form criticism: Meaning and Definition of

form' crit"icism

Pronunciation: (fôrm'krit"i-kul), [key]
  1. a method of textual analysis, applied especially to the Bible, in which the origin and history of certain passages are traced by isolating their literary forms, as miracle story, saying, or apothegm, on the assumption that they were fixed by oral tradition prior to compilation in written form.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.