Berlinerblau isn’t loopy, but his essay, as with his previous SBL forum article he mentions in his essay, leaves more unsaid than said.

A couple of his assumptions are problematic. Why should scholarship on the Bible have a wider cahet than it does? Why should we be surprised that undergraduates don’t major in “Bible”? Why is “Bible” even a recognized subject area? (i.e. why isn’t the subject area considered as Ancient Near Eastern or Ancient Mediterranean Religions?) To complain that most Biblical scholars are serving in sectarian contexts and then to suggest that more secular contexts need biblical scholars is to obscure, rather than clarify, the contingent historical factors which shape interest in “Bible” as a subject in higher education and academic research.