Alan Jacobs, Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of Love

Here are some comments concerning Alan Jacobs A Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of Love...an excellent book that I encourage everyone to read.


Product Description from Amazon:

If the whole of the Christian life is to be governed by the "law of love"-the twofold love of God and one's neighbor-what might it mean to read lovingly? That is the question that drives this unique book. Jacobs pursues this challenging task by alternating largely theoretical, theological chapters-drawing above all on Augustine and Mikhail Bakhtin-with interludes that investigate particular readers (some real, some fictional) in the act of reading. Among the authors considered are Shakespeare, Cervantes, Nabakov, Nicholson Baker, George Eliot, W.H. Auden, and Dickens. The theoretical framework is elaborated in the main chapters, while various counterfeits of or substitutes for genuinely charitable interpretation are considered in the interludes, which progressively close in on that rare creature, the loving reader. Through this doubled method of investigation, Jacobs tries to show how difficult it is to read charitably-even should one wish to, which, of course, few of us do. And precisely because the prospect of reading in such a manner is so offputting, one of the covert goals of the book is to make it seem both more plausible and more attractive.


In light of this, I offer to you a quote from the book and some of my questions:

“To meditate is to attach oneself closely to the sentence being recited and weigh all its words in order to sound the depths of their full meaning.”—Jacobs 102.

In reference to this quote, Why then are we, here at Princeton Theological Seminary, given more to read than this method will allow? Why did every one of my professors say at the beginning of class that there was too much reading to do, and that there was no way to do it all, and, therefore, we must choose what is important? Why are those educated in the field leaving those not yet educated to define what is most important to read? How are we to realize the importance of our texts if we are encouraged and expected to brush over them quickly rather than to read them closely and “weigh all its words in order to sound the depths of their meaning”? How are we expected to interpret texts well if we are not expected to spend time understanding them?