Insights Series

Gary Yamasaki explores how the visual art of filmmaking works to establish perspective and point of view to guide the viewer into a film’s story. Biblical story is also shaped by perspectives that frame a point of view. The insights gained from studying the art of filmmaking can help students increase their understanding of biblical narratives.

In this volume, Peter S. Perry describes what performance criticism is and shows its application to biblical studies and theology. He draws on the best thinkers and practitioners in this field as well as his own experience to show how performance criticism can open up the meaning of and appreciation for biblical texts. In addition, Perry presents challenges for the future of performance criticism and its role in biblical interpretation generally. Each volume in the new Insights series discusses discoveries and insights gained into biblical texts from a particular approach or perspective in current scholarship. Accessible and appealing to today’s students, each Insight volume will discuss (1) how this method, approach, or strategy was first developed and how its application has changed over time; (2) what current questions arise from its use; (3) what enduring insights it has produced; and (4) what questions remain for future scholarship.

Each volume in the Insights series discusses discoveries and insights gained into biblical texts from a particular approach or perspective in current scholarship. Accessible and appealing to today’s students, each Insight volume discusses how this method, approach, or strategy was first developed and how its application has changed over time; what current questions arise from its use; what enduring insights it has produced; and what questions remain for future scholarship. Mitzi J. Smith describes the distinctive African American experience of Scripture, from slavery to Black Liberation and beyond, and the unique angles of perception that an intentional African American interpretation brings to the text for a contemporary generation of scholars. Smith shows how questions of race, ethnicity, and the dynamics of “othering” have been developed in African American biblical scholarship, resulting in new reading of particular texts. Further, Smith describes challenges that scholarship raises for the future of biblical interpretation generally.

Each volume in the Insights series presents discoveries and insights into biblical texts from a particular approach or perspective in current scholarship. Accessible and appealing to today’s students, each Insight volume discusses: how this method, approach, or strategy was first developed and how its application has changed over time; what current questions arise from its use; what enduring insights it has produced; and what questions remain for future scholarship. Archaeological exploration of Syria-Palestine and the ancient Near East has revolutionized our understanding of the Bible. In this volume, David A. Fiensy provides a brief survey of a discipline that was once called “biblical archaeology” and describes how the conception of the field has changed; recounts how key discoveries have opened up new understandings of Israel’s own history and religion as well as the ancient Near Eastern and later Greco-Roman environments, and the impact on biblical studies and theology; discusses how archaeological study has shaped the task of biblical interpretation, with illustrative examples; analyzes specific texts through archaeological perspectives; and provides conclusions, challenges, and considerations for the future of archaeology and biblical interpretation.

Each volume in the Insights series discusses discoveries and insights gained into biblical texts from a particular approach or perspective in current scholarship. Accessible and appealing to today's students, each Insight volume discusses: -how this method, approach, or strategy was first developed and how its application has changed over time; -what current questions arise from its use; -what enduring insights it has produced; and -what questions remain for future scholarship. In this volume, Karl Allen Kuhn provides a description of what cultural anthropology is and how the discipline has impacted biblical studies. Looking at Scripture through the lens of cultural anthropology is related to social-scientific criticism, which refers to that phase of the exegetical task that analyzes the social and cultural dimensions of the text and its environmental context through the utilization of the perspectives, theories, models, and research of the social sciences. Kuhn discusses general matters garnered from cultural-anthropology interpretation that would be relevant for the study of biblical texts. He analyzes several biblical specific texts from a cultural-anthropology perspective and provides conclusions, challenges, and considerations for the future of cultural anthropology and biblical interpretation.

Insights from Reading the Bible with the Poor provides a spirited introduction to methodologies and strategies for reading the Bible "from below"--from the back of what used to be church sanctuaries, from basements, from sidewalks. Drawing on the lineage of various methods of reading the Bible with the poor, the book invites poverty and biblical study into dialogue with real-world organizing to seek justice for those most often treated as "Other." The reading process occurs among the intersections of the "hermeneutical triangle" of Reality, the Bible, and Community. This book is for anyone curious about how to use the Bible as a resource for liberation. It is for faith leaders and community organizers, as much as it is for biblical scholars, because it draws on experiences at the intersections of academia, the Church and communities of organized struggle. It is written with an eye toward praxis, as the author shares from her own experience with the hope that space will be created for others to reflect on their own contexts.