Download PDF | Stephen B. Chapman, Marvin A. Sweeney - The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible_Old Testament-Cambridge University Press (2016).
547 Pages
This Companion offers a concise and engaging introduction to the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Providing an up-to-date snapshot of scholarship, it includes chapters by twenty-three leading scholars specially commissioned for this volume. The volume examines a range of topics, including the historical and religious contexts for the contents of the biblical canon and critical approaches and methods, as well as newer topics such as the Hebrew Bible in Islam, Western art and literature, and contemporary politics. This Companion is an excellent resource for students at the university and graduate levels, as well as for laypeople and scholars in other fi elds who would like to gain an understanding of the current state of the academic discussion. The book does not presume prior knowledge, nor does it engage in highly technical discussions, but it does go into greater detail than a typical introductory textbook.
Stephen B. Chapman is Associate Professor of Old Testament in the Divinity School and Director of Graduate Studies for the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke University. He is also an affiliate faculty member in Duke’s Center for Jewish Studies. He has published numerous essays and is author of The Law and the Prophets (2000) and 1 Samuel as Christian Scripture (2016). He also coedited Biblischer Text und theologische Theoriebildung (2001).
Marvin A. Sweeney is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Tanak at the Academy for Jewish Religion (California). He has written highly regarded works on the Hebrew Bible, such as Isaiah 1–39 (1996), The Twelve Prophets (2000), King Josiah of Judah (2001), Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah (2008), Tanak: A Theological and Critical Introduction to the Jewish Bible (2012), Reading Ezekiel (2013), Reading Prophetic Books (2014), and Isaiah 40–66 (2016). He coedited New Visions of Isaiah (1996), Reading and Hearing the Book of the Twelve Prophets (2000), The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (2003), and other works.
Introduction Stephen B. Chapmanand Marvin A. Sweeney A remarkable diversifi cation of religious scholarship occurred in the course of the twentieth century, uniquely affecting research on the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Once a relatively staid fi eld framed within largely Protestant assumptions and expectations, 1 Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament scholarship has become a lively academic terrain of robust activity by Protestants, Catholics, Jews, secularists, and others. 2 Although still underrepresented, women and racial or ethnic minorities are thankfully now increasingly part of the scholarly conversation.
Moreover, the institutional context of this activity has also broadened signifi cantly, with most of the work in the fi eld currently being done at research universities (which might have religious studies departments and/or denominationally affiliated schools of religion or theology) rather than in free-standing theological schools. University religion departments routinely now include Jewish and Catholic biblical scholars, as well as scholars without any religious affiliation, and their students range across an extremely broad spectrum of religious backgrounds and commitments: There has been a major shift of the locus of biblical scholarship from Christian and Jewish theological faculties to the “secular” universities. University scholars in the fi eld of biblical studies have not ceased universally to be Christians or Jews in their personal profession. Religious identity as Christian or Jewish still informs in many ways the views of biblical interpretation by such scholars.
Now, however, these views must be expressed in an arena of scholars who represent various shades of Christian and Jewish life. 3 Indeed, the diversifi cation of the fi eld has gone hand in hand with the dizzying institutional complexifi cation of the modern university. As this diversifi cation has continued, the object of study in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament research has become increasingly challenging to defi ne. Because alternative conceptions of the biblical canon exist, which books are to be included for investigation? Because different text traditions are variously valued, is the fi eld’s interpretive goal the elucidation of the Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, or some combination of the two? Or is “Bible” itself a problematic category? 4 Even the name of the fi eld has become unstable. “Old Testament” suggests a network of Christian hermeneutical presuppositions, a possible bias that has led to the increasing use of “Hebrew Bible,” especially (but not exclusively) on the part of Jewish scholars. Numerous other titles also have been proposed. 5 In all these ways, there presently exists more vigorous debate about fundamental questions in the fi eld than ever before. This debate is to be welcomed rather than regretted. Any time a fi eld as traditional as this one can become truly interesting again, it must be doing something right . The goal of this Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is twofold.
The fi rst goal is to exhibit in detail how the increasing diversity in biblical scholarship is no accident but results in part from the nature of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament itself. A completely “neutral” point of standing is not possible with respect to this textual collection, because its very identifi cation and character are intrinsically connected to specifi c communities of interpretation. Rather than having eliminated the religious infl uence on biblical interpretation, modernity has driven it underground, providing a blanket of secularism which permits scholars from diverse backgrounds to use common methods and a common language to communicate with each other in a world where Jewish and Christian exegetes often fi nd their work evaluated by individuals with different beliefs. 6 In other words, while the history-of-religions approach has successfully facilitated an “ecumenical” form of biblical scholarship, it has also done so to an extent by glossing over unresolved religious differences. Many of the current textbooks and handbooks in biblical studies neglect or dismiss the Bible’s traditional religious contexts, giving the impression that the link between text and community can be bracketed out. 7 So the fi rst purpose of this Companion is instead to illustrate how the designations “Hebrew Bible,” “Old Testament,” and so on imply different things to different people depending on their religious and social locations . But awareness and recognition of genuine differences do not by any means eliminate the possibility for successful common work.
The second goal of this Companion is thus to showcase the way in which respected scholars from a variety of religious and scholarly traditions can mutually participate in fruitful collaboration, even though some of their operational presuppositions about the fi eld may not actually match. Precisely because of the striking diversity of perspectives, methods, and goals within the fi eld at present, this Companion provides a notable service by modeling how scholars with differing religious affiliations and commitments can engage productively in biblical scholarship together – without pretending to relinquish those affiliations and commitments from the outset. In fact, we regret that this volume is not even more diverse than it is, although we also recognize that a single volume can no longer do justice to the diversity existing within our fi eld.
We hope, therefore, that this volume will be read alongside other introductory textbooks and guides, and that its publication will further enhance a developing conversation not only about the history of Israel and the character of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, but also about the nature of our fi eld itself: its scope and its aims. In particular, this volume needs to be read together with other handbooks and resources that describe even newer methodological vantage points, especially with regard to contextual or “advocacy” approaches (e.g., feminist, African American, Native American, Hispanic/Latino/a, Asian) and interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., postcolonial hermeneutics, disability studies, cultural criticism). 8
Our volume does not represent an effort to “defi ne the fi eld” and certainly does not intend to marginalize or exclude perspectives and topics that are left untreated – but only to offer one substantial, coherent exploration of various subfi elds of study relating to the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament . Even though we could not fi t everything between two covers, we hope this volume will provide a useful introduction to students and a helpful overview for colleagues, who may fi nd (as we do) that it is more and more challenging, in these days of hyperspecialization, to look up from one’s own furrow to the rest of the fi eld in which we all are jointly laboring. Two other closely related Cambridge Companions appeared not long ago, and they continue to be well worth consulting. 9 This volume, however, is the fi rst Companion to be focused exclusively on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. It has been in preparation for several years.
During this period, we have done all we could to keep it current with the rapidly evolving secondary literature, but inevitably there will be certain omissions and oversights. Yet we remain confi dent that the volume represents a timely snapshot of signifi cant contemporary scholarship on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. We have tried not to presume prior knowledge in the volume’s treatment of various topics, but at the same time to introduce this complex body of scholarship at an advanced level. We wish to thank Judith Heyhoe for her editorial assistance. Our thanks also go to the staff of Cambridge University Press for their patience, support, and expertise.
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