Biblical Interpretation Research Articles

Putting on Sarah’s Skin: Victim Identity in the Abrahamic Stories and Beyond

Abstract This article explores the complex identities of Sarah and Hagar within the Abrahamic narratives, focusing on themes of victimhood and perpetration. It challenges feminist biblical interpretations that portray Sarah solely as a victim of patriarchal structures or postcolonial interpretations that see Sarah solely as a perpetrator, arguing instead for a nuanced understanding that recognizes her role as both a victim and an oppressor. The article highlights the unique as well as shared struggles of Sarah and Hagar against patriarchy, suggesting that their relationship is emblematic of broader issues of race, class, and gender dynamics. The analysis incorporates illustrations from the literature, urging a re-evaluation of Sarah's character in the light of contemporary discussions on oppression and complicity. By examining the narratives through the lens of cohabiting women, the article illustrates the complexities of their interactions and the implications for modern feminist discourse. Ultimately, it aims to liberate Sarah from her archetypal role, presenting her as a figure whose experiences resonate with the struggles of diverse individuals today, fostering a deeper understanding of victimhood, and promoting a non-violent response to systemic oppression.

Challenging Distance: Reframing the Subtle Violence of Biblical Interpretations

Challenging Distance: Reframing the Subtle Violence of Biblical Interpretations

Semantic Variability of the Word ‘Creature’ in Elizabethan Prose Fiction

The present research focuses on the exploration of the meaning of the word ‘creature’ in the context of Elizabethan prose fiction. The inherent vagueness and ambiguity of the lexeme ‘creature’, comprising diverse meanings, yields its multiple readings and interpretations.The aim of this study is to determine who or what this word denotes in narrative contexts, thereby elucidating its varied meanings and delineating the scope of its referents within the framework of denotational semantics.Through a comprehensive analysis of the compiled corpus of Renaissance narratives, employing qualitative and quantitative methodologies, this investigation establishes a range of meanings of the word ‘creature’ and identifies its referents in the corpus texts.The referential domain of this word encompasses humans, nonhuman beings, and unspecified entities. The findings reveal a distinct preference among Elizabethan authors to perceive “creature” as a human being, aligning with the biblical interpretation of this word.This research highlights the impact of biblical motifs on Elizabethan fiction, contributing to our better understanding of this literary era within its historical, cultural, and religious background.

Backlighting Jeroboam: Form, Content, and Paronomasia in 1 Kings

The book of Kings portrays the period from Solomon’s death to the death of Ahab as signally consequential for Israel’s history as a people. The period began with the permanent partition of the nation. From the Kings perspective, however, the impact of Jeroboam I’s cultic innovations was even more catastrophic. The book’s preoccupation is to demonstrate a causal relationship between infidelity to YHWH and deleterious change manifested in societal and political instability and misfortune. This study applies two current trajectories of biblical interpretation, namely, ‘form follows function/content’ analysis and close reading of the text’s orthographic features to probe what 1 Kings 11–22 is saying about this dynamic and how it says it. The study concludes that, whether the medium be orthographic manipulation, graphic polysemous constructions, or onomastic paronomasia, form and content are closely coordinated in this text. This symbiosis between paronyms and content subtly reinforces the composition’s unity.

The Bible and the Mission: Mission of Japanese Missionaries in Korea under Japanese Imperialism, 1896–1921

This article examines the contrasting ways in which Korean Christians and Japanese missionaries interpreted the Bible during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1896–1921). Drawing on primary sources from both Japanese and Korean perspectives, the article highlights how biblical interpretation became a site of both ideological struggle and resistance. While Japanese missionaries often employed biblical narratives to legitimize Japanese imperialism and discourage Korean nationalism, Korean Christians found solace and inspiration in the Old Testament’s themes of liberation, drawing parallels between their own situation and the Israelites’ struggle for freedom. The Japanese government's prohibition on reading the Old Testament further exacerbated these contrasting interpretations, with Japanese missionaries generally supporting the ban and Korean Christians finding ways to resist it. By analysing these divergent interpretations, the article illuminates the complex interplay between mission, Bible, and imperialism in early twentieth-century colonial context of Korea. The article argues that the Korean case study offers a powerful historical example of how important it is that missionaries not only defend their own use of the Bible, but also remain open to the contextual interpretations of others.

Thomas Fulton. The Book of Books: Biblical Interpretation, Literary Culture, and the Political Imagination from Erasmus to Milton Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Pp. 371. $75.00 (cloth).

Thomas Fulton. The Book of Books: Biblical Interpretation, Literary Culture, and the Political Imagination from Erasmus to Milton Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Pp. 371. $75.00 (cloth).

