Permanent Tensions in Biblical Interpretation
Lecture Notes for Topic 1.3.4- Religion 492

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Go directly to topic: Assigned Readings 1.3.4.1 Role of Scholars 1.3.4.2 Exegesis & Eisegesis 1.3.4.3 Unity & Diversity 1.3.4.4 Text & Context Bibliography

1.3.4.1 The tension between systematic, learned interpretation and unsystematic, often popular use of the biblical text
Additional Assigned Readings for This Topic:
Gerald Bray, "Permanent Tensions in Biblical Interpretation," Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, p. 40

Discussion
        Prof. Bray in this discussion speaks of the popular use of biblical texts in music, art etc. that produces an entirely different meaning to the text than it has in its scriptural context. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the almost universal misquoting of John 8:32 on university campuses around the country (NRSV): "you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."  In the context, this statement has no bearing on scientific truth, historical truth etc. It relates only to spiritual truth revealed in Jesus Christ, as the immediate context of the statement makes abundantly clear.
        But the aspect of the tension specified in topic 1.3.4.1 that is more relevant to most Christians is how to respond to biblical scholarship. Frequently, two extremes surface. (1) A naive adoption of favored scholars under the reasoning "they are scholars and must know what they're talking about." (2) An automatic rejection of scholarship in general since "all scholars are liberals anyway."
        When one surveys the history of Christian interpretation the role of scholars, i.e., the experts, has been significant in the life of Christianity. Early on, the scholars were the monks who devoted a life time to copying and studying the scriptures. They were frequently called upon to interpret and explain the issues of the Christian faith in behalf of the leaders. In both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Churches, this pattern has continued into the present, although with evolution and modification. With the beginning of Protestantism in the 1500s, the role of the scholar took a different turn. Increasingly, the biblical scholar was the university professor of religion. He would be called upon on occasion for his expertise in order to assist church leaders who were grappling with some theological issue and needed input from experts in the scriptures. With the rise of modern critical biblical scholarship, the gap between the university and church widened significantly. In the early phases of modern biblical scholarship through the 1800s, the university biblical scholar became a crusader for profound revitalization of a state church whose leadership was mostly in the hip pocket of governmental leaders, usually dictators of one of the European countries. The church increasingly took stands against the welfare of people, especially the peasant segment of society, and tried to base their views on scripture. Thus the rise of the quest for the historical Jesus movement in the late 1700s.
        With the twentieth century, a variety of patterns emerged on both sides of the Atlantic, driven by denominational orientation and culture. The state churches in England and Europe continue to depend heavily upon the biblical scholar from the university, although mostly as a consultant and not as the final answer to all things biblical. The European Free Church movement places less trust in the university biblical scholar, utilizing the scholarly insights much less. In general, a somewhat similar pattern exists on the North American continent. The U.S. tradition of separation of church and state has provided a distinctive wrinkle to attitudes here, in contrast to Europe. The biblical scholar here is mostly a seminary/divinity school professor, rather than a university professor.  Among the mainline denominations, this professor still wields substantial influence in the interpretative life of the church. Among evangelicals, the situation varies. Those with roots in mainline denominations, such as the Bible Church movement with its Presbyterian roots, still allow the seminary professor substantial influence, although he/she must come from certain acceptable seminaries in order be trusted.
        Southern Baptists have a mixed history and attitude toward the biblical scholar. Deep seated mistrust of technical biblical scholarship still prevails among most Southern Baptists. But, the influence of seminary professors -- until recently primarily those connected to the six national SBC seminaries -- has been significant for the past century. Now who is trusted as a biblical scholar largely depends on which side of the SBC political fence one stands. Whether any biblical scholar as a seminary professor is trusted depends in large part on the educational background of the pastoral leadership of a local congregation. When the pastor lambastes all seminary professors from the pulpit as 'liberals', the congregation typically has deep suspicion of anyone connected to a seminary or divinity school as a professor. On the other hand, when the pastoral leadership often invites seminary professors to preach and lead conferences in their congregation, a much more positive attitude toward biblical scholarship emerges.
        Early on in your ministry you will need to come to grips with your feelings about the technical biblical scholar, whether he is a part of your denominational group or not. His/her expertise can quickly provide insights into the scripture text that would take you a lifetime to dig out. Yet, naive adoption of any biblical scholar's viewpoint is unhealthy and risky. A better position may well be articulated in a Connerism, a saying that Dr. W.T. Conner, professor of theology at SWBTS in the first half of the twentieth century, was known for: "Even an old cow grazing in the pasture has sense enough to graze around the grass burrs!"
        A second implication of this topic relates to the interpretative approach taken in Bible study. A tension will exist between historical based technical study and devotional study of the scriptures. The tendency of the latter approach is to focus only on the 'now' meaning of the text with minimal or no exploration of the historical meaning of the text. A kind of flat reading of the text usually takes place, which amounts mostly to a religious word association game played with the words of the scripture text. The current popular meaning of words found in the scripture text serve primarily as the foundation for interpretative understanding of the scripture. Quite obviously this is flawed seriously as a legitimate approach to scripture. On the other side, critical exegesis of the scripture text has often been preoccupied only with historical meaning. Contemporary application is rejected as not the work of the biblical scholar, but belonging to the church theologian instead. Although much more difficult, the true biblical scholar should concern himself/herself with both aspects of the meaning of the text.
        Again, early on in ministry you will have to come to terms with how you're going to approach the biblical text. The easy way out is the so-called devotional approach. But it has huge flaws and has contributed enormously to the spiritual superficiality of so much of Christianity today. You will have to spend time -- occasionally large chunks of it -- in order to dig deeply into the historical meaning of the scripture and then figure out legitimate bridges of connection to the present.
 

