From Biblical Text to Twitter: Teaching Biblical Studies in the Zeitgeist of #MeToo

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Greenough
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Text

The Maintenance of Holiness and the Contours of Leadership: Form and Characterization in the Book of Numbers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nathan Daily
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Structure Characterization ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Methodological Study ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Divine Violence ◽  
Literary Setting

The book of Numbers presents numerous problems for interpreters who attempt to garner a sense of meaning from the disparate texts and genres found interspersed throughout the work. This dissertation is a methodological study that incorporates features of form-critical theory, which developed over the course of the 20th century and continues to evolve in the 21st century, alongside literary approaches to the biblical text, specifically the analysis of characterization, to present a new reading of the book of Numbers. After surveying recent research on the book of Numbers, new developments in form-critical method, and approaches to characterization in biblical studies, the work offers a methodological proposal for reading Numbers along synchronic lines, according to the rubrics of structure, characterization, and literary setting. The approach analyzes the form rather than the formation of the text, and, by highlighting the role of characterization within the form-critical enterprise, provides a reading that considers the structure and flow of the book of Numbers as well as, through intertextual readings, the significance of Numbers in the broader structure of the Torah. The remainder of the work analyzes four texts from the book of Numbers: The Commission of the Levites (3:5-51); The Purification of the Levites (8:5-22); The Three-Day Journey from Sinai (10:33-11:34); and The Complaint of Miriam and Aaron (11:35-12:15). Each text is read in relation to the dominant structural marker of the Torah, the toledoth formula, and, particularly, the final formulaic marker in 3:1. Each of the four texts presents a model of Judean leadership set in a narrative that sequentially builds by using the Levites as characters that are assigned roles and appear as illustrations for additional roles necessary to maintain holiness in the camp. As the Torah is structured as a creation text (Gen 1-2; Exod 40:17), the dissertation finds that material in Numbers, which follows the completion of the creation narrative in Exod 40:17 by resetting the narrative chronologically to the same time (Num 3:1; 7:1; 9:15; cf. 1:1), is designed to illustrate the levitical task to maintain creation through attending to holiness. Now that creation has reached completion with the dangerous presence of the holy deity residing within Israel, proper management under proper leadership will result in blessing, but inattentiveness to holiness by the leadership or others is liable to incite danger. The new reading attends to discussions of structure, plot, and coherence in Numbers as well as theological concerns related to leadership, holiness, and divine violence.

Returning To China: Biblical Interpretation in Postcolonial Hong Kong

1999 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archie C.C. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Hybrid Identity ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
New Framework

AbstractThe paper aims to construct a new framework for biblical studies from the context of postcolonial Hong Kong. While present biblical scholarship has largely depended on historical-critical exegesis, biblical scholars of Asia have begun to conceive a different approach to the Bible, because of not only a new context of reading, but also a radically different cultural-political location of the reader. This location, as it is now being formulated, is a reading between East and West, between the dominant interpretation and scholarship of the formerly colonial and Western cultures and the newly arising consciousness of emerging postcolonial identities in the histories and cultures of Asia. After about some 150 years of British colonial rule, the identity of being a people of Hong Kong is highly hybridised. It is a hybrid identity of being cultural Chinese and yet pragmatically British, both a strong sense of identification with China and an unexplainable fear of being national Chinese. Such location of a reader transforms one's understanding of a biblical text such as Isaiah 56-66 and sheds a new light on the meaning of the return in some of its major passages.

Scripture and Exegesis in Early Modern Lutheranism

2014 ◽  
pp. 282-297
Author(s):  
Benjamin T. G. Mayes
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Roman Catholics

Lutheran exegesis in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries took place in a wide variety of contexts. Lutherans viewed the canonical Scriptures as God’s Word in human form, although they also paid attention to the uniqueness of Scripture’s human authors and cultivated intensive biblical studies. The dogmatic exegesis of the period was motivated not just by polemics, but also especially by the desire to make salutary application of the biblical text to Christian faith and life in teaching, consolation, admonition, and warning. Lutherans made rich use also of the mystical sense of Scripture, finding Jesus Christ prophesied in Old Testament mysteries. Lutherans responded—with limited success—to many criticisms of Scripture’s authority, coming from within their own ranks, from Socinians, from Roman Catholics, and from new discoveries in science and philosophy. By the end of the eighteenth century, the orthodox Lutheran view of Scripture no longer prevailed in Europe.

scholarly journals Poging tot ’n herdefinisie van die prediking binne die raamwerk van die Reformatiese teologie

1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
T. F.J. Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Fundamental Concept ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible

An attempt to redefine praeching in terms of Reformational theology In the field of biblical studies and hermeneutics, modern research, in many aspects results in questioning the authority of the Bible as the Word of God. The consequences of these results often undermine preaching as the Word of God. Within the theology of the re formation , preaching is based upon sound exegetical study and expository of the biblical text. Hence scientific exegetical research brings the authority of preaching to a crisis. This paper is an attempt to redefine preaching in order to incorporate the results of modem research, as well as to conserve the fundamental concept of preaching as the Word of God.

