Currents in Biblical Research

In the context of a renewed interest in Marxism outside biblical studies, this article surveys and critiques the background and current status of a similar renewal in biblical studies. It begins with a consideration of the background of current studies in liberation, materialist and political theologies, and moves on to note the division between literary and social scientific uses of Marxist theories. While those who used Marxist literary methods were initially inspired by Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson, more recent work has begun to make use of a whole tradition of Marxist literary criticism largely ignored in biblical studies. More consistent work, however, has taken place in the social sciences in both Hebrew Bible and New Testament studies. In Hebrew Bible studies, debates focus on the question of mode of production, especially the domestic or household mode of production, while in New Testament studies, the concerns have been with reconstructing the context of the Jesus movement and, more recently, the Pauline correspondence. I close with a number of questions concerning the division into different areas of what is really a holistic approach to texts and history.

Interpretation of the Bible in the Eastern orthodox Church has until recently been largely determined by the dogmatic imperatives of the ecclesial institution. in the “last several decades, however, a variety of Orthodox scholars have launched significant investigations of the Bible and particularly of the New Testament using methododolgy modeled on that of the Western scholarly academy, while in some cases continuing to search for a specifically 'Orthodox' approach to biblical study. This article concentrates primarily on developments in New Testament interpretation among orthodox biblical scholars in North america over the last three decades, focusing on the contributions of a generation of researchers responsible for the first significant expansion of Orthodox biblical study into modern academia and looking forward to newer voices and research directions in the orthodox world.

Nearly every scholarly investigation of Luke—Acts today must address the question of unity. It is a hermeneutical hinge and the answer to the question has wide-ranging interpretive implications. The call to dissolve the unity of Luke and Acts—and the `hyphen' Cadbury inserted—focuses on four `bolts': (1) genre, (2) narrative, (3) theology, and (4) reception history. Despite far-reaching argument over the past twenty years favoring removal of the four `bolts', the hinge remains securely fastened. In addition, there is significant coalescence around certain issues such as the presence of an intermixing of genre types in Acts and an intertwining of the narrative and theological themes in Luke and Acts. And questions about unity have led to new avenues of exploration and the identification of trajectories that crisscross both volumes and tie them together.

This paper, in two parts, discusses the significant scholarship on apocalypses and apocalypticism in antiquity published since Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies since the Uppsala Conference (Collins and Charlesworth [eds.] 1991). Part II contains the second half of the section on (4) origins and influences, here the prophetic and sapiential traditions of Israel. This is followed by sections on (5) apocalyptic historiography and (6) the development of apocalypticism in antiquity and late antiquity, plus (7) a brief conclusion. The bibliographies are partspecific, but their entries are integrated.