1.3.4.2 The tension between exegesis and eisegesis
Additional Assigned Readings for This Topic:
Gerald Bray, "Permanent Tensions in Biblical Interpretation," Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, p. 41

Discussion
        Although somewhat related to the last point in the preceding topic, I want to highlight other aspects of this particular tension. At the heart of what Prof. Bray seeks to address in his brief discussion is a clear distinction between starting points for studying the text. The devotional approach to scripture study, described above, is usually guilty of doing almost pure eisegesis of the text. That is, reading contemporary biases back into the scripture and then reading them out of the text as though that were what the Bible is saying. But even critical biblical scholarship is not free from this. One persistent criticism of the late nineteenth century historical Jesus viewpoints was that this Jesus sounded very much like a liberal German university professor in expressing religious views.
        One must give credit to several biblical scholars in the early twentieth century for being sensitive to this. Prof. Rudolf Bultmann perhaps achieved greater awareness of this than most everyone during the past century. In his rejection of classical liberalism in the early decades of the twentieth century, he articulated a view that the Christian theologian and scholar must accept the fact that modern man's Weltanschau (way of looking at reality) has to become the starting point for doing a biblical based theology in today's world. That is, if the church cares anything about addressing modern man with the need for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus in his writings he carefully distinguished between the historical meaning of the text and the now meanings of the text. The only acceptable now meaning of the text had to be couched in the framework of the dominant ways that modern man thinks. For him, that meant an existentialist philosophical framework as the key to giving structure to the now meaning of the text, since in the early decades of the twentieth century existentialism was the dominant philosophical method in Europe. The way to get from 'then' to 'now' for Prof. Bultmann was a program of demythologizing the text. That is, the elements of the historical meaning confined to the ancient world and also unacceptable to modern man had to be stripped away so that the very core, timeless meaning of the text could be discerned. This core meaning would become the core of the reformulated contemporary meaning, for him, cast in an existentialist structure. Thus, this approach coupled with his passionate Lutheran commitment to the preached gospel led him to focus on the Christ of faith who encounters the sinner in the moment of gospel preaching with the demand for all out commitment. Out of such commitment comes authentic person hood that lives in a manner glorying of God.
        To be certain, from an evangelical perspective Bultmann's approach has serious gaps. But we must remind ourselves that his intent to make Christianity relevant to modern man and a passionate commitment to his understanding of the gospel are unquestionable. In the middle 1950s, Prof. Richard Niebuhr authored a classic treatment of this subject entitled Christ and Culture. In it, he explored a variety of ways that Christians have interacted with the surrounding culture through the centuries. Bultmann's approach represents a "Christ in culture" approach, while a "Christ confronting culture" approach has more appeal to me. The gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant to modern culture, and we as Christians must find ways to communicate that relevancy in understandable ways to a increasingly post-modern culture. But in spite of the enormous Kantian influence upon people's thinking today, where the starting point of all perception of reality is the individual's conscious self-awareness, the scriptures define an ongoing reality that vastly transcends individual self-awareness. Because the scriptures come to us as divine revelation, we can comprehend bits and pieces of that reality, even though it's presentation is couched in an ancient cultural framework. Thus in some ways, there exists three horizons, rather than Anthony Thieselton's Two Horizons. There are the horizons of the text in its historical meaning, and the text in its contemporary meaning. But additionally, there is God's horizon, ideally flowing through the historical meaning to the contemporary meaning. Enviably then the gospel as reflecting the divine horizon is going to be confrontive of contemporary culture in similar ways that it was to ancient culture.
        All of this to make the important point: we can never fully get away from the world we live in. It has birthed us, nurtured us, and shaped our ways of thinking profoundly. The gospel message we try to bring to that world must be cast in terms that this world can comprehend, even when it doesn't like what it hears. An important implication of this: we will always have our understanding of the meaning of the scripture text shaped by our world, even our understanding of the ancient context for the scripture text itself. The pure objectivity sought in the early stages of modern critical exegesis is neither an achievable goal, nor a completely desirable one even. Much more important is the realization that our world will play a very shaping role in how we understand scripture. When our paths cross those of fellow Christians from other parts of the world and especially with radically non-western ways of thinking, they are going often to have very different understandings of scripture text meaning -- both the then and now meanings -- than we do.  The issue is not who's right and who's wrong in their views of scripture. The issue, instead, is our openness to listen to their viewpoint and to seek to expand our horizon and thus our understanding of scripture meaning.

