ABSTRACT
‘Minimalism’ 3 is the supposition that the biblical text cannot rightly or honestly be mined for historical reconstructions of ancient Israel or earliest Christianity. The underlying assumption here is that the biblical text is not historically oriented. That is to say, the purpose of the Bible is not to offer twenty-first-century historians fodder for their reconstructive mills. It is to speak theologically to ancient (and I would also say, modern) communities of faith.
