Cross-field Engagement and Biblical Studies

Narrow specialist training, and the need to demonstrate specialism and love of detail in order to advance in the profession, leave many modern biblical scholars ill-prepared for anything other than occasional raids on the territory of other disciplines in order to find some new “angle” on biblical studies that will enable them to make a distinctive contribution to their field. The intellectual booty that is brought back from such raids is sometimes not well understood in relation to the intellectual context from which it was stolen. The consequence is a discipline that is sometimes (inaccurately) derivative of other disciplines, and more often than not is dependent on ideas taken from these other disciplines that are already at least several decades out of date in term of their popularity and general plausibility. Perhaps for these general reasons the history of the history of Israel in the past twenty years has seen the widespread and enthusiastic adoption of a positivist approach to history without any great awareness of the problems to which this approach gives rise or of the debate that it has previously engendered among historians, philosophers, and theologians alike.

Ian Provan in A Biblical Hisory of Israel by Ian Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman III (2003), 52.

I find this observation to be quite true in the efforts of thesis and dissertation writers to handle issues of both theology and text. I hope in reading this critique, myself and others are motivated to engage other disciplines for their merit to biblical studies and cultural integration. This engagement must be in more larger doses than one often wishes to swallow in order to do justice to the other discipline and to thoroughly impact the field of biblical and theological studies.

Any thoughts on what fields or study arenas have something new to contribute to biblical studies? Any thoughts on how to engage without superficial borrowing ?