Post-Modern Interpretations
The Problem with Authorial Intent
The Prodigal Son
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.
How do we get to Meaning
?
Does this work?
No (sort of), because: Post-modernism...
1
we don't see our blind spots
Does this work?
No (sort of), because: Post-modernism...
2
we see ourselves, not the text
Does this work?
No (sort of), because: Post-modernism...
3
we see what we want to see
Some Questions
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Is authorial intent really where meaning is rooted?
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What is the place of the reader?
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To what extent should marginalized ideological readings be given hermeneutical authority?
Interpretive Approaches
Reader Response
Gunn & Fewell
“Meaning is not something out there in the text waiting to be discovered. Meaning is always, in the last analysis, the reader's creation, and readers, like texts, come in an infinite variety.”
Liberation
Gustavo Gutiérrez
“The denunciation of injustice implies the rejection of the use of Christianity to legitimize the established order.”
Feminist
Mary Daly
“If God is male, then the male is God.”
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Because male is the norm, women are “scapegoated for sin and marginalized in both original and redeemed humanity”
A Counter Proposal
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The Weaknesses of the Postmodern Critique.
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An alternative construal of authority.
Weaknesses
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Bad Readings are Valid (Apartheid readings)
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Intersectionality (e.g. Womanist theology)
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Self-defeating (Skeptical about Meaning)