Taking Hermeneutics to Heart: Proposing an Orthopathic Reading for the Texts of Terror via the Rape of Tamar

Abstract: When we read “texts of terror,” how do we expect them as Scripture to speak to our lives today? Instead of asking what we might learn to believe or do, the orthopathic hermeneutic suggests we might ask, “How should this make us feel?” This article uses the story of the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13 by examining what the text might do to us, not what we should do with the text. Following recent works of pentecostal scholarship, the article suggests that the goal of the reader should not be to search the passage for comfort, but rather to allow the Spirit to speak to us because of the troubling text, not in spite of it. When we do so, we learn to grieve with the Spirit and are inspired to live as instruments of the compassion of Jesus.