Yet our goal is to hear what the work itself has to say. Our theories and rules should not place barriers between ourselves and the text but should enhance our reading. And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. I have argued that language is a special gift, even a divine gift, and, further, I have contended that within 5 diversity we can work toward some comonalities of meaning in the interpretation of a text. The text does have its own integrity, whether it is the biblical text, or the text of a novel or play or poem or short story.
Interpretation is, however, a very human and fallible art.
In this incarnation the human family received a new potential for meaning, a deeper hope for understanding. At the same time we must acknowledge that there exist mysteries which our words seem inadequate to articulate, ambiguities beyond our verbal power to unravel. Life cannot be reduced to simple, well-ordered, descriptive narrative. On a bright September day almost four years ago my wife and I received an urgent call to go to the Emergency Room in one of our local hospitals. Our daughter, who had just been graduated from a Christian college with a baccalaureate 6 degree in nursing, had, we were told, been involved in a serious vehicular accident.