From Pre-Modern to Post-Modern
Interpretation of the Bible
2000
I.
“Pre-Modern”
Exegesis
1.
Introduction
I’m not sure I like the term pre-modern. It sounds like
someone is saying we are more intelligent now than people used to be, or that Western
society has evolved beyond its more “primitive” beginnings. I have some objections to thinking like that.
So what do the phrases “pre-modern exegesis” or “pre-modern
interpretation” mean? I find it easiest
to explain pre-modern thinking as thinking that is unaware of its own
presuppositions – that is, unreflective
thinking. When you look at it this
way, everyone will always be “pre-modern” to some extent. To a great degree, everyone will always be
somewhat unaware of the true reasons why they think the way they do.
“Modern” thinking, therefore, is reflective thinking – thinking that tries to be objective and is at
least somewhat aware of its own biases and presuppositions. When I think in this way, I realize that
there may very well be a difference between what I think is true and what is
actually true. This way of thinking
takes contrasting points of view seriously, even if one is arguing against
them.
Here’s an example that might help you catch a glimpse of
what I mean. Matthew 5:45 says that God
sends rain on both the just and the unjust.
Since I grew up saying, “Rain, rain, go away. Please come back another day,” I always
assumed that this verse meant that God allowed bad things to happen to both the good and the wicked – rain was a
bad thing to me. It never even entered
my mind that this verse could be understood differently. I was an “unreflective thinker” with regard
to this verse, interpreting it through my glasses and my world.
Then one day it occurred to me that
Pre-modern exegesis, therefore, is
Biblical interpretation that unwittingly reads the individual words of the
Bible as they strike me in my world without realizing I am substituting my
context for the original contexts. The
original meaning of the Bible – the understanding the people to whom the Bible
was first written would have had – was a function of the way words were being
used so long ago when the Bible was written.
It is most improbable that a contemporary reader will come up with this
meaning without significant training. They
will inevitably understand the Bible’s words on the basis of how words can be
used in their contemporary world.
2. Characteristics of
Pre-Modern Interpretation
Let me suggest some general characteristics of pre-modern
interpretation. There are of course
varying degrees to which someone may show such characteristics, and as I have
already said, every single human interpreter is “pre-modern” to one degree or
another.
a) An assumption that the meaning of the Bible is obvious – anyone with any
sense can see what the Bible means
A pre-modern interpreter is unaware of
his or her own presuppositions. The meaning of the Bible may therefore seem
obvious to them. Such a person may be
aware of others who disagree (e.g. a Wesleyan may be aware that there are
Calvinists out there!), but those other positions will seem silly or even
fiendish. Perhaps one will even think
that those who disagree have a major spiritual problem because they do not see
it your way.
One time when I was talking to
someone about the Wesleyan “tradition,” I was immediately corrected: “Don’t call it our ‘tradition’; we just read
the Bible and do what it says.” This
person is a prime example of a pre-modern interpreter – they were completely
unaware of how their culture and the preaching they had heard all their life
had shaped the way they read the Bible.
b) A failure to read the words of the Bible in context
“The Bible was not written to anyone
who is alive today.” Most of us would
recoil at such a suggestion – did not God inspire the Bible as a revelation of
absolute truth for all time? Maybe if I
reword the statement you will understand it better. “The books of the Old Testament were written
to ancient Israelites, not modern Americans, and the books of the New Testament
were written to Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, etc…”
Surely we all would agree that Paul
understood the words he wrote – even though he was under inspiration – as did
for the most part those who received his writings. The first recipients of God’s revelation were
those to whom these words were first given.
I think we would all, at least on the whole, agree with such
claims. After all, wouldn’t it be the
height of self-centeredness and arrogance to think the Bible was somehow
written to me more directly than those whose names actually appear on these
books: Romans, Corinthians, etc… It would be highly narcissistic to forget
that millions of Christians have found meaning in these words long before the
text came to me.
“But it was equally written to us,”
someone might say. Do we understand
words in the same way people did two thousand years ago? There may be some broad similarities, but the
way the ancients viewed the world was drastically different from us in many
respects. When I use the “dictionary” in
my head to read the words of Scripture, the connotations and meanings of those
words are significantly, even drastically different from what those at
What about the meaning in God’s
“dictionary”? Can any human truly think
the thoughts of God or in the categories of God? To claim such would be blasphemy, making
oneself a god, putting oneself on the level of God. No, if the Bible were revealed in God’s
absolute language, no human would ever be able to understand it
appropriately. Rather, the Bible presents
us with God’s repeated “stooping to the weakness” of His people, meeting them
where they were at with “baby talk” that revealed Him in terms that helped them
catch the smallest glimpse of who “He” is.
In fact, even calling Him a “He” is baby talk, for God has no genitalia
like Baal was thought to have.
Therefore, since we believe God
meant Himself to be understood when He revealed the Bible, we can assume He
revealed Himself in the language and categories of the Bible’s first
audiences. But since the categories of
those audiences were significantly different from ours, the Bible by and large
must not be written in my categories or on my terms. The implications of this simple fact are
immense.
