One of the big themes in the history of research on the New Testament is the idea that the Bible should be read like any other historical book. This idea is sort of what kicked off modern research on the Bible in the first place. With the dawn of the Enlightenment, scholars started thinking, why don’t we put the Bible under the same historical scrutiny as we do other works? The historical-critical method is founded on this concept.

Of course, this raises special questions for the Christian scholar of the Bible. The Christian Bible scholar says, “Well, if I’m going to read my sacred text like I’d read any other book, what happens to its sacredness.” I think most balanced Christian scholars would like to hold onto their scholarly integrity, but also remain intentional about the Bible being a unique form of divine revelation. In that way, then, as scholars, they begin by reading the Bible as they would any other book. That is, they use all the tools to probe the text in its historical situation, its grammatical eccentricities, its social context, etc. But then, after they use their historical tools (the same tools that can be used by any other historical-critical scholar), they take a step back to think about the significance of their findings, synthesizing their conclusions about the larger meaning of the text, these scholars then start to emphasize the uniqueness of the Bible. It is in considering the consequences of historical study where the Bible is no longer merely any other book. Homer just doesn’t have the same kind of significance.

I’ll go a bit further and suggest that it’s not just Christian scholars who treat the Bible as a unique or special work. It seems to me that those who are proclaiming the death of the historical-critical method of interpretation are also fundamentally stating that the Bible is unique. One does not declare the death of attempts to read Homer in historical context. You don’t even have to declare the Bible to be special divine revelation to consider it to be a unique book. Look at the history of interpretation. Because western civilization has understood the Bible to be special revelation, it has by default given the Bible a place in history that is uniquely meaningful even beyond those revelatory claims. What I’m saying is that because the Bible means so much for people, it has unique sociological significance. Because it has shaped history, it has special historical significance (speaking of the history beyond the historical context of the Bible).

Therefore, even those who don’t “believe in” the Bible have to recognize that the Bible is not just any other book. This is why we have theological interpretation, post-colonial readings, feminist readings, or any other reading related to social location or founded upon postmodernism. Why read the Bible from so many various perspectives if it’s just the same as other works?

The question now is, will we lose the great birth of biblical scholarship and forget about our attempts to read the Bible like any other historical work? Will the historical-critical method really go the way of the Dodo? I have this feeling that perhaps the people who are announcing the death of the historical method are perhaps just louder than some others in the academy. I don’t think that history is going away. It seems to me that we cannot go back to a precritical reading. Even postcritical readings make use of the historical criticism.

I think some young scholars in the historical method are a little worried that they are going into a dead end job. I don’t think so. Well, at least I hope not, because I’m one of those young scholars!