new study Bible

Bibles, books, books and Bibles, I have well more than enough, so many in fact that every time I move from one place to another, most of them get left behind. In my last two offices, in the church office building across the way on 3rd Street, are shelves, rows,  stacks of books I've left behind, including various translations of the Bible. And I've been trying to purge what's in my one tall bookshelf behind the door in my study office den here in 7H, because it's overflowing. 

And yet, it grows. Like an old man trying halfheartedly to lose weight: it's not working. A new study Bible has just been introduced - - the Westminster Study Bible. From Westminster John Knox Press, it's not a new translation but a study Bible for the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. 

Looks good. Prominent scholars and professors involved. The advance sales literature is really interesting, including it has lots of new essays on various topics, and in the advance stuff there are links to a few of them.

One essay especially caught my eye, "The Bible and Methods: How to Read the Bible". I copy-and-saved it on my computer desktop, and it's pasted below in case anyone's interested. 

And I did succumb to temptation and find a discounted offer on the new study Bible: it's on the way, and I'm looking forward to it. Already some prominent theological seminaries are adopting it as their textbook Bible, especially if members of their faculties were contributors and on the editorial committee: Yale, Asbury, Duke, Colgate Rochester, Princeton,

https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664266975/the-westminster-study-bible.aspx

The Bible and Methods: How to Read the Bible

Stacy Davis

There are a variety of reasons for reading and studying the Bible. For many scholars, for example, there is the desire to learn more about the peoples and places the texts describe. For those who are Jewish or Christian, biblical study can be a religious undertaking. For readers who identify with other religions or have no religious identity, studying the Bible can give important context to a range of past social movements or historical events, such as Western colonialism, feminist movements, abolitionism, and the Cold War. Studying the Bible is also relevant to examining contemporary issues like LGBTQIA2S+ advocacy and climate change activism. The main purpose of any study Bible is to give its readers the tools and notes needed to understand ancient texts, and this is where methods play an important role.

There are multiple ways to read the Bible, from feminist criticism to social- scientific criticism to disability studies to ecological studies. These methods, however, were preceded by the historical-critical method, which prioritizes placing biblical texts within a particular historical time frame and context. Most books of the Hebrew Bible were written between the eighth and first centuries BCE. Most historical-critical scholars posit that those books come from multiple sources— particularly the Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy). One influential theory known as the Documentary Hypothesis argues that the Torah is constructed from four originally discrete sources that can be identified and separated on the basis of various criteria. These four sources are the following: the J or Yahwist source, which prefers using the divine name YHWH (j produces a y sound in German); the E or Elohistic source, which often uses the divine name Elohim; the P or Priestly source, which emphasizes order and sacrifice; and the D source, which is found in and represents the core ideas of the book of Deuteronomy. Scholars continue to debate the composition history of the Hebrew Bible— and the Documentary Hypothesis no longer enjoys the consensus it once did; even so, knowing that a unit like Gen. 1– 3, for example, contains two different creation stories likely from different sources can facilitate reading and understanding. And so the historical- critical method is closely linked to source criticism, a method that looks for different sources in particular biblical passages.

Nearly all the books of the New Testament can be dated to the first century CE, with some considered possibly written in the early second century CE. Similar to the different sources in the Torah, the first five books in the New Testament (Matthew– Acts) also have different sources, as follows, based on the Four Document Hypothesis: M (Matthew), Mark, L (Luke), and Q (a sayings source), with a separate group of sources for John. Most scholars believe that Mark, the earliest Gospel, and Q are sources for Matthew and Luke. This theory helps to explain why so many stories and sayings repeat in these Gospels. In addition, the authors of Matthew and Luke have their own textual traditions, which is why, for instance, the parable of the Prodigal Son only appears in Luke (15:11– 32) and the parable of the Unforgiving Servant only appears in Matthew (18:23– 35). John, however, has very few similarities with Matthew, Mark, or Luke. For those interested in knowing what the historical Jesus may have said or done, if a saying or event appears in John and one of the other Gospels, the odds of its historicity increase, given their independent sources.

