Planting and Reaping Albright [Hardcover]

Burke O. Long (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0271015764 | ISBN-13: 978-0271015767 | Publication Date: April 1997

Burke Long has written an uncommonly important and fascinating study in 'the history of the discipline' of Old Testament studies. . . . Long has taught us much about our recent past and temptations to agonistic scholarship. We may infer from his work a great deal more about our common future in scholarship.-Walter Brueggemann, Theology TodayThis book examines the social formation and ideological practices of William Foxwell Albright, the gifted Johns Hopkins linguist and archaeologist who, along with a fiercely loyal and organized group of former students, exerted uncommon influence on the substance and direction of mid-twentieth century biblical studies. Albright and these devoted students (such as G. Ernest Wright, Frank Moore Cross, Jr., David Noel Freedman, John Bright, George E. Mendenhall) came to be known as the "Albright School." Burke Long here treats the field of biblical studies, not as a repository of objective knowledge, but as a culture created by like-minded people whose knowledge is mediated through the ideologically charged give-and-take of social interactions.A first of its kind for biblical studies, Planting and Reaping Albright draws on private letters, interviews, and published work to expose ideological presuppositions and political machinations embedded in historical knowledge about the Bible that this group of scholars constructed and disseminated through its various activities. Long investigates Albright's many assumptions about the "way things really are" and the ways in which his students, describing themselves as "sons of Albright," embarked on a crusade to secure political and ideological dominance of the landscape of American biblical scholarship.The Albright School constituted a sociological phenomenon that had lasting consequences for American intellectual history and scholarship. Accordingly, this book suggests ways in which Albright, or a social realization of Albright, was present in, and presented to, a culture of generational an

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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About the Author

Burke O. Long is Professor of Religion at Bowdoin College. He is the author of, most recently, 2 Kings. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Penn State University Press (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271015764
• ISBN-13: 978-0271015767
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,585,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Father of American Conservative "Biblical Archeology ", March 21, 2009

By 

Harry McCall "Independent Scholar" (Greenville, S.C.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Planting and Reaping Albright (Hardcover)

This important history and interpretation of the views and goals of the conservative linguist, archaeologists, and Biblical scholar, William F. Albright, is the fruit of many years of labor and dedication by Burke O. Long. One only needs to consider the impact which Albright's 'Baltimore School' students had on Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern studies at Harvard University to understand how the basis of evangelical Christianity (Albright was the son of a Medothist Missionary) could shape Biblical scholarship in the U.S. for the last 60 years. Personal letters (well footnoted) shows how Albright's dogmatic view of the truth of Biblical history for pre-monarchal Israel was a fact that only need to be read in the light of other ancient Near Eastern texts. Long's account is a 'must read' for all scholars and lay people alike who seek to understand conservative American evangelicalism.

5.0 out of 5 stars A LONG-OVERDUE CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF ALBRIGHT'S "BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY", November 10, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Planting and Reaping Albright: Politics, Ideology, and Interpreting the Bible (Paperback)

William Foxwell Albright (1891-1971) was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, linguist and expert on ceramics---particularly as a means of dating archaeological sites. He was the founder and acknowledged "dean" of so-called "biblical archaeologists" (often called the "Baltimore School," after John Hopkins University), particularly as they opposed the critical biblical theories of Julius Wellhausen (e.g., see Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel). Albright wrote many, many fine books (such as From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Otl) (The Old Testament Library), Archaeology of Palestine, etc.). He was also an editor and sometime author of the monumental Anchor Bible (e.g., The Anchor Bible : The Acts of the Apostles), Matthew (Anchor Yale Bible)).

Burke Long states in the opening chapter, "This study of William Foxwell Albright and the 'Baltimore school' is about BOTH the history and politics of scholarship, and about their inseparability... I have construed the Albrighteans' production of knowledge about the Bible through a postmodern lens."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"An older world of biblical criticism is passing away, Albright often stated. It is a world populated by workers so caught up in arid debates about literary forms, textual history, and authors of biblical documents that they are unable to use effectively those artifactual and inscriptional data which now permit fresh understandings of the Bible. A new era approaches, indeed has already dawned, and in these latter days Albright and his students hasten the victory of a new vision of biblical studies. They will reclaim the Bible from religious skeptics and myopic literary theorists; they will present a Bible that is finally explained in its ancient context, and yet a Bible that is historically reliable and theologically relevant to a modern world; they will grasp and master a Bible scientifically with the aid of philology and archaeological discoveries." (Pg. 35)
"Despite Albright's unquestioning acceptance of the main lines of Julius Wellhausen's 'higher criticism,' such as the theory of multiple authorship and complex editorial history of the Pentateuch, Wellhausen took form in Albright's mythic narrative as antagonist." (Pg. 37)
"The proposed dictionary ... would become, at least in prospect, a prime exemplar of how (G.E.) Wright and others, chiefly Presbyterians, yoked the methods of historical criticism to their desire to build renewed reverence for the Bible and shape its appreciation as a theological resource." (Pg. 91-92)
"Such scholars of the Bible---Albright now seemed to be placing himself in the company of both higher critics and biblical prophets---must be reformers inflamed with a prophet's passion and armed with a scientist's cold scrutiny. ... Albright nevertheless imagined himself becoming a prophet-crusader, less to seek social reform than to expose historical truth about the Bible." (Pg. 132)