Historical Critical Method 3 - Form Criticism

I had last mentioned Holtzmann and his "two-source hypothesis" to explain the interrelationship of the three synoptic gospels. The concluding step in that development was the publication in 1924 of B. H. Streeter's The Four Gospels, in which he argues that Matthew and Luke each had an independent source (usually dubbed "M" and "L") that explains the material unique to both Matthew and Luke and rounds out the two source theory, and becomes known as the "Four Source Hypothesis," which is still referred to today as the best way to explain the interrelationship of the three synoptic Gospels (among historical critical scholars).

Scholars today do not spend a lot of time trying to reconstruct the sources of the Gospels. But that was the focus of much study in the first half of the 20th century. At the same time as "source criticism" was in vogue, out of Germany came a major development in the historical critical method called "Form Criticism." Form Criticism arose from the realization that the Gospels are essential "episodic" literature, that is, they are comprised mostly of short compact episodes (that biblical scholars call by the Greek word "pericope"). Then the question arose, how did we get from Jesus to these episodes as we find them in the canonical Gospels? The German scholar who is best known for advancing a viable explanation is Rudolf Bultmann. When he published his The History of the Synoptic Tradition in 1921, it became the major focal point in liberal biblical scholarship (it was not translated into English until 1963, when his views had already become the standard fare at mainline Protestant seminaries). This book became (and remains) the "standard" on this topic, and within this book we also find implicitly what becomes known as the criteria of authenticity (subject of my next Blog entry).

Bultmann did not coin the term Form Criticism, nor did he conceive of the concept. But he is the one who applied it to the synoptic Gospels in a thorough going fashion with the intention of covering most of the material in the Gospels, especially how the smaller pericopes were transmitted. The initial interest in Form Criticism was in categorizing the various pericopes according to the particular form in which they appeared (categorization seems to me to be a German scientific obsession during this period about everything). So Bultmann came up with names to categorize the sayings of Jesus. The large categories are: 1) Apophthegms (a Greek word meaning a pithy saying), 2) Dominical sayings, 3) Miracle stories, and 4) Historical stories and legends.

Within the category of Apophthegms Bultmann includes a) Controversy Dialogues, b) Scholastic dialogues, and c) Biographical dialogues. This may not seem to clarify matters much, as Bultmann leans on his education in the Greek and Roman classics to come up with some of his terms. My favorite example of how this process works for Bultmann is a "controversy dialogue," Mark 2:23-28, in which Jesus debates with the Pharisees about Jesus' disciples picking grain on the sabbath while walking through a field. Bultmann concludes that the only piece of this passage that goes back to Jesus is the pithy saying at the end: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Bultmann surmises that the story as we find it was created within the discussions by the earliest Jewish-Christians in a Jewish setting attempting to define themselves over against the Judaism out of which Christianity emerged (probably in the 40's CE). So a setting about an action on the Sabbath considered work by the Pharisees is created, and in typical Jewish fashion, an example from the scriptures is worked in, and the scene concludes with Jesus' memorable saying about the purpose of the Sabbath.

What Bultmann calls Scholastic Dialogues are explanations of points of biblical interpretation. A good example is the parable of the Rich Fool" (Luke 12:13-21), where the topic introduced is the proper division of property. Bultmann often raises the question of whether the final form of a particular pericope occurred among Aramaic speaking Christians or Greek speaking Christians. He believes most of the pericopes he labels Scholastic Dialogues took their final form in an "Hellenistic" (Greek speaking) environment (this is probably based on his assumptions regarding the forms of stories used in ancient Greek education and rhetoric, of which there is no guarantee that they are truly applicable to Christian documents).

While Bultmann usually does not go into the question of how much influence the Gospel writers had on the final form of their material (that was a major emphasis of biblical scholarship in the second half of the 20th century), he does mention such things on occasion. For instance, on the question of what is the greatest commandment, Bultmann says that in Mark it is a scholastic dialogue (Mark ) but Matthew and Luke change it into a controversy dialogue. In such a case, what happened to the story in the 40's and 50's is not as important as what happened when the story was included in the Gospels.

