Symposium: Encountering the Bible through Bibliodrama and Exegesis 

Based on the results of recent PhD research conducted at the Protestant Theological University (Utrecht, the Netherlands), bibliodrama appears to possess “exegetical potential” or even can be regarded as a specific form of exegesis. It produces results and insights that have exegetical value and can be brought into conversation with the results of other exegetical methods. This exegetical potential, however, can either be stimulated or hindered. What factors contribute to this? And what kinds of exegetical insights can bibliodrama generate? Drawing on concrete examples, a manual will be presented that shows how a bibliodrama can be evaluated for its exegetical yield. 

This presentation introduces what kind of cooperation biblical scholars and bibliodrama instructors have engaged in the Finnish context. The late New Testament Professor Heikki Räisänen was one important pioneer in this front. Minna Salmi’s dissertation (2018) studies the relation of biblical studies and Bibliodrama both theoretically and in practice, through three case studies; this dissertation was done in the field of biblical studies. The presentation also discusses how bibliodrama has been used in academic education in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, and combined with historical-critical and other perspectives in biblical studies. Finally, we wish to present some questions for further discussion: participants always approach a text with certain preconceptions and their own interpretations – how are those made visible and also problematized in bibliodrama? If relevant background knowledge from biblical studies is offered, how can this be done in a way that the information does not come another “text” or restrict the participants’ entry into the textual world? 

In this lecture Merz will explore – drawing on bibliodramas that have been conducted and documented in research at the Protestant-Theological University - what happens when non-human characters like the earth or marginalized human characters like silent slaves become actors in Bibliodrama. She will describe the kind of meaning that can be gained by experiencing the story from the unusual perspective of these characters. She will also look how these processes can be categorized from a hermeneutical and exegetical point of view. It will become clear that there is a great potential to enrich certain exegetical approaches, like green reading of the bible, contextual approaches and even historical research into marginalized groups.