Playing With Scripture: Reading Contested Biblical Texts with Gadamer and Genre Theory
Playing with Scripture: Reading Contested Biblical Texts with Gadamer and Genre Theory
Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Biblical Criticism
Routledge, 2023
256 Pages
This book puts a creative new reading of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and literary genre theory to work on the problem of Scripture. Reading texts as Scripture brings two hermeneutical assumptions into tension: that the text will continually say something new and relevant into the present situation, and that the text has stability and authority over readers. Given how contested the Bible’s meaning is, how is it possible to ‘read Scripture’ as authoritative and relevant?
Rather than anchor meaning in author, text or reader, Gadamer’s phenomenological model of hermeneutical experience as Spiel (‘play’) offers a dynamic, intersubjective account of how understanding happens, avoiding the dead end of the subjective–objective dichotomy. Modern genre theory addresses some of the criticisms of Gadamer, accounting for the different roles played by readers in different genres using the new term Lesespiel (‘reading game’).
This is tested in three case studies of contested texts: the recontextualization of psalms in the book of Acts, the use of Hagar’s story (Genesis 16) in nineteenth-century debates over slavery and the troubling reception history of the rape and murder in Gibeah (Judges 19). In each study, the application of ancient text to contemporary situation is neither arbitrary, nor slavishly bound to tradition, but playful.
Kind words
This sophisticated study illuminates the work of Gadamer, and thereby brings fresh and suggestive light to bear on the question of how best to handle disagreements in biblical interpretation. The chapter on Judges 19 is a tour de force of incisive and persuasive reading.
– R.W.L. Moberly, Emeritus Professor of Theology and Biblical Interpretation, Durham University.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: Gadamer and Genre Theory
1 Gadamer in conversation
2 Spiel
3 Genre
Part II Three Contested Biblical Texts
4 Reading psalms in the first century
5 Reading Hagar in the nineteenth century
6 Experiencing that night in Gibeah as twentieth-century horror film
Conclusion
Appendix: Breakdown of OT citations in Acts by genre
