Friday, April 13, 2007

Paul's Use of Scripture: a quote

I came across this quote form James W. Aageson that I rather liked:

Paul’s exegesis of Scripture is that scriptural interpretation ought not (perhaps cannot) be reduced to a mere task of trying to discover meaning in the texts of Scripture, as if Scriptures were something to mine for nuggets of truth. Rather, it is a generative and creative task that is invariably open-ended and that speaks to our own circumstance in the contemporary world....To seek to do otherwise may simply render the texts mechanical, archaic, and lifeless. This means that Paul’s own experience and context were as important in the interpretive enterprise as were the texts of Scripture; and, I submit, this is true as well for those of us today who take these texts seriously.[1]


[1] James W. Aageson, "Written Also for Our Sake: Paul's Use of Scripture in the Four Major Epistles, with a Study of 1 Corinthians 10." In Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament, edited by Stanley E. Porter, 152-81. McMaster New Testament Studies; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, 157-8.

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