Concerning post-modernism and modern historical criticism in Biblical studies. There was a little spat a while ago (3 years!) involving an article written jointly by Aichele, Miscall and Walsh (“An elephant in the room: historical-critical and postmodern interpretations of the Bible.” *JBL* 128 (2009): 383–404.); this article drew an acrid answer from one of the good rational historians of ancient Israel: Van Seters (“A response to G. Aichelle (sic!), P. Miscall and R. Walsh, ‘An elephant in the room: historical-critical and the postmodern interpretations of the Bible’.” *JHS* 9, no. a26 [2009]:1–13).

What I miss in this exchange is a sense of the people whose lives, or rather shells of a life (texts, temples, palaces, houses, pottery, jewels, tools, etc.), became the subjects of that history. The so-called or self-baptized post-modernists wish to stay away from ontological or essentialist frames and give voice to unrecognized, silenced, or displaced texts, histories or identities, away from authors or authorities and their claims to control everything, but often end up framing new ontological categories. Most historians of ancient Israel and Judah, on the other hand, tend to be more preoccupied with visible structures, archaeological, textual or not, and do not elucidate sufficiently the links to the people’s lives by studying further language, family structure, labor, tenancy and tax systems, indebtedness, links to religious structures, etc. Great progress has been made, but much is left to do, thanks to the absent subject of history (others call this shadow of ourselves God). Good thing too.

Another reaction I had when reading this was how insular the post-modernist claims appear to be. “This time period is that of a much less confident modernity than that of the nineteenth century.” (page 396 of the *JBL* article). My initial movement is to agree, but what is the basis for this opinion, aside from the need to link “historical criticism” to 19th century’s bourgeois, tainted thinking? At one end, what does nineteenth century mean here? The likes of Wellhausen, Berthelot, Renan and US railway barons, all in a big bourgeoisie bag? At the other end, is the purported present lack of confidence oozing from philosophy and theology books in the US and Europe representative of the thinking of an endangered intellectual middle class but of little else? This is but a small part of the world…