Hermeneutic?

A hermeneutic is simply a theory of interpretation. It is a way of approaching any text. One does not (ought not) read an article in "The Onion" the same way one reads an article in "The Wall Street Journal" or the classified ads. We all have implicit and explicit hermeneutics; and Christians (typically) read the Bible in a very different way than they read anything else. Our hermeneutic of scripture comes laden with all kinds of notions, superstitions, prejudices and emotional baggage. That's not all bad. But my job as a theologian is to make the implicit explicit and then ask if it is correct/adequate/faithful/authorized/coherent....

It would be impossible to enumerate the scriptural hermeneutics in use today. Initially I will look at two examples as examples of what I would like to challenge: one Evangelical, one post-Christian.