Biblical interpretation and/or hermeneutics is largely influenced by context and prevailing events and/or issues. This is attested by many scholars in the field. Previous pandemics have influenced the way biblical hermeneutics is conducted during the period. The situation is not too different from the emergence of COVID-19. The pandemic has been scripturalised to argue that it is the fulfilment of scriptural signs for the second coming of Jesus. Others assert that it is the result of human sins (...) and 5G technology. Amid these propositions, biblical narratives concerning miracles/healing, eschatology, and hope were handled uniquely. This study employs narrative research criticism to analyse various propositions concerning COVID-19 and how biblical texts were engaged to propound an epideictic rhetorical theory of biblical interpretation during the emergence of COVID-19. The main finding is that although there are many assigned eschatological interpretations to the pandemic, there is an epideictic interpretation of miracle narratives of Jesus to minister healing to persons affected and infected by COVID-19.Contribution: This study emphasises the problem-solving approach to biblical interpretation in the African context. It proposes the application of this approach in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

This book applies philosophical hermeneutics to biblical studies. Whereas traditional studies of the Bible limit their analysis to the exploration of the texts' original historical sense, this book discusses how to move beyond these issues to a consideration of biblical texts' existential significance for the present. In response to the rejection of biblical significance in the late nineteenth century and the accompanying crisis of nihilism, B. H. McLean argues that the philosophical thought of Heidegger, Bultmann, Gadamer, Habermas, (...) Ricoeur, Levinas, Deleuze and Guattari provides an alternative to historically oriented approaches to biblical interpretation. He uses basic principles drawn from these philosophers' writings to create a framework for a new 'post-historical' mode of hermeneutic inquiry that transcends the subject-based epistemological structure of historical positivism. (shrink)

This study explores the nature of the conflict between science and religion. It shows through a detailed examination of this conflict as it was manifested in nineteenth century Britain that it is a fallacy that religion and science can co-exist in mutual harmony, since the legacy of their conflict in the past century has been inherited by this century, greatly to the detriment of religious belief. It is the author's contention that a return to the essentials of Kant's critical philosophy (...) would lay bare the profound differences between religious and scientific approaches to the world, and the nature of the choice people can make between them. In his effort to demarcate the outlines of a genuine Biblical theology (and to articulate the proper procedures for producing one) the author casts light on important questions of Biblical interpretation, and demands a radical reassessment of the meaning of science for society. (shrink)

The first comprehensive treatment of the relationship between biblical interpretation and Christian ethics.

This paper examines Augustine's exegetical theory and practice, with particular emphasis on the epistemology that undergirds his Biblical interpretation and the moral constraints on exegesis that Augustine sets forth on De doctrina christiana.

This book defines interpretation and examines the special issues that surround biblical interpretation. The authors analyze the development of traditional literary and historical criticism and more recent social, scientific, and literary approaches, focusing on the key figures from Reimarus to Gerd Theissen, and exposing the underlying theological issues. They reveal a pattern in the relationship between religious interests in the texts and the rational methods used to interpret them, providing guidance for a theologically sensitive use of the (...) Bible today. The book includes an annotated index with detailed information on over two hundred fifty biblical scholars and other interpreters. (shrink)

Timothy Bellamah explores the exegesis of William of Alton, a Dominican regent master at Paris during the thirteenth-century. A near contemporary of Bonaventure, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas, William was an important representative of university exegesis at a time of rapidly changing methods and remarkable intellectual development.

This study attempts to promulgate a method called 'hermeneutics of appropriation' as a thematic approach of a scientific research. 'Hermeneutics' is not the same as 'appropriation'; hermeneutics refers to a science of interpretation, whereas appropriation depicts an idea of adoption. Hermeneutics of appropriation employs themes as opposed to contextual biblical hermeneutics that focuses largely on contemporary interpretation of biblical narratives. Thus, adopting the phrase 'hermeneutics of appropriation' presents the idea of a scientific interpretation of a (...) theme that is applied in a differing context from which it originated. The present study aims at highlighting some dynamics that illustrate contextual biblical interpretation as a biased approach. Having presented such dynamics, the study will then suggest the employment of hermeneutics of appropriation in which relevant themes from the biblical text are utilised in a hermeneutical discourse. A dialogue with various previous contributions that conferred on contextual biblical hermeneutics will illuminate the above notion. With regard to hermeneutics of appropriation, representative examples of themes from the Judean postexilic context to be appropriated in the Zimbabwean postcolonial discourse comprises of two aspects: geopolitical and socioeconomic crises and Nehemiah's social justice reforms. The latter consists of five subthemes: public hearing to rebuke the leadership, condemnation of usury, payment of tax, return of personal property to the owner and food donation to the needy. (shrink)

Because the biblical interpreter in dealing with texts must deal with language, and because language is a social product, methods must be found which can deal with that social dimension of the biblical texts.

