Serhii Holovashchenko. CRITICAL REVIEWS OF KYIV THEOLOGICAL ACADEMY’S PROFESSORS ON THE FOREIGN BIBLIOLOGICAL LITERATURE: TOPICS AND CONTENT (original) (raw)

Serhii Holovashchenko CRITICAL REVIEWS OF KYIV THEOLOGICAL ACADEMY’S PROFESSORS ON THE FOREIGN BIBLIOLOGICAL LITERATURE: TOPICS AND CONTENT (the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries) In this article, the author carries on his research into critical bibliographic reviews o f foreign biblical studies made by professors o f Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half o f the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In his analysis o f the structure and topics o f those reviews, the author spotlights how the European experience o f biblical studies played a role in shaping o f the Orthodox Biblical discourse in Kyiv Theological Academy. The European biblical studies o f that period increasingly promoted the biblical knowledge. Several leading intellectual centers were emerging as conceptual and methodological ‘camps’, including rationalistic, apologetic, and ‘moderate’ ones. Structurally, the foreign studies o f Bible have been focusing on the origin, authorship, historicity, and authenticity o f biblical books. Critical and apologetic interpretation strategies have been compared. The catalyzing effect was brought about by the text studies based on new critical editions o f the Hebraic, Old Greek (LXX), and Greek New Testaments as well as new dictionaries and grammar books. Biblical studies were in pursuit o f their proper place at the crossroads o f theology and a wide range o f historical, humanitarian and social sciences. Biblical studies were increasingly linked to current social and cognitive issues debated in the West. Remarkably, various biblical and non-biblical sources have been compared more and more frequently. Against this background, the sprouts o f religious comparativism and early efforts o f historical religious reconstructions have emerged. Finally, the comparison o f historical and mythological elements in the Bible was the focal point o f debates in the West for researchers o f both the Old and the New Testaments. Critical bibliographic publications, in particular the large annual reviews o f foreign literature, strongly illustrate that the Kyiv spiritual and academic biblical studies had been increasingly integrating in the global academic and theological dimension. Keywords: Bible, Bible studies, Science, Theology, European Context, Kyiv Theological Academy.