Search Results

 Jewish Biblical Fundamentalism

Solomon Schimmel

in The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth

This chapter asks why modern and haredi (ultra) Orthodox Jews affirm the outmoded traditional belief that the Torah (Pentateuch) was revealed by God to Moses at Sinai (TMS) and refuse to accept the ... More

This chapter asks why modern and haredi (ultra) Orthodox Jews affirm the outmoded traditional belief that the Torah (Pentateuch) was revealed by God to Moses at Sinai (TMS) and refuse to accept the findings of modern biblical scholarship that the Pentateuch is a humanly authored multiple source post‐Mosaic (MSPM) work. It suggests emotional, psychological, and social forces that account for why smart people cling to foolish beliefs, and describes the defenses they use to ward off scholarly and scientific arguments and evidence that threaten cherished beliefs and evoke fear of loss of faith. The chapter analyzes the ArtScroll commentary on the Torah, and responses to his questions addressed to Orthodox Jews: Why do you believe in TMS? Can you imagine any kind evidence that would induce you to give up your belief in TMS? He also points to immoral and unethical teachings of the Pentateuch as evidence for its human authorship.Less

From Scripture to Text

Michael C. Legaspi

in The Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies

This chapter argues that the Bible in the West ceased to function as catholic scripture in the period following the Reformation and that, as a result, biblical scholars like Louis Cappel and Brian ... More

This chapter argues that the Bible in the West ceased to function as catholic scripture in the period following the Reformation and that, as a result, biblical scholars like Louis Cappel and Brian Walton turned increasingly toward the Bible as a text to rehabilitate it. Schisms, religious wars, and the manifold effects of confessionalization created a fragmented religious environment that yielded modes of scholarship aimed at exploiting, reinforcing, or repairing this fragmentation. Yet these efforts all assumed an inert textual Bible that needed to be reactivated and reintegrated into specific cultural and religious programs. Beginning with figues like Erasmus, biblical scholarship of the early modern period operated on a Bible that was moving from ‘scripture’ to ‘text.’ The textualization of the Bible and the decline of its cultural and religious authority prepared the way for a new mode of academic criticism based on the unifying power of the state.Less

Literary Study of the Bible

Robert Morgan and John Barton

in Biblical Interpretation

This chapter focuses on a recent challenge to the dominance of theologically interested historical research in biblical scholarship. Literary-critical approaches may also be theologically motivated ... More

This chapter focuses on a recent challenge to the dominance of theologically interested historical research in biblical scholarship. Literary-critical approaches may also be theologically motivated and are shown to antedate the critical historical work of the past 150 years. But recent attempts to understand ‘the Bible as literature’ coincide with some loss of confidence in theological reflection on the Bible, and so appear to have accelerated the secularization of biblical scholarship.Less

Interpretation and Biblical Interpretation

Robert Morgan and John Barton

in Biblical Interpretation

This chapter begins with brief discussions of the concept of interpretation and the aims of interpreters. It then turns to the problem of biblical interpretation. The chapter argues that the main ... More

This chapter begins with brief discussions of the concept of interpretation and the aims of interpreters. It then turns to the problem of biblical interpretation. The chapter argues that the main problem for biblical interpretation today is the contrasting frameworks within which the Bible is interpreted – by the historian on the one hand and the believer on the other. Relating these two ways of understanding the subject matter of the Bible is a problem only for ‘theologians’, i.e. for believers who want to relate their faith to their rational knowledge, which now includes historical knowledge. Other believers can ignore scholarship, and other scholars can ignore religious faith. The resulting interpretations of the Bible will not satisfy thoughtful believers and may be thought superficial, but they are not illegitimate.Less

Theology and the Social Sciences

Robert Morgan and John Barton

in Biblical Interpretation

This chapter discusses the link between theology and the social sciences in biblical interpretation. The social sciences have long had a place in American pastoral and ethical courses, which have ... More

