Flesh Made Word

This book delineates the individualist ';interpretation problem' that has long beset Protestant biblical interpretation and engages theological resources that could serve to move beyond it. Lauren Smelser White argues that readers of Scripturespecifically those who long to submit their lives to Gods transforming Word, which they believe the Bible disclosesought to reckon with the participatory role that human bodies (corporeal and corporate) play in producing revelations norms. Such a reckoning need not entail giving up on Scripture delivering the life-changing address of a divine Other. In support of that claim, White distills a picture of revelation as a divine-human discursive encounter: a process wherein our hermeneutic constructions are incorporated into the Words self-disclosure, and whereby interpreters who embrace this venture in vulnerability may experience graced transformation. She concludes by proposing that this ';Christomorphic' interpretation process is analogous to a mother's embodied responsiveness in caring for her child. Such a hermeneutic paradigm suggests distinctive commitments from communities who desire to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in interpretive acts.