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The Bible and psychology: New directions in biblical scholarship

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Abstract

Part One, “Historical Retrospect on the Bible and Psychology,” documents the development of psychological biblical criticism as an emerging discipline within biblical studies since the 1960's. Part Two, “An Agenda for the Bible and Psychology,” advances a definition of the goal of psychological biblical criticism, enumerating ten areas of research: (a) recognizing the biblical text and biblical interpretation as part of a psychic process in which conscious as well as unconscious factors are at work; (b) meta-rational dimensions of hermeneutics; (c) the psychological polyvalence of biblical symbols; (d) the archetypal depth of biblical images and stories; (e) levels of meaning a text can evoke in readers and different modes of “actualizing” a text; (f) psycho-dynamic factors at work in biblical texts; (g) psychological insight into biblical personality characterizations and types; (h) the psychological description and analysis of biblical religious phenomena; (i) psycho-critical analysis of biblical “effects” as part of “biblical history;” (j) the reclamation of “biblical psychology” as a rubric in biblical scholarship, in conversation with models of the self in the psychological disciplines.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 500 Salisbury St., 01615, Worcester, Massachusetts

    Wayne G. Rollins (Professor of Biblical Studies at Assumption College)

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  1. Wayne G. Rollins
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He inaugurated the Psychology and Biblical Studies Group of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1991 and currently serves as its chair. His written publications in this inter-disciplinary field begin withJung and the Bible (1983).

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Rollins, W.G. The Bible and psychology: New directions in biblical scholarship. Pastoral Psychol 45, 163–179 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02251483

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