R. H. Charles and Modern Biblical Studies

Abstract:The presentation centers on R. H. Charles, the pioneer scholar of Jewish apocalypses and pseudepigrapha in the English-speaking world. After a short biography of Charles, I offer a survey of his career and publications, followed by an explanation of how he and his contemporaries saw themselves as standing at a pivotal time in the history of interpreting the Bible. A listing of some examples from Charles’s work illustrates the point. The address concludes with several comparisons between biblical studies as practiced a century ago and today and with an imaginative look at what Charles might have thought had he been able to attend a twenty-first century Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.