historical criticism – exegetical.tools

Reading the Old Testament by Lawrence Boadt and Historical Criticism

June 11, 2015

I would classify this work as first Christian, second critical, and third Catholic. While I’m not Catholic, the benefit of a Catholic textbook on the OT is that it includes discussion of the other seven Greek intertestamental works that are important for NT backgrounds (and, of course, for seeing to where the stream(s) of the OT flow). Moreoever, Boadt enlists Pope Pius XII’s support for a critical approach to the OT based on his Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943). More recently in 1989, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) called for a “criticism of criticism”….

Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (2nd ed.), ed. Green, Brown, and Perrin

April 23, 2015

Todd Scacewater

Imagine that you are about to preach on the Sermon on the Mount. You have no interest in form or redaction criticism; you don’t care about Q. But you are also aware of the benefits of studies that compare Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount with Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, and you realize critical literary studies can be helpful for understanding the Sermon as a whole. You have a couple options available: Carson has published a book with a 110-page exposition of the Sermon, but there is little discussion of the critical research; it focuses on expositing the text. On the other hand, there is the ICC commentary by Davies and Allison on Matthew 1-7, which would contain all the critical data you need, but would probably not be much help with expositing the text as a coherent message from Jesus (not to mention its enormous length)….

Review of Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism

August 17, 2014

Todd Scacewater

My review of Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism, edited by Ansberry and Hays, has been published in American Theological Inquiry. I think this was a very important and timely project to appear in order to show what happens when Evangelicals try to use historical-critical conclusions while still retaining Evangelical tenets, such as inerrancy. I found quite a few internal inconsistencies in this attempt, which suggests the two ways of approaching Scripture simply aren’t as compatible as the authors wish them to be.…