In the current issue of the Biblical Archeological Review , Professor Ronald S. Hendel announces his departure from the venerable scholarly organization that publishes the journal, The Society of Biblical Literature .
The reason? Basically, he thinks that the SBL is being taken over by fundamentalists. Apparently, it was a review by Bruce Waltke in the online journal, Review of Biblical Literature , that pushed him over the end. Walkte criticized some of the assumptions that guide modern critical scholarship.
In my experience, the one thing critical scholars can’t tolerate is criticism, which seems borne out by Hendel’s cri de coeur . I seems to me obvious that, for a believer, modern critical scholarship does not have final authority over biblical interpretation. This is intolerable for many biblical scholars, akin to fundamentalism in their minds. Sigh.
I’ve got an essay on the question of biblical interpretation in the forthcoming issue of First Things that tries to explain why church teaching must be relevant to biblical interpretation, at least for believers—and why biblical scholars bristle at the thought of reading with eyes of faith.
