De-Introducing the New Testament: Texts, Worlds, Methods, Stories

De-Introducing the New Testament offers an exciting and provocative look at how we conduct critical New Testament scholarship in our present historical moment and socio-economic landscape. Challenging some of the methodologies and trajectories central to the area, the authors use the term “de-introducing” to denote a practice of unmasking the most basic categories and frameworks in the field so that we might better understand and appraise what discourses are at work therein. The authors acknowledge the interplay of ancient texts and modern disciplinary formation as important sites for the expression of identity and power relationships, and raise questions about the connections we seek to cultivate with the past.

Engaging with several dominant rhetorical paths in the field, the authors raise critical questions about the stories we tell in the field of New Testament studies: about who we are as New Testament scholars, what it is we think we do in the discipline, on what terms, and to what ends. Ultimately, the authors argue for a renewed commitment to the defamiliarizing power of New Testament studies and a reclaiming of the discipline as one that exemplifies the best practices of the humanities and the radical potential of liberative ethics.