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With this in mind, and in light of the opportunity offered by the growing debate about hermeneutics, the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar was set up in 1998 to explore what could be done to renew interpretation of the Bible as Scripture in the Academy. The Partners in the Scripture and Hermeneutics Project are Bible Society, the University of Gloucestershire (UK), Baylor University (USA), and Redeemer University College (Canada). The Seminar has gathered leading Christian scholars from around the world each year at a consultation. They have come from many disciplines, including biblical, theological, philosophical, literary and historical. Annual publications coming out of these consultations are intended to play a part in renewing excitement about the Bible in the Academy and to act as a catalyst for ongoing debate concerning the meaning and relevance of Scripture. PROGRESS The first consultation took place in April 1998 in Cheltenham, England, in order to discuss the crisis in biblical interpretation and to map out the direction which the newly-formed Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar would take. The Seminar Renewing Biblical Interpretation met in 1999 at Selwyn College, Cambridge, England, in order to discuss the state of biblical interpretation in the academy. This was followed by the consultation held at Redeemer University College in Canada in August 2000 on Language and Biblical Interpretation and one held at Cheltenham in June 2001 on The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically. In 2002 the participants met in Boston, USA, to discus History, Philosophy and Theology of History, and the Bible. Subsequently, The Seminar met in St. Andrews, Scotland in 2003, where the subject was Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation and the consultation on Reading Luke convened in Oxford, England the following in year (2004). The consultation on Canon and Biblical Interpretation in June 2005 was held at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. The final Seminar came together in June 2006 in Texas, USA, dealing with the The Bible and the University. The results of the annual consultations have been published by Zondervan and Paternoster Press:
With a community of international scholars firmly behind the project, the Seminar has provided a fruitful context for a very high level of debate and a stimulating interchange of ideas. There are plans for the future of the Seminar, including the maintenance and development of the community of scholars that has been built up over these past years as well as initiating new projects as appropriate. 'There are few things more urgent for Christian thought in the churches and in universities and seminaries than to produce lively, intelligent and imaginative Biblical interpretation.' 'The first volume holds out the hope that certain hermeneutical developments will lead not only to the renewal of biblical interpretation, but to the renewal of the church itself.' |
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or the last 150 years, the Bible has been scrutinised with the best scientific tools the modern world could provide. Despite all the advances this has produced, its effect has generally been to fragment Scripture and to make opening the Book as Scripture, in which we hear God speak to us personally and as communities, problematic.