Reading the Text

In the last 600 years there have been enormous changes in the way the Bible has been read and understood. In addition to specific controversies over interpretation the ground rules themselves have shifted radically several times. All of these modes of interpretation have left a corresponding mark in secular literature and the ways in which it has been perceived by society. This book aims to detail and to explore some of the links that have existed between biblical hermeneutics and literary history, and to focus on ways in which both literary criticism and practice have been influenced by contemporary biblical criticism and theology, and vice versa.