CONTEMPORARY EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AS A NEW HEURISTIC MODEL FOR THE SOCIOSCIENTIFIC METHOD IN BIBLICAL STUDIES

Abstract. Notions of uniform and gradual evolution have been replaced in some circles by biological and paleontological models that postulate that periods of rapid change punctuate long periods of evolutionary stasis. This new theory, called punctuated equilibria (or PE for short), may have implications for paradigms in scholarly disciplines other than the sciences. Whereas old evolutionary models exerted great influence upon historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and students of religion for more than a century, the new model may provide heuristic paradigms for research that correlate more adequately with the current observations of scholars. We therefore provide suggestions for deployment of this new scientific paradigm in history and anthropology. In particular, this model can explain the rise of the Israelite state and the religious ethos in the Hebrew Bible, two major concerns of today's socioscientific study of biblical materials. Thus the possibility of an overarching paradigm for the social sciences is entertained.