Challenging Contextuality

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Abstract Challenging Contextuality provides a new and innovative contribution to the study of biblical texts and their interpretation by bringing together current and promising, yet still marginal approaches to biblical interpretation. As marginal voices are often drivers of innovation, this volume, therefore, both sets the agenda for the future of the field and provides a synthesis of fruitful approaches so far. In doing so, it aligns itself with the broadly shared, yet still only partially operationalized hermeneutical conviction that contextuality is a catalyst for interpretation. This applies in equal measure to approaches and methods that are often framed as ‘traditional’ or ‘mainstream’ (e.g., the methodological canon of the historical critical approach as the offspring of the European Enlightenment) and those that are often dubbed ‘contextual’ (e.g., forms of feminist or ‘indigenous’ interpretation). Ultimately, this volume aims to ground contextual biblical interpretation within the broader landscape of biblical studies. The contributors to this volume are all interested in the contexts in which Bibles are read. Rather than a series of examples of contextual biblical interpretation, though, this book is concerned with what it means to do contextual biblical interpretation, how contextual biblical interpretation challenges biblical scholarship, and what chances there are for this mode of inquiry, going forward. The overarching thesis of this volume is not that context matters—that is self-evident. It is that context should be a challenge and a chance for biblical scholarship, and not only ancient contexts.