Research On The Theory And Practice Of Social-Scientific Biblical Criticism

As a new theory of Bible interpretation,social-scientific criticism uses the perspective and theory of social science to analyze the socio-cultural dimension and context of the text,and regards the text of the Bible as an important medium for language communication between the author and the reader.From the revelation of the social nature and characteristics of Israel in the Biblical era in the mid-late 18th century to the end of 19th century,the application of social-scientific methods in the study of Hebrew Bible.In the 20th century,when interpreting Biblical texts,social-scientific criticism not only maintained humanistic concern for the author’s intention and cultural situation of the text,but also had a scientific rigorous attitude.As a result,two climaxes of the development of disciplines were set off,from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century and in the 1970s respectively.In such a complex and changeable course of development,the theoretical characteristics of social-scientific biblical criticism began to be discovered and concerned by more scholars.In this process,social scientists let us see abundant research results and new thinking and new trends constantly extended.Based on the theoretical characteristics of social sciences,social-scientific criticism has maintained a positive and beneficial interaction with sociology,cultural anthropology,psychology,archaeology and other disciplines when it comes to the interpretation of Bible.Especially today,when the second development climax has not completely disappeared,social scientists interpret the Bible texts with various interpretative frameworks which have practical operation and research pertinence.This leads to the problem we are discussing,that is,social-scientific Biblical criticism presents topics and interprets the Bible by establishing paradigms(evolving from some specific interpretative frameworks to a paradigm system).On the one hand,this approach avoids the empty and isolated presentation of research problems,making Biblical research produce only some simple and definite theoretical analysis;on the other hand,it also forms a spatial dialogue with sociology and cultural anthropology.When the theory of social sciences began to intervene in the study of the Bible,sociologists directly borrowed its theoretical logic.For example,we interpreted the multiple possibilities of the Israelis entering Canaan in the "the revolt model";we saw the formation of values in the Pan-Mediterranean region in the "honor and shame paradigm";we examined the complicated relationship network between people and society,individuals and groups,body and family in the New Testament civilization by the "kinship".These explanatory frameworks make it possible for us to cut into the Bible text from the perspective of social culture.Of course,this theoretical clue is gradually clear and linked in the development and evolution of Bible criticism in social science.In the social-scientific criticism practice of two contemporary biblical scholars,Norman K.Gottwald and Bruce J.Malina,we can also feel this gradual change and deepening.Based on this background and foundation,this paper tries to carry out the following work:first,deeply analyses the background,theoretical perspective,and methodological model of the social-scientific biblical criticism,with emphasis on revealing the main research paradigms;secondly,combines the specific practice of text criticism,chooses Gottwald and Malina’s social scientific reading of the Old Testament and the New Testament as a foothold,outlines the performance and clues of the social-scientific biblical criticism in concrete practice.Finally,we try to make some prospects,hoping to inject some new thinking into the development of the social-scientific biblical criticism in the future.