If plural meaning unsettles biblical interpretation, perspective destabilises it even more profoundly.
The history of biblical interpretation can be read as a prolonged effort to contain perspective — to stabilise meaning by fixing its point of origin.
Perspective Is Unavoidable
Every act of interpretation is perspectival:
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texts are written from particular historical positions,
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languages encode culturally situated distinctions,
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readers encounter scripture from within lives, bodies, and commitments,
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communities shape interpretive habits through tradition and authority.
There is no view from nowhere. Meaning does not float free of relation. Perspective is not added to interpretation; it constitutes it.
The Desire to Fix Meaning’s Location
Despite this, interpretive traditions repeatedly attempt to anchor meaning in a single privileged perspective:
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Authorial intent: meaning belongs to the original author.
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Divine intention: meaning belongs to God, unmediated.
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Ecclesial authority: meaning belongs to the church.
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Textual autonomy: meaning belongs to the text itself.
Each of these moves performs stabilising work. Each is an interpretive cut.
But none eliminates perspective. They merely conceal the perspectival decision behind the cut.
Why Perspective Is Intolerable
Perspective is troubling because it introduces contingency:
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If meaning depends on perspective, it might have been otherwise.
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If interpretation is situated, authority appears fragile.
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If readers matter, control is dispersed.
The intolerance of perspective arises precisely where interpretation seeks certainty, finality, or unassailable legitimacy.
Perspective threatens closure.
The Interpretive Cut Revisited
To interpret, one must decide:
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which perspective counts,
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whose voice authorises meaning,
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which relations are excluded.
This cut is necessary. Without it, interpretation cannot function.
But when the cut is mistaken for the elimination of perspective rather than its stabilisation, perspective reappears as a problem to be suppressed rather than a condition to be acknowledged.
The Return of the Remainder
Suppressed perspectives return as:
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marginalised readings,
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accusations of subjectivism,
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fear of relativism,
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resistance from excluded communities,
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anxiety about loss of authority.
These are not pathologies of interpretation. They are relational signals — evidence that perspective has not vanished, only been bracketed.
Perspective and Divine Meaning
Appeals to divine perspective often aim to transcend this problem. But even here, interpretation cannot escape relation.
Claims about what God intends are themselves articulated:
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in language,
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through tradition,
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by interpreters situated in history.
Invoking divine perspective does not remove human construal. It intensifies the stakes of whose construal is authorised.
Reading Perspective Relationally
A relational approach does not deny commitment or authority. It insists on clarity about their conditions.
Perspective does not undermine interpretation. It makes it possible.
What Intolerance Reveals
The intolerance of perspective marks the point where interpretive authority feels most vulnerable.
It reveals:
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how meaning has been stabilised,
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which voices have been privileged,
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which relations have been excluded,
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where pressure will re-emerge.
Perspective cannot be removed without destroying interpretation. It can only be denied — and denial produces resistance.
Looking Ahead
In the next post, we will examine The Intolerance of Contradiction — why scriptural tension and inconsistency provoke harmonisation, and how the refusal of contradiction mirrors the same structural anxiety about closure, authority, and control.
For now, it is enough to recognise this:
And it is at that point — where perspective presses back against stabilisation — that intolerance becomes visible.
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