1. Biblical Criticism

2. Fascination with Texts
18th – 19th centuries
language, a people’s stories
Sacred texts
Max Müller’s Sacred Books of the East
Linguistic skills
Manuscripts
Lower Criticism
Higher Criticism
Ancient texts – copies of copies of copies – human creations, however divinely inspired
The “original” text?

3. An Example: Woman Prophesizing
1 Corinthians 14:33-35, and the issue of women prophesizing 
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,
the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says.
If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
missing in earliest manuscripts

4. Example; The Feast passage
John 7:8 Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not [yet fully] come.
Although in this verse Jesus states that he is not going to the feast, he seems to have changed his mind after his brothers leave (v. 10). It seems to suggest that Jesus either lied to them about going to the feast or went back on his prior decision. In any case, scribes were struck by the possible inconsistency and in order to alleviate it, changed the "not" to "not yet" which also appears in a later clause.

5. Example: location of ‘also’
Luke 23:32 “Two others also, who were [also] criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.”
To avoid the implication in this text that Jesus was also a criminal, most Greek witnesses have changed the sequence of words to solve the difficulty. Of the modern translations, the Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible and the New International Version all follow the largest number of manuscripts instead of the stronger support based on antiquity and on internal evidence.

6. Example: John 7:53 - 8:11 Jesus & adulteress
1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst
4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.
5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?"
6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."
8 And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
9 But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
10 Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11 She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."
But there are no manuscripts prior to 400 A.D. with this passage. Part of oral tradition, that comes into written tradition?
You can see why the discoveries of manuscript work caused some consternation on the part of the believing community. John didn’t write this, did Jesus say it?

7. Example: Trinity? John 1 5:7-8 (trinity stuff).
In 1830, three manuscripts found prior to 325 (Nicea) that don’t have underlined passages.  
6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one

8. Point? Consequences?
Point of all this—this kind of textual detective work that begins in earnest in the mid 1800s radically alters conceptions of the nature of religion.
No longer revealed, handed down in an intact, pristine forms—rather, religion is a construct, pieced and put together in various ways, according to various agendas.
Manuscript studies, philology open up many questions, and can undermine authority of the text.
Higher Criticism – historicism
As 19th and 20th c. role along, diverse ‘critical’ and theoretical approaches applied to the study and interpretation of scripture.
Q. How does Christianity (and other ‘religions of the book’) deal with this, respond to, contribute to it? – various responses
Basic tension between ‘liberal’ and ‘evangelical’ Christianity