Form Criticism

An interpretive approach that seeks to uncover the oral tradition that is embedded in the written texts we now possess and to classify them into certain categories or “forms” (German Formgeschichte, “history of forms”). These literary forms (laments, hymns, etc.) are thought to have had a particular function in the Sitz im Leben (“setting in life”) in which they originated. For example, Psalm 24 has the form of an entrance liturgy and may have originated with a ceremony in which the ark was brought into the temple, or with a yearly festival in which the enthronement of the Lord was celebrated. The psalm, however, works equally well with any symbolic entrance into a worship setting (e.g., Handel’s use of this psalm in his oratorio, the Messiah). In NT studies, form-critical scholars such as Martin Dibelius, Rudolf Bultmann and Vincent Taylor classified Jesus’ sayings into categories such as paradigms, legends, parables, miracle stories and pronouncement stories. Form criticism is helpful in identifying the different forms of literature (see genre) and the typical elements of those forms (thus highlighting the different ways authors use those forms), but it is more speculative and less successful in establishing the life setting of the forms.

Arthur G. Patzia and Petrotta, Anthony J, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 47