Abstract
In this response to Edward Greenstein’s paper, “A Pragmatic Pedagogy of Bible”, the author highlights a number
of contributions that Greenstein, a scholar of Bible, makes to the way that educators conceptualize their work.
Among them are a nuanced discussion of the relationship between the methodology of interpretation and the
outcomes of interpretation, and a reminder that any particular interpretation of a text is by definition incomplete,
which can be helpful to teachers in responding to and valuing the variety of students’ own encounters with texts.
The author also questions the extent to which Greenstein’s description of the teacher rationally selecting a given
interpretive approach (towards particular pedagogic ends) masks the complex range of factors that shapes the
approaches the teacher uses, which includes not only deliberately-chosen methods and tools but powerful (and
sometimes unconscious) beliefs about the subject matter and the larger enterprise of teaching.