·
Anyone
who reads the Bible as if it is a message directly to him or her must largely
be reading the Bible out of context in a pre-modern way – or at least reading
it on a figurative level. Take Jeremiah
29:11: “‘I know the plans I have for
you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you
a future and a hope’” (NLT). This verse
was spoken to Jeremiah concerning the fate of
In my opinion, it is not necessarily
wrong to read verses like this one as direct messages from God to you as an
individual. The Holy Spirit may very
well speak directly to you by way of the words on the pages of the Bible. But you should not mistake these messages for
the real meaning of the Bible – anyone who reads the Bible in this way is
reading its words out of context. In
theory, God could just as well speak like this through a Reader’s Digest. In other
words, those who read the Bible in this way are not reading the words of Jesus,
Paul or any of the Biblical authors in terms of what they actually meant. Usually those who emphasize the memorization
of individual Bible verses are pre-modern in their interpretations, ripping verses
out of the surrounding contexts that tell us what those words really meant.
·
What
we will discover is that context runs very deep. There is, for example, the literary context –
the genre or type of literature you
are reading. How do you know to laugh at
a comic strip or be serious when reading an obituary? These types of literature
don’t come with instructions – I know how to read them because I belong to the
same culture that uses these genres.
There are many genres in the Bible – ancient genres. If I am unaware of the “rules” of these ancient
literary genres, then I no doubt will read much of the Bible out of context to
one degree or another.
·
Perhaps
the most crucial context about which many of us are unaware is the difference between
our “cultural dictionary” and those of the ancient world. Indeed, many third world readers of the Bible
are far more likely to understand the Bible appropriately than I am as a
Westerner – much of African culture, for example, is much closer to the
cultures of the Biblical world than mine is.
If the Bible was written first to the ancients, then it was written in
terms directly relevant to their cultures.
That implies that it was not written as directly relevant to my
culture. To the extent that I don’t
realize this fact – usually to the extent that I believe the words of the Bible
to be immediately relevant to modern American culture – to that extent I am
reading the Bible out of context in a pre-modern way.
c. A tendency to read the Bible as one book
The final “out-of-context” reading I
want to mention is reading the Bible as one book. The Bible is made up of 66 books. That means I cannot even speak of one context
for the Bible. There are numerous
contexts. There are numerous authors,
each with different styles using words in different ways to address different
situations and different audiences. When
I try to interpret Paul by way of Matthew or Exodus by Jeremiah, I am probably
reading the Bible out of context. Paul
did not use words in the same way as James, nor did he address the same
situations as James. To splice their
words together – even to try to harmonize the four gospels into one story of
Jesus – usually involves Scripture twisting, taking the words of the Bible out
of their original contexts and creating some other, artificial context.
Most of the Bible is situational
rather than philosophical. Even Romans,
often thought to be Paul’s most general theological statement, has everything
to do with the situation between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the first
half of the first century. Most of the
time when we make absolute statements out of Scripture verses or take them as
all-time statements without any further ado, we are reading the Bible out of
context.
III. How the New
Testament Interprets the Old
So called “pre-modern interpretation” has more often than
not been the normative way of interpreting the Bible throughout church
history. In fact, there is a real sense
in which “modern interpretation” is cultural – it is particular to modern
Western culture. We should be careful
not to discount out-of-context interpretations completely before we have done
some careful thinking.
One of the most significant reasons
we should be cautious not to throw out pre-modern exegesis completely is
because the New Testament largely interprets the Old Testament in this
way. Let me give some examples:
a)
Matthew
2:15 and Hosea 11:1
Matthew understands Jesus’ exit from
b) 1 Corinthians 9:9-10 and Deuteronomy 25:4
“It is written in the Law of
Moses: ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is
treading out the grain.’ Is it about
oxen that God is concerned? Surely he
says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this
was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes,
they to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest (NIV).”
It is difficult for the city
dwelling Paul to believe that the original meaning of this verse would be
limited to literal oxen. In good
pre-modern fashion, he assumes that there is a deeper meaning for him in his day. His application of the verse is inspired and
the principle he extracts from the verse is valid – but he is taking the verse
way beyond its original context. After
all, Deut 25:4 really was about literal oxen in Old Testament times.
c) Hebrews 10:5-9 and Psalm 40:6-8
The heading of Psalm 40 reads “a
psalm of David,” which either means that David composed it, or that it was
written in honor of David (or later read in the light of him; the headings were
not original). We can assume, therefore,
that the psalm should be understood as words that could apply to David. For example, the psalmist mentions his sins
in verse 12. Certainly Christians would
not want to relate that verse to Christ.
A person reading in context, therefore, would not naturally apply this
psalm to Christ.
Yet one interesting characteristic
of the early Christians is that they often interpreted the psalms in terms of
what they would mean if Jesus prayed them, and they didn’t worry if all the
verses didn’t fit with something he would say.
