Soteriological approach in biblical studies: stating the problem

The problem of reception of achievements of world biblical studies along with developing their own tradition is remaining relevant for the Orthodox biblical society and cannot be considered as the solved one. The main obstacle for this process is created by the opposition of the categories of scientificity and churchism, this opposition taken as an axiom in many conspicuous fields of biblical science. The categories in question are presented in the problematic perspective with the help of the interval methodology developed by F. V. Lazarev and M. M. Novoselov, taking into consideration essential transformations of ideas of scientificity in the 20th-21st centuries. In this perspective, it is shown that being characteristic of church biblical studies, awareness of their own prerequisites and comprehension of incompleteness of any rational description of a multidimensional object of research in a new methodological context turns out to be rather an advantage than disadvantage. Due to the approach found it is possible to determine the limits of applicability of the historicalcritical method and agnostic paradigm of biblical studies on the whole. Based on the conclusions made, a task statement is outlined - to rethink the methodological constituent of biblical studies of contemporary conceptions of scientific rationality. The result sought is given the provisional title “Soteriological Approach” proposed at the IV All-Russian Seminar of Teachers and Researchers of the Holy Scriptures, held at St. Petersburg Theological Academy in 2022. The issue of the reception of results of other branches of biblical studies is thus transformed into a complex of tasks within the framework of the soteriological approach, including analysis of their axiomatics and clarification of the limits of application of the methods.