Resources for the History of Interpretation and
Reception History of the Bible
Marc Zvi Brettler, with the help of Matthew A. Arakaky
Resources for the History of Interpretation and
Reception History of the Bible
Marc Zvi Brettler, with the help of Matthew A. Arakaky
Reception history is an important part of contemporary biblical studies, suggesting how texts have been heard and interpreted over time. Those committed to more traditional historical-critical scholarship may also find that these interpretations often offer insights into the original meaning of the text.
This list, which is not exhaustive, offers some suggestions of sources for seeing how specific books, verses, figures, or motifs are interpreted in the postbiblical period. It doesn’t include resources on the Bible in general.
General Sources:
Bailey, Randall C., Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Fernando F. Segovia, eds. They Were All Together in One Place? Toward Minority Biblical Criticism. Semeia Studies 57. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2009.
Balentine, Samuel E., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Theology. Available online:https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref:obso/9780199843305.001.0001/acref-9780199843305?rskey=9lbILM&result=30
Beal, Timothy, ed.. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts. Available online:
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref:obso/9780199846511.001.0001/acref-9780199846511?rskey=9lbILM&result=31
Bibliography for Africana Scholarship, Anti-racism, and Minoritized Biblical Interpretation (https://www.sbl-site.org/educational/ResourcesAntiRacism.aspx). SBL.
Brawley, Robert L., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics. Available online: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref:obso/9780199829910.001.0001/acref-9780199829910?rskey=9lbILM&result=28
Camp, Claudia V., and Matthew A. Collins, eds. Scriptural Traces. New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2014– .
Clines, David J. A., et al., eds. Bible in the Modern World. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015.
Coggins, R. J., and J. L. Houlden, eds. A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990.
Coogan, Michael D., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Sections at end (“Interpretation”; “Reception History”) of each book. Available online: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref:obso/9780195377378.001.0001/acref-9780195377378.
Dietrich, Walter, and Ulrich Luz, eds. The Bible in a World Context: An Experiment in Contextual Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002.
Furey, Constance M., et al., eds. Studies of the Bible and Its Reception. Berlin; Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2013– .
Gorman, Michael J. Scripture and Its Interpretation: A Global, Ecumenical Introduction to the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017.
Hayes, John H., ed. Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1999.
Handbooks of the Bible and Its Reception. Berlin; Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2017– .
Illuminations Commentary Series. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2013– .
Journal of the Bible and Its Reception. Berlin; Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
Keener, Craig, and M. Daniel Carroll R., eds. Global Voices: Reading the Bible in the Majority World. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013.
Klauck, Hans-Josef, et al., eds. Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2009– . Middle and end of entries are most useful. Available online: https://www.degruyter.com/database/ebr/html?lang=en.
Kugel, James L. Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Lieb, Michael, et al., eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Many other Oxford Handbook of… focus on or have articles on reception history.
Matthews, Christopher R., ed. Oxford Bibliographies (Biblical Studies). New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Other Oxford Bibliographies Online are also useful.
McKenzie, Steven L., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. See index. Available online: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref:obso/9780199832262.001.0001/acref-9780199832262
The New Cambridge History of the Bible. 4 vols. Cambridge University Press, 2013–2016.
O'Brien, Julia M., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender Studies. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Entries on biblical books, time periods, mujerista, queer, feminist, womanist, etc.
Saebo, Magnus, ed. Hebrew Bible–Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996– .
Sawyer, John F. A. A Concise Dictionary of the Bible and Its Reception. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009.
Sawyer, John, ed. Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
Sawyer, John F. A., ed. The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.
Strawn, Brent A. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law. Available online: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref:obso/9780199843305.001.0001/acref-9780199843305?rskey=9lbILM&result=30
Segovia, Fernando F. Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2000.
Segovia, Fernando F., and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds. Reading from This Place. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995.
Sugirtharajah, R. S. ed. Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991; 25th Anniversary Edition, 2016.
Wills, Lawrence M. Introduction to the Apocrypha: Jewish Books in Christian Bibles. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
Jewish Sources:
Bialik, Hayyim Nahman and Yehoshua Ḥana Rawnitzki, eds. The Book of Legends: Sefer Ha-aggadah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash. Translated by William G. Braude. New York: Schocken, 1992.
Carasik, Michael, ed. The Commentators' Bible: The JPS Miqra'ot Gedolot = Miḳraʼot Gedolot. First edition. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005.
Friedeman, Caleb T., ed. A Scripture Index to Rabbinic Literature. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Academic, 2021.
Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. 2nd ed. Translated by Henrietta Szold and Paul Radin. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003.
Skolnik, Fred, and Michael Berenbaum, eds. Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. See especially end of entries on biblical books and figures.
Some English translations of medieval Jewish interpreters are found at sefaria.org and https://mg.alhatorah.org/
Christian Sources:
Oden, Thomas C., ed. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998–2001.