They just took the ones that did – out of context. This is true of Hebrews 10, where Christ
proclaims certain verses from Psalm 40 as he comes into the world. The spiritual meaning of these verses from
Psalm 40, Hebrews tells us, is that Christ takes away the Old Testament
sacrificial system by offering his body as a once-and-for-all replacement. As Hebrews 10 quotes the psalm, “you did not
want animal sacrifices and grain offerings.
But you have given me a body…” (NLT).
While this interpretation is related
to what David meant, Hebrews takes it way beyond the meaning of the original
text. Not only does Hebrews apply these
words to Christ instead of David himself, but Hebrews takes it to mean the
termination of the sacrificial system on the basis of Christ’s offering of his
physical body. The original text had
nothing like this in mind.
In fact, the text that Hebrews
relied on in quoting the psalm was different from the original text. Here’s a
thought for those who don’t think you should preach from Mark 16:9-20 because
these verses weren’t in the original manuscript of Mark – the New Testament
itself “preaches” from texts that weren’t in the original of the Old
Testament. What the original text of
Psalm 40 said was “sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced…” (NIV). The word body
is nowhere to be found. In the period
between the psalmist and the author of Hebrews, the original text of the psalm
had changed in some way to say something quite different than it had originally. The “version” the author of Hebrews had in
front of him used the changed text.
Hebrews thus not only makes its point by taking the original words out
of context, but it does so by way of words that weren’t even in the original
text.
Out of context interpretation is
thus the order of the day for the New Testament writers. At times they may do so because the Biblical
authors are not aware of the original meaning – true pre-modern interpretation
– but it is important to note that they saw nothing wrong with interpreting the
Bible out of context. Matthew was not
stupid. If you had asked him whether
Hosea 11:1 was about Israel or Christ originally – and explained what you meant
by “originally” – he no doubt would have
said, “Well sure, it was about the exodus when Hosea wrote it, but why is that
important? Spiritually, Christ gives the
verse its fullest meaning.” Their
methods were simply different from ours – at least from those of us who have
been taught to read the Bible for what it originally meant.
IV. Making the Shift
I am not claiming that God does not speak
to people directly by way of the words of Scripture taken out of context. In fact, I have come to view God as very
pragmatic, ever stooping down to our weakness, meeting us where we are. He met the author of Hebrews, for example,
with truth by way of the version of Psalm 40 he had at his disposal. Part of my personal theology is that God has
chosen the words in our Bibles (whatever version we might be using in whatever
language we are using) as a special meeting place for revelation through His
Holy Spirit – the Bible being a kind of “sacrament” of revelation. While in theory He could do the same through
a Reader’s Digest, I don’t think He
has chosen Reader’s Digest as the
established place where He speaks to us today.
Therefore, I do not at all wish to deny the validity of the countless
truths Christians have understood as they have read the Bible out of context.
But once you have really understood
what it means to interpret the Bible in context – for what Jesus and Paul and
the Biblical authors were really saying to their particular audiences – it will
be difficult to continue reading the Bible in the same way you used to read
it. Let me try to present the shift for
you. Here are some questions I have used
in my New Testament Survey classes that help us see the shift.
·
True or False: 1 Corinthians was written by Paul from
Many of my students put “true.” Why?
Because they view the Bible as a book written to them. It’s called “1 Corinthians”; why wouldn’t
that be the place from which Paul wrote it to me?
But 1 Corinthians was a very real
letter from Paul to
·
Which of the following was probably
the first book of the New Testament to be written: a) Matthew, b) Mark, c) Acts, d) 1
Thessalonians?
Many Christians would no doubt
answer “Matthew.” Since they view the
Bible as one book, it only makes sense that it would be written from beginning
to end. Some of my students put “Mark”
because most scholars believe that it was the first gospel to be written. The correct answer, however, is d, 1 Thessalonians. It is
extremely likely that all of Paul’s letters were written and he had been
martyred before a single gospel was penned.
The shift from reading the Bible out
of context to reading it for what it actually meant takes place when one begins
to read its books and words as a part of history – not as a self-contained text
I can understand without knowing its historical, literary, and ideological
contexts. I begin to see the individual
books of the Bible as a part of the broader history of Israel and Christianity
rather than as words in a timeless bubble – a bubble by the way that pre-modern
interpreters assume they are in, as if their understandings were unaffected by
their own culture.
The shift out of pre-modernism leads one to think in terms
of the events to which the Bible
gives witness rather than the words of the Bible placed into my context. When I read the Bible in its contexts, I read these books as examples of God’s repeated
stooping to the weakness of particular peoples – crisp, dynamic, and relevant
words to His people, rather than static propositions that in the end simply
mirror my own world. If we truly respect
the words of the Bible, surely our primary focus in interpretation will be
oriented around hearing them for what they actually meant rather than on how we
might rip those words from their true meaning and graft them artificially into
our world.
1. Introduction
The shift from viewing the words of the Bible in a timeless
bubble to reading it in its historical context took place in the 1600’s and
1700’s, although most still read the Bible in a pre-modern way. Historical-critical
method is the name of the approach that attempts to make decisions (which
is all that the word critical means
here) about the historical meaning of the Bible.
