Analysis of Biblical Criticism -First-

Where will the scholarly research on religion lead us? Biblical criticism has rapidly become a major subject of study these days and many scholars around the world are now engaging in this field regardless of their own belief. On the other hand, there are some religious groups in which honest religious critique are never forgiven. For example, in Islam which is the second largest religion, criticizing the Koran, its own sacred book, is definitely unacceptable. The series of the Satanic Verses incidents reminded us of Islam’s strict “protective” culture. On the contrary, in Christian world, theologians who belong to the Christian community sometimes are more aggressive when it comes to criticizing the Holy Scriptures than scholars of other religions are. Today, every element in Christian traditions have been deeply discussed and researched without any restrictions. In this essay, we will scrutinize some of the arguments which have caused a lot of controversy among scholars. Firstly, we will focus on the influence of “Geocentrism” on the Bible by examining the commentaries of Robert J. Schadewald who is a former president of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). In addition, the discussions over the biblical “vaticinium ex eventu”, which means "prophecy from the event", is one of the main topics that this examination deals with. Moreover, the hypothesis about the crucifixion of Jesus will also come into play. These subjects will help us to understand the essence of the Biblical criticism.