Deeper Reasons for the Bias in Biblical Studies

Joshua Berman’s essay, “The Corruption of Biblical Studies,” is an insightful and eloquent discussion of some of the outstanding problems in the discipline of which we are both members, and it offers some wise counsel about how, ideally, the discipline can set itself aright. Although I do not dispute his observations about the history that has brought us to this pass, I think the problem is somewhat larger, deeper and, sadly, less amenable to correction than he implies. Let me briefly explain.

Berman’s opening comments about the breadth of current interest in the Bible draw attention to the key fact that much of the study of the Bible takes place outside the modern academy. Indeed, the phenomenon of biblical studies, understood as the systematic intellectual exploration of the scriptural text, long predates the emergence of characteristically modern modes of study and their institutional homes. Traditionally, the study of the Bible (Jewish or Christian) took place in religious communities. It was an expression of personal commitment and occurred in tandem with the study of other books essential to the community in question.

There was, in other words, a larger, encompassing affirmation that valorized and energized the whole enterprise, and teachers and students shared the particular life of practice with which the affirmation was inextricably associated. The instructors were not simply sources of information or people from whom to learn a skill; they were expected to be, in one way or another, role models, engaged in the liturgy of the community, observing its norms, and upholding its ethic. For teachers and students alike, studying the Bible constituted what the historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot, borrowing from the Jesuit tradition, called a “spiritual exercise.” Certainly, talmud torah, the study of Torah (whether Written or Oral) in Jewish tradition, fell into that category.