The nice thing about the pre-modern approach is that the
authoritative voice of God (if you believe it can come through pre-modern
interpretation) comes directly by way of the words of the text – it does not
necessarily involve research of any kind.
Not that pre-modern interpretation does not involve sometimes massive
intellectual activity – after all, great theologians like Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas, and even John Wesley thought much more in pre-modern terms than in
terms of historical meaning. Just like
all interpreters, the pre-modern reader has to fit all of his or her individual
interpretations together into some kind of a system. But ultimately their system is based upon the
way they think in the world of their day.
Theologians from the early centuries until even the 1900’s more often
than not read their systems into the
text more than out of the text.
Hearing the authoritative voice of God for us today by way
of historical method is much more complicated than hearing it with pre-modern
glasses on. The pre-modern must fit
together ideas into a system, but they do so on their own turf. What I mean is, since they are reasoning it
out (or letting God direct their thoughts) in the terms of their own world and
culture (even though they do not realize it), they are on familiar ground. The pre-modern already sees the Bible as one
book, generally with its words all meaning similar things.
But the one who reads the Bible historically must fit together
very diverse ideas, just as the actual situations of the Bible were very
diverse. Creating a system out of
meanings that are derived from several different “cultural dictionaries” (what
the historical interpreter must do) is more complicated than creating a system
in which perhaps only the cultural dictionary of the interpreter is used (what
the pre-modern exegete does).
Let me give an example.
Matthew 5:17 says, “I did not come to abolish the Law or the prophets,”
while Ephesians 2:15 says that Christ “abolished the law with its commandments
and regulations.” How do these two
statements fit together? First of all, a
pre-modern interpreter will ask the question exactly as I have. I quoted these two statements on the basis of
chapter and verse – which were not in the original text – and I treated them as
if they were propositions unrelated to any context. Similarly, a pre-modern reader assumes that
Matthew is recording the exact words that Jesus said while he was on
earth. I could just as well have
written, “Jesus says in Matthew 5:17…”
When we read the Bible in terms of its original meaning,
however, we will have to place these words in their historical contexts. It is the author
of Matthew, for example, that depicts
Jesus as saying that he did not come to abolish the Law or the prophets, and it
is the writer of Ephesians that
indicates that the Law has been cancelled.
To word it in this way is not to deny that God inspired the author of
Matthew or the writer of Ephesians. But
He certainly worked through the minds of these persons to create the Biblical
text.
Each of the books of the Bible has its own individual style,
its own way of using words, and its own themes.
The Hebrew word soul in
Genesis 2:7 (NIV – “living being”), for example, refers to all of Adam,
including his body. But Paul in 1
Thessalonians 5:23, using the Greek equivalent of this word, uses the word soul as something distinct from the
body. These two ways of using the word soul do not necessarily contradict, but
they show that God’s inspiration used the language categories and thought forms
of those He was inspiring – He met them where they were at.
There is a whole host of new questions that arise when we
read the Bible in terms of the words and thought forms of the writers God
inspired. While the answer to many of
these questions may seem obvious to us, they would not even have been thought
of when we were reading the Bible in a pre-modern fashion. If we are really concerned to know the true
meaning of the Bible’s words, we probably should not dismiss these questions
too quickly without at least a serious consideration. Are we really interested in what the Bible
actually meant, or is our real agenda a desire to reinforce what we already
believe – whether it is actually true or not?
More often than not, pre-modern interpretation is not really
interested in objective truth but rather works vigorously to maintain the
beliefs its tradition already holds. It
is deeply ironic that many of those who think they have the highest view of
Scripture actually show the least respect for the Bible because they do not let
it speak on its own terms. Rather, they
interpret the evidence as necessary to maintain the presuppositions with which they
came to the text, and they interpret its words as necessary so that it will fit
with the conclusions they have already made.
Is it any wonder that Baptists consistently find the
doctrine of eternal security in Scripture or that Wesleyans find the Bible to
teach “free will.” Why do some Christians
believe the Bible to teach capital punishment while others think such a
practice to be atrociously non-Christian?
We must at least in part conclude that many of those who hold such
positions have reached their conclusions long before they approached the
Biblical text.
But let us return to interpreting these verses from Matthew
and Ephesians. First of all, there is
the issue of the gospel of Matthew’s perspective on Jesus’ teaching. I will pass over the question of whether
Jesus actually taught what Matthew portrays him as teaching here – that is,
whether the “historical” Jesus differed from the Jesus of Matthew. In our
pre-modern days, we would not even have thought about the potential distinction
between the Jesus who actually walked the earth and the Jesus that the Bible
and Christians envisage.
But even when we accept that Jesus did in fact affirm the
validity of the Law, no presentation of history comes without a perspective
(I’ll put aside questions about the ancient genre of biography – in other
words, to what degree should a gospel be considered history writing). There is always far more data to relate in
presenting history than could possibly be related by the “historian.” A random spark may harmlessly occur somewhere
deep in a Space Shuttle as it is launched.
