The End of Biblical Studies

Author: Hector Avalos
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Hardcover: 399 pages, published in 2007

Reviewed by G.B. Singh

While living in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1999, one day I was approached by a pastor on the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart shopping store. Our conversations ensued and for the next hour, the pastor had more issues to deal with than his initial wisdom of trying to save my soul. It all came down to this: the pastor agreed with me that there is absolutely nothing useful in the Bible for me that I can apply in my daily life. But he still advocated that the very purpose of the Bible and of following Jesus Christ is to guarantee salvation--life after death. To which I replied, “Pastor if the Bible has no utility for me here on the Earth, then how it can have any usefulness after death?” Pastor had tasted enough of me and we parted. For more than 25 years I have been reading the Bible and the extensive literature written for and against it.

Given this background, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I encountered “The End of Biblical Studies” authored by Prof. Hector Avalos, Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University. I am familiar with Prof. Avalos’ works and I believe this book is by far his best. Mind you, his credentials are impeccable: He has a Doctor of Philosophy in Hebrew Bible and Near Eastern Studies from Harvard University (1991), Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School (1985), and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from University of Arizona in 1982. Additionally he is the author of a number of books and many scholarly articles. Once, impressed by his analysis, I briefly corresponded with him.

Spread out in a total of ten chapters, the End of Biblical Studies covers just about every issue one might think of falling within the scope of ongoing modern Biblical scholarship. He laid out the best paragraph of his book in the introduction (page 29):

Biblical studies as we know it should end. We should now treat the Bible as the alien document it is, with no more importance than the other works of literature we ignore every day. Biblical studies should be geared toward helping humanity wean itself off of the Bible and toward terminating its authority completely in the modern world. Focus then could shift to the still thousands of other ancient texts still untranslated and unread. One day, the Bible might even be viewed as one of the curiosities of a tragic bibliolatrous age, when dependence on a text brought untold misery and stood as an obstacle to human progress. We might then study the Bible as a lesson in why human beings should never again privilege any book to this extent.

I highly recommend this book to those who at least are serious students of the Bible. On Sikhspectrum we have been conducting extensive Bible debates and many of our readers have benefitted from these frank discourses. Having said that I might add this book will be of great usage to any of our readers. Like any reader is likely to embrace his or her favorite parts, I too share that here. The chapters or sections on “sugarcoating Jesus” “Sanitizing Anti-Judaism” “The Unhistorical Jesus” and the “Biblical Theology: The Pathology of Bibliolatry” are my favorites.

Penetrating and often critical that I am, generally I find some areas in any given book to disagree with. But with Avalos’ book I find myself in agreement with his entire scholarship. In his superb analysis on the search for Jesus in “The Unhistorical Jesus” I contend that the author is correct in his overall assessment: “The quest for the historical Jesus is an abject failure.” In my Eastern Way of reading the literature I find the gospel accounts are purely mythological and are in no manner different from those we encounter in Hinduism or in Buddhism.

Whenever mythology is wrapped in historical clothing and pushed through for centuries on unsuspecting people using politics and psychology, it becomes rather difficult, if not an impossible task, to surgically separate the mythology from non-mythology. With the benefit of being born and raised in India, I am well aware of what mythology can do to a society. But more recently there has been a new development or so it seems. I wish Professor Avalos had included a section on the newly discovered and controversial “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” which was aired by the Discovery Channel in March 2007. Personally I am interested in further pursuing this new archeological discovery to its factual and logical conclusion. In what manner, if possible, would that new story reshape or affect the future of “The End of Biblical Studies” is left to the future.

As Prof. Avalos has expressed that once the Bible is rendered to its due place it might offer us the opportunity to open other ancient documents. These too will need our serious scrutiny provided we get to them. For a number of years I have been advocating two special areas: (1) modern Hinduism scholarship and, (2) modern Buddhist scholarship. I hope the day is not distant that we might actually begin processing these in a formal sense.