Renewing Biblical Interpretation

Renewing Biblical Interpretation is the first in a series of eight books that are the result of a (by invitation only) annual conferences of the top evangelical hermeneutical scholars in the world. In every book, they raise and discuss a critical issue that has a vital impact on the future of biblical interpretation. These conferences could shape the future of evangelical scholarship for the new millennium.

When it comes to the Bible, there is a lot at stake for the church and the world. The God who addresses us through scripture is central to Christianity. Without such an open book, the heart of Christianity is removed. In Amos, chapter eight, the prophet speaks of a terrible time of famine, not of bread and water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. It can be argued that we are approaching such a famine in the West. The Bible has not been ignored in the modern world but its story has been a checkered one, to say the least. The Bible continues to be a best seller in the West, but increasingly, it is a closed book. For the past 150 years, the Bible has been scrutinized “scientifically” in the academy but in a way that has tended to confine it to the past. This way of reading texts is now being challenged in the context of the post-modern turn, so that all sorts of different ways of reading the Bible are now being proposed. However, the danger of these new developments is that we simply hear echoes of our own voices when we read the Bible. But not everything about the present “post-modern hour” is bad. The present flux in the academy and biblical studies provides a great opportunity to re-assess the discipline of biblical studies from the foundation up and to forge creative new ways for re-opening the book for our culture. This is the opportunity that Renewing Biblical Interpretation has seized.