But chances are, that bit of data won’t make it into the history books –
even though it technically was a part of the event.
All history writing involves the selection and de-selection
of events. It involves prioritizing and
emphasizing. It involves selecting some
of the causes and effects, but never all.
In short, a presentation of history can be broadly accurate, but it will
also always “skew” the data somewhat in one direction or another. Only God’s mind can handle all the data at
the same time in all of their proper relationships – no human on earth will
ever be able to do so. And certainly no
written presentation of history can ever give us an objective picture of
events, since the limits of this medium eliminates even more data than even the
human mind can contain.
So reading the gospels as a part of early Christianity leads
us to consider what particular concerns led God to inspire the gospel writers
to choose to tell certain events and omit others, as well as why they have
worded the material in the way they have (all these concerns pertain to redaction criticism). For example, most scholars believe that
Matthew wrote for a Jewish Christian audience.
Did Matthew’s community of Jewish Christians believe that they needed to
continue to keep the Mosaic Law? Did the
author of Matthew present Jesus in such a way as to put forward those aspects
of his teaching that particularly applied to Christian Jews while omitting
others that did not as readily apply?
What, for example, is the difference between Matthew
15:17-20 and Mark 7:17-19? The answer is
an explanation of certain Jewish practices.
Because Mark is writing for non-Jews, he explains why the matter of
Jesus’ disciples washing their hands before eating is an issue. Matthew, on the other hand, writing for Jews,
does not need to explain the issue. When
we look at Matthew in its original context, we must ask what the perspective of
this gospel is and how his presentation of the gospel might relate to a particular
context. To absolutize his words, on the
other hand, will often be to take them out of context.
Ephesians, on the other hand, was almost certainly written
with an eye to Gentiles. One issue that is debated in scholarly circles about
Ephesians is whether it was actually written by Paul or was written by one of
Paul’s disciples under the authority
of Paul’s name – that is, is Ephesians “pseudonymous.” We have numerous examples of this type of
literature in the world of that day. So
since the vocabulary, style, and teaching of Ephesians differs somewhat from
Paul’s other letters, many scholars believe it was actually penned by a Pauline
“disciple.”
Again, while the answer to this question may seem obvious to
us, our respect for the Bible will lead us at least to consider the possibility
with seriousness. In regard to the verse
in question, for example, the statement that the Law is abolished seems to be a
somewhat different approach to the subject of Christians and the Law than
Romans 3:31 and 8:4, where Paul speaks of upholding and keeping the Law. Could the difference between these two books
be the difference between a mixed Jew and Gentile audience for Romans and a
strictly Gentile audience for Ephesians?
My point here is not to argue for a position on this particular issue,
just to show the kinds of questions that arise when one begins to interpret the
Bible in context.
The question of who the author of these letters was and what
audience they were addressing does not even matter in a pre-modern
interpretation. These verses will be
harmonized strictly on the basis of the meanings these individual words can
have in the mind of the person doing the interpreting and their Christian
tradition. A pre-modern interpreter
might suggest, for example, that Jesus meant the essence of the Law or the
moral law – conveniently ignoring Matthew 5:19 and 23:3, 23. A pre-modern might suggest that Paul means
that the ceremonial law was what was cancelled, not the moral law. But Ephesians itself does not make such
distinctions – nor would mainstream Jews of the first century have divided up
the Law in this way.
If the one approaching these texts from a historical
perspective wishes to relate these two voices to one another, he or she will do
it in context. When Jesus says that he
has not come to abolish the Law, for example, he is addressing Jews on the mountainside of ancient
2. The complications of historical method
There are other issues that arise when one begins to read
the Bible for its original meaning. The
stereotypical pre-modern interpreter uses whatever version of the Bible they
know – the King James Version, for example.
But when Christians began to look at the Bible from a historical
perspective, they had to deal with the question of figuring out just what the
first copies of the books of the Bible actually said. There are over 5000 Greek manuscripts of the
New Testament, and no two of them have exactly the same wording
throughout. The science of textual criticism arose, which
addresses the variations in the manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments and
tries to figure out what the “first editions” most likely said.
This aspect of historical method created
new questions for us. If the story of
the woman caught in adultery (John 8) was not in the first edition of John, can
we still preach from this passage? Is
the authoritative voice of Scripture to be found in passages the church has
used for thousands of years, yet which were not in the original manuscripts?
A further wrinkle takes place when
we ask the question of sources behind the New Testament documents – source criticism. Most scholars, for example, believe that
there were sources of some kind both behind the Pentateuch and the Synoptic
Gospels. If there was a source that
Matthew and Luke used for Jesus’ sayings – a source scholars call Q – was it
authoritative? If there was an epic of
Yet even here things can get
sticky. Who decided when there were
enough psalms to stop collecting them, for example, and who decided that
prophetic collections like those of Jeremiah or Ezekiel were edited into their
final form? If someone has updated the
names of cities in Genesis so that later Israelites would know where “Luz” was
(28:19), who decided that no more updating would be done? For that matter, who decided which books
belonged in the canon and which not? We
believe that God did.
