On Performance Criticism, Lived Religion, and the Hebrew Bible.

This article examines the application of performance criticism—a framework from performance studies—to scholarship on the Hebrew Bible, emphasizing its potential to illuminate aspects of life, religion, and culture in ancient Israel often absent from traditional textual analysis. Building on prior debates about orality, literacy, folklore, and memory, performance criticism considers biblical texts as dynamic performances involving actors, audiences, and embodied rituals, thereby revealing "lived religion" beyond institutional frameworks. Key proponents, such as Doan and Giles, have applied this approach particularly to the prophetic books, highlighting performative elements like gesture, speech, and audience interaction, while others extend it to genres like proverbs and narratives, including female-centered traditions. Although still emerging and underutilized in Hebrew Bible studies, this framework offers promising avenues for exploring ancient Israelite identity, community, and power relations through both theatrical and non-theatrical performances preserved in the biblical texts.