Do My Truth Claims Offend You?

Jesus has commissioned us to to share the Good News of the Kingdom of God and salvation through Jesus. What happens when our audience no longer believes in authors, texts or readers, and feels “oppressed by our truth claims”? What do they actually believe?

The book below will help you confront postmodern skepticism about biblical authority and the biblical message itself. I have no formal training in literary criticism or philosophy. For this reason, I am particularly grateful for resources like the ones that I am presenting here.

Is There a Meaning in This Text?

I stumbled across this book several years ago. It really helped me understand the intellectual issues that come up when communicating with a post-modern audience. You can find it here:

Is There a Meaning in This Text?: The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge by Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Paperback August 31, 2009

The Table of Contents reveals some interesting chapter titles:

• Introduction: Theology and Literary Theory
  • Faith Seeking Textual Understanding
• Part 1: Undoing Interpretation
  • Undoing the Author
  • Undoing the Book
  • Undoing the Reader
• Part 2: Redoing Interpretation
  • Resurrecting the Author
  • Redeeming the Text
  • Reforming the Reader
• Conclusion: A Hermeneutics of the Cross
  • A Hermeneutics of Humility and Conviction

I’ve had many conversations about Jesus and the Bible with people who disagreed with its message. Before I read this book however, I assumed that they accepted the existence of a biblical author. I assumed that they would agree that it was possible to discern what the author meant by what was written. This confidence on my part was often misplaced. I can recall several conversations with a beloved family member that would follow the pattern below:

She felt no need to accept any “official” meaning for the biblical text about Jesus. Dr. Vanhoozer’s book helped me to get a handle on this disconnect between us. I believe it will be helpful to many of you.

Helpful Resources

When I recommend a book I like to give you a summary of its message and supplemental resources.I want to help you understand why you should bother reading it. For this particular book, I found the online resources below:

• Apologetics.COM: Interview with Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer – YouTube (00:20:28)
  Dr. Vanhoozer addresses postmodernism at about 00:08:15 into the video.
• Reconstruct Podcast: Kevin Vanhoozer Postmodern Philosophy & Christian Theology – 02/17/2019 (00:46:00)
• Review by Craig L. Bloomberg – The Gospel Coalition
• Review by Justin Cloute – Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
• Video Review (currently unavailable): Caleb Smith recorded this 3-part review for his Theophile YouTube channel in 2020:
  • Kevin Vanhoozer | Is There A Meaning In This Text? | BOOK REVIEW – YouTube Playlist
    Smith’s book review is in 3-parts corresponding to the major sections of Vanhoozer’s book:
    • Part 1 – Death of the Author, Reader, and Text (00:17:39)
    • Part 2 – Resurrecting the Author, Reader, and Text (00:09:04)
    • Part 3 – Conclusion (00:13:56)
  • Unfortunately, these videos are no longer available. I am leaving the links in place in hope that the reviewer will eventually restore them.

More About Kevin Vanhoozer

Here are some links to more information about Kevin Vanhoozer:

• Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Faculty Page
• Theophilus Project
• Amazon.COM Page

Further Reading

By the way, you can find a discussion of some of these same concepts (and related ones) in the books below:

	The New Testament and the People of God by N. T. Wright September 1, 1992 (see Chapter 3 – “Literature, Story and the Articulation of Worldivews”)
	Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by N. T. Wright March 19, 2013 Wright lists Vanhoozer’s book as a resource in the Appendix: Recent Resources on Scripture

Enjoy!