Archive | Text & Interpretation Notes on biblical texts and their interpretation.
"By carefully observing how the editors dealt with elements which they deemed unrepeatable (einmalig) but which they reckoned to be representative or universal in application, a basic hermeneutical direction is provided by which to broaden theological reflection beyond the Old Testament." (1992: 326) ... Is the redaction history of the text an example of typology in process?
By jgoroncy, 19 May 2008
One does not need to hold a remotely traditional position on the role of scripture in theology to find the spectre of conceptual chaos looming over Moltmann's formulations on this point. He has left himself with much to do in a future volume on norms and method in theology.
By D. Lewis, 24 April 2008
“Shall we accept the good from God, but the evil shall we not accept?” ... Vischer notes that Job keeps his focus on God rather than the goods that God grants. He writes with respect to Job’s second saying, „Er will nicht Güter, nicht das Gute, er lebt von Gottes Güte, die jenseits von gut und böse ist.“
By P. Sumpter, 21 April 2008
Brevard Childs has often been accused of “flattening the text,” i.e seeking literary unity where there is none for the sake of sticking with the text’s final form. However, it is clear as one reads his 1974 Exodus commentary that nothing could be farther than the truth... In what, then, does the "integrity" of the final form consist, if not in its literary structure, and why is this so important to Childs?
By D. R. Driver, 8 April 2008
God’s prohibition and the humans’ transgression need not be morally obvious to be genuinely serious. The serpent’s never telling the woman to transgress but rather undermining God’s trustworthiness and truthfulness and leaving her to draw her own conclusions points to the real core of human alienation from God and the real root of disobedience...
One of the most pervasive features of the Greek translation of the Psalter is the translation of “to the director” (Heb. lamnassēªḥ) with “to the end” (Gr. eis to telos) in about a third of the Psalms.... Augustine makes a verbal link from the Psalter to Christ by means of the term telos found in Romans 10:4. This is clearly a Christological reading of a Psalm that features little in the way of messianic material.
"The principle value of precritical exegesis is that it is not modern exegesis; it is alien, strange, sometimes even, from our perspective, comic and fantastical. Precisely because it is strange, it provides a constant stimulus to interpreters, offering exegetical suggestions they would never think of or find in any modern book..."
By W. Kynes, 3 March 2008
The crux interpretum of the second psalm has been the four words that span the end of the eleventh verse and the beginning of the twelfth. A “straight” reading of the MT for these words yields: “Rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son” (cf. ASV, ESV, KJV, NIV). However, the “straight” reading is questioned from a variety of angles.
Augustine of Hippo’s reading of Genesis 1 in City of God provides a fascinating example of pastorally sensitive theological exegesis. At a time when Christians-particularly Roman Christians-felt as if their once stable world was crumbling and receding into the twilight, Augustine put forth a message of hope.
By P. Sumpter, 20 May 2008
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