Hermeneutics
Mary Hinkle Shore and Sandra Hack Polaski both offer unique hermeneutical methods for New Testament interpretation. For Shore, the hermeneutical method is "imaginative engagement," (77). Imaginative engagement is the application of creative license to the original text for the purposes of gaining richer personal understanding. It seeks to place the reader squarely within the text, interacting intimately with its characters, stories, and themes. Imaginative engagement also offers readers a way of interpreting the text for themselves, without influence from preacher or scholar. Polaski uses a different type of hermeneutics: called "reader-response criticism." Reader-response criticism is not as loose as imaginative engagement. However, reader-response criticism serves similar goals of liberating the text from the tyranny of cold scholarship and dogmatic evangelism. Reader-response criticism aims to "recover" meaning from original Biblical texts for contemporary readers (Polaski 193). The process is undertaken "without ignoring the insights of historical-critical inquiry and theological reflection" (Polaski 193).
The actual methods of performing each of these hermeneutical methods, imaginative engagement and reader-response criticism, will vary depending on the goals of the exegesis, the goals of the reader, and the particular type, length, and theme of the passage. In general, reader-response criticism involves the actual reading or re-reading of the text, followed by an "unfolding of meaning" that is...
As with imaginative engagement, reader-response criticism makes the reader an active player in the process of producing meaning. According to Polaski, reader-response criticism is a "disciplined careful approach" to creating "interpretive communities of
dialogue and
debate, consensus and dissention" (193).
Although both reader-response criticism and imaginative engagement are helpful from a reader's point-of-view, the latter does not offer as much opportunity for transformative hermeneutics. Of these two methods, reader-response criticism has the unique ability to reframe Biblical texts in a deep way that can reverberate throughout both scholastic and evangelical circles. For example, Polaski applies reader-response criticism to Luke 24:13-35. The reader-response criticism begins as a typical exegesis, with historical and textual analysis. Then, Polanski reveals some of the biases that many -- if not most -- readers project onto the text. Gender norms can seriously influence a seemingly tight interpretation of a passage, as readers automatically assumed that Cleopas was with another man as opposed to a woman. The reader-response criticism
exercise has the potential to bring people "face-to-face with the reality of presuppositions," (Polaski 200).
Imaginative engagement might have the
power to shift a reader's perspective too, but it would require a more determined effort to unearth…
