Kevin Vanhoozer

Kevin Vanhoozer
Era	Contemporary
Region	United States
Born	1957
Tradition or movement	Presbyterian, Calvinist
Main interests	Hermeneutics, linguistics, Postmodernism, culture
Influences	Robert Gundry, John Frame, Augustine, John Calvin, Karl Barth, Paul Ricoeur, J. L. Austin

Kevin J. Vanhoozer (born 1957) is Blanchard Professor of Theology at Wheaton College. He will resume his old position, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in Deerfield, Illinois, in Fall, 2012. He is the author of several books on theology, hermeneutics, and culture.

Biography

Vanhoozer received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University where he studied under Nicholas Lash. His inter-disciplinary dissertation was titled Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: A Study in Hermeneutics and Theology and was published in 1990 (reprint 2007) by Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0-521-04390-5).

He taught at TEDS From 1986 to 1990, then was Senior Lecturer at New College, University of Edinburgh, Scotland until 1998, when he returned to TEDS. In the Fall of 2009 he became Blanchard Professor of Theology at Wheaton College. In November 2011 he announced that he would return to his previous position, as Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Fall, 2012.

He and his wife Sylvie have two daughters.

Works

Vanhoozer has written several notable books, including The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, which won the Christianity Today 2006 Book Award for best book in theology, and has edited several others, including the Gold Medallion Book Award winner Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, and, with Charles A. Anderson and Michael J. Sleasman, Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends.

In his work Is There a Meaning in this Text?, Vanhoozer gives an in depth response to the challenges of Deconstructionism to biblical hermeneutics. Primarily, he engages the thinking of Jacques Derrida, but Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty also receive attention. Vanhoozer develops a theory of communicative action which relies strongly on the speech-act theory of J. L. Austin and in which a biblical text is seen as a communicative act involving "locutions" (the text itself), "illocutions" (the stance of the author to the locution, e.g. questioning, asserting, promising, etc.) and "perlocutions" (the goals that the author hopes to accomplish through the text).

Among the conclusions that Vanhoozer draws from viewing a text as a communicative act are the involvement of the author, text, and reader in the process of interpretation. The intended meaning of the author can be discerned to a certain degree from the text. The text (langue and parole) is not an arbitrary "playground" but part of a covenantal relationship between all people. As a result the intention of the author can be adequately decoded. Another consequence is that the reader/interpreter has a responsibility to honor the intentions of the author and try to interpret the text in a way which re-creates the author's intended meaning. This responsibility is coupled with a freedom to determine the significance in the context of the interpreter's community.

Bibliography

• Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-linguistic Approach to Christian Theology. Westminster John Knox, 2005.
• First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics. IVP, 2002.
• Is There a Meaning in this Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Zondervan, 1998.
• Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Cambridge, 1990; reprint, 2007.

Edited works

• Consulting editor, New Dictionary of Theology. Revised, IVP.
• Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends. Baker, 2007.
• With Martin Warner, Transcending Boundaries in Philosophy and Theology: Reason, Meaning and Experience. Ashgate, 2007.
• Et al., Hermeneutics at the Crossroads. Indiana University Press, 2006.
• Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Baker, 2005.
• Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology. Cambridge, 2003.
• Nothing Greater, Nothing Better: Theological Essays on the Love of God. Eerdmans, 2001.
• The Trinity in a Pluralistic Age: Theological Essays on Culture and Religion. Eerdmans, 1996.

External links

• Vanhoozer's page at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
• Experience the Drama (PDF), an interview with Vanhoozer about his book The Drama of Doctrine
• Interview by Guy Davies, Sept 21, 2007
• Book Review: Is There a Meaning in This Text?, by Vern Poythress
• Meaning, intention, and application: Speech act theory in the hermeneutics of Francis Watson and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, by Scott Blue (Trinity Journal)

Online writings

• The Promise of Consensus: Towards a Communicative Hermeneutic (PDF)
• Types of Postmodern Theology (PDF), an excerpt from the Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology
• Hyperactive Hermeneutics: Is the Bible Being Overinterpreted
• Vanhoozer's response to Kostenberger's review of The Drama of Doctrine

Audio

• The Stage, the Story and the Script (MP3), Asbury Theological Seminary, March 15, 2007
• Doing Church: The Theater of the Gospel (MP3), Asbury Seminary, March 16, 2007
• The Strange New Status Symbol of the Cross (MP3), Wheaton College, March 19, 2008
• What has Vienna to do with Jerusalem? Barth, Brahms, and Bernstein’s Unanswered Question (Real Media)

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