Structuralism and Biblical Studies: The Uninvited Guest

1974 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-145
Author(s):  
Robert A. Spivey
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Life Situation

One may ask... whether historical exegesis which sought “objectivity” by situating the biblical text in a life-situation of its time has been so successful that another way of approach which situates the text in its set or system may not be a helpful corrective for working objectively with the texts.

Bridging the gulf between biblical scholars and theologians: Can Barth and Wright provide an answer?

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-434
Author(s):  
Maico Michielin
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Length Relationship ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractThere was a time when the interpretation of the Bible was a seamless integrated theological activity. Today, the separation of biblical studies from theologically interested exegesis amongst theologians encourages a sceptical arms-length relationship between Old and New Testament scholars and theologians. Theologians criticise biblical studies' so-called objective and disinterested approach to interpreting the Bible for requiring scholars of both testaments to suspend their theological convictions. Biblical scholars condemn theologians for misusing biblical texts in support of their own preconceived theological agendas. The article suggests a way to bring these divergent exegetical approaches into conversation in a charitable, yet critical fashion, by comparing Karl Barth and N. T. Wright's exegesis of Romans 3:21–4:25. It concludes that the biblical scholar's and theologian's respective sensitivity to the historical and theological sense of the biblical text can, when brought together, benefit each other's reading of the Bible.

Application of New Epistemological Theories for the Interpretation of the Biblical Text

2019 ◽  
pp. 213-225
Author(s):  
Алексей Андреев
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Ultimate Truth ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Epistemology Of Science ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
True Meaning ◽  
The Right

В настоящей статье рассматривается возможность применения новых эпистемологических теорий, разработанных такими исследователями, как Ч. С. Пирс, А. Тарский, К. Поппер, У. В. О. Куайн, для интерпретации библейского текста. В современную эпоху распространилось представление о том, что текст Писания может заключать в себе неограниченное число смыслов, которые могут быть одновременно противоположны друг другу, при этом ни один из них не имеет права претендовать на исключительность и окончательную истинность. Данная ситуация породила определенную стагнацию в современной библейской науке. Как доказывается в данной статье, из подобной ситуации «интерпретационной анархии» возможно выйти, если применить ко множеству библейских герменевтических теорий принципы, разработанные в современной эпистемологии науки. Особое внимание в статье уделяется возможности имплементации теории роста научного знания, предложенной К. Поппером. В статье доказывается, что применение данной модели при анализе множества различных интерпретационных стратегий, разработанных исследователями Библии, позволяет элиминировать ненаучные интерпретации, а также создать возможность конкурентной дискуссии между наиболее правдоподобными гипотезами, что, в свою очередь, должно стимулировать рост научного знания в современной библейской науке. The article discusses the possibility of applying new epistemological theories developed by researchers such as Ch. S. Pierce, A. Tarsky, K. Popper, W. V. O. Quine, for the interpretation of the biblical text. In the Modern period, the idea that the Bible contains only one «true» meaning - the idea of the empirical author of a biblical text - was established. In the present situatuin, which can conventionally be called postmodernism, the idea has spread that the text of Scripture can contain an unlimited number of meanings which can be simultaneously opposed to each other, and none of them has the right to claim exclusivity and to be ultimate truth. This situation created a certain stagnation in modern biblical scholarship. As this article proves, it is possible to get out of such a situation of «interpretative anarchy» if we apply the principles developed in modern epistemology of science to biblical hermeneutic theories. Particular attention is paid to the possibility of implementing the theory of growth of scientific knowledge, proposed by K. Popper. The article proves that the use of this model in the analysis of variety of different interpretational strategies developed by Biblical scholars allows to eliminate unscientific interpretations, as well as to create an opportunity for competitive discussion between the most plausible hypotheses, which in turn should stimulate the growth of scientific knowledge in modern Biblical studies.

Recent Literary Approaches to the Mishnah

AJS Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Shanks Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Surface Irregularities ◽  
The Way

Literary approaches to rabbinic literature entered the field through biblical studies, in which scholars from different quarters and different points of reference were using them to make sense of the biblical text as it has come down to us. The literary approach took umbrage at the way in which the historical source-critical approach dissects the Bible into its constituent sources. The literary approach was an overt attempt to overcome the fractures that historical criticism had introduced into the surface of the biblical text. It proposed instead to read the text—with all of its surface irregularities, gaps, and hiatuses—as coherent and meaningful.

Interpréter Paul au pluriel

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 600-611
Author(s):  
Ronald Charles
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Social Scientific

The aim of this article is to show the advantage of submitting one biblical text to a variety of methodological approaches that will allow a reader to have a fuller understanding of the text. This article proposes to read a particular Pauline text (1 Corinthians 5:1–5) by using different methodological approaches that have been adopted and developed in biblical studies (the historical-critical approach, the “social-scientific” approach, the feminist and postcolonial studies approaches) to illustrate the benefit of using a multiplicity of exegetical tools in the hermeneutical tasks, instead of adopting just one.

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