"This is the story of a group of people, dedicated to the teaching and research, who have influenced significantly the course of American bibilical scholarship for over a century. Some of them are well known beyond the circle of professional colleagues; others are familiar only to immediate associates and students. Their academic discipline of critical study of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures is among the oldest in the panoply of the fields of knowledge. Their Society ranks among the oldest of academic associations in the area of humanistic studies in North America. Its members are drawn from faculties of religious studies in undergraduate colleges and universities and graduate schools of religion in the United States and Canada ... 'The object of the Society is to stimulate the critical investigation of the classical biblical literatures, together with other related literature, by the exchange of scholarly research both in published form and in public forum. The Society endeavors to support those disciplines and subdisciplines pertinent to the illumination of the literatures and religions of the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean regions, such as the study of ancient languages, textual criticism, history, and archaeology.'"--Preface.