Theological Interpretation Part 4

(2) TIS reads the Bible as Scripture

Commenting on the opening verses of the letter of James, Green asks, 'Who is the “you” to whom James addresses his letter? Are we willing to be that “you”?'¹ How one answers this question will indicate one's stance towards theological interpretation. Green continues, 'When we read James, are we reading someone else's mail? This is the basic presumption of critical biblical studies in the modern era.'² For theological interpreters, this question is to be answered with a resounding 'no'. The Bible is not simply a collection of ancient historical documents, worthy only of historical and philological enquiry for those with niche interests. The Bible is regarded as Scripture. Although there is no consensus among TIS authors as to how the doctrine of Scripture must be understood, they keep company with historic Christianity and approach the text with the presupposition that behind it stands one divine author and that readers are addressed by the word of God that is spoken in and through the text.³ The purpose of the triune God's self-communication through Scripture is to draw its readers into communion with himself, but also to provide normative guidance for the ecclesial community with respect to theology, ethics and truth.⁴

While such a belief is acceptable in the Church, is it tenable in an academic setting? Can serious biblical scholarship be compatible with a belief that God actually speaks through the Bible today? Theological interpreters answer 'yes', and necessarily so. Insofar as TIS involves coming to the biblical text with certain theological presuppositions it resembles ideological approaches to interpretation. This is because TIS operates under no pretence of hermeneutical neutrality. TIS is