This study attempts to deal with historical investigation on contemporary Qur’anic studies within the context of applications of western literary critical methods. The topic will be elaborated in the aspects of the historical backgrounds, the definitions in the twentieth century western scholarship and the influences on Religious studies in the West and in the Islamic world. Therefore, after explaining the general views on these methods, the study elucidates applications, which has been embodied Qur’anic studies since the second half of the century, through its chronological evolution and their seminal outcomes. In general, we argue that Qur’anic studies have been enormously affected in its approaching to the sacred text by new paradigms of cultural and literary studies, and a number of theological discourses have been culturally interwoven with literary criticism in modern Islamic world in particular during the second half of the twentieth century in the various examples.