Psychology and Biblical Studies Section

We welcome proposals for papers that address Biblical texts, themes, figures and/or readers and interpreters using the concepts and interpretive tools of any named field of psychology.

We are particularly interested in papers which examine readers, the process of reading, appropriation of texts, and their impact on individuals and communities from a psychological perspective.

We also plan review sessions of two recent books: Kamila Blessing’s Families of the Bible (Praeger 2010), and Barbara Leung Lai’s Through the ‘I’-Window: The Inner Life of Characters in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffeild Phoenix Press, 2011).

Questions? Contact the Chair, D. Andrew Kille, at psybibs@psybibs.org.

To propose a paper for the session, see full details and online submission information on the SBL website.

Deadline for proposals is March 1, 2012.

This book is a prodigious achievement, breaking ground simultaneously in three fields: historical Jesus research, psychological biblical criticism, and early church studies. With an impressive command of European and American scholarship, Bas van Os initiates us into the world between the historical Jesus and earliest Christianity with an intriguing thesis:  that the effect of the former on the latter provides compelling psychological, anthropological, demographic, and sociological insight into the historical Jesus.

The reader will not be able to put the book down as van Os initiates us into six disciplines new to most biblical scholars: attachment theory, rational choice theory, anthropological psychology, the psychology of coping with loss, and role theory, all of which open unexpected doors to a past that is constantly at work in the conscious and unconscious life of church and scholar.   – Wayne G. Rollins

Since Albert Schweitzer’s monumental work, nearly a century ago, psychology has been banned from Historical Jesus research. But both disciplines have advanced and it is time to review the contribution that psychology can make. Bas Van Os examines the problems which surround both the historical and the psychological study of Jesus, such as the fact that we can only work with the surviving traditions that some of his early followers left us. Following this, Van Os proposes a theoretical framework that combines sound psychological theories and critical biblical scholarship to explain how Jesus’ life and religious experience impacted the beliefs of his friends and family after his death. – Publisher description.

This book was featured in a session of the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section at the SBL Annual Meeting in San Francisco in November 2011.

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Find a full listing of the sessions and presenters at the San Francisco meeting.

• Healthy(?) Biblical Studies
• Book Review: Psychological Analyses and the Historical Jesus
  A review of Bas Van Os, Psychological Analyses and the Historical Jesus:
  Explorations in Understanding (T&T Clark, 2011).
• Explorations in Hebrew Scriptures
• Divinity, Readers, and Reading: Psychology and Interpretation

Reinterpreting the Bible through Family Systems Theory, this fascinating exploration shows how the theology of creation, restoration, and salvation can be meaningfully and uniquely understood through the lens of the biblical family.

The most often mentioned and most profoundly alone being in the Bible is God. The second is Jesus. In fact, the single person turns out to be of central importance in the Bible, despite the overwhelming emphasis on extended biological families. Since the only consistent definition of “family” in the Bible is “covenant,” the orphan, the single person, the gay person, and others who are often on the fringes of the Church are just as much part of the family of God as the husband-wife-child unit.

It is not possible to recreate a “biblical” family in the modern world. Thus, we must think of the principles of faithful family life demonstrated in the Bible and express them in a new way. That is the idea underlying Families of the Bible: A New Perspective. Examining themes related to family health, connection, spirituality, and psychology, the author relates stories from the Bible to modern-day experience in an effort to help readers strengthen and heal their own families, whatever their structure.

While the book addresses the family of the patriarchs and other major traditional families in the Bible, it also specifically examines Jesus’ new definition of family, showing how his psycho-spiritual family has a different—and more inclusive—shape than the “natural family.” The author, who is an Episcopal priest, insists that the Bible shows God as faithful in providing for his people. The many disadvantaged in our society, as well as those who are alone and those who have found that wealth does not provide satisfaction, will benefit from this thoughtful reinterpretation. (publisher)

Kamila Blessing has been a long-time participant in the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section, and will be presenting at the 2010 meeting in Atlanta.

