Good Fences and Good Neighbors? Biblical Scholars and Theologians

The author takes occasion of the decision by the American Academic of Religion to separate its annual meetings from those of the Society for Biblical Literature, to reflect on the challenging disciplinary frontier arrayed between systematic theology and biblical studies. In particular, he calls for critical theological interpretation of the claims of biblical scholarship, bearing in mind the contextuality of all discourses. For their part, biblical scholars should call systematic theologians to operate within the framework of what Fernando Segovia has called a hermeneutics of otherness and engagement, as a preface to reading with exegetes and other academic, pastoral, professional readers of biblical texts.