7 Things I Wish Christians Knew About the BibleSýnishorn

LITERAL INTERPRETATION IS NOT ALWAYS THE BEST INTERPRETATION

Where does meaning reside: author, text, or reader? We take into account the intention of authors, the dynamics within texts, and the understanding of readers, and what we call “meaning” occurs in the fusion of all three. Ultimately, meaning is the web of connections we make with the world behind the text (the author’s horizon), the world inside the text (the literary horizon), and the world we inhabit in front of the text (the reader’s horizon). The more connections we make and the thicker those connections appear to be, the more preferable a particular meaning ascribed to the text becomes because it explains more of the features that surround our reading experience.*

Accordingly, a good interpretation, or a preferential form of meaning, is something that makes sense of an author’s intention in his or her historical context, whether ancient Israel or the early church. It explains and accounts for all the assertions and descriptions inside a text, and it is eminently relatable to us readers. In the big picture, meaning includes what the author would say to us now, how the biblical texts challenge and energize us, and how our churches today imagine responding to a given text.

* See Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description with Special Reference to Heidegger, Bultmann, Gadamer, and Wittgenstein (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 439–40.