Explores the contemporary crisis of biblical interpretation by examining modern and postmodern 'hermeneutics of suspicion'.

In the contemporary biblical studies climate, proposals regarding the theological interpretation of Scripture are contested, particularly but not only because they privilege, encourage, and foster ecclesial or other forms of normative commitments as part and parcel of the hermeneutical horizon through which scriptural texts are read and understood. Within this context, confessional approaches have been emerging, including some from within the nascent pentecostal theological tradition. This volume builds on the author's previous work in theological method to suggest a pentecostal perspective on theological interpretation that is rooted in the conviction that all Christian reading of sacred Scripture is post-Pentecost, meaning after the Day of Pentecost outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh in anticipation of the coming reign of God. In that respect, such a pentecostal interpretative perspective is not parochially for those within the modern day movement bearing that name but is arguably apostolic in following after the scriptural imagination of the earliest disciples of Jesus the messiah and therefore has ecumenical and missional purchase across space and time. The Hermeneutical Spirit thus provides close readings of various texts across the scriptural canon as a model for Christian theological interpretation of Scripture suitable for the twenty-first-century global context.

Paul Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of the Imagination argues Ricoeur's development of the philosophy of the creative imagination is vital to Ricoeur's articulation of a critical hermeneutics. Herein lies Ricoeur's hermeneutical contribution to the philosophy of religion and the problem of interpreting primary religious texts that utilize plurivocal forms of language. Evans clarifies that it is through Ricoeur's studies of metaphor and narrative that he assesses and explicates the subversive power of the creative imagination in terms of the philosophy of language. Dr. Evans systematizes this theme of the philosophy of the imagination from Fallible Man, the early work of Ricoeur to the more recent publication of Time and Narrative.

The imagination is where the Creator chooses to meet his creatures, says renowned theologian Garrett Green. The Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit set the imagination free for genuine and creative knowledge of God, the world, others, and the self. Green explains that theology is best understood as human imagination faithfully conformed to the Bible as the paradigmatic key to the Christian gospel. He unpacks the implications of the imagination for a variety of theological issues, such as interpretation, aesthetics, eschatology, and the relationship between church and culture.

The thought of Paul Ricoeur continues its profound effect on theology, religious studies and biblical interpretation. The 28 papers contained in this volume constitute the most comprehensive overview of Ricoeur's writings in religion since 1970. Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation and his sensitivity to the mystery of religious language offer fresh insight to the transformative potential of sacred literature, including the Bible.

This title was first published in 2002. How does one go about "doing Christian theology"? Yong explores this question by proposing a pneumatological-trinitarian hermeneutic. Its thesis is that interpretation and theological method is an ongoing tri-logue of Spirit-Word-Community: of interpretive subjects as imaginative, obligated and relational agents; of the horizons of the interpreter, the biblical and ecclesial traditions, and the world; and of founding, historical, and ongoing communities of faith and inquiry. Ecumenical perspectives on the topics of pneumatology (the doctrine of the Spirit), metaphysics (foundational pneumatology), epistemology (the pneumatological imagination), and trinitarian theology converge in this book to move forward the present discussion of theological method.