What Is Theological Interpretation? Bonhoeffer’s <i>Creation and Fall</i> Revisited

Abstract This article is a study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1–3, which is considered in relation to contemporary concerns about theological interpretation. Although Bonhoeffer’s approach to the biblical text is primarily expressive of a philosophically theological outlook, it displays something of the possibilities for theological interpretation enabled by the early work of Karl Barth. The nature of Bonhoeffer’s reading of Gen 1–3 is examined via representative extracts. His reading is evaluated positively overall, though today a greater openness to Jewish understandings is also appropriate. Bonhoeffer’s book is a distinctive example, unusual yet meaningful, of what form theological interpretation can take, in continuity with classic Christian approaches to thinking creatively in the light of Scripture.