One Text, A Thousand Methods

Essays in this volume describe the shift in biblical exegesis within the last several decades from the interpretation of biblical texts as the outcome of historical development, or diachronic methodology, to the exploration of the text as the result of a reading process rather than a historical process, or synchronic methodology. Each essay examines a text from the Old or New Testament through the lens of one of the many modern synchronic methods used in postmodern literary interpretation. The methods discussed include ideology criticism, semantic and poetic analysis, cognitive linguistics, drama theory, narratology, deconstruction, and anthropology and intertextuality. The authors of this work challenge biblical scholars not to just perform exegesis, but to explore the methods and aims underlying their interpretations.