Newsletter:
Vol. 5. Iss. 3
10 August 2004
Michael Prior's Legacy
The Rev. Peter J. Miano
The unexpected news of Michael Prior’s accidental death on 21 July
2004 left me numb and feeling empty. There is so much left to do. Like many,
many others, I counted Michael among my friends and he was for me the latest
in a string of mentors who have chided, chastised, prodded and inspired my
work.
Michael was a friendly scholar and a scholarly friend. Most importantly, however,
he was a prophet whose unwavering dedication to truth telling challenged the
all too often moribund field of biblical scholarship. This dedication was
as annoying to his scholarly adversaries as it was inspiring to his admirers.
His legacy is yet to be fully appreciated, even by those who were very familiar
with his most recent work, which focused on Palestinian rights and the critique
of Zionism. However, when Michael’s work is reduced only to these latter
concerns, then we risk forgetting the intellectual qualities that defined
him more deeply. The tenacity that he applied to his critique of Zionism was
rooted in a life long disdain for intellectual laziness and the docile acceptance
of empty dogmas. As Duncan MacPherson observed in his homily at Michael’s
funeral, “Although he sometimes practiced his considerable fighting
skills on his friends, he reserved the full treatment on those he regarded
as the purveyors of injustice and humbug.”
Michael Prior was no knee jerk finger pointer or simple gadfly. His primary
concern throughout his career was the biblical academy of which he was a distinguished
member. His earlier writings, for instance, Paul the Letter Writer and
the Second Letter of Timothy (London: Continuum, 1989), amply illustrate
Michael’s probing intellect, the courage with which he challenged uncritically
accepted scholarly dogmas, and the tenacity with which he pressed his conclusions.
Biblical scholarship is polluted with soft minded theses that slavishly adopt
the opinions of previous generations of scholars. The dynamics within the
biblical academy encourage conformity to accepted doctrines. Paradigm shifts,
when they occur at all, occur excruciatingly slowly. It is rare when a scholar
takes the time to examine the opinion of the majority. Michael’s work
shows that doing so is not only courageous, but fruitful and sorely needed.
He went about that task with tireless vigor and in the process exposed as
baseless a number of popularly held, but poorly substantiated theses.
In the course of his personal evolution, Michael migrated to Palestine for
personal study and later for sabbatical and to teach. It was in that context
that he became disenchanted and impatient with the moral emptiness of mainstream
biblical scholarship. He started his learning and teaching as a Zionist who
was enamored with the seemingly miraculous victory in 1967 of tiny Israel
against its rapacious Arab neighbors—a latter day David against a heathen
Goliath. His life pilgrimage, however, led him to examine his preconceived
notions and the majority opinions of the day, just as he had questioned the
previously unchallenged paradigms of biblical scholarship. He evolved into
a staunch critic of the moral impact of Israel’s policies on the Palestinians.
In the process of examining his own deeply held convictions, he found and
exposed the humbug in the foundational mythology of modern Zionism. Fortunately
for history, it was Michael who came across the humbug, because most people
who do so lack the fortitude to stand up to the highly scripted and well organized
Zionist propaganda machine. But Michael Prior became a critic of Zionism and
of the biblical academy, because first he was a critic of himself. Indeed,
he exposed the complicity of the biblical academy in perpetuating the Zionist
narrative.
Why does it matter? The question itself is one that is rarely asked in the
confines of the academic ivory tower. Mainstream biblical scholarship does
not normally bother itself with the pesky issue of relevance. Morality is
even less interesting to mainstream biblical scholars. Michael Prior exposed
this appalling deficiency as well and he did it with characteristic zeal.
The biblical academy cleaves itself to a carefully crafted and rarely examined
self image of value neutrality, scientific objectivity, and dispassionate,
detached research. It uncritically presumes that the values of 19th century
science yield knowledge. It rarely considers that no rational inquiry of any
kind is value neutral. It hardly acknowledges that in fact the moral imperatives
of the Gospel faith require moral engagement as an article of faith and a
starting point of scholarship. The absence of moral consideration in biblical
research has resulted in the shameful, successful appeal to sacred scripture
to validate warfare, slavery, the subordinate status of women, and the discrimination
and hostility against gay and lesbian people. Surely scholarship that is neutral
in the face of the misuse of the Bible is defective.
