Theology and Biblical Interpretation

This course is no longer available. Please see
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Scripture, Christ, and Church.

Interpretation of the bible is an act of discipleship in the church. Modernity has seen a myriad of critical approaches to the bible that have renewed our attention to scripture in ways that are, at once, delightful, confusing, and irreplaceable. The last generation or two in theology has also seen an effort to return to more principally theologically informed approaches to scripture that incorporate the gifts of historical criticism without sundering our link to the memory of the church. This course will look at some of these “post-critical” approaches to scripture. We will constantly evaluate what each writer thinks ails biblical interpretation, what she or he thinks its remedies might be, and how these approaches to scripture might renew the life of the worshipping community.