In addition to a basic understanding of the Bible’s multiple sources, knowing a few key dates and events will help the reader’s historical- critical approach to it as well. For the historical background of the Hebrew Bible, Israel had two major exiles: the first when Assyria invaded the northern portion of Israel in 722 BCE and the second when Babylon invaded the south, called Judah, in 597 BCE and 587 /586 BCE. Whether a text was written before or after an exile gives the reader historical context that can influence what a text means. While Hosea and Jeremiah both warn readers to repent, their contexts are different. Hosea is speaking to the north about its idolatrous temples and the threat of the Assyrian invasion (Hos. 10), while Jeremiah is arguing that Jerusalem in the south has the proper temple but that will not save the people from Babylon if they do not behave properly (Jer. 7). For the New Testament, the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE is a key date and historical event. The introductions to each biblical book and the notes in this study Bible will give the reader the basic historical information they need to read the book in its context.

Additionally, another method that may be particularly useful in a course that includes both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is a form of rhetorical criticism (how language is designed to persuade the reader) called intertextuality, or inner- biblical exegesis, a way of paying attention to how biblical texts function in other parts of the Bible. The writers of the texts in the New Testament drew on the Jewish Scriptures to interpret and define Jesus. This means that the New Testament is full of allusions and quotations from the Jewish Scriptures, especially the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures, used by the early church). Two examples are as follows: The author of Matthew uses the story of a young woman having a child in Isa. 7 as proof of Jesus’s miraculous conception by the Virgin Mary (Matt. 1:22– 23). In Gal. 4 and Rom. 4, Paul uses the story from Genesis of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to demonstrate not only that Jesus is the Messiah but also that salvation includes gentiles, or non- Jews, as well as Jews. Notes in many study Bibles often indicate where New Testament texts cite or allude to Jewish Scriptures so that the readers can see the similarities and differences in interpretation.

Because of the multiple types of text in the Bible, including narratives, law codes, dialogue between prophets and God, psalms, letters to new Christian communities, and stories about Jesus, there are multiple methods that scholars use to explain its content. Not simply of use to scholars, these methods are important tools for students as well. Those mentioned here (including feminist, social- scientific, disability, and ecological approaches) are but a few of the twenty- three different methods described in two well- known volumes about biblical criticism: To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Application (1999) and New Meanings for Ancient Texts: Recent Approaches to Biblical Criticisms and Their Applications (2013). Comprehensive as they are, these volumes do not include other important recent methods, such as childist interpretation and womanist interpretation. When reading a scholarly work on the Bible, it is always helpful to see what method or methods the author is using to interpret a particular text, because there are many from which to choose. And when doing your own interpretation, know that you have multiple ways to do that work. While some assignments may require a more historical or source- based focus, others may not.

One major shift in biblical studies in the last half century has been the recognition that people read the same texts differently depending on their own social location(s), influenced by such factors as gender, ethnicity, religion, social class, and sexual orientation, to name a few. As long as the author does not misrepresent a text (e.g., suggesting that the Gospels were written in the fourth century CE), there is no one “right” way to read. Someone examining the story of Gen. 1 from a feminist perspective may emphasize the simultaneous creation of genders, while an ecological critic may focus on the systematic ordering of creation and the emphasis on the goodness of all creation.

A social- scientific interpretation of John 9 may focus on the dynamics among Jesus, the Pharisees, the healed man, and his parents, while an interpretation based on disability studies may question the ways in which not being able to see is interpreted as a sign of sin or moral failing. A postcolonial reading of Assyria, as described in the books of 2 Kings, Isaiah, and Hosea, may engage more critically not only with Assyrian as well as biblical texts but with the ways scholars tend to favor the biblical descriptions of the communities involved in the conflicts, as opposed to the Assyrian descriptions. Consequently, the study of the Bible can be enhanced by multiple scholarly methods as well as by the different disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields of studies readers bring to the texts, including but not limited to psychology; anthropology; sociology; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; history; and literature.

Reading the Bible requires time and patience; however, if one has both, combined with curiosity and a willingness to learn, the stories and ideas in the texts can lead one to timeless questions about human interactions, how to make sense of the nonsensical, and how ancient communities saw themselves. Whether the texts are sacred for the reader or viewed as part of world literature, the different methods of biblical interpretation enable any reader to engage the biblical books critically and with their own questions in mind.