Scholars and believers: Growing pains at the SBL

A few years ago, the world's largest body of biblical scholars adopted these words as a motto: "Foster biblical scholarship." Scholarship might seem an obvious focus for the Society of Biblical Literature, but as the SBL has grown in membership—it has seen a 30 percent increase since 2001—and added diverse scholarly approaches, tensions have simmered over the degree to which religious apologetics fits, if at all, into an organization devoted to critical research.

The issue bubbled to the surface last summer when Ronald Hendel, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish studies at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote in a popular magazine that he was quitting the SBL. "The views of creationists, snake-handlers and faith-healers now count among the kinds of biblical scholarship that the society seeks to foster," wrote Hendel. While scholars tended to dismiss that claim as hyperbole, many agreed with Hendel that a "battle royal" is taking place in the SBL "between faith and reason."

The SBL put Hendel's column from  the Biblical Archaeology Review on its website and invited member comments. Nearly 100 responses were posted, including replies from Hendel, before the online discussion was closed.