Biblical Interpretation and the Transformation of Life: A Ricoeurian Reading
Biblical Interpretation and the Transformation of Life: A Ricoeurian Reading
Jason T. LAM
The aim of this essay is to offer an appreciative yet critical interpretation of Paul Ricoeur's early biblical hermeneutics. We will begin with an exploration of Ricoeur's appreciation of Bultmann's demythologisation, so as to display his intention of achieving a life-transforming scriptural reading. In 1970s Ricoeur purposefully applied his complicated philosophical hermeneutics to biblical interpretation. Revelation is, in his explication, a manifestation of the world of the biblical text. We find that, as a believing Christian philosopher, Ricoeur did that for the sake of listening to the divine Word anew in contemporary situation. In our analysis great tensions, which are profoundly related to his concern for achieving a life-transforming scriptural reading, are detected in his agenda in that period. I claim that the role of the interpreting community in this hermeneutic process is a crucial but underdeveloped element in Ricoeur's account, especially since Scripture is taken seriously as a testimony to the divine in the history of the Christian community. Nevertheless, this early agenda still provides us invaluable insights for incorporating biblical hermeneutics into the scope of Christian theology and this may be a remedy to the broken relationship between biblical studies and theology in the contemporary academic realm.
Related Posts
Editor’s Notes: The church community established and continuously constituted by the Holy Spirit in Christ through the Holy Spirit has always been living in the world; in this way, she will inevitably have to interact with the countries or governments in the world. This issue of "Sandow Journal" takes "Relationships between Church and State" as its theme, and invites different scholars to discuss this important topic in various fields such as the New Testament, church history, and systematic theology. ...
Editor’s Notes by Wu Guojie Lord Jesus issued the Great Commission. In addition to instructing followers to bear witness to the Lord among the crowd and strive to lead people to the Lord, it also includes teaching believers to abide by everything the Lord has commanded. That is to say, we must equip believers so that they can become disciples who can understand the Bible and practice the true way. In recent years, there has been a wave of immigration in Hong Kong, and many church members have emigrated to other places. Some of them are even the next generation of leadership successors that the church has been cultivating. The number of spiritually mature believers in Hong Kong has dropped sharply, and those who can assume important ministry positions in the church have The leadership team gradually became inactive. Training more believers to take on the mission has become an emergency strategy for many churches to solve the current predicament. This issue of "Sandow Journal" is themed "Equipment of Believers" and hopes to bring enlightenment to the Chinese church through scholars' research on the Bible, history and practical theology. ...
Public Theology: Whose “Public”? How “Theological”? Chi W....
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.