Historical Criticism: Its Role in Biblical Interpretation and Church Life

Abstract

T WIDELY used by Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant interpreters of Bible, historical-critical method of interpretation has come under fire in recent years. Criticism of it has been voiced in various quarters. For instance, (1) integriste in Church label it Modernist or Neo-Modernist, because they see it as emphasizing human elements in Bible and not paying sufficient attention to Bible as the Word of God. Attacks on biblical who make use of it have appeared in Wanderer, U.S. National Register, and Catholicism in Crisis. Such integriste have never been able to accept modern interpretation of Bible and would have us return to precriticai mode of exposition in vogue since Council of Trent. 2) Criticism has also come from left in person of Thomas Sheehan, a professor of philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago, who is said to be someone with impeccably 'liberar credentials . . . writing in . . . an impeccably secular publication, New York Review of Books. In an article entitled Revolution in Church, Sheehan claims that practitioners of historical-critical method have come up with a liberal which is bringing Church to what can be called end of Catholicism. This consensus is identified with conclusions proposed by Catholic scholars such as Benoit, Brown, Fitzmyer, Meier, Murphy, Pesch, and Stanley—and such theologians as