But God did so through communities
of faith, whether
Just to follow the questions, if we
one day determined that Jesus said something in a significantly different way
from how it came to be recorded in our gospels, which would be more
authoritative – his actual words or his words as they appear in the Bible? In other words, is the text of the church or
the history of the actual events more authoritative? Again, we would not have even understood this
question in our pre-modern days.
When historical method arose, the
fundamentalist scholar answered that we did not have to choose one or the
other, for the Bible’s text gave us the history of the actual events
accurately. The fundamentalist view promotes
the idea of “inerrancy,” which they define as the absence of error of any kind
in the Biblical text. Usually implied in
the fundamentalist definition, however, is also the idea that the Bible’s
narratives are historical presentations and that imagery that can be related to
science should be taken literally.
But what if ancient history writing
did not follow the same “rules” as our history writing? And what would the difference be between
saying a parable is a story presenting truth and saying that Jonah was written
as a novella presenting truth? And if
the Bible represents God revealing Himself in the categories of His people,
then would we really expect the Bible’s images of the universe to look anything
like what we would learn in a modern science class? Wouldn’t we expect Paul to visit the “third
heaven” (2 Cor 12:2) and for there to be primordial waters above the stars (Gen
1:6, 14)?
It is possible, of course, to define
the word “inerrancy” more broadly, since surely it is most important to
understand the Biblical texts in their own categories rather than to impose
ours on them. A fundamentalist agrees
that a parable is not in error because it does not tell a story that happened
in history, because it never meant to do so.
Whatever decision we make with regard to the genre of Jonah, the Bible
would not be in error if it were to turn out it was a novella. The fundamentalist preoccupation with history
and modern science is as much a product of modernist culture as that of the
atheist Biblical scholar is.
On the other extreme, many during
the rise of historical method thought there was a difference between text and
history – a radical difference. They
predictably answered that history is more authoritative than text – the actual
words of Jesus over and against the words in the Bible. Indeed, there was a drive in the 1800’s and
early 1900’s to push back behind the documents of the Old and New Testaments to
the history, where God’s real dealings with his people were sometimes thought
to be located.
First, source criticism pushed to
find the earliest sources, thinking that these would be more reliable than the
later ones. For a time, Mark was valued
as providing the true picture of Jesus, since it was thought to be the basis
for Matthew and Luke. Then William Wrede
argued that Mark himself had created his picture of Jesus from a false
theological angle, and so a certain segment of the modernist scholarly
community despaired of ever finding the historical Jesus.
Form criticism
took a different tactic to reach history.
By looking at the forms of Jesus’ sayings, the form critics thought they
could strip them of Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s theology and reach what Jesus
actually said. But just as pre-modernism
resulted in many theologies, there were almost as many different
reconstructions of the historical Jesus as there were scholars trying to find
him. For a sizeable portion of the
twentieth century, an incredible pessimism clouded Biblical scholarship. In the words of one scholar, Jesus became a
“stranger” – a historical figure from an alien world, a man we would not
recognize today. The section on “Text
and Reader-Centered Interpretive Methods” below will discuss where scholarship
has gone from there.
A final complication of reading the
Bible in terms of its original context is that a tremendous amount of this
original context is unavailable to us.
The author of Hebrews and the situation he addresses, for example, is
unknown to us. It is thus no wonder that
countless different proposals have been made about its situation and
teaching.
Further, filling in many of these
blanks is likely to mislead us. If I
presume Paul wrote Ephesians and I am wrong, I am reading the letter out of
context. Yet if I presume that Paul
didn’t write Ephesians and he did, I am also reading the letter out of
context. Knowing the answer to this
question would go a long way toward helping me understand this letter’s
original meaning. You can find almost as
much disagreement among scholars about the original meaning of the Bible as you
find among the various pre-modern interpreters of different denominations. The amount of uncertainty about the original
meaning could cast doubt on our hopes of finding the authoritative voice of
Scripture here.
What we can speak
of is a broad domain of possible historical meanings that the Biblical texts
could have had. For example, an ancient
author and an ancient reader could have taken the same words differently, but
both would have understood those words from within the set of meanings possible
in the first century. No one in the
first century, for example, would have thought that the phrase “the moon turned
to blood” meant that the molecules of the massive physical structure circling
the earth would be transformed into the molecular structure of human
blood. These simply were not the
categories of the first century. In some
ways, therefore, we can say more about what the original meaning was not than what it was.
3. Where is the authoritative voice of the original meaning to be found?
Before Christians began to interpret the Bible in its
historical context, there was an assumption that the whole Bible was true and
fit together. The meanings of words were
simply interpreted in such a way that they fit together into a coherent
system. When we started reading the
Bible in context, however, fitting its teachings together took on a different
look. In addition to fitting the truths of the Bible together, many were
now also concerned to correlate a literal reading of the Bible with history and science. The concept of “inerrancy” arose, which is
based on the logical distinction between a literal reading of the Bible and a
historical reading of the Bible. An
inerrantist believes that these two do not contradict. Before the rise of historical method, none of
these issues would have even occurred to us.
