2005
First Published
3.57
Average Rating
212
Number of Pages
Biblical scholars today often sound as if they are caught in the aftermath of Babel—a clamor of voices unable to reach common agreement. Yet is this confusion necessarily a bad thing? Many postmodern critics see the recent profusion of critical approaches as a welcome opportunity for the emergence of diverse new techniques. In The Bible after Babel noted biblical scholar John J. Collins considers the effect of the postmodern situation on biblical, primarily Old Testament, criticism over the last three decades. Engaging and even-handed, Collins examines the quest of historical criticism to objectively establish a text's basic meaning. Accepting that the Bible may no longer provide secure "foundations" for faith, Collins still highlights its ethical challenge to be concerned for "the other" — a challenge central both to Old Testament ethics and to the teaching of Jesus.
Avg Rating
3.57
Number of Ratings
49
5 STARS
29%
4 STARS
22%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
14%
1 STARS
4%
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Author
John J. Collins
Author · 16 books
John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School. A native of Ireland, he has a doctorate from Harvard University, and earlier taught at the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame. He has published widely on the subjects of apocalypticism, wisdom, Hellenistic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and served as president of both the Catholic Biblical Association and the Society of Biblical Literature.
