The Effective ‘History of the Bible: A Challenge to Biblical Scholarship?

1992 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heikki Räisänen
Keyword(s):  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Effective History

Abiblical scholar is sometimes asked, “What effect has the Bible had?” To my embarrassment, I have not been able to draw on solid results of research to answer this very reasonable question. It has been all but ignored by the exegetical guild.

The Bible in the German Empire

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joerg Rieger
Keyword(s):  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
German Empire ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Cultural Climate ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Production

Even though Germany’s colonial empire lasted merely three decades, from 1884 to 1915, German colonial fantasies shaped intellectual production from the late eighteenth century onward. This cultural climate shapes a great variety of engagements with the Bible, from the beginnings of liberal theology with Friedrich Schleiermacher to missionary efforts and the rather abstract academic productions of biblical scholarship in the late nineteenth century, including the prominent history of religions school. At the same time, there are also efforts to resist colonial tendencies, sometimes in the work of the same authors who otherwise perpetuate the colonial spirit.

The Church of the Reigning Lord

1948 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-73
Author(s):  
R. Stuart Louden
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
History Of ◽  
Four Square ◽  
The Church

We can trace a revival of theology in the Reformed Churches in the last quarter of a century. The new theological interest merits being called a revival of theology, for there has been a fresh and more thorough attention given to certain realities, either ignored or treated with scant notice for a considerable time previously.First among such realities now receiving more of the attention which their relevance and authority deserve, is the Bible, the record of the Word of God. There is an invigorating and convincing quality about theology which is Biblical throughout, being based on the witness of the Scriptures as a whole. The valuable results of careful Biblical scholarship had had an adverse effect on theology in so far as theologians had completely separated the Old Testament from the New in their treatment of Biblical doctrine, or in expanding Christian doctrine, had spoken of the theological teaching of the Synoptic Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, the Johannine writings, and so on, as if there were no such thing as one common New Testament witness. It is being seen anew that the Holy Scriptures contain a complete history of God's saving action. The presence of the complete Bible open at the heart of the Church, recalls each succeeding Christian generation to that one history of God's saving action, to which the Church is the living witness. The New Testament is one, for its Lord is one, and Christian theology must stand four-square on the foundation of its whole teaching.

Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 357-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Beal
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Cultural Turn

After highlighting the substantial gains made by the reception historical approach, this article proceeds to point out some of its inherent limitations, particularly when applied to biblical texts. In attending to the material-aesthetic dimensions of biblical texts, media, and ideas of the Bible, especially in dialogue with anthropological, material-historical, and media-historical approaches, these limitations become acute and call for a harder cultural turn than is possible from a strictly reception-historical approach. This article proposes to move beyond reception history to cultural history, from research into how biblical texts and the Bible itself are received to how they are culturally produced as discursive objects. Such a move would involve a double turn in the focus of biblical scholarship and interpretation: from hermeneutical reception to cultural production, and from interpreting scripture via culture to interpreting culture, especially religious culture, via its productions of scripture. As such, it would bring biblical research into fuller and more significant dialogue with other fields of comparative scriptural studies, religious studies, and the academic humanities and social sciences in general.

The Orthodox Christians and the Bible

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. Roeber
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Biblical Study ◽  
English Translations ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
History Of

Orthodox Christians (Eastern or Oriental) regard the Bible as an integral but not exclusive part of tradition. They have historically encountered the Bible primarily through their liturgical worship. No fixed “canon” describes the role of the Bible in Orthodoxy. The history of the Orthodox Bible in America moved in stages that reflected the mission to First Peoples, arrival of Middle Eastern and Eastern European immigrants, and the catastrophic impact of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia on Orthodox communities in America. Recovery from the fragmented, ethno-linguistic expressions of Orthodoxy occurred only after World War II. Orthodox biblical scholarship began in earnest in those years and today Orthodox biblical scholars participate in national and international biblical studies and incorporate scholarly approaches to biblical study with patristic commentary and perspectives. Parish-level studies and access to English translations have proliferated although New Testament studies continue to outpace attention given to the Hebrew Bible.

