Houses of the Interpreter: Reading Scripture, Reading Culture

David Lyle Jeffrey explores the terrain of the cultural history of biblical interpretation. But Jeffrey does not merely rest content to chart biblical scholarship and how it has both influenced and been influenced by culture. Instead, he chooses to focus upon the "art" of Biblical interpretation -- how sculptors, musicians, poets, novelists, and painters have "read" the Bible. By so doing, Jeffrey clearly demonstrates that such cultural interpretation has deepened the church's understanding of the Bible as Scripture and that, remarkably, this cultural reading has contributed to theology and the practice of faith. Jeffrey's chapters effectively root the theological issues central to any hermeneutical enterprise (e.g., Scriptural authority, narrative, the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, the role of the reader, gender, and postmodernism) in specific authors and artists (eg: Chaucer, Bosch, Sir Orfeo, C.S Lewis) -- and he does this in constant conversation with literature, both eastern and western.

Table of Contents:
Preface; How Firm a Foundation...?; Masterplot & Meaning in Biblical Narrative; Self-Examination & the Examination of Texts; Charity & Cupidity in Biblical Tradition; The Gospel according to Isaiah; Authority & Interpretation in the House of Fame; Chaucer's Friar's (Unpaid) Rent; Conversion in the English Saints' Plays; Parody & Piety in Bosch's Haywain; Sir Orfeo's Harp: Music for the End of Time; Reading Wisely, Reading Well; Reading the Bible with C S Lewis; Scripture, Gender & Our Language of Worship; The Teaching Authority of Jesus & the Fatherhood of God; Postmodern Theology & Perennial Truth; Index.

About the Author :
David Lyle Jeffrey is Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities at Baylor University. He is the author or editor of more than 12 books including Houses of the Interpreter: Reading Scripture, Reading Culture .

Review :
These essays are vintage Jeffrey--lively, literate, and learned, rich in wit and wisdom, ranging from ancient epic to medieval literature and art to postmodern parody, distinguished by a passionate erudition that attends with single-minded, open-hearted illumination to the interpretation of Scripture across cultures. Above all Jeffrey's writing enacts the kind of intertextual theological resourcement that our own houses of culture so desperately need: building up the Christian literary imagination through the scriptural education of our loves. Jeffrey brilliantly displays the virtues he holds up as characteristic of the exemplary reader: the rigorous analytic disciplines of the pilgrim mind, and the generosities of an open-hearted imagination.-Travis Kroekers, McMaster University, Ontario