Reading Scripture with Kierkegaard

Kierkegaards religious discourses provide extended reflections on the Biblical text, and this book explores Kierkegaards hermeneutical project as a form of theological interpretation in the service of religious upbuilding. Comparing Kierkegaards metaphorical view of Scriptural language with Ricoeurs theory of metaphor and second-order reference, and comparing Kierkegaards movement from "ordinary" to "actual" reading with the Medieval movement from literal to spiritual reading of Scripture, Storer argues that Kierkegaards project of upbuilding may be best classified as a form of tropological reading of Scripture in which appropriation opens the meaning of the text as the reader is remade into the image of God. Through the lens of Kierkegaards use of Scripture, the book further explores theological and rhetorical development of the discourses, focusing on Kierkegaards move from general religious upbuilding to specifically Christian upbuilding, Kierkegaards construction of new rhetorical strategies in the pursuit of a distinctly Christian communication, and Kierkegaards increasing focus on Scriptural authority in the later discourses. The discourses, it is shown, exhibit a plurality of instructional and evangelistic aims, and these shape, and are shaped by, Kierkegaards use of Scripture. Storer concludes that Scripture is used so freely and imaginatively because Kierkegaard assumes the framework of historic creedal Christianity as his foundation for upbuilding, and then utilizes Scriptural texts to enable readers to imagine, and thereby to appropriate Christian truth.