Um, Dr. Avalos, Are You Trying To Put Us All Out of Work?
Posted by Kushana Torumekia at 6/13/2007 2:42 PM 
Categories: Scholarship, Gnosticism, The Bible, Education, ISLAM, Contemporary Religion
Categories: Scholarship, Gnosticism, The Bible, Education, ISLAM, Contemporary Religion
Listen to this article
I've just been reading Dr. Hector Avalos' article "The Ideology of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Demise of an Academic Profession". (The Society of Biblical Literature is one primary professional organizations for my field.) Dr. Avalos grew up a Pentecostal and spent ten years of his youth as a child preacher. (For an interview with him, see the 6/2 program at: http://ffrf.org/radio/podcast/ ) He is the author of Fighting Words: The Origins Of Religious Violence and the forthcoming The End of Biblical Studies (also the subject of his essay, above.)Actually, this article cheers me up: our profession needs a good shaking up, from time to time, and I was glad to see someone critiquing it within its own forum. However, I disagree with Avalos' point that the Bible is irrelevant — this sweeps aside the faith communities that look to it and the common heritage of literature and art (both believing and unbelieving) that refer to it. He writes:
The idea that the Bible should be studied because it is influential or because there is "demand" can no longer be so uncritically accepted. Most biblical scholars do not see themselves as complicit in the creation of that influence and privilege for the Bible.
Hm, you sound a tad conflicted about remaining in the profession.... OK, I study Manichaeism — have I helped 'create influence and privilege' for that dead religion? Am I in some way promoting it or legitimizing it as a spiritual path? Hrm, I can't recall giving the loaf-of-bread-analogy talk to anyone .... (this was a Manichaean teaching tool to explain the primordial distribution of Good and Evil to new converts.) Yes, we're making the Bible seem worth scores of types of academic inquiry (not all of which sit well with believers) ... but I don't think faith communities would wither up and blow away if we all became plumbers, tomorrow.
Biblical scholars come from a variety of religious backgrounds: this is vital for the health of the field. We have a variety of relationships with the living religions who revere what we study — many of us come from those traditions, some of us have left them, some of us were never part of them. Most of these traditions have thrived for centuries without us; I think the relationship between our profession and their vitality is less linear than you suppose. I think many faith communities find Biblical scholars irrelevant.
(As a scholar of several dead religions I can say that I'd find the Bible just as interesting even its its last readers had vanished thousands of years ago. (And I never, ever intend to be an evangelist for the religions I study: if you find me handing out tracts for the Two Principles and Three Eras please take me home and make me lie down.))
But scholars have helped to create this influence and bibliolatry by translating and "updating" this text while leaving thousands of non-biblical texts untranslated.
I am all for stepping up the translation of non-Biblical texts. (But face it: the market for non-Biblical texts is less. Show me the teen girl's edition of the Trimorphic Protennoia!
) Like me, you can see that the number of editions of the Bible is far more than the number of translations — most are re-packagings of existing translations. Like you, I dearly wish those with an aptitude for language and an interest in ancient texts would turn to the work that needs to be done — but read the Amazon.com reviews of the more academic Bible translations (there's positive antipathy from some believers) and something of a preference for Bibles that are rewordings or translations from a particular tradition's theology. Again, I'm not sure the more academic Bible translations are causing people (whether believers or not) to flock to the Bible — I wish we were so important!Biblical scholars participate in the privileging of the Bible by not sufficiently emphasizing to students and lay readers how alien and irrelevant biblical notions are for the modern world.
?
I'm happy to point out the historical distance between now and the era of whatever text I'm teaching, but it's not my job to promote or demolish anyone's theology within the classroom. Given that I'm trying to teach independent and critical thinking I avoid teaching any conclusions, up front — they kill the very reflection and investigation I'm trying to cultivate. Yes, that means students end up with theological points of view I don't share — but since they came in with a variety of theologies, that means I've done my job. (If they all left with my point of view then I've done something terribly wrong (unless I've been hired by a religious school to teach their specific theology — and even then, I want my students to grow in their own faith, not subsist off of mine!))
I'm not persuaded that religion is so fragile, Dr. Avalos. The Bible, for example, is still selling well: marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/12/18/PM200612188.html
In a country where Bibles can be read for free in most libraries, hotel rooms, and churches, who's buying all these Bibles? Are they really motivated by all us religion scholars? (I deeply doubt it...) The industry publication Publisher's Weekly devotes a whole section to religion books: http://www.publishersweekly.com/eNewsletterArchive/2287.html And the field, in general, is well populated with publishers: http://www.acqweb.org/pubr/rel.html Religious beliefs of various stripes do well in public opinion polls ... I think you may be complaining at the wrong window. Have you tried taking your complaint to religions, themselves? (I would have misgivings about that, I try to avoid criticizing entire religions, wholesale — I don't know if you share this qualm, or not. Perhaps your book will explain to me why you've put this at the feet of our profession.)
I would still study religion even in a completely non-religious society: I like religion as a subject, the way some people like igneous petrology. Religion has been a durable part of human history, the neurology of belief may suggest that it's part of being human. Some people find the digestive system fascinating, I find that piece of our consciousness intriguing. I'm not studying religion to promote any current religion or to change any current religion ... and I don't think our profession influences people of faith to the degree that you surmise.
-Kushana
P.S. For further news on religion books (including a new translation of the Qur'an): www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6279268.html
Comments