Insights from Cultural Anthropology

Each volume in the Insights series discusses discoveries and insights gained into biblical texts from a particular approach or perspective in current scholarship. Accessible and appealing to today's students, each Insight volume discusses:
-how this method, approach, or strategy was first developed and how its application has changed over time;
-what current questions arise from its use;
-what enduring insights it has produced; and
-what questions remain for future scholarship.
In this volume, Karl Allen Kuhn provides a description of what cultural anthropology is and how the discipline has impacted biblical studies. Looking at Scripture through the lens of cultural anthropology is related to social-scientific criticism, which refers to that phase of the exegetical task that analyzes the social and cultural dimensions of the text and its environmental context through the utilization of the perspectives, theories, models, and research of the social sciences.
Kuhn discusses general matters garnered from cultural-anthropology interpretation that would be relevant for the study of biblical texts. He analyzes several biblical specific texts from a cultural-anthropology perspective and provides conclusions, challenges, and considerations for the future of cultural anthropology and biblical interpretation.