(RNS) — For Duke Divinity School, it was a highly sought-after prize: A National Endowment for the Humanities grant to create the first scholarly edition of one of the great classics of biblical literature, the Psalms.
The grant would have led to the construction of a new archetype — or the earliest recoverable version — of the Book of Psalms, using a compilation of the best archeological manuscripts unearthed so far.
Brent Strawn, a professor of Old Testament at Duke Divinity School, and Drew Longacre, a researcher and independent scholar, won the $300,000 NEH grant in 2023. It also stipulated an additional $150,000 match if Duke Divinity School was able to raise the money, which it did.
But along with nearly 1,500 other NEH grants that supported work at colleges and universities, the Psalms project was canceled earlier this month as part of the Trump administration’s purge of the independent agency that supported research and scholarship in religion as well. That purge included the elimination of 65% of NEH’s employees.
President Donald Trump ran on a campaign promise to “bring back religion” and to end what he sees as Christian persecution in America. He has signed executive orders that establish a task force, spearheaded by the Justice Department, to “eradicate anti-Christian bias.” Already, the Department of Veterans Affairs has instructed the agency’s employees to report any incidents of anti-Christian bias, including any policies “hostile to Christian views” or punishments for displaying Christian symbols.
That same administration has also taken a chainsaw to numerous grants that aim to advance understanding of Judaism a …