FORM CRITICISM

Form Criticism is a modern approach to the Bible that has its origin in a liberal mentality. It asserts, for example, that the Gospel records are basically "myths." The "scholarly critic," therefore, must probe behind the written accounts, and their "literary sources," in an effort to find the oral traditions that underlie them. The method then proposes to classify the traditions according to certain story-types. R.C. Foster has noted that form criticism is "fundamentally an attack upon the historical verity of the New Testament documents." He charges that the theory assumes that the Gospel writers did not have enough "native intelligence" to observe and ascertain with assurance the events of which they wrote, and then to write them down in a clear format that is historically reliable. The leading proponents of form criticism are hopelessly in contradiction with one another. There is no reason not to accept the Gospel accounts as the inspired writings of men who were chosen by the Lord to record the essential details of his earthly sojourn. Whatever sources may have been employed (cf. Lk. 1:1-4), the writers' composition of the documents most assuredly was under the guidance of the Spirit of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17).