fore that the intentions of thedivine author are the significant ones for determining meaning. Let's consider that possibility first.Among the standard arguments against intentionalism, some no longer apply to revealed texts. Take the claimthat there are times when interpreters understand a view better than the author ever did. This may be becauseof further information about the subject matter-we now understand Newton's theory as a special case ofEinstein's theory-or about the effects of the work. Clearly, however these arguments no longer apply in the caseof a divine author who presumably, even if not omniscient, understands the meaning contained in the revelation.Also the argument against intentionalism that the intent of the author could be to deceive us, in which case we nolonger have a responsibility to interpret the text according to the deception, wouldn't apply as long as the divinebeing is understood as benevolent. Finally, the idea that the human author simply makes a mistake, perhapsmisspells a word and ends up writing something different from what they intended to say, wouldn't seem to be anobjection as long as the divinity is omnipotent. Seeing the divinity as all knowing, benevolent and all-powerfulforecloses some arguments, though it inspires other problems, above all how to explain factual inaccuracies inrevealed texts.Still, some arguments against intentionalism are even stronger when applied to the case of revealed texts. Forexample, some claim it's naive to simply speak of "the author" of a text. Not only do we sometimesmisunderstand who the actual author was, Gracia's example is the common Medieval belief that Fons Vitae waswritten by the Christian Avicebron when in fact it was written by the Jew, Ibn Gabirol, but in the case of revealedtexts we sometimes have no information of the human author and we usual have only limited information aboutthe nature of the divine author. In addition, it is generally taken to be th...
