JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL AND RELIGION, THE. - Official journal of the Protestant National Association of Biblical Instructors to foster religion in education (= NABI, an acronym alluding to nábbi' "prophet"), by now widespread throughout the United States, with its seat in Baltimore. The Association was founded by Ismar John Peritz in Syracuse (N.Y.) in 1909; from 1919 to 1932 it published its proceedings and articles in Christian education (complete list in J. of B. and R., 18 [1950], pp. 24-26), but from 1933 it had its own semiannual journal, Journal of the NABI, which from vol. V (1937) became a quarterly, with the present title.
According to its constitution the NABI intends to work for a more efficient biblical and religious instruction, especially in secondary schools, colleges, universities, and theological schools (cf. J. of B. and R., 17 [1949], p. 215 ff.). For the most part it synchronizes its meetings with those of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, publisher of the Journal of Biblical Literature and Exegesis. However, the orientation of the two periodicals is formulated differently: to the latter belong technical and specialized research, while the J. of B. and R. aims to treat the results obtained "in a scientific, but not technical manner." It is therefore a journal of high-level popularization, but interesting and topical also in the field of scientific exegesis, with bibliographies and bulletins on biblical problems (Research abstracts, from 1947 onward); it also treats subjects of the history of religions and of religious philosophy.
For biblical archaeology there is a special editor. The journal is markedly "interdenominational," open to the various ecclesiastical and theological currents; it reflects the doctrine of "orthodox" Protestants.