I’m plucking out readings for a course on interpretive method, and since it’s my job to introduce plain old historical criticism I turned to obvious prominent reference works as possible sources for readings, or for guidance in my endeavor to find other such sources.
Neither Abingdon’s Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation nor the Anchor[-Yale] Bible Dictionary has an entry under “Historical Criticism,” nor “History” (in the critical-interpretive sense), nor “Historiography” (again in the contemporary sense; the A[Y]BD has articles on Mesopotamian, Judaic, and Greco-Roman historiography).
I suppose that historical-critical interpretation is so transparently obvious that it needs no discussion?
I’m guessing that the problem is that historical criticism is just seen as THE method of biblical criticism for quite some time, so it’s like looking for an article on “existence” in the encyclopedia. Or like looking at the role of liberalism (in the proper sense) in American politics. It’s so pervasive as to be unnoticed.
Check out William Mcdonough’s proposal in Cradle to Cradle for a “reusable” book: “In addition to describing the hopeful, nature-inspired design principles that are making industry both prosperous and sustainable, the book itself is a physical symbol of the changes to come. It is printed on a synthetic ‘paper,’ made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers, designed to look and feel like top quality paper while also being waterproof and rugged. And the book can be easily recycled in localities with systems to collect polypropylene, like that in yogurt containers. This ‘treeless’ book points the way toward the day when synthetic books, like many other products, can be used, recycled, and used again without losing any material quality—in cradle-to-cradle cycles.”
I generally find that whenever ANYTHING is so transparently obvious that it needs no discussion, it clearly needs to be discussed because everyone has different ideas about what it is and how it should be done.