Source, Form, and Redaction Criticism

Introduction

“Historical criticism” is not one thing but a family of methods that matured in the long Enlightenment and crystallized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Within that family, source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism are the flagship approaches for asking three different, complementary questions about the biblical text:

1. Source criticism: From what earlier written sources was this document composed?

2. Form criticism: What oral or literary forms (genres) preceded our present text, and what social settings gave them shape?

3. Redaction criticism: How and why did an author or editor arrange and reshape inherited material, and what theology guided those compositional decisions?

Together they attempt to move from text-in-its-final-form backward to prehistory and then forward again to the editor’s (redactor’s) aims, offering a diachronic account of Scripture’s coming-to-be. For doctoral students, these tools remain indispensable: even if one ultimately privileges canonical or theological interpretation in ecclesial contexts, responsible exegesis still benefits from asking what sources lie behind a passage, how earlier forms once functioned, and how the final writer’s hand shapes meaning. This chapter offers a sustained, critical introduction to each method with worked examples, exegetical case studies, and guidance for integrating diachronic insights with theological reading.

I. Source Criticism

Aims and Assumptions

Source criticism asks whether a biblical book is a literary composite and, if so, which written sources a later author combined. Its classic assumptions are that (1) tensions, repetitions, stylistic differences, and divergent ideologies may signal multiple sources; (2) later writers sometimes preserve earlier documents; and (3) reconstructing those sources clarifies development in Israel’s and the Church’s faith (Wellhausen, 1994/1878; Grant & Tracy, 1984).

Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Beyond

The Pentateuch has been the paradigmatic arena. After Astruc and Eichhorn, Julius Wellhausen synthesized a four-source model—J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist), and P (Priestly)—woven by later redactors (Wellhausen, 1994/1878). While contemporary models are more fluid (fragmentary and supplementary hypotheses, and some minimalist reassessments), the method’s core heuristics are worth mastering.

Worked example: The Flood narrative (Genesis 6–9).
Students quickly notice “doublets” and numerical tensions: two of every animal (6:19–20) versus seven pairs of clean animals (7:2–3); forty days of rain (7:12, 17) versus waters prevailing 150 days (7:24); divine names oscillating (’Elōhîm/YHWH); alternating vocabularies (“enter” vs. “come,” “male and female” vs. “man and his wife”). A classic source-critical reading proposes that a Priestly strand supplies the careful dates, covenants, genealogical precision, and universal scope, while a non-P strand (often labeled J) carries vivid narrative and anthropomorphic divine speech. Even if one does not partition verses exactly, the method has explanatory force: it clarifies why both a Noahic covenant with creation and an earthy, dialogical narrative coexist.

Beyond the Pentateuch:

• Deuteronomistic History (Joshua–Kings). Martin Noth proposed a single exilic redactor who composed a grand theological history from Deuteronomy through Kings using older sources, crafting recurring themes (prophetic word fulfilled, kings judged by the Torah standard, centralization of worship) (Noth, 1981).

• Isaiah. Source analysis often posits at least First Isaiah (1–39), Deutero-Isaiah (40–55), and Trito-Isaiah (56–66) on linguistic, historical, and thematic grounds. Even scholars who defend more unity must account for stark horizon shifts (Grant & Tracy, 1984).

New Testament: The Synoptic Problem

Why are Matthew, Mark, and Luke so similar and yet distinct? The prevailing model is Markan priority plus a lost sayings source (Q) used by Matthew and Luke (Streeter’s “four-document hypothesis”). Mark’s rougher Greek, frequent redundancies, and harder readings have commended its priority; Matthew and Luke often expand Mark and refine diction. The minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark and notable interdependence in double tradition material sustain the hypothesis of a second source (Streeter; Kloppenborg, 2000). Alternative models—Griesbach/Two-Gospel and Farrer (Mark → Matthew → Luke, without Q)—keep source criticism honest (Goodacre, 2002).

Worked example: The Temptations (Matt 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13).
Both Matthew and Luke share a three-temptation sequence with significant verbatim overlap; Mark has only a brief notice (1:12–13). The order differs (Matthew ends at the temple; Luke ends with the kingdoms). A source-critical explanation: both drew from Q (shared sayings material) but arranged differently to suit narrative aims—already hinting toward redaction criticism.

Strengths and Constraints

Source criticism’s strengths are clarity about compositional layers and attention to literary growth. Its risks are overconfidence in partitioning, circularity in criteria (defining sources by features and then using those features to prove sources), and atomization that can obscure final-form unity (Childs, 1979).

