This article argues for a reading of Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley (1849) as a historiography of women’s challenges to androcentric Anglican structures of authority and measures of biblical interpretation. Shirley stages the possibility and precarity of women’s public religious authority amid socio-religious discourses, underscoring the relationship between Shirley and Caroline as a space for proto-feminist theological and interpretive revisions. Attending to Brontë’s heroine’s push against religious exclusivism foregrounds Caroline’s often-overlooked hermeneutic turns in her dispute with mill overseer Joe Scott, Brontë’s mouthpiece for inherited anti-woman Anglican interpretations. This article contends that class and gender inflect the act and reception of biblical interpretation for Brontë, playing out historical debates about women’s preaching and discussions about working-class Dissenting groups that supported women’s ministries, such as Methodism. It nuances Brontë’s views on the role of women in religion as she too is pulled between traditional dogma and radical woman-centred hermeneutics along class lines.

Ethiopian Christianity stands as a distinctive manifestation of the Christian faith, uniquely shaped by its integration of Jewish traditions and theological perspectives that diverge from Hellenized Christianity. This study explores the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), highlighting its profound historical roots and its distinctive approach to biblical interpretation and religious practice. The Church’s enduring connection to Judaism is evident in its adherence to ritual purity laws, dietary regulations, and architectural elements reminiscent of the ancient Jewish Temple. By examining these aspects, the study reveals how Ethiopian Christianity represents a vibrant continuation of early Christian traditions, enriched by its assimilation of Judaic practices and its adaptation to the Ethiopian cultural and religious milieu. This unique synthesis underscores Ethiopian Christianity’s role in preserving and transforming early Christian and Jewish heritage within a distinct Ethiopian context.

Fisherwomen in the Moluccas (Maluku, Indonesia) frequently faced discrimination within a patriarchal culture that regarded the sea as a masculine and taboo space, especially during menstruation. This perception not only erased women’s social and economic contributions, but also constructed the sea as a dangerous realm governed by patriarchal norms. This study reread two Exodus texts, the rescue of Moses in the Nile (Ex 2:1–10) and Miriam’s song at the Sea of Reeds (Ex 15:19–21), through the lived experiences of fisherwomen in the Moluccas. The research was based on fieldwork conducted in the villages of Leahari, Seri, Wab and Lermatang. Using intercontextual feminist hermeneutics, which integrated historical-literary analysis with ethnographic insights, the study highlighted how women emerged as agents of liberation within watery spaces. The findings showed that rivers and the sea were not merely sites of danger but theophanic spaces where God manifested life through women’s courage, faith and solidarity. The sea was understood as a womb of life, a medium of both liberation and revelation, that opened space for a feminist sea theology connecting body, spirituality and women’s experience within patriarchal contexts. This study offered a new perspective to Exodus scholarship, contextual theology and feminist hermeneutics, particularly within Indonesia’s coastal communities. Contribution: This article contributes to the development of feminist biblical interpretation by introducing a contextual hermeneutic rooted in the lived experiences of fisherwomen in the Moluccas. It expands Exodus scholarship by reading the sea as a theophanic and liberating space rather than a site of danger. The study also advances contextual and feminist theologies by articulating a ‘feminist sea theology’ that connects embodiment, faith and women’s agency within patriarchal maritime cultures.

Abstract This article examines the Syriac reception of 1 Kings 1:1–4, in which the young woman Abishag is taken to attend to the old and cold king David. The article focuses on three bodies of literature: the Scholion of the East Syriac author Theodore bar Koni, the commentary of the East Syriac biblical interpreter Ishoʿdad of Merv, and the “Collection of Simeon” as preserved in ms. Vat. Sir. 103, a Syriac Orthodox compilation of biblical interpretations that includes a marginal note going back to the Psalm Commentary of Daniel of Ṣalaḥ. It is shown that the cause of David’s coldness, left unexplained in the biblical narrative, became a focal point for Syriac interpreters. The article argues that East and West Syriac authors, despite their differences, presented the story in a physiological and medical light and portrayed David as an example of repentance.

