The Roots of Scientific Bible Criticism

Johannes LANGE

Authors

Johannes LANGE Since 1994 he is a faculty member of Saint Petersburg Christian University, from 1996 until 2002 he held the position of the Academic Dean of Undergraduate Studies at this institution., Germany

Keywords:

Scientific Bible Criticism, historical-critical interpretation, exegetical practice, method of exegesis of the Holy Scriptures

Abstract

This article shows that scientific criticism of the Bible is a particular way of thinking that is founded on methodological doubt, inherited from Rene Descartes’ philosophical concept, and is applied to historical-critical interpretation of the Bible by means of three principles: criticism, analogy, and correlation (E.Troeltsch). The exegetical practice that results from this concept is characterized by such elements as methodological atheism; the assessment of the Bible as a product of human thinking; the assumption of evolutionary development of thought; and the separation of truth and reality. In the second part of the article this approach is evaluated in the light of the object of interpretation itself: the Bible. The author concludes that historical-critical interpretation, in its roots and in its essential elements, contradicts its object of research, the Bible itself, and therefore cannot serve as an acceptable method of exegesis of the Holy Scriptures.

Author Biography

Johannes LANGE, Since 1994 he is a faculty member of Saint Petersburg Christian University, from 1996 until 2002 he held the position of the Academic Dean of Undergraduate Studies at this institution.

Johannes Lange was born in 1960 in Germany and he get the degree equivalent to Master of Theology at the University of Heidelberg in 1987. During his time of studies he thoroughly examined scientific criticism of the Bible, which has a monopoly at theological faculties of German State Universities. Since 1994 he is a faculty member of Saint Petersburg Christian University, from 1996 until 2002 he held the position of the Academic Dean of Undergraduate Studies at this institution.

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