The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age

by John J. Collins

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2005

Overview

Biblical scholars today often sound as if they are caught in the aftermath of Babel—a clamor of voices unable to reach common agreement. Yet is this confusion necessarily a bad thing? Many postmodern critics see the recent profusion of critical approaches as a welcome opportunity for the emergence of diverse new techniques. In The Bible after Babel, noted biblical scholar John J. Collins considers the effect of the postmodern situation on biblical, primarily Old Testament, criticism over the last three decades. Engaging and even-handed, Collins examines the quest of historical criticism to objectively establish a text’s basic meaning. Accepting that the Bible may no longer provide secure “foundations” for faith, Collins still highlights its ethical challenge to be concerned for “the other”—a challenge central both to Old Testament ethics and to the teaching of Jesus.

Contents

Top Highlights

“As James Barr has insisted, historical criticism is not strictly a method, but a loose umbrella that covers a range of methods (source criticism, form criticism, sociological criticism, etc.) that may sometimes be at odds with each other.” (Page 4)

“This principle gave rise to problems with regard to the miraculous aspects of the biblical stories, but it also provided a way of bringing the text to life by analogy with modern experiences.” (Page 6)

“ a refusal to accept modes of interpretation, such as sociology, which take seriously the human historicity” (Page 141)

“second principle of historical criticism is the principle of analogy” (Page 5)

“am on the modern side of the modern/postmodern debate” (Page 3)

Product Details

• Title: The Bible after Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age
• Author: John J. Collins
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2005
• Pages: 211

About John J. Collins

John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. His books include Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age; Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy: On Jewish Apocalyptic Literature; The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul; and, most recently, What Are Biblical Values? What the Bible Says on Key Ethical Issues. Collins serves as general editor of the Anchor Yale Bible and Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. He is on the editorial board of the Journal for the Study of Judaism and Dead Sea Discoveries. Previously, he has served as President of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Catholic Biblical Association.