Comments on: Introduction to the Bible Textbooks: Any Thoughts?

By: Esteban Vázquez

Esteban Vázquez — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:11:52 +0000

Hello Tyler, Have you perhaps seen White and Wilson's From Adam to Armageddon? I think it does an admirable job of condensing quite a bit of information (historical, literary, critical) into a very manageable 265 pages (11 chapters). It is, however, a bit expensive -- but this is the case with most textbooks these days! Best, Esteban

By: Robert Holmstedt

Robert Holmstedt — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:32:23 +0000

Tyler,

Try this one out: http://stonyrunpublishing.com/Cosby/Cosby.html

I’m using it for a freshman seminar in the coming year. I know Cosby — actually, we met because I was (twice!) asked to review the MS. for publishers. Each time I recommended it highly since I think it’s better than anything else out there by miles (or, I should say, kilometres), but Mike had good reasons to go independent and that should not distract you from the strengths of the text.

Cheers,
Robert

By: Jim Getz

Jim Getz — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:24:43 +0000

You could just throw out the textbook idea as a whole and have them by a one-volume commentary of the Bible. Eerdmans, Zondervan and several other Christian presses have versions that would hopefully be palatable both to you and your students.

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:41:20 +0000

It’s certainly a problem when rigorous analysis gets in the way of unquestioned belief, but what can you do. The number of enrolled students tends to decline rather rapidly, in my experience, as they come to realise that “Biblical Studies” is an academic discipline and not a church group. I don’t see that as too much of a problem (although I would dearly love to see more students enrolling). If it’s a faith-affirming experience that they’re after, they should go to a seminary.

By: Brooke

Brooke — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:30:00 +0000

Hi Tyler,
I know exactly what you mean. Worst of all, in many cases, 2/3 of the term will have gone by before a student trusts me enough to tell me that they “hear” the textbook as trying to destroy their faith (usually in some way that I’ve totally failed to anticipate)!

By: Tyler F. Williams

Tyler F. Williams — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:50:07 +0000

Hey Brooke,

I personally don’t think that there are many that are “offensive”, but there are some that students *perceive* as “dismissive” (whether or not the authors are or intend to be dismissive is beside the point). With Old Testament/Hebrew Bible texts it tends to be around the typical historical-critical issues such as authorship, unity, and composition of certain biblical books. Perhaps I am being too sensitive to where some students are at!

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:42:44 +0000

I like Gottwald's, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction very much and (though it's a little old now) Harrison's, Introduction to the Old Testament. Fohrer has a book with the same title and it's also very good, although a little bit "jargon-laden", as you put it.

By: Brooke

Brooke — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:41:20 +0000

I ask this as a sincere question, not as a challenge: are there examples of biblical studies textbooks that are offensive to, or dismissive of, religious faith? Or do we mean by that simply that these textbooks don’t offer their own overt theological assessments of the Bible (which I don’t see as equivalent to being dismissive in attitude)?

I ask because I prefer a textbooks that avoids making its own overt theological claims about Scripture, and don’t find it as faith-unfriendly for that. A textbook offering theological “helps” to beginning students seems to me to be shooting fish in a barrel: “Now that I’ve troubled your faith, let me offer this ‘optional’ theological life preserver.” For my part, I’m more inclined to handle that end of things by facilitating mutually-supportive student discussion.

By: Tyler F. Williams

Tyler F. Williams — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:30:12 +0000

Hey Scott, it sounds like you have some (negative?) personal experience, eh? How does he fit into the department at TWU? Does TWU have an introduction to the Bible type course?

By: SB

SB — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:19:03 +0000

The reason Goheen doesn’t interact with biblical scholarship is the reason that personally he is on a mission to eradicate biblical scholarship at his own institution. He thinks only “good” students read the Bible as a “story” and other views are perverse and heretical.

He did his phd on Lesslie Newbigin who wrote a similar introduction “A Walk Through the Bible” that is a mostly horrible book.

Sure, if considered canonically in a certain interpretive community we can talk about the “story” of the Bible, but when it is at the expense of doing any scholarship (in the academy) it is no different than hiding under a tendentious deductive shield.

What do we do with the books that don’t tell this story?