Form Criticism

Form criticism of the New Testament has two aims―to classify the various New Testament books according to their literary genre (German Gattungsgeschichte), and to analyse the smaller units of traditional material according to the “form” or “shape” they have assumed during the oral, preliterary period. The German word Formgeschichte (“form-history”) is often used in a broader sense with reference to attempts to trace the development of units of tradition during the oral period and thus to make historical value-judgments on the material. But this is, strictly speaking, the function of “tradition criticism”, which is treated elsewhere in this volume. My contribution will be confined to the more purely analytical aspect of form criticism, and to units of tradition in the Gospels.