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Biblical interpretation uses a variety of critical methods, but there is no guarantee that one can get a right interpretation because of the same methods used. This is because interpreters have choices about their research topics, theological perspectives, and ethical considerations. Therefore, what is needed is to read in dialogue with others. SMITH: The answer to this question lies partly in the plethora of scholarly works on any one biblical book, text, or subject. Even scholars can use, for example, historical critical methods (historical, source, form, textual criticisms), biblical language skills, and so on, and still find considerable disagreement as to the meaning of texts. The answer is a resounding “no!” Again, I think this is because we do bring our own cultural contexts (white and nonwhite peoples), experiences, and methods of interpretation to the task of interpretation. I think perhaps a “right” interpretation is one that liberates, demonstrates love and compassion, and attempts to reincarnate the justice, love, and peace of God. Is It Acceptable to Critique or Interrogate the Biblical Text, Its Stories, Its Language and Characterizations, Even of God and Jesus? KIM: Everything in the Bible can be studied, discussed, and evaluated in terms of its validity and value. If there are oppressive, abusive, sexist texts or theologies and ideologies present in the Bible, we can expose them and vehemently reject them. For example, if God appears as a colonialist as in the HB/OT book of Joshua, we need not embrace such a construct of God as cruel and destructive of other peoples. Often, God-talk (theological reflection) emerges out of the human need to understand and be in relationship with God. Since Jesus is variously portrayed and understood in the NT, we need a critical reevaluation of his life, work, and death; he is not exempt. SMITH: Exactly. It is important to remember that the biblical text is both a human text and a sacred text. Inspiration does not extract or eliminate the messiness of what it means to be human. For me, the miracle is that we can find God in the midst of human fallibility and our mess. Despite that Moses murdered a man and was not held accountable, we hold him up as an example of how God can use a human being to deliver a people from human bondage. We need not overlook Moses’s faults. Perhaps, to remember the Exodus is to remember the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to progress in the direction of the good and learn from the bad and ugly. So as the enslaved Africans did, without labeling it as such, we employ a hermeneutics of suspicion, so as not to repeat, imitate, and promote the evil and the ugly—the misogyny (bias, hatred, and violence against women), xenophobia (bias, hatred, and violence against foreigners), slavery, race, and ethnic biases, androcentricism (focus on male interests and concerns at the expense of others), patriarchy (hierarchical subordination of everyone under men), kyriarchy (other forms of hierarchical oppression), holy war, victim blaming, and so on. We have to remember that most texts in the Bible, if not all, were written from elite male perspectives.