The chapters in Part one cover all the methods and approaches currently practiced in the academic study of the Bible, while those in Part two examine the major categories of books in the Bible from the perspective of recent scholarship, that is, historical books of the Old Testament, Gospels, prophetic literature. This work is likely to be a standard reference for some years to come. It is also likely to age quickly as the approaches underdiscussion have in many ways just begun in their discoveries and possible influence. People who work in biblical studies are used to being asked this question. One answer, a true one, is that there is still primary research to be conducted, because the discoveries of modern times such as the Dead Sea Scrolls have increased our access to the world in which the Bible came into being.
New information justifies fresh investigation.
But ancient texts require not only research, but also interpretation. In every age interpreters ask different questions, and so different aspects of the text's meaning emerge. The task of interpretation, unlike that of research, is never finished even in principle. This book offers the reader a progress report on biblical interpretation in the 1990s. Biblical studies have been in turmoil throughout the last ten years, revealing that what seemed in the 1970s and 1980s to be a time of sharp controversies was really quite placid and conciliatory by comparison.