Interpreting the Bible Amidst Ecological Degradation

Theology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 112 (867) ◽  
pp. 199-207
Author(s):  
Ernst M. Conradie
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Ecological Degradation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Contemporary Context

This essay explores the role of interpretative strategies in biblical interpretation. It is argued that ‘doctrinal constructs’ play a crucial role in appropriating the significance of biblical texts in and for a particular contemporary context. Various such constructs typically employed for an ecological biblical hermeneutics are analysed. Suggestions are offered towards the use of more sophisticated constructs, with reference to the notions of the ‘liberation of creation’, the ‘wisdom of God’ and the ‘whole household of God’.

scholarly journals CROSSING BOUNDARIES. THE TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL OF INTERCULTURAL BIBLE READING IN SECULAR / POST-SECULAR CONTEXTS

Scriptura ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Louis Jonker
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Bible Reading

Intercultural biblical hermeneutics is a fairly recent development in biblical scholarship in general. It emphasises that biblical interpretation almost always takes place in contexts where an array of cultural values and beliefs determine the outcome of the interpretative process. Although this branch of biblical hermeneutics emerged from the need to reflect theoretically on how Christians from different socio-cultural and socio-economic contexts engage the biblical texts, and one another on account of those texts, this approach may also be widened to include the interpretation of the Bible in non-Christian contexts (including the contexts of other religions and secular contexts) or even to engage in discourse on the interpretation of authoritative texts of different traditions (such as the Qur’an in Islam, in addition to the Tenakh of Judaism, and the Old and New Testament of Christianity). In research on intercultural biblical hermeneutics, it has been noticed that intercultural interpretation holds enormous transformative potential. My paper will examine how this could be of use in engagements between religious, secular and post-secular contexts.

scholarly journals Is hermeneutiek nog ergens goed voor?

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-137
Author(s):  
E. Talstra
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts

Is Biblical Hermeneutics still a meaningful discipline? Modern studies in hermeneutics either try to teach us how we can still speak about God in modern society, or that we should accept our limited abilities to speak about God at all. This article claims that these options separate God from the long history of biblical texts and contexts where He, as ‘I,’ addresses Israel as ‘you’. In his recent book on reading the Bible, Arnold Huijgen concentrates on the soul rather than on the ratio as an instrument for reading the Bible. Though agreeing with Huijgen’s criticism of modern rationalistic hermeneutics, this article does not see why the soul should take over the role of biblical scholarship when reading the Bible.

Postcolonial Liberation: Decolonizing Biblical Studies in the South African Postcolony

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O. West
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The South ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
African Black ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Economics ◽  
The 1960S

Liberation biblical interpretation and postcolonial biblical interpretation have a long history of mutual constitution. This essay analyzes a particular context in which these discourses and their praxis have forged a third conversation partner: decolonial biblical interpretation. African and specifically South African biblical hermeneutics are the focus of reflections in this essay. The South African postcolony is a “special type” of postcolony, as the South African Communist Party argued in the 1960s. The essay charts the characteristics of the South African postcolony and locates decolonial biblical interpretation within the intersections of these features. Race, culture, land, economics, and the Bible are forged in new ways by contemporary social movements, such as #FeesMustFall. South African biblical studies continues to draw deeply on the legacy of South African black theology, thus reimagining African biblical studies as decolonial African biblical studies—a hybrid of African liberation and African postcolonial biblical interpretation.

After Beryl Smalley: Thirty Years of Medieval Exegesis, 1984–2013

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Ocker ◽  
Kevin Madigan
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Fair Representation

AbstractThis essay surveys a generation of scholarship since the death of Beryl Smalley, pioneer in the study of the medieval reception of the bible, in 1984. We try to give a fair representation of work produced in English, French, German, and Italian over the last thirty years. We report on: 1) editions, tools, and translations, 2) surveys and synthetic treatments, 3) work on medieval biblical hermeneutics, 4) studies of periods and individuals, 5) thematic studies and studies of biblical books and pericopes across broad periods, and 6) comparative work on Muslim, Jewish, and Christian exegesis. We describe a rapidly growing quantity of knowledge and expanding perspectives on biblical interpretation in medieval culture. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

Loitering with Intent: Biblical Texts in Public Places

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Print Media ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Public Places ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Natural Place ◽  
The Common ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractThis essay is about the effect of the Bible in the public arena. It explores the fate of biblical texts as they find themselves in the popular press. Secular newspapers are not the natural place to look for biblical citations but now and then they make appearances either to support or subvert issues ranging from asylumseekers to the use of corporal punishment for children. At a time when biblical allusions and imagery have all but evaporated from the Western consciousness, the intermittent showing up of sacred texts in the secular print media is a sign that the scriptures still have some hermeneutical hold. The essay looks at four areas—international conflict, sexual orientation, law and order and bringing-up children—where biblical texts are being summoned either to endorse or to repudiate. The essay raises hermeneutical issues such as how biblical texts are used in print media, the nature of the texts employed, the interface between popular and professional reading, the role of the common reader as a biblical commentator, and concludes with an examination of the standing and sway of the Bible as it moves outside its own natural habitat.

