Something that has been bugging me for a while, and I felt might be good to blogify is the irony that sits under the use of the word Exegesis.
First of all, let me grant a definition:
Exegesis - explanation or critical interpretation of a text
Eisegesis - the interpretation of a text, using one's own ideas
These two words will be of particular familiarity if you have spent a reasonable amount of time around people actively engaging with the Bible. Why? Because the urge, especially amongst evangelical circles, is to get back to the true meaning of what the text says. The writer had an intention for the text, and so wrote it in a particular way, which builds upon itself into a logical book. The books in the Bible were not written contrary to understanding, but so that people could understand, examine, and meditate/think about them.
To this end, the encouragement is to be a good Bible reader. To be a good Bible reader is to come to it on its own terms. The easiest way to be a bad Bible reader is to listen to what people say about Christianity or its doctrine... open up the Bible... and read in everything someone else has said about the Bible into what its saying.
