Mike Bird notes his co-authored (with Craig Keener) piece in the SBL forum, “Jack of All Trades and Master of None: The Case for ‘Generalist’ Scholars in Biblical Scholarship.” While we need both specialists and generalists in academia, this article is an apology for a generalist approach–as the field of biblical studies has descended ever rapidly down a myopically specialist route.
I consider myself a generalist, even in my specialty. Obviously, in order to get our initial “stripes” in academic biblical studies, we need to specialize in something as we author our own little specialty showcase, the dissertation. The topic that I have chosen for myself, or I feel has almost chosen me, is indeed somewhat esoteric: apocalyptic thought. But, I have always had a wide range of interests in Hebrew Bible, history of Israel, Second Temple Judaism, New Testament, Christian origins, history of interpretation, etc. Studying apocalyptic literature and eschatology forces me to cover a wide range of historical sources and situations and has become something of a “bridge” for me to cover my wide-ranging interests as I pursue my own specialty. And I am concerned with not simply apocalyptic in its own right, but how it grows out of the social and theological environment of early Judaism and Christian origins.
So, I would say, why not be both/and–both generalist and specialist? Mike and Craig seem to be arguing for something like this. They mention well-known generalist scholars who, “though having a particular niche in which they cut their scholarly teeth, have produced works across the subcategories of their disciplines, revealing the value of operating trans-corpora or across the traditional subdisciplines.” They deconstruct the notion of one versus the other by noting that “the problem is not that of specialists versus generalists, but of specialists failing to recognize the value of other specialties.” That is, we are all specialists to some extent, but we should simply try to familiarize ourselves with other specialties: “One can stay in the preferred ‘zone’ and still produce specialist and generalist works.”
When I began to read their article, I was thinking what they eventually articulated about halfway through: that “the generalist may have an advantage over the specialist in the classroom.” Students need us to offer them some sort of walkable path to make their way through the trenches of complicated and nuanced arguments about difficult biblical texts. In order to do that, we need to be involved in a wider conversation than with our own little corners of dialogue.
Check out the article for yourself. Good reading.
