Abstract:
In the past two decades, Bible scholars have become more aware of the ways in which any given methodological
approach or interpretive strategy shapes and determines the types of meaning that emerge from the biblical text.
In this paper based on his keynote address at the Mandel Center’s 2005 conference on Teaching Bible, the author
uses multiple readings of the story of the Tower of Babel to build his argument that scholars and teachers should
self-consciously determine the types of meanings they are seeking, only then identifying the analytic and interpretive techniques that will best produce those results.
