Pedagogy of social transformation in the Hebrew Bible: Allowing Scripture to inform our interpretive strategy for contemporary application

Abstract

The Hebrew Bible itself teaches its readers and listeners how to learn. Its pedagogy of social transformation instructs contemporary Christians how to interpret and apply lessons from Scripture in a manner that is consistent with the orientation, priorities and methods inherent in the text. This article demonstrates that relationship and identity are the necessary precursors to biblical education. It then considers the educational perspective for social transformation within the Hebrew Bible. The analysis explores the purpose and process of education for social transformation and the pastorally oriented pedagogy that the Bible utilises to advance moral development and prevent hermeneutic bias. Lastly, the article considers how the narrative, Law, prophets and wisdom texts in the Hebrew Bible train in social critique. This article helps Christians to develop a biblically based hermeneutic of the Hebrew Scripture’s social transformation for application today.

Keywords

• Old Testament
• Hebrew Bible
• pedagogy
• hermeneutic
• social transformation
• interpretation
• application