Reading the Bible Ethically
Subtitle: Recovering the Voice in the Text
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 310
ISBN-13: 9789004282872
Description: All interpretive systems deal with the author. Modern systems consider the text to be autonomous, so that it is disconnected from the authors interests. In this book, Eric Douglass reconsiders this connection. His central argument is that the author is a subject who reproduces her culture and her subjectivity in the text. As the author reproduces her subjectivity, the text functions as the authors voice. This allows Douglass to apply ethical principles to interpretation, where that voice is treated as a subject for conversation, and not an object for manipulation. He uses this to texture the reading process, so that an initial reading takes account of the authors communication, while a second reading critiques that communication.