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Reverted edits by Bcostello (Talk) to last version by RJJensen
== Higher criticism ==
== Higher criticism ==
The ''higher'' or ''historical criticism'' of the Bible (not the criticism of the Bible ''throughout'' history, but rather the criticism of the Bible ''as'' history) deals with whether the Bible is, or is not, a valid source of history. The German higher critic Johann Gottfried Eichhorn coined the term.<ref name=CathEn>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04491c.htm Biblical criticism (higher)] in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908)</ref>
Higher criticism asks whether the Bible is consistent with extra-Biblical [[Archaeology|archaeological]] finds and with what is known of the languages in which it was written. Inevitably higher criticism must face squarely the question of whether Divine inspiration exists or not, and whether supernatural causes or events are admissible or not. These can only be [[presupposition]]. For that reason, at least two divergent schools of thought have always existed in higher criticism. Their differences are irreconcilable, because one school believes that anything supernatural is to be rejected out-of-hand, and the other school is not so sure of that. These "non-rationalistic" thinkers tend to divide between [[Protestantism|Protestant]] and [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] schools of thought. Higher criticism ''also'' claims to examine the internal evidence of the Bible and whether certain parts of the Bible are properly consistent with other parts.
=== History of higher criticism ===
[[The Catholic Encyclopedia]] includes<ref name=CathEn/> an excellent treatment of the full state of higher criticism until 1908. It shows that higher criticism, as such, began earlier than the Enlightenment. The [[Constantine]]-era bishop [[Origen]] holding, for example, that [[Paul]] was not the same man who wrote the Epistle to the [[Hebrews (book)|Hebrews]]. Origen's student [[Dionysius]] held on linguistic grounds that the man calling himself "John" who wrote [[Revelation]] was not the same man as the [[Apostle]] named [[John]]. Higher criticism contemporary to Ussher explored such questions as whether [[Moses]] was the true author of the first five books of the Bible, called the "Books of Moses" in the [[King James Version]].
Then in the early nineteenth century a group of French and German scholars began evaluate the internal style of the Bible and to test its historical claims against other historical documents and archaeological finds. They drew their inspiration from the new fields of historiography, archaeology, and linguistics.
Analysis of the Old Testament and the New Testament tended to have vastly different emphases, with Old Testament criticism centering on questions of language and competing historical records, and New Testament criticism looking at authorship and the interrelations of texts, including non-canaonical and apocryphal texts. Of special concern was the authorship of of the Epistles.
The claims made in the field of [[Assyrian chronology]], and specifically as regards alleged synchronies between [[Assyria]]n rulers and certain kings of the [[Northern Kingdom]], became popular toward the end of the nineteenth century. This is the criticism that informed [[Edwin R. Thiele]]'s thesis that the writers of the Kings and Chronicles books used reign synchronies and lengths that were incomplete.
==Atheists==
==Atheists==