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"Even if we know the thought-world of the Fathers of a Council, the divine protection only what they explicitly state in writing, not what we just happen to know was in their minds."
"[Rudolph] Bultmann, the pioneer form critic of the New Testament, thought he saw a gap between Jesus as He really was and the Christ the Church preached."

Quite an admission! [Raymond] Brown, agreeing with most form critics that Mark wrote rote first, confesses that he cannot be sure what is a redaction (editing change) by Mark and what came down to Mark in tradition. Hence, the "almost despairing note," -a recognition again of the heavy subjectivity and insecurity involved in form criticism.

So we can begin to see what R. H. Fuller meant by the "limitations" of the historical-critical method: it seldom strictly proves anything. But for a long time scholars did not see the limitations. Instead they would build one inconclusive thing on another and, in their cockiness, even claim for their researches the assured results of science.

Fundamentalists ignore genre, acting instead as if Scripture had been written by a modern American. For example, they will say that since Genesis says Gay made the world in six days, this means it was done in six times twenty-four hours.