A Brief Account of Animism in Biblical Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-270
Author(s):  
Mari Joerstad
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies

Reading Genesis Through Chronicles: The Creation of the Sons of Jacob

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-168
Author(s):  
Andrew Tobolowsky
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Dynamic Power ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
Over Time

Scholars are increasingly aware of the dynamic nature of the interaction between the nine-chapter-long genealogy that begins the book of Chronicles and its source material. However, little attention has been paid to the role this interaction might have played in the creation of some key biblical ideas, particularly in the “eponymous imagination” of the tribes as literally the sons of Jacob. Through comparison with scholarly approaches to the pseudo-Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and an investigation into the ramifications for biblical studies of ethnic theory and historical memory on the fluidity of ethnicity and memory over time, this article seeks to reassess the dynamic power of the Chronicles genealogy as an ethnic charter for the elites of Persian Yehud. Focus on the distinctive imagination of Israel in the crucial narratives in the book of Genesis, as compared with narratives elsewhere in the primary history, and the contributions of the Chronicles genealogy to their redefinition, allows us to address the Bible’s dependence upon the lens the Chronicles genealogy imposes upon it.

In the Beginning Was the Text. The Derridean Concept of Textuality and Its Role in Biblical Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 162-184
Author(s):  
Алексей Волчков
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
The Face ◽  
In The Beginning

Статья посвящена анализу того, как постструктуралистские представления о «тексте» и «текстуальном» влияют на академическую библеистику и традиционную экзегезу. Автор на множестве примеров показывает, что критический настрой философии Деррида помогает читателю Писания, придерживающегося традиционных для религиозных общин (христианство, иудаизм) принципов толкования, отстоять своё право на подобную герменевтическую программу перед лицом библейской критики и вызовов академического рационализма. При исследовании этого влияния автор опирается на работы известных французских философов: Жака Деррида, Юлии Кристевой, Ролана Барта. The article is devoted to the analysis of how post-structural notions of «text» and «textuality» influence academic biblical studies and traditional exegesis. The author shows, through a variety of examples, that the critical approach of Derrida’s philosophy helps the reader of Scripture who adheres to the traditional principles of traditional interpretation to defend his right to such a hermeneutic program in the face of biblical criticism and the challenges of academic rationality. In studying this influence, the author draws on the works of famous French philosophers: Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Roland Bart.

Teaching the Bible and Popular Media as Part of Contemporary Rape Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 423-439
Author(s):  
Beatrice J. W. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cultural Myths ◽  
Biblical Texts

This essay explores pedagogical strategies for addressing rape culture in biblical studies courses, employing Genesis 34 and Judges 19–21 as primary texts. The first section discusses the nature of popular culture and its impact on gender. The following four sections highlight cultural myths about sexual assault by focusing on significant biblical texts and incorporating aspects of popular media to facilitate conversations about rape culture. The conclusion summarizes the main points and encourage further studies that combine the study of popular media and biblical texts. Overall, the essay contributes to the reading and teaching of the Bible within contemporary rape culture so that students become critical interpreters of biblical texts, as they become resistant readers of past and present rape culture.

Neoliberal Feminist Scholarship in Biblical Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-179
Author(s):  
Esther Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Relative Utility

This essay provides a critical analysis of the neoliberal grounding of feminist biblical studies. I outline the main problems generated by this framework, notably fragmentation, repetition, the absence of theory, the limiting emphasis on method, and above all the validation of traditional (male-dominant) scholarly norms and practices. Seeking greater inclusion within biblical studies, neoliberal feminism has endorsed the normalizing approach to patriarchy and rejected its radical interrogation in women’s studies. My thumbnail historical overview of the field links disconnected publications in biblical theology, historical criticism, and literary criticism. The analysis shows that these possibilities advocate the relative utility of re-objectifying women with five hermeneutical strategies. They are: first, the depatriarchalizing strategy, exemplified in Phyllis Trible’s work; second, the historicizing strategy as employed most prominently by Carol Meyers; third, the textualizing strategy exemplified by Ilana Pardes; fourth, the mythologizing strategy employed by Susan Ackerman; and fifth, the idealizing strategy exemplified by Frymer-Kensky. By placing my critical analysis within the broader context of transformational feminist critiques published at the same time, I argue for a shift from the “biblical” to the “feminist” in feminist biblical studies.

Postcolonial Liberation: Decolonizing Biblical Studies in the South African Postcolony

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O. West
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The South ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
African Black ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Economics ◽  
The 1960S

Liberation biblical interpretation and postcolonial biblical interpretation have a long history of mutual constitution. This essay analyzes a particular context in which these discourses and their praxis have forged a third conversation partner: decolonial biblical interpretation. African and specifically South African biblical hermeneutics are the focus of reflections in this essay. The South African postcolony is a “special type” of postcolony, as the South African Communist Party argued in the 1960s. The essay charts the characteristics of the South African postcolony and locates decolonial biblical interpretation within the intersections of these features. Race, culture, land, economics, and the Bible are forged in new ways by contemporary social movements, such as #FeesMustFall. South African biblical studies continues to draw deeply on the legacy of South African black theology, thus reimagining African biblical studies as decolonial African biblical studies—a hybrid of African liberation and African postcolonial biblical interpretation.

Reviewing and Responding to the Thought of Choan-Seng Song

1977 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-15
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
World Council ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Princeton Theological Seminary ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
Academic Year

Choan-Seng Song, formerly Professor of Theology and Principal of Tainan Theological College in Taiwan and now Associate Director of the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, is among the most stimulating of present-day Asian theologians. Dr. Song has become increasingly well known to missiological circles in North America through his service as a visiting professor at Princeton Theological Seminary during the academic year 1976–77. His book Christian Mission In Reconstruction: An Asian Attempt was first published in Madras by the Christian Literature Society of India in 1976. Orbis Books has scheduled an American edition to appear in the fall of 1977. The Occasional Bulletin of Missionary Research invited D. Preman Niles, Professor in the field of Biblical Studies at the Theological College in Pilimatalawa, Sri Lanka, and Charles C. West, the Stephen Colwell Professor of Christian Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey to write brief articles on “Reviewing and Responding to the Thought of Choan-Seng Song.” Although Dr. Song's recent book is intended to be a particular focus of those two reflections, they go beyond it to a wider consideration of his theological thought. In turn, Dr. Song was invited to submit a “reaction-to-the-reactions.” The three articles follow in that order.

Transforming Historical Objectivism into Historical Hermeneutics: From “Historical Illness” to Properly Lived Historicality

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-515
Author(s):  
Thomas Tops
Keyword(s):  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts

Summary The present study analyses recent criticisms against the use of modern-historical methodologies in Biblical Studies. These methodologies abstract from the historical horizon of the researcher. In order to relate properly to the historicality of the researcher, historical objectivism needs to be transformed into historical hermeneutics. Recent developments in the historical methodology of biblical scholars are unable to reckon with the historicality of the researcher due to the partial or incorrect implementation of Gadamer’s views on reception history. I analyse the views of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Gadamer on historicality and contend that the study of reception history is a necessary condition for conducting historical study from within the limits of our historicality. Reception history should not be a distinct methodological step to study the “Nachleben” of biblical texts, but needs to clarify how the understanding of these texts is already effected by their history of interpretation. The awareness of the presuppositions that have guided previous interpretations of biblical texts enables us to be confronted by their alterity. This confrontation calls for a synthesis between reception-historical and historical-critical methodology that introduces a new paradigm for conducting historical study in Biblical Studies in dialogue with other theological disciplines.

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