Biblical criticism in its fullest comprehension is the
examination of the literary origins and historical values of the
books composing the Bible, with the state in which these exist
at the present day. Since the sacred Scriptures have come down
in a great variety of copies and ancient versions, showing more
or less divergence of text, it is the province of that
department of Biblical criticism which is called textual, or
lower, to study these documents with a view to arriving at the
purest possible text of the sacred books. The name higher
criticism was first employed by the German Biblical scholar
Eichhorn, in the second edition of his "Einleitung", appearing
in 1787. It is not, as supposed by some, an arrogant
denomination, assuming superior wisdom, but it has come into use
because this sort of criticism deals with the larger aspects of
Bible study; viz., with the authorship, date, composition, and
authority of whole books or large sections, as distinguished
from the discussion of textual minutiæ, which is