Abstract
Clanton and Clark put together an interesting collection of essays in The Oxford Handbook of American Popular Culture. Though they claim to have no particular methodology in mind for their volume, a large number of the articles claim to utilize a Reception History methodology. For those not familiar with this methodology, it is an offshoot of Biblical Criticism that seeks to understand how the Bible is received and interpreted in different historical and cultural settings, as opposed to Biblical Criticism’s attempt to answer similar questions in relation to the ancient Israelites.
In defining the scope of the project, they state that their goal ‘was to provide an accessible, useful resource for readers interested in the reciprocal impact Bible and American popular culture have had, and continues to have, on one another’ (p. 9). In setting up this goal, they provide a lengthy discussion of the way in which the Museum of the Bible (MotB) is considered a perfect example of cultural perspective masquerading as truth, which they see as American exceptionalism bleeding over into a view of Biblical exceptionalism. They say, In essence, Young is describing what he and other scholars of religion refer to as ‘mythmaking.’ What evangelical Christians experience when visiting the MotB is an extended, material, pleasurable, reminder of who they are, what they believe, and how history has led to them. Myths, after all, help us explain ourselves to ourselves (p. 6).
This along with their agreement with Beal’s claim that, There never has been a time when we could really talk about the Bible in the singular. There is no such thing as the Bible in that sense, and there never has been. The Bible has always been a legion, a multiplicity of forms and contents, with no original to be found. In early Judaism and Christianity, there were many different…with no standard edition (p. 8),
demonstrates the particular cultural and historical view from which the authors write. There is a sense in which this volume propagates the idea that texts lack original meaning that is timeless and that can be gleaned by later audiences. There is a sense in which this volume attempts to do the very thing it critiques the MotB of doing, namely presenting a specific view of reality as it relates to the Bible, one in which all that exists in the Biblical message is the reader’s interpretation through their own cultural lens, one in which there is no possibility of objectivity in Biblical interpretation.
Despite the pretense of being unbiased, there were some interesting things within the essay collection. I especially liked the section on ‘Bible in Popular Cultural Genres’ as it demonstrated the usefulness of certain media in disseminating ideas. While I disagreed with the progressive assumptions of many of the authors, I found the volume to be insightful in terms of demonstrating the current state of the field, as well as having accomplished its goal of providing a primer to the field that encourages its readers in how to take the field forward. It was an interesting read that I would definitely recommend to the discerning bibliophile.