Table of Contents
1. Situating the explorations : "thirty years of hermeneutics" -- 2. Situating a theoretical framework : "biblical studies and theoretical hermeneutics" -- 3. Resituating hermeneutics in the twenty-first century : a programmatic reappraisal -- 4. An initial application and a caveat : "the supposed power of words in the biblical writings" -- 5. Speech-act theory as one tool among many : "transforming texts" -- 6. Changing the world - illocutions, Christology and "directions of fit" : "Christological texts in Paul" -- 7. More on Christology : "Christology in Luke, speech-act theory, and the problem of dualism in Christology" -- 8. More on promising : "the paradigm of biblical promise as trustworthy, temporal, transformative speech-acts" -- 9. A retrospective reappraisal of work on speech-act theory -- 10. Justification by grace as legal fiction? : "languages-games and 'seeing as' : a fresh approach to justification by faith in Paul and James" -- 11. Descriptive, evaluative, and persuasive meanings : "the meaning of [Sarz] in 1 Corinthians 5:5 : a fresh approach in the light of logical and semantic factors" -- 12. "Faith", "flesh" and "truth" as context-dependent concepts : "language-games and polymorphous concepts" -- 13. Semantics serving hermeneutics : "semantics and New Testament interpretation" -- 14. Does the Bible call all Cretans liars? : "the logical role of the liar paradox in Titus 1:12, 13 : a dissent from the commentaries in the light of philosophical and logical analysis" -- 15. A retrospective reappraisal : conceptual grammar and inter-disciplinary research -- 16. Greek lexicography and the context of argument : "the 'interpretation' of tongues? : a new suggestion in the light of Greek usage in Philo and Josephus" -- 17. Does lexicographical research yield "Hebrew" and "Greek" concepts of truth? (1978), and how does this relate to notions of truth today? -- 18. Reception history or Wirkungsgeschichte? : "the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians : exegesis and reception-history in the patristic era" -- 19. Exegesis, lexicography and theology : "'love, the essential and lasting criterion', 1 Corinthians 13:1-7" -- 20. "Meanings and Greek translation relating to 'spiritual gifts' in 1 Corinthians 12-14 : some proposals in the light of philosophy of language, speech-act theory and exegesis" -- 21. The hermeneutics of pastoral theology : ten strategies for reading texts in relation to varied reading-situations -- 22. A retrospective reappraisal : lexicography, exegesis and strategies of interpretation -- 23. The varied hermeneutical dynamics of parables and reader-response theory -- 24. Parables, "world" and eventful speech : "the parables as language-event : some comments on Fuchs's hermeneutics in the light of linguistic philosophy" -- 25. The Bible and today's readers : "the two horizons" and "pre-understanding" -- 26. Entering a transforming world : "the new hermeneutic" -- 27. Reader-response is not one thing : "types of reader-response theory" -- 28. A retrospective reappraisal : reader-response hermeneutics and parable worlds -- 29. Some issues in historical perspective : "language and meaning in religion" -- 30. The peril of uncritical appropriation : "God as self-affirming illusion? : manipulation, truth and language" -- 31. The postmodern self and society : loss of hope and the possibility of refocused hope -- 32. Two types of postmodernity : "signs of the times : towards a theology for the year 2000 as a grammar of grace, truth and eschatology in contexts of so-called postmodernity" -- 33. "Postmodern" challenges to hermeneutics : "'behind' and 'in front of' the text - language, reference and indeterminacy" -- 34. Can "authority" remain viable in a postmodern climate? : "biblical authority in the light of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics" -- 35. The Bible and postmodernity : "can a pre-modern Bible address a postmodern world?" -- 36. A retrospective reappraisal : postmodernity, language and hermeneutics -- 37. Scholarship and the church : "academic freedom, religious tradition and the morality of Christian scholarship" -- 38. Theology and credal traditions : "knowledge, myth and corporate memory" -- 39. Time and grand narrative? : "human being, relationality and time in Hebrews, 1 Corinthians and Western traditions" -- 40. Dialogue, dialectic and temporal horizons : "polyphonic voices and theological fiction" and "temporal horizons in hermeneutics" -- 41. God will be all in all : "Luther and Barth on 1 Corinthians 15 : six theses for theology in relation to recent interpretation" -- 42. A retrospective reappraisal of part VII : the contributions of the five essays to hermeneutics, and the possibility of theological hermeneutics.