Newsletter 15 June 2008
Time for a New Paradigm
The Rev. Peter J. Miano
continued
from previous page
Even more troubling is the simple reality that the extraordinary insights
produced by the specialists in the biblical academy rarely, if ever, find
their way out of the tight circle of specialists who produce them. Scholars
write almost exclusively for other scholars. Research is conducted in remote
settings and is increasingly irrelevant to any social environment. These factors
conspire to produce a result that should be alarming to all. Churches are
filled with clergy and laity who are handicapped with outdated information
and scholars answer questions that no one is asking. By contrast, S.B.S. makes
biblical scholarship accessible to the rank and file of the Church. The world
is our classroom is there is not a better one in any seminary. Meanwhile,
the academy diligently avoids the pressing moral challenges of our world.
One colleague of mine stated that, in fact, those who press for relevance
are often ostracized or even punished.
The main guild of biblical scholars is The Society of Biblical Literature.
I am a card carrying member. There are over 8,000 other card carrying members.
Four times a year, it publishes riveting scholarly articles such as 4Q448,
Pslam 154 (Syriac), Sirach 48:20, and 4QpIsa; No NU in Line 2 of 7Q5: A Final
Disidentification of 7Q5 with Mark 6:52-53; and The Use of Paly in Ephesians
6:12.
I am not embarrassed to admit that I have not read these articles. I dare
say, however, that they will not help me understand vexing existential questions.
They will not help me respond to the challenges of war or equip me to reassure
a Palestinian refugee that God cares for him, even though his expellers turn
to the Bible, i.e., the Word of God, and site passages where God authorizes
Israel not only to expel the “other,” but to kill him.
I am by no means the first person to observe that the dominant paradigm of
biblical scholarship is increasingly obsolete, increasingly irrelevant and
therefore in need of reform. In his review of Raymond E. Brown’s magnum
opus Introduction to the New Testament, Anthony Saldarini observed that in
the 1,500 pages of text, not one paragraph answered the question, “What
difference does it make?” Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza has pointedly
critiqued the dominant paradigm of biblical scholarship (1999: Rhetoric and
Ethics: The Politics of Biblical Studies ). However, no one critiqued the
academy more courageously than the late Michael Prior, who pointed out that
the dominant paradigm of biblical scholarship is not only irrelevant, but
that it is morally deficient in that it has failed to prevent the use of the
Bible as a blunt instrument in the process of Western colonialism. Indeed,
he declared, the biblical academy is often complicit in advancing positions
that legitimate colonial domination. In particular, he sited the cases of
the Iberian conquest of Central America, the Dutch conquest of South Africa
and the Zionist conquest of Palestine.
In all three arenas, the primary source of validation of colonization was
the Bible. Surely, he argued, the biblical academy has an obligation to examine
the moral values embedded in the biblical narratives, especially when the
texts are applied in contemporary contexts with catastrophic consequences.
As a conscientious Christian, I find it troubling that God is depicted in
the Bible as a mass murderer (Exodus12:29). Does God really require the murder
of innocent male children? Just as troubling is that when biblical texts depicting
rape, incest, murder, slavery, genocide, the subjugation of women and human
sacrifice are studied in the academy, no one seems to take note that the most
common contemporary moral codes require higher standards of conduct than many
of those depicted in the Bible. In many cases, the biblical narratives depict
God as requiring the faithful to commit actions that would be considered war
crimes if they were committed on a contemporary battlefield. (Numbers 31:
1-15)