Anglican Biblical Interpretation in the Nineteenth Century: A Critical Evaluation, written by Cole William Hartin

Anglican Biblical Interpretation in the Nineteenth Century: A Critical Evaluation, written by Cole William Hartin

Genesis 15:1–6 and child adoption in Awkunanaw, Enugu state, Nigeria

Adoption is a global phenomenon, and many childless couples choose adoption because they cannot have children biologically. Over the years, legally approved orphanages have been a beacon of hope for prospective adoptive parents. However, in contemporary times, many childless couples have employed both legal and illegal means to have children. As a result, baby-making industries have become a lucrative business because it is a fast means for childless couples to have children. In the contemporary Awkunanaw, this practice has devalued socio-cultural practices and made the Awkunanaw society and her dwellers vulnerable to social vices. This study investigates the importance of adopting a child from a known background other than a strange one. Genesis 15: 1–6 tells of God’s covenant with Abram in which God promised him a great reward. Amid the divine promises of greatness and protection, Abram was worried about his state of childlessness. The part of the pericope which relates to this study is that Abram adopted an heir from a known background. The exegetical research methods employed in studying Genesis 15:1–6 include a narrative method and sociological approach to the study of the Old Testament. The data obtained through interviews and secondary sources were analysed using the phenomenological method. The study aims to advocate that Awkunanaw parents who patronise baby-making industries should desist from such practice as it contributes to the prevalence of social vices in the community.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article studies adoption in Awkunanaw, Enugu state, Nigeria, in the light of Abraham’s narrative in Genesis 15:1–6. In Awkunanaw culture, adoption from an unknown background is abhorred. The article submits that adopting children from unknown backgrounds is precarious for the social development and peace of the Awkunanaw community. Hence, the study is a contribution to Old Testament discourses on religion and society. Its related disciplines are sociology, biblical interpretation and practical theology.

Lovely tents: a Jewish ecospiritual perspective on urban homeless encampments

ABSTRACT Engaging with Jewish texts through a lens of ecospiritual social work provides a framework to incorporate housing rights and homelessness into ecospirituality. This article deploys a Jewish Ecospirituality perspective to consider the issue of urban homeless encampments as a spiritual and environmental justice issue. This article incorporates biblical interpretation and ecospiritual perspectives to situate a Jewish understanding of ecospirituality. It draws connections between the diasporic history of the Jewish people and the displacement found in urban park encampments utilizing Jewish environmental ethics and ecospiritual social work theory to deconstruct the rightful use of public space in the context of urban citizenship.

Distinctions: Uses of the Bible in Immigration Debates

This article considers and responds to some of the ways the Bible is used in US immigration debates, focusing on restrictive interpretations by conservative scholars. It highlights how biblical texts are often applied to support modern distinctions, such as legal versus illegal immigrants, by selectively interpreting passages like those referring to the “least of these” or the treatment of sojourners versus foreigners. The discussion draws on some complexities of theological history, including how Western Christianity’s colonial mindset distorted biblical teachings, leading to exclusionary practices. The article contrasts these views with more inclusive biblical interpretations that emphasize hospitality and justice.

Artificial intelligence and Afrocentric Biblical Hermeneutics crossroads in Zimbabwe (Col 2:8)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) isset to revolutionise global knowledge domains and biblical hermeneutics is no exception. At face value, in Zimbabwe, AI has been stigmatised as a humanistic and profane technological system with an immense propensity to cause general religious backsliding, degeneracy, vain philosophising and secularisation of the Gospel of Christ. This article isolated Colossians 2:8 as a lens to investigate the congruency of Artificial Intelligence to the pericope’s scope of ‘philosophy, vain deceit, tradition of men and rudiments of the world’. The Zimbabwean setting was used to examine whether the Colossian Christian Church’s philosophical aspersions bear any semblances to how AI is viewed among the clergy, theologians, Christian believers and academics of religious studies. The qualitative methodological paradigms of African Biblical Hermeneutics and Exegetical Method were employed in the study. The study mainly established that AI, like a tool in the hands of a workman, can either build or destroy, enhance or adulterate biblical hermeneutics depending on how it is viewed and used.Contribution: The article reflects on how the world’s most nascent technological development, Artificial Intelligence, impacts on biblical interpretation generally, but, more particularly, in the Zimbabwean context.

Enraptured by Rapture: Production Context, Biblical Interpretation, and Evangelical Eschatology in The Rapture, Left Behind, and This is the End

Enraptured by Rapture: Production Context, Biblical Interpretation, and Evangelical Eschatology in The Rapture, Left Behind, and This is the End

The Educational Significance of Feminist Theology in Contemporary Christian Education: Possibilities for a New Reading of Bible - Through the Examples of Biblical Interpretation by Berg, Moltmann, Moltmann-Wendel

The Educational Significance of Feminist Theology in Contemporary Christian Education: Possibilities for a New Reading of Bible - Through the Examples of Biblical Interpretation by Berg, Moltmann, Moltmann-Wendel

Anatomizing God?

