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Previous chapters in this book have considered in depth how Lincoln Steffens, Zora Neale Hurston, and Cecil B. DeMille represented Moses and the exodus in twentieth century America. These studies were capable of being read as discrete units and contain their own interim conclusions. This final chapter outlines conclusions that arise from the book in toto. It touches on the currency and contestedness of the biblical text in modern America; it also argues for an expansion of the concerns of biblical studies, to include popular cultural forms and nonelite readings. This move at once enhances and relativises the position of the professional biblical interpreter.

This chapter, while not losing sight of the Schweich Lectures and their influence, explores some more general issues that are raised particularly by the study of archaeology in connection with the Bible. Rather than examining the full extent of such issues, it examines the changing perceptions over the past century of what (if anything) archaeology can contribute to biblical study. Then it will be possible to ask whether this part of ‘the Schweich project’ still has any value, and if so how it may most fruitfully be taken forward.

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.

This is the third of five chapters on the Old Testament and the reader, and discusses canonical criticism and Old Testament theology. Canonical criticism can be understood as a relatively recent proposal for reordering exegetical priorities, while Old Testament theology is usually seen as a summarizing discipline as old as modernity itself. The two areas of research could be treated separately but the juxtaposition is instructive: both are in some sense orientated towards the readers of biblical texts, both have been charged with under‐valuing historical research, both are involved in seemingly intractable arguments about the relationship between descriptive and normative claims in biblical studies, and both are implicated in debates about the role of biblical research within the larger religious traditions of Christianity and Judaism. The discussion in this chapter highlights only the most important issues addressed in these overlapping programmes of research setting out to provide only an orientation to the key issues in current research. The chapter is arranged in three sections: Canonical criticism; Old Testament theology and readers’ commitments; and Biblical studies and theology.

This is the fourth of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament, and focuses on the Hebrew prose narrative of the Old Testament. It starts by discussing the various definitions of the term narrative (as a mode of discourse; as a vehicle of narrative communication; as definable text) and the difficulties of determining which particular definable biblical texts are narrative texts, and notes that the attempt by the critic–reader to define so simple a thing as the narrative text is fraught with issues that have as much to do with the reader as with the text. The author notes that the title of the chapter and its placement within the ‘text’ part of the division of the book into parts on readers, text, and authors, might suggest a singular objective entity (the text) produced by authors, read by readers, and conceptually separable from both, but that the reality is more complicated. The Old Testament is described as a fuzzy‐edged concept, not a fixed object, and its text not as one but as beyond number; furthermore, the concept is ideologically loaded (i.e. reader‐oriented) and much of the essay is quite specifically not about the (Christian) Old Testament (which is why the hybrid term Hebrew Bible has been used). It is the author's understanding that there is no such thing as the text of the Old Testament apart from its readers and it is in this context that he gives an account (which he labels as partial) of biblical narrative and literary criticism over the past three decades; this is presented as an account not of what is in the biblical narratives, but of what some readers have claimed to find in these texts, and how they have gone about finding it.

James Barr (1924–2006), a Fellow of the British Academy, was a biblical scholar, Semitist, and theologian, who combined these three skills with exceptional brilliance. He was among the foremost biblical specialists of his generation, and for his depth of insight into the study of the Bible he was in a class of his own. Barr was born on March 20, 1924 in Glasgow. He never considered any other profession than the ministry of the Church of Scotland, and upon graduating proceeded to New College, Edinburgh to study theology and prepare for ordination. Barrs's first book, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford, 1961), was a ‘landmark’ contribution in the history of twentieth-century biblical studies. In 1961, he migrated to the United States to take up an appointment as Professor of Old Testament Literature and Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Barr returned to England in 1965 as Professor of Semitic Languages and Literatures at the University of Manchester. Despite his many honours, he retained a simplicity and straightforwardness of manner that endeared him to family and friends alike.

This chapter discusses the role of archaeology in the study of the biblical period and biblical history, with special reference to the ninth century – that is, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, in the land of Israel. This discipline is known as biblical archaeology. When biblical archaeological research began more than 150 years ago, it was dependent on the Bible and biblical research. The dependence of archaeology on the biblical text is symbolized by the phrase ‘bible and spade’. The chapter argues that the disciplines of archaeology on the one hand and history and biblical studies on the other are based on different methods and different ways of thinking, and also claims that the archaeologist should refrain from analysing the Bible and history. Furthermore, it contends that the proper methodology should involve some cooperation between archaeologists, biblical scholars, and historians. The chapter also takes a look at the archaeological framework of the Iron Age, which is made of stratigraphy and chronology.

