Redaction Criticism of the Bible

I would say redaction criticism, form criticism, historical criticism and other author-centered methodologies for hermeneutics and theology currently take a back seat to more text-centered and reader-centered methodologies like literary criticism, narrative criticsm and reader-response criticism which are more concerned about the final form of the text. I believe this applies to both liberal and conservative theologians.

I encourage the historical study of interpretation and theology to understand methodologies like redaction criticism, but I believe there is little value to its study outside of understanding its contribution to how we interpret the bible today.

[ February 13, 2006, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: Gold Dragon ]

 

I believe the answer to this question depends on whether your college is trying to turn out Christian Apologists or Biblically-sound pastors. The Bible college I attended did indeed offer an Apologetics course, in which we learned how to defend Biblical conservatism, and what we would be defending against (I was the only girl in the class....it was a great class, too.)

However, the best way to differentiate between a fake and the real thing is to handle the real thing extensively, even exclusively at first. So in our training of preachers to go out and teach others the Bible, why would we (as conservatives) waste valuable class time on liberal teachings, except for in a cursory manner so that they can recognize them for what they are? I most certainly would not recommend that a conservative school should hire a liberal teacher, just based on the fact that the point of Bible college is not to turn out great debaters, but to turn out Biblically sound preachers.

 

I would tend to agree pretty much with Gold Dragon on this. It would be important to know something about higher critical thinking such as redaction,form and historical critisism but only enough for recognition so as not to be blind sided and caught flat footed in a discussion.

 

criticism...see I can spell, I just can't type.

 

I can see that I had better post a link to an article where my readers can learn the definition of redaction criticism and the other terms used to name the various fields of study employed in Biblical Criticism:

http://www.bibletexts.com/glossary/biblical-criticism.htm </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, I'm aware that those methodologies are interested in understanding the formation of the text from the view of the original authors.

My point is that these author-centric methodologies are now less significant in biblical studies than more text-centered views of the bible that came out of literary criticism (which is mentioned in the article) and reader-centered views of the bible.

A lot has happened in the field of biblical studies since that article was written 20 years ago.

 

This reminds me of a joke which I will take the liberty to modify slightly to fit this thread:

Question: What is the difference between God and a doctor [theologian]?

Answer: God doesn't think he is a doctor [theologian].

 

I would agree with this. But challenge the actual value of teaching these fundamentals.

I would disagree and say that redaction criticism while it may be current in some circles, is old-hat with questionable value in many other circles of biblical criticism. I'm not talking about anti-intellectual conservatives but liberals and conservatives who actually have studied and used redaction criticism and found it wanting for various reasons.

Santa-Clara U : Religious Studies Dept: Narrative Criticism
Wikipedia : Reader response criticism
University of Alberta : Journal of Hebrew Studies : Text - Reader - Author Towards a Theory of Exegesis: Some European Viewpoints

 

The main goal of the SBC Conservative resurgence is to put as much distance between the Liberal professors and the Conservatives as possible.

 

Well, my "philosophy of hermeneutics" class will be coming up in about a year.....check back with me then. But my first gut reaction is that we don't want to go down the trail with Alice and The Wabbit. We have enough imaginative speculation going on in pulpits without adding to it with guesses about redactions.

See the works of Eta Linnemann.

 

Here is a book review of a book by Randolph Tate - Biblical Interpretation : An Integrated Approach that looks into the relationship of author, text and reader centered approaches with a proposal for their integration.

 

I would say that this hypothetical conservative professor may have studied redaction criticism, the evidence supportive of redacted portions of the bible and still come to the conclusion that the presence or absence of redaction has little to no impact on his hermeneutics and theology. The reason being that by faith, he may believe these redacted portions to be part of God's inspirational process of providing scriptures for humans.

One of the underlying assumptions of redaction crticism is that redaction and the motivations behind it are negative in impact on the text. Hence redaction critics see the importance of identifying redaction to approach a "purer" form of the text. Part of this is a direct result of seeing the impact of redaction in textual criticism like the textus receptus.

However, many including myself challenge that assumption and while they think it is important to be aware of redaction criticism and evidence for it, they focus their attention on the final form of the text.

 

Am I correct in that one of the criticisms from conservatives is that our current biases will impact what we see as a redaction, and what we don't? Isn't this what the Jesus Seminar has taken to a ridiculous degree?

People like Bultmann went off the deep end into highly speculative areas, allowing personal presuppositions to bias his work. What is the difference betwen him and "proper" redactionism?

 

I would say that the goal of many author-centered approaches to the bible like redaction criticism and historical cricitism is to remove biases to obtain an objective view (or meta-narrative) of the text.

I believe that is an impossible task. Recognizing the bias we bring to the text is an important part of author-centered approaches to the text. However, they often believe their critical work can remove all these biases but ironically they ultimately do the opposite and reveal even more clearly the biases of the critic.

Reader-centered approaches to the text recognize the biases a reader and critic brings to the text and does not see it as something that needs removal but instead views it as a critical part of the interpretive process.

I don't know what proper redactionism is. But conservative redactionism comes about from conservative biases while liberal redactionism comes about from liberal biases.

 

Evangel University : Theology

I don't know what courses were available when Tate was a student and while there are not courses specifically dedicated to redaction criticism, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a major part of the hermeneutics and theology streams, especially during the time he was a student.

Being from the Pentecostal or Assemblies of God traditions does not change my view of his work.