I was referring to your comments about the feminist scholar's exegesis of Genesis 1–3. While you begin by praising her as a "gifted exegete," you go on to say that she "distort[s]" the text "from the standpoint of her own ideology," thus implying that she, too, had a "blind spot" that you wanted to point out. My comment was simply meant as a reminder that not everyone would consider her exegesis a "distort[ion]."

You state your hermeneutic rather clearly when you suggest that "her willingness to read into the text a viewpoint which strikes [you] as clearly foreign to it" is a negative thing. Again, I have no problem with that; you are welcome to your views on these issues, and I appreciate the viewpoint that you – and others – bring to the text.

All of that said, I should have been more generous to you saying, "My point in telling you all this is not to critique this scholar's exegetical methods." My apologies for focusing my attention on the things that bothered me in your post rather than your obvious willingness to be as neutral as possible.

As always, I look forward to your upcoming posts.

With respect to the movement toward theological conservatism you perceive, I would argue that it's a mistaken impression. Yes, many of the modules we've recently released have been staunchly conservative, but that has more to do with the materials we have ready to release than any agenda on our parts. Before all the recent Zondervan material, we released JBL, Hermeneia, Semeia, etc. When each of those resources was released, we might very well have had conservative users perceiving a progressive shift.

As for my post "clearly suggesting that a hermeneutic based on authorial intent is somehow the 'right' way to interpret the scriptures," I think you're reading into my post suggestions which are not there. I said nothing about determining the author's intent in this post; I merely suggested that we need to do our best to become aware of our own interpretive preconceptions so that they do not blind us to important aspects of the text. Whatever our hermeneutic, if we ignore or gloss over aspects of the text, our understanding of that text is sure to be flawed.

Adam, due to my blind spots, please help me to understand how you are using and understanding the word "conservative"? Also, I'm a little bit in the dark by what you mean by "a progressive Accordance user". Are you comparing yourself to a conservative Accordance user? If so, would you be so kind to explain how you see they are different?

I guess for me, at the heart of it all is: why does anyone study the Bible? We all have assumptions--at least I believe that we can all agree on that. We all have "blind spots" and again, I think that we can at least agree on that. So what's in it for us--no matter what our theological persuasion is--as we come to the ancient text of the most meticulously examined book in the world? My assumption is that we all want light!  

To be perfectly honest, as a progressive Accordance user, it bothers me a little to see how conservative the material "surrounding" Accordance is becoming. Most of the modules are extremely conservative in their approach (including the new releases); Dr. J's podcasts, while helpful for learning the interface, tend to be theologically conservative; and, now, the blog is clearly suggesting that a hermeneutic based on authorial intent is somehow the "right" way to interpret the scriptures.

While I'm fully recognizant of the fact that most biblical scholars (and, thus, Accordance users) are conservative, not everyone is. It might be nice to see some more critical and minority approaches to the text in future blog posts as well as how Accordance can be of use to those interpreters as well.

I often think of epistemology when I think of our biases and blind spots.  Questioning our assumptions is well worth the effort.  Einstein questioned the linearity of time and thus developed the theory of relativity.  What other understanding are we not questioning?  That is a very good question and I look forward to your presentation of Accordance tools or techniques to use.

Thanks for the stimulating post.  

Amen, David!  You just can not observe the text too closely!  Many times what we are ‘familiar’ with is only what we have been taught the text says, rather than having studied it meticulously for ourselves.  Blind spots are healable, but they require diligent study on our behalf.

Speaking of ‘who’s where?’ and ‘who’s with who?” in the Creation story, back in 2001 I taught the pilot course for a Bible Study course I had written called “HIStory:  A Timeline of Biblical Events”.  The night we studied the Creation, I asked a few simple questions to prove we need to study even the most familiar parts of the Bible attentively (maybe even more so), one of the questions being, “Where was the woman when God gave His command to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”

Out of 150 students, not even one knew the answer!  When I told them God had not even fashioned a woman yet, and gave the instruction to Adam alone, they were all incredulous.  While it was not a major doctrinal crisis point, it was a perfect illustration that we who call ourselves Christians far too many times do not study His Word carefully for ourselves, observing every single word, sentence, verse, chapter and book in their contexts.

The application of that illustration became very real as we worked our way through the entire Bible--we didn’t want to miss anything God said because to believe something we had been ‘taught’ rather than believe what the Bible actually said on some other issue might just be the difference between Truth and error, or Life and death.

Thanks for your blogs.  God is using you through them.

Interesting. The JPS translation of Gen 3:6 merely contains "She also gave some to her husband, and he ate", completely leaving out any mention of his presence with her. An interesting omission.