John Rogerson's review of works on the history of ancient Israel from Humphrey Prideaux to Martin Noth is a fine illustration of Ecclesiastes' observation (1.9): ‘What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun’. The current debates on the history of Israel are often presented as part of some paradigm shift or, at the very least, a new and savage phase in the study of Israelite history. The publication of recent works such as A Biblical History of Israel by Provan et al. and Kenneth Kitchen's On the Reliability of the Old Testament take us back to the starting point of Rogerson's paper and the work of Prideaux before the development of biblical studies as a critical discipline in the nineteenth century. Norman Cantor's observations on the invention of the Middle Ages by twentieth-century scholarship are just as applicable to biblical scholarship and its pursuit of ancient Israel.

This chapter begins in earnest the examination of the methodology at issue in the book. In sympathy with certain criticisms raised recently by Bas van Fraassen, it argues that analytic philosophy as currently practiced has the vices of its virtues, but that these can be corrected for by including narratives in some of the discussions of analytic philosophy. The chapter discusses the nature of a philosophical examination of narratives, and the reasons for supposing that narrative analysis has something to contribute to philosophy. It also argues for the possibility of using biblical narratives in this way. It considers reasons allegedly based on historical biblical studies for supposing that biblical narratives cannot be used in this way, and it uses current disputes within the subject of historical biblical studies itself to show that these alleged reasons are not cogent. Finally, it discusses Chinua Achebe's explanation of the significance and usefulness of character analysis in the examination of narratives, and it argues that Achebe's explanation applies to biblical narratives, too.

The final chapter examines the pastoral dimension of Gregory's Trinitarian doctrine and the Trinitarian shape of his pastoral theory, on which he is the seminal teacher in Eastern and Western Christianity. Drawing on his influential Oration 2 On the Priesthood and his panegyrics on such figures as Athanasius and Basil, it traces Gregory's lifelong concern for the leadership of the Church and analyzes his understanding of pastoral ministry, while also providing an excursus on the love of the poor by all Christians. After noting the intrinsic connection between pastoral ministry and the divine economy as recorded in Scripture, it analyzes the practicalities of the cure of souls—a work that Gregory memorably terms “the art of arts and the science of sciences”—which are summed up in the pastor's adaptive treatment of different spiritual conditions. It then identifies the basis of pastoral praxis in the personal experience and virtue of the priest—exemplified above all by the apostle Paul—against which abuses of the pastoral office and the examples of bad bishops are considered. It shows the central place of the Scriptures in pastoral ministry, from the priest's preparation through the spiritual study of the Bible to the central work of the ministry of the word, which is compared with broader sacramental ministry. Finally, it locates the heart of pastoral ministry in the administration of the Holy Trinity.

This chapter outlines the theory and methodology that underpins the rest of the study. It touches on the history of literary and artistic representations of Moses. It then describes cultural studies, approaches to religion, and the discipline of reception studies, both of which inform the study. Finally, it discusses the contemporary expansion of the concerns of biblical studies, and sketches key features of American religious life as they relate to the study – more particularly, the use of Exodus typology in American public life.

This chapter focuses on two closely related diagrammatic maps of Jerusalem and the Holy Land in two thirteenth-century manuscripts now in Brussels (Bibliothèque Royale, MS IV 462) and London (British Library, MS Harley 658). On the basis of a comparison between the maps and their transmission contexts it is argued that the maps served as didactic tools, aiding the study of biblical history. The layout of the maps is analysed in relation to wider developments in Western medieval manuscript production and learning during the second half of the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth centuries, particularly in relation to the emphasis on a more systematic and rigorous structuring of knowledge. The manuscripts are seen as indicative of how topographical information concerning the Holy Land was put to use in biblical study, and of how scholasticism could have influenced the ways in which Jerusalem was represented and perceived.

The introduction provides an orientation to Gregory's' life and works within his multiple contexts. It covers Gregory's family, childhood, education, training in biblical study and Greek philosophical rhetoric; his pioneering, moderate form of monasticism as a “middle path” between solitude and public service; his strong influence by Origen and complicated relationship with Basil; his theological and ecclesiastical leadership as a priest and bishop; his central role in the consolidation of the Trinitarian faith and the pro‐Nicene movement in Constantinople; and his retirement, literary corpus, and the distinctive character of the Theological Orations. In addition, it offers a summary narrative of the mid‐fourth‐century theological controversies, in which Gregory played a key part—with attention to Marcellus of Ancyra, the Council of Nicaea 325, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Basil of Ancyra, George of Laodicea, Melitius of Antioch, Damasus and the Western synods, Eunomius and the Heterousians, the Homoiousians, the Pneumatomachians, the homoian regimes of Constantius and Valens, the synod of Antioch in 372, the religious policy of Theodosius, and other church councils; an account of the negative effects of the Antiochene schism, and a reconstruction of the Council of Constantinople 381.