Blowers, Paul M., and Peter W. Martens, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Feminist Sources:
Brenner-Idan, Athalya, and Carole Fontaine, eds. Feminist Companion to the Bible. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 1993–97.
Byron, Gay L., and Vanessa Lovelace, eds. Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse. Semeia Studies 85. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016.
Dube, Musa W. Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. St. Louis, MO.: Chalice Press, 2000.
Newsom, Carol A., Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E, Lapsley, eds.. The Women's Bible Commentary. 3d ed. London: SPCK; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2012.
Reid, Barbara, ed. Wisdom Bible Commentary. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015–.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014.
Smith, Mitzi J., ed. I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015.
Taylor, Marion Ann, ed. Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012.
Yee, Gale A., ed. The Hebrew Bible: Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018.
Africana Sources:
Adamo, David Tuesday. Explorations in African Biblical Studies. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001.
_______. Reading and Interpreting the Bible in African Indigenous Churches. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001.
_______. “The Task and Distinctiveness of African Biblical Hermeneutic(s).” Old Testament Essays 28 (2015): 31–52.
_______. “What Is African Biblical Hermeneutics?” Black Theology: An International Journal 13 (2015): 59–72.
Adeyemo, Tokunboh, ed. Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006.
Page, Hugh R., Jr., ed. The Africana Bible: Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009.
West, Gerald O., and Musa Dube, eds. The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories, and Trends. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Wit, Hans de, and Gerald O. West. African and European Readers of the Bible in Dialogue. Studies of Religion in Africa 32. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
African American Sources:
+ see section on Feminist Sources, for womanist sources.
Bailey, Randall C. “Academic Biblical Interpretation among African Americans in the United States.” Pages 696–711 in African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures. Edited by Vincent L. Wimbush and Rosamond C. Rodman. New York: Continuum, 2000.
Bailey, Randall C., ed. Yet with a Steady Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation. Semeia Studies 42. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002.
Bowens, Lisa M. African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020.
Brown, Michael Joseph. Blackening of the Bible: The Aims of African American Biblical Scholarship. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2004.
Smith, Abraham. “Black/Africana Studies and Black Africana Biblical Studies.” Brill Research Perspectives in Biblical Interpretation 4, no. 2 (2019): 1–92.
Smith, Mitzi J. Insights from African American Interpretation. Reading the Bible in the 21st Century. Edited by Mark Allan Powell. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017.
Latinx Sources:
González, J. Santa Biblia: The Bible through Hispanic Eyes. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996.
Isasi-Diáz, Ada María. “A Mujerista Hermeneutics of Justice and Human Flourishing.” Pages 181–95 in Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation. Edited by Alejandro F. Botta and Pablo R. Andiñach. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009.
Lozada, Francisco, Jr.. Toward a Latino/a Biblical Interpretation. Resources for Biblical Study 91. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017.
Lozada, Francisco, Jr., and Fernando F. Segovia. Latino/a Biblical Hermeneutics: Problematics, Objectives, Strategies. Semeia Studies 68. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014.
Asian Sources:
Foskett, Mary F., and Jeffrey K. Kuan, eds. Ways of Being, Ways of Reading: Asian American Biblical Interpretation. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2006.
Kim, Uriah Y., and Seung Ai Yang, eds. T & T Clark Handbook of Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2019.
Sugirtharajah, R. S. Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism: Contesting the Interpretations. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1998.
Wan, Ske-kar and Mary F. Foskett, eds. Diverse Strands of a Common Thread: An Introduction to Ethnic Chinese Biblical Interpretation. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014.
Wintle, Brian, ed. South Asia Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015.
Wong, W. C. A. “Beyond Colonialism and Postcolonialism: Feminist Readings of the Bible in East Asia.” Pages 28–51 in Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Retrospect II: Social Locations, ed. S. Scholz. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2017.
Islander Sources:
Havea, Jione, ed. Sea of Readings: The Bible in the South Pacific. Semeia Studies 90. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018.
Havea, Jione, Margaret P. Aymer, and Steed V. Davidson, eds. Islands, Islanders, and the Bible: RumInations. Semeia Studies 77. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015.
United States Sources:
Gutjahr, Paul C., ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Clanton, Dan W., Jr., and Terry R. Clark, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and American Popular Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Segovia, Fernanado F. and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds. Reading from This Place Volume 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.
LGBTQ Sources:
D. Guest et al., The Queer Bible Commentary. London: SCM, 2006.
Goss, Robert E. and Mona West, eds. Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2000.
Hornsby, Teresa, and Ken Stone, eds. Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.
Stone, Ken, ed. Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2001.
Avalos, Hector, Sarah J. Melcher, and Jeremy Schipper, eds. This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies.Semeia Studies 55. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007.
Melcher, Sarah J., Mikeal C. Parsons, and Amos Yong, eds. The Bible and Disability: A Commentary. SRTD: Studies in Religion, Theology, and Disability. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017.
Moss, Candida R., and Jeremy Schipper, eds. Disability Studies and Biblical Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 2011.
Olyan, Saul M. Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.