Our origins
Putting it in perspective: Biblical Studies in Sheffield
When the Sheffield Department was founded in 1947 by F.F. Bruce, it was called the Department of Biblical History and Literature—which meant, in a nutshell, no theology. The University authorities, while responding to the post-war demand of national education policy for teachers of Bible in state schools, were adamant that the Church should gain no foothold in this secular university. If the Bible were to be taught in this institution, it would be in the name of history and of literature, and as objectively and undogmatically as it was possible to be.
But, whatever the unofficial views of the University authorities may have been, there has never been any animus within the Department against the Church and ordained ministers. Two of its Heads, James Atkinson and John Rogerson, were Anglican clergymen, and the Department has numbered among its staff several Anglican priests, ministers of the Presbyterian Church of England (now part of the United Reformed Church), of the Church of Scotland, and of the Methodist Church.
Nevertheless, the Department has been perhaps somewhat unusual among departments in the field of theology in having had as tenuous a connection with the institutional Church as it does. That does not mean that there is still 'no theology'. The name of the Department was changed in 1968 to Biblical Studies precisely to reflect the fact that the ideas of the Bible—in addition to its history and its literature—are part of the central concern of the Department, even if these days the theology of the Bible is increasingly referred to as its ideology. Yet it is perhaps our independence, our space outside theology, that provides the point of departure for the original, cutting-edge biblical scholarship for which Sheffield is renowned.
The undergraduate curriculum at Sheffield is, like everything else, research-led. That means to say that colleagues do not have to serve a programme laid down by tradition, but can contribute to the curriculum modules they want to teach, on the areas they are researching in or wanting to develop next. They do not walk into the classroom, let it be added, and read the pages they wrote yesterday for their latest book. They are committed to a philosophy of student-centred learning and teaching, but they do not teach courses they dislike or have not chosen to fit within their own research portfolio.
Located now within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, along with History, English, Philosophy and Archaeology, the department and its modules attract students from outside its own pool. Undergraduates pursuing our single honours programme have the possibility to take courses within other specialisms, while staff benefit from interaction with colleagues across the humanities. Sheffield is the only
university to offer a specialist MA in Biblical Studies ∧ Archaeology, run jointly by the Departments of Biblical Studies and Archaeology.
With thanks to David Clines, Professor Emeritus of the department, for permission to draw on his 'Intellectual Biography' of the department.
The full text of his article, originally published as a chapter in Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies (ed. Clines and Moore; JSOT Supplement Series, Sheffield, 1998), pp. 14-89.), is available to read (in .pdf format):
The Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies: An Intellectual Biography (Clines, 1998)
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