ABSTRACT
This chapter looks closely at what English biblical studies or attitudes to the Bible could be taken to be, asking questions about identity and context and its impact on biblical interpretation in a global context. This chapter explores the role of ‘context’ in biblical interpretation through a comparison of a contemporary Indian and some classic British readings and receptions of ‘Naboth's Vineyard’ as found in 1 Kings 21. Reviewing the history of English uses and retellings of ‘Naboth's Vineyard’—from Tudor times, through to radical political thought, through to an example from the height of the higher criticism in England (Thomas Kelly Cheyne), to some classic examples of literary reworkings and retellings of the tale at the hands of Kipling and Benson—aids in the identification of an English approach and also enables the mapping of its emergence and changing identity across time. It can be seen how ‘Naboth's Vineyard’ has largely lost its direct prophetic critical edge in contemporary British life as compared with Indian contexts where land grabbing practices, for example, keep the resonance of the text today fully alive, through the active work of biblical users.
