The first of The Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar consultations took place in Cheltenham in April 1998. The theme for this meeting was the crisis in biblical interpretation and the sort of answers to it being proposed by advocates of speech act theory such as Anthony Thiselton, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Kevin Vanhoozer, all of whom were present. We were not agreed at this consultation whether speech act theory has the resources to take biblical interpretation forward, but it became clear that any attempt to renew biblical interpretation in the academy would require a process with multiple consultations to address the key areas we thought required attention.
Thus was born The Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar, a ten year project based in Theology and Religious Studies at The University of Gloucestershire, where it is headed up by Craig Bartholomew. The Seminar is a partnership project between British and Foreign Bible Society and The University of Gloucestershire. Its ambitious aim is to facilitate a renewal of biblical interpretation in the academy that will help reopen the Book for our cultures.
The Seminar is thus academic. It recognises the fundamental importance of opening the Book at all levels in our cultures but the Seminar itself is an academic initiative, aimed firstly at biblical interpretation in the academy. The Seminar is interdisciplinary. Meir Sternberg rightly notes that biblical studies is at the intersection of the humanities, and The Seminar is based on the understanding that at this intersection interdisciplinary insight is required if biblical studies is to be saved from some of its isolation and fragmentation, and for new ways forward to be forged. It has been a delight at our consultations to find philosophers rubbing shoulders with educationalists and theologians, and missiologists working with literary scholars to renew biblical interpretation.
The Seminar is Christian. Modernity has marginalised faith in the great public areas of culture but this is a travesty of a Christian perspective in which faith relates to the whole of life. The Seminar is ecumenical and has a wide range of Christian perspectives represented within it. However, it is a rule of The Seminar that faith is not to be excluded from the consultative process that forms the heart of The Seminar. We have been asked about Jewish and other faiths being involved, and we are keen that such dialogue should emerge. However, we have judged it important to keep The Seminar’s Christian character intact at this stage so that the interdisciplinary and faith dynamics have time to be nurtured.
The Seminar is communal. The modern academy is deeply individualistic. But we recognise that a renewal of biblical interpretation will require communal work. And a great aspect of The Seminar is the emerging sense of community amongst Christian scholars of diverse disciplines.
