Historical Critical Hermeneutic

Can anyone offer a sound argument for the Historical-Critical Hermeneutic as a better hermeneutic than the literal?

Thanks.

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Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.
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that would depend on what you believe "literal" to be.

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ἕλπ μι

Ephesians 6:24 ἡ χάρις μετὰ πάντων τῶν ἀγαπώντων τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ.

When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth he either ceases to be mistaken or begins to be dishonest.

I'm sorry. By literal I was referring to the Historical-Grammatical method. The method of trying to determine what the original intent of the Scripture was.

So, in my opinion the Historical-Critical method is used primarily to justify things people want to justify that the text clearly does not allow if read literally. Does anyone have a defense for the Historical-Critical Hermeneutic or am I correct in thinking it is simply an academic means of putting authority behind twisting the scriptures to allow the acceptance of sin?

So, I would like to hear someone defend the historical critical method as to why people think it is a better method.

Thanks.

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Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.
--C.H. Spurgeon

Ok, now I understand. I don't think I would be able to make a good case for the use of the Historical-Critical method other than both methods really are reaching for different things.

The H/G method is basically looking at the text and trying to determine what the author meant to those he wrote to in the letter. And the H/C method is trying to determine how the text came about in the form it is in and what factors brought it there.

It would seem to me the H/C method uses outside sources to try and determine how the text came to be and why.

I do not really think the H/C method helps the case any. I think Lower Criticism (textual criticism) should be used only to determine the original wording and the H/G used to try and determine authorial intent and insightful Chrisitians to discover how to apply it to us today.

Blessings,
Chris

__________________
ἕλπ μι

Ephesians 6:24 ἡ χάρις μετὰ πάντων τῶν ἀγαπώντων τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ.

When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth he either ceases to be mistaken or begins to be dishonest.

I find the Historical-critical method extremely valuable for pointing out underlying differences in the text. For instance, I might not have taken note of Isaiah's stylistic change between chs. 1-39 and 40-66, unless someone had said, "there was a different author beginning at chapter 40 due to the evident changes in style". I note the chages in style and toss out his hypothesis that a writer cannnot possibly change his style over the course of his lifetime. :-)

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An Unrepentant Chiliast.
(and sometimes Spirit-filled Southern Baptist)

That makes sense. I find some of the things they base their conclusions on baseles as well. There is no reason Isaiah didn't change his writing style. It doesn't have to be another author at all.

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Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.
--C.H. Spurgeon

DD2008

You ask:

I'm a committed evangelical who is not in support of liberal theological methods that destroy the biblical text, however this term, "the Historical Critical Hermeneutic", needs definition. "Historical critical" vs "literal" seems to be creating a dichotomy that may not be necessary.

This article calls the higher-critical method a "deadly enemy." Here's an explanation of the "historical-critical method." This article finds the historical-critical method dangerous.

I use the term, "historical criticism", and I do not find it easy to define. When I went to Bible college and then seminary, I learned the difference between "lower criticism" and "higher criticism."

Lower criticism examines biblical texts of the manuscripts to determine which are most accurate. This has to be done before, say, any Greek NT can be produced. These lower critics ask, "Which Bible manuscripts should be used for the basis of the modern translation Bible versions?"

Higher criticism (sometimes called historical criticism) is a literary analysis that tries to get to the origins of a text. It tries to use a scientific process to investigate how a text is written, developed and transmitted. It asks the question: "What were the historical circumstances of this text and how did it emerge from the circumstances in which it was written?" Sadly, with historical criticism, a lot of individual presuppositions have been placed on the method of trying to find the origin of a text.

In fact, we probably would not have a KJV translation without the lower criticism that Erasmus did in bringing together the Greek text known as the Textus Receptus. Since then, we have had older Greek manuscripts found (closer to the time of the Apostles), thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Greek text behind the NIV, ESV and other modern translations, is more accurate than the Textus Receptus.

It is true that in the 17th and 18th centuries, Protestants used historical criticism in a more radical way and the literal sense of Scripture collapsed into an historical critical approach that became antagonistic to Scripture. Despite this misapplication of the method through inappropriate conjectures by some critics, I am a genuinely historically critical student of the Bible. It can help me to better understand the Bible's background. It does not have to undermine my faith but it can establish it. It can help me to be self-critical of my study.

I accept that the Bible is absolutely a divine document (2 Tim. 3:16-17 – it is "God-breathed") but it is also a human document in that holy men of God were propelled along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). For me to understand the Scriptures, I need to historically investigate dimensions of the Bible in a critical way. For example:

·Should women still wear a head covering when the church gathers for worship? (I Cor. 11:2ff);
·What about the Lord's Supper? Is transubstantiation correct (we are taking of the blood of Jesus when we take the wine)? Or is communion a "remembrance" occasion?
·What about women in ministry?
·Do we baptise infants or is baptism only for believers?
·In Luke 1:1-4, Luke was obviously referring to other "narratives." What sources are behind Luke's Gospel? How does oral tradition fit into the compilation of Scriptures?

I have to use the historical-critical method to arrive at an understanding of the texts, but I must be aware that it is too easy for me to impose my will on the text. I need you, brothers and sisters in Christ, to be people of discernment so that I do not do that.

In Christ,
OzSpen

Yes, but its also using the historical-critical method by which scholars arrive at late dates for biblical books (they say Jude written in the 2nd c.) and deem many canonical works pseudepigrapha, ie. works written by persons other than their purported authors (they say 1 & 2 Timothy were not written by Paul).

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An Unrepentant Chiliast.
(and sometimes Spirit-filled Southern Baptist)

SummaScriptura,

Every method can be used legitimately and illegitimately. That's why we as believers need to be thinking people of discernment.

By the way, how do you in 2009 arrive at a determination that Paul wrote 1 & 2 Timothy and that, say, 2 Peter should be in the canon of Scripture?

How do you decide if Mark 16:9-20 is in the original text (as in the Textus Receptus & KJV) or not (as in the UBS Greek text used by modern translations such as NIV, ESV, NRSV, etc)?

Sincerely,
OzSpen

Understood, but above you painted a picture that lower criticism is just about selecting texts. I was correcting that emphasis.

1 and 2 Timothy claim to have been written by Paul. By faith I accept they were faithfully passed down by the faithful and do not believe they are pseudepigrapha.