scholarly journals Receiving the Word in Image: Federico Zuccaro’s the Annunciation Broadcast by Prophets (1565) and the Reception History of the Bible in the Counter-Reformation

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloe Church
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Visual Exegesis ◽  
Church Tradition

Abstract The Annunciation Broadcast by Prophets (1565) was an altarpiece created by Federico Zuccaro (1541–1609) for the Church of the Annunciation, Rome. It was the first image commissioned by the Order of the Jesuits, a movement involved in propagating the objectives of the Counter-Reformation Church. Altarpieces were particularly effective points of communication between the Catholic Church and the lay beholder, and used visual exegesis as a means to communicate appropriated receptions of biblical texts. The intimate connection that these objects have to their theological and political context marks them as significant moments of biblical reception, that have, up to this point, been overlooked by historians in the field. This article identifies the broader lacuna in scholarship surrounding the reception history of the Bible during the Counter-Reformation. Whilst this is due to a preference for studies of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, the lack of scholarly investment poorly reflects the relevance of the Counter-Reformation period to the reception-historical methodology. The context prioritized the interpretation of the Bible through the lens of Church tradition, or in other words, the history of the Bible’s reception. This affinity is echoed in the reception-historical approach found in contemporary biblical scholarship, creating a hermeneutical link between the two contexts. Visual culture was a valuable expression of Counter-Reformation rhetoric and visualized the mediation of biblical texts through Church tradition. This article uses Zuccaro’s altarpiece as a tool to argue this hypothesis and postulate the intimate relationship maintained between texts and their reception in Counter-Reformation Catholicism.

The Schweich Lectures and Biblical Archaeology

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Davies
Keyword(s):  
Government Funding ◽  
Archaeological Theory ◽  
Jewish Family ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Biblical Archaeology ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Jewish

The first Schweich Lectures were given by Professor S. R. Driver of Oxford University in 1908 and the British Academy celebrated the centenary of the lectures with a single lecture in 2008. This book is an amplified version of that lecture, with each of its three chapters developing a theme relevant to the occasion. The lectures, on aspects of the study of antiquity in its relationship to the Bible, were established by a gift from Constance Schweich (later Mrs Goetze) in memory of her late father, Leopold Schweich. The first chapter of this book brings together biographical information (including some previously unpublished documents) about the Schweichs, who were originally a German Jewish family with close connections to the distinguished chemist and industrialist Ludwig Mond. The donation was the first major benefaction received by the British Academy, which had been founded in 1901 but initially had no government funding. The second chapter uses archival and published sources to reconstruct the circumstances and the history of the lectureship. An Appendix lists the names of all the lecturers, their subjects, and details of the publication of their lectures. The final chapter, ‘Archaeology and the Bible — A Broken Link?’, examines broader questions about ‘biblical archaeology’, which arose in the later twentieth century in the light of developments in archaeological theory and biblical scholarship, and considers whether there is still a future for collaboration between the two disciplines. The book provides a glimpse into Jewish philanthropy in England in the Edwardian era.

scholarly journals Is hermeneutiek nog ergens goed voor?

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-137
Author(s):  
E. Talstra
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts

Is Biblical Hermeneutics still a meaningful discipline? Modern studies in hermeneutics either try to teach us how we can still speak about God in modern society, or that we should accept our limited abilities to speak about God at all. This article claims that these options separate God from the long history of biblical texts and contexts where He, as ‘I,’ addresses Israel as ‘you’. In his recent book on reading the Bible, Arnold Huijgen concentrates on the soul rather than on the ratio as an instrument for reading the Bible. Though agreeing with Huijgen’s criticism of modern rationalistic hermeneutics, this article does not see why the soul should take over the role of biblical scholarship when reading the Bible.

scholarly journals ŠVENTOJI ISTORIJA VS. SEKULIARIOJI ISTORIJA: SENOVĖS IZRAELITŲ PRIEŠISTORĖS IR ISTORIJOS ISTORIOGRAFINĖS KONTROVERSIJOS

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 60-74
Author(s):  
Aušra Pažėraitė
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Sense

Straipsnyje pateikta šiuolaikinės vadinamųjų Biblijos mokslininkų maksimalistų ir minimalistų stovyklų diskusijos, liečiančios Senovės izraelitų istoriją, apžvalga. O būtent kai kurie modernių laikų žemyninės Europos ir Amerikos Biblijos mokslo plėtotės aspektai ir naujos prieigos, kilusios žemyninėje Europoje XX a. aštuntojo dešimtmečio pradžioje. Straipsnyje argumentuojama, kad ši naujoji prieiga, atskirdama senovės izraelitų istorijos mokslinius tyrimus nuo biblinės tos istorijos vizijos, turėtų būti artimas rabinų iki-moderniam a-istoriniam Tanakho skaitymui. Kita vertus, galima sutikti, kad tokia Biblijos skaitymo laisvė nevaržoma istorijos prievartos ir pažodinio skaitymo, kuris dažnai artimas prievartai, gali padėti atnaujinti Biblijos skaitymą iš įvairių hermeneutinių perspektyvų taikant įvairius rabinų ar krikščioniškos teologijos metodus, kurie interpretuotų tą biblinę istoriją, o senovės izraelitų istorija pagaliau moksliniuose leidiniuose būtų pateikiama laikantis ne tikėjimo, o mokslinės perspektyvos.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Biblija, senovės izraelitai, maksimalistai, minimalistai, istoriškumas.SACRED HISTORY VS. SECULAR HISTORY: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONTROVERCIES OVER PRIE HISTORY AND HISTORY OF ANCIENT ISRAELITESAušra Pažėraitė SummaryIn this article I’ve made an overview of modern scholarly maximalistic vs. minimalistic discussion concerning History of Ancient Israelites. Namely, some points of development of modern Continental and American Biblical scholarship (Wellhausen, Noth, Allbright, etc.), and New scholarship which emerged in early eight decade of 20th c. (Th. Thompson, N.P. Lemche, and others). In my article I argue, that this New scholarship, in its attempt to divorce scholarly researches of Ancient History of Israelites from reading the Bible as the source of that history, brings the Bible back to traditional rabbinical and Christian reading of it as a source of spiritual and theological meaning rather than historical, and that traditional rabbinical exegetical approach to Tanakh was a-historical as well, that is, divorced from historical perspective in the modern sense of History, though gives interpretations of History, as does authors of Tanakh, too. This divorce actually opens perspectives to serious academic researches of the History of Ancient Israelites as well as unbinds the reading of Bible from violence of History, from literal reading which often leads to violence, to renew the reading from various rabbinical, Christian theological, mystical and other hermeneutic perspectives and methods, which interpret that History and gives meaning to it.Keywords: Bible, ancient israelites, maximalistes, minimalistes, historicity.

The Use and Misuse of Religious Language: Zionism and the Palestinians

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Title Deed ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Question

Every discipline which deals with the land question in Canaan-Palestine-Israel is afflicted by the problem of specialisation. The political scientist and historian usually discuss the issue of land in Israel purely in terms of interethnic and international relations, biblical scholars concentrate on the historical and archaeological question with virtually no reference to ethics, and scholars of human rights usually evade the question of God. What follows is an attempt, through theology and political history, to understand the history of the Israel-Palestine land question in a way which respects the complexity of the question. From a scrutiny of the language used in the Bible to the development of political Zionism from the late 19th century it is possible to see the way in which a secular movement mobilised the figurative language of religion into a literal ‘title deed’ to the land of Palestine signed by God.

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