This chapter begins with a sketch of the background of this period in the progressive papacy of Leo XIII, expressed in biblical studies by the many‐sided project of M.‐J. Lagrange in Jerusalem, held in check after thirteen successful years. This was the freeze of 1907‐35. A thaw began with a renewal in biblical ecclesiology (renewal, phase one, 1936‐43), due to the works of Mersch and Cerfaux, culminating in the 1943 encyclical which endorsed the insight of Lagrange on the diversity of literary genres in the Bible. History was not the only genre in the Bible. Phase Two of the renewal ran from 1944 to 1954. In biblical studies its high points were an explosion of biblical theology, the discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the first edition of the Jerusalem Bible, all done by French Catholics. A fourth section is devoted to the mixed blessing of the patristic scholarship of Henri de Lubac and Jean Daniélou. They fiercely advocated pre‐modern, often allegorical, exegesis, at least in relation to the Pentateuch and to the Song of Songs. Their advocacy, while justified to some extent, can however be a hindrance to the assimilation of modern critical methods. In the hands of those less gifted it can lead to mental cowardice and sterility.

This is the last of five chapters on the Old Testament and the reader, and is devoted to a discussion of Old Testament ethics. Begins by outlining possible reasons for people being interested in Old Testament ethics, and then discusses the strategies employed in each of these approaches. Four reasons for ethical study are advanced: first, from a confessional (religious/theological/devotional) standpoint, it could be maintained that the Old Testament in some sense contains the revealed will of God and that its ethical teaching therefore makes a claim upon Jews and Christians if not upon all humanity; a second reason springs from the conviction that the confessional position is mistaken and that it is the duty of scholarship to expose the crudities of Old Testament morality in order to prevent humankind from being subjected to its claims; a third answer might be that the study of Old Testament ethics is a valid subject in its own right, as is the study of the ethics of the Greeks or of the historical background to the Old Testament; a fourth response might go further than this and say that because the Old Testament is a classic text, what it has to say on ethical matters is of interest to ethicists. The next section starts by discussing the fact that differing agendas have shaped approaches to Old Testament ethics in earlier periods of history, and goes on to review three recent large‐scale confessional attempts to deal with Old Testament ethics: those of Walter Kaiser, Christopher Wright, and Bruce Birch. The following section attempts to illustrate how different results can follow if different approaches are made to the Old Testament, and discusses the evidence of moral and ethical sensitivity within the biblical text, discourse ethics, and the need for a plurality of methods and approaches.

As scholars of the American religious past and present continue to move away from the consensus model, in which the upstart Latter-day Saint tradition had no real fit, and embrace conflict, contact, and other methodologies, Joseph Smith is beginning to get a new hearing in scholarly surveys, monographs, textbooks, and articles. The rationale behind this collection is that the day has come when the founder of Mormonism and his prominent role in American history and religious thought can not be denied. The attention paid to Smith’s teachings, charismatic ministry, and religion-making imagination now extends to scholars in American history, religious studies, sociology, biblical studies, Christian philosophy, Literature, and the Humanities--all of whom are represented in this collection. It is our intent to reflect in these pages the wide-ranging interest in Joseph Smith that the commemorative conferences only suggested.

George Wishart Anderson was appointed Professor of Old Testament Literature and Theology at Edinburgh University in 1962. In 1968, after the retirement of N. W. Porteous as Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages, the title of Anderson's chair was changed to Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies. He taught Hebrew to undergraduates in the Faculty of Arts, and lectured on the Old Testament to candidates for the ministry of the Church of Scotland and for the degree of BD. In addition, Anderson taught graduate students, not only from the United Kingdom, but also from various countries, including several from South-East Asia. He was an active member of the Society for Old Testament Study. From 1957 to 1966 he edited the Society's annual Book List, which contains brief reviews of books that had recently been published on the Old Testament and related subjects and is an invaluable bibliographical aid to those interested in biblical studies.

This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is not only to examine the Eve of the Eden story but also to bring to light the lives of Everywoman Eve, the ordinary women of ancient Israel. All who read the Bible or who are affected by its role in religious, community, or national life—whether students or scholars, feminists or the faithful—are directly or indirectly affected by the Eden story. An awareness of the invisible lives of Israelite women that form the background for the outcome of the Eden narrative can inform in new ways, in addition to the many that already exist, our understanding of this foundational and influential cultural tale. The discussion then turns to the impact of two disciplines on biblical studies. One is the importance of feminism on the study of religion and religious texts. The other is the engagement of biblical studies with social science research.