The Historical Critical Approach to the Bible requires the text to be read in its original context of meaning without regard to later dogmatic systems of belief. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

Of the strengths pertaining to the historical critical approach, perhaps the most important is its analysis of the linguistical, grammatical and syntactical elements within the text.  Analysis of the origins of a text is primarily based on the principle that the true and original meaning of a text is at its point of origin.  Indeed B.Jowett asserted that ‘Scripture has but one meaning - the meaning which it had to the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it.’   Historical understanding of the situation in which the author lived is therefore indispensable in order to decipher possible allegories, references, metaphors and other colloquialisms that may have been used.  For example, to maintain that the ‘windows of heaven were stopped’(Gen. 8:2) is a sentence that, if interpreted literally would seem absurd, whereas simple recourse to reason and use of metaphor simply suggest that this phrase is in essence ‘false’ and refers simply to the fact that it had stopped raining.  The historical analysis of the author himself may also reveal presuppositions that may have influenced the writing of the text.  The context in which the text is meant to be read is therefore of utmost importance, and historical research into the origins and cultural context of the text is essential in determining exactly how the text was to be read and what it meant primarily at its moment of origin.  There are numerous examples of the indispensability of this type of linguistic and cultural analysis, not least in reference to Jeremiah 4, which, at first seems to refer to the end of the world.  On analysis, Jeremiah is actually referring to the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem.   The use of reason also denies and refutes a literal interpretation of the text, and in doing so constantly re-iterates the fact that the Bible contains contradiction and falsity. Therefore, analysis of the origins of a text is seen as essential in order to highlight influences on the text and in the text, so that it is possible to appreciate the authentic text as it was at the time of its composition.

In returning to the origins of Scripture, the historical critical approach advocates an objective interpretation, free from what are termed as subjective ‘later dogmatic systems of belief’.  Subjectivity is seen to be in direct contradiction with the emphasis that the approach placed on the tools of reason and science.  Historical research needed to be objective in order to retrieve material and present it as uncorrupted by traditions or presuppositions.  To engage in Biblical hermeneutics from within the confines of the Church was to automatically deny the possibility of objectivity, for Christian presuppositions and doctrine could prevent proper and worthwhile research. The historical critical approach seeks to ‘expose and resist churchly obscurantism’ and refute ‘ecclesial assertions and corruptions’.  As a rule, objectivity analyses presuppositions and pre-conceptions and is critical of any possible distortions or beliefs that may be brought to the text by the interpreter.  It raises self-awareness and self-criticism in the sense that self analysis is required before interpretation can begin.  The strengths of the approach, especially its analysis of the linguistic nature of a text, serve to highlight that to a certain extent, such an approach still commands a place in the process of Biblical hermeneutics.

However, the historical critical approach as such has numerous, and indeed serious, weaknesses.  Perhaps the most obvious remains its ideological assertion of pure, disinterested, objective interpretation.  Hans Georg Gadamer asserted that to lay claim to a pure, disinterested and objective research was to deny that the interpreter is influenced by his own ‘historical circumstances’;  Gadamer maintained that transcendence of personal and individual historical conditioning was simply impossible. One brings to a text a myriad of presuppositions and pre-conceptions that arise from one’s historical, cultural, situational and existential conditioning; presuppositions that immediately imply subjectivity rather than objectivity.  To understand a text, therefore, one brings to it a whole range of ‘pre-structured modes of understanding’, modes of understanding that relativise the meaning and interpretation of a text.  As a consequence, scholars have argued that to expect absolute objectivity of a historian is unfair, but this is exactly what is expected by the historical critical approach.  Indeed there are numerous examples in which scholars advocating this approach have manifested their own presuppositions, pre-conceptions and beliefs when trying to attain objectivity.  Certain scholars have interpreted Jeroboam’s ‘refutation of entrenched power’ in the light of the Protestant refutation of Catholic ‘authority’ and ‘restriction’ during the Reformation, and therefore assert that his actions are wholly commendable, rather than interpreting the text in the light of Deuteronomic history (1 Kings 13:1-5), which would regard the aforementioned actions as an abomination and a sin against YHWH.  Levenson is quick to assert that a blatant manifestation of what he terms ‘Christian supersessionist thinking’ is also apparent in the works of scholars who have approached the Old Testament, in the sense that Mishnaic Hebrew, the language most useful for Old Testament interpretation, has been dismissed in certain cases in favour of Biblical Hebrew, the language in which the majority of the New Testament is found in its original form.  Christian supersessionist thinking is again apparent in the work of Old Testament scholars such as Martin Noth, whose ‘disciplinary boundaries [of periodization] have been drawn on grounds that are more confessional than historical’.   It is no wonder, according to Levenson, that Judaism regards this method of interpretation to be extremely subjective and indeed blatantly anti-Semitic in its concerns.

