Biblical Interpretation: A Roadmap

Biblical Interpretation: A Roadmap is a guide to discovering and asking the key questions - about biblical texts, about readers of the Bible, and about the interaction of the two - that forms the basis of biblical interpretation today. These questions are organized around three fundamental assumptions that govern the authors' approach to reading the Bible: the biblical texts arise from particular historical, social, and cultural settings: the reader likewise reads from a specific setting; and neither the diversity of the texts nor the multitude of readers stands in isolation one from the other. Tiffany and Ringe here offer an approach to biblical interpretation that takes both the texts and the reading context seriously, guiding and encouraging readers to draw upon the expertise and authority of their own life experiences and contexts. They also recognize that wide-ranging experiences and contexts are necessarily involved in biblical interpretation, showing how critical engagement with those contexts, in all their historical, social, and cultural diversity, is itself an unavoidable and invaluable part of the interpretative process.

Sharon Ringe is Professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, D.C. She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and adjunct professor at Universidad Bíblíca Latinoamericana, San Jose, Costa Rica.