Abstract
This article proposes that faith is the epistemological precondition for reading Scripture well and argues for a recovery of theological exegesis of the Bible. After a short introduction, the second part of the article critically surveys recent arguments for nontheological exegesis (Räisänen, Fox, Meeks). The third part of the article suggests that theological exegesis is not a method but a practice and then programmatically sets forth 12 identifying marks of the practice of theological exegesis. The final section of the article offers an example of the approach advocated here, by giving a reading of Luke 7:18–23. Contrary to the findings of modernist criticism, Luke does not represent a low Christology. By attending more fully to the OT intertexts evoked by this passage, especially Isa 35, we gain a firmer grasp of the theological coherence between Luke's testimony and the church's dogmatic tradition about the identity of Jesus.
