Religion & Law

I've been reading around the new book of my old teacher, Kent Greenawalt, entitled "Legal Interpretation: Perspectives from Other Disciplines and Private Texts."  The book is the first in a series of planned volumes dealing, respectively, with statutory, common law, and constitutional interpretation.  Many points in the chapters remind me of arguments and insights Kent offered to students like me in his "Legal Interpretation" seminar.  Many are new.

Perhaps of special interest to some readers is Kent's chapter on religious interpretation.  As with the relationship of the idea of doctrine to both law and theology, there are special (perhaps even unique) connections with respect to interpretation's purposes when it comes to legal and religious texts (e.g., the role of interpretation not only in offering practical guidance, but in establishing the acceptability of various actions, the status assigned to the interpreted text, and so on) -- ones which do not apply to the interpretation of literary or artistic work, for example.  Something to enjoy over the Christmas period.