On Reading the Bible

There’s a five books (scholars) meme going around, and I’ve been tagged (I noticed it here too). This is to list five scholars/books which influenced your Bible hermeneutic, i.e., how your read and interpret the Bible.

1. N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, which outlines the best of historical way of reading the Bible that I’ve seen.
2. Leon Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom, in which a philosophical method of reading Scripture is outlined. In brief, reading Genesis (and to extend beyond) as you would read Plato.
3. The Orthodox liturgical canon (of the morning Matins or all-night Vigil) which is drenched with the typological method of reading Scripture.
4. Origen and his introduction of the allegorical reading of Scripture. I’m peeking ahead here, I’m not up-to-speed on this yet … but will get a shock introduction shortly in a class I’m taking.
5. Robert Alter and his Introduction to his translation of Genesis (there are more now The Five Books of Moses, The David Story, and The Book of Psalms)… and the subsequent translation in which the sparse economic poetry of the Genesis writers is highlighted.

I’ll tag Matt Anderson (who is blogging somewhere but I’ve lost track of where), Brandon, and Kevin, and Doug one of my co-bloggers at SCO.

Filed under: Books • Christianity • Mark O. • Religion

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