ABSTRACT
The field of biblical studies is one of the most complex within the humanities disciplines (some would question whether it is a humanities discipline, since it avails itself of a variety of social-scientific methods as well; that is part of the point that I make below). This assessment has been recognized by a number of scholars who recently have undertaken to join, or at least to have conversation with, the field of biblical studies. Few disciplines make such rigorous demands on those who would call themselves experts in the field. The requirements include knowledge of the ancient world, ancient languages, various ancient literatures, and a history of writing, research, and investigation that dates back nearly two millennia in its most inclusive form, and at least to the Enlightenment in its more immediate critical form. Thus, it qualifies as one of the oldest academic and intellectual disciplines. A number of critical disciplines geared to studying the ancient biblical world have been developed, often called historical criticism, in conjunction with which biblical scholars have been forced also to ask theological questions, including addressing such topics as canonicity, revelation, and inspiration. In more recent times, there has been an influx of modern critical methods, which have been appropriated from related (and sometimes not so related) disciplines. These include literary studies, drawing upon work that has been developed in the study of modern literature; classical studies, including but certainly not limited to exploration of the influence of oral culture; social-scientific criticism, with its prescriptive and descriptive models of various societal patterns; linguistics, with its original attention to spoken languages being applied to the written artifacts of past cultures; and others that could be mentioned (and probably are somewhere in this volume). Much of the recent work that has been done in the discipline could have appeared in any number of major modern languages, including, for example, English, German, or French to be sure, but now also Spanish, Italian, or Swedish, among others.
