Criticism, Crisis, and Krisis: Reading Questions for Critics of the Bible Today

Abstract

Forty years since Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s 1987 SBL Presidential Address, we see a retreat from reading ideology and a recommendation to emphasize reading pleasure by a number of prominent scholars in the fields specifically mentioned by Schüssler Fiorenza to describe the interdisciplinary turn in biblical studies: “literary studies and philosophical hermeneutics.” After attributing this change to neoliberal influence and disillusionment about scholarship’s potential for social change, I propose that critics of the Bible today must recognize that (1) reading ideology brings pleasure; (2) acknowledge and address the present neoliberal reality; and (3) commit to connecting epistemology not only with ethics but also with ethos.