"You Are Engulfed with Misfortune because You Are a Sinner": A Reading of Job 4:1-9 for Nigerian Christians through the Lens of African Biblical Interpretation

Reviewed by: Violent Exceptions: Children's Human Rights and Humanitarian Rhetorics by Wendy S. Hesford Alexandra S. Moore (bio) Wendy S. Hesford, Violent Exceptions: Children's Human Rights and Humanitarian Rhetorics ( Ohio State University Press, 2021) ISBN 978-0-8142-1468-8, 260 pages. The recent New York Times story, "A Viral Photo Helps Bring Syrian Refugee Family to Italy," recounts how photojournalist Mehmet Aslan's award-winning photo of a father and son, both maimed by the war in Syria, spurred a successful humanitarian campaign to offer the family asylum and medical care in Italy.1 The photo titled "Hardship of Life" shows Munzir El Nezzel, who lost a leg in the bombing of a market in Idlib and is balanced on his crutch, raising his son Mustafa high in the air. Its caption explains that Mustafa was born without limbs as a result of the medication his mother took while she was pregnant with him to counter the effects of her exposure to nerve gas, and it is the composition and combination of father and son's loving expressions with their physical conditions that give the image its power.2 The photo and celebratory story of the family's arrival in Italy raise the questions driving rhetorical studies scholar Wendy Hesford's Violent Exceptions: Children's Human Rights and Humanitarian Rhetorics: how and why might the photograph mobilize viewers; how does the image of Mustafa combined with the promise of prosthetics in the Global North distract readers of the New York Times from environmental poisoning and violence affecting primarily poor children of color in the US; and, how might the successful humanitarian effort undertaken on behalf of Mustafa and his family deflect attention away from or substitute in public consciousness for the human rights claims of millions of Syrians affected by war? In Violent Exceptions, Hesford analyzes the figure of the "child-in-peril" in contemporary legal and cultural discourses that circulate in the United States. The book has two central aims. First, Hesford develops a material rhetorical methodology to analyze human rights-related case studies concerning children in vulnerable or violent contexts ranging from war and displacement to trafficking to disability to race, gender, and sexual identity. Second, she shows how the figure of the child-in-peril elides collective human rights struggles in favor of humanitarianism on behalf of select victims. In Hesford's words, the book "argues for the recognition of the limits of the humanitarian paradigm of human rights to address systemic violence and scale the magnitude of the risks that imperil the human rights, lives, and futures of children growing up in the midst of violent conflicts, racial dispossession, [End Page 640] and environmental degradation, and in contexts governed by the rise of authoritarian regimes and leaders."3 Hesford grounds the methodological framework of Violent Exceptions in a set of key theoretical concepts: genealogy, material rhetoric, diffraction, and exceptionalism. Drawing on Michel Foucault's genealogical method, she situates normative human rights and the rhetorics that engage them in their historical contexts. Each case study begins with a concise overview of the circumstances from which it arose. That attention to context, including the context of the relevant human rights norms and of the example's social and cultural representations, undergirds her material rhetorical approach. While she makes a sustained argument against humanitarianism when it functions as a neoliberal substitute for collective human rights claims concerning structural and systemic violence, she also considers the multiple, contradictory ways a given text might circulate and be consumed by different local, national, and transnational publics. Employing feminist physicist Karen Barad's concept of "diffractivity" to refer to those differences in meaning and significance, Hesford repeatedly asks how discourses are mobilized, by whom, within what contexts, and with what effects. In probing these questions of which stories and images of the child-in-peril circulate and to what ends, Hesford aims to refigure the idea of agency. The problem of whether children may be direct human rights claimants or require some form of custodial representation rests at the heart of children's human rights. Hesford approaches this problem by redefining agency. Instead of being tethered to the individual (the...

Old Testament dietary laws consist of the rules that God gave to the Israelites pertaining to what may be eaten and what should not be eaten. In the Old Testament, the animals that may be consumed are referred to as ‘clean’, whereas those which should not be consumed are referred to as ‘unclean’. The prohibitions on food were mainly aimed at preserving the identity of the people of Israel. This article analysed the dietary laws recorded in Leviticus chapters 11 and 17. It investigated the observance of the Old Testament dietary laws among contemporary African Christians, with specific reference to Nigerian Christians. The findings of this study revealed that in the contemporary Nigerian Christian practice, some Christians’ compliance or noncompliance to the food laws is faith-based, while for others it is not. Hence, some Christians obey the Old Testament food regulations on the premise of their loyalty to God, while some do not observe the dietary laws because they do not regard noncompliance as an act of disobedience to God. They believe that one’s faith in God is not determined by what one eats or does not eat. Moreover, the study discovered that in recent times, compliance or noncompliance to the dietary laws is also based on health, economy, culture and other factors. A greater percentage of the data used in this work were derived through personal communication. The researcher utilised the descriptive research methodology in analysing the data derived from both primary and secondary sources.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article is an Afrocentric assessment of the observance of Old Testament food laws among contemporary Christians. This study contributes to Old Testament modern discourses on dieting and sustainable lifestyle. Its related disciplines are nutrition and dietetics, dietetic medicine, biblical interpretation, African biblical hermeneutics and practical theology.

Biblical Interpretation in Judaism and Christianity, edited by Isaac Kalimi and Peter J. Haas. New York and London: T&T Clark, 2006. 265 pp. $156.00. One of the more exciting developments in recent decades in the field of biblical studies has been the turn away from a fixation on the prehistory of the sacred text to the study of its reception. This new interest in the history of scriptural interpretation is promising for a number of reasons. It has the potential of overcoming the (often artificial) divide between the scholarly community and the communities of faith, and it rallies together scholars from a variety of backgrounds and academic disciplines - secular and faithful, Jewish and Christian, of the modern and the pre-modern periods - around a common topic. The present volume, which brings together some of the leading scholars in their respective fields, is a most welcome addition to the rapidly growing number of publications on the history of biblical exegesis, as it reaches these objectives formidably. The book comprises sixteen articles. Of these most (we are not told which) were originally presented at a conference at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in May 2004, organized in honor of the publication of Isaac Kalimi's book Early Jewish Exegesis and Theological Controversy (Assen, 2002). Following an introductory essay by Isaac Kalimi, the articles are organized in three parts. Part one, with seven essays the longest section in the book, deals with classical and medieval Jewish biblical interpretation. Part Two, consisting of three articles, deals with the intersection of Judaism and Christianity in biblical interpretation. And Part Three, with six articles, turns to modern Jewish biblical studies. The three sections of the book differ markedly from one another. The focus of a conference volume of this sort will necessarily be on case studies, the study of individual texts and their interpretations, rather than on broader, systematic overviews. This is particularly true for the first group of articles, with articles on the pre-modern Jewish history of reading of Gen 4:8, and of Gen 35:22, and an essay on the shape of the Menorah. Two articles in particular are interesting. In Isaac Kalimi's article Targumic and Midrashic Exegesis in Contradiction to the Peshat of Biblical Text, the reader is treated to a wealth of cases in which the Rabbis deliberately part from the plain meaning of the biblical text in order to arrive at a certain interpretation. The other article that stands out, both for the breadth of the (otherwise little known) materials the author adduces from diverse Jewish Psalms commentaries and for its insightful conclusions, is Alan Cooper's On the Typology of Jewish Psalms Interpretation. Cooper argues that there are three different types of Davidic personae in these intriguing commentaries: the king of yore, the longed-for Messiah, and the Everyman of the present. …

In this article the author illustrates that the relationship between the Bible and the Church could also be described from the post-modern perspective of intertextuality. He argues that communities of faith are texts in an all-encompassing network of textuality. However, these texts, as all other texts, are involved in clusters of related texts that show an affinity with one another. Within these clusters the related texts become more prominent and significant than texts “further away” in the network of textuality. He uses this view to argue that the Church, along with the Synagogue, has a special responsibility in the process of interpretation of the written biblical texts. He also argues that all the approaches that biblical scholars have utilized through the ages, when viewed as different perspectives on the network of textuality, could assist in our reading of communities of faith as texts.

While some have seen critical biblical scholarship as a death knell to the Bible’s capacity to inspire Christian faith and worship, Howard shows that this need not be the case. With a vibrant style of writing, she unlocks the possibility of rich theological reflection in critical contexts. I expect her book will be well received in mainline seminaries and among well-educated laypeople in mainline congregations. She offers a well-reasoned articulation of how critical theories of composition can lead to theologically shaped praxis today. Her aim is to “propose three modes of innovation that can be gleaned from the Old Testament: adapting popular culture, rethinking theological assumptions, and developing a new genre” (p. 3).Howard’s introduction and first chapter do for progressive Christians what John Walton and Brent Sandy’s Lost World of Scripture does for conservative evangelicals—it expands the layperson’s vision of how texts were produced and what that means for how to read them well. Howard problematizes the idea of authorial intent, affirming the complexity of oral and scribal traditions. She rejects the idea that there is “one correct meaning or interpretation for any given biblical text” (p. 27). Still, she affirms the Spirit’s role in energizing biblical interpretation, helping readers discern how to read creatively for their contexts.In ch. 2, Howard explores the Bible’s adaptation of other cultures. She uses Proverbs and the flood story as her first examples of the Bible’s literary dependence on other ANE texts. For Howard, the biblical flood account is both similar and different from these accounts, which gives this composite text its own theological appeal. Her second example is court tales, the “deeply entertaining” accounts of Joseph, Esther, and Daniel, which she calls “largely fictional” but which foster consideration of the relationship between the community of faith and worldly power (45, 54).Chapter 3 facilitates a revision of theological assumptions by highlighting distinct voices that interpret history differently. After surveying Zion theology in the OT, she concludes that it predates Ezekiel (p. 73), who offers a stunningly innovative view of God’s presence as portable and available to the exiles. Deuteronomy is her other example in this chapter. Howard accepts a late date for Deuteronomy—an invention during Josiah’s reign. However, she refrains from calling it propaganda, since we cannot discern what motivated its production (p. 65).In ch. 4, Howard considers the emergence of new genres. She explains that apocalypses are written from below, by marginalized peoples, as a way of reframing political tyrants as limited and under God’s ultimate control. For this reason, she cautions against the use of these texts by those in power. Howard notes the specificity and generality of this genre to provide explanatory power to the first generation of listeners as well as productive imagination for subsequent generations. For Howard, the Daniel apocalypses were written after-the-fact to “predict” the past and make sense of suffering. She compares the Bible’s apocalyptic literature with efforts of minority communities today to reframe their experiences of suffering.Howard closes her book with “biblical principles for creative change” drawn from the preceding chapters (pp. 113–21), encouraging readers to use creative storytelling to reimagine each community’s identity, to “recognize and celebrate” the diversity of perspectives in Scripture, center new voices, and “embrace uncertainty” in biblical interpretation and in the life of faith.Conservative readers who do not share Howard’s posture toward critical biblical scholarship may find this book frustrating or simply less helpful for their contexts. In my view, Howard is too pessimistic about human ability to discern literary design (p. 26) and too flippant in her claims that the Bible is dependent on other texts (p. 34). For example, she argues that the biblical flood story is dependent on Mesopotamian accounts simply because surviving Mesopotamian flood texts are much older than surviving biblical manuscripts. Howard fails to acknowledge the possible oral prehistory of the biblical text that complicates attempts to discern the direction of influence. No doubt, if this were a different sort of book, Howard could make a fuller case for her claim. Still, her conclusion is unsatisfying. If a devastating flood really happened (whether local or global), then it is no surprise that multiple cultures would preserve memories of the event. Many conservative readers could accept the possibility that the biblical account is told over against the Mesopotamian version, offering a different rationale, but they may struggle with her presumption of literary dependence on it.However, even those whose starting point differs can benefit from the ways that Howard highlights “creativity amid crisis” in the Bible (p. 83). Her method could fruitfully inform other interpretive communities as well, encouraging us to take a step back and consider how the larger scene of textual production and canon formation in its historical context might lend insights for the role of the church in response to this cultural moment.

Listening to the Bible considers the present divorce between much academic study of the Bible and the church, and traces the history of modern approaches to the Bible, particularly “historical criticism,” noting its successes and failures—among the latter, notably, that it has been no more able to protect its practitioners from (in Benjamin Jowett’s phrase) “bringing to the text what they found there” than were the openly faith-based approaches of earlier generations. Drawing on a wide knowledge of literature and literary critical theory, and the insights of major literary critics such as Erich Auerbach and George Steiner, Bryan asks, What, in the 21st century, is the task of the biblical scholar? He indicates a series of criteria with which biblical interpreters may do their work, and in the light of which there is no reason why that work cannot relate faithfully to the Church. This does not mean an approach to biblical interpretation that ignores the specificity of scientific or historical questions or dragoons its results into conformity with a set of ecclesial propositions: honest questions honestly asked retain their autonomy. It does mean that in asking those questions, interpreters of the biblical text will not ignore its setting-in-life in the community of faith; and they will concede that although textual interpretation has scientific elements, it is finally an exercise in imagination: an art, and not a science.

Against Patriarchy

Latino/a/e biblical interpretation refers to the analysis of biblical texts, of interpretations of biblical texts, and of the process of interpretation itself from the perspective of Latino/a/e identities, experiences, and contexts. It is a form of minoritized biblical criticism that foregrounds Latinx identity and culture (in any of its varieties) as an interpretive lens (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article “Minoritized Criticism of the New Testament”). Recurring themes include identity, marginalization, race, ethnicity, mestizaje, mulatez, exile, migration, and gender. Often, Latino/a/e biblical critics operate with a sense that their work be informed by the daily lived reality of Latino/a/es and be accountable to the wider Latine community, especially with respect to matters of justice and equity. Still early in its formation, questions remain over what precisely counts as Latino/a/e biblical criticism. For example, does a scholar’s Latino/a/e identity by itself render their analysis an exercise in “Latino/a/e biblical interpretation,” or must they ground it explicitly in contextual Latino/a/e realities to qualify? “Latine” and “Latinx” have emerged as terms that transcend the gender binary implied by “Latino/a” and will appear in the bibliography (including in combinations like “Latino/a/e” and “Latinoax”). So will “Hispanic,” which Latino/a/e biblical critics now use sparingly. Turning to Latin America, biblical criticism there encompasses the diverse methods and approaches employed today, notably historical criticism, literary and semiotic analysis, feminist hermeneutics, and sociological and materialist approaches (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article “Interpretation and Hermeneutics”). Engagement with sociopolitical and economic realities, the struggles of marginalized communities, matters of social justice and liberation from oppression, the legacy of the region’s colonialization and of more recent political turmoil and rule by repressive dictatorial regimes, indigenous perspectives, and the environment all also characterize Latin American biblical interpretation, which emphasizes situating interpretation within the contextual realities of Latin America. Rather than cover the entire scope of Latin American biblical interpretation, this bibliography focuses on its development in relation to liberation theology, since Latin American liberationist hermeneutics have indelibly shaped biblical studies. Also limiting this bibliography’s scope is its concentration on English translations, because these are more widely available and themselves contain bibliographies to explore Latin American scholarship in its original languages (mainly Spanish and Portuguese). Since Latin American liberationist hermeneutics predate and influenced Latino/a/e biblical criticism, the bibliography first addresses Latin American biblical interpretation before turning to Latino/a/e biblical interpretation.

