CWG 4: Soares-Prabhu, George M. (2001). Theology of Liberation: An Indian Biblical Perspective, Collected Writings of George M. Soares-Prabhu, S.J., … - George Soares-Prabhu

The Eucharist has always carried the memory of Jesus' meals with tax collectors and sinners.

In the universe of Indian exegesis there is room for a wide variety of methods - historical criticism to determine the origin and the transmission of a text, literary criticism to analyse its literary and linguistic structures, canonical criticism to find out what function the text had in successive believing communities. But all these must be completed, if the interpretation is not to remain barren, with a hermeneutical reading which will determine the significance of the text for the reader here and how, by engaging text and reader in a critical conversation, that respects not only the meaning trajectory of the text but the new Indian context in which the text is now read.

“It is along the lines of such a hermeneutical conversation between text and reader, where each is open to and respects the claims of the other, that an Indian reading of the Bible is to be attempted. An Indian Christian reading will be a reading of the Bible by an interpreter sensitive to the Indian situation and true to the biblical text. It will be, that is, a true-to-the-text reading made with an Indian pre-understanding and responsive to Indian concerns.” **(Soares-Prabhu, “Interpreting the Bible in India Today,” CWG 4, 28)