I.

World Behind The Text

II. The World of the Text
III. The World Of The
Reader: The Interaction
Between The Text And The
Audience
 I. World Behind The Text
This views the text as a
window, a source of
information about the
author, the addressees and
the world in which they
live…
 including but is not limited
to the social, ecological,
cultural background that
gave rise to the text. This is
the first part of three stages
in Biblical interpretation.
The three stages are
illustrated below.
Author Text Reader
(Sender) (Message (Receiver)
Sent)
- The world of the author is
known to be the world
behind the text. There are
various ways to determine
how the world of the author
influences and shapes the
message of the Bible.
 The following are the
different tools of Biblical
criticism in this regard:
1. Historical Criticism
2. Redaction Criticism
3. Textual Criticism
4. Source Criticism
1. Historical Criticism
 1.1The writing of the Bible
is historically and culturally
conditioned- Biblical
authors drew both their
imagery and their thought
patterns from the milieu in
which they lived.
1.2Historical criticism is the
attempt to verify the
historicity of and
understand the meaning of
an event that is reported to
have taken place in the
past.
1.3 The Bible must thus be
studied critically with the
same methods which are
used to study any other
ancient literature- The Bible
is to be read historically.
 1.4 Historical Criticism is
likewise involved in
determining the author,
date, audience, and
purposes of a given biblical
book.
 Read
Genesis 1:27 - 3:24
Genesis 1:27
 Who was
created first?
Genesis 2:7
 Who was
created first
this time?
Genesis 2:18
“Helper”
 The term "helper" has
historically been interpreted
as implying an inferior role
for Eve, although some
modern interpreters believe
that the word can mean a
companion of equal status.
 "...the Hebrew word
translated "helper" is used
twenty-one times in the
Old Testament: twenty of
these cases refer to help
from a superior."
Genesis 2:27
In ancient times, one was
believed to have authority
over a person or thing by
naming it.
2. Redaction Criticism
 It is a method of biblical
study which examines the
intentions and theologies of
the editors (called
redactors) who compiled
the biblical texts out of
earlier source materials.
 2.1 It presupposes source
and form criticism built on
them- The sources and
various literary genres were
not haphazardly compiled;
they were deliberately
composed.
 2.2 It builds upon the
methods of source, form,
and tradition criticism- each
of these methods assumed
that the final redactor
(generally thought of as a
school of thought rather
than as an individual)
 who brought the materials
together did so willy-nilly on
the basis of subject material
without any particular
theme, motive, or life
setting of his own.
3. Textual Criticism
So many people are asking
for the original texts of the
Bible. But truth to tell, we
do not have the actual texts
of the scriptures.
 What we have are only
copies of the copies of the
scriptures. They are
witnesses to the original
and therefore there is a
need for us to be assured of
the reliability of the text.
 3.1Textual Criticism is the
discipline which would help
us reconstruct a text as
close as possible to the
original.
 It does by means of a two-fold
task:
3.1.1 the collection and
comparison of the ancient
manuscripts, versions and
citations the attempt to explain the
agreements and disagreements
among the different manuscripts
and versions.
 3.1.2 The reading that is
best able to offer
explanations for itself when
compared with other
readings is considered the
most authentic.
 3.2 In textual criticism, the
scholars work with different
kinds of testimonies of the
text.
 3.2.1 Direct Testimonies
3.2.2 Indirect Testimonies
3.2.3 Ancient Versions-
These are the early
translations of the Bible.
 Some of them are so
ancient that they even pre-
date some of the direct
testimonies. The ancient
versions are rendered in
Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Latin,
Armenian and some other
ancient languages.
 3.3 When a textual critic is
confronted by a number of
manuscripts of the same
passage, he tries to find out if
there are variant readings; that
is; if two or more manuscripts
present different readings of
the same passage.
If so, then the critic will try
to find the reasons behind
this to come up with the
most authentic reading
among them.
 3.4 There are variant
readings- Where did they
come from? There are many
reasons for this. For
centuries, all Bibles had
been copied individually by
hand by scribes.
 The variant readings therefore
came from alterations made to
the text, whether done
intentionally or unintentionally,
consciously or unconsciously
in the process of copying or
reproducing the manuscripts.
3.4.1 Unconscious alterations
are unintentional. They could
be due to:
A. Errors coming from faulty
eyesight,
B. Errors from faulty hearing
C. Errors of the mind
D. Errors in Judgment
4. Source Criticism
 The texts were not all written
directly from the mind of the
writer. The writer usually made
use of sources and previous
materials.
4.1 Source criticism determines
the presence of sources in our
present texts.
4.2 It investigates where the
sources came from, how they
were used and what they
meant then and mean now in
the present use of the text.