A FUNDAMENTAL CONDITION FOR ETHICAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE BY WHITE MALE EXEGETES: RECORDING AND CLAIMING THE SPECIFITY OF OUR PERSPECTIVE

  • Daniel Patte Vanderbilt University
  • Gary Phillips College of the Holy Cross
Keywords: Teaching the Bible, Pluralistic Contexts, Ethical Accountability, White Male Exegetes, Ethics, Biblical studies

Abstract

This essay is a report on ‘work in progress’. It is a critical reflection on a project that we have been developing for more than one year. Provisionally entitled, ‘Teaching the Bible in Pluralistic Contexts: Ethical Accountability and White Male Exegetes’, this collaborative project in its present form is the beneficiary of a year-long Lilly Endowment-sponsored planning grant which feature a major conference held in March 1991 at Vanderbilt University. In attendance were twenty African-American, Hispanic-American, and European-American women and men trained in biblical studies and ethics. Originally conceived to explore questions about the disciplinary relationships between ethics and biblical studies (both in teaching and research expressions), our project is now centered upon a specific two-fold ethical question: what is the nature of the ethical accountability of white (i.e. European-American) male teachers of the Bible toward students? and: what are the direct and indirect effects of our teaching and research upon students?
Published
2020-11-29
Section
Articles