DailyHebrew.com

UPDATED (originally posted February 28, 2006)

There has been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere about the place of religious presuppositions in scholarly research. It began with an article on the SBL forum by Mary Bader and a few informal comments. Michael Fox’s article, Bible Scholarship and Faith-Based Study: My View, launched a frenzy of responses by the biblioblogs. I even caught the bug and commented on Dr. Cathey’s blog about Dr. Fox’s presuppositions.

This discussion is worthy of careful contemplation as it speaks to the very heart of ANE/biblical studies. Please feel free to leave a comment concerning these issues.

***UPDATE***

The SBL Forum has continued the discussion mentioned above with a followup article by Jacques Berlinerblau entitled "The Unspeakable in Biblical Scholarship." It is well worth reading as Berlinerblau demonstrates the solecism of Fox’s so-called "secular academic, religiously-neutral hermeneutic." Here is an excerpt:

I can only wonder from where this hermeneutic is supposed to emerge. In this discipline, there is no organic sociological base from which such an approach can develop. And this is because nearly every single one of my colleagues has entered this discipline qua Christian or Jew. (True, they sometimes exit as something else, but that’s another story altogether.) What results is a situation in which biblical scholarship’s "secular" wing is more like a reform religious or liberal religious wing. If one of the classic definitions of secularism centers on the holding of agnostic or atheistic beliefs, then biblical scholarship (and religious studies in general) is "secular" in a way that no other discipline in the Academy is secular.

***UPDATE 2***

Cafe Apoclypsis has two interviews (with Craig Bloomberg & Scot McKnight) on the topic of faith and scholarship.

***UPDATE 3***
Chris Heard at Higgaion shares some excellent thoughts on Cafe Apoclypsis’ interview with Thomas L. Thompson .

ScienceNOW Daily News is reporting the outrage on the campus of NYU concerning the large endowment given by the Leon Levy Foundation to create the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (one archeologist has apparently resigned in protest). The controversy surrounds the unsavory tactics of collecting ancient artifacts by the founder of the philanthropic group.

Let me first make two observations. (1) The stealing of ancient artifacts should be decried by all learned men/women especially by professional educators and distinguished archeologists. (2) Hypocrisy is humanity’s ubiquitous folly.

Rebuttal: It is the height of duplicity for a university to take money without question or criticism from one business/individual/foundation and disparage the source of another’s gift. Should Vanderbilt reject moneys from its university’s founder based on manipulative business practices? Or should the University of Chicago vilify John D. Rockefeller’s philanthropy for the pollution of gasoline burning automobiles? Harvard surely should give back its original donation lest it be seen as giving favoritism to the religion of John Harvard over another.

Instead NYU should commit to using the funds to advance learning to the end that individuals would see the necessity of preserving ancient artifacts and not the stealing thereof. What an opportunity to produce a virtuous outcome from a wayward start! If that is not the mission (and vision) of the university, what is?