Canonical criticism
Encyclopedia
Biblical hermeneutics
Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics which involves the study of principles for the text and includes all forms of communication: verbal and nonverbal.While Jewish and Christian...
the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
that focuses on the text of the biblical canon
Biblical canon
A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
itself as a finished product. It has been made popular by Brevard Childs
Brevard Childs
Brevard Springs Childs was Professor of Old Testament at Yale University from 1958 until 1999 , and one of the most influential biblical scholars of the 20th century....
, though he personally rejected the term. Whereas other types of biblical criticism
Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
focus on the origins, structure and history of the text, canonical criticism looks at the meaning the text in its final form has for the community which uses it.
Description
Canonical criticism involves "paying attention to the present form of the text in determining its meaning for the believing community." According to James BarrJames Barr (biblical scholar)
James Barr FBA was a Scottish Old Testament scholar.Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Barr was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1951. He held professorships in New College, Edinburgh in the University of Edinburgh, Manchester, and at Vanderbilt University in the United States of...
, it involves concentrating authority "in the canonical text, and not in the people or events out of which that text came." Brevard Childs
Brevard Childs
Brevard Springs Childs was Professor of Old Testament at Yale University from 1958 until 1999 , and one of the most influential biblical scholars of the 20th century....
says that the canon
Biblical canon
A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
"not only serves to establish the outer boundaries of authoritative Scripture," but "forms a prism through which light from the different aspects of the Christian life is refracted." He also notes that "the tradents of the tradition have sought to hide their own footprints in order to focus attention on the canonical text itself and not on the process." However, Childs refuses to speak of canonical criticism as if it were on a level with form criticism
Form criticism
Form criticism is a method of biblical criticism that classifies units of scripture by literary pattern and that attempts to trace each type to its period of oral transmission. Form criticism seeks to determine a unit's original form and the historical context of the literary tradition. Hermann...
or redaction criticism
Redaction criticism
Redaction criticism, also called Redaktionsgeschichte, Kompositionsgeschichte, or Redaktionstheologie, is a critical method for the study of Bible texts. Redaction criticism regards the author of the text as editor of his or her source material...
. According to Childs, it represents an entirely new departure, replacing the entire historical-critical method.
Origins
Canonical criticism is a relatively new approach to biblical studies. As recently as 1983, James BarrJames Barr (biblical scholar)
James Barr FBA was a Scottish Old Testament scholar.Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Barr was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1951. He held professorships in New College, Edinburgh in the University of Edinburgh, Manchester, and at Vanderbilt University in the United States of...
could state that canon had no hermeneutical significance for biblical interpretation. Childs set out his canonical approach in his Biblical Theology in Crisis (1970) and applied it in Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (1979).
The phrase "canonical criticism" was first used by James A. Sanders in 1972. Childs repudiates the term because
It implies that the concern with canon is viewed as another historical-critical technique which can take its place alongside of source criticism, form criticism, rhetorical criticism, and the like. I do not envision the approach to canon in this light. Rather, the issue at stake in canon turns on establishing a stance from which the Bible is to be read as Sacred Scripture.
Canonical criticism arose as a reaction to other forms of biblical criticism
Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
. John Barton
John Barton (theologian)
The Revd Professor John Barton is the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture. He is a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy and a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters...
argues that Child's primary thesis is that historical-critical methods are "unsatisfactory theologically."
According to Barton, Childs' approach is "genuinely new," in that it is an "attempt to heal the breach between biblical criticism and theology," and in that it belongs more to the realm of literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
than that of 'historical' study of texts.
Sanders argues that canonical criticism is biblical criticism's "self-critical stance":
It is not only a logical evolution of earlier stages in the growth of criticism but it also reflects back on all the disciplines of biblical criticism and informs them all to some extent."
He also suggests that it places the Bible "back where it belongs, in the believing communities of today":
Canonical criticism might be seen in metaphor as the beadleBeadleBeadle, sometimes spelled "bedel," is a lay official of a church or synagogue who may usher, keep order, make reports, and assist in religious functions; or a minor official who carries out various civil, educational, or ceremonial duties....
(bedelos) who now carries the critically studied Bible in procession back to the church lectern from the scholar's study.