This chapter discusses the link between theology and the social sciences in biblical interpretation. The social sciences have long had a place in American pastoral and ethical courses, which have usually been oriented to the practice of ministry, and without significant impact on biblical research. But they offer a reminder that biblical interpretation is in principle open to infiltration from the social sciences at two different points: through the methods of historical scholarship, enriched by these new perspectives; and also through the theological interests of the biblical interpreters themselves, whose own theologies are increasingly likely to have been partly shaped by the social sciences. Three examples are presented to clarify the distinction between the way historical methods have been properly enlarged by social-scientific methods and the hermeneutical or theological dimensions of this approach.Less

Theology, History, and Literature

Robert Morgan and John Barton

in Biblical Interpretation

Earlier chapters have suggested that theological interests have not merely been residually present in modern historical scholarship, but have fuelled it. That is no longer so plainly the case today. ... More

Earlier chapters have suggested that theological interests have not merely been residually present in modern historical scholarship, but have fuelled it. That is no longer so plainly the case today. A secular culture has finally produced a genuinely non-theological biblical scholarship. But this does not exclude the majority interest in the Bible. It simply sharpens our question of the relationship between historical or literary studies on the one hand, and theological reflection on the biblical witness on the other. This chapter seeks to throw light on that issue by drawing from the earlier discussions an account of the relationship of faith and reason in Christians' use of the Bible. What emerges provides some theological justification for the recent turn to literary approaches.Less

Feminist Study of the Old Testament

J. Cheryl Exum

in Text in Context: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study

This is the fourth of five chapters on the Old Testament and the reader, and reviews feminist study of the Old Testament. It describes feminist criticism as one of the most significant intellectual ... More

This is the fourth of five chapters on the Old Testament and the reader, and reviews feminist study of the Old Testament. It describes feminist criticism as one of the most significant intellectual developments of the twentieth century, and notes that biblical interpretation of this kind is not likely to be disinterested although feminist critics are more likely than most to admit their ideological presuppositions. These presuppositions, like those of other postmodern approaches, provide a compelling challenge to the dominant paradigms of ‘objective’ biblical scholarship through their recognition of the constructedness of history, gender, and self. Many and various examples of the vast and growing biblical feminist criticism are discussed through the chapter, looking, among other things, at the different methodological approaches taken, the strategies employed for getting at women's perspectives in androcentric texts, the search for traces of women's discourses in biblical texts, intertextual and cross‐cultural analysis, and gender studies.Less

Constructing Words and Word Meaning. Metaphors

Alexander Samely

in Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah

This chapter deals with the resources regarding the Mishnaic allocation of meaning to words in the biblical text. The Mishnah often suggests that a biblical word has a meaning nuance that calls for ... More

This chapter deals with the resources regarding the Mishnaic allocation of meaning to words in the biblical text. The Mishnah often suggests that a biblical word has a meaning nuance that calls for an adjustment of the meaning of the whole sentence in which it occurs. It may link the words with another form of similar but not identical appearance. It may also discover the special meaning in biblical metaphors. These are the main hermeneutic phenomena discussed in the three sections of the chapter. In the field of word meaning, the concrete results of modern biblical scholarship stand in direct rivalry to Mishnaic hermeneutics; but they also provide a direct background to it.Less

Conclusion: Interpretation and the Life of Scripture

Robert Morgan and John Barton

in Biblical Interpretation

This chapter summarizes the preceding discussions and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It covers texts, authors, and readers; religious and non-religious aims of interpretation; ... More

This chapter summarizes the preceding discussions and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It covers texts, authors, and readers; religious and non-religious aims of interpretation; biblical criticism and Christian theology; theological interpretation; the necessity and character of theological interpretation; theory and theology; faith and reason; scholarship and faith; the use of various methods in biblical interpretation; and theology today and tomorrow.Less

History of Religions and History of Traditions

Robert Morgan and John Barton

in Biblical Interpretation

This chapter traces some significant shifts within the historical paradigm that has guided most modern biblical scholarship. It details the development of historical-critical study in the nineteenth ... More

