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This chapter introduces the arguments of Boyarin, Lieu, and van Henten concerning martyrdom and identity construction among Jews and Christians, arguing that the death of Stephen should be considered through this theoretical lens. As supporting argument for considering Stephen alongside second-century martyrologies, it situates Acts as an early second-century text. Appropriating Castelli’s arguments concerning martyrdom in Christian cultural memory, it argues that scholarly assertions concerning the historicity of Stephen’s death are more indebted to the force of cultural memory than to the historical-critical method. While concurring with Penner that verisimilitude, not “historical accuracy,” is the coin of ancient historiography, it then moves to suggest that this is not a reason to abandon the historiographic project but rather to frame historical narrative differently, in terms of rhetoric and ethic, as has been long argued in biblical studies by Schüssler Fiorenza.

The examination of the critical method as applied in German Mahābhārata and Bhagavadgītā scholarship has shown that although German scholars claimed to take a scientific approach to the epic, their interpretations were at best tangential and at worst irrelevant to the text at hand. No German interpreter in a period extending one hundred years had succeeded in presenting a coherent, philosophically illuminating interpretation of the Mahābhārata. The histories they presented of the epic existed nowhere else outside their own minds. The problem in German interpretations of Indian texts is not simply one of the inevitable misinterpretations that beset every hermeneutic endeavor. Rather, the critical method itself entailed a number of problematic prejudices. This chapter seeks to understand the reasons why the Indologists themselves could not see these problems. It looks at the scientization of Protestant theology in the critical method; the secularization of Protestant theology in the study of the history of religions; and the institutionalization of Protestant theology in Indology. It examines how the historical-critical method participates in a tradition of projecting a universal history, most characteristic of Christianity; how the method makes use of a teleological narrative of history, where history moves from a state of immaturity (the Kantian Unmündigkeit) to an enlightened, free, and critical use of reason; and how this narrative was used to justify implantation of an alternative tradition of textual scholarship in place of the Indian commentarial tradition.

The jointly authored introduction defines biblical criticism (or the historical-critical method) broadly as the process of establishing the original, contextual meaning of biblical texts and of assessing their historical accuracy. Next it traces the history of biblical criticism in both the Jewish (rabbis, Rashi) and Christian (Church Fathers, Luther) traditions. Then it describes the emergence of biblical criticism with Baruch Spinoza and its development especially in liberal German Protestant circles (Ernst Troeltsch, Julius Wellhausen).

This interlude takes as an example the author's rediscovering of his notebooks from college, where he was introduced to the historical-critical method of biblical scholarship. Recounting his rebellious use of historical criticism in church and as a youth group leader, the author reflects on his younger self's misconceptions. This interlude looks at how biblical studies privileges white-presenting, male ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling.

In West European history the nineteenth century has been termed the ‘second confessional age’ (after the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries) because of the revival of religion and the strengthening of confessional divisions, which penetrated politics, society, and everyday culture. The Netherlands was no exception to these trends. Abraham Kuyper provided here the theoretical underpinnings of the process of pillarization (the politico-denominational segregation of a society). The old liberal ideal of an inclusive People’s Church that tolerated a broad range of Christian believers was not achieved. The rise of the critical study of the Bible and science of religion were the most conspicuous scholarly developments in Dutch theology in the second half of the nineteenth century. Methodologically speaking, a historical way of thinking was taking hold of the field. This does not imply that positivism and Darwinism played no role in theological debates, but doubtless the emerging historical-critical approach did much more damage to the credibility of traditional Christian dogma than naturalistic theories. The theologians who have figured in this book all formulated their position with a view to the changing world around them. Some were fundamentally affirmative about new cultural and political developments (Protestant modernist theologians), others were downright critical (Isaac da Costa), while Abraham Kuyper developed a new, modern, and competing worldview vis-à-vis the dominant liberal stance. Nevertheless, in a variety of ways, all protagonists addressed the challenges of the slowly modernizing Dutch society in the nineteenth century and can be called modern thinkers in their own right.

The conclusion summarizes the new picture of Broughton offered by this book and concludes by offering reflections on three more general points arising from its analysis. The first concerns the highly prominent role that Jewish literature and languages played in Broughton’s thought. While Broughton undeniably took his interest in this area further than most scholars, the conclusion argues that he was not entirely anomalous, but rather representative of a broader tendency among reformed scholars to cultivate high levels of philological and linguistic expertise in languages of relevance to biblical scholarship, particularly Hebrew, Aramaic, Ethiopic, and Arabic. The second concerns the role of anti-Jewish controversy in the development of Christian biblical scholarship. The importance of interfaith polemics in pushing Broughton towards historical, philological argumentation is clear throughout the book, and raises a broader possibility worthy of further exploration: that anti-Jewish priorities might have played a hitherto underappreciated role in promoting historical, philological methods in Christian theology and biblical criticism. Finally, the conclusion dwells on the significance of the book’s repeated demonstration of the extent to which scholarly culture, at least in Broughton’s lifetime, was still dominated by exegetical priorities, i.e., by the demands, habits, and expectations of biblical interpretation. It concludes by arguing that it is this ‘embedded exegetical culture’, rather than any degree of historicism or critical method, that represents the most significant difference between early modern and modern biblical scholarship.