11 - Liberal readings of the Bible and their conservative responses

Summary

This chapter addresses the institutional context of the study of the Bible both in the university and the church. It focuses on nineteenth-century Germany, where theological problems were discussed most keenly, and offers comparisons with the development of theology and biblical studies in both England and the United States. The dichotomy between liberal and conservative makes sense only in relation to this more general problem of authority, which was at the heart of the massive cultural and intellectual revolutions and reactions through the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, many German theologians sought different solutions to the problem of history which rested less on direct experience and more on a distinctive kind of knowledge. Scholars such as the Swiss-born Philip Schaf, helped professionalise American biblical studies, establishing it outside its traditional home in conservative denominational institutions. The socio-historical method sought to carry out sociological investigations of the biblical texts as products of their environment.