Towards Better Ways of Reading the Bible

1980 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 301-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan J. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Common Core ◽  
Uniform Pattern ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship

The growing rift between biblical scholarship and the dogmatic and moral theologies of the Churches is a challenge to us all. But not only is it necessary to examine the presuppositions of the biblical scholars; it is also necessary to investigate the questions raised by their critics. Is there a uniform pattern in the questions raised? Do the critics provide any suggestions as to how the Scripture scholar should operate? Is there a common core which can be detected in the midst of the disquiet?

Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1660-1710

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Dutch Golden Age

This book investigates the biblical criticism of Spinoza from the perspective of the Dutch Reformed society in which the philosopher lived and worked. It focusses on philological investigation of the Bible: its words, its language, and the historical context in which it originated. The book charts contested issues of biblical philology in mainstream Dutch Calvinism, to determine whether Spinoza’s work on the Bible had any bearing on the Reformed understanding of the way society should engage with Scripture. Spinoza has received massive attention, both inside and outside academia. His unconventional interpretation of the Old Testament passages has been examined repeatedly over the decades. So has that of fellow ‘radicals’ (rationalists, radicals, deists, libertines, enthusiasts), against the backdrop of a society that is assumed to have been hostile, overwhelmed, static, and uniform. This book inverts this perspective and looks at how the Dutch Republic digested biblical philology and biblical criticism, including that of Spinoza. It takes into account the highly neglected area of the Reformed ministry and theology of the Dutch Golden Age. The result is that Dutch ecclesiastical history, up until now the preserve of the partisan scholarship of confessionalized church historians, is brought into dialogue with Early Modern intellectual currents. This book concludes that Spinoza, rather than simply pushing biblical scholarship in the direction of modernity, acted in an indirect way upon ongoing debates in Dutch society, shifting trends in those debates, but not always in the same direction, and not always equally profoundly, at all times, on all levels.

Publishing in Bible and American Popular Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 536-552
Author(s):  
Robert Paul Seesengood
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Future Work

This essay is an examination of scholarship on the Bible and (American) popular culture. It reviews the history and assumptions of cultural studies and maps how this body of work influenced biblical scholarship after 1990. It surveys an array of examples of scholarship on the Bible and popular culture and concludes with some suggestions for future work. Specifically, this essay asks the following: How has interest in Bible and popular culture affected academic publishing? How did these trends emerge, and what assumptions prompt them? What new journals or series or reference works have appeared that are specifically devoted to this broad topic, and what are some ways that the Bible and popular culture have been treated therein?

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.

Moral Injury and Biblical Studies: An Early Sampling of Research and Emerging Trends

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-144
Author(s):  
Brad E. Kelle
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Moral Injury ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Emerging Trends ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
The World ◽  
Biblical Texts

Moral injury emerged within clinical psychology and related fields to refer to a non-physical wound (psychological and emotional pain and its effects) that results from the violation (by oneself or others) of a person’s deepest moral beliefs (about oneself, others, or the world). Originally conceived in the context of warfare, the notion has now expanded to include the morally damaging impact of various non-war-related experiences and circumstances. Since its inception, moral injury has been an intersectional and cross-disciplinary term and significant work has appeared in psychology, philosophy, medicine, spiritual/pastoral care, chaplaincy, and theology. Since 2015, biblical scholarship has engaged moral injury along two primary trajectories: 1) creative re-readings of biblical stories and characters informed by insights from moral injury; and 2) explorations of the postwar rituals and symbolic practices found in biblical texts and how they might connect to the felt needs of morally injured persons. These trajectories suggest that the engagement between the Bible and moral injury generates a two-way conversation in which moral injury can serve as a heuristic that brings new meanings out of biblical texts, and the critical study of biblical texts can contribute to the attempts to understand, identify, and heal moral injury.

scholarly journals THE (IR)RELEVANCE OF BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP? A CHALLENGE, AND AN OPPORTUNITY

Scriptura ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Giffone
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Qualitative Difference ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The North ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Biblical Education ◽  
Bible Reading

