Empire, the British Museum, and the Making of the Biblical Scholar in the Nineteenth Century

Download or read book Empire, the British Museum, and the Making of the Biblical Scholar in the Nineteenth Century written by Gregory L. Cuéllar and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-08-23 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the modern period, the field of biblical studies has relied upon libraries, museums, and archives for its evidentiary and credentialing needs. Yet, absent in biblical scholarship is a thorough and critical examination of the instrumentality of the discipline’s master archives for elite power structures. Addressing this gap in biblical scholarship lies central to this book. Interrogated here is a premier repository or master archive of the discipline: the British Museum. Using an assemblage of critical theories from archival discourse to postcolonial studies, space theory to governmentality studies, the focal point of this book is at the intersections of the Museum’s rise to scientific prominence, the British Empire, and the conferring of scientific authority to modern biblical critics in the nineteenth century. Gregory L. Cuéllar initiates a season of historicization of the master archives of biblical studies and archival criticism.