Models for Interpretation of Scripture

Abstract

Models for Interpretation of Scripture, by John Goldingay. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1995. Pp. x + 328. $20.00 (paper). Those already familiar with Goldingay's 1994 companion publication, Models for Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle, UK: Paternoster), will find this new book more of the same-a learned and engaging analysis that combines a commitment to appropriately chastened biblical criticism with a concern to read the First and Second Testaments as Scripture. principle, he writes, an academic or historical approach and a believing or theological approach are no tension with each other. Persons making such claims generally do so by paying lip service to or the other of these two. This is not the case here, for Goldingay, Anglican priest and principal of St. John's Theological College, Nottingham, is himself convinced and convincing that history and faith, criticism and devotion are one (p. 199). In order to make this case, he draws on, learns from, and wrestles with a dazzling array of both interpretive methods and interpreters-ranging from Jacques Derrida to Hal Lindsey, and all points between. Presuming the earlier discussion Models for Scripture, Goldingay shapes his presentation of the task of scriptural interpretation around the multiple ways Scripture speaks. The Bible's own glossolalia requires a variety of hermeneutical approaches, he insists, with the four primary forms of scriptural material inviting their own of interpretation and response (pp. 4-5). The four genres-narrative, instruction, prophecy, and experiential/revelatory material-correspond to four modes of utterance within scripture: law, prophecy, wisdom, and gospel. And each invites its own forms of response: To the storytelling and worship are the responses; to the they are delight and submission; to the they are repentance and hope; to the revelation, they are awe and theologizing. Modes of interpretation are likewise genre-specific, some inviting attention to the location of meaning the texts themselves; others behind the texts, the aims and interests of the text's authors or the life-setting of its tradition; still others front of texts, in the possible mode of being the world that the text sets before us. Goldingay has other ways of configuring his typology, all focused on the task of interpreting Scripture by exploring his model of the four ways which Scripture speaks: witnessing tradition, authoritative canon, inspired word, and experienced revelation. …