INTRODUCTION
Historical-traditional criticism is among the traditional approaches to biblical criticism. It can be defined as the study of the process by which the oral and written traditions underlying the present text of the Bible are developed into their canonical form (see Jeppese, Knud, and Benedict 1984). The results of methods such as form criticism (what genre of studies does the text belong to: historical account, proverb, psalm, prophetic saying? The original setting in life or Sitz Im Leben, the process by which the material is transmitted ), source criticism (a study of the structural investigation of text), textual criticism (a rediscovery of the early stages of the actual writing of a text), and editorial criticism (the discipline devoted to how final writers or editors of the Bible they not only adopted but the various adapted sources that they had at their disposal for their own purposes, are used to achieve a comprehensive vision of traditional-historical criticism, since all of them are directly related to the course of the composition of the Bible .
It is believed that “traditional-historical criticism should be complemented by a greater literary sensibility” (Carson, Moo, and Morris 1992, 83). In other words, there must be a medium that should not be considered as an alternative to literary criticism, nor given a superior position, but rather as a step after literary analysis (Fohrer 1965, 30). The characteristics of the historical-critical tradition could be understood by realizing the importance of the oral stage in the composition and transmission of a tradition.
Observing that it is misleading to regard it as a method, Di Vito (1993) opined: “traditional-historical criticism seeks to reconstruct the history of transmission of the various individual traditions and complexes of traditions found in the Old Testament.” (91). Tradition-historically how he treats the prehistory of the Old Testament books and examines the gradual accumulation of traditions from the preliterate stages to their final form. His aim, therefore, is to reconstruct a long history of the stages of a particular situation.
BRIEF HISTORY OF ITS DEVELOPMENT AND USE
Traditional-historical criticism arose because of the impasse reached as a result of source-critical studies in the Pentateuch at the end of the 19th century. Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), universally recognized as the classical exponent of the “Pentateuchal documentary hypothesis”, had a low opinion of the reliability of the Pentateuch as history, “although he accepted that a shadowy figure named Moses had been in some sense the founder of the Israelite religion” (Bray 1996, 284). Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932) later concluded that the documentary hypothesis was inadequate as a theory of the origins of the Pentateuch. He believed that each of the “four documents” had a prehistory going back many centuries, in an ancient oral tradition that accurately reflected many of the conditions in Babylon around 2000 BC. Using form criticism, Gungel explored beyond the limitations of the written text and observed that “one could hypothetically describe the entire history of a tradition on the basis of the tradition itself, its internal history” (Di Vito, 1993). Therefore, it is reasonable to recognize him as the main pioneer of traditional-historical criticism.
ASSESSMENT
Ivan Engnell (1907-64) wrote a detailed rebuttal of Wellhausen, using traditional-historical criticism borrowed from Noth. He rejected the idea that there were extensive documents behind Genesis-Numbers. Albrecht Alt investigated the distinctive nature of patriarchal religion. Gerhard von Rud found “creeds” that originated from the worship of Israel in an ancient sanctuary at Gilgal. He said that these creeds formed the basis of the structure of the present Hexateuch. Noth observes that behind the first written sources of J and E there was already a unified form with the five main themes of the Pentateuch.
There is wide disagreement today about the specific object of historical-traditional research. Is it restricted to the phase of oral tradition? Is it all inclusive? Furthermore, his methods are questioned. While acknowledging that changes in the form/content of the traditions occurred in the course of transmission, Gunkel and his followers insisted on the “fidelity” of the transmission process over long periods of time. It is evident that “recent field studies…emphasize that the transmission of oral tradition occurs largely through a process of recomposition, or recreation, so that a text never remains unchanged” (Di Vito 1993, 98). .
In addition, questions are raised about the reconstruction of pre-literary stages of a tradition from a written document. It is argued that “form criticism and historical-traditional criticism have generally shown that the New Testament is the tradition of the church between the years 30 and 125” (Fuller 1971, 198).
Although historical tradition-criticism is an approach that deals with the entire course of history through which a tradition passes, from its earliest beginning as an independent unit to its final elaboration and expression with the Bible, the scholar doubt the reliability. of an approach that is based on oral tradition that has its inherent weaknesses, mutilation in transit being the most obvious. Remaining independent in methods like source and critical form is also dangerous because it will continually reflect your limitations.
CITY OF WORKS
Bray, Gerardo. 1996. Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter Varsity Press.
Carson, D.A., Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris. 1992. An introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Apollos.
Say Vito, Robert. 1993. Tradition-historical criticism. In To Each His Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticism and Its Application, 90-104.
Foehrer, George. 1965. Introduction to the Old Testament. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Fuller, Reginald H. 1971. A critical introduction to the New Testament. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.