Good readers have good intuition

Reading, that is getting meaning out of texts, is a wonderful, difficult, and sometimes mysterious thing.

“The primary thesis is that much harm has been done in biblical studies by insisting that there is, somewhere, a ‘correct’ method which, if only we could find it, would unlock the mysteries of the text… The pursuit of method assimilates reading a text to the procedures of technology: it tries to process the text, rather than read it. Instead, I propose we should see each of our methods as a codification of intuitions about the text which may occur to intelligent readers. Reading the Old Testament, with whatever aim in view, belongs to the humanities and cannot operate with an idea of watertight, correct method.”

John Barton, Reading the Old Testament, 5.