Interpreting the Bible Today

The essay that was  formerly on this page was published as Chapter Four in my book Toward a New Modernism (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997).  It was  first published in Encounter, Autumn 1990), 377-88, and was originally given as an address to the Alumni Convocation of Colgate-Rochester Divinity School, Rochester, NY, in the Spring of 1989.   A few highlights can be found below. 

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Two clarifying comments are necessary at once. (1) The highest and best of Scripture is authoritative because it is compelling as a way of believing and living -- and only for that reason. It is the most persuasive vision of life available to us in the world's inventory of religious possibilities. That is why we are committed to it. That is what makes us Christians. (2) We must take responsibility for deciding what in Scripture is worthy of belief today. All such judgments are relative to our own social location, interests, needs, life-history, and general outlook on things.

I invite comments, criticisms, evaluations, and other responses.