Source criticism

Source Criticism

The Bible gives us three main reasons to believe that much of the Old Testament comes to us in an edited and adapted form:

Some books either tell us that this is so (see Proverbs 1:1; 10:1; 22:17; 25:1; 30:1; 31:1 where the biblical text tells us new collections of material begin); or tell us that their author made use of existing works without specifying in what way (1 Kgs 11:41; 14:19,29 etc.; 1 Chron 29:29)
On other occasions two books share the same text, or have text which differs only a little, as examples compare:

Is 2:2-4 with Mic 4:1-5;
Ps 108:1-5 with Ps 57:7-11;
Ps 60:5-12 with Ps 108:6-13
and Isa 39:1-8 with 2 Kings 20:12-19.
It is clear that the culture described by the Old Testament is strongly marked by features of tribal life. Tribal cultures give a high value to tradition and to traditional expression of stories, songs and ideas. In the context the Bible describes, its writers would naturally have made use of the traditional material handed on to them, while adapting it to the needs of their own day.

Scholars have developed a number of criteria to help distinguish the presence of such material that a writer takes up from their sources. This activity is known as "source criticism".