The Bible After Babel

Biblical scholars today often sound as if they are caught in the aftermath of Babel — a clamor of voices unable to reach common agreement. Yet is this confusion necessarily a bad thing? Many postmodern critics see the recent profusion of critical approaches as a welcome opportunity for the emergence of diverse new techniques.

In The Bible after Babel noted biblical scholar John J. Collins considers the effect of the postmodern situation on biblical, primarily Old Testament, criticism over the last three decades. Engaging and even-handed, Collins examines the quest of historical criticism to objectively establish a text’s basic meaning. Accepting that the Bible may no longer provide secure “foundations” for faith, Collins still highlights its ethical challenge to be concerned for “the other” — a challenge central both to Old Testament ethics and to the teaching of Jesus.