synth

hello!
I'm a student in theology and I am about to begin work on my diploma thesis (work). But I still don't have clear theme to work on it. I need more light on the historical method and the sub-methods it includes, namely, form criticism, redaction criticism, source criticism and text criticism.

I got confused when I heard about other methods like narrative criticism, comparative method and so on. Are these methods also historical critical methods or not. Please help me to synthesize all these (and maybe other that I didn't mention) kind of methods that are under historical critical method. I need some general idea about all these different methods. Which sub-method is under historical method and which is not in that list. All in my head is a big mess now.

Toto

Mark Goodacre has some lecture notes that might be helpful:

http://www.theology.bham.ac.uk/resou...d/Lecture6.doc

.

Peter Kirby

"Historical-critical method" refers to modernist approaches to biblical literature, especially those that place it in its historical context ("historical") and analyse its meaning and origins ("critical"). Many methods in biblical study subtend to the historical-critical method.

What falls outside are the approaches gathered under the umbrella of "post-modernist," such as reader-response criticism, poststructuralist criticism, feminist criticism, and many forms of narrative criticism. These methods avoid diachronic reading, shunning the adducing of parallels outside of the text itself. Some forms of intertextuality studies may be an exception, but their readings of the parallels are synchronic rather than diachronic. They also often lift the text from outside of its historical context, which is ignored or thought unrecoverable. More emphasis is placed on the text in the mind of the reader than in the mind of any putative writer.

This is my understanding.

kind thoughts,
Peter Kirby