ABSTRACT
The question of the relations between the Bible and critical theory is not one of application. Critical theory can be no more or no less meaningfully “applied” to the Bible than to any other ancient body of texts. But since theories are bodies of language of the same order as the text, I do not think there can be a question of application. At the most, theories can be brought into a dialogue with texts. In this sense, I would like to take the conjunction “and” in the theme of this volume on the Bible and critical theory, as I like to take the Hebrew conjunction “waw”: at face value. I do not want to take it as a false coordination that conceals some other, “logical” relation, some subordination, on either side.
