I too strongly doubt the depth of our bench when it comes to being able to muster the personnel to write such a thing. Maybe in 15 years, after current grad students have acquired tenure at places other than BYU RelEd. There are not more than 7 trained biblical scholars I am aware of at BYU, none of whom regularly publishes in the outside world of Biblical Studies.

Interesting to see it play out, particularly as I’ve had some personal dealings with a handful of these people.

here are some gems:

#29 “…(to my knowledge there has been no articles or seminars at SBL involving creationists, snake-handlers, or faith-healers)…”

“…I just choose not to attend the specific meetings at the SBL annual conference that focus on Feminist and LGBT/Queer readings of the Bible. I think they are unscholarly and uncritical…”

#47 “…On the issue of dilution of scholarship, it seems that in recent years SBL has permitted students in Masters programs to give papers. I very much welcome students at all levels, but entry into a doctoral program or the completion of at least one year of a doctoral program should be required of all who give papers at meetings…”

#49 “…Some evangelicals are excellent scholars, but the radical, true believers really bother me. I am not sure what to do except to say that SBL is devoted to biblical criticism that does not seek to evangelize or distort interpretation…”

#50 “…Personally, ever since I began attending the national SBL conference in the 1980s, still in the critical investigation era, I have always been slightly weirded out. I would say, with some hyperbole to be sure, that I felt like an astronomer at a conference attended mainly by astrologers…”

“…Before Hendel began to worry about holy rollers, he should have asked why he was voluntarily associating with scholars of the New Testament. Fine people, most of them, but what has their field to do with ours? Only in a Christian context would these academics, with their advanced knowledge of Greek, Latin, Coptic, Mithraism, Roman history, etc., be grouped with us Old Testament scholars, with our Hebrew, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Egyptology, etc….”

#54 “…There are other groups [besides pentecostals] that now operate sections at the annual meeting that do not accept the principle of academic freedom, but since I don’t want to make more enemies, I invite you to peruse the annual meeting program.”

#61 “…I will not denounce my belief in God and in Jesus in the name of “critical scholarship.” I am a person of faith and I am a critical scholar and I will not violate my integrity as a believing Christian and a scholar to be a member of the SBL…”

There we are in response #27.

Fascinating that this is being debated at the level of the SBL.

Personally I don’t really see the point in having denominational sessions, if we’re all supposedly playing by the same rules.

But it is hard to get around the history and economics of faith funding scholarship.

However much I like to think of myself as (indignantly) independant, at the end of the day I am a parasite (on more than religion, of course).

http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=04&ArticleID=09&Page=0&UserID=0&

Basic conclusion: keep faith and reason neatly separate.

Oh, and are we LDS folks implicated in this uptick in fundamentalists types gaining footholds at SBL? I hope not, but I fear otherwise.

And for some ol’ timey academic smack talk check out the SBL response to this opinion and the comments that follow at

http://www.sbl-site.org/membership/farewell.aspx

Bible Dictionary
An alphabetically organized list of topical entries containing basic and broad information on its contained topics. Dictionaries may not necessarily be limited to one volume. For instance, if you wanted to find out about Urim and Thummim (what they are, where in the Bible they show up, maybe a couple of important works written about them), you would look that up in a dictionary under the entry Urim and Thummim.
Commentary
A long work of focused and thorough study on the entire Bible or a specific book. Where a Dictionary provides broad information arranged by topic, a commentary provides focused information arranged in the order of the text itself. A commentary may try to explain the text or at least inform its reader using multiple approaches, but not necessarily. For instance some commentaries focus exclusively on the transmission of a text through its surviving manuscripts. Others comment on the historical background of the text, and still others theologically expound on it. You might use a commentary if you wanted to know detailed and thorough information about a specific passage. For example, if you wanted to know what General Authorities have said about John 3:16 in the past, you would look up that passage in a commentary focused on providing quotations from leaders of the Church. But if you wanted some historical background, you may have to turn to a different commentary. A commentary’s user may scour its pages associated with the passage in question but never look at any other section of the commentary again. Like dictionaries, commentaries may be one volume or many volumes. They may contain the biblical text or not, but if the text is included, it is not usually directly beside the author’s notes about it and may be additionally abbreviated.
Study Bible
Study Bibles commonly contain footnotes and introductions/prefaces beyond what is expected in a normal printed bible. These notes usually provide focused, in-depth information on specific passages or ranges of passages and not simply cross-references. In this way a study bible may be a type of commentary, but perhaps not so detailed. The key difference is that a reader of a study bible is commonly focused more on the text than on the notes. Whereas the commentary’s user may look up a specific passage and never look at the volume again, a study bible is typically read large portions at a time with reference to the notes as needed. Consequently, notes in a study bible must be much briefer than in a commentary, but not as brief as in a regular printed bible. You may turn to a study bible if you want to read the whole bible or the whole book of Genesis through the perspective of the scholars whose notes the Bible features. An LDS study bible, for example, would have the Biblical text featured at the top or center of the page, and accompanying notes and commentary by LDS scholars and/or leaders would be off to the side.