Book Review| December 01 2002 Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, John H. Hayes. Larry W. Hurtado Larry W. Hurtado Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Biblical Literature (2002) 121 (4): 745–747. https://doi.org/10.2307/3268579 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Larry W. Hurtado; Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. Journal of Biblical Literature 1 January 2002; 121 (4): 745–747. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3268579 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveSBL PressJournal of Biblical Literature Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Although recent studies of poverty in the Roman Empire show that roughly ninety percent of its population lived near, at, or below the subsistence level, modern biblical scholars have largely failed to see beggars as a part of early Christian communities. As Gurina-Rodríguez aptly problematizes, many scholars read their privileged positions into New Testament texts about poverty, reducing beggars to a homogenous group of passive victims or romanticizing poverty to promote religious values (e.g., trust, obedience, and modesty). Inspired by liberation theology and feminist and ecological biblical criticisms, Begging for Their Daily Bread pursues an alternative and much-needed “beggars-centric hermeneutic.” The author pays due attention to the Roman Empire's socioeconomic structure and beggars in Greco-Roman and Jewish sources and five New Testament passages to construct voices of three imaginary but verisimilar beggars who would have heard Matthew 6 in first century CE Antioch. Gurina-Rodríguez judiciously juxtaposes their voices with select “Western” scholars' “non-beggarly” interpretations, laying bare the existing interpretations' limitations. For instance, extant scholarly readings of Matt 6:1–4 (on almsgiving) and Matt 6:5–18 (on praying and fasting) focus solely on the givers and their relationship to God, never questioning how beggars, the presumed recipients of alms, could be rewarded in God's eyes. In contrast, Gurina-Rodríguez illuminates how the beggars' inability to practice righteousness through giving alms, praying in private rooms, and fasting alienates them from their faith community. Breathing agency into the three characters with destitution in common, Gurina-Rodríguez carefully yet confidently represents their various and possibly conflicting responses to Jesus's teachings. Concerning Jesus's teaching about praying in a room behind a closed door (Matt 6:5–6), disabled day laborer Georgios negotiates the text by incorporating his public prayers into begging for survival. Meanwhile, Kopreias, a formerly exposed child and now a young disabled beggar, simply dismisses the message, as there is no way that he can find a secret place to pray. The author also explains why the Lord's Prayer (Matt 6:7–15) makes Elpida, a homeless widow, both hopeful and doubtful. Elpida still trusts God the Father for salvation, but due to her urgent need for “the bread for today” and difficulties forgiving those who have assaulted her, only God's immediate—not distant, eschatological—interventions in this world are meaningful to her. Likewise, alongside Gurina-Rodríguez's many interesting exegetical points in the chapter “Treasures, Eyes, Masters, and Worries (Matt 6:19–34),” Kopreias's reaction to Matt 6:22–23 stands out. Jesus's teaching about healthy eyes and light may sound offensive to this blind beggar, or one can easily fall into an ablest interpretation of this text. However, Kopreias sees the text as evidence affirming his life full of darkness. His unhealthy eye, as frightening as the Evil Eye, helps to sustain his beggarly lifestyle, for people leave him coins to avoid eye contact. A deeper engagement with recent scholarly discourses on childhood and disabilities in the Bible would further enrich these interpretations of the beggars. Nevertheless, these three beggars' varied responses to Matthew 6 ultimately succeed in highlighting the text's ambiguity, demonstrating how it can be both encouraging and alienating to beggars. Despite its fresh exegetical insights, this book may not fully satisfy readers who are invested in the historical context of Matthew. For example, the three beggars' stories could be further complexified by reflecting “multiethnic antagonisms” present in an urban center like Antioch and the social history of Matthew's community that originated from the intra-Pharisaic polemic. Relatedly, how might these beggars have interacted with the church leaders and other members (most of whom are still poor, although not homeless), particularly in the Matthean community's colonial reality in the post-Jewish-war era? Nevertheless, Begging for Their Daily Bread offers a validly creative and challenging reading of the Sermon on the Mount, which calls for a sensitive and humble hermeneutic that centers beggars' lived experiences of “hunger, homelessness, diseases, disabilities, anger, frustrations, and hopes.” While the author's main audience appears to be Christian (“in our faith tradition”), whoever seeks to stand in solidarity with the poor today through biblical interpretation—whether lay Christians or academics in secular institutions—would find this book enlightening.

Problem Brazilian Adventist women have had limited access to theological-missiological education, partly because of a hierarchical, male-centered biblical interpretation of gender relations as applied to female teaching and learning experiences within the community of faith. Although the church intends to involve women in a kind of ministry that assumes a hierarchical paradigm, this remediative action is limited to motivation, outreach, and Christian piety. Method This theological-missiological non-formal curricular intervention provides access to theological education as well as role models for women in the church. It attempts to transform this restrictive scenario by the interpretation of the perspective and values of the biblical text as it relates to the church and society. The intervention proposes to enhance the formation of female leadership at the grassroots through a curriculum composed of modules on God and human needs, biblical spirituality, worldview, and leadership. Conclusions This study demonstrates that an accessible, God-centered, transformative, and comprehensive theological-missiological education may respond to the educational and human needs of women in the SDA Church. This intervention suggests that broad implementation of the proposed curriculum would have a positive impact on the problem of female theological illiteracy through the uncovering of theological, cultural, and sociological assumptions toward the formulation of a biblical and balanced view of human nature, human needs, and the human desire to know God and everything else in relation to Him.

This monograph seeks to advance current debate about the theological interpretation of Scripture via eirenic and constructive reflection on Stephen Fowl's and Kevin Vanhoozer's discussions about the nature of textual meaning. An opening chapter reviews the renewed interest in theological interpretation, with its unease about the characteristic modern programme to interpret the Bible ‘like any other book’. This interest brings a fresh engagement with religious conceptualities such as canon, community, and rule of faith, as ways of articulating what makes a sacred text distinctive. Since ‘a search for meaning is in many ways a quest for (an understanding of) God’ (p. 39), the question of meaning is seen as an appropriate focus for furthering theological reflection. The second chapter expounds and evaluates Stephen Fowl's many discussions of the nature of interpretation. Fowl's target is the deficiencies (as he sees them) of characteristically ‘modern’ biblical interpretation. He proposes that in our postmodern context we should think primarily about the varying interests that interpreters bring to their reading of the biblical text, and that theological interpretation becomes meaningful in relation to the use of the biblical text within Christian communities.

