Companion Essays in Biblical Interpretation

The survey given below of the content and approach of this book makes the book sound very academic and technical. But in fact the book is filled with real life material and examples that illustrate the philosophical, theological points being made. Like BBI this book was written as lectures for my Biblical Interpretation course. Therefore it is written in a conversational style rather than an academic style, though of course it does take an academic approach to the Bible. I have...
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The survey given below of the content and approach of this book makes the book sound very academic and technical. But in fact the book is filled with real life material and examples that illustrate the philosophical, theological points being made. Like BBI this book was written as lectures for my Biblical Interpretation course. Therefore it is written in a conversational style rather than an academic style, though of course it does take an academic approach to the Bible. I have actually read most of the chapters of this book in my class in Biblical Interpretation at the University of Albany. And where I could tell that the lectures were boring, I have rewritten them to make them more interesting and understandable. I offer the following description of the book, then, primarily so future readers will see the book from my perspective. I trust however that readers will be able to enjoy the book if they come to it seeking to strengthen and expand their own faith perspectives using the Bible as guidance and standard in their search for truth and meaning in life.

This book is a sequel to Basic Biblical Interpretation. It preserves the biblical survey of that book, but it dispenses with the instructional material on methods in the original. The assumption is that the reader will either have read BBI or will already know enough about the basic methods of biblical interpretation to enjoy this sequel. Being less instructional than BBI, this book pursues biblical interpretation in greater depth and with greater thoroughness than BBI. It discusses the meaning of Scriptural texts from the point of view of their own times and from the perspective of the religious needs of our modern times. Mankind´s acute religious needs are amazingly constant through history. We all want to know what if anything will happen to us after death. We all want to know if there is a God, and if so how we can have a meaningful relationship with Him. We want to know how our religious lives should be expressed in our secular lives. And we all want to know how we can live with our fellow men and women in peace and harmony. Such problems already existed in biblical times. And the Bible addresses these problems from the perspective of the historical-cultural conditions under which the ancient Israelites and early Christians lived. If we understand how the Bible resolves the problems of the Judeo-Christian people in their own times, we will be in a better position to understand how the Bible can save us from violence and disorder in our times. This book brings together much of what the Bible teaches about the solutions the Lord offered to His people in their struggles with suffering, violence, hatred, despair and death and our own needs for resolving the many problems we face in the modern world.

The book follows the same order as BBI from the Creation Story through the Resurrection of Christ. There are according thirty-six chapters, as in BBI. And each chapter deals with one of the significant narratives dealt with in BBI: Creation, the Fall, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Abraham, and so forth. But in this book, those narratives are discussed from the perspective of meaning and contemporary relevance, rather than from the perspective of leaning the methods of biblical interpretation. This means that the book explores many, many issues that arise in applying the Bible to our lives in modern day America. It considers such issues as the widespread violence in the world today, the consolidation of wealth in the hands of the rich, the breakdown in personal morality and social ethics, the genetic manipulation of nature, the managerial thrust of the global economy, and the principles of financial justice in our society. But these problems are not treated as sociological concerns or political concerns. Rather they are treated as the personal concerns that each of us struggles with on a day by day basis. The book raises the question of whether we as persons