historical criticism

English

Alternative forms

• historic criticism (archaic)

Noun

historical criticism (uncountable)

1. The systematic study of received texts, especially the Bible, as documents composed in a particular historical context with varying reliability as sources.

   Synonym: higher criticism

   • 2016, Walter Brueggemann, edited by K. C. Hanson, Social Criticism and Social Vision in Ancient Israel, →ISBN, page 29:

     Concerning the narratives of Daniel, historical criticism has given its primary energy to the placement of the narratives in the Maccabean crisis of the second century, far away from the sixth century when its reported events purportedly happened.

2. (archaic) The systematic, reasoned study of history and critique of received historical traditions in general.
   • 1779, David Dalrymple, Annals of Scotland from the Accession of Robert I […] To the Accession of the House of Stewart, page 295:

     Our genealogical writers have given a fair pedigree of the family of Seton in the fourteenth century. […] This pedigree, however, will not stand the test of historical criticism.

   • 1863 October, “Medieval Fables of the Popes”, in The Home and Foreign Review, volume 3, page 617:

     The plain rule of historical criticism, which is simply the teaching of common sense, is, putting aside all those writers whose date or position deprives them of immediate knowledge and authority, to rely exclusively on those who were nearest to the time and scene of the events described, and to examine in all cases the source whence their information is derived.

   • 1879, Oscar Wilde, Historical Criticism; republished as “Historical Criticism”, in Josephine M. Guy, editor, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, volume 4, 2007, →ISBN, page 15:

     The points in [Herodotus’] historical criticism of the past, are first his rejection of all extra-natural interference, and secondly, the attributing to these ancient heroes the motives and modes of thought of his own day.

Derived terms

• historical-critical

Translations

study of received texts, especially the Bible, as historical sources

• French: critique historique f
• German: historische Kritik f
• Hungarian: történeti kritika
• Italian: criticismo storico m, critica storica f

See also

• form criticism
• hermeneutics
• literary criticism
• source criticism
• textual criticism