The results of Vatican II for the study of Scripture produced both expected and unexpected fruits. Those combined fruits provide the opportunity for some reflection on the current status of biblical scholarship in relation to the Church. This current status helps identify what we must appreciate and celebrate, but also helps identify remaining gaps to be filled. By assessing some of the gaps, the fruits of the second Vatican council are used to provide one way of approaching these remaining (...) gaps, and charting a hopeful way ahead. (shrink)

This article examines Athanasius’ argument in his work Contra Arianos, focusing on the reasons for the order in which he addresses the biblical texts he considers. While the choice of which texts to discuss is dictated by the need to consider those texts that were evidently important in the Arians’ own exegetical arguments, the order in which Athanasius discusses them derives from his desire to begin with biblical texts that clearly describe the whole sweep of biblical redemption. (...) Texts such as Philippians 2:5-11 and Hebrews 1-2 describe in some detail the movements of humiliation and exaltation which the Son undergoes as he becomes man, and thus these texts demonstrate the need to apply any given assertion about the Son either to his eternal existence as God or to his temporal existence as man. In such texts, the literary context-the subject of the passage itself-explicitly describes the broader redemptive context. As a result, these texts constitute the starting point from which to develop interpretive principles applicable to other biblical texts in which the redemptive context is not as obvious. The article concludes with reflection on the significance of Athanasius’ starting point: the story of redemption begins not with the Gospels or even with Genesis 1, but with the eternal relationship of Father to Son, a relationship we were created to share and redeemed that we might share it anew. (shrink)

This piece highlights the important contribution of the historical project of Mujerista Theology, as conceptualized and formulated by Ada María Isasi-Díaz, to the discourses of biblical criticism and Political Theology. With regard to the former, it is argued that mujerista interpretation interacts with key developments in biblical criticism, such as liberation hermeneutics, literary criticism and ideological criticism. With respect to the latter, it is argued that Mujerista Theology represents an excellent example of Political Theology.

God providentially guided the ancient classical authors into the perception of truths and the unmasking of errors. Even the errors they never caught are instructive. For Calvin, the only proper response to this rich intellectual heritage for a devout Christian people called to love God with their minds as well as with their hearts must always remain profound gratitude.

A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism. Edited by Matthias Henze. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2012. Pp. xv + 568. $50.

This study attempts to promulgate a method called ‘hermeneutics of appropriation’ as a thematic approach of a scientific research. ‘Hermeneutics’ is not the same as ‘appropriation’; hermeneutics refers to a science of interpretation, whereas appropriation depicts an idea of adoption. Hermeneutics of appropriation employs themes (hence, thematic analysis) as opposed to contextual biblical hermeneutics that focuses largely on contemporary interpretation of biblical narratives. Thus, adopting the phrase ‘hermeneutics of appropriation’ presents the idea of a scientific (...) class='Hi'>interpretation of a theme that is applied in a differing context from which it originated. The present study aims at highlighting some dynamics that illustrate contextual biblical interpretation as a biased approach. Having presented such dynamics, the study will then suggest the employment of hermeneutics of appropriation in which relevant themes from the biblical text are utilised in a hermeneutical discourse. A dialogue with various previous contributions that conferred on contextual biblical hermeneutics will illuminate the above notion. With regard to hermeneutics of appropriation, representative examples of themes from the Judean postexilic context to be appropriated in the Zimbabwean postcolonial discourse comprises of two aspects: (1) geopolitical and socioeconomic crises and (2) Nehemiah’s social justice reforms. The latter consists of five subthemes: public hearing to rebuke the leadership, condemnation of usury, payment of tax, return of personal property to the owner and food donation to the needy. (shrink)