This chapter traces some significant shifts within the historical paradigm that has guided most modern biblical scholarship. It details the development of historical-critical study in the nineteenth century. The chapter then considers the expansion of sociological interest in both the Old and New Testaments. This is followed by a discussion of the work of Rudolf Bultmann, focusing on the strategies he employs in order to undertake theological interpretation. The chapter suggests that behind Bultmann's theological hostility to the liberals' quest for the historical Jesus stood a variety of Lutheran and existentialist emphases and phobias.Less

 Why This Book?: Autobiographical Reflections

Solomon Schimmel

in The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth

This chapter explains the author's motives for writing this book, which originated in his being raised as an Orthodox Jew, to which he was deeply committed from early childhood until adulthood. He ... More

This chapter explains the author's motives for writing this book, which originated in his being raised as an Orthodox Jew, to which he was deeply committed from early childhood until adulthood. He received an intensive education in traditional Jewish religious life, literature, and belief, at home and in yeshivot (Jewish parochial schools), but from a young age harbored doubts about the core theological belief of Orthodoxy that the Pentateuch was revealed by God to Moses at Mount Sinai. Upon exposure to modern biblical scholarship, philosophical and literary critiques of religion, and modern biology and science he eventually concluded, in his early twenties, that he could no longer believe that which he had been taught from childhood. The chapter describes the emotional effects and social consequences of losing a faith which one loves (and in some respects continues to love), and the intellectual freedom earned by rejecting Orthodox beliefs and becoming a heretic.Less

Criticism and the Death of Scripture

Robert Morgan and John Barton

in Biblical Interpretation

This chapter begins with a discussion of David Friedrich Strauss's controversial book, The Life of Jesus, which was seen as a massive assault upon the central tenets of Christianity. Strauss showed, ... More

This chapter begins with a discussion of David Friedrich Strauss's controversial book, The Life of Jesus, which was seen as a massive assault upon the central tenets of Christianity. Strauss showed, in a piece-by-piece analysis of each Gospel incident, that these stories were not history, but something else. If traditional supernaturalism depended upon the historicity of the Gospels, its fabric was relentlessly unpicked by Strauss's analysis. The chapter then analyses the works of H. S. Reimarus, a deist, i.e. he believed in God, but not in revelation, miracles, or other supernatural interventions; and those of John William Colenso, the missionary bishop of Natal, whose writings reveal the credibility gap between the plain words of scripture, which were still officially held to be inerrant, and what educated people in fact believed.Less

What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics?: Medi(t)ations on and for a Conversation

Tat-siong Benny Liew

in What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? Reading the New Testament

This chapter discusses the nature and construction of Asian American theology—what is Asian American about that theology, and what makes this construction theological. In addition to dealing with the ... More

This chapter discusses the nature and construction of Asian American theology—what is Asian American about that theology, and what makes this construction theological. In addition to dealing with the “who” and/or “what,” the chapter suggests how one can narrate Asian American biblical hermeneutics into legitimacy not through a narrative of identity or authenticity but through repeated references to existing biblical scholarship by Asian American scholars. However, no single strategy will be sufficient for all situations, since they do not remain static. Asian American identities and Asian American biblical hermeneutics are both processes of “becoming-being,” “being-becoming,” or in a word, performance. As performance, these processes get remade simultaneously, responding creatively to contingent and/or changing situations.Less

Experiments in Exegesis

in The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship

Jerome became more willing to distance himself from his Greek sources and to emphasize his independent access to Jewish materials as his scholarly method matured. In order to represent his use of ... More

Jerome became more willing to distance himself from his Greek sources and to emphasize his independent access to Jewish materials as his scholarly method matured. In order to represent his use of Hebrew and Jewish exegesis as a radical innovation, Jerome played down the central role of Jewish learning in Origen's own biblical scholarship—although he could not erase the connection completely, for Origen's example provided crucial legitimation for Jerome's engagement with a tradition regarded by most Christians with suspicion, if not hostility. At the same time, Jerome's mature commentaries continue to acknowledge, even to advertise, their indebtedness to Greek Christian allegorical exegesis. Jerome moved, over perhaps five to seven years, from an almost abject deference to Origen as ultimate authority, to a far more ambivalent relation to him both as a valued, but problematic source and a necessary but insufficient model.Less