Psychological biblical criticism is a re-emerging field within biblical criticism that seeks to examine the psychological dimensions of scripture through the use of the behavioral sciences. The title itself involves a discussion about "the intersections of three fields: psychology, the Bible, and the tradition of rigorous, critical reading of the biblical text." (Kille, 2001). Known figures within biblical scholarship advocating this interdisciplinary field in the United States include Rev. D. Andrew Kille (2001; 2004), J. Harold Ellens (2004), Wayne G. Rollins (1983; 1999; 2004), and, in Europe, Eugen Drewermann (Beier, 2004), Gerd Theissen (1983, 1987, 2007).
Rollins was the first to define psychological biblical criticism as having the hermeneutical intent of examining
"... texts, their origination, authorship, modes of expression, their construction, transmission, translation, reading, interpretation, their transposition into kindred and alien forms, and the history of their personal and cultural effect, as expressions of the structure, processes, and habits of the human psyche, both in individual and collective manifestations, past and present." (1999:77–78)
Read more about Psychological Biblical Criticism: The Worlds of Scripture, The Bible and Psychology in Transition, See Also, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)