Timothy George on History of Interpretation and Theological Hermeneutics
Timothy George has an excellent article on the shift in biblical interpretation toward theological exegesis and history of interpretation/reception history in the March 2011 First Things . The article is entitled 'Reading the Bible with the Reformers: We ought to read Scripture the way Luther and Calvin did' and is not so much about Luther and Calvin as it is about renewed interest in the importance of theological hermeneutics and the avoidance the Enlightenment division between academic study Scripture and the devotional study of Scripture. Early in the article, George addresses the problem of 'biblical presentism' in which the main focus of biblical interpretation is to answer the question: 'What is the Bible saying to us now?' George traces this perspective to Friedrich Schleiermacher and argues that the Protestant acceptance the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation was a response to this sort of feeling-centered, biblical presentism. But ...