Cross-textual hermeneutics is a dialogical approach to biblical interpretation first proposed by Asian biblical scholar Archie C. C. Lee (李熾昌) in 1993 as a creative way of interweaving a text from the Asian cultural and religious heritage and the Bible without privileging either one. This paper gives an overview of cross-textual hermeneutics and argues that the approach could be enhanced when it is used in conjunction with another critical perspective by providing exegetic examples of the Hebrew Bible in the native Chinese academic contexts to demonstrate the kinds of insights that cross-textual hermeneutics can yield from ideological, anthropological, feminist, sociological, and postcolonial perspectives. Finally, the author will evaluate the ideological and political implications and provide a prognosis of its utility in the native Chinese academic contexts with a special attention to how People’s Republic of China’s policy on the Sinicization of religion may impact the approach.

Growing environmental pressures have intensified calls for innovation that supports sustainable development, yet innovation itself can also increase consumption and ecological strain. This study examines innovation as stewardship by bringing creation theology into dialogue with sustainable product development. Using a conceptual desk review approach, the paper synthesises scholarly literature on innovation, sustainability, and business development alongside theological and biblical interpretations of creation and stewardship. The analysis shows that sustainable product development is most effective when social and environmental considerations are integrated from the earliest stages of design, material selection, and production. It also highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and organisational capabilities in sustaining responsible innovation over time. From a theological perspective, the study argues that innovation reflects human responsibility as stewards of creation and must therefore be guided by restraint, accountability, and care rather than novelty or growth alone. The paper contributes to sustainability and innovation discourse by framing innovation as a moral practice and offering stewardship as a guiding principle for responsible product development and long term ecological wellbeing.

This study explores the theological and ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for biblical interpretation in a technologically intensive era. The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) has significantly enhanced textual analysis but simultaneously challenges the very nature of interpretation. This paper argues that AI cannot serve as a true “subject of interpretation” due to its ontological limitations—lack of personhood, transcendence, and the inability to participate in the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. Focusing on the ethical responsibilities of human interpreters, the study identifies three critical issues: algorithmic bias, the omission of hermeneutical process, and technological reductionism. It concludes that biblical interpretation remains a revelatory and personal event grounded in divine revelation and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. While AI may serve as a valuable analytical tool, it cannot replace the transformative encounter between God’s Word and the human interpreter. The study calls for a renewed theological ethics of interpretation that prioritizes spiritual discernment and the sanctification of intellect over technological efficiency.

Feminist biblical criticism of Proverbs 1–9 has decried the figure of “Dame Folly” as reinforcing pejorative stereotypes of women that blame women for “the world’s sin and corruption.” To be sure, in the history of Christian biblical interpretation, Proverbs has been read in precisely this way—and with tragic consequences. In fact, Proverbs was used as fuel for the witch-hunting craze that infected the Christian West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with its particular focus on women as being especially “addicted” to heresy and “evil superstitions.” Nonetheless, as this essay demonstrates, a reading which denigrates all women universally as blameworthy is not really native to post-exilic Judaism or biblical literature in general before the Hellenistic period. Instead, it emerges with the influence of Hellenism and the misogynist stereotypes endemic to Greek literature, mythology, and even philosophy that distort and blur the lens through which Hellenistic Jews (and later Greco-Roman Christians) read their Scriptures. Through a reading of Proverbs in its own language, its own post-exilic Jewish world, and its own literary context, this essay both recovers the wise women of Israel, so esteemed and valued in post-exilic Judaism, and uncovers the identity of the real fool of Proverbs 9.

This article analyses dance as a language of knowledge and power in late antique and medieval Christianity, focusing on women’s bodies as mediators between grace and disrepute. From the earliest biblical interpretations, dance emerged as both an inspired act and a sign of otherness and impurity. The study examines this duality through emblematic figures such as Salome, Theodora, Miriam and the Virgin Mary, and sources including the Church Fathers, Justinian’s legislation, and Dante’s Paradiso. In this context, dance takes shape as a communal form of knowledge, a symbol of cosmic harmony, and an instrument of redemption. While the male gaze often reduced the dancer to a guilty or demonic body, Christian tradition reinterpreted the Platonic choreia with spiritual and pedagogical overtones. By reinstating the role of women’s dance as a vehicle of wisdom, it was thereby transformed from a symbol of exclusion into a paradigm of order, grace, and access to the divine.

