Bible and the Ethics of Reading.

• Author: GITAY, YEHOSHUA
• Position: Review

Bible and the Ethics of Reading. Edited by D. N. FEWELL and G. A. PHILLIPS. Semeia, vol. 77. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1997.

This Semeia volume mirrors a new scholarly tendency currently spreading among many biblical critics. The new tendency is conveyed through a style that seeks to appeal to readers as impressive literary writing. This new writing concerning biblical literature presents a rhetoric that replaces the previous way of writing that sought to convince readers through a strict scholarly and methodological analysis rather than vivid "story telling." Scholarly writing that carried a strong philological orientation was designed for a closed circle of professional readers, the scholarly guild. However, the Semeia volume, as a product of postmodernism, aims to reach a wider circle of readers, breaking down the walls of that guild. An effective means to reach the intelligent reader at large is to employ a literary and non-technical style of writing.

In avoiding the technical and "scientific" language of the "profession," a major hermeneutical question has been posed regarding the authority of the accepted method of critical interpretation of the text. As a matter of fact, from the first article, "Ethics, Bible, Reading As If," written by the two editors of the volume, Phillips and Fewell, the authority of the professional biblical scholar as the only legitimate interpreter is challenged. Instead, recognition is given to "ordinary readers who bring their powerful interpretive skill and rich experience" (p. 2).

The subject matter of this volume is the Bible and the Ethics of Reading. It includes the following additional essays: "Drawn to Excess, or Reading Beyond Betrothal" by Danna Nolan Fewell and Gary A. Phillips; "Samson and the Son of God, or Dead Heroes and Dead Goats: Ethical Readings of Narrative Violence in Judges and Matthew," by Richard G. Bowman and Richard W. Swanson; "Hearing the Children's Cries: Commentary, Deconstruction, Ethics and the Book of Habakkuk," by Chris Heard; "'Tis a Vice to Know Him: Readers' Response-Ability and Responsibility in 2 Chronicles 14-16," by Genie Snyman; "'I Saw the Book Talk': A Cultural Studies Approach to the Ethics of an African American Biblical Hermeneutics," by Abraham Smith; "Biblical Interpretation as a Technology of the Self: Gay Men and the Ethics of Reading," by Ken Stone; "Do We Want Our Children to Read This Book?" by Francis Landy; "A Nice Jewish Girl Reads the Gospel of John,"...