# Higher Criticism ## Intro Higher criticism is the study of where the biblical books came from: who wrote them, when, from what earlier sources, in what circumstances, and for what audience. It is called higher only to distinguish it from **lower criticism**, the older name for textual criticism, which works on a prior question: given thousands of manuscripts that differ in small ways, what did the original text actually say. The distinction matters and is constantly muddled in popular argument. - **Lower criticism** compares manuscripts to reconstruct the wording. Its methods are largely agreed, its results are checkable, and it is not controversial among Christians. It is the discipline behind the footnotes in a modern Bible. - **Higher criticism** asks about origins and composition. Its conclusions depend heavily on assumptions that are not themselves textual, which is why two competent scholars can read the same book and date it four centuries apart. The Christian response that actually works is neither wholesale acceptance nor wholesale rejection, and the reason is that higher criticism is not one thing. It is a set of tools plus a set of assumptions frequently smuggled in alongside them. The **tools** are legitimate and Christians use them constantly. Asking who wrote Hebrews, whether Paul used an existing hymn in [Philippians 2](/codex/philippians-2/), or how Luke used Mark are historical questions with historical evidence bearing on them. Some of the strongest apologetic arguments in this codex are higher-critical results: the dating of the pre-Pauline creeds and the case for early high Christology are both built with these tools. The **assumptions** are where the real dispute lives, and there are three that do the most work: 1. **That miracles do not happen**, so a text reporting fulfilled prophecy must postdate the event. This is why Daniel gets dated to the second century BC and Isaiah is divided: not because the manuscripts require it, but because accurate prediction is ruled inadmissible in advance. 2. **That religious ideas evolve from simple to complex**, so anything sophisticated must be late. This was a nineteenth-century assumption borrowed from evolutionary models of culture, and archaeology has not been kind to it. 3. **That a text showing different vocabulary, style or emphasis must have different authors.** Applied to modern authors of known single authorship, this criterion routinely produces false positives. Quick reply line: *"I use higher criticism. Half the arguments I would make about early Christian belief are higher-critical results. What I do not accept is the assumption that gets bolted on, that a prophecy has to be dated after its fulfilment because prediction is impossible. That is not a finding, it is a premise, and it was decided before anyone opened the text."* ## In full Higher criticism, more precisely the historical-critical method, comprises several distinguishable sub-disciplines: - **Source criticism**, identifying written sources behind a text. The classic case is the documentary hypothesis on the Pentateuch; see [Documentary Hypothesis](/codex/documentary-hypothesis/). - **Form criticism**, classifying units by literary form and asking what setting in the life of a community produced them. Associated with Hermann Gunkel for the Old Testament and Rudolf Bultmann and Martin Dibelius for the New. - **Redaction criticism**, studying the editorial shaping of received material, and asking what a redactor's arrangement reveals about his theology. - **Tradition criticism**, tracing material through its oral stage. - **Canonical criticism**, associated with Brevard Childs, reading the books as received in their final canonical form and reacting against the fragmentation the other methods produced. The method's development runs from [Baruch Spinoza](/codex/baruch-spinoza/)'s *Tractatus Theologico-Politicus* (1670), which raised Mosaic authorship as a historical question, through Jean Astruc's source division (1753), to Julius Wellhausen's *Prolegomena to the History of Israel* (1878), which synthesised the documentary hypothesis into the form that dominated for a century. ## What the method has established Intellectual honesty requires naming the results that hold, and there are several. Refusing to grant any of them is a losing posture, because the evidence for some is strong. - **Composite composition is a fact in some books.** Proverbs names multiple collections internally ([Proverbs 25:1](/codex/proverbs-25-1/) says Hezekiah's men copied out Solomon's proverbs). The Psalms are explicitly a collection with named authors and editorial groupings. - **The synoptic problem is real.** The literary relationship among Matthew, Mark and Luke requires explanation, and some form of dependence is close to certain given the verbatim agreement in Greek. - **Editorial updating occurs.** [Deuteronomy 34](/codex/deuteronomy-34/) records Moses's death and burial, and [Genesis 14:14](/codex/genesis-14-14/) uses the name Dan for a place not so named until [Judges 18](/codex/judges-18/). These are noted in the tradition long before modern criticism. - **Recovering pre-literary tradition is possible and fruitful.** The identification of creedal and hymnic material embedded in the epistles is a form-critical achievement, and it is apologetically valuable. See [Pre-Pauline Creeds](/codex/pre-pauline-creeds/). ## Where the assumptions do the work **The anti-supernatural premise.** The dating of Daniel to about 165 BC rests principally on the accuracy of its account of the Hellenistic period. As an argument this is circular: predictive prophecy is impossible, therefore an accurate prediction must be after the fact, therefore prophecy is not attested. The same reasoning divides Isaiah at chapter 40 because chapters 44 and 45 name Cyrus. The historical evidence is compatible with either dating; the premise decides the outcome. **The evolutionary model of religion.