That the text is to be read in its original context of meaning immediately asserts that the historical critical approach allies the moment of composition and origin of a text as the moment of objective truth and original meaning.  However, scholars such as Bultmann have noted that due to the very nature of the Scriptural texts, the authors did not wish the text to be ‘tied’ to a particular culture or moment in history, rather the text automatically becomes free at the moment of composition in order to ‘make itself free for new relationships’; thus ‘the meaning of Scripture discloses itself anew in every future’.  The historical critical approach therefore assumes that the truth of the text is hidden within the past, within history, therefore asserting that constant re-interpretation is merely shrouding the original context of meaning.  In this sense, therefore, the meaning of the text can be seen as relevant only to those to which the text was revealed; therefore the original context and truthful meaning can never be retrieved, as historical circumstances can never be fully replicated.  A hermeneutic of retrieval of the past is to deny that the original truth of the text may in fact only be acquired in the future.  Indeed, how do advocates of the historical critical approach interpret John 16:7-15 or 1 John 1:1-3 in which the author of the Fourth Gospel states that the truth and real meaning of the events as described will not be revealed until the future and that the witness he provides in the text is relevant to all communities at all times?  To assert that the historical critical approach can fully comprehend and understand the Gospels is to deny the impact of faith, devotion and theology upon the text.  ‘There can be no true historical understanding of the Bible which is not also devotional, religious or theological…’; as its ‘literary and historical features are co-ordinated by [its] theological intentions’.   To assert that the original context of meaning is the only true meaning is to interpret the Gospels outside the ‘light of their theme’, and to deny that the Gospel writers were writing for future, not merely the immediate community.

In light of the above, it may be necessary to recognise and differentiate between subjective and objective truth. For Kierkegaard, all truth is subjective.  Even though disinterested objective fact may exist, it merely means something to everyone and at the same time nothing to no-one.  Kierkegaard understood real truth as truth that was relevant to the individual.  Real truth, i.e. subjective truth, should therefore take precedence over that which is essentially meaningless, therefore, in order to make relevant that which has been attested to in the past through the Scriptural witness, an interpretative technique is needed in order to ‘relativise’ this ‘subjective’ truth to the present.  For a method of interpretation of Scripture to be concerned with ‘objective’ truth that, according to Kierkegaard, is meaningless and lifeless, is to circumnavigate the essential technique of Scriptural interpretation.  Subjectivity in the above sense does not promote bias or prejudice, or hinder reason and logic, rather it works on the assumption that the ‘truth of revelation remains inert till it has been appropriated by a human working of recognition…’.  Indeed, as G.B.Madison writes:

‘The truth about what objectivists call ‘the truth’ is…that there is no such thing.  Rather than speaking, nominally, of ‘the truth’, it would be for us…[to be] concerned with what people do, with human action, …to speak of ‘being in the truth’.’

Subjective truth, if it is to be regarded as real truth, therefore necessitates much more than a historical and scientific analysis proposed by the historical critical approach.  Understanding of the truths that are contained within the text are only understood and attained when the reader actually engages with the text.  Text engagement is in essence the theme of Scripture itself, in the sense that accounts were written not merely for the immediate situation of which the author was a part, but for the future.  Again, one must return to the argument that interpretation of a text must take place ‘in the light of its theme’, and the historical critical approach, in simply returning to the origins of the text, dismisses thematic interpretation as insignificant in the hermeneutical process. However, the text itself is seen to present the interpreter with a mode of interpretation that emphasises the continued function of the text in present society, that of the Canon.

B.S.Childs writes, ‘Within this [the canonical] context the modern Christian interpreter strives to discern how the time-conditioned, historical witness of the Bible becomes the medium of revelation of God’s present and enduring will…interpreting the Bible [is therefore seen as] a canonical, rather than antiquarian exercise.’ Although the advocate of the historical critical approach could retort that the canon is simply a post apostolic development and is prone to unhindered bias in favour of the Church, the New Testament may necessitate a purely Christian interpretation, for proper evaluation of a text surely cannot be undertaken by an interpreter who does not admit himself to the context, or at least acknowledges the context in which it was primarily written.  In this sense, later dogmatic systems of belief may indeed necessary for the task of Biblical interpretation.  However, B.S.Childs proceeds to argue that the Canon is not a ‘post apostolic development’, and stresses that ‘the process of canonical shaping stood in close theological continuity with the original kerygmatic intention of the New Testament writers to use their medium as a means of proclaiming the Gospel and not to preserve an archive of historical records.’  Childs is therefore asserting, as did von Campenhausen, that the process of ordering of the Canon influenced the actual material contained in the New Testament.  Although the obvious argument is that the New Testament writers did not realise that they were writing to be included in a Canon, von Campenhausen asserts that the formation of the Christian Bible was actually of ‘Pauline conception’, therefore arguing that the process of ordering and canonisation of the texts was apparent and contained within the texts themselves:

‘Canon consciousness thus rose at the inception of the Christian Church and lies deep within the New Testament literature itself.  There is an organic continuity in the historical process of development of an established canon…the issue of canon is [therefore] not an extraneous force, but integral to the transmission and shaping of the literature…’.

Such an approach as highlighted above does not necessarily assert that the text is to be dehistoricised, but rather that the theological aspect of the text is to be recognised as a significant interpretative technique.  If one is in agreement with Childs, and regard the canon as an integral part of the text, then its use as a means of  interpretation is to be highlighted.  Even if one wishes to regard it as a later dogmatic system of belief, its use is still not to be dismissed as insignificant.  Denial of such an approach would therefore be the denial of the importance of such a technique in the hermeneutical process, which in essence, constitutes a weakness of the historical critical approach.  To employ a purely historical method of interpretation is to refute the assertion that ‘the function of canonical shaping was often to loosen the text from any one given historical setting, and to transcend the original addressee.’ 

The historical critical approach, having denied the importance of the canon of the New Testament, also denies the importance of Church doctrine and tradition.  Later dogmatic systems of belief are believed to corrupt the original meaning of the text, and therefore convey fallacies rather than truths.  However, the presence of doctrines and dogmas does not necessarily convey a meaning that is constantly prone to subjective, biased and untruthful interpretation.  As an example, Watson asserts that the argument posed by Reimarus regarding the supposedly false representation in the New Testament of Jesus as the Christ (κυριος) is essentially fallacious.  Reimarus’s argument fails to take into account the ‘flexibility and fluidity of language’, and dismisses the importance of the title of κυριος, whereas Watson asserts that such a term deserves recognition.  To maintain that the reference to κυριος is an implicit rather than explicit reference to Jesus as Christ is a dubious assertion on which to base one’s opposition to Church doctrine.  In order to emphasise his point, Watson assumes that the New Testament imposes a ‘realistic’ hermeneutic, a hermeneutic that is primarily concerned with the exposition of the truth.  Watson does highlight the importance of the historical critical approach but asserts that true understanding takes place solely in reality.  The texts have engaged with and bore witness to a reality, and in doing so invite interpreters to do the same in order to understand.  Acceptance of tradition therefore does not denote submission to fallacy and untruth, rather it is an acceptance and reliance on a position that reveals truths, a position that reveals the historicity of the text but at the same time engages with it in order to understand it.  ‘Understanding is therefore an engagement with tradition, not an attempt to escape from it.’ 

We turn now to the process of textual fragmentation and deconstruction that the historical critical approach seems to advocate.  Although scholars admit the importance of the process of analysing the individual pericopae of a text in order to understand the use of metaphor and other linguistical techniques, it is equally important to approach the text as a whole with regard to its historical and literal context.  Although the historical critical approach is seen as admirable in its quest to reduce an abuse of typological and allegorical ‘biblical alchemy’ in the form of a purely Christological reading of the Old Testament, it once again dismisses an essential hermeneutical technique. Watson asserts that to deny a Christological reading of the Old Testament is to deny that such a hermeneutic may in fact possess ‘its own integrity and logic’. Therefore, a Christological interpretation of the Old Testament may not in fact be easily dismissed.  This is not to suggest that the Old Testament and all that is contained within it is at the mercy of the New Testament writers.  For example Paul, in his first Letter to the Corinthians, is merely seen to ‘envisage a critical situation which took place under the Old Covenant…as forecasting and repeated by a situation under the New Covenant.’; he does not under any circumstances remove the Old Testament text from its historical situation, in this sense ‘Paul’s allegories remain true to the intention of their writers.’  The assessment, interpretation and understanding of a text is therefore not merely realised in the assessment of the particular individual sentences and their construction, but in the text when the individual pericopae are amalgamated to form the whole.  Although to deny the importance and relevance of the Old Testament is in essence to deny the importance, relevance and existence of a religion from which Christianity was born, at the same time to deny a Christian interpretation of this Scripture is to deny that the Old Testament is relevant in itself as Christian Scripture, Scripture which asserts the historical Covenant of YHWH with his people, a Covenant renewed, reformulated and fulfilled within the New Testament through historical and truthful events recounted by the authors of the New Testament themselves. 