The Bible has been accorded an important role in the recent (and current) debate about homosexuality and gay people in South African churches, such as the Dutch Reformed, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist churches. The context is often one of high-charged emotions, and an existential experience of the hermeneutical results and biblical texts which are interpreted in different ways – although in every instance with considerable socio-political impact. In general, with the high stakes and ambiguity which are involved, reflection on the ethics of biblical interpretation is important. The ethics of interpretation concerns various facets and areas of biblical hermeneutical theory and practices, including contemplation of the status and use of the Bible in faith communities and broader society in South Africa.

Shawn B. Redford. Missiological Hermeneutics: Biblical Interpretation for Eugene, Oreg: Pickwick Publications, 2012, 363 pp. At outset, author of this book intends to build new bridge across great divide between biblical studies and missiological theology. Shawn Redford notes that past, both schools have ignored each other and have thereby created confusion. Biblical scholars have mainly asked questions about origin, form, faith community, and surrounding human civilisations order to examine how these shaped biblical text. But at same time, they failed to ask missiological question regarding purpose, design, and God's intentions as presented Bible. Meanwhile, missiologists have continued to superimpose their particular agendas on scripture or ignore Bible altogether (xi-xii). By addressing above-identified issues, Redford attempts to give shape to mission and nature of missional from perspective of what he calls the Church. He attempts to examine scripture as his primary source while taking into consideration secondary sources such as contemporary cultural values, historical struggles, and experiences of those who are engaged missio Dei (the mission of God). For Redford, key to understanding missiological is to overcome scientific polarisation Western hermeneutic and to perceive and learn from overarching missional and spiritual found throughout scripture. In this way, readers can balance missional, spiritual, historical-critical, and hermeneutical paths and are thereby empowered biblical interpretation for Global Church. Redford summarises chapter overview on pages 6 to 7. In terms of this book's structure, chapters 2 through 5 comprise major chapters, with chapters 2 and 3 addressing hermeneutical theory, and chapters 4 and 5 dealing with contemporary issues related to missional hermeneutics. Chapter 2 focuses on biblical studies that investigate some of most influential found within scripture, as well as distorted that author finds disturbing. Redford here offers complex and fascinating biblical study on texts such as Genesis 12, Daniel 9-12, and Matthew 8-12. In same vein of complexity, chapter 3 presents current hermeneutical trends in West and present state of missiological hermeneutics (6). Chapter 4 is historical case study, examining underlying employed over wide range of authors who address theological implications and missiological responses to issues African polygamy. From biblical and missiological perspectives, this is very timely study on human sexuality, looking at how Christian church has addressed or is addressing what author refers to as a difficult missional issue. Unfortunately, Redford ignores another contemporary issue related to human sexuality--namely, homosexuality. Both issues ought to be addressed today because both are applicable to evangelical and ecumenical churches. I wish author could have identified another contemporary issue chapter 5 as case study, but he instead focuses on missiological hermeneutics. This particular is not only beneficial for biblical understanding, but is essential for developing missiological insights scripture, while avoiding tendency to relegate valid mission insights scripture to realism of theology. The final chapter is summary, drawing together all insights and offering recommendations for future of missiological hermeneutics. …

Traditional approaches that have dominated the landscape of biblical studies in recent centuries have directed the interpretive task to historical understandings of textual meaning. These approaches have informed interests regarding theology and a given biblical passage or book, so that scholarly treatments in recent decades have focused mostly on theology as something to be found behind or in that text. Although the biblical canon provides general boundaries and categories within which biblical scholarship has done its work, a theological understanding of Christian canon has had a limited role within the arena of biblical interpretation and, in particular, the theological interpretation of these biblical texts. This essay asserts that the notion of Christian canon has a substantive role in the theological interpretation of the Bible. The first part considers issues in what may be called the "hermeneutics" of Christian canon. The second part considers three ways that this theological notion of Christian canon defines the task of theological interpretation. First, the Christian canon creates a different literary and interpretive context for the interpretation of these individual biblical books—a context that provokes potential intertextual and intracanonical connections in addition to intertextual connections available within the original reception context(s). Second, Christian canon assumes the Christian faith community as the place where theological interpretation occurs. Third, the notion of Christian canon assumes that the objectives behind reading and interpreting the Bible in its ecclesial context includes how the faith community lives out her interpretations of biblical texts in faith and practice.