scholarly journals Hermeneutics of Re-enacting Biblical Text(s) and Concept(s) in the History of Prophetism in Ghana’s Christianity: A Case Study of the Ministry of Agabus and Prophet Bernard Opoku Nsiah

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Daniel Nii Aboagye Aryeh
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Sitz Im Leben ◽  
History Of ◽  
Book Of Acts ◽  
Original Audience

Biblical hermeneutics is significant in delineating the meaning of scripture text(s) for contemporary audience. The critical historical method as well as its derivative criticisms is the widely used approach to understand what the text meant for the “original” audience in its sitz im leben. It is socio-historical in nature and curbs religious fundamentalism. However, its concentration on history does not make it suitable for prophetic ministries in Ghana. The approach to scripture interpretation by prophetic ministries since 1914 has been re-enactment of favourite scripture text(s) to have instructions for life in the present situation and the future. They believe that being biblical is the patterning of life style or activities along some popular characters in the Bible. Prophet Bernard Opoku Nsiah claims that his prophetic ministry is patterned or is a replica of the prophetic ministry of Agabus in the book of Acts. This essay examines biblical interpretation in the history of prophetism in Ghana’s Christianity, and how scripture text(s) were used as hermeneutics of re-enactment.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. xxx-3
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers ◽  
Peter W. Martens
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Theological Hermeneutics ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Sacred Scripture

This Introduction sets out the crucial role of sacred Scripture in the life, faith, and practices of the early churches, a centrality that is the very premise of all the essays in this Handbook. The editors also contextualize this Handbook within the burgeoning of interest in early Christian biblical interpretation that has unfolded in patristic studies in recent decades, and indicate its interest for scholars and readers from disciplines broader than patristics. An important aspect of this Handbook, highlighted here, is its attention to forms, modes, and genres of biblical interpretation beyond line-by-line commentary undertaken by scholarly exegetes. Only by observing these does one begin to grasp how Scripture was the lifeblood of early Christian communities. The Introduction closes by insisting on the importance of including early Christian biblical interpretation, whatever its foreignness to modern biblical-critical methodologies, in contemporary conversations over philosophical and theological hermeneutics.

scholarly journals Lessons from the Early Church for Today’s Evangelical Christianity

Kairos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-90
Author(s):  
Ervin Budiselić
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Rule Of Faith ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Presuming that within Evangelical Christianity there is a crisis of biblical interpretation, this article seeks to address the issue, especially since Evangelicals view the existence of the church as closely connected to the proclamation of the Truth. Starting with a position that Evangelical hermeneutics is not born in a vacuum, but is the result of a historical process, the first part of the article introduces the problem of sola and solo scriptura, pointing out some problematic issues that need to be addressed. In the second part, the article discusses patristic hermeneutics, especially: a) the relationship between Scripture and tradition embodied in regula fidei and; b) theological presuppositions which gave birth to allegorical and literal interpretations of Scripture in Alexandria and Antioch. In the last part of the article, based on lessons from the patristic era, certain revisions of the Evangelical practice of the interpretation of Scripture are suggested. Particularly, Evangelicals may continue to hold the Bible as the single infallible source for Christian doctrine, continue to develop the historical-grammatical method particularly in respect to the issue of the analogy of faith in exegetical process, but also must recognize that the Bible cannot in toto play the role of the rule of faith or the analogy of faith. Something else must also come into play, and that “something” would definitely be the recovery of the patristic period “as a kind of doctrinal canon.”

Living in the Forms of the Word: Bonhoeffer and Rosenzweig on the Apocalyptic Materiality of Scripture

2021 ◽  
pp. 095394682110313
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Biblical Texts

Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Franz Rosenzweig each provided rich reflections on how we are to understand and approach the Bible as God’s word. They each understood Scripture as revelation, while attending closely to the substance and forms of biblical texts. This article therefore explores how their approaches to Scripture can contribute to ongoing work in apocalyptic theology. In particular, it draws out the ethic of responsibility that is inherent in their biblical hermeneutics.

Influence: On Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-105
Author(s):  
Michal Beth Dinkler
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Human History ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Short Answer ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Do So

Abstract The influence of the Bible in human history is staggering. Biblical texts have inspired grand social advancements, intellectual inquiries, and aesthetic achievements. Yet, the Bible has also given rise to hatred, violence, and oppression—often with deadly consequences. How does the Bible exert such extraordinary influence? The short answer is rhetoric. In Influence: On Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation, Michal Beth Dinkler demonstrates that, contrary to popular opinion, rhetoric is not inherently “empty” or disingenuous. Rhetoric refers to the art of persuasion. Dinkler argues that the Bible is by nature rhetorical, and that understanding the art of persuasion is therefore vital for navigating biblical literature and its interpretation. Influence invites readers to think critically about biblical rhetoric and the rhetoric of biblical interpretation, and offers a clear and compelling guide for how to do so.

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