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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Higher criticism

Higher criticism \High"er crit"i*cism\ Criticism which includes the study of the contents, literary character, date, authorship, etc., of any writing; as, the higher criticism of the Pentateuch. Called also historical criticism.

The comparison of the Hebrew and Greek texts . . . introduces us to a series of questions affecting the composition, the editing, and the collection of the sacred books. This class of questions forms the special subject of the branch of critical science which is usually distinguished from the verbal criticism of the text by the name of higher, or historical, criticism.
--W. Robertson Smith.

WordNet
higher criticism

n. the scientific study of biblical writings to determine their origin and meaning

Usage examples of "higher criticism".

Shaw is singularly judicious in taking the text of the authorized version, and having as little as possible to do with the `higher criticism', for no one knows better than Mr.

The weapons of the Higher Criticism, supplemented by Common Sense, are perfectly valid and inevitably destructive against any such structure.

The Higher Criticism, as it is mockingly called, denies the possibility of miracles, prediction, and real inspiration, and attempts to account for the Bible as a natural development.

I shall always associate the scent of yellow lupin with the higher criticism.

Comparative religion, homiletics, higher criticism, apologetics, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, all require scholarship.