Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically
About this audiobook
Southwestern Journal of Theology 2024 Book of The Year • Christianity Today 2024 Theology Book Award • The Gospel Coalition 2024 Biblical Studies Book Award
Reading the Bible to the glory of God.
In 1952, C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity eloquently defined the essential tenets of the Christian faith. With the rise of fractured individualism that continues to split the church, this approach is more important now than ever before for biblical hermeneutics.
Many Christians wonder how to read the text of Scripture well, rightly, and faithfully. After all, developing a strong theory of interpretation has always been presented by two enormous challenges:
- A variety of actual interpretations of the Bible, even within the context of a single community of believers.
- The plurality of reading cultures—denominational, disciplinary, historical, and global interpretive communities—each with its own frame of reference.
In response, influential theologian Kevin J. Vanhoozer puts forth a "mere" Christian hermeneutic—essential principles for reading the Bible as Scripture everywhere, at all times, and by all Christians.
To center his thought, Vanhoozer turns to the accounts of Jesus' transfiguration—a key moment in the broader economy of God's revelation—to suggest that spiritual or "figural" interpretation is not a denial or distortion of the literal sense but, rather, its glorification.
Irenic without resorting to bland ecumenical tolerance, Mere Christian Hermeneutics is a powerful and convincing call for both church and academy to develop reading cultures that enable and sustain the kind of unity and diversity that a "mere Christian hermeneutic" should call for and encourage
About the author
Kevin J. Vanhoozer (PhD, Cambridge University) is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Before that he was Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the author or editor of over twenty books, including Is There a Meaning in this Text?, First Theology, The Drama of Doctrine, and Remythologizing Theology. He serves as theological mentor for the Augustine Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians, and is a member of the Lausanne theology working group on hermeneutics for Seoul 2024.
