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As a Canadian, Ehud Ben Zvi, president of the SBL and professor emeritus in history, religion, and classics at the University of Alberta, doesn’t face the Trump administration’s pressures on academic freedom. But as leader a of a global society, he’s well aware of a world under the stress of constant, rapid change.

How do you connect the SBL with the onslaught of change?

Everything is changing—we have to accept this. Political changes. Social changes. Demographic changes. Changes in labor. These are manifested differently in different places, but it’s everywhere and academia has to deal with it, too. I look at how scholars, knowing there was change in biblical times as well, can contribute to helping people understand and deal with change—the morality, the ethics, the pressures that come with it.

What special contributions can scholars make?

We are, or should be, among the people with a larger vision. We know you can’t just focus on this verse or that verse. You have to look at the entire social, cultural system in which that verse is being read. What we call biblical studies is a huge field and incredibly diversified. It includes people dealing with how the texts were read and are being read and interpreted today by communities of faith. This allows us, along with others in the humanities and social sciences, to lead in efforts to deal with change.

You seem to welcome this challenge. Why?

Every challenge is also an opportunity. At a conference like this in Boston a great amount of energy is generated. We’ll see people from different backgrounds, different places in the world, different social circumstances, talking to each other. Of course, the sessions matter, but the power of the conference is in its horizontality, not
its verticality.

Let’s say someone has a new book, and 200 people come to a room to discuss it. The publisher is incredibly delighted. The author is delighted. Everyone is happy, okay? But this doesn’t have a long term impact. The impact comes when you see the author later and you say, I want to talk with you about X, Y, and Z that you said. Now, there’s a new connection. New ideas can come up. There will be thousands of people in Boston, and if every person has two conversations, imagine that!

You’ve examined how people create shared narratives not only of their past but also shared hopes for their futures. And you always speak of futures in the plural. Will you be touching on this in your plenary address?

The official title for my address is “Open the Gates: Exploring Futures for Us as Scholars, for Our Field, and for Our Society of Biblical Literature.” I say futures because I expect everyone will bring their own new vision of the future and we can start new conversations. I say open the gates because if there’s a wall around you, you don’t see the horizons.

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