Biographical dialogues are short scenes in the ministry of Jesus in which the main point is a saying of Jesus, such as Jesus' calling his disciples. There is a comment that Bultmann makes about these scenes that draws together Strauss, Bultmann and Borg (in that chronological order). You will find numerous places where Borg refers often to "metaphorical narratives." Ultimately the idea goes back to Strauss (even though he did not use that exact term). Bultmann says about these biographical narratives: "I call [them] 'Ideal' because they embody a truth in some sort of metaphorical situation, which ... give [them] their symbolic character." It is with the publication of Bultmann's History of the Synoptic Tradition that what we saw as Strauss' emphasis on the mythical character of much of the Gospels now enters mainstream liberal biblical scholarship almost one hundred years after Strauss lost his teaching job for proposing such a radical notion.

Under Dominical Sayings Bultmann places: 1) Logia (wisdom sayings, proverbs), 2) Prophetic & Apocalyptic sayings, 3) Legal sayings (church rules), 4) "I" sayings, and 5) Similitudes (comparisons and parables). A problem with the way Bultmann categorizes the sayings of Jesus is that some scholars say the choice of categories is somewhat arbitrary, and the way various sayings are placed in categories can be somewhat subjective. While most of Jesus' parables Bultmann considers as similitudes, he goes to great lengths to discuss what a great variation there is among the parables and questions if some should be even be called parables based on their narrative function within the Gospels, such as an allegorical parable like the Wicked Tenants in the vineyard or those called "Example Stories" like the "Good Samaritan" (Luke 10:25-37).

ASIDE: Making such micro-distinctions within the category of parables has more to do with discussions on modern philosophty of language than the distinctions actually made in the minds of the Biblical writers. And in particular it is has to do with the modern value judgment that the word "parable" should only apply to those passages that are of a purely metaphorical character (narrowly defined) based on a modern definition of metaphor. This means that parables of Jesus that are allegories or examples of righteous behavior are not metaphorical in the strict modern sense of the term, and so Bultmann and those who follow his lead hesitate to call them "parables."

Under Miracles, Bultmann breaks that category down into: 1) Exorcisms, 2) Healings, 3) Raising from dead, and 4) Nature miracles. These miracle categories really need no explanation as they are used by most scholars before and after Bultmann in exactly the same way.

In the discussion of Historical Stories and Legends, Bultmann echoes the opinion of Strauss that it is difficult to tell what there is in many of the stories about Jesus that is definitively historical. With the story of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, Bultmann says that he is certain such an event took place, but the account of it we find in the Gospels "must be classified as a legend." In a similar way, Bultmann refers to the story of Jesus' Last Supper as a "cult legend." What he means by this is that the words of Jesus over the bread and cup reflect the Eucharistic practices of the early church, rather than any attempt to recollect or report what Jesus actually said on that night. Thus the story of the Last Supper, in Bultmann's opinion, serves mainly to validate the Eucharistic practice of the church. On this topic of the Last Supper Bultmann is simply repeating the conclusions of other scholars of his time, but fitting these conclusions into his set of sayings categories. Bultmann considers the story of Jesus' "Triumphal Entry" into Jerusalem largely legendary, because the reference to the animal with its connection to Zechariah 9 would be a construction of later Christians. Therefore, (for Bultmann) Jesus was probably hailed into Jerusalem by the pilgrims coming to town, but the part about Jesus riding on the donkey is pure legend. Such being Bultmann's tendencies, you can understand that he finds little if anything historical in the resurrection stories or the birth stories.

What Bultmann provided the world of modern biblical scholarship was 1) an analysis of the various pericopes in the gospels, and also 2) a means of deciding what came first in the Jesus tradition and what was added later (without explicitly intending to do so). Implicit in Bultmann's work is a mean of determining what can be traced back to Jesus and what was created by the Christians who first transmitted his sayings and stories of his actions to other Christians. While Bultmann never really defined the principles he was working with, on close examination it can become evident what motivated his decisions on what was historical or what was legendary, what can be traced back to Jesus and what cannot.

It was left to a student of Bultmann's, Norman Perrin, to formulate Bultmann's unstated principles into "criteria of authenticity." With the publication of Perrin's book, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, in 1967 the source of innovative New Testament scholarship had clearly shifted from Germany to the United States. See next Blog entry: Criteria of Authenticity.