ABSTRACT
Like all other forms of understanding, the process of understanding the Bible is intimately tied to a process of communication. Four factors are involved: (1) The author, who aims to communicate an insight or experience from his world; (2) the text, which at least partially contains what the author intended to communicate; (3) the reader, who initiates contact with the author and his world by dealing with the text and its world (it remains to be seen whether modern readers of an ancient text are capable of re-actualising the intention of the author at all, or whether they are doomed by the ‘abyss of history’ to mistake the written intention within the context of their own interests); (4) the subject matter which connects author, text and reader. Graphically, we can portray this situation as follows:
