Bible Verse Lookup
The Historical‐Critical Method through 1950
Various aspects of the historical‐critical method, which aimed to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel and the history of the biblical text, were immensely influential through much of the 20th century, and they continue to serve as the basis of much scholarship. However, with the change in intellectual currents at the end of the second millennium, the consensus that the historical‐critical method was the only legitimate method began to fragment, and it ultimately shattered with the proliferation of new methods and approaches for investigating biblical texts. Beginning in the 1970s many biblical scholars have questioned the adequacy of an almost exclusive orientation to questions with a historical focus. Also, in keeping with a trend characteristic of most of the humanities and social sciences, there has been a strong movement toward interdisci‐ plinary conversation. Although it is difficult to give a simple overview of the proliferating approaches to biblical studies since the 1970s, they can be roughly grouped under the categories of literary, social‐scientific, and cultural hermeneutical approaches.
