Cross-Textual Hermeneutics as a Dialogical Approach to Biblical Interpretation in the Native Chinese Academic Contexts

Cross-textual hermeneutics is a dialogical approach to biblical interpretation first proposed by Asian biblical scholar Archie C. C. Lee (李熾昌) in 1993 as a creative way of interweaving a text from the Asian cultural and religious heritage and the Bible without privileging either one. This paper gives an overview of cross-textual hermeneutics and argues that the approach could be enhanced when it is used in conjunction with another critical perspective by providing exegetic examples of the Hebrew Bible in the native Chinese academic contexts to demonstrate the kinds of insights that cross-textual hermeneutics can yield from ideological, anthropological, feminist, sociological, and postcolonial perspectives. Finally, the author will evaluate the ideological and political implications and provide a prognosis of its utility in the native Chinese academic contexts with a special attention to how People’s Republic of China’s policy on the Sinicization of religion may impact the approach.