WHoSe TRUTH? A ReADeR-oRIeNTeD STUDy 409 which characterization of Pilate is the correct one, i.e., an aggressive or a reluctant Pilate. We have illustrated that there are two reasons for this. The first one is the presence of narrative gaps. These gaps open up dif- ferent possibilities to characterize Pilate. The second reason is that every characterization of Pilate is interrelated with an interpretation of his deeds and words. And because there are different ways to interpret these, different characterizations of Pilate are interrelated with them. Tolmie in his recent study on the secondary literature about the Johannine Pilate came up with similar observations. For Tolmie these observations did not prevent him from offering his own interpretation of Pilate, although he realized that they made it impossible for him to give a final answer regarding the characterization of Pilate, and that modesty is necessary 44. This modesty is reflected by his multiple use of the expressions, “to my mind” and “it seems to me”, in his effort to characterize Pilate. In the course of this study, we have illustrated that this modesty is surely well placed. What is needed is a modesty in terms of a consciousness of our own interpretational activity when we characterize Pilate. Furthermore, if there is no literary character of Pilate without our act of interpretation, then there is no story world without our act of interpre- tation. If we are not conscious of this, we lose contact with this funda- mental hermeneutical process. As such, we become detached from the most fundamental dimension of a literary text, namely that it can be called revelatory. As the Gadamerian notion of a work of art tells us, a literary text is constituted by the reader’s act of interpretation, and for this reason the meaning of the literary text is not limited to the authorial intention, but exceeds this historical limitation 45. To deny a literary text its revelatory dimension is to deny a literary text its very being. This re- velatory dimension is inherent to every literary text, and not only to, for example, the canonical Gospels. The theologically revelatory process is a dimension of all literary texts. yet, we must be careful if we are stating that every text can be called revelatory. A text only becomes act-ually revelatory in the act of interpretation. This also applies to the text of the Gospel of John. As S.M. Schneiders points out, this implies a dialogical understanding of biblical revelation as “an event of interaction between God and the human reader mediated by the text” 46. 44 TolMIe, “Pontius Pilate”, 581-582. 45 H.-G. GADAMeR, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (Tübingen 1975) 97-161. 46 S.M. SCHNeIDeRS, The Revelatory Text. Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture (San Francisco, CA 1991) 149.