Theology, Hermeneutics, and Imagination: The Crisis of Interpretation at the End of Modernity - Softcover

Green, Garrett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521045312 ISBN 13: 9780521045315

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2007

Synopsis

This book explores the contemporary crisis of biblical interpretation by examining modern and postmodern forms of the 'hermeneutics of suspicion'. Garrett Green looks at several thinkers who played key roles in creating a radically suspicious reading of the Bible. After Kant, Hamann and Feuerbach comes Nietzsche, who marked the turn from modern to postmodern suspicion. Green argues that similarities between Derrida's deconstruction and Barth's theology of signs show that postmodern suspicion ought not to be viewed simply as a threat to theology but as a secular counterpart to its own hermeneutical insights. When theology attends to its proper task of describing the grammar of scriptural imagination, it discovers a source of suspicion more radical than the secular, the hermeneutical expression of God's gracious judgement. Green concludes that Christians are committed to the hermeneutical imperative, the never-ending struggle for the meaning of scripture in the hopeful insecurity of the faithful imagination.

About this title

Book Description:

This book explores the contemporary crisis of biblical interpretation by looking at several modern and postmodern thinkers who played key roles in creating a radically suspicious reading of the Bible. Garrett Green discusses the various forms of the 'hermeneutics of suspicion', and considers the implications for the future of theology.

Review:

"Some fascinating insights emerges from Green's examination of some of the most significant intellectual development of the last two hundred years...Green provides a clear, helpful description of some of Derrida's key terms" Theology Today

"Green's new book...frequently incisive and makes a real contribution to the theologian's armoury in the face of much post-enlightenment thought." Modern Theology

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0521045312
• ISBN 13: 9780521045315
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 244