Historical criticism is the art of differentiating the true from the false regarding facts of the past.

It has
for its object both the documents which have been handed down to us and the facts themselves. We
may distinguish three kinds of historical sources: written documents, unwritten evidence; and tradition.
As further means of reaching knowledge of the facts there are three processes of indirect research, viz.:
negative argument, conjecture, and a priori argument.

It may be said at once that the study of sources and the use of indirect processes will avail little for
proper criticism if one is not guided chiefly by an ardent love of truth such as will prevent him from
turning aside from the object in view through any prejudice, religious, national, or domestic, that might
trouble his judgment. The role of the critic differs much from that of an advocate. He must, moreover,
consider that he has to fulfil at once the duties of an examining magistrate and an expert juryman, for
whom elementary probity, to say nothing of their oath, makes it a conscientious duty to decide only on
the fullest possible knowledge of the details of the matter submitted to their examination, and in
keeping with the conclusion which they have drawn from these details; guarding themselves at the
same time against all personal feeling either of affection or of hatred respecting the litigants. But
inexorable impartiality is not enough; the critic should also possess a fund of that natural logic known as
common sense, which enables us to estimate correctly, neither more nor less, the value of a conclusion
in strict keeping with given premises. If, moreover, the investigator be acute and shrewd, so that he
discerns at a glance the elements of evidence offered by the various kinds of information before him,
which elements often appear quite meaningless to the untrained observer, we may consider him
thoroughly fitted for the task of critic. He must now proceed to familiarize himself with the historical
method, i.e. with the rules of the art of historical criticism. In the remainder of this article we shall
present a brief rsum of these rules apropos of the various kinds of documents and processes which
the historian employs in determining the relative degree of certainty which attaches to the facts that
engage his attention.

There are three main types of historical criticism: Source Criticism, Form Criticism and Redaction
Criticism. Source Criticism intends to track down the original sources which lie behind a biblical text. Its
history traces back to the 17th century. There are three assumptions in Source Criticism one is that it is
possible to determine sources by objective and scientific means, two is that finding sources is a good
thing which is an aid to understanding and lastly, finding sources that gives access to more authentic
earlier accounts. The current view on the Source criticism is that the Gospel of Mark was written first
then Luke and Matthew used the book of Mark as a source. Luke and Matthew also had access to a
hypothetical common written source which was called Q. Matthew and Luke used a material unique
to each other called M and L respectively.

Bibliography
n.a. (2010). Brad Copp. Retrieved July 13, 2014, from Brad Copp: http://bradcopp.com/BI351/histcrit.pdf

(n.a., 2010)