II. Form Criticism

Aims and Assumptions

Emerging from folklore studies and the history-of-religions school, form criticism (Ger. Formgeschichte) asks: What genres (forms) underlie the text, and what social settings (Sitz im Leben) generated and transmitted them? The working premise is that much biblical material circulated orally in stereotyped forms before literary fixation; identifying those forms illuminates function and intention (Gunkel, 1967; Dibelius, 1971; Bultmann, 1963).

Old Testament: Gunkel and the Psalms / Genesis

Hermann Gunkel analyzed the Psalms into Gattungen: hymns, individual laments, communal laments, thanksgivings, royal psalms, wisdom psalms. Each form exhibits conventional structure (e.g., lament: address → complaint → petition → confession of trust → vow/praise) and functions in distinct settings (temple liturgy, royal ritual, individual piety) (Gunkel, 1967; Westermann, 1981). Gunkel and von Rad also discerned sagas/legends in Genesis (ancestral stories) with features of folklore—repetition, type-scenes (betrothal at a well), etiologies.

Worked example: Psalm 13.
A terse individual lament: address (“O LORD, how long?”), complaint (divine hiddenness, enemy gloating), petition (“consider and answer me”), trust (“I have trusted in your steadfast love”), vow/praise (“I will sing to the LORD”). Recognizing the form situates the Psalm in the prayer-life of Israel and helps interpreters respect its rhetorical movement—from protest to praise—rather than flattening it into generic devotion.

New Testament: Dibelius, Bultmann, and the Gospel Units

Martin Dibelius classified gospel pericopes into “paradigms” (pronouncement stories), miracle stories, legends, myths; Rudolf Bultmann refined categories and argued that pericopes evolved within the church’s preaching, shaped by needs of exhortation and catechesis (Dibelius, 1971; Bultmann, 1963). The aim was not cynicism but explanation: why are some scenes compact and pointed (pronouncement stories), others elaborated with wonder (miracles), and still others proclamatory (kerygma)?

Worked example: Mark 2:1–12 (Healing/Pronouncement).
Structure: setting (Capernaum house, crowd), action (paralytic lowered), controversy (“Who can forgive sins but God alone?”), punchline (“The Son of Man has authority…”). As a pronouncement story, the pericope climaxes in a saying that likely circulated independently; the narrative frame serves to deliver it with rhetorical force. The Sitz im Leben is missionary preaching that asserts Jesus’ authority to forgive.

Strengths and Constraints

Form criticism’s strengths are genre sensitivity, respect for oral artistry, and attention to function. Limits include speculative reconstructions of settings, tendency to detach units from literary context, and—especially in Bultmann’s radical program—risk of dislocating Jesus from early church proclamation. Later scholarship has moderated these excesses, integrating form with narrative and memory studies.

III. Redaction Criticism

Aims and Assumptions

If source criticism looks behind the text and form criticism looks beneath it, redaction criticism (Redaktionsgeschichte) looks through it to the hands and minds of the evangelists and other biblical authors as theologians who shaped traditions to convey distinctive messages. The question becomes: How did the author edit and arrange inherited material, and what does that reveal about his theology, audience, and aims? (Conzelmann, 1960; Bornkamm, Barth, & Held, 1963).

New Testament: Mark, Matthew, and Luke

• Mark: Following Wrede’s insight into the “messianic secret”, redaction critics observe Mark’s characteristic seams (summaries, transitions), his urgency (immediately/euthys), and his portrait of a suffering, misunderstood Messiah. Mark’s arrangement teaches as much as any single saying (Wrede, 1971).

• Matthew: Bornkamm et al. highlighted Matthew’s fulfillment formulae (“this was to fulfill”), five-discourse structure (echoing Torah?), ecclesial concerns (keys to Peter, community discipline), and editorial tightening of Markan narratives (Bornkamm et al., 1963).

• Luke: Conzelmann argued that Luke reconfigures eschatology into Heilsgeschichte (“salvation history”): Israel → Jesus → Church (Acts), relocating apocalyptic imminence into a theological timeline, with emphasis on the Spirit, prayer, the poor, and universal mission (Conzelmann, 1960).

Worked example: The Storm Stilling (Mark 4:35–41 // Matt 8:23–27 // Luke 8:22–25).

• Mark: longest, most vivid; disciples rebuke Jesus (“Teacher, do you not care…?”), revealing misunderstanding; Jesus calms storm, rebukes their lack of faith; question, “Who then is this…?” pushes Christology.

• Matthew: abbreviates and reorders; disciples cry “Save us, Lord; we are perishing,” a more reverent address; Jesus first rebukes their little faith, then the storm—foregrounding discipleship formation.

• Luke: retains Mark’s general shape but emphasizes amazement and asks, “Where is your faith?” A redaction-critical reading sees authorial theology: Matthew catechizes a church on faith; Mark dramatizes revelatory identity; Luke integrates faith with mission to the nations.