Abstract This essay analyses Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s God: An Anatomy with reference to some general questions about the nature of biblical interpretation. Stavrakopoulou’s core contention is that Persian-period theological editing has obscured the original nature of Yahweh, who was not different from any other ancient male deity of southwest Asia. That is, Yahweh was bodily with the desires and practices of a violent and sexually active male, no more than a human projection. Four questions are put to her thesis. First, how well does she understand the kind of classic theological reading which she rejects? Secondly, is her outworking of her core thesis self-consistent, or does it function to warrant a distinctive reading strategy for what has not been editorially obscured but is rather the plain sense of the biblical text? Thirdly, does she do justice to the metaphorical dimensions of language in Hebrew and religious language generally? Fourthly, does she appropriately distinguish the nature of Israel’s scriptures from the religious history that may underlie them? Finally, an analogy is drawn with the work of Robin Lane Fox, in exploring the differences that an interested approach may, or may not, make to ancient historical and biblical interpretation.

The “Theology” of Richard Rohr

Based on R. Rohr’s book The Universal Christ, this arti-cle presents a very critical review of Rohr’s „theology“. It focuses on Rohr’s crucial theological decisions, on his hermeneutics, his biblical interpretations and some important theological concepts as sin, evil, or christology. It sets Rohr’s view into a critical contrast to the tradition and current literature to particular topics. As concluded in the end, based on the reasons provided, the article doubts that Rohr’s propsal can stand to academic scrutiny.

Decolonizing the New Testament Texts: A Postcolonial Task

This essay traces some of the major directions of New Testament interpretation, both in terms of a turn to empire and also specifically in India. Attention to the impact of empire in shaping the world and texts of the New Testament is argued to be a crucial development which provides an important foundation for postcolonial hermeneutics. Postcolonial hermeneutics is shown to be especially influential for interpreters in the Indian context, and various streams and trends within Indian biblical interpretation are presented. Decolonizing the New Testament texts will require such an empire-critical and postcolonial hermeneutic, as well as the incorporation of such concerns within the Western academy. Finally, a reading of Jude 23 is offered as an illustration of this postcolonial hermeneutic in practice. This text illustrates both the imperial context of the early Christian communities and also their efforts to develop a spirituality of resistance.

White Christian Nationalism, Biblical Proof Texting, and Literacy Curriculum and Instruction

AbstractIf the White Christian nationalist movement has significantly galvanized parent, community, and larger‐scale political groups whose guiding ethos challenges teacher professional roles in shaping literacy curriculum and instruction, then how can literacy teachers and teacher educators better understand this movement, its interpretive orientation to biblical proof texting, and implications for literacy scholarship and education? We focus on the locality of Ottawa County and surrounding areas of western Michigan, where Reformed [Calvinist] Christianity became the dominant ethnoreligious group after Dutch immigrants colonized the area in the 1800s. Grounded in this context, the essay describes the Christian nationalist movement, distinguishing it from the American evangelical movement and exploring the significance of biblical proof texting to it. We then discuss implications of our argument about biblical proof texting and White Christian nationalism, focusing around three questions: (a) What is the significance of naming, identifying, and situating the White Christian nationalist movement (as a type of ethnoreligious nationalism) for literacy stakeholders? (b) How, if at all, can the Bible and biblical interpretation be engaged in US public school literacy classrooms—and other commons concerned with literacy teaching and learning—without embracing “cultural uniformity through coercion”? and (c) How can Christian school literacy educators engage the Bible in ways that challenge White Christian nationalism appropriations of it? We engage these questions by sharing examples from our own teaching and from an elementary teacher whose literacy pedagogy in a Reformed Christian (Calvinist) school in western Michigan gently challenges the core assumptions of this movement and its orientation to biblical interpretation.

The Politics of Respectability and Biblical Interpretation: Considering and Questioning a Strategy for Survival

The Politics of Respectability and Biblical Interpretation: Considering and Questioning a Strategy for Survival

Baptists and the Bible in the Nineteenth Century

ABSTRACT This article explores how some Baptists interpreted the Bible in the nineteenth century, focusing particularly on Joseph Angus, Charles Spurgeon, Esther Copley and Marianne Farningham. In light of evidence from Stepney (later known as Regent's Park) College it challenges the suggestion that Baptist reactions to higher criticism were late and uniformly conservative. It also highlights that biblical interpretation in Baptist churches was shaped not only through those educated at the Colleges but also through the writings of women ‘influencers’ such as Copley and Farningham, whose work has been overlooked.

God’s Body and the Material Turn: Divine (Im)Materiality in Biblical Theophanies

AbstractAlthough biblical scholars are increasingly turning their attention to the question of God’s body, few clarify how precisely this “body” complicates the long-held claim that God is immaterial. The present article addresses this oversight by attending to the ways in which biblical accounts of God’s body intersect with wider tradents of thought on materiality and immateriality, including, above all, the recent cross-disciplinary “turn” known as new materialism. The article begins by discussing what biblical scholars mean when they say “God’s body” and how biblical theophanies in particular complicate the belief that God is immaterial. It then discusses new materialism and how key emphases in this scholarly shift similarly complicate the belief in God’s immateriality. Third and finally, the article returns to biblical theophanies by reading these accounts through a new materialist lens, focusing in particular on God’s manifestations in material, nonhuman forms. In the end, I suggest not only that biblical theophanies problematize traditional ways of conceiving God within the history of biblical interpretation but also that new materialism can better enable us to see how these accounts portray the relationship between God and embodied materialities.