The Bible and the Academy

(Society for Old Testament Study Panel, 6 January 2010)

David J.A. Clines

I think it is important, or rather essential, that there should be a place in our

world where the Bible is treated dispassionately. I am not against people
treating the Bible passionately, and I can see the force of the argument that
the Bible is itself passionate (demands a verdict is the phrase I remember)
and to be true to its nature is to be passionate, take sides, evangelize, and
promote it. Still, I think there is also room for calm reflection, quizzical doubt,
patient unravelling, uncommitted scrutiny about all the things that people
hold dear. Perhaps the more people hold things dear, the greater the need that
someone somewhere is scrutinizing the claims of those cherished objects and
opinions.

I cant imagine where a project of dispassionately scrutinizing the Bible can be

undertaken outside a university. I am not saying that it can effectively or
effortlessly be done there, but I dont know where else to get the space to do it.

Who wants the Bible to be treated dispassionately?

Everyone in our world, especially in the Western world that has been so
shaped by the Bible, has a right to know just what the Bible says and how its
validity might be assessed today. You cant blame people if they doubt the
good faith of those who promote the Bible; it might be unjust but its a good
habit of mind to get your information from people who have no axe to grind. I
wouldnt think it strange if people wanting to know if Genesis does indeed say
that God created the world would avoid asking those who say aloud every
Sunday that they believe in God, the maker of heaven and earth. So if I was a
member of the public wanting an opinion on some biblical matter, I would
search for someone to whom it did not matter personally what the answer
might be.

Should believers be excluded from teaching the Bible in universities?

Not at all. If they are teaching in universities, they are intelligent people, and
they ought to be able because of their professional training to keep their
personal commitments distinct from their dispassionate scholarship.

Would atheists be better?

No, being an atheist doesnt make you dispassionate. Some well-known
atheists are no better than proselytisers. But there should be more atheists
teaching the Bible, if only to show (to students and to the rest of the
University) that the Bible is a proper subject of academic study that does not
require personal commitment, like Greek mythology or Shakespeare.

Do you think you should never let your personal opinions and beliefs become
known in the University?
If I were a vegetarian (I am, but an often non-practising one), I wouldnt care
who knew it in the University, and I might even promote vegetarianism.
Thats because I cant easily think of a situation where commitment to
vegetarianism could skew my academic dispassionateness. Now if I taught in a
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Politics department, I would not feel I needed to keep my religious opinions to

myself, but I would take pride in never revealing which political party I
supported. In a Biblical Studies department, I have no compunction about
letting slip my political views, but I would never let my students know my
personal religious views. I feel they have to be outside the frame of what I do
as an academic.

Should the academy critique the biblical text?

Understanding the text is only part of the task of a biblical scholar in the
academy, I believe. Evaluation, or critique, is the next step. By what
standards? The standards accepted in polite society: being against cruelty,
bullying, oppression, being in favour of tolerance, fairmindedness, national
self-determination, gender equality, and so on. It is an academic duty to
remark, for example, that the First Commandment is antithetic to the value of
religious tolerance.

What should theological colleges be doing?

Doing the things they exist for -- preparing people for ministry, helping them
to use the Bible as a spiritual resource, etc.. Not aping universities. Not
requiring of students the panoply of technical biblical criticism but focussing
much more on the real-life situations of graduated students beyond their
degrees. Not teaching them Greek and Hebrew, which must be one of the most
over-rated and useless activities that future ministers and clergy and such are
subjected to.

Should SOTS be just for dispassionate scholarship?

SOTS is not a university. In our Society there are scholars of the Hebrew Bible
who are committed to advocacy of the values of the Hebrew Bible, and there
are others who are committed to dispassionate critique of the Hebrew Bible. It
has been a good thing that both kinds of scholars meet together at SOTS. As
well, there are many who belong to the world of dispassionate scholarship in
the classroom during the week and to the world of advocacy in the pulpit on
Sunday. Some can lead that kind of double life without effort. As it happens,
SOTS papers on the whole belong to the sphere of dispassionate scholarship,
but I myself have nothing against scholarly papers that aim to recommend
rather than merely to understand the Hebrew Bible, though I do like to be told
what kind of paper I am to hear.

What about the REF and the impact of our subject?

The Research Excellence Framework, which will replace the RAE [Research
Assessment Exercise] in 2013, has signalled that one of the three elements
that together reflect the key characteristics of research excellence is impact.
Impact is described as where researchers build on excellent research to
deliver demonstrable benefits to the economy, society, public policy, culture
and quality of life.
This is a particularly tricky issue for us in biblical studies, since our
subject of study (the Bible) possibly has a greater impact than any other
subject in the humanities. It would not be good for us or for our subject,
though, to make very much of the fact that most of the impact biblical studies
has is on religious people, and that the circles most interested in the Bible are
ecclesiastical ones. For that would very quickly lead to the conclusion that
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since that segment of the population is the one benefiting from the study of
the Bible, it is they who should be picking up the tab for it -- which would
mean the end of Biblical Studies in the universities. Rather, we have to play
the same cards as English Literature or History and stress the cultural and
humanistic role of the Bible, for no one in a funding body is ever going to see
that if the study of the Bible falls entirely into the hands of the churches we
can wave farewell to the dispassionate study of the Bible.