There are many books about how people ought to interpret the Bible. This book is about how people in churches actually interpret the Bible, and why they interpret it in the way that they do. Based on a study of Anglicans in the Church of England, it explores the interaction of belief, personality, experience and context and sheds new light on the way that texts interact with readers. The author shows how the results of such study can begin to shape an empirically-based theology of scripture. This unique study approaches reader-centred criticism and the theology of scripture from a completely new angle, and will be of interest to both scholars and those who use the Bible in churches.
Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Biblical Studies in Academy and Church; Chapter 3 The Bible and Ordinary Readers; Chapter 4 Biblical Literalism and Ordinary Readers; Chapter 5 Biblical Interpretative Horizons; Chapter 6 Personality and Scripture; Chapter 7 Interpretative Communities and Scripture; Chapter 8 The Holy Spirit and Biblical Interpretation; Chapter 9 Towards an Empirical Theology of Scripture;