But what does the authoritative voice of God look like in a
presentation of history or science? The
inerrantist opts for accuracy in history and science as a kind of authoritativeness,
but what do these have to say about how God wants me to live today? History, of course, has many lessons to teach
us, and the Bible often draws out those lessons for us. Our discussion above also hints that the
perspective of the historian is a strong candidate for hearing God’s
authoritative voice. Matthew might
emphasize the ongoing validity of the Law for Jewish Christians. The theology of the gospel writer can thus be
considered a vehicle for God’s authoritative voice.
God’s Voice in a Narrative?
There are many times when a narrative does not make a value
judgment. The narrative of Judges 19,
for example, does not tell us what to think of the Levite who offers the
Benjamite crowd his concubine so they will not rape him. Nor does the narrative tell us whether he
should have chopped her dead body into 12 pieces and sent them to the tribes of
The book of Acts does not tell us explicitly whether the apostles
handled the controversy between Aramaic and Greek speaking widows properly
(chapter 6). It simply tells us that the
event happened. How do I know if this
story models something for me or is simply introducing Stephen in the narrative
so I will know who is being martyred in the next chapter?
Many Christians assume that the book of Acts gives us a
blueprint for church growth today, but where does the text of Acts tell me
that? How did we decide that the
authoritative voice of God indicated we should do the same kinds of things
recorded there – especially since our world is so different from theirs? Why would we take strategies Paul used to
spread the gospel to urban centers of the Roman Mediterranean and use them in
the inner city of
And where is the authoritative voice of God to be found in a
genealogy, or in expressions of grief such as one finds in Psalm 22 or
137? The pre-modern interpreter could
easily move from a literal to a figurative or spiritualized interpretation when
the historical meaning of a text seemed inapplicable. How does one find the authoritative voice of
God in Psalm 137:9, which applauds anyone who would dash the babies of the
Babylonians against rocks? A pre-modern
might reinterpret “babies” here to be the seeds of sin that Satan uses to snare
us. Blessed is the person who dashes
those seeds of sin before they grow to entangle you.
But when we read this psalm as a genuine expression of grief
on the part of an Israelite captive, we are uncertain about what this might
mean for us. It is not a communication
from God to a human; it is an expression from a person to God. There is no teaching involved, no command to
the psalmist. Perhaps we begin to
broaden our perspective of God’s “voice” beyond the logical mode of teaching or
the directive mode of command to other modes of expression, such as the emotional. Perhaps God can use this psalm to speak
comfort to us in whatever trial we might be in.
This discussion leads us to see that historical method in
and of itself may not give us the authoritative voice of God. Once we know what the text meant, we still do
not necessarily know how to apply it to today.
In the end, we find that applying the historical meaning to today
involves many of the same processes we used when we were pre-modern readers,
like finding an emotional point of contact with a psalm.
There is no one scheme for bridging the gap between
historical meaning and contemporary application. With regard to the Bible’s commands, there is
no guarantee that the essence of these directives would play out the same way today
that they did then. We can try to
isolate what seem to be the principles behind the Biblical commands, but
sometimes even such principles can mislead us.
When 1 Timothy 2:12 states that wives cannot have authority over their
husbands, the principles provided are the authority of birth order (Adam first)
and the deceivability of the female race in contrast to the male (Eve was
deceived, not Adam). Are these the
principles by which we transfer God’s authoritative voice from then to
now? How far out on a limb can we
go? Can we say that these principles
themselves are cultural and that the real principle is to be a good witness to
one’s surrounding culture – which might not have happened if the Christian
community to which 1 Timothy is addressed had allowed husbands to be taught by
their wives?
Dr. Steven Lennox of
Why does the God of the Old Testament sometimes seem more
condemning, less predictable? Does it
not have something to do with the picture of God they needed and could
understand? Can we not say the same
thing about the picture of God in the New Testament – not necessarily that
their understanding of God has “evolved,” although certainly Christ fills in a
host of blanks, but that God was meeting a different time and place with the
true picture of Him that they needed?
Certain kinds of reasoning make more sense in one culture
than another as well, presenting us with the challenge of how to translate the
historical teaching of the Bible from one context to another. The editor of the books of Samuel had no
problem attributing God with David’s impulse to number the fighting men
of
Does not this same process apply to truths such as the
Trinity or the dual nature of Christ?
These teachings are not developed in the text of the New Testament – it
took centuries of trial and error before the church finally affirmed them. What do these processes have to say about the
development of our theology today? Can
we as the church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, take the
trajectories of Scripture and draw lines to our cultural context? While one cannot deny the essential
appropriateness of the historical approach, it becomes increasingly clear that
it opens a Pandora’s box of complicated issues we did not have to face before. We can barely see back in the distance the
Reformation’s pre-modern affirmation that Scripture alone was authoritative for
the Christian. Suddenly we realize how
much more than the text alone is involved in appropriating the Bible for any
context.
