Thanks to Energion Discussion Network for publishing my post on texts and the inescapable necessity of interpretation."... those who perceive are just as significant as the one who paints what is perceived, just as those who interpret written texts are just as important as the one who wrote the text. It is impossible to divorce the interpreter from the interpreter's own context in order to render an 'objective' interpretation. That is not to say that the 'original' context of what was painted or written is unimportant. Nor is the intention of the artist or the author insignificant, and though such intention may be quite difficult to discover, it is a worthy endeavor all the same. But just as we cannot extrapolate 'ourselves' from any of our experiences in life in order to have the view from nowhere, so we cannot get out of our own interpretive skin when gazing at paintings in an art museum or in reading a novel or the newspaper or in studying the Scripture in order to give an interpretation that is… well… free from interpretation."
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The entire post can be read here.
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