- Who has the right to interpret the Bible: the 'righteous' or 'sinners'?
- Should the Bible dictate our interpretation of life or should or lives be the context for interpreting the Bible?
- Who understands the Bible most clearly: insiders or outsiders? The poor or the rich? Priests and professors or artists and radicals?
- Are new, difficult life situations avenues into new understandings of God or opportunities to reassert tradition?

In this book, two experts in biblical and literary studies offer a wide ranging discussion of what is going on in different types of 'Christian' interpretation. They consider examples from history, from literature, and from a range of contentious present day situations. Rather than providing answers, the authors open out the fundamental interpretive questions raised by same sex relationships, justice in society, religious heresy, and marriage and divorce.