In this wide-ranging study Rosalind Selby explores the hermeneutical implications of a Barthian epistemology in which 'given-ness' (of knowledge, talk of God and Scripture, and the Church) is paramount. From this she seeks to develop a "hermeneutics of service" that challenges both liberal and fundamentalist approaches to theological language and biblical interpretation.

Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Questions of Truth and Epistemology	p. 11
Introductory Background	p. 11
The End of Objectivity - The Epistemological Dimension	p. 18
The End of Objectivity - The Linguistic Dimension	p. 24
The Problem of Relativism	p. 27
Responses to Relativism	p. 32
The Mode of Knowing and the 'Object' Known	p. 40
Conclusions	p. 47
Reference and Text	p. 53
How can the Creature Refer to the Creator?	p. 53
Analogy	p. 55
Metaphor	p. 59
Can a Text Refer?	p. 65
Textuality - Inscribed and Wrought, a Field of Play?	p. 66
Reference and Writing	p. 69
Further Textual Analogies	p. 76
Types of Reference	p. 81
Referential Fallacies	p. 89
Narrative Readings of St. Mark's Gospel	p. 89
The Cultural-Linguistic Model of George Lindbeck	p. 97
Conclusions	p. 101
Community and Validity	p. 107
Which Community?	p. 107
Readers and Reading Considered	p. 114
The Possibility of Critique	p. 136
Conclusions - Closure, Abundance and Control	p. 157
The Question of Historical Knowledge	p. 165
Philosophies of History	p. 165
Historical and Sociological Approaches to the Gospels - and Further Epistemological Considerations	p. 178
What's in a "Quest"?	p. 187
Beginning with the Resurrection	p. 201
Conclusions	p. 212
Conclusions	p. 221
General Conclusions and a Discussion of St. Mark's Account of the Transfiguration	p. 221
Implications of the Study for an Ethics of Reading Appropriate to the Gospel	p. 239
Appendices
Bibliographical Details of the Habermas/Gadamer Debate	p. 249
Intra- and Inter-Textuality in the Narrative of the Transfiguration - Mark 9:2-8	p. 251
Bibliography	p. 257
Author Index	p. 275
Scripture Index	p. 279
Subject Index	p. 281
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