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form criticism
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Quick Facts
Key People:
Hermann Gunkel
Martin Dibelius
Johannes Weiss
Related Topics:
Hermeneutics
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form criticism

biblical literature
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History

form criticism, a method of biblical criticism that seeks to classify units of scripture into literary patterns (such as love poems, parables, sayings, elegies, legends) and that attempts to trace each type to its period of oral transmission. The purpose is to determine the original form and the relationship of the life and thought of the period to the development of the literary tradition.