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Granted (1) that any way of "reading" the Bible that meets the requisite conditions may be properly called an "interpretation" of it; and (2) that, in the case of the Bible, any number of proper interpretations are possible, including a theological interpretation, is this the most that can be said for "theological interpretation of the Bible"? Is such interpretation simply one way among of others of properly interpreting the Bible?

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If one holds, as I do, that theological interpretation of the Bible can only be a special case of existentialist interpretation of the Bible, the above question is really the question whether existentialist interpretation of the Bible is no more than one proper way of interpreting it among others. But to this question, the answer clearly seems to be no. For while an existentialist interpretation is indeed one way of interpreting the Bible among others, it is not simply that – -- any more than religion, understood as the primary form of praxis and culture through which human beings explicitly ask and answer the existential question, is simply one of many forms of praxis and culture, coordinate in importance with all of the other so-called secular forms. Just as religion, though one form of praxis and culture among others, is the only form through which the existential question at least implicitly asked and answered by all forms is also asked and answered explicitly, so an existentialist interpretation of the Bible, though one way of interpreting it among others, is the only way of interpreting it that one could fail to choose only by giving up the hope of adequately interpreting it for what it really is.

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Of course, any (actual or prospective) adherent of a religion for which the Bible is acknowledged as authoritative – -- normatively and/or causatively – -- as well as any theologian of any such religion has yet a further reason for thinking of existentialist interpretation of the Bible as more than simply one way of interpreting it among others. This is true, at any rate, if it is with respect to its answer to the existential question that the Bible is understood to be authoritative. On that understanding, existentialist interpretation of the Bible is the necessary condition of the possibility of its actually functioning as the authority it is acknowledged to be. But, as Bultmann rightly recognizes, this further reason is unlike the other two in having force only relatively, for only some individuals or groups (NTMOBW: 106).

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