Debate help... theologians? "The reader of the Bible must have certain religious convictions before having.."?

The phrase "meaningful encounter" is loaded, not to say booby-trapped.

Who gets to define "meaningful" here?

If believers, of course they will assign "meaningful" to interpretations akin to their own.

The word "encounter" is even more pregnant with possibilities.

Encountering what? A state of mind in the reader, new information in a written form, a mystical revelation, a transcendental entity?

Undefined, you will be building on sand.

The thesis is a particular point of doctrine, not itself establishable except by assuming that which it asserts (not necessarily making it untrue, but removing it from the realm of argument.)

I have a battered copy of Goldingay's "Approaches to Old Testament Interpretation" which is essentially an overview of the different ways people have seen, understood, taken meaning from, ("encountered" ) the Old Testament.

In many respects it does demonstrate that what you bring to the text governs what you get out of it*.

But to rule that one of those approaches was meaningful and the rest were not? That requires very particular and partisan thinking.

I would declare this impossible, unless you are allowed a commencing "If" or "from the perspective of..." as escape clauses,

as the "certain religious convictions" concept applies to the doctrine itself.

*A classic item of self-finding: if no scripture may be interpreted in a way contrary to any other, no contradictions will ever be admitted or found. "Proof"!

On the other hand, if you are convinced of the JEPD documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch, of couse you can divide it into four sources. *Any* document can be divided into four..!

I suppose you could argue that a meaningful experience (whatever that it) logically presupposes accepting the bible, or at least part of it, as true. But accepting the bible as true must produce some sort of religious conviction. Therefore, it is logically required to have some religious conviction before experiencing a meaningful (again whatever that means) encounter with the bible. The problem is that this completely ignores the possibility of a person becoming convinced of the Bible's truth while reading. You are in for a long couple of hours if you have to defend this proposition. Good luck.

peace

Define meaningful encounter. If by meaningful you mean the ability to read all the scientific errors and still think god wrote it then they definitely have preconceived notions.