The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible ed. by Michael Lieb et al. (review)
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This substantial volume is part of the wide-ranging series of Oxford handbooks designed to offer overviews of scholarly research. It arises out of a growing scholarly interest in the reception history of the Bible, that is, the study of how the Bible has been interpreted through the centuries, in fields as diverse as theology, art, literature, politics, and popular culture.
This “handbook” is divided into two parts. Part I consists of essays that discuss the content of twelve biblical books “that have been influential in the history of interpretation,” while Part II offers a set of thirty-two case studies of the interpretation of particular biblical books or passages through the centuries (i). Such is the design, but in actual practice the line between the two parts is not clear. Some essays in Part I pay little attention to the content of the biblical books, instead discussing the reception history of those books. It is also unclear why some of the biblical books in Part I were chosen for discussion. One essay in Part I treats Judges, while the book is mentioned only in passing in the essays of Part II. Exodus, which apparently did not merit inclusion in Part I, is the subject of two essays in Part II.
Despite this inconsistency in arrangement, the book has much to commend it. As a snapshot of the current state of reception history of the Bible, it is instructive in its variety. Indeed, the case studies contained in Part II are breathtakingly diverse. They come from two millennia of interpretation and from widely different cultural contexts. They range from the theological realm (“Luther on Galatians”) to pop culture (“Bob Dylan’s Bible”). Although most essays discuss Christian reception, other religious traditions are represented (“Esther and Hitler: Triumphant Purim,” “Ezekiel 1 and the Nation [End Page 108] of Islam,” “Gandhi’s Interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount”). Likewise, although most essays discuss European and North American reception of the Bible, some concern its reception in other global contexts (“Uchimura and the Bible in Japan,” “Exodus in Latin America”). The essays treat interpretations of the Bible in literature (“Dante and the Bible: A Sketch”), music (“George Friedric Handel and The Messiah”), art (“One Bible, Two Preachers: Patchwork Sermons and Sacred Art in the American South”), and politics (“Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible”).
Unlike traditional biblical historical criticism, reception history does not privilege the original context of the biblical authors. Appropriately, then, such historical criticism is lacking in this volume. Also unlike traditional biblical criticism, reception history is not confined to the guild of biblical scholars. The contributors are biblical and literary scholars. As such, the focus of the essays differs widely. Some essays, like Michael Lieb’s “Ezekiel 1 and the Nation of Islam,” use the biblical text as little more than a jumping-off point for a discussion of an historical movement. Others, like Isabel Wollaston’s “Post-Holocaust Jewish Interpretations of Job,” discuss the interpretation of a whole book, paying attention to the structure and themes of the biblical text itself, as well as to its reception.
As with any such volume the quality of the essays differs. For instance, while the essay on Job in Part I by John Sawyer does a fine job of discussing the structure of the book, it is curious that it does not take into account most of the important scholarship on Job written in the last twenty-five years.
On the whole, however, the essays are of a consistently high quality. Of particular note is the erudite essay that closes the collection, Valentine Cunningham’s “Bible Reading And/After Theory,” a sometimes-hilariously scathing critique of the excesses of post-structuralist biblical criticism. “Biblicists,” he writes, “have become regular buyers of sexy ideas at the Theory-mongers’ brothel” (651). Borrowing from John Barton, he designates much post-structuralist biblical criticism as...