III. Text and Reader-Centered Interpretations
1. Introduction
In a sense, the pre-modern
interpreter saw only the words of the text in front of him or her. They were unaware of what it might mean to
read those words in context – for what the original author and readers might have
thought those words meant. They were
also unaware of themselves as readers and the way in which their own world in
fact dominated their interpretation of the text.
The modernist reader adds the
history behind the text to the equation.
The meaning of the text is now thought to be text + author. But the deeper we went into our discussion of
historical method above, the more that method began to yield uncertain
results. We simply do not have enough
information to be certain about many of our interpretations. There are too many gaps in our knowledge of
the context.
No doubt even ancient authors and
readers at times would have taken the same words in different ways, leading us
to ask what the “original meaning” was anyway?
Whose understanding of the text should be considered original? Further, once we know the historical meaning
in its original context, how do we apply that meaning to today? We run the risk of finishing our exegesis
paper and still not knowing where to find God’s authoritative voice in the
ancient meaning.
Post-modernity adds a serious
consideration of the final component of interpretation, namely, the
reader. In its proper sense,
post-modernism is not so much a new system of truth as a realization of the
limits of modernity. Modernism moved
beyond pre-modernism by making us somewhat aware of our own biases and
pre-suppositions. We began a quest for
objectivity. What post-modernism makes
us aware of is the fact that our quest was, in the end, somewhat doomed for
failure. We will never be able to shake
free of our human perspective and reach a God-like objectivity. No matter how timeless and absolute the
truth, it will always be skewed when it comes into the domain of human
understanding. That is the legacy of the
Fall and the limitations of the non-divine.
Yet despite the excesses of some
post-modernists, we do not have to abandon the idea of absolute truth, even
though we must acknowledge that the way we conceive of this abstract idea
itself comes by way of our modern Western worldview. We can only ascribe such truth to God’s
domain, not ours. We “see things
imperfectly as in a poor mirror,” but God is able to hold all the data together
at the same time in all its proper relationships. He speaks “baby talk” to us, meeting us at
whatever point He finds us, enabling us to catch the smallest glimpse of His
truth. The Bible is thus a kaleidoscopic
collection of true God-pictures.
Not all who have thought through
these things have retained any concept of truth at all. Some extreme “interpreters” of the Bible, for
example, are called deconstructionists. Their principle claim is that any
interpretation of the Bible will fall apart if it is examined closely
enough. Steven Moore, perhaps the best
known deconstructionist in Biblical studies, uses the idea that Jesus is the
living water in John as an example.[2] While Jesus claims that he eliminates the
need for earthly water in chapter 4, he finds himself requiring that same water
when he is on the cross. Post-modernists
love to point out what they see as ambiguities or inconsistencies in any system
of thought.
A slightly less extreme wing of
contemporary Biblical studies than the deconstructionists is made up of those
that practice reader-response criticism. Those who practice this form of
interpretation range from scholars interested in how the original audience of
the Bible would have heard its words to those who feel that any reader’s
response to the words of the Bible are as good as anyone else’s. In this latter approach, we have come full
circle back to where we were in pre-modernism.
In pre-modernism, we read the words
of the Bible out of context as they struck us as readers. We largely read them along the lines of
whatever group or tradition to which we happened to belong. But we
did not realize we were doing this!
In post-modernism, groups and individuals read the words of the Bible
out of context once again – but they do so consciously. After all, some reader-response critics might
say, the original context is unavailable to us anyway. There are feminist readers, African-American
readers, liberationist readers – and some of these think that any reading they
come up with will be just as appropriate as any other. “What does this Bible verse mean to you?” However you answer, this type of reader-response
interpreter affirms that you are correct.
Yet these post-modern interpreters
have surely thrown the baby out with the bath water. It is true that a close examination of the
historical meaning of the Bible will lead us to substantial ambiguities when we
take the method to its fullest extent.
But I feel quite certain that Judas Iscariot was one of the bad guys and
that Jesus was the hero of the story.
While we may certainly get things out of focus as readers sometimes, I’m
convinced that responsible scholarship puts us in the ballpark most of the
time.
What seems true about
post-modernism’s interpretation of the Bible is that we as readers and
communities of readers are de facto the
determinative component in our interpretation.
After all, Beethoven’s symphony may be a mind-boggling work of
perfection, but that doesn’t mean I can appreciate it. Someone may be trying to call me, but I may
not have a telephone. While we may
appreciate the original meaning and hold up God’s perfect revelation as inspired
and authoritative, what if we do not have ears to hear? The meaning we understand ultimately is a
function of our heads and what they are able to receive – a practical reality
that deals a severe blow to our theological dreams and plans.
But surely we can tell the
difference between broadly accurate historical interpretations and ones that
are clearly wrong. I know I did not
shoot John F. Kennedy, nor did Julius Caesar.
N. T. Wright has supported an interpretive position called critical realism. In this approach, we take seriously the fact
that none of us will ever be completely objective about the facts, but that
does not mean that we have to abandon the idea that there are indeed facts out
there.[3] This conceptual framework seems the most
appropriate of all the ones we have examined so far.