Europe Contested: Contemporary Bible Readings Performed by "Ordinary" Readers in a European Context (EABS)

Call For Papers: The goal of this session is to provide a formal, yet supportive platform upon which scholars working within the field of contextual biblical interpretation in a European context can present and share their fieldwork findings. Whilst preference will be given to papers that address the two themes below, this session also welcomes any contextual readings of biblical texts produced by groups of ‘ordinary’ readers from faith, interfaith or non-faith perspectives, so long as such papers explore readings which somehow engage with ‘Europe’ as a geographical, historical and political phenomenon. Thus, we also invite papers that engage in the response to Europe and European culture and politics in a post-colonial context. However, scholars contributing to this session must draw upon case studies from their own fieldwork. Session One. Biblical Interpretation and Policy Making The academic study of real readers’ engagement with the Bible has demonstrated a high potential for policy making. We invite papers that demonstrate how ‘data’ from their research can be used to inform procedures and change practices in the governmental system (e.g. national refugee boards) or in the Church (e.g. the liturgy) etc. Session Two. Reading the Bible with Non-Believers The fact that the Bible is the Holy book of the Church, but also has gained a culturally ‘canonical’ status may produce contradictory relations with and sentiments toward the biblical texts among non-believers. We invite papers that explore the hermeneutics of non-believers.

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