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I believe that Karl Hagen has the right idea about historicising interpretation. I just had a grand experience as t.a. for David Williams here at McGill in his course "The Bible and Literature" which explored both Biblical and "extra-Biblical" literature, everything from Donne to Chaucer to Shirley Jackson and beyond. We had none of these sorst of srguments, perhaps because David is such a consummate professional and tells the class early on that we will be dealing with the Bible as its writers/believers saw it, inclusing both the judaic and Christian tradition. I had students give presentations on everything from chaos theory and Biblical number symbolisdm to a performance of sections of Mendelssohn's "Elijah" with nary a fight. Is this phenomenon possibly more American than international? Certainly from a foreigner's perspective the United States seems rife with bitter religious controversy and is decidedly hegemonic in its advocacy of a Christian absolutism?? Regards, Terry %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%