Criticism in Critical Times: Reflections on Vision and Task

The problematic addressed in this study is the vision and task of biblical criticism today. The introduction describes its context and rationale: a series of key anniversaries in 2014, involving critical times of the twentieth century, that bring to bear historical, geopolitical, and spatial dimensions of meaning upon our own critical times as well as my term as president of the Society of Biblical Literature. The introduction further sets forth its objective: the felt imperative need for a response to our critical times as a critic. The main body of the study develops an initial response in four major steps: first, analysis of presidential addresses given in critical times of yesteryear, with a focus on the years of the Great War (1914-18), as signifier for the perceived function of biblical criticism in society and culture; second, exposition of the spectrum of opinion regarding the pursuit of critical inquiry in a variety of discursive frameworks, with a focus on intellectual studies, in order to situate the rhetorical choice adopted by former presidents and allow for a different, more activist role; third, analysis of the global state of affairs as the context for critical inquiry today, with a focus on global economics, as a prerequisite for an engaged critical stance; and fourth, search for a theoretical framework appropriate for engaging our critical times, involving not only critical theories of world order from the Global North but also alternative theories from the Global South. The conclusion offers an interpretive project for our times in keeping with the various dimensions of the response, arguing for a fusion of the critical and the political, the biblical and the worldly.Acceptance of the nomination to serve as president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2014 immediately set off a process of reflection on my part regarding an appropriate topic for the main function of such a charge, the presidential address. With the passage of time, three ideas, all having to do with various social-cultural dimensions of my term, gradually established themselves as primary in my mind. Eventually, they came together, upon much reflection, in the final determination of the topic. I should like to begin by identifying these converging vectors, doing so by way of chronological emergence and appropriation. They involve, respectively, historical, geopolitical, and spatial dimensions of meaning, although all three such dimensions are present in all three vectors. As such, they involve-individually as well as collectively-a critical reading of the global scene, my own location and stance within it, and my identity and role as a biblical critic. In the end, such reflections led me to the question of critical vision and task as a worthy, indeed imperative, topic for my address, for which I have chosen "Criticism in Critical Times: Reflections on Vision and Task" as the title.The first insight was historical in character, which led to a juxtaposition of critical times involving relations among global powers in the West. I realized that my term would coincide with major anniversaries of global conflicts during the course of the twentieth century: (1) the Great War (1914-18)-the centenary of the declaration of war in 1914; (2) the Second World War (1939-45)-the seventy-fifth anniversary of the outbreak of war in 1939 and the seventieth of D-Day in 1944, the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany and the Axis; and (3) the Cold War (1947-89/91), a confrontation that would engender multiple regional wars and local clashes-the twenty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the end in 1989, with the collapse of the communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe, symbolically culminating with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November.1I became aware that it had fallen upon me, as the first president from outside the West, to recall and observe such events. I realized that I could do so only as an outsider-insider. The trajectory for me was clear. …