 | A Rationale for this Research Initiative
There is a reason why Thomas Aquinas begins his Summa Theologica with a statement about reading and making use of the Scriptures, John Calvin begins his Institutes with knowledge of God found in the Scriptures and the Westminster Divines begin their Confession of Faith with a chapter on the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is the fundamental document of our Church and the fountain from which all knowledge of our faith springs. It is, quite literally, God’s Word to us.
For more than a century and beginning in Germany, Biblical research has risen to the top of popular academic disciplines. Many scholars of every variety participate in this global discussion. The difficulty is not in locating a willing audience or even a willing scholar, but in locating a community of researchers reverent to the Scriptures and interested in helping the Church. It should come as no surprise that the most destructive assault on Christianity begins with the primary document.
Contemporary biblical scholarship is changing at a rapid pace. The past twenty-five years have seen a growing interest by biblical scholars in structuralist criticism, reader response criticism, rhetorical criticism, social-scientific criticism, feminist interpretation, ideological criticism and deconstructive criticism. The field now reaches well beyond the encompassing historical-critical consensus that had dominated biblical scholarship throughout most of the twentieth century. The growing variety of approaches is healthy and energizing, and indicates the vitality of contemporary biblical scholarship. However, this variety also makes it very difficult for scholars, especially those who teach or write across a broad spectrum of biblical studies, to stay informed about the numerous recent developments in the many different areas of biblical scholarship (Hauser, McKnight & Klawans, Currents in Biblical Research, October 2004).
From our perspective, the variety and enormity of Biblical research methods (and in turn, their virulent offspring in the form of theses, books, commentaries, journals, papers, television shows, television channels, radio programs, etc.) cannot possibly lend themselves to a coherent, unifying and Truth-concerned faith. That is, in a culture where every grammatical abnormality and cultural possibility and social sensitivity are trumpeted, the simple voice of the Bible’s message is often drowned into obscurity. The difficulty is not that people are uninterested in Biblical research (they certainly are), but it is that so many people are engaged in Biblical research without a responsibility to the Text and without the practical objective of helping those who actually believe the Text. Without productive scholarly relationships and a redoubled effort to articulate sound Biblical research, what few resources we have will continue to lose their effect and our voices will die with us. The workshops, training courses and other advances made by the Charles Simeon Trust are fueled, in part, by the body of scholarship and literature already in existence. We are realizing more each day how great a stake we have in Biblical scholarship. We must invest in space for academics and ministers to collectively engage the relevant issues of the current age while holding fast to the Word. |
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