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This is a Catholic work dated in 1908. One can see the negotiation of science and faith in the writing. While Kantian terms such as a priori and a sence of evaluating data, there is a space for accepting unquantified data as part of the author's definition of historical criticism.

I think that when we start to talk about what is authentic in the Bible versus what isn't authentic can lead us to call things "false" or untrue when in fact the stories may very well be true and authentic, just not in the modern way of what we deem as true. This is why I found Philip Davies commentary posted by Michael H. quite helpful because it talks about reading the Bible from the perspective of what the writer or scribe was trying to convey to his audience instead of reading from the perspective of trying to figure out for example, if hundreds of thousands of Hebrew people actually lived and survived in the desert for more than forty years.

Examines postcolonial Biblical criticism as it applies to teaching the Bible. Provides a succinct overview of this approach to reading the Bible. Includes an analysis of the story of Hagar and Sarah that examines the sociopolitical context of the writer, traditional modern interpretations and concludes that Hagar and Sarah are examples of courageous, marginalized women in a patriarchal society who are able to maintain their dignity. Contrasts this reading with a feminist interpretation.

Review of Historical Criticism in 1981. While it is very informative, the article leaves the historical criticsim within the hands of the critic.

"An exciting collection of essays connecting postcolonialism and the Gospel of John, written by a group of international scholars, both established and new, from Hispanic, African, Jewish, Chinese, Korean and African-American backgrounds. It explores important topics such as the appropriation of John in settler communities of the United States and Canada, and the use of John in the colonization of Africa, Asia, Latin America and New Zealand." Although there are numerous readings of the text, the focus on a single Gospel will perhaps illuminate themes and concepts more easily than a collection of essays that use multiple texts.

This is a very nice summary of several SBL papers addressing the issue of historical criticism. Several different views are expressed in a very well framed and concise manner.

This article introduces historical criticism in the perspective of Catholic exegetical approaches from Richard Simons in the 17th century to the present.

This article looks fascinating to me for several reasons. First, it focuses on South Africa where historically a huge percentage of the population was marginalized. Second, the church was instrumental in bringing an end to apartheid. Finally, it highlights one of the critiques of postcolonial Biblical interpretation, the lack of political action because of the focus on textual politics. New Testament.

"In this stimulating study, R. S. Sugirtharajah explores the implications of postcolonial criticism for biblical studies. He provides a comprehensive overview of the origins, definitions, and procedures of postcolonial criticism, followed by a discussion of the significance of postcolonial criticism in biblical interpretation. He reveals how postcolonial criticism can offer an alternative perspective to our understanding of the Bible, and how, when the Bible has been deployed as a Western cultural icon, it has come to be questioned in new ways. " This book provides an overview of postcolonial Biblical criticism from a leading scholar - may be heavy going but is recommended for interested lay readers.

Right off of Wikipedia: Theory Derrida began speaking and writing publicly at a time when the French intellectual scene was experiencing an increasing rift between what could broadly be called "phenomenological" and "structural" approaches to understanding individual and collective life. For those with a more phenomenological bent the goal was to understand experience by comprehending and describing its genesis, the process of its emergence from an origin or event. For the structuralists, this was precisely the false problem, and the "depth" of experience could in fact only be an effect of structures which are not themselves experiential. It is in this context that in 1959 Derrida asks the question: Must not structure have a genesis, and must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the genesis of something?[3] In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.[4] At the same time, in order that there be movement, or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated-complex-such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This originary complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription, or textuality.[5] It is this thought of originary complexity, rather than original purity, which destabilises the thought of both genesis and structure, that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which derive all of its terms, including deconstruction.[6] Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating all the forms and varieties of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. His way of achieving this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear to what in those texts runs counter

Another good resource for exploring the role of memory in biblical history.

"Professional scholars and ordinary people contribute to this book, which is written from the perspective of those in the Third World. Writing from an experience of injustice and oppression, hunger and exploitation, they explore issues of racism and sexism, class struggle and religious triumphalism." Although not explicitly focused on postcolonial criticism, I think the voices of lay people might bring some issues that postcolonial criticism addresses into sharper focus and provide a sense of what this approach to reading the text means in real lives. I have included a review of this book in the bibliography.

The German researchers who pioneered in this work called this lost document "Quelle" which means "source". This is usually abbreviated as "Q." The Gospel of Q remains a hypothetical document. No intact copy has ever been found. No reference to the document in early Christian writings has survived. Its existence is inferred from an analysis of the text of Matthew and Luke. Much of the content of Matthew and Luke were derived from the Gospel of Mark. But there were also many passages which appear to have come from Q. Many theologians and religious historians believe that Q's text can be reconstructed by analyzing passages that Matthew and Luke have in common. If the Gospel of Q exists, it might best be regarded as a reconstructed Gospel. Many believe that it was written much earlier than the four canonical gospels in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament): Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. It may have been the first of the 40 or so Gospels that were written and used by the early Christian movements. The Gospel of Q is different from the canonical gospels in that it does not extensively describe events in the life of Jesus. Rather, it is largely a collection of sayings -- similar to the Gospel of Thomas.