INTERESTING AND INTERESTED READINGS: DECONSTRUCTION, THE BIBLE, AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT

Abstract

In this essay I discussed a crucial debate in biblical hermeneutics: the debate between interesting and interested readings of the Bible. I am aware that this discussion is only one aspect of a wider discussion and that I totter on the brick of that black hole which is modern and postmodern literacy criticism.I begin by briefly outlining some recent shifts within biblical and literacy hermeneutics. My discussion then considers two types of response to the crises in hermeneutics which emerges from this overview. Throughout this discussion I use aspects of the discussions taking place in literacy hermeneutics around deconstruction to illuminate the issues in biblical hermeneutics .I then analyse David Tracy’s approach to the interpretation of the Bible in the light of the hermeneutic crisis and in the light of the two types of response to this crisis. Finally, I conclude by drawing together what I see to be some of the implications of his discussion for a liberative reading of the Bible in South Africa.