Abstract
This essay is motivated by the challenge that biblical texts have very often lost their affective power to address and transform the lives of readers today, because they are either not read at all or they are not fully understood as the world of the text is too far removed from the world of the reader. There are however wonderful contemporary texts that do affect readers� lives and the question arose if the contemporary texts cannot be read together with the biblical texts, to bring them �to life� again?A hermeneutical approach needed to be found that could create the necessary space for non-biblical literary texts to be used to interpret and elucidate biblical texts. The narrative approach provides this space for the two texts to enter into creative dialogue, given that the two texts coincide sufficiently in the significance for the two implied authors, the reference of the texts and in the situation of the implied readers.
Highlights
It is not uncommon these days to be shown a movie clip or to be reminded of a best-selling novel in a sermon as the preacher uses these to elucidate a biblical text
The first challenge is described by James Smart as the strange silence of the Bible in the church (Smart 1970) and refers to biblical illiteracy
The current situation in the Western world is that the world is emerging from the secularised modern proclamation that God is dead, into a postmodern era where there is a new found interest in religion and with this interest a rise in religious fundamentalism and the markets are flooded with biblical and devotional literature
Summary
It is not uncommon these days to be shown a movie clip or to be reminded of a best-selling novel in a sermon as the preacher uses these to elucidate a biblical text. One can explain and interpret symbols and metaphors, but in the process they lose their affective power to transform and construct identities, one could argue that it makes complete sense to use extra-biblical material, which is written in the language of the believers today, to convey a Biblical message. What if there is a narrative that is read by numerous people today that has so many similarities to a particular biblical narrative that these two could be read together thereby opening the door to better understanding of the biblical text, and keeping the affective power of the text to help construct identities and ethical roles? For the book of Revelation to really have the same impact as it once had, it is necessary to find a new narrative – a narrative that inspires hope, constructs identities and challenges believers to a specific ethical life-style within the world. In the bulk of this article I will explain my understanding of hermeneutics and why I believe that it is hermeneutically justifiable to do this
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