Old Testament: Deuteronomistic and Priestly Redaction, Chronicler

• Deuteronomistic History. Beyond identifying sources, scholars analyze the theological shaping: formulaic judgments (“he did what was evil…/right…”), prophetic word–fulfillment schema, and narrative arcs that interpret Israel’s fate as covenant consequence (Noth, 1981).

• Priestly Redaction. In the Pentateuch, a Priestly hand integrates genealogies, cultic calendars, Sabbath theology, and creation’s ordered goodness—imposing structure and theological emphases (sanctuary, holiness, blessing) upon earlier traditions.

• Chronicler. Chronicles rewrites Samuel–Kings to highlight temple, cult, and Davidic idealization, omitting unpleasant episodes (e.g., David’s sin) or reframing them to direct hope toward proper worship and postexilic identity. This is classic redactional rewriting with theological intent.

Strengths and Constraints

Redaction criticism’s strength is to restore the agency of biblical authors as theologians, countering earlier tendencies to treat them as passive compilers. Its risk is over-psychologizing editors and positing tidy theologies that ignore tensions or community diversity. The best work grounds redactional claims in textual evidence: consistent vocabulary, repeated motifs, structural patterns, and identifiable editorial seams.

IV. How the Three Methods Interact

Though historically sequenced (source → form → redaction), these methods are best seen as complementary lenses. A single pericope can sustain layered analysis:

1. Source: What prior written accounts exist (e.g., Mark behind Matthew)?

2. Form: What inherited genres shape the unit (miracle story, lament)?

3. Redaction: How has the author reshaped material to preach theology to a community?

Worked synthesis: The Feeding of the Five Thousand (Mark 6:30–44; Matt 14:13–21; Luke 9:10–17; John 6).

• Form: miracle story with banquet imagery; motifs of wilderness provision echo Exodus and Elisha (2 Kgs 4).

• Source: Mark likely earliest; Matthew and Luke depend on Mark for structure and wording.

• Redaction: Matthew adds compassion and healing emphasis; Luke situates the event in mission training and later Eucharistic resonances (cf. Emmaus); John reframes with an extended Bread of Life discourse. Each evangelist’s theology of provision and identity emerges through redactional shaping.

V. Exegetical Payoffs and Theological Integrations

What We Gain

• Compositional realism. The Bible’s emergence through tradition and editing becomes intelligible, not scandalous.

• Genre awareness. Recognizing a lament or pronouncement story guards against tone-deaf exegesis.

• Authorial theology. Seeing Matthew, Luke, the Chronicler, or the Priestly writer as agents enriches doctrinal and homiletical work.

What We Risk

• Atomization. Excessive source partitioning or form isolation can mute the final form’s rhetoric.

• Speculation. Reconstructed oral settings or editorial motives can outrun evidence.

• Methodological naturalism. As noted in the previous chapter, a heuristic bracketing of miracle can harden into a metaphysic that predetermines results.

Integrating with Canonical/Theological Reading

Brevard Childs urged that historical work be subordinated (not discarded) to the canonical form, in which the church actually hears Scripture (Childs, 1979). In practice:

• Do rigorous source/form/redaction analysis.

• Then ask: How does the final arrangement mean theologically in the canon?

• Receive the history of interpretation (reception) as a check and resource for theological sense-making.

For example, in Genesis 6–9, after acknowledging P and non-P strands, one can still preach and teach the canonical covenant with creation; in the Gospels, after describing Matthew’s redaction of Mark, one still hears Matthew’s Gospel as Scripture in its own right.

VI. Extended Case Studies

Case Study A: Genesis 1–2 (Creation Doublet)

• Source Criticism: Stylistic and theological differences suggest distinct sources: Genesis 1:1–2:3 (P) with structured days, divine fiat, humanity as male-and-female image-bearers; Genesis 2:4–25 (non-P) as anthropomorphic narrative (YHWH forms, plants, breathes).

• Form Criticism: Gen 1 exhibits hymnic and liturgical features; Gen 2 a wisdom-like tale of origins with type-scenes (garden, naming, marriage).

• Redaction Criticism: The final editor places the liturgical cosmogony first as a theological overture—Sabbath sanctification, ordered goodness—then zooms into human vocation and relationality, inviting a canonical conversation in which the two chapters are mutually interpretive rather than mutually exclusive.

Case Study B: Isaiah 40–55 (Deutero-Isaiah)

• Source Criticism: Exilic horizon, Cyrus named, stylistic features distinct from Isaiah 1–39 support a second major source.

• Form Criticism: Identify trial speeches, comfort oracles, servant songs—each with formal traits and rhetorical aims.

