Cultural Interpretation (Reorienting New Testament criticism) [Paperback]

Brian Blount (Author)

Book Description

Series: Reorienting New Testament criticism | Publication Date: December 14, 1995

Blount's analysis demonstrates the social intent of every reading and shows the influence of communicative context in such diverse readings of the Bible as Rudolf Bultmann's, the peasants of Solentiname, the Negro spirituals, and black-church sermons. Blount then shows how his proposal helps in assessing the several readings of Mark's trial scenes and the figure of Jesus there.

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers (December 14, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800628594
• ISBN-13: 978-0800628598
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #722,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read the Bible through the eyes of the oppressed, November 21, 2003

By 

Dean J. Snyder "Pastor, Foundry UMC" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cultural Interpretation (Reorienting New Testament criticism) (Paperback)

For those who are interested in understanding how to read and use the Bible in ways that are neither limited by literalism nor disempowered by a cold higher criticism, this is a very helpful book.

Early on, this book includes a discussion of communication theories that is probably more complex and academic than most readers will find helpful. But, when he moves past this, Blount illustrates how the Bible is well deployed in popular settings like traditional "Negro spirituals," Ernesto Cardenal's work with the Nicaraguan peasants of Solentiname, and Tom Skinner's urban American revolutionary preaching.

Blount is certainly supportive of academic higher critical study of the Bible but he is also convinced that this is not the only way to use the Bible.

Blount argues that Scripture has many interpretations. Since, according to his theory of communications, the context of the interpreter is a legitimate aspect of the process of interpretation, our perception of what the text meant and means will change depending on our context as interpreters. "The text is multivalent," he writes. "It has no single meaning."

This, however, (and this is an absolutely critical point) does not mean that the interpreter is free to apply any meaning whatsoever to the text. The fact that there is "no single meaning" doesn't mean that just any subjective meaning we might want to apply to a text is acceptable. The text is multivalent but within a limited range of possible meanings.

Blount demonstrates that academic biblical scholarship, in spite of claims of scientific objectivity, is always biased by the scholar's culture, assumptions, historical time and methods. (Blount does not use the word "bias," but instead prefers more value-neutral terms like "the micro-interpersonal," a linguistic term, or "pre-understanding," a Bultmannian term.) Blount does not see bias or subjectivity as necessarily a negative thing. Instead bias is seen as an unavoidable condition of all interpretation because of the sociolinguistic nature of language.

The bias of the oppressed, Blount suggests, may even open windows to understand the meaning of Scripture in a way we might otherwise miss.

It is refreshing and rewarding to see a biblical scholar as sophisticated as Blount working so to help the academic world listen to the world's oppressed and marginalized peoples. Finally, they may be the ones who really understand what the Bible is all about.

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultural Interpretation Reorienting New Testament Criticism, June 29, 2010

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Monique - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism (Paperback)

It was very helpful during my class work. This book helped me to strengthen my faith walking. It helped me with the understanding of not seeing God's Word as it is writing, but seeing it beyond what is writing in black and white. It help me to placed God out side the box and not to limit HIM to the box.

5.0 out of 5 stars Rickey Harvey's Review of Cultural Interpretations, May 17, 2010

By 

Rickey Harvey "Rickey Bernard Harvey" (ROCHESTER, NY, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism (Paperback)

Early on in this book Blount states that text - indeed, all of the New Testament text - must have a meaning that is not confined to the reality of a single interpretative ideology and later suggest that texts are already interpreted arbitrarily, to a perspective of standard white Eurocentric values. He believes that marginal members of society are excluded from the present methodologies of New Testament interpretation and that when those perspectives are included, biblical interpretation can have new meaning and impact in both academically and ecclesiastically (3).

Blount relates to the Sociological Model of Enrique Dussel which states: "Ideology connects with power. The interpretation of language determines not only understanding, but political and scientific control. The culture that determines the interpretive norms also determines the kind of life those norms ideologically mandate (18).

Blount says that preunderstanding involves the interpersonal dialectic between interpreter and history. An interpreter cannot comprehend history, or, for that matter, a historical text, unless he or she acknowledges that part of himself/herself stands in history and is responsible for it. Historical understanding presupposes a relationship of the interpreter to the subject matter expressed in a text which gives the interpreter a unique perspective and consequent understanding of the matter being discussed (31).

The interpreter's background influences how the language of the text is understood. One's sociohistorical context influences what one sees in the language (39). It no uncertain terms the interpretive comparisons between the marginal and well off are made; even as the resurrection is defined as the movement from death to life, and is reconceptualized politically as a rising from the death of economic oppression into a communist reign on earth (53).

He writes about Albert Bergesen's recognition of music as a kind of language whose symbolism is capable of communicating information as well as feeling. Bergesen notes that music operates like language according to code. Two basic codes are restricted - like slang or jargon, rely on more condensed symbols and phrases comprehensible only to those in the group and elaborated where the syntax is more complex and flexible (63).

Blount talks about preaching being a communicative act whose effectiveness depends on sociolinguistic responsibility. A preacher must be responsible to the context in which the sermon is offered, speak the language of the listeners, use the language according to the particular linguistic prescriptions, verbal and nonverbal, of the culture with whom she or he is conveying (71).

He defines the term `Semasiological Field' as a `Polysemy" (multiple conceptual interpretations) recognizing that words have a variety of meanings. The semasiological reality often causes ambiguity in textual meaning. He says; no one meaning of a word or entire text is the correct and complete meaning. Meaning is more than what is found on the surface of the texts. Meaning is not limited to a single interpretation (89).

In the latter part of the book Blount talks about going beyond `Interpretive Boundaries' and he offers that the fullest possible meaning of a word or text can only be achieved by drawing from a variety of interpretations, not understanding them as alternatives but as a complimentary range of meanings (176).

Overall this is a wonderful and easy read. He challenges and excites you with his extensive drawings from the academic works of others and offers models and seemingly tested theories in support of his positions on Cultural Interpretations, Reorienting New Testament Criticism. I would most definitely recommend this reading to others.