When I set off down the not-exactly-career-path towards a theology MA in 2020 I was determined to get to grips with the complex, high-stakes and unavoidable task of biblical interpretation – too often underacknowledged or even (in some circles) denounced in defence of a dangerously supposed “plain reading” (aka unexamined interpretation). And so Hermeneutics was the very first module I took, and I passed it just fine but I don’t think I’ll ever get past it. Which is to say: complex? high stakes? and some. This poem was written near the start of that still-going journey and is especially dear to my heart as it made it into the Anglican Theological Review (whoop) and because I’m real pleased with “tabernacular”... Though I can hardly pretend to have "arrived," one book that has especially helped me along the way is Kevin Vanhoozer’s Is There a Meaning in this Text ? It’s about the relationship between meaning and written language (including but not only the Bible) – or wha