Views about the importance of the Judeo-Christian tradition per se and its significance to modern hermeneutics differ no less than opinion about the relevance and nature of the Ancient legacy. As with the Greek and Roman heritage, however, many contemporary philosophical hermeneutists are guilty of relegating the biblical tradition to a minor role. This oversight is accentuated by disciplinary boundaries and the fact that this strand of intellectual history is confined mainly to specialist theologians. Indeed, those from more contemporary disciplines like politics, sociology, anthropology, human geography, cultural studies and even law, often ignore the importance of two thousand years of Christianity altogether. Having said this, all philosophers at least would stand by the impact of the reformation upon hermeneutics. The remainder of the Judeo-Christian heritage, however, is fairly disregarded; indeed, certain philosophical hermeneutic accounts overlook the important developments that occurred in this tradition altogether. Warnke, for instance, hardly mentions the Jewish tradition or the many distinct Catholic practices of hermeneutics. She collapses the whole biblical tradition prior to the reformation into a single notion. Her assumption is that biblical interpretation prior to the arrival of Protestantism was a uniform practice. This argument is worth depicting because unfortunately it represents a commonplace among many contemporary hermeneuticists. Her thesis is roughly as follows.

During the Medieval Christian era, Warnke's argument goes, hermeneutics was the common practice of scholars who were concerned with interpreting the most important text known to human beings at this time, namely, the Bible.