In my recent blog entries, I expressed my frustration with three methodological problems that in my mind have wholly negative, if not dangerous, implications for the art of historiography in biblical studies: (1) the tendency to reject the use of the biblical texts for historical reconstruction, (2) the tendency to deny the possibility of reconstructing the ancient history of Israel, and (3) the tendency to claim that most biblical texts were written ex nihilo, or nearly so, in late periods. Yet, at the same time that I reject such positions and consider them highly suspect, there are numerous positive developments that have arisen as a result of the challenge that minimalists launched to biblical studies. To create a sense of proportion, I will refer to three:
First, minimalists have encouraged us to take seriously the ideological function of biblical historiography. While traditional source and form criticism also pays close attention to ideology, such analysis is directed more toward identifying and segmenting ideologies as indicative of the prehistory of the text. The minimalists, on the other hand, have emphasized ideology as part of the text's communicative and rhetorical significance. This breathes new life into biblical studies by placing significant, positive stress on the texts we have. It also has encouraged a more critical and, in my opinion, successful and accurate reading of the texts, whether to expound that ideology or, by other more maximally minded scholars, to reconstruct history.
Second, some minimalists have contributed, along with Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah scholars, to opening up the Persian period, and Hellenistic period, for biblical studies. Only recently has this period really received the attention it is due as an important one in the compositional development of biblical traditions. While I previously commented negatively on the tendency to locate the creation of biblical literature within a small community of elites in the sixth to second century, I actually agree that this reconstruction has considerable productive power to situate and explain the production of biblical literature, that is the reading, rereading, writing, and rewriting of the texts. Indeed, much of my present research and work is devoted to the production of biblical literature in the Persian period and the role this plays in the restoration of Jerusalem. My point of departure from the minimalists is that biblical literature is being rewritten in this period not created ex nihilo (notwithstanding clearly post-exilic texts, of course).
Third, I wrote previously that to me it seems "the entire epistomological framework of minimalism and its jargon exists in opposition to a naive maximalism of religious fundamentalists and/or long discredited historical-critical reconstructions that really have little to no currency in academia today." To be fair, it is minimalism that has exposed this naive maximalism and discredited some historical-critical reconstructions that are well and appropriately consigned to the dustbin. It is difficult to understate the importance of the minimalist counter-weight on the pendulum. I believe that the center of biblical studies is on much surer and certain ground as a result of the many naive presuppositions and historical reconstructions that the minimalists have dismantled.
On a more personal note, I have profited greatly from reading many works by the so-called minimalists--and more still from my personal interactions with these important scholars. In that regard, I hope it is abundantly clear that my dispute is with specific methodological approaches of so-called minimalism and the real danger that I think those pose and not any one scholar. I can not step back from those earlier criticisms because I think they were fairly (if colorfully) made. Nevertheless, I hope this blog entry has given some sense of balance to my representations as well as my take of minimalism.
Praise for Minimalists
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