• Redaction Criticism: The placement of 40–55 within the canonical Book of Isaiah invites theological reading of continuity in themes (holiness, Zion, nations) across time, with redaction crafting a prophetic book that speaks to multiple generations.

Case Study C: Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7)

• Source Criticism: Much material parallels Luke’s Sermon on the Plain and other sayings, often attributed to Q.

• Form Criticism: Beatitudes (macarisms), antitheses (legal interpretations), aphorisms, parables—each a distinct form.

• Redaction Criticism: Matthew collects and arranges sayings into five discourses, framing Jesus as new Moses giving Torah from a mountain; editorial inclusios (“when Jesus finished these sayings…”) and fulfillment motifs disclose Matthew’s programmatic theology.

VII. Assignments (Doctoral-Level)

1) Source-Critical Dossier (3,500–4,000 words).
Choose a Pentateuch passage (e.g., Genesis 6–9; Exodus 14–15; Numbers 16–17).
(a) Identify linguistic/thematic seams and propose a cautious source division with justification.
(b) Summarize each proposed source’s theology.
(c) Conclude with a canonical synthesis: why might a redactor have kept both? What theological surplus arises from their juxtaposition?

2) Form-Critical Analysis and Sitz im Leben (3,000–3,500 words).
Select one Psalm and one Gospel pericope.
(a) Classify each by Gattung and outline its conventional structure.
(b) Argue for a likely Sitz im Leben using comparanda (ANET, Qumran liturgy, Greco-Roman rhetoric).
(c) Evaluate the strengths/limits of your reconstruction and how literary context modifies function.

3) Redaction-Critical Comparison (3,500–4,000 words).
Compare Mark 4:35–41 with Matthew 8:23–27 and Luke 8:22–25.
(a) Chart verbal agreements/differences.
(b) Identify each evangelist’s editorial tendencies across the wider narrative.
(c) Articulate each Gospel’s theological portrait and pastoral aim as revealed in this pericope.

4) Integrative Project (4,000+ words).
Pick a contested OT unit (e.g., Isaiah 40–55; Deut 12–26; 2 Samuel 7). Execute source, form, and redaction analyses. Then produce a final-form theological reading that acknowledges diachronic findings while expounding the passage for ecclesial use (sermon/lecture outline appended).

Conclusion

Source, form, and redaction criticism arose from a desire to take the Bible’s historicity seriously: its growth over time, its embeddedness in social life, and its authors’ theological agency. Source criticism helps us recognize composite formation and literary growth; form criticism honors the genres and social worlds that shaped biblical speech; redaction criticism recovers the authors as theologians who arranged and interpreted their traditions. Each method also carries risks—partitioning beyond warrant, detaching units from literary context, or psychologizing editors. Mature doctoral work acknowledges the gains, polices the limits, and then reintegrates diachronic insight into a canonical and theological reading that hears the final text as Scripture.

The prize is not merely historical knowledge but interpretive wisdom: learning to read Genesis and the Gospels with both historical honesty and theological depth, to recognize in editorial seams and genre conventions the providentially guided formation of a canon that speaks—through many voices, over time—one Word.

References

Bornkamm, G., Barth, G., & Held, H. J. (1963). Tradition and interpretation in Matthew. SCM Press.

Bultmann, R. (1963). History of the synoptic tradition (J. Marsh, Trans.). Harper & Row.

Childs, B. S. (1979). Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture. Fortress Press.

Conzelmann, H. (1960). The theology of St. Luke (G. Buswell, Trans.). Harper & Brothers.

Dibelius, M. (1971). From tradition to Gospel (B. L. Woolf, Trans.). James Clarke.

Goodacre, M. (2002). The case against Q: Studies in Markan priority and the synoptic problem. Trinity Press International.

Grant, R. M., & Tracy, D. (1984). A short history of the interpretation of the Bible (2nd ed.). Fortress Press.

Gunkel, H. (1967). Introduction to Psalms: The genres of the religious lyric of Israel (J. D. Nogalski, Trans.). Mercer University Press.

Kloppenborg, J. S. (2000). Excavating Q: The history and setting of the Sayings Gospel Q. Fortress Press.

Noth, M. (1981). The Deuteronomistic history (J. Doull, Trans.). Sheffield Academic Press.

Wellhausen, J. (1994). Prolegomena to the history of Israel (J. Sutherland Black & A. Enzies, Trans.). Meridian. (Original work published 1878)

Westermann, C. (1981). Praise and lament in the Psalms (K. R. Crim & R. N. Soulen, Trans.). John Knox Press.

Wrede, W. (1971). The messianic secret (J. C. G. Greig, Trans.). James Clarke.