Biblical criticism in the context of "Wilhelm Gesenius"

Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenment, Spinoza significantly influenced modern biblical criticism, 17th-century rationalism, and Dutch intellectual culture, establishing himself as one of the most important and radical philosophers of the early modern period. Influenced by Stoicism, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Ibn Tufayl, and heterodox Christians, Spinoza was a leading philosopher of the Dutch Golden Age.

Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to a Marrano family that fled Portugal for the more tolerant Dutch Republic. He received a traditional Jewish education, learning Hebrew and studying sacred texts within the Portuguese Jewish community, where his father was a prominent merchant. As a young man, Spinoza challenged rabbinic authority and questioned Jewish doctrines, leading to his permanent expulsion from his Jewish community in 1656. Following that expulsion, he distanced himself from all religious affiliations and devoted himself to philosophical inquiry and lens grinding. Spinoza attracted a dedicated circle of followers who gathered to discuss his writings and joined him in the intellectual pursuit of truth.

The Land of Punt (Egyptian: pwnt; alternate Egyptological readings Pwene(t) /puːnt/) was an ancient kingdom known from Ancient Egyptian trade records. It produced and exported gold, aromatic resins, blackwood, ebony, ivory and wild animals. Recent evidence locates it in northwestern Eritrea. It is possible that it includes or corresponds to Opone, as later known by the ancient Greeks, while some biblical scholars have identified it with the biblical land of Put or Havilah.

At times Punt is referred to as Ta netjer (tꜣ nṯr), lit. 'Land of the God'. The exact location of Punt is debated by historians. Various locations have been offered, southeast of Egypt, a coastal region south of it along the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, in present day north-east Sudan, Eritrea, northeast Ethiopia, Djibouti and northern Somalia, including Somaliland.

The quest for the historical Jesus consists of academic efforts to determine what words and actions, if any, may be attributed to Jesus, and to use the findings to provide portraits of the historical Jesus. Conventionally, since the 18th century three scholarly quests for the historical Jesus are distinguished, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria, which were often developed during each specific phase. These quests are distinguished from earlier approaches because they rely on the historical method to study biblical narratives. While textual analysis of biblical sources had taken place for centuries, these quests introduced new methods and specific techniques to establish the historical validity of their conclusions.

The enthusiasm shown during the first quest diminished after Albert Schweitzer's critique of 1906 in which he pointed out various shortcomings in the approaches used at the time. The second quest began in 1953 and introduced a number of new techniques but reached a plateau in the 1970s. In the 1980s, a number of scholars gradually began to introduce new research ideas, initiating a third quest characterized by the latest research approaches. Since the late 2000s, concerns have been growing about the usefulness of the criteria of authenticity and proclamations of a more expansive and genuinely interdisciplinary Next Quest.

The authorship of the Petrine epistles (1 Peter and 2 Peter) is a question in biblical criticism, parallel to that of the authorship of the Pauline epistles, in which scholars have sought to determine the exact authors of the New Testament letters. The vast majority of biblical scholars think the two epistles do not share the same author, due to wide differences in Greek style and views between the two letters. Most scholars today conclude that Peter the Apostle was the author of neither of the two epistles that are attributed to him.

Joseph Ernest Renan (/rəˈnɑːn/; French: [ʒozɛf ɛʁnɛst ʁənɑ̃]; 27 February 1823 – 2 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, writing on Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote works on the origins of early Christianity, and espoused popular political theories especially concerning nationalism, national identity, and the superiority of White people over other human races. Renan is among the first scholars to advance the debunked Khazar theory, which held that Ashkenazi Jews were descendants of the Khazars, Turkic peoples who had adopted the Jewish religion and allegedly migrated to central and eastern Europe following the collapse of their khanate. On this basis he alleged that the Jews were "an incomplete race."

Characteristic of Christianity in the 19th century were evangelical revivals in some largely Protestant countries and later the effects of modern biblical scholarship on the churches. Liberal or modernist theology was one consequence of this. In Europe, the Catholic Church strongly opposed liberalism and culture wars launched in Germany, Italy, Belgium and France. It strongly emphasized personal piety. In Europe there was a general move away from religious observance and belief in Christian teachings and a move towards secularism. In Protestantism, pietistic revivals were common.

The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of Judaism and Christianity, found in chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of Genesis. While both faith traditions have historically understood the account as a single unified story, modern scholars of biblical criticism have identified it as being a composite of two stories drawn from different sources expressing distinct views about the nature of God and creation.

According to the documentary hypothesis, the first account – which begins with Genesis 1:1 and ends with the first sentence of Genesis 2:4 – is from the later Priestly source (P), possibly composed during the 6th century BC. In this story, God (referred to with the title Elohim, a term related to the generic Hebrew word for 'god') creates the heavens and the Earth in six days, solely by issuing commands for it to be so – and then rests on, blesses, and sanctifies the seventh day (i.e., the Biblical Sabbath). The second account, which consists of the remainder of Genesis 2, is from an earlier non-Priestly source, traditionally the Jahwist source (J) dated to the 10th or 9th century BC. In this story, God (referred to by the personal name Yahweh) creates Adam, the first man, by "forming" him from dust – and places him in the Garden of Eden where he is given dominion over the animals. The first woman, "built" from a rib taken from Adam's side, is created to be his matching companion; after the couple are expelled from the Garden in Genesis 3 for disobeying God, Adam names the woman Eve.