Critical Biblical Studies is Here to Stay

Abstract

The six essays in The Bible & Critical Theory 11.2 (2015) brilliantly demonstrate the scholarship that characterizes an emerging area in Religious Studies—let’s call it critical biblical studies, or more broadly, critical scriptural studies. This work analyzes the way biblical texts reflect and sustain contemporary and ancient power dynamics, political regimes, cultural norms, violences, performative practices, as well as resistances. In its attempt to critique dominant structures, critical biblical studies differs from other important areas of biblical study, those more bounded in their aims (such as solely historical, literary, or theoretical approaches); further, it resists the transcendent closure of using the Bible for theological construction. The subfield has been developing for some time. The Bible & Critical Theory has been an important platform for it, along with Postscripts: A Journal for Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds, the Institute for Signifying Scripture, and a growing number of sections at the Society of Biblical Literature, including the many perspectival, contextual, philosophical, and ideological critical sections. The Babylon Complex (Runions 2014), was written with the benefit of these conversations, and I am grateful to be able to respond to these productive engagements with it.