How Scholars Study the New Testament

Question 1

What approach to the New Testament focuses studies manuscripts?

Answer 1

Textual Criticism

Question 2

What approach to the New Testament is interested in variant readings?

Answer 2

Textual Criticism

Question 3

What approach to the New Testament attempts to reconstruct the original text?

Answer 3

Textual Criticism

Question 4

What approach to the New Testament is interested in the material evidence from the ancient world?

Answer 4

Archaeology

Question 5

What approach to the New Testament supplies important background information about the life, times, and places of the first century world based on discoveries?

Answer 5

Archaeology

Question 6

What approach to the New Testament uses methods of study derived from the social sciences?

Answer 6

Sociological Criticism

Question 7

What approach to the New Testament is interested in the effect of Jewish migrations, military occupation of Palestine, and ancient economic systems?

Answer 7

Sociological Criticism

Question 8

What approach to the New Testament is interested in the comparison of cultures?

Answer 8

Cultural Anthropology

Question 9

What approach to the New Testament is interested in kinship relations, gender roles, and educational strategies?

Answer 9

Cultural Anthropology

Question 10

What approach to the New Testament is interested in the specifics of the lives of people in the New Testament and the events recorded in it?

Answer 10

Historical Criticism

Question 11

What approach to the New Testament looks at the text as a document that provides a window into an important period of Middle Eastern and European history?

Answer 11

Historical Criticism

Question 12

What approach to the New Testament is interested in the pre-existing oral and written materials that the authors used to put their books together?

Answer 12

Source Criticism

Question 13

What approach is interested in classifying the genres of the different materials in the New Testament?

Answer 13

Form Criticism

Question 14

What approach to the New Testament wants to understand the historical setting (Sitz im Leben) of the different literary components found in the individual books?

Answer 14

Form Criticism

Question 15

What approach to the New Testament is interested in identifying parables, genealogies, miracle stories, speeches, creeds, etc.?

Answer 15

Form Criticism

Question 16

What approach to the New Testament is interested in how authors arranged and edited their sources?

Answer 16

Redaction Criticism

Question 17

What approach to the New Testament employs composition analysis and emendation analysis?

Answer 17

Redaction Criticism

Question 18

What approach to the New Testament draws upon the insights of modern literary analysis?

Answer 18

Narrative Criticism

Question 19

What approach to the New Testament focuses on how readers are expected to be impacted by each book?

Answer 19

Narrative Criticism

Question 20

What approach to the New Testament studies strategies used by biblical writers to make a particular point?

Answer 20

Rhetorical Criticism

Question 21

What approach to the New Testament is interested in polyvalence?

Answer 21

Reader-Response Criticism

Question 22

What approach to the New Testament examines how people understand the biblical text differently?

Answer 22

Reader-Response Criticism

Question 23

Feminist readings of scripture belong to what field of New Testament study?

Answer 23

Ideological Criticism

Question 24

Postcolonial Criticism is one of many different types of New Testament approaches found in what field of study?

Answer 24

Ideological Criticism

Question 25

What approach to the New Testament applies insights from the marginalized and oppressed in order to raise interpretive questions missed by interpreters of privilege?

Answer 25

Ideological Criticism

Question 26

What approach to the New Testament is often considered the most extreme?

Answer 26

Deconstruction

Question 27

What approach to the New Testament focuses more on the assumptions of the reader rather than the meaning of the text?

Answer 27

Deconstruction

Question 28

What approach to the New Testament seeks to demonstrate that all interpretations are human constructs with no objective claim to legitimacy?

Answer 28

Deconstruction