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While textual criticism tries to establish the most accurate version of the ancient text, the original project of the higher criticism was to determine the authorship of the Old Testament. Leading practitioners included [Rudolf Buhltmann]? and his students. |
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[The above seems to be an attack on higher criticism, rather than an explanation of it.] |
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An important goal was to demythologize the miraculous events of the Bible by finding alternative explanations for scientifically and chronologically impossible events. One example is the explanation that Jesus did not literally walk on the water, but perceived from the shore a sand bank in the [Sea of Galilee]? along which he walked to the boat; only the later mythologizing of the apostles? interpreted the event as a miracle. Many traditional Christians contend that higher criticism assumes what it attempts to show, that without the miracles, the Bible lacks evidence of a Deity?. |
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Lower textual criticism tries to establish the most accurate version of a text. Higher textual criticism tries to determine the authorship of a text. The primary goal of both fields of research is the search for historical truth. For some, however, the goal of higher textual criticism of the Bible was to demythologize the Bible. Traditional Christians and Orthodox Jews contend that higher criticism assumes what it attempts to show, that without the miracles, the Bible lacks evidence of a Deity?. Scholars respond by pointing out that belief in God has nothing to do with belief in whether a certain text has more than one author. See JEDP theory |
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