Program / Course 23: Research Methodology / Lesson 2.2
What you will learn
- List the basic questions of source criticism and apply them to a text.
- Explain why the author, date, audience and purpose of a text change what it can prove.
- Describe how manuscripts, copying and later editing affect the reliability of an ancient text.
- Distinguish a source’s testimony from what the source reveals without meaning to.
The big idea
Source criticism is the habit of asking questions of a text before using it as evidence. Who wrote it, when and where? For whom, and why? How did it reach the present, and has it been changed along the way? What could the author have known? The method does not assume that sources lie. It assumes that they are human products with a purpose and a history, and that a claim is only as strong as the answers to these questions allow.
Key terms
- Source criticism
- The careful questioning of a source about its origin, purpose, reliability and transmission before it is used as evidence.
- Provenance
- The origin and history of a document: where it came from and who has held or copied it.
- Authorship
- The question of who wrote a text. A text may be anonymous, attributed to a famous name, or written by a group.
- Pseudonymous
- Written under another person’s name. The ancient world knew many such works, and scholars debate the status of some.
- Transmission
- The process by which a text was copied and passed down, including the manuscripts that survive.
- Interpolation
- A later addition to a text by a copyist or editor, which was not in the author’s original.
- Testimony
- What a source intends to tell the reader. A source can also give unintentional evidence about the writer’s world.
- Genre
- The kind of writing a text is: letter, sermon, history, polemic, hymn, law, legend. Genre shapes how it should be read.
Background
Imagine you find a letter in an archive that says a certain bishop taught a certain doctrine. Before you use it, you want to know a number of things. Is it really by the person named? When was it written, and how soon after the events it describes? Who was it written to, and what did the writer want from them? Is the surviving text a faithful copy? Is the writer reliable on this point, or an opponent, or a partisan? These are the questions of source criticism, and historians of every period ask them.
The questions apply to all sources, including religious ones, and they do not decide in advance what the answers will be. Some texts turn out to be early and reliable, others late and legendary, and many are mixed. The aim is to judge each text by its own features. Believers and unbelievers use the same questions, though they sometimes reach different conclusions about what the evidence allows.
One distinction deserves care. The testimony of a source is what it means to tell you. But a source also reveals things its author did not intend: the language used, the assumptions held, the practices taken for granted. A letter scolding a church for a practice proves, at least, that the practice existed. This unintentional evidence is often more reliable than the author’s argument, since the author had no reason to shape it.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Ask about the author
Who wrote the text? Is the attribution ancient, medieval or modern, and on what basis? What is known of the writer’s education, position and loyalties? Is the work anonymous, attributed to a famous figure or written under a pen name?
Authorship questions need care. Scholars debate the authorship of several ancient texts, and different traditions weigh the evidence differently. The right response is to note the debate, say which view you follow and why, and avoid building more on the attribution than it can bear.
Step 2: Ask about the date and place
When and where was the text written? A source written close to the events, by someone in a position to know, is usually stronger evidence than one written centuries later. But closeness is not a guarantee. A late writer may have had better sources, and an early one may have had an axe to grind.
Dating is often uncertain, and ranges are normal. Report the range scholars accept and say what rests on it.
Step 3: Ask about audience and purpose
A letter to a struggling church, a speech to a council, a sermon to a congregation, a defense of the faith to pagan readers and a private note to a friend will all say different things about the same subject. The purpose shapes what is included and what is left out.
Ask what the writer wanted the readers to do, think or feel. A text written to refute a rival will describe the rival from the writer’s side. That does not make it false, but the description must be checked.
Step 4: Ask about genre and conventions
Each genre has its habits. Ancient histories often included speeches composed by the author in keeping with the occasion. Lives of saints aimed at edification as well as report. Polemical treatises exaggerate. Poetry uses imagery. Reading a text against its genre prevents both naive literalism and unfair dismissal.
Ask also what language the text was written in and whether key words changed meaning over time.
Step 5: Ask about transmission and compare with other sources
Most ancient texts survive only in copies made centuries after the original. Copyists made accidental slips, and sometimes deliberate changes. Scholars compare manuscripts to reconstruct the likeliest wording and record variants in critical editions. Some works survive only in translation, or only in quotations by later writers. Ask what edition you are using and how secure its text is.
Finally, compare with other sources. Do independent witnesses agree? Does archaeology or a non-Christian writer help? Where sources conflict, weigh them by the earlier questions instead of picking the one you like.
- Who wrote this, and how do I know?
- How close was the writer to the events, and what could he or she have known?
- Who was the audience, and what did the writer want from them?
- What genre is this, and what are its conventions?
- Do I know which edition I am reading and how reliable its text is?
- What do other sources say, and do any of them agree independently?
Examples
Author and audience
A speech by a bishop to his clergy about proper conduct shows what he thought the clergy ought to do. It does not by itself show how they actually behaved. The speech might even suggest the opposite: bishops usually warn against what is happening. (A constructed example of reasoning.)
