GOD'S LAST WORDS: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism
David S. Katz, . . Yale, $38 (397pp) ISBN 978-0-300-10115-7
It's commonplace by now to recognize that every reader or group of readers understands the Bible differently. What these readers do hold in common, however, is the notion that Scripture contains the words of God to humankind. Using the reader-response theory of Stanley Fish and Gadamer's hermeneutics (that every interpreter understands a text based on his or her own horizon of expectations regarding that text), Katz provides a sometimes fascinating, sometimes frustrating overview of the history of the Bible's reception. He traces the evolution in the interpretation of the Bible from Martin Luther and the Reformation to modern American fundamentalism. For example, Luther's community of interpretation read the Bible literally according to Luther's own dictum of
Reviewed on: 01/26/2004
Genre: Nonfiction
Paperback - 416 pages - 978-0-300-19790-7