Conflicts in Interpretation

Abstract

“If I have a continuing theme, it is that I agree with structuralists and post-structuralists that we should treat textuality (what is written) and the referent or truth of the text (what is written about) as two different things and that we should be cautious about saying that one is, in principle, more important than the other. … [W]hat has distinguished most recent secular interpreters of the Bible from their Christian counterparts … is that the secular interpreters want to emphasize the text itself, and they do not wish its interpretation to be governed by a criterion of meaning strongly connected to truth. Rather than risking that connection, they would drop the very notions of meaning and truth.”