I would suggest that the Church has used it in its primitive forms, certainly going back to some of the work done by people like Origen. Also, Jerome had to consult various texts for his translation, which again, would have been at the very least using a form of historical, literary, and even textual criticisms.
Historical-critical exegesis needs to add faith-hermeneuticThat seems like an unreasonable and frankly rather arrogant perspective to me.
Ask that question and you have to ask a whole lot of other questions, like why the Holy Spirit didn’t reveal germ theory and save millions of lives, or why the Holy Spirit didn’t guide the Church sooner into an unequivocal condemnation of slavery. HIgher criticism is trivial by comparison. It sheds helpful light on the historical context of Scripture and reveals richer dimensions of Scripture. But the traditional theological interpretation of the Church was and is far more important.
St. Thomas Aquinas would be too shocked that Catholics don’t persecute heretics any more to even notice higher criticism
(Note: that’s hyperbole, just in case you’re wondering. He’d probably find the two things about equally problematic.)There’s some truth in this accusation, but when conservatives raise it it’s a blatant case of the pot calling the kettle black. The narrowmindedness in liberal institutions is subtle and hypocritical. the narrowmindedness in conservative institutions is blatant and unapologetic. I suppose in a way the latter is more morally defensible. But it is far more pervasive and rigid. That is to say, it is possible for a conservative scholar to get hired in a liberal institution. There is no official rule that prevents it, and if the faculty are humane and reasonable people they are likely to be almost as open-minded as they officially claim to be. But faculty at a school that has a statement of faith excluding higher critical views do not have that leeway. In other words, even though it’s true that liberals are much, much more narrow-minded than they claim to be, conservatives are much, much more narrow-minded than liberals, precisely because they claim to be narrow-minded and aren’t ashamed of it. (In my experience at an evangelical institution, conservatives are also much more narrow-minded than they claim to be. In other words, there’s still plenty of hypocrisy and a second set of “unofficial” standards reinforcing the “official” ones. At liberal schools, you only have the “unofficial” standards to worry about.)
Yes. I think Pope Benedict’s perspective here is very healthy.
, TAN, 1986, p 237].
It must not think it’s a real thing.
I’m sorry that what I said sounds arrogant, but I do stand behind what I said. I love textual criticism and comparisons of manuscripts and many things that have come from comparing texts, I think that is wonderful, and I follow many of those principals in my own works. But in my opinion, what has happened is that among the good that has been done, there is a level of antagonism that is involved. When I read the philosophy behind some of the systems of theories it sounds as if they were written by unbelievers, as if its a “ride the fence” system that says that Scripture is inspired yet most of the miraculous in Scripture is didactic exaggerations and stories written by people who place to their writing the authorship of someone other than themselves. That is a fact, and that not only causes me a tremendous amount of hesitation, but I have seen peoples faith rocked and shaken when they enter theological institutions. I see it with people on this forum who are extremely troubled by that whole school of thought. It is very troubling for many people.
I agree that there are problems with this approach. But in fact there are good reasons for making some of these judgments. What I was disagreeing with, again, was your statement that you wouldn’t believe the Bible if these views were true. That’s what I’m trying to challenge. In my opinion statements like this do huge harm to the faith of the “weak,” because if they then become convinced that the critical positions you’re talking about are correct, they will be more likely to lose their faith.
I understand what you are saying. But that is simply my opinion and not something that I expect to be what everyone should think as well. Personally I would not believe in something so deeply when I feel that its foundation is based on stories that are forgeries. Some people can, and more power to them. There is very good reason why so many people cannot stand the historical critical method.
I don’t think “forgeries” is the right word. Most people I know who accept the conventional historical-critical opinions would argue that the books in question are not forgeries. In my own case, that’s one reason why I have come to be a bit more skeptical about some of the historical-critical consensus opinions on the Epistles in particular, where the forgery issue is particularly acute. It’s commonly claimed that “pseudepigraphical” writing isn’t the same as forgery. Ben Witherington (an evangelical scholar whom I generally find sensible and reliable on these sorts of issues) says that this is true for some genres, like apocalyptic, but not for letters. He would argue, for instance, that II Peter contains an authentic letter of Peter with later material added (such as most of the letter of Jude, which is reproduced almost verbatim in II Peter 2). I mention this to show that not everyone who uses historical-critical method is OK with calling Biblical material forgery, and that there are various ways of dealing with questions of authorship between the extremes of accepting uncritically the traditional ascriptions and accusing the Biblical authors of forgery.
No one has been “forced to retract” the denial of David’s historicity, though there have been discoveries that give more support to the view that there was a historical David. Still, we have no direct archaeological confirmation from David’s own time that I know of, and I think the prevailing opinion is still pretty skeptical.
Personally I think that its verbal engineering, because it allows a case to be made that is extremely unorthodox without being bold enough to completely come out say what they really mean. If the NT authors and Jesus refer to people as being real that are actually not, then what does that say about the reliability of the NT and Jesus, or the Gospel for that matter? If there is doubt about the existence of King David, then at what point do we believe the Lord when He refers to David and other OT figures as being historical figures, and binding doctrine that hangs on key events that involve them? Do we believe in binding doctrine that traces back to unhistorical imaginary people? When there is so much skepticism of the biggest part of Scripture, then at some point someone has to ask if any of its true, or is Christianity only a practical philosophy and act of discipline to live by. Again like I said, some people may find it to be something that strengthens their faith in Scripture, but I find it extremely troubling in too many places.