Born-Again Bibles: Biblical Studies after the “Death of the Author”

In this chapter, I address the “containment” of meaning in relation to questions of authorship (or lack of authorship) in biblical studies. By revisiting Roland Barthes’ and Michel Foucault’s critiques of the author figure, I suggest that the implication for biblical studies is the opening of meaning-making beyond the figure of the author in his or her original context. Engaging with Brennan Breed’s study on the divide between exegesis and reception history, I argue that biblical reception history can more radically counter the “containments” and “closures” of writing that Barthes and Foucault criticize. I suggest that the inherent “veering” movement of the Bible – or rather, bibles – prompts a different approach to biblical studies. Biblical studies can function as a specifically outward-facing intellectual endeavor that takes into account ongoing meaning-making supplementary to and symbiotic with other academic disciplines.