One Writer's Thoughts

"If we believe someone else is “misreading” a text, we can take the person back to that text, ask the text again what it is “saying,” and demonstrate to that person by the text’s own agency that his or her interpretation is incorrect and ours is better. Contrary to this common misconception, however, if we are in fact successful in changing another person’s mind about the text’s meaning, it will have been our agency that affected our friend’s reading of the text, not any fictitious agency of the text itself. Texts cannot dispense their meaning, and they cannot control their interpretation. Those activities are done by human beings."

"Paul suggests that gentiles can practice a law written in their hearts, which will be seen as not only equal to but also above the written Torah…It should be remembered that in Paul’s day the only religious law for Paul was that of the Jewish Bible, in Hebrew… Though Torah and the New Testament, including Paul’s letters, will eventually shape church law, the New Testament’s books are not in themselves composed as law. They are not a self-consciously composed constitution. They contain no Ten Commandments in form or statement."