This article examined conditional vow making in neo-Pentecostalism in Nigeria, focusing on the interpretation and application of Hannah’s vow in 1 Samuel 1:11 in Living Faith Church, and evaluated this contemporary practice from the New Testament (NT) perspective. Employing historical-critical exegesis and narrative analysis of the biblical text alongside phenomenological and descriptive methods in respect to the church practice, the study postulated that while conditional vows like Hannah’s were culturally embedded responses to distress in the Hebrew Bible, the NT emphasises persistent prayer and unwavering faith (pistis) rather than transactional petitions. The article contends that modern vow-making, as practised in Living Faith Church, risks reducing divine sovereignty to a mechanism of human control. From the NT perspective, rather than bargaining with God, Christians should simply make their requests known to God, expecting him to answer according to his own will. The article is thus a contribution to the discourse on context and biblical interpretation in Pentecostal theology in Nigeria.

The issue of same-sex marriage has become one of the most complex debates within contemporary social, legal, and Christian theological contexts. Within Christian theology, the primary challenge lies in divergent interpretations of biblical texts: whether Scripture normatively rejects same-sex relationships or whether these texts should be reinterpreted contextually in light of modern social developments. This study aims to explore the theological meanings embedded in biblical texts related to the issue of same-sex marriage. The scope of the study includes biblical interpretation, contextual and pastoral responses of the church, as well as linguistic analysis of key terms in the Hebrew and Greek languages. The research employs a qualitative approach through library research, utilizing hermeneutics as the primary method of textual analysis based on historical, cultural, and linguistic contexts. The theoretical framework is grounded in biblical foundations, particularly the creation narrative of male and female and the biblical concept of marriage. The findings indicate that the Bible consistently does not support the concept of same-sex marriage, as affirmed in passages such as Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26–27. Homosexual practices are categorized as forms of moral and spiritual deviation resulting from the rejection of divine will. Nevertheless, the biblical message also offers a path of restoration through grace in Christ.

Abstract This article analyses Guillermo del Toro’s 2017 film The Shape of Water as a case study for the proposition that monsters may generate liberated, alternative ways of being. In the film, one of the main characters recounts the story of Samson and Delilah from Judges 16. I critique this biblical reception in the film using Liberative Reception Criticism and intersectional lenses. Using insights from monster theorists this examination of the film demonstrates that the monster does offer alternative ways of being which liberate those who have been oppressed and dehumanised by hegemonic patriarchy, itself constructed and perpetuated by certain biblical interpretations. The oppressive use of biblical interpretations is presented in the film as abject, while the monster is presented as potentially liberative from those oppressive legacies.

Abstract First Reformed (dir. Paul Schrader, 2017) is a powerful exploration of climate breakdown, grief, faith, and loss. In this article, I argue that the film can be read as a longform exegesis of Rom. 8: 18–25 and offers three key points of connection with the text. First is the notion of ‘solastalgia’—a term coined by Glenn Albrecht (2019) to describe contemporary climate grief as ‘the homesickness you have at home’. Second is the role of knowledge in relation to creation’s groaning, particularly in conjunction with the recurring question about whether God will forgive humanity’s contribution to climate breakdown. Third is an examination of the nature of hope, dialoguing with Paul’s rhetorical question about hope in 8:24. Overall, this article argues that there is much to be gained by using First Reformed as a lens for biblical interpretation: the text itself is re-formed.

Abstract This special present double issue of Biblical Interpretation marks the twentieth anniversary of the journal’s first issue on the topic of Bible and film. This essay introduces the issue by providing (1) a concise overview of the academic study of Bible and film beginning in the late 1990s until the present day; (2) preliminary thoughts on the usefulness and limits of methods for the discipline; and (3) a summary of the articles included herein. By way of a conclusion, we outline a number of remaining opportunities that may provide fruitful avenues for further exploration in the field.

This review article examines the role and authority attributed to Ellen G. White’s private visions in the development and maintenance of distinctive Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) doctrines, using the church’s interpretation of Revelation 13:16-18 (the number 666 and the mark of the beast) as a case study. Drawing on primary sources including White’s writings, early SDA publications, General Conference resolutions from 1883 and 1887, and contemporary worship materials, the study traces how visions reported in 1847 and 1850 informed the identification of the papacy as the agent responsible for changing the Sabbath and of Sunday observance as the mark of the beast. The analysis documents institutional statements that closely associate doctrinal interpretation with White’s visionary authority, as well as White’s own descriptions of her writings as divinely derived. To assess contemporary reception, the study also examines a widely circulated 2021 Swahili SDA hymn and a sample of associated online responses, indicating the continued transmission of this interpretive framework within popular Adventist worship and discourse. Finally, the article evaluates the claim that the papal title Vicarius Filii Dei corresponds to the number 666, assessing it against linguistic, historical, and exegetical considerations. The findings suggest that this identification encounters significant methodological challenges when examined in light of the original language and historical context of Revelation. The study concludes by highlighting the implications of prophetic authority for doctrinal formation and biblical interpretation within Seventh-day Adventism.

