How Can We Know What God Means

In spite of the growth of secularization, technology, and science, statistics tell us that religious conversions are on the rise, and the number of people who take religion and divine revelation seriously is at an all time high. This phenomenon, curiously enough, has increased rather than decreased both inter and intra-religious conflicts: Protestants fight Catholics in Northern Ireland, Serbian Greek Orthodox fight with Kosovo Moslems in Yugoslavia, Jews fight with Moslems in Palestine, and Hindus fight with Moslems in India, the list is seemingly endless. There is bitter disagreement also in dealing with revelation, even within the same religious traditions and with regard to the same scriptures: Liberal Christians reject the literal interpretation of the Christian scriptures favoured by Evangelicals, many Protestant groups do not accept the role of tradition in interpretation which Roman Catholics consider essential, Orthodox Jews strictly follow eating regulations presented in the Torah, but Reformed Jews take these in a different sense. In recent years, the author claims, the confusion has been compounded by the rise in the number and variety of interpretational approaches that are used to understand revelation. One can now take a culturalist, sociological, literary, psychoanalytical, historical, political, philosophical or feminist interpretations approach, to name just a few. But do these all necessarily make sense when applied to religious texts? These and other questions cry out for answers which seldom are even attempted in the pertinent literature. This book offers a sustained philosophical treatment of religious hermeneutics in which the author considers the main alternatives available in the marketplace.