The Historical-Critical Paradigm in Biblical Studies: A Critical Intellectual History

The Historical-Critical paradigm in biblical studies has cast itself as an objective, scientific and enlightened alternative to the purportedly naïve, pietistic ways of reading Scripture that had prevailed before the Enlightenment. In this paper I trace the development of the paradigm over its initial formative period - the two hundred years between Spinoza and Wellhausen. I claim that the paradigm itself is a product of the intellectual winds of this period and bears the indelible mark of a series of biases and methodological assumptions that are the product of the cultures of the Enlightenment and of nineteenth century German historicism and romanticism. From our perspective today it is possible to lay bare these assumptions and critically examine how they have negatively influenced the rigorous, critical scholarship of the Hebrew Bible