THE QUESTION
Has the Bible been a positive or negative force throughout history?

Has the Bible been a positive or negative force throughout history?

Sharon Ryan | Monday, October 12, 2015

This year, departments and programs in the arts and humanities at WVU are invited to pose a question for discussion to our campus and beyond. The question posed by the WVU Religious Studies Program is, “Has the Bible been a positive or negative force throughout history?”

Several Religious Studies faculty members from WVU, and one guest faculty member from Oklahoma City University, contributed short essays in response to the question.

Before beginning to answer such an enormous question, one must interpret it. Whose history? Which Bible? Does a text have an influence, or is it the use of a text that has an influence? Do we have any ethical obligations to avoid using a text to harm others?

Our experts help get the discussion started, and we welcome others to share their own thoughtful perspectives in the blog.

Alyssa Beall, Ph.D., Lecturer, WVU Program for Religious Studies

My immediate response to The Question is another question: which Bible are we going to discuss, and why? Our understandings of The Question are formed, in large part, by which groups of texts we are considering to be authoritative; by whom that authority is then wielded (and how), and also by challenges to or criticisms of those stances.

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Rev. Lisa M. Wolfe, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew Bible, Oklahoma City University

Clearly, it's an unanswerable question. But it is an intriguing and important one. I will try to access this question by approaching it in this way: "How can we use the Bible in positive rather than negative ways?" And I will use the book of Esther as a sample for this experiment.

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Alex Snow, Ph.D., Teaching Assistant Professor, WVU Program for Religious Studies

I suppose answering THE QUESTION depends, geographically and topologically, upon whose history we’re talking about or focusing upon. I assume there is an implicit and potentially misplaced assumption in the question that we should be querying western history for such positive and negative forces per se.

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Aaron Gale, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Coordinator of WVU Program for Religious Studies

Throughout the centuries the Bible has been a source of both inspiration as well as skepticism regarding its perceived message. Different people have obviously interpreted the Bible in very different ways, depending upon the particular analyst’s religious, political, socio-economical, and/or other considerations. Why has this been the case? At least part of the answer might hinge upon the word “history.”

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Ted Vehse, Ph.D., Lecturer, WVU Program for Religious Studies

In a lighthearted caricature of the rabbinic mindset, one best answers a question with another question. To begin, therefore, we should ask: which Bible? Are we talking about the Tanakh, sacred text of the Jewish People, which includes the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings.

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