IMPORTANCE OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM
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The primary goal of historical criticism is to discover the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense or sensus literalis historicus. The secondary goal seeks to establish a reconstruction of the historical situation of the author and recipients of the text.
Historical criticism is what turns an artefact or a text into a source, the actual foundation of historical argumentation. Texts and artifacts are not pure creations of their authors, but express trends, stylistic tendencies, conventions. At the same time, their creators had intentions and wished to make specific points while obfuscating others. Historical criticism is the process of separating convention from the individual, and uncovering the intentions underlying the process of construction. Failure to do so makes one a propagandist for the creator, rather than a historian.