Sterling, I like what you say about "standing back we hold and open and honest examination of what we are reading." I think sometimes people are so invested in the Bible and what it has to offer that it becomes incredibly difficult to "pull apart" and re-evaluate. I am very interesting in this form of biblical criticism. Thanks!
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound? :) This idea of reading the text as a performing art is particularly interesting to me as a performer. We are told in some schools of thought that there is no point in performing or composing without an audience to hear the music, but I don't think that is always true. However, without an audience, it is a completely different experience. With regard to reading the Bible, I think it is incredibly important to take your own experience and interpretation of the text into account, but it is not the only thing that is important. That would be like singing a song in Italian and not knowing what I was singing because I had never translated it to English.