Claude Welch, the distinguished historian of nineteenth‐century religious thought, once declared that Samuel Taylor Coleridge ‘may be seen as the real turning point into the theology of the nineteenth century’ and that he ‘was as important for British and American thought as were Schleiermacher and Hegel’.2 Still, Coleridge remains largely marginalized in the annals of church history and theology despite his unwavering prominence throughout much of the nineteenth century. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Coleridge's posthumously published (...) Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit , with its rejection of the verbal infallibility of Scripture and elevation of the importance of the individual in rightly discerning the truths of the Christian faith, has often been misread as an attestation of the primacy of the individual subject over the biblical text. It has been treated alternately as a document that signals the emergence of German higher criticism in England,3 a Romantic appeal to the fundamental importance of the subjective in religion,4 and an early form of reader‐oriented literary criticism.5 In this article I suggest that the attention devoted to Coleridge's denial of the verbal inspiration of Scripture, epitomized by the phrase that biblical inspiration is constituted by ‘whatever finds me’, has overshadowed his equally significant attention to the authority of church tradition in that same document. More specifically, rather than arguing for subjectivism in biblical interpretation, Coleridge equally emphasizes the objective sources of revelation expressed in Scripture and the church traditions handed over from the apostles. Rather than proposing a model of biblical inspiration that is wholly individualistic, Coleridge maintains a vision of Christianity that affirms the vitality of both the authority of the church and that of the believer. Thus, Coleridge's theological contribution to religious history is not that of an aberrant, absent‐minded poet, but rather that of a central participant engaged in an ongoing and pivotal debate in the history of England: the relationship between Scripture and church traditions.In order to draw out this important, though neglected, strand of thought in those ‘Letters on the Scriptures’, the name by which the Confessions is sometimes identified,6 I begin by briefly clarifying the nature of the idea of tradition both in relation to Coleridge and English theology in the nineteenth century. I then summarize the argument of the Confessions as a whole and turn more particularly to those sections of the Confessions that suggest the role Coleridge assigns to church tradition in relation to Scripture. Finally, after assessing the authority of the church in relationship to the divine Word, I turn to Coleridge's earlier works and his notes on the Works of William Chillingworth in order to demonstrate that his views on the respective authority of both the individual and the church were consistently held since near the time of his conversion to Trinitarian Christianity. I conclude that Coleridge's conception of the relationship between Scripture and church traditions calls for a reevaluation of his place in the history of religious thought in England. (shrink)

In common usage, ‘hermeneutics’ is a word often used interchangeably with ‘interpretation’. This has especially become so in biblical studies, but a review of how the word ‘hermeneutics’ came to prominence in biblical scholarship suggests that there is value in continuing to keep it as a concept distinguishable from interpretation. The omnipresence of the word in contemporary biblical studies obscures some of the specific roles that hermeneutics is well suited to perform. The potential benefits of (...) hermeneutics in this more limited sense for biblical interpretation are discussed with respect to the two main hermeneutical theorists of the late twentieth century: Hans‐Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. (shrink)

This article explores the dialogical engagement between text and interpreter, which is shaped by the particular socio-cultural location of African American readers/hearers. It identifies some of the key issues that help to shape an African American socio-cultural context and explores their implications for biblical interpretation.

Essays translated from French and published in English between 1974 and 1979. Includes bibliographical references. Preface to Bultmann.--Toward a hermeneutic of the idea of revelation.--The hermeneutics of testimony.--Freedom in the light of hope.

The essay reflects on how Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Barth view interpretation of the Christian Bible. It proceeds in three main sections. The first contends that Gadamer secularizes Christian theology, and that this has drawbacks for the sort of reading his hermeneutic can give to Christian Scripture. The second part turns to Barth, arguing that the whole structure of his approach to the Bible factors in theological commitment, with benefits for the readings he can deliver. The final part makes (...) a case that contemporary reflection on interpretation can nonetheless glean important insights from Gadamer, especially regarding the readerly reception of texts, because his perspective has a certain sort of richness that Barth’s cannot match. The overall suggestion emerging from the interrogation of these two thinkers is that phenomenology and theology might learn from one another, that they each contribute something valuable to discussions of biblical interpretation. (shrink)