mlinssen wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 11:04 am
What am I missing?
The adjective. Many people (and articles) perhaps find no need to disambiguate between classical source criticism and biblical source criticism and thus between classical historians and biblical historians. However some do. Here are two examples:
Russell Gmirkin highlights the difference between classical source criticism and traditional biblical source criticism.
METHODOLOGY
The source-critical methods used in this book for dating texts - including biblical texts - are those familiar from classical studies, deductively establishing "terminus a quo" and "ad quem" dates between which the composition of the text under investigation must have taken place. The latest possible dates of composition (terminus ad quem) is fixed by the earliest proof of existence of the texts, such as (rarely) the earliest physical copy, or (commonly) the first quotation or other utilisation of the text by some other datable work. The earliest possible date of composition (terminus a quo) is usually fixed by the latest datable work the text in question quotes or utilises, or by the latest historical allusion within the text. This book is essentially an extended exercise in classical source criticism applied to the Hebrew Bible. [1]
[1] There is a sharp methodological distinction between classical source criticism and traditional biblical source criticism. The latter used a variety of techniques to isolate hypothetical sources within biblical texts. The identification of sources J, E, D and P preliminary to the dating arguments of the Documentary Hypothesis is a prime example of biblical source criticism. Such source documents must remain perpetually hypothetical, since they no longer exist as independent entities. This type of source criticism is rarely encountered in classical scholarship.
Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch, (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies) Hardcover – May 15, 2006
Russell Gmirkin
Arnaldo Momigliano highlights the difference between classical historians and biblical historians by referring to the latter as "the insiders".
ON PAGANS, JEWS, and CHRISTIANS
--- Arnaldo Momigliano, 1987
Chapter 1:
Biblical Studies and Classical Studies
Simple Reflections upon Historical Method
p.3
Principles of Historical research need not be different
from criteria of common sense. And common sense teaches
us that outsiders must not tell insiders what they should
do. I shall therefore not discuss directly what biblical
scholars are doing. They are the insiders.
http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/arnal ... STIANS.htm