Abstract
Context and vocalization make Hebrew one of the most polysemous languages. Readers of the Bible are constantly forced to make trade-offs: they have to accept misunderstandings, or rather misreadings, and the impossibility of a faithful, reliable and univocal interpretation. The popular version of the story of Adam's rib, for example, could be reread differently: if we restored the polysemy of the Hebrew term צלע, it would be possible to question the archetypal masculinity and the secondary role of the feminine.
Reading is an active choice. If our interpretations depend above all on what we wanted to read into the text in the past, it's important to reconstruct the socio-historical context of any exegesis and to perceive tradition and transmission as remodeling. Fundamentalist thinking would be put at bay if we were to live religion according to the Ciceronian etymology of rereading, and reinterpret it according to changing sensibilities.
