Searching for Meaning: An Introduction to Interpreting the New Testament by Paula Gooder

by Paula Gooder

In this clear, comprehensive, student-friendly textbook, biblical scholar and teacher Paula Gooder describes and illustrates the range of approaches to interpreting the New Testament, as taught in universities and seminaries throughout the English-speaking world. Top scholars give a short definition of a particular criticism, and then Gooder gives a practical example to demonstrate how that criticism can be applied to a biblical text. A very broad range of methods is introduced, from traditional criticisms such as source criticism and historical criticism to more modern methods such as feminist criticism and liberation criticism. Readers will understand how different meanings and emphases can be drawn from a text depending upon the method of interpretation chosen. They will also be given the skills to start analyzing and examining texts for themselves in a meaningful and insightful way.

Genres: Theology

Paperback

First published September 18, 2008

About the author

Paula Gooder is a speaker and writer on the Bible, particularly on the New Testament. She began her working life, teaching for twelve years in ministerial formation first at Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford and then at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham. Following this she spent around eight years as a speaker and writer in biblical studies travelling the country and seeking to communicate the best of biblical scholarship in as accessible a way as possible, after that she spent six years working for the Bible Society as their Theologian in Residence and then for the Birmingham Diocese as their Director of Mission Learning and Development. She is currently the Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Reviews

[An Te · Rating 4 out of 5]

A carefully chosen band of theologians and commentators make for an interesting cross-section of all that the study of biblical hermeneutics has to offer. My personal favourites are Asian criticism, ecological criticism, socio-political criticism and reception history. However, they are all important to use. Some are stances, other are tools. But they are all possible means for the endeavour of a constructive and life-affirming interpretation of the biblical texts. I imagine new tools being added to the hermeneutical inventory as time goes on. It's a most exciting field indeed.