Hermeneutical bible study: A ‘tradition thought contribution’ to religious education in plural and diverse contexts

This chapter proposes hermeneutical Bible study as a focus of contemporary religious education with a novel exceptionalist argument. Its starting point is the emergence of interest in the Bible among popular atheist scholars in different subject fields, in contrast to earlier phases of atheist critique. Also, signs are noted of hermeneutical development both in the Catholic Churches’ guidance for scholarly Biblical interpretation and in the work of major Biblical hermeneutics scholars, such as in the work of the Anglican, Anthony Thiselton. Both of these show serious engagement with modern hermeneutical scholarship. Both are influencing curriculum design in Catholic and Church of England school sectors in England. This chapter focuses on Thiselton’s work, identifying principles for hermeneutical school religious education that follow from this modern wave of hermeneutical scholarship, and suggests that these are valuable tools for religious education more broadly which could cultivate, amongst other things, an attentive disposition towards otherness. In so doing it exemplifies how a tradition-specific development in scholarship has informed a broader intellectual movement in such a way that it might then meaningfully contribute to religious education in plural and diverse settings: an example of how tradition-developed thought might cooperate in a broader educational endeavour.