Date
A life of a saint written three centuries after his death may preserve true memories, but it should not be used as the main evidence for the details of his private life without checking whether earlier sources exist.
Transmission
The text of the New Testament survives in many thousands of manuscripts, with many differences in wording, most of them small. Bruce Metzger’s The Text of the New Testament explains how scholars compare manuscripts and weigh variants. The abundance of manuscripts gives scholars much to work with, and also much to evaluate.
Unintended evidence
A church leader’s letter condemning a certain practice shows that some Christians were doing it, whatever the writer thought of them. A later reader may learn more from the complaint than from the argument.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching since the twentieth century has encouraged historical study of Scripture and the Fathers. Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) urged attention to literary forms and original languages. Catholic scholars use source criticism on all texts, while the Church holds that Scripture is inspired and that its teaching authority interprets it. Many see the two as compatible.
Orthodox
Orthodox scholars edit and study patristic and liturgical texts with the tools of textual criticism. Some Orthodox theologians are wary of applying certain critical theories to Scripture that treat the text as a patchwork of sources. They tend to stress the Church’s reading of the text as a whole, while accepting careful study of manuscripts and history.
Protestant
Protestant communities differ. Some, especially those that grew from the Enlightenment, embraced historical criticism of the Bible, including source and form criticism. Others, such as many evangelicals, accept textual criticism and historical study but resist conclusions that deny what they hold about the authority and reliability of Scripture. Both groups value work in the original languages.
Secular and Jewish scholarship
Secular historians apply the same questions to all religious texts and avoid ruling on divine inspiration. Jewish scholars have long studied variants and composition of the Hebrew Scriptures, using the same tools in ways that depend on their own communities’ views of the text.
Why it matters
A claim built on a source nobody has questioned is only as strong as the writer’s trust. Source criticism lets you rely on a text exactly as far as it deserves, and no further. It also protects against two opposite errors: accepting everything old as true, and dismissing everything religious as unreliable. Paul’s advice to test everything and hold fast to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21) fits this work closely.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Source criticism means assuming that ancient writers lied.
Correction: It assumes only that they were human and had purposes. Many sources prove reliable on examination. The method tests a text, and does not condemn it in advance.
Misunderstanding: The earlier the source, the better it is.
Correction: Early sources are valuable, but earliness does not ensure accuracy. A late source may rest on earlier reliable material, and an early source may be biased. Weigh each.
Misunderstanding: If a text’s author is uncertain, the text is worthless.
Correction: Many valuable works are anonymous or of disputed authorship. What matters is that you do not claim more than the evidence supports about who wrote it.
Misunderstanding: Only believers or only skeptics can do source criticism.
Correction: The questions are the same for both, and scholars from many convictions have contributed to the field. The conclusions may differ, but the method can be shared.
Knowledge check
List five questions of source criticism.
Who wrote the source? When and where was it written? For whom was it written? Why was it written, and in what genre? How was it transmitted, and are there variants? Others include: what could the author have known, and what do independent sources say? Any five of these are correct answers.
What is the difference between a source’s testimony and unintended evidence?
Testimony is what the source means to tell the reader, such as a claim that a bishop taught a doctrine. Unintended evidence is what the source reveals without meaning to, such as practices, vocabulary and assumptions. A letter condemning a custom shows the custom existed. Unintended evidence is often more dependable because the author did not shape it.
Why does genre matter in reading an ancient text?
Each genre has conventions that affect what the author is doing. Ancient historians composed speeches that fit the occasion, saints’ lives aimed at edification, and polemic exaggerated. If you ignore genre you may read a conventional device as literal report, or reject a work for not meeting standards it never set for itself.
How can transmission affect the reliability of a text?
Texts were copied by hand over centuries, and copyists made errors and sometimes additions. The surviving manuscripts may be far later than the original. Scholars compare manuscripts to find the likeliest original wording, and a critical edition records the variants. A reader should know which edition is used and how secure its text is.
Think it through
- Think of a letter or an email you have received that was written to persuade you. How would you read it differently now?
- Why might the same ancient text be read differently by an Orthodox, a Protestant and a secular scholar, even when they use the same questions?
- What is a source from your own tradition whose authorship or date is debated? How should one speak about it fairly?
- How does 1 Thessalonians 5:21 relate to the work of testing sources?
Independent assignment
A source profile
In your own notebook, choose one short primary source from the library or from your own reading. Write a profile of about 400 words that answers the questions of this lesson: author, date and place, audience, purpose, genre, edition and translation, and what the source can and cannot show. Mark each statement as certain, probable or debated, and cite where you found the information. Do not send this to anyone.
Further study
- Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration Read selectively to see how manuscripts are compared and how a scholar explains uncertainty.
- Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament A model of reasoning from limited early evidence.
- Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses Read selectively as an argument about sources, and note its evidence and assumptions.
- J. B. Lightfoot, ed., The Apostolic Fathers Check how the editor introduces each text, with its date and manuscript situation.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test everything and hold fast to what is good.
- John 21:24 A statement that attests a witness.
- Luke 1:3 Luke investigates carefully.