Different Ways of Looking at the Bible

When editor Hershel Shanks invited me to be a regular columnist in Bible Review, I asked him what kinds of subjects he had in mind. “Well,” he said, “you might approach it this way: Here’s what occurred to me while I was shaving this morning.”

Though his response showed a remarkable confidence in early morning thought processes, it was not very helpful. As one who has had a beard for over 25 years, I do not shave. But it did suggest that the range of appropriate subject matter is broad, to say the least.

And so, in my inaugural column, I decided to talk about a very basic but vitally important matter: the difference between two images of the Bible, two very different ways of seeing the Bible, and the difference that difference makes. And I shall do so in part by telling some of my own story, thereby introducing myself as well.

To begin that introduction, I live in two quite different worlds. On the one hand, I live in the world of the secular academy. I teach religious studies in a state university supported by public funds, and my specialized discipline of research on the historical Jesus is carried out in the context the academic discipline of biblical scholarship. In both of these activities, it is inappropriate to allow the beliefs of a particular religious tradition to shape one’s approach.