form of the text. In this sense, it is virtually synonymous with what is called Textual Criticism. Statistical criticism, uses mathematical and statistical methods to sift through variant readings. Instead of using manuscript families and the bible critic's own reason, this type of criticism puts the various texts into a statistical formula to derive its text.