The Bible should be studied without being bound to theological claims made by the church. Copies of books of the Bible suffered from textual corruption, loss of leaves, devastation by insects and moisture. Jesus should be studied like other historical persons. The new historiography 60. Historians can approach but never achieve certainty in historical judgments on the probability principle.
Historians measure the unknown by the known on the principle of analogy.
Historians assume that biblical events occur within a continuum of historical happenings but that each event or person is historically unique. Modern critical scholarship is based on cooperation among specialists. New sources 64. The study of the Bible in the twentieth century has been transformed by the discovery of new sources and materials. Oral Evidence O1.