To return to the initial objection that biblical interpretation is not a matter of performing texts: strictly speaking, we do not perform the text/script but the world/theodrama that the text/script presupposes, entails, and implies. The task of understanding is to “unfold” (to open or spread out) what has been “infolded” (implied) in the discourse—the world “of” the text. “The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple” (Ps. 119:130). Readers gain understanding when they appropriate—perform!—the worldview proposed by the biblical text by actively following its
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When Ryan asked me whether we should meet daily like the initial church did in the temple he was asking if we should perform the world of the text (Jerusalem, not the world behind the text, Luke to theophilus) whereas we're to take our cues from the text and the world behind and of the text to perform it appropriately in our specific world in front of the text.