1.3.4.3 The tension between the unity and diversity of Scripture
Additional Assigned Readings for This Topic:
Gerald Bray, "Permanent Tensions in Biblical Interpretation," Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, pp. 41-42

Gary T. Meadors, "Scripture, Unity and Diversity of," Bakers Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, online at http://bible.crosswalk.com/Dictionaries/BakersEvangelicalDictionary/bed.cgi?number=T632

Discussion
        Modern, post-enlightenment ways of reasoning have often created enormous tension over the issue of unity and diversity in the Bible. The German rationalism that helped launched the Renaissance created a resulting line of thinking that goes something like this. Since God is the ultimate author is scripture and his thinking is entirely consistent and coherent -- depending on Aristotle's definition of truth as absolute consistency of ideas -- as the source of all Truth, the scriptures then present an infallible representation of spiritual truth. When the true biblical scholar comprehends this, he will develop a completely rational, consistent theological understanding of scripture. To be sure the documents in the Bible were written over many centuries by individuals living in different cultural and linguistic settings. On the surface, their writings appear to be inconsistent, but when properly understood the divine consistency comes shinning through. Harmonization and flat readings of scripture are frequent approaches to getting to this consistent understanding. Modern critical scholarship has generally denied this to scripture and has focused attention on the diversity of viewpoint contained inside the scriptures.
        In an increasingly post-modern world, many biblical scholars are coming to grips with several limitations of the above approach. First, God as the source of all Truth doesn't rest on Aristotle's definition of absolute consistency of abstract ideas. Instead, truth as stemming from God is grounded in his essence as a living, functioning being who enters into relationships with his creation. As Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the Truth." As such he becomes the concrete manifestation of the Heavenly Father as the foundation for all existence. Second, many scholars also recognize that sometimes the diversity found in scripture has been unduly stressed to the point of distortion, largely because of political and theological motivations at work in the biblical scholar. Frequently with some 'ax to grind' the critical scholar has stressed differing viewpoints within scripture when they aren't nearly so diverse as asserted. Increasing studies of ancient social history are helping at this point.
        Yet, when one comes to the scripture text in honesty there has to emerge the awareness that serious diversity of viewpoint exists within the pages of the Bible. Two areas of study highlight this especially: (1) the double and triple traditions in the synoptic gospels, and (2) how the NT writers used the OT scriptures. These can't be simply "swept under the carpet" and ignored. The biblical scholar can't follow the pattern of the old preacher who had written in his sermon notes, "Weak point scream like Hell!" A screaming for biblical infallibility is just about as empty and revealing as the preacher's notes. Yet, the reality that the Bible is inspired divine revelation permeated with the "Breath of God" (2 Tim. 3:16) cannot be denied or ignored either. This aspect must receive serious attention, or else the Bible has little to say to our world, and becomes just an ancient historical record. The way ancient Judaism handled this perhaps offers a clue to modern students of scripture. The rabbis recognized readily the diversity of viewpoint in the Hebrew Bible and found encouragement in it. Through the interaction of placing the diverse viewpoints along side one another, coupled with the scribal efforts over the ensuing centuries to make sense of these texts, the ancient Jewish feeling was that through struggling with this diversity God would speak his word to the Bible student and out of this would come enhanced spiritual insight into the divine will. The role of the community of students interacting with one another in such study was critical as well. I suspect there's a lot we could learn from this ancient pattern.

