The fifteen contributors to The Art of Reading Scripture (2). set a core of nine affirmations when interpreting Scripture. The fourth of the affirmations is as follows:

Texts of Scripture do not have a single meaning limited to the intent of the original author. In accord with Jewish and Christian traditions, we affirm that Scripture has multiple complex senses given by God, the author of the whole drama.

While the authors do not reject historical investigation of biblical texts, they suggest that it should be used in “stimulating the church to undertake new imaginative readings of the texts. (Art of Reading Scripture, 3) This is a move away from authorial intent and debatable. Fee and Stuart hold that, “a text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers.” (Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 74). If words had an “original intent” (How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. Third Edition, 76). then how do the meanings of those words change their meanings to a different audience? Would not that cause God to be saying one thing at one time and possibly something completely different at another time? If one loses the sense of the author’s intent, then it seems that a text can mean, and usually does, anything the reader wishes to say it means.