Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism

by Mark Allan Powell

Overview

Emphasizing meaning as "effect" rather than merely "message," Mark Allan Powell shows how biblical texts may legitimately take on multiple meanings in a variety of contexts. The first part of the book uses examples drawn from popular literature and culture to engage in a practical way the kinds of questions that scholars bring to their study of the Bible. The second part is devoted to approaching the Gospel of Matthew as a work of literature that readers may enter—and be affected by—as they might any other kind of text. The third part is an extended study of one passage from Matthew's Gospel, the story of the Magi, in which Powell finds an excellent opportunity to teach readers to engage in—and to challenge!—the enterprise of biblical scholarship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780664222789
Publisher:	Westminster John Knox Press
Publication date:	03/01/2001
Edition description:	1 ED
Pages:	249
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.54(d)

About the Author

Mark Allan Powell is Robert and Phyllis Leatherman Professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.