In summation, the historical critical approach requires of its advocates supreme objectivity, free from the corruptions of later dogmatic systems of belief.  This enables ‘pure’ research in order to attain the original context of meaning of the text.  The approach is admirable in the sense that it destroys the danger of medieval superstition, infallibility, pietism, literalism and fundamentalism.  It is important to stress the need of such an approach for Biblical interpretation in general; analysis of the origins of the text and the linguistic devices used by the author and the community in which he wrote aid the process of understanding.  Scientific analysis examines tradition and dogma, and attempts re-examination of a text from outside the Church.    It attempts to question the belief that a Christian has a ‘justificatory warrant’ which allows him/her to interpret Scripture and arrive at the ‘true significance’ of the historical events it attests to.  However, in spite of its claims to objectivity, the historical critical approach manifests many weaknesses in its method of understanding Scripture. The claim of objectivity is to be dismissed, for the historical critical approach fails to recognise that understanding is not purely a ‘matter of facts, but a matter of reality; the reality of human life [and] its engagement with others…’  Transcendence of historical conditioning is therefore impossible, as we have seen in the approach asserted by Gadamer and many other scholars.  Of equal  importance is the attempt to apply a rigid method of interpretation to Scripture, rather than a flexible technique.  To impose a scientific method on a subject within the humanities is unfair and unreasonable, and, as a consequence, is seen to prove extremely problematic.  To talk of engaging in a process of understanding (as above) is to necessarily suppose engagement with the text, and to engage with the text is to see the text as relevant in a faith context today.  Indeed, a possible meaning of ‘hermeneutic[s]’ in Greek is ‘engagement’ and ‘translation’, i.e. translation from the past to the present.  Tradition is not therefore to be disregarded, but to be seen as an essential hermeneutical principle, and ‘an act of reason’ in itself.   It is also worthy to question whether the historical critical approach actually concerns itself with the attainment of the original context of meaning, or whether its objective is merely to admonish and dismiss tradition in general.  Again, it is possible to argue against the assertion of the need to attain the ‘original context of meaning’, for ‘not occasionally, but always, the meaning of the text goes beyond its author’.  To advocate an approach that deals merely with the historical past, which assigns no present relevance to the text, and which ignores the theological witness of the divine revelation contained within it is to reduce hermeneutics to what Watson terms ‘Ebionite impoverishment’.  In order for understanding to take place, one must be aware of pre-conceptions and presuppositions, aware too of the history of the text and its origins in the sense of historical consciousness, but also aware of the possibility of engagement with the text through tradition;  there is need of a relationship between ecclesiastical dogmatism and historical criticism, and if ever present, could perhaps result in significant positive progress being made in the field of Biblical Hermeneutics.

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Bibliography

Carroll, R.P. Wolf in the Sheepfold: The Bible as a Problem for Christianity, SPCK, 1991

Childs, B.S. The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction, SCM, 1984

Harvey, Van A. The  Historian and the Believer, SCM, 1967

Jeanrond, W. Theological Hermeneutics, SCM, 1994

Levenson, J.D. ‘Theological Consensus or Historicist Evasion? Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies’ in R.Brookes and J.J.Collins (ed.), Hebrew Bible or Old Testament?, Notre Dame UP, 1990

Lonergan, B. Insight, Longmans, 1957

Louth, A. Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology, Clarendon Press, 1983

Lundin, R., Thiselton, A.C., Walhout, C., The Responsibility of Hermeneutics, Paternoster, 1985

Madison, G.B, The Hermeneutics of Postmodernity, Indiana UP, 1988

McGrath, A.E. Reformation Thought, Blackwell, 1988

Swinburne, R. ‘Meaning in the Bible’, in S.R.Sutherland & T.A.Roberts (ed.), Religion, Reason and the Self: Essays in Honour of H.D.Lewis, Wales UP, 1989

Thiselton, A.C. New Horizons in Hermeneutics, Harper-Collins, 1992

Watson, F. Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective, T & T Clark, 1994

The Jerome Biblical Commentary, R.E.Brown, S.S., J.A.Fitzmyer, S.J., R.E.Murphy, O.Carm., (ed.) Geoffrey Chapman, 1970

The Holy Bible, RSV

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