** Wellhausen's reconstruction placed elaborate priestly legislation late because sophisticated cult was assumed to be a late development. Archaeology has substantially undercut this. Detailed cultic and legal texts from Ugarit, Mari and the Hittite archives, all second millennium BC, show that elaborate ritual legislation was ancient in the Near East. The treaty-form analysis of Deuteronomy points the same way; see [Theocratic Context of Mosaic Law](/codex/theocratic-context-of-mosaic-law/). **Stylistic criteria for multiple authorship.** The divine-name criterion, that Yahweh and Elohim mark different sources, is weaker than its role in the theory suggests, since the names carry different connotations and an author may choose between them for that reason. Comparable methods applied to authors of known single authorship generate false divisions. **Late-dating by theological development.** The inference that a sophisticated idea must be late is the assumption the early high Christology evidence overturns within Christianity's own first two decades. See [Early High Christology Thesis](/codex/early-high-christology-thesis/). ## The apologetic posture The productive move is **to accept the discipline and contest the premises**, for three reasons. 1. **It is where the evidence actually points.** Some higher-critical conclusions are well supported, and denying all of them makes the rest of the case look unserious. 2. **It concedes nothing that matters.** Composite composition and editorial updating are compatible with inspiration on any account that does not require single-author dictation. The doctrine has always been about the text's truth and authority, not its compositional history. 3. **It isolates the real dispute.** Once the tools are granted, the disagreement is visibly about whether miracles and prophecy are possible, which is a philosophical question the critic cannot settle by textual analysis. That is a much better place to be arguing. The corresponding error to avoid is treating higher criticism as a monolith to be denounced. It has produced results this codex relies on, and a defence that must reject the method wholesale ends up unable to use its own best arguments. ## Tensions - **The documentary hypothesis is contested from inside the guild**, not only by conservatives. Its classic four-source form has substantially fragmented since the 1970s under criticism from Rolf Rendtorff, John Van Seters and others who accept the historical-critical method entirely. Its weakened state is a mainstream development, not an apologetic talking point. - **Canonical criticism sits awkwardly with the rest**, since reading the final form as the object of study partly reverses the fragmenting impulse of the other sub-disciplines. - **Conservative scholarship is not uniform.** Positions on Isaiah's unity, Daniel's date and Pentateuchal composition vary among scholars who hold a high view of scripture, and the codex records the spread rather than presenting one as settled. ## See also - [Documentary Hypothesis](/codex/documentary-hypothesis/), the classic source-critical construction and its decline - [Pre-Pauline Creeds](/codex/pre-pauline-creeds/), a higher-critical result with strong apologetic value - [Early High Christology Thesis](/codex/early-high-christology-thesis/), evidence against the development assumption - [Bible and Hermeneutics](/codex/bible-and-hermeneutics/), the interpretive hub - [Theocratic Context of Mosaic Law](/codex/theocratic-context-of-mosaic-law/), the treaty-form evidence bearing on dating - [Baruch Spinoza](/codex/baruch-spinoza/), where the historical question was first pressed - [Bart Ehrman](/codex/bart-ehrman/), the most prominent popular exponent of critical conclusions
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is higher criticism?** It is the study of the origins of the biblical books: authorship, date, sources, setting and audience. The name distinguishes it from lower criticism, the older term for textual criticism, which asks the prior question of what the original wording was by comparing manuscripts. Higher criticism includes source, form, redaction, tradition and canonical criticism. **Q: What is the difference between higher and lower criticism?** Lower criticism reconstructs the wording of the text from manuscript evidence, and its methods and results are broadly agreed and uncontroversial. Higher criticism asks who wrote a book and when, and its conclusions depend heavily on assumptions that are not themselves textual, which is why scholars using the same evidence can date a book centuries apart. **Q: Should Christians reject higher criticism?** Not wholesale, because the tools are legitimate historical methods and some of the strongest apologetic arguments are higher-critical results, including the dating of pre-Pauline creeds and the case for early high Christology. What should be contested are the assumptions frequently bundled with the tools, above all the premise that predictive prophecy is impossible, which decides conclusions before the evidence is examined. **Q: Why do scholars date Daniel to the second century BC?** Principally because its account of the Hellenistic period is accurate, combined with the premise that genuine prediction cannot occur. As an argument this is circular: prophecy is ruled impossible, so accuracy is taken as proof of late composition, so no prophecy is ever attested. The manuscript and linguistic evidence is compatible with either dating; the philosophical premise does the deciding. **Q: Does accepting that biblical books had multiple sources contradict inspiration?** Not on any account of inspiration that does not require single-author dictation. The Bible itself describes composite composition: [Proverbs 25:1](/codex/proverbs-25-1/) records that Hezekiah's men copied out earlier material, and [Luke 1:1-4](/codex/luke-1-1-4/) says Luke investigated existing accounts. Inspiration has classically been a claim about the text's truth and authority, not about its compositional history. **Q: Is the documentary hypothesis still accepted?** Not in its classic four-source form. It has fragmented substantially since the 1970s under criticism from scholars such as Rolf Rendtorff and John Van Seters, who fully accept the historical-critical method but reject Wellhausen's reconstruction. This is a mainstream development within the field rather than a conservative objection to it.