A question

Sir, Since I was (I think!) responsible for setting this ‘hare running’ - ie ‘reading between the lines’ of Scripture (as short-hand for examining the ‘internal evidence’ of the text) - may I be allowed please to respond to Alan Minchin (Letters, 2 May), with a short anecdote and a question.

Some years ago, following an interesting sermon by a Lay Reader in our church drawn from the whole of Isaiah, I approached the man in order to make better acquaintance of him, with the opening remark: Well, your Isaiah must have lived a long time! - indicating that he had made no reference at all to Isaiahs 1 and 2 (let alone 3!). His response was simple: Oh! I just take it all at ‘face value’: end of conversation! I would assume therefore that Alan’s position is somewhat similar?

Hence my question to him: which of all the many hundreds of ‘Bibles’ (compilations and translations of Scripture) now available across the world, does Alan regard as ultimately authoritative? - those of the Protestant churches since the reformation, or of the Roman Catholic church, or the Eastern Orthodox churches (Greek, Russian, etc.), or the Syriac and Coptic churches, and so on - all of which differ to some degree in both content and meanings/understandings. ‘Surface level’ (or ‘face value’) interpretation of the Scriptures is highly dubious, since it fails to distinguish (for example) the occasions when Jesus spoke with a hint of irony, of laughter, of disappointment or even sheer dismay, anger and frustration. The text ‘at face value’ rarely touches upon his feelings, which must therefore be imagined from the cultural context into which his words were spoken. To ignore such matters is seriously to diminish Jesus’ full humanity. John M.Hughes, Heaton Mersey, Stockport