Reflection for the Week–January 13

Biblical interpretation often revolves around in a diametrically opposed fashion that goes something like this. All meaning is authorial meaning or all meaning is readerly meaning. Those who embrace the former, argue for an objective and universal validity view. Others, who hold to the latter, prefer a subjective anything goes perspective. These evident polarizations remove the need for negotiation, which recognizes that meaning is a reproductive and productive orchestration between author and reader. That is, interpretation brings about a co-creation of meaning, where a reader’s dialogue with the author is not abolished, but complicated. This signifies that the literary “what said” of an author may be complex, but it nevertheless is a crucial part of the interpretive process through which a reader becomes a better co-creator of meaning.