Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation (review)

Hebrew Studies 33 (1992) 144 Reviews where the process of secularization separates us in many ways from the original. By translating one symbolic language (the biblical narrative) into another (humanistic psychology), the authors help make Jonah accessible in terms that may be more readily recognizable and acceptable today. At times, however, paradoxically and ironically, their own personal religiosity gets a little bit in the way. Jonathan Magonet Leo Baeck College London N3 2SY LITERARY APPROACHES TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. By Tremper Longman III. Pp. xi + 164. Grand Rapids: Academie Books (Zondervan), 1987. Paper, $3.93. Longman is deserving of the title "Fidei Defensor Zondervaniensis." His odyssey leads between the Scylla of those who ignore the literary aspect of the Bible and the Charybdis of those who would reduce the Bible to literature and so deny biblical history. He saves his audience of believers with a restrained incisiveness: "The Bible as literature or history is a false dichotomy. It is both and much more." To vindicate a "more balanced reading of the Bible," he critiques, in a footnote, W. Kaiser's Toward an Exegetical Theology, noting that Kaiser denies that there is any difference between the human and the divine intention of a passage, since the prophets wrote better than they knew. Felled by the way are the antagonists, Jerome, Augustine, Lowth, Gunkel, Polzin, Marxists, and, of course, Derrida. Liberation theologians and feminists are eschewed for their political agenda and ideology. Longman's ideology is waged for God. Blessed with an extensive library, as is apparent from his copious footnotes, he has untiringly shared with his audience one sentence from each of these modems. They are summarily dismissed and dispatched, each in a single paragraph. David Paul McCarthy University of Wisconsin Madison. WI 53706 ...