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Kierkegaard is well known for being critical of a scholarly readingof the bible. It is generally understood that his primary concern wasthat “objective” biblical scholarship was undermining the possibilityof a reader’s subjective life being affected, challenged and provokedby its message. That is, it encourages an overly detached reading of Scripture that distracts persons from responding to its call to dis-cipleship. It is indeed the case that Kierkegaard devoted himself tochallenging the fact that the nominal Christians in Denmark were notactively responding Scripture. However, I shall argue that there issomething much more fundamental to his critique of biblical schol-arship. For Kierkegaard, the faithful reader is not primarily calledto respond to the message of Scripture but to the living God whocommunicates to persons through Scripture. This paper will look athow Kierkegaard sought to remind Christians that Scripture is notan end in itself but a witness to the living God (who is the primaryfocus of the Christian life).

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This page is a summary of: A Kierkegaardian Guide to Reading Scripture, New Blackfriars, June 2016, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/nbfr.12226.
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