1.3.4.4 The tension between the text and its context
Additional Assigned Readings for This Topic:
Gerald Bray, "Permanent Tensions in Biblical Interpretation," Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, p. 42-43

Discussion
        Prof. Bray's discussion of text and context is focused on the 'then' and 'now' issues of interpretative strategy. The scriptures emerged inside a very definite historical setting and understanding as much as possible about that setting is critical to correct interpretation of scripture. Any flat reading of scripture in which the cultural distance between the biblical world and our contemporary is ignored will lead to distorted understanding of scripture. Yet, exploring that historical context of the Bible is no easy task and must be undertaken cautiously. Increasingly, the historical context is defined as much broader than mere development of an overarching chronological framework of the occurrence of significant persons and events, with some attention to possible cause and effect connections between these. Both biblical archaeology and social scientific exegetical methods have called attention to just how important the social and cultural history of that ancient world is, as well as the fact that the sources for determining this come from much more than just ancient written documents.
        Thus the biblical student must engage himself/herself in studying all available sources and begin developing a historical reconstruction of the ancient world as the context for understanding the meaning of scripture. This will be a life long task, since more and more is understood from many different sources about that world. Historical specialists in the ancient world, classicists in ancient philosophy, archaeologists along with a host of other people studying the ancient world have contributions to make here. The biblical scholar and student should seek to learn all that is possible from these people.
        Yet, as Prof. Bray notes, the scriptures transcend that ancient historical setting also. The principle of the biblical canon implies clearly that people living in the centuries following the apostolic era found in the scriptures timeless messages of vital concern to their world. Add to that the belief that these writings were divinely inspired revelation containing the spiritual message of eternal salvation and the conclusion becomes obvious that these writings continue to have relevance to other contexts long after their original world had passed from the scene.
        The ongoing challenge is that when we bring the scriptures into the context of our world that we don't trap them into our personal context. In other words, the New Testament is not a Southern Baptist document, not a Methodist document etc. Early modern missionary strategy often made this mistake and among early Southern Baptist missionaries the gospel taken to other parts of the world was more a North American old South culturally conditioned gospel than it was a biblically derived gospel. Church planting was mostly establishing Southern Baptist type churches in Africa, Japan, Brazil etc. Only in the past several decades has missionary activities moved away from this. Every Bible student faces the challenge of both re-contextualizing the scripture into his/her own world, and at the same time being sensitive to the reality that this re-contextualizing must be done by others living in a different culture. Also, realizing that this cultural application of the message of scripture is not scripture itself. The two have to be kept distinct from one another. This is at the heart of the tragic failure of religious fundamentalism. Its interpretation of the scripture has been equated with the scripture itself. Thus to reject this interpretation of scripture, even secondary parts of it, is seen as denial of the Bible itself. Such understanding must be avoided at all costs!

Check Bray's bibliography in appropriate chapter of the textbook.

Check the appropriate Bibliography section in Cranfordville.com