This article reassesses the possible identification of the biblical land of Ophir with the Nusantara—particularly Sumatra and Borneo—by foregrounding the triad of commodities most closely associated with Ophir in the Hebrew Bible: gold, apes, and peacocks (1 Kgs 9:28; 10:11, 22; 2 Chr 8:18). Using an interdisciplinary method that integrates biblical studies, historical linguistics, zoology, and maritime history, the study treats these goods as concrete indicators of long‑distance interaction with maritime Southeast Asia. Special attention is given to the rare Hebrew term tukkîyîm (“peacocks”), a hapax legomenon—a word occurring only once in the Hebrew Bible—whose likely South/Southeast Asian etymology aligns with the distribution of the green peafowl (Pavo muticus). The article also examines the Phoenician maritime network and the three-year cycle of Solomon’s fleet (1 Kgs 10:22) to evaluate the plausibility of long-range trade. While ancient authors such as Josephus place Ophir in “India,” the term in antiquity could encompass regions reaching to the Far East, plausibly including the Indonesian archipelago. By situating the Nusantara within Old Testament geography, the study challenges West-centric assumptions and presents a plausible, though not definitive, Southeast Asian horizon for Ophir. These findings enrich biblical interpretation and contextual theology for the Global South, underscoring the universal scope of God’s redemptive plan.

Mother Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics (MTBH) has become an influential interpretive method in Ghana, fostering wider availability and reception of mother-tongue Bibles and integrating indigenous languages into ecclesial discourse. By prioritising African socio-cultural, religious, and linguistic worldviews in the interpretive process, this approach has generated three distinct strands, each with unique emphases. Employing a narrative research method, this study critically examines these strands as developed at the Trinity Theological Seminary, the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture, and the Department of Religious Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The study identifies the specific strand of MTBH promoted by each institution and explores how these can be integrated into a unified framework. It argues that harmonising the three strands will strengthen MTBH as a more coherent, resilient, and effective approach to biblical interpretation in the Ghanaian context.

African urban Pentecostalism has attracted growing scholarly attention for its complex social and cultural dynamics. A key factor in its development is the strong resonance between African cultural values—especially the centrality of family—and Old Testament social structures. This article examines how the Bible functions as a tool of social organization within African urban Pentecostalism, shaping communal life amid the disruptions of urbanization, industrialization, and capitalism. Focusing on Christ is the Answer Ministries (CITAM), Valley Road, and using grounded theory to analyze qualitative data, the study argues that African urban Pentecostalism emerges from a tension between the traditional extended family and the increasingly dominant nuclear family. The findings show that many urban Africans turn to CITAM to navigate these pressures, drawing on biblical interpretation to build alternative or supplementary social networks that foster cohesion and well-being. The article demonstrates that the Bible is not merely a spiritual authority but a vital cultural resource that enables African Pentecostals to reconstruct supportive social structures in an otherwise fragmented urban environment.

The Biblical narrative of Adam is largely parallel to the Hindu narrative of Swayambhuva Manu. In particular, the tree of knowledge and life are parallel to the wish-yielding tree and the medicinal plants. However, there is a dramatic difference in the views of the two texts regarding sin. The conventional Biblical interpretation is that God prohibited Adam and Eve from eating of the tree of knowledge but they ate of it and sinned. In contrast, the Hindu texts tell of those people eating of the wish-yielding tree in a matter-of-fact way without any stigma whatsoever though with greed. However, the Biblical narrative could also be interpreted as God wanting Adam to eatbut-not-devour of the tree. His and Eve’s “sin” was that they devoured of the tree. This interpretation is 89 percent parallel to the Hindu texts and brings the Biblical and Hindu theological understandings in sync with each other

Job was written as a dialectic to refute the theology of reward and punishment of the Deuteronomistic theology. Using rhetorical approach, this article analyses Job 4:1-9, a passage where Eliphaz responds to Job's lament by advising him to accept suffering as divine punishment for sin. The study argues that Eliphaz's attitude of civility and advising are desirable attitudes, which contemporary Nigerian Christians can emulate when faced with life's hardships. Thus, the study concludes that the text can encourage civility, selflessness, and supportive counsel within faith communities, offering meaningful guidance for those in distress.