Modern Biblical Scholarship

Shows how the major intellectual movements of the modern world are infused with the idea of race and how this thinking has influenced modern biblical scholarship. Explores a wide range of current debate.

This volume of essays is the first to embrace both orthodox and heterodox treatments of scripture in early modern England, and in the process to question, challenge and redefine what historians mean when they use these terms. The collection dispels the myth that a critical engagement with sacred texts was the preserve of radical figures: anti-scripturists, Quakers, Deists and freethinkers. While the work of these people was significant, it formed only part of a far broader debate incorporating figures from across the theological spectrum engaging in a shared discourse.

Modern biblical scholarship is often presented as analogous to the hard and natural sciences; its histories present the developmental stages as quasi-scientific discoveries. That image of Bible scholars as neutral scientists in pursuit of truth has persisted for too long. Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700-1900) by Scott W. Hahn and Jeffrey L. Morrow examines the lesser known history of the development of modern biblical scholarship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This volume seeks partially to fulfill Pope Benedict XVI’s request for a thorough critique of modern biblical criticism by exploring the eighteenth and nineteenth century roots of modern biblical scholarship, situating those scholarly developments in their historical, philosophical, theological, and political contexts. Picking up where Scott W. Hahn and Benjamin Wiker’s Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700 left off, Hahn and Morrow show how biblical scholarship continued along a secularizing trajectory as it found a home in the newly developing Enlightenment universities, where it received government funding. Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700-1900) makes clear why the discipline of modern biblical studies is often so hostile to religious and faith commitments today.

This volume considers the current state of research, offering a critique of current approaches to Catholic Biblical scholarship from a Catholic viewpoint. The authors (they're both Catholic theologians: Johnson teaches at Emory U., Kurz at Marquette U.) have contributed five chapters each on their approaches to Biblical interpretation, chapters in which they respond to each other's work, and a co-written conclusion offering their views on the importance of maintaining a Catholic identity in Biblical scholarship.

Depth, accuracy, relevancy and up-to-date presentation make this intermediate Greek grammar the finest available. Written by a world-class authority on textual criticism, it links grammar and exegesis to provide today's second-year Greek student with solid exegetical and linguistic foundations.