Between Athens and Antioch: Literal and Extended-Sense Reading

Abstract

I want to begin by thanking the contributors to this issue for the time they have taken to read my book and engage with its arguments. I realize this is a special kind of investment and I appreciate their thoughtful and trenchant responses. I also want to thank Phillip Cary and Pro Ecclesia for finding an array of reviewers from areas the book tries to bring together, and which are often treated as discrete sub-disciplines (Patristics, Theology, Old Testament). Pro Ecclesia has consistently been at the forefront of encouraging first-rate cross-disciplinary thinking and writing. The reviewers each have their own commitments to trying to assure that Holy Scripture not be meted out to historical specialists of a particular modern variety. So in that sense they are kindred spirits and one can sense that in what they write and how they approach their engagement with this book. Let me begin by addressing each reviewer and giving a response to their remarks. Raymond Van Leeuwen opens on the note I have just mentioned, namely, the book’s concern not to reside in a sub-discipline called “Old Testament,” if by that is meant segregation from theological reflection or a species of modern reading cut off from the long history of biblical interpretation in church and synagogue. He calls my use of the term “Elder” a respectful acknowledgment of the divine authority of the first Testament, and he picks up my concern for