Barton has noted parallels between canonical criticism and the New Criticism
New Criticism
New Criticism was a movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic...
of T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
and others. Both schools of thought affirm that "a literary text is an artefact," that "intentionalism
Intentional fallacy
Intentional fallacy, in literary criticism, addresses the assumption that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is of primary importance. By characterizing this assumption as a "fallacy", a critic suggests that the author's intention is not important. The term is an important...
is a fallacy," and that "the meaning of a text is a function of its place in the literary canon."
Criticism
The canonical approach has been criticised by scholars from both liberal and evangelical perspectives. On the one hand, according to Dale Brueggemann, James BarrJames Barr (biblical scholar)
James Barr FBA was a Scottish Old Testament scholar.Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Barr was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1951. He held professorships in New College, Edinburgh in the University of Edinburgh, Manchester, and at Vanderbilt University in the United States of...
accuses Childs of "aiding and abetting" fundamentalists. Although Childs' approach is "post-critical" rather than pre-critical, Barr argues that the vision of a post-critical era "is the conservative
Conservative Christianity
Conservative Christianity is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian beliefs and practices...
dream." Barton, however, notes that
Whatever else Childs is doing, he is not taking us 'back to the canon', for no one has ever been aware of the canon in this way before. It is only after we have seen how varied and inconsistent the Old Testament really is that we can begin to ask whether it can nonetheless be read a forming a unity.
Conservative scholars, on the other hand, object to the way canonical criticism bypasses "vexed questions relating to the historical validation of revelation." Oswalt suggests that canonical critics blithely "separate fact and meaning" when they suggest that we are called to submit to the inspired truth of the text, despite the community's inability to admit where they really got it.
Barton also suggests that there is tension between "the text itself" and "the text as part of the canon". That is, the canonical approach stresses both the text in its final form as we have it, as well as the idea that "the words which compose the text draw their meaning from the context and setting in which they are meant to be read." Barton argues that "the canonical approach actually undermines the concern for the finished text as an end in itself, and brings us, once again, nearer to traditional historical criticism."
Applications
Childs applies his canonical approach to prophetic literatureNevi'im
Nevi'im is the second of the three major sections in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. It falls between the Torah and Ketuvim .Nevi'im is traditionally divided into two parts:...
, and argues that in Amos
Book of Amos
The Book of Amos is a prophetic book of the Hebrew Bible, one of the Twelve Minor Prophets. Amos, an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, was active c. 750 BCE during the reign of Jeroboam II, making the Book of Amos the first biblical prophetic book written. Amos lived in the kingdom of Judah...
, "an original prophetic message was expanded by being placed in a larger theological context," while in Nahum
Book of Nahum
The book of Nahum is the seventh book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Nahum, and was probably written in Jerusalem in the 8th century BC.-Background:...
and Habakkuk
Book of Habakkuk
The Book of Habakkuk is the eighth book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Habakkuk, and was probably composed in the late 7th century BC. A copy of chapters 1 and 2 is included in the Habakkuk Commentary, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.Chapters 1-2...
, the oracles are assigned a new role through the introduction of hymnic material, and they "now function as a dramatic illustration of the eschatological triumph of God."
Isaak applies the canonical approach to 1 Corinthians 14
First Epistle to the Corinthians
The first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, often referred to as First Corinthians , is the seventh book of the New Testament of the Bible...
and the issue of women being silent in the church
Paul of Tarsus and women
The relationship between Paul the Apostle and women is an important element in the theological debate about Christianity and women because Paul was the first writer to give ecclesiastical directives about the role of women in the Church...
. Isaak argues that
In the canonical approach, theological concerns take precedent over historical interests. No attempt is made to reconstruct a historical portrait of Paul in order to prove some point or to disprove another. There is no psychologizing based on what Paul could or could not have said.
The canonical approach has also been applied to passages such as Psalm 137
Psalm 137
Psalm 137 is one of the best known of the Biblical psalms. Its opening lines, "By the rivers of Babylon..." have been set to music on several occasions....
and Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
20.
External links
- Norman Gottwald, Social Matrix and Canonical Shape, Theology TodayTheology TodayTheology Today is an academic journal published by SAGE Publications for the Princeton Theological Seminary; it was formerly published by Westminster John Knox. It appears four times a year....
42 [1985] - Gerald T. Sheppard, "Canonical Criticism" in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.