ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the James Barr, Paul Ricoeur and Hans Frei on the nature and function of the critical reading of the Bible for the life of the Christian church. Each author is engaged in a project that aims at the felicitous reading of the Bible for the life of the Christian community. The chapter considers the Bible as Scripture, and demonstrates that literal sense interpretation of the Gospels is the basis for the typological unity of Old and New Testaments in a Christocentric rule of faith reading. Three hermeneutic convictions are central for Barr in the critical reading of the Bible for the life of the Christian church. Critical interpretation implies, first, that the church's reading of Scripture must be open to the contributions of historical-critical investigation. The second hermeneutic conviction concerns the shared social locus of biblical interpretation. The third conviction relates to the service that critical biblical research performs in mediating the church's hearing of the Scriptures.