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Psychological Hermeneutics of The Bible
J. Harold Ellens

My approach to the Psychological Hermeneutics of biblical themes and texts has always been from the operationally applied side to the conceptual models.  I have been reflecting lately on how I can epitomize both the content and method of my work in psychological hermeneutics of scripture. I think I have been able to conceptualize it articulately.

I operate, like Isaac Newton, with three basic laws that I think must reign in the field of biblical interpretation if one is to get at the essential biblical truth. They are as follows:

1. Ellens’ first law of biblical hermeneutics: It is necessary to separate the garbage from the gospel in the Bible in order to discern what is the word of God in the biblical narratives. The garbage is the cultural-historical matrix in which the essential message is conveyed. The gospel is the clear word of grace which is conveyed, wherever it breaks out and can be discerned clearly and cogently in the biblical text.
2. Ellens’ second law of biblical hermeneutics: That which, in the Bible, is psychospiritually destructive for the Living Human Document is not the divine word. That which is psychospiritually constructive for the Living Human Document is the divine word of God. That word will always be a word about grace.
3. Ellens’ third law of biblical hermeneutics: Use of the psychological lens is essential for determining what in the biblical narratives is psychospiritually constructive and destructive for the Living Human Document. The warrant for divine truth in anything is that it is psychospiritually healing for the Living Human Document. Whether a word is psychologically sound and constructive is the criterion for divine truth.

Addenda:

1. That the word of God is always the word of grace is not arguable. It is simply the claim I make and its warrant is that only it heals and enhances the Living Human Document.
2. In my model, God is, by definition, a God of thoroughly unconditional, radical, and universal grace. Any God that is not a God of such grace, is, by definition, not God, but is a monster. Any idea any human conjures up of God as not, by definition, a God of grace is corrupt, monstrous, and confused, because it demonstrably damages rather than heals the Living Human Document.
3. God is subtle and not obvious in the world and in human experience. So we must take a psychological lens and look at the subtle intimations of God’s presence and nature in history, life, and our personal experience. These subtle intimations include a) the mindfulness of creation, b) the benevolence of providence, c) the natural urge in all things toward beauty, d) the fact that unconditional acceptance and forgiveness is the only ultimate healing force in life, e) the fact that this kind of service of grace is precisely tailored to our central need for healing that sets us free for growth.
4. The warrant for what is real and true is what works. Only the equation of grace works in the ultimate healing, growth, maturation, and wholeness for which the Living Human Document has the potential and therefore is inherently destined.
5. Therefore, we must conclude that by definition God is a God of grace. The fact that only this definition of God works for our healing, growth, maturation, and wholeness confirms that it is the only rational and psychospiritually authentic way to conceptualize God. All other conceptualizations are deficient, destructive, and hence, monstrous.

Within a book widely touted as the path to peace, violence has incongruously been central to the Bible and how it is used. This collection book examines the manifestations of violence in Scripture, and the ways that Scripture itself – whether violent in content or not – can be used to justify violence and aggression in specific social circumstances today. The book is divided into two parts. The first half explores some incidents of Biblical violence that, rather than appearing at the forefront of the narrative, reflect that ancient Jewish culture (including the early Christian movement recorded in the New Testament) treats violence as an undeniable fact of the social world in which biblical figures live.

In these essays, psychological theory and interpretation focus on the effect of this culture of violence in the behavior, expectations, and failures of Biblical figures, in order to re-evaluate the messages of these texts in light of their accepted, but largely unacknowledged, aggression. (Publisher)

This book is a collection of essays that have been presented in the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section over the past several years Dereck Daschke and D. Andrew Kille have both served as Chair of the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section.

• The Making of Fornication: A Book Review Panel on The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity by Kathy Gaca
• New models for Psychological Criticism: Exploration of new methods and theories for psychological biblical criticism.
• Cognitive Approaches to the Bible: Applications of Cognitive Theory.
• The Bible in Healing and Transformation

Find details on the sessions.

Full program listings with times and locations are now online at the Psybibs Website.