An important foundation in the western development of scientific knowledge has been the biblical worldview. More than simply providing the foil against which science rebelled, the accounts of nature contained in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures coexisted with and informed the empirical exploration of nature, and the systematic study of these texts was even celebrated by some as “the Queen of the Sciences.” However, the status and authority of the biblical accounts shifted in the nineteenth century as new scientific truths came to light, and as biblical studies itself adopted an explicitly “scientific” approach. This paper will explore how both advocates and opponents of the new biblical criticism in Germany, Britain, and the United States claimed scientific status for their positions, and how their efforts helped to shift the boundaries of the legitimately “scientific.”