Posted By: dedication
Good and Evil of Higher Critical Bible Study - 06/25/23 11:38 PM
What is higher Critical Bible Study?
It is a method of studying the Bible that seeks to understand the text in its historical and cultural context by analyzing the language, history, and culture of the people at the time it was written.
Sounds pretty good at this point, but....
This approach assumes a secular perspective and rather than seeing the Bible as authoritative, uses the then present culture and history to be the authority above accepting the inspiration of Scripture. That means it's conclusions must be in harmony with a secular, non-supernatural worldview.
According to R.A.Torrey in "History of Higher Criticism"
A secular approach to interpreting a document that is "spiritually discerned" will not come to the right conclusions.
They will find answers in their higher criticism to downplay and explain away the wonder of God's wonderous works by making it all agree with natural conditions and circumstance.
Christians who hold to God?s existence will have no problems acknowledging the miraculous authorship of the Bible, or the workings of God's miraculous intervention, as truly supernatural glimpses of God's great power and love. The Christians are not limited by this strenuous requirement of secularism that is an unfounded filter put upon the Bible.
It is a method of studying the Bible that seeks to understand the text in its historical and cultural context by analyzing the language, history, and culture of the people at the time it was written.
Sounds pretty good at this point, but....
This approach assumes a secular perspective and rather than seeing the Bible as authoritative, uses the then present culture and history to be the authority above accepting the inspiration of Scripture. That means it's conclusions must be in harmony with a secular, non-supernatural worldview.
According to R.A.Torrey in "History of Higher Criticism"
Quote
The term Higher Criticism, then, means nothing more than the study of the literary structure of the various books of the Bible, and more especially of the Old Testament. Now this in itself is most laudable.... to find out all he can with regard to the portion of the Bible he is studying; the author, the date, the circumstances, and purpose of its writing.
How is it, then, that the Higher Criticism has become identified in the popular mind with attacks upon the Bible and the supernatural character of the Holy Scriptures?....
the work of the Higher Critic has not always been pursued in a reverent spirit nor in the spirit of scientific and Christian scholarship....who have based their theories largely upon their own subjective conclusions. ..
Higher criticism, again also known as the historical-critical method, treats the ancient texts of the Bible from an entirely secular perspective. The presupposition of secular necessity to the exclusion of supernatural possibility
How is it, then, that the Higher Criticism has become identified in the popular mind with attacks upon the Bible and the supernatural character of the Holy Scriptures?....
the work of the Higher Critic has not always been pursued in a reverent spirit nor in the spirit of scientific and Christian scholarship....who have based their theories largely upon their own subjective conclusions. ..
Higher criticism, again also known as the historical-critical method, treats the ancient texts of the Bible from an entirely secular perspective. The presupposition of secular necessity to the exclusion of supernatural possibility
A secular approach to interpreting a document that is "spiritually discerned" will not come to the right conclusions.
They will find answers in their higher criticism to downplay and explain away the wonder of God's wonderous works by making it all agree with natural conditions and circumstance.
Christians who hold to God?s existence will have no problems acknowledging the miraculous authorship of the Bible, or the workings of God's miraculous intervention, as truly supernatural glimpses of God's great power and love. The Christians are not limited by this strenuous requirement of secularism that is an unfounded filter put upon the Bible.