Literature and Theology Advance Access originally published online on July 17, 2009
Literature and Theology 2009 23(3):276-288; doi:10.1093/litthe/frp042
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Challenging Texts—Reception and Transformation of Biblical Texts in Popular Science1
Theological Faculty, Aarhus University, Taasingegade 3, 8000 Århus C, Denmark MVN{at}teo.au.dk
 |
Abstract |
|---|
The reception of biblical texts within works on science by evolutionary biologists has not received much attention previously. It is, however, an interesting aspect of the reception of biblical texts in public culture today. An analysis of some of the texts provided by evolutionary biologists involved in communicating science to the general public reveals a confrontational engagement with biblical texts, such as the Book of Job and Genesis 1 and 2. This article will present examples of the biblical reception in the work of E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins within a context of the general reception of literature in their work, with an emphasis on how the involvement with biblical material points to the negative normativity of these texts. The article will furthermore discuss the reasons behind this involvement, especially in relation to the proposal by some evolutionary biologists to replace religious narratives with narratives based in science. This final theme points to how biblical texts seem to represent a norm, which some evolutionary biologists deem it necessary to break and replace through the reformulation of new narratives about what it means to be human.