Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (JSOT Supplement 266, Gender, Culture, Theory 7)

Written by J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen D. Moore (eds) Reviewed By Joseph Abraham

This book emerged from an interdisciplinary colloquium held at the University of Sheffield in 1997. Almost all the twenty-one contributors hail from Europe or the USA, and most are well known scholars in biblical or related studies. The slash in the title and the overwriting of the terms on the cover jacket emphasise the correlation between these two disciplines.

These essays aim to demonstrate a continual reciprocity between biblical and cultural studies (‘the Bible as culture and the Bible in culture’). The editors’ introductory article traces the emergence of cultural studies in the UK, their development and their spread to other countries. It probes the usefulness of cultural studies in dialogue with biblical studies, along with their prospects and possibilities. The following essays then range widely over OT, NT and general biblical topics.

Space allows only the mention of a few essays. Robert Carroll convincingly shows how the Bible has been produced as a cultural object and commodity in western capitalist societies. He lists various kinds of Bibles available in the market (though strangely omits the Women’s Bible!). Employing biological analogy and cultural evolution, Hugh Pyper underscores the formidable influence of the Bible on western culture. On a similar theme, Alice Bach is polemical about the prioritising and privileging of the Bible over other canons and other gods. Francis Landy presents the transmutation of Genesis Flood story, culminating in Hilary Mantel’s novel, Fludd. Applying a reader-response approach to the text, Athalya Brenner and Jan Willem ven Henten read the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in the light of various cultural situations. In the same vein, Philip Esler reads the story of Saul’s madness in the context of Mediterranean culture. Regina Schwartz confronts the challenge of teaching the Bible both as a sacred text and as a work of literature. And David Clines looks at the cultural construction of masculinity of Jesus in the Gospels.

In the rest of the work, we come across the mutual influence of the Bible and art (F. C. Black and Cheryl Exum); the use of the Bible in Music (John Rogerson) and the way the biblical themes have been incorporated in films (Philip Davies). Further essays discuss the Bible in relation to the visual arts and the mass media. The book is enriched with numerous illustrations and a few colour plates.

This is undoubtedly a useful work for understanding the correlation between these two fields. However, readers need to ask some important hermeneutical questions: Is the biblical text merely a cultural artefact, as many of the contributors advocate? And does the Bible have any communicative function as sacred Scripture in the life of the community of faith?


Joseph Abraham

New Theological College

Dehra Dun, India