Posts tagged as:

biblical studies

Theology and Biblical Studies: friend or stranger?

January 7, 2010

I spent the first part of this week at a conference on theological education. I hadn’t realised when I signed up (well, was signed up by my diocese) to this just how much it was associated with the Radical Orthodoxy movement, or I might not have been willing to have my arm twisted. However, I [...]

Read the full article →

I’m not a “Christian” – maybe I can be a scholar.

December 4, 2009

Pat McCullough has a good post with some good comments sparked by Dan Wallace’s odd broadside against liberals and their biases. In that earlier post Wallace claimed that “most biblical scholars are not Christians”. (I note in passing that real secular scholars think the shoe is on the other foot.)
Among other links, Pat draws us [...]

Read the full article →

Inerrancy’s not scholarship: the other Doug’s weak consensuses

December 3, 2009

I tried to leave this as a comment on Doug Mangum’s post, but Blogger took against me. He suggests that there are at least three top consensuses (that sounds so wrong in the plural, even if you use an -i ending) in bibilcal scholarship that are weak and in need of challenge. His top three:

Q
The [...]

Read the full article →

The friends of Onan

November 16, 2009

Jim West asked the question:

What exactly is the Institute for Signifying Scriptures?

As a result Clayboy felt compelled to look for the answer, which he now presents to you in its gloriously obfuscating incomprehensibility.

The Institute for Signifying Scriptures has as its primary purpose the facilitation of transgressive research into the phenomena — practices, representations, ideologies and [...]

Read the full article →

Is this an indictment of modern biblical scholarship?

November 14, 2009

Nijay Gupta partially reviews Gordon Fee’s commentary on the Thessalonian letters. In the course of his reflections he says this:

This seems to me to be a problem with new commentaries -though they are written by general experts (experts on Paul), ones like these are not by people who have spent their career on this one [...]

Read the full article →

Gloucestershire Uni: save biblical studies letter

November 11, 2009

Mark Goodacre has some of the main links on the planned redundancy in the Biblical Studies Department at the University of Gloucestershire. The Facebook page is here.
This does not seem to be quite the same situation as that at Sheffield, where the whole undergraduate teaching of Biblical Studies was targeted. I am, however, concerned that [...]

Read the full article →

The new Sheffield Brouhaha

November 8, 2009

It all started when Ben Witherington made some careless and unsubstantiated accusations about Sheffield Biblical Studies department in Christianity Today.

faculty were “bent on the deconstruction of the Bible, and indeed of their students’ faith,” according to Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary.

This at least had the merit of waking James Crossley [...]

Read the full article →

Theological bias in exegesis – a special case?

October 17, 2009

Mike Whitenton revisits the old chestnut of bias in biblical studies.
Why is it that some scholars act as if the only bias that one can bring to the table is theological? I believe we come to the text not as disembodied minds, but as whole beings. The entirety of our experience shapes the way we [...]

Read the full article →

The End is not yet. Good news from Sheffield

October 15, 2009

Posted today on Facebook.

University of Sheffield Statement on the Department of Biblical Studies
The University of Sheffield has today confirmed its position with regard to the future of the Department of Biblical Studies. In the light of concerns regarding inadequate consultation, as well as feedback from staff and students, the Department of Biblical Studies is no [...]

Read the full article →

Sheffield and the bureaucratic monochromatic Borg: resistance is not futile

October 11, 2009

Jim West has an update from an insider source. It is comprehensive and answers some of the questions I raised earlier. It chimes with what has come my way this evening from a horse’s mouth that I trust.
Here’s an excerpt:
There is a general feeling, then, that the move against Biblical Studies is ideological and not [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries