Instructions:
- Read attentively Luke’s infancy narrative.
- Briefly describe:
- The world behind the text (the historical, socio-cultural, and political, setting in which the text was produced) (0.5 page)
- The world within/of the text (the literary character and features, themes, etc. of the text itself) (0.5 page)
- The world in-front-of the text (the original audiences and audiences today) (0.5 page)
(Use Corrine Carvalho’s Primer on Biblical Methods to guide your descriptions, as well as Perkins and Johnson on the gospels from which the texts are taken for this part. Allen’s Reading the Synoptic Gospels for interpretative methods and biblical commentaries for research are also helpful.) - Read the narrative again, this time envisioning it with empathy from two different perspectives/experiences/mindsets/concerns of the populations below:
- a first century C.E. Mediterranean Greco-Roman Christian audience
- a contemporary local audience
- What two different interpretations emerge for the passage? Describe by contrasting each of the experiences/perspectives, how the story would be ‘read/heard/experienced. Make sure to focus on Carvalho’s Part 3 of Primer on Biblical Methods. (0.5 page for each of the two; 1 page total).
- Keeping in mind the excerpt below from Miguel de la Torre’s Reading the Bible from the Margins (pp. 3-5), what is the theological and ethical message of your text? (What is revealing about God and about the response of God’s people are called to make?). (1 page)
- In a conclusion offer your response to these questions: How has this exercise allowed or challenged you to read and interpret biblical texts? What do such diverse readings tell you about the character of literature such as biblical literature? In what way can this experience guide your future readings personally, as ministers, and in your communities? What can you, as a ‘practical theologian’, decide and do with an understanding of scripture experienced, read, and lived ‘from the margins’? (1.5 pages)
- In the footnotes, include the page number of each citation from which the text is taken.
Miguel de la Torre’s Reading the Bible from the Margins (pp. 3-5):
“All too often we approach the biblical text assuming that it contains only one meaning, specifically the meaning that existed in the mind of God and was revealed to the original person who verbalized this revelation to those who first heard or read the message. The task of the present-day reader of the Bible is to apply linguistic and historical tools to the text in order to arrive at the original meaning, which is submerged in centuries of commentaries and church doctrines. By applying this methodology, the reader believes he or she will be able to ascertain the original universal meaning that remains applicable to all peoples in all times. In the reader’s own mind, his or her interpretation, now elevated to truth, is objectively realized, devoid of any social or cultural influences. But no biblical interpretation is ever developed in a social or cultural [or religious] vacuum. Most interpretations are autobiographical, where we ascertain the meaning of the text through the telling of our own stories, projecting onto the Bible how we define and interpret the biblical story in light of our own life experiences. All “official” interpretations reflect the social location of those with authority to make their personal interpretations the acceptable societal norm. Hence, to claim objectivity in biblical interpretations is to mask the subjectivity of the person, groups, or culture doing the interpreting. The interpretation of Scripture can never occur apart from the identity of the one doing the interpreting.
Reading the Bible from the margins of society is not an exercise that reveals interesting perspectives on how other cultures read and interpret biblical texts. To read the Bible from the margins is to grasp God in the midst of struggle and oppression. Hence, such a reading attempts to understand why God’s people find themselves struggling for survival within a society that appears to be designed to privilege one group of people at the expense of others. The liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez calls this process “a militant reading,” one from the perspective of those dwelling on “the underside of history.” The Bible becomes more than a text requiring scholarly analysis; rather it becomes a text of hope, a hope in a God whose essence is the liberation of all who are oppressed, all who subsist at the margins of society. Reading the Bible from the margins, by its very nature, challenges how the dominant culture has historically interpreted the text.” [It is a reading/interpretation that calls for response.]