• Preface
• 1. Caught in the Prolegomena: Julius Wellhausen and Source Criticism
• 2. In the Beginning: Hermann Gunkel and Form Criticism
• 3. In the Underground: Martin Noth and Redaction Criticism
• 4. The Longest Revolution: Phyllis Trible and Feminist Criticism
• 5. A Spectre is Haunting Biblical Studies: Norman Gottwald and the Social Sciences
• 6. On the Beach: The Bible and Culture Collective and the Postmodern Bible.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

'Symposia' illuminates the central issues and concerns of biblical studies by presenting a series of stories. The model for the stories is the ancient Greek idea of the symposium, a 'sitting down together for the purpose of drinking'. In Plato's writings, the symposium becomes a genre of writing with Socrates at its centre, a character who perpetually questions in order to develop the pursuit of knowledge. Some of the most influential figures in the history of biblical studies - Julius Wellhausen, Hermann Gunkel, Martin Noth, Brevard Childs, Norman Gottwald, Phyllis Trible, and the Bible and Culture Collective - become the central characters in these stories. Each aims to voice their central arguments, to highlight and confront the key challenges they see and, of course, to dispute the positions of others.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: The futures of biblical pasts
• Part 1, Africa. Biblical interpretation and criticism in neocolonial Africa : challenges, conceptualizations, and needs in the twenty-first century / Israel Kadmuzandu
• Beyond the "ordinary reader" and the "invisible intellectual" : pushing the boundaries of contextual Bible study discourses / Sarojini Nadar
• Dealing (with) the past and future of biblical studies : a new South African perspective / Jeremy Punt
• Part 2, Asia. Unleashing the power within : the Bible and Dalits / Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon
• For a better future in Korean biblical studies : dialoguing with myself in a different context / Yong-Sung Ahn
• Biblical studies in a rising Asia : an Asian perspective on the future of the biblical past / Philip Chia
• Part 3, Europe. The future of a nonexistent past : biblical studies in Bulgaria / Milena Korova
• Unity and diversity in Nordic biblical scholarship / Hanna Stenström
• Part 4, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberation in Latin American biblical hermeneutics / Pablo R. Andiñach
• Paper is patient, history is not : readings and unreadings of the Bible in Latin America (1985-2005) / Nancy Cardoso Pereira
• Liberating the Bible : popular Bible study and its academia allies / Jorge Pixley
• Biblical studies in the Anglo-Caribbean : past, present, and future challenges, opportunities, and possibilities / Gosnell Yorke
• Part 5, Pacific. Drifting homes / Jione Havea
• Braiding the traditions in Aotearoa/New Zealand / Judith E. McKinlay
• Caught in between : Australian biblical studies between Asia, the Pacific, and the West / Roland Boer
• Part 6, North America: Canada and the United States. Reading the Bible in "our home and native land" : exploring some margins and migrations in Canadian biblical studies (through the lens of Psalm 137) / Fiona C. Black
• The virtual Bible / George Aichele --What has been done? What can we learn? : racial/ethnic minority readings of the Bible in the United States / Tat-Siong Benny Liew
• Changing the paradigms : toward a feminist future of the biblical past / Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
• Cultural criticism : expanding the scope of biblical criticism / Fernando F. Segovia
• Signifying on the fetish: mapping a new critical orientation / Vincent L. Wimbush.

"What does global biblical studies look like in the early decades of the twenty-first century, and what new directions may be discerned? Profound shifts have taken place over the last few decades as voices from the majority of the globe have begun and continue to reshape and relativize biblical studies. With contributors from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America, this volume is a truly global work, offering surveys and assessments of the current situation and suggestions for the future of biblical criticism in all corners of the world."--Back cover.