1 - The Historical-Critical Method and the Gospel of Matthew

Summary

These are challenging times in which to practice the historical-critical method (HCM). While for roughly two hundred years within academic circles it was the approach to interpreting the New Testament (NT), over the past three or four decades academics have begun to embrace a plurality of methods. Indeed, some new methods arose largely in reaction to perceived deficiencies of the HCM. Accordingly, in what follows, we outline an approach to the HCM that includes a rationale for its continued use.

THE HISTORICAL-CRITICAL METHOD IN THE CONTEXT OF CURRENT SCHOLARSHIP

To place our discussion in perspective, an important clarification is needed from the outset: the HCM is not a single, monolithic approach, nor has it been so in the past. More than a single method, the HCM is an array of disciplines sometimes practiced in conjunction with each other, and sometimes separately. Furthermore, the HCM has been practiced for centuries by a vast array of interpreters, most of whom incorporated into their practice nuances and perspectives of their own. At times, revisions to the HCM have amounted to whole new disciplines being incorporated into its practice (e.g., form criticism in the 1920s, redaction criticism in the 1950s, and semantics and linguistics roughly fromthe 1970s onward). In these ways, to a greater or lesser extent, each generation of interpreters has adapted its practice of the HCM to its new insights. In sum, being already diverse as a result of its many constitutive disciplines, the HCM has also changed and adapted over time, in a manner similar to any other area of learning.