Western Marxism and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible

How does western Marxism influence the study of the Hebrew Bible? Through the work of scholars such as Norman Gottwald and David Jobling. The influence of both scholars is traced by using a Marxist dialectical method that seeks out contradictions, class conflict, ideology, and mode of production. Gottwald's work is characterized by a series of fruitful contradictions: dispassionate style and passionate content, tributary and communitarian modes of production, capitalism and democratic socialism and historiography and utopian writing. Jobling has moved from an earlier structuralist phase to a Marxist poststructuralism with a specific focus on liberationist hermeneutics. The basic contradiction is the use of First World critics to articulate a politics that looks outside that context. These problems are symptomatic of the tensions and class conflicts that face biblical critics working within late capitalism.