An Atheist and Agnostic Academic Association Affiliated with the Society of Biblical Literature?
Posted on October 9, 2009 at 2:13 pm by Dr. Jim
It is an idea worth thinking about.
The Society of Biblical Literature is a major international academic organization. It includes scholars working within a wide variety of scholarly sub-disciplines from ancient history and assyriology to culture criticism and philosophy. SBL’s publications, its many books and flagship journal, Journal of Biblical Literature, along with the vast majority of its conference sessions reflect a serious and secular approach to its many areas of interest.
It is no overstatement to say, however, that the academic interests and methods of the SBL’s members overlap extensively with the interests of many religous organizations. Moreover, a significant proportion of it members’ work straddles the fully secular world of biblical scholarship and its counterpart within confessional discourses. As is well known, the SBL has a number of affiliations with confessional groups that hold sessions at the SBL national and regional meetings.
Are secular academic standards impacted by this blurring of boundaries with overt religious discourses? Some members of the SBL think so and have published such views not only in the SBL’s online magazine Forum (see articles by H. Avalos, M. Fox and J. Berlinerblau) but elsewhere, too. Most famously, Hector Avalos’ The End of Biblical Studies and Jacques Berlinerblau’s The Secular Bible. Most recently, see Kurt Noll’s article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Of course, the great majority of secular scholars in SBL and other academic organizations are not as outspoken as those named above and my find little that is disturbing with the status quo as they are not unduly prevented from saying and publishing their own work. The number of people who are concerned about the “unsecular” marriage between biblical scholarship and faith based academics, however, may be more significant than those who have already put their views into print or on the internet.
Perhaps some kind of informal asociation, perhaps built around a shared blog or email list could give those interested a venue for sharing and further developing constructive criticisms and other contributions to the practice of biblical scholarship. It may even be possible to have in-person meetings or even sessions at the SBL meetings at some point in the future.
One could expect such an association—especially it if is seeking an affiliate status with the SBL—would be seen as unnecessary by many and provocative or even aggressive or offensive by others. Exactly how “assertive” it should be is an open question and I don’t want to offer an opinion on that at the outset. If the association has an identity outside of the SBL, however, it would have the independence of thought that a regular SBL session or consultation might not have.
Here are a few topic ideas I think might work as possible session themes for such a group to discuss in public fora.
1) The practical limits of a “Great Divorce” between theistic and non-theistic (running the gamut from firm atheism to professional agnosticism) biblical scholarship: e.g., academic isolation, institutional structures.
2) Non-theistic biblical scholarship’s relationship with the wider world of secular study of religion, cultures and societies.
3) Pedegogy: how can one best teach non-theistic biblical studies when a large portion of most library holdings mix theological and secular materials. It is often hard for students to identify theological agendas in the prsentation of data or reasoning in many books that remain very useful and profitable to read. There are a lot more issues that might be addressed besides these. Some will occasion little objection and others that might be more controversial.
Beyond this, I don’t want to say anything more at this point. Little would be gained by springing something fully formed on others. What I think needs to be done now is for those who are interested to talk about whether such an idea would or might work, how it might be organized, what the exact nature of it might be and who might be willing to do some work on the project.
GO TO THE SECULAR BIBLICAL STUDIES PAGE
for more information.
Technorati Tags: bible, biblical+scholarship, academia, academic+standards, secular,, atheism,, agnostic,, Society+of+Biblical+Literature, SBL, faith+based, religion, religious+studies
October 9, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I’m interested. It’s sure worth kicking around a few ideas.
October 9, 2009 at 5:22 pm
oh you copycats!!!!
now- lets see if lenzi and hobbins raise a stinky stink about this.
October 10, 2009 at 11:24 am
Duane, Glad your interested. No idea how much interest there will be, but if we keep advertising the idea, we might get enough folk interested to at least make for a few rounds in the pub one year at the National… And from there we can take over the world.
I imagine there might be a stink raised from some other quarters, too.
October 10, 2009 at 11:51 am
As a virgin blogger – so to speak – not having officially blogged on the blog where I’m officially a co blogger… so to speak … although I have guest blogged on jim’s blog, I’m an interested agnostic. I like your potential meeting space (except what’s the National?).
October 10, 2009 at 12:00 pm
National SBL meeting. (i.e., the big one in North America every November).
Glad you are interested!
October 12, 2009 at 9:56 am
Of course, count me in, Jim! Depending on how long I’m unemployed, SBL may be out of the picture for a few years (decades) unless they decide to hold it in Jersey. I’d be interested in what we could put together.
October 12, 2009 at 10:00 am
Cool! In the very least we could do a blog or whatever for whoever is interested to share ideas.
Hope the employment picture brightens up soon.
October 12, 2009 at 10:04 am
Dr. Jim,
We actually tried doing something like this in 2005 in Philadelphia. Jacques Berlinerblau, Jorunn Buckley,
and myself began discussions, and even managed to organize an extremely well-attended AAR session on this issue in Washington, DC in 2006.
There were still not enough openly secularist scholars to form a good and stable core group because even
secularists scholars cannot agree on how far they want to go or how they want to go about doing it. However, the more we keep talking about it, the more such a group might form. All movements begin with a few voices, who speak long enough to attract more like-minded people.
So, I hold out a glimmer of hope that this can be done in my lifetime. If anyone is interested, contact me, as I will be in New Orleans from Thursday to Tuesday morning: HectorAvalos@aol.com
Hector Avalos
October 12, 2009 at 10:30 am
Hector, Great to hear from you. I think you are right, it is a question of keeping the pressure up. I’m trying to sort out the intricacies of Yahoo’s discussion groups to make one for discussing such topics. That might provide a focal point for constructive talk and polite disagreement. I think it might be best at this point to de-emphasize seeking agreement on a what to do in favour of emphasizing the sharing of ideas and viewpoints.
I won’t be able to make it to the Religulous session, but I hope to scamper there after the myth session and meet John Loftus.
Jim
October 13, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Couldn’t since an affiliation be seen as a conflict of interest? After all, the SBL is supposed to be about investigation, and not operating on the assumption that there either is or isn’t a God.
October 14, 2009 at 3:44 pm
The SBL should be agnostic about it but doesn’t mind sharing meeting space with theologically oriented groups. In the bigger scope of things, biblical scholarship is profoundly marked by theological concerns. It is those larger issues that I think need to be talked about, and a secular association of biblical scholars is a good vehicle for it. I’m suggesting that that organization simply get the same deal for sharing meeting spaces at the SBL with other “special interest” groups.
November 12, 2009 at 8:09 am
[...] dialogue and debate with its members through written formats and through joint sessions. (see here as [...]