Has biblical scholarship become irrelevant to modern secular societies? Are the threats to the viability of biblical scholarship of the same nature as the threats to other areas of the humanities (history, philosophy, literature), or is there a qualitative difference? What about the role of technology in biblical research and biblical education? What is the future of the institutions of biblical scholarship such as universities, seminaries, journals, and academic presses? What is the role of biblical scholars in secular and post-secular societies, as contrasted with scholars in/from emerging communities? This essay argues that the problem of “validation” lies at the heart of biblical scholarship’s irrelevancy within the broader secularity of modern world and that this problem is even more evident in the scholarly discourse coming from regions like Eastern Europe and South Africa. However, the loss of authority of biblical scholarship more generally represents an opportunity for these communities. Rather than becoming enamoured of validation from the North Atlantic world, Bible-reading communities must cultivate their own forms of validation based in their unique histories with the Bible, and the affinities between their own histories/cultures and the cultures that produced the Old and New Testament texts.

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.

Exodus 19–40

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. C. Propp
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Cultural Mores ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Ritual Law

The long-awaited conclusion of William H. C. Propp’s masterful study of Exodus, this informative, clearly written commentary provides a new perspective on Israelite culture and on the role of ritual, law, and covenant in biblical religion. Exodus 19–40 sets a new standard in biblical scholarship. Thorough and up-to-date, it is the first commentary on Exodus to include critical textual evidence from the recently edited Dead Sea Scrolls. Informed by Propp’s deep understanding of ancient cultural mores and religious traditions, it casts new light on the Israelites’ arrival at Sinai, their entry into a covenant with God, their reception of the Law, their worship of the golden calf, and their reconciliation to God. The incisive commentary on the building of the Holy Tabernacle–God’s wilderness abode–is supplemented by numerous illustrations that clarify the biblical text. Propp extends the scope and relevance of this major work in five appendices that discuss the literary formation of the Torah, the historicity of the Exodus tradition, the origins of Israelite monotheism, the Exodus theme in the Bible, and the future of Old Testament scholarship. By taking an anthropological rather than strictly theological approach, Propp places familiar stories within a fresh context. The result is a fully accessible guide to one of the most important and best known books of the Bible.

Introduction

Black Samson ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Nyasha Junior ◽  
Jeremy Schipper
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
American Literature ◽  
African Descent ◽  
American Art ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
Court Records ◽  
White American ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Popular Subject

Samson is a popular subject in biblical scholarship on the use of the Bible in art, literature, and popular culture, although this scholarship tends to focus on Samson in White European and White American art and literature. The introduction explains how Samson becomes identified with people of African descent in American literature. It discusses the biblical story of Samson and the lack of physical descriptions of Samson in the Bible. It provides examples of the racialized uses of Samson in poetry, sermons, speeches, narratives by enslaved persons, court records, and newspapers. It offers some possible reasons why the biblical story of Samson may have become associated with African Americans.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kirsten Macfarlane
Keyword(s):  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
The Relationship

The introduction begins by outlining how Broughton’s modern reputation as an angry puritan was created over two centuries by a series of historians with various confessional motivations. Next, it analyses Broughton’s early life as a promising scholar at Cambridge, and explains key issues such as how his beliefs about scripture affected his attitudes to the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible. Finally, it summarizes the three major interventions of this book. The first concerns the relationship between scholars’ beliefs about scripture and the methods they used to study it. Broughton shows that it was possible to be an innovative exponent of the historical-philological method, while also believing that the Bible was infallible and verbally inspired; and that these positions could be mutually reinforcing. But while scholars like Broughton have generally been used as proof of the ‘unintended consequences’ theory of change from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, the introduction uses him to critique this theory. The second intervention concerns the relationship between confessional identity and historical scholarship, building on recent works that have emphasized the impossibility of theologically ‘neutral’ scholarship in this period by extending their findings into new areas such as chronology. Lastly, the third intervention concerns the relationship between elite neo-Latin biblical scholarship and vernacular lay religious culture in this period. It argues that biblical scholarship, even of the most demanding kind, deeply appealed to ordinary readers of scripture, and posits Broughton as a pioneer in the field of accessible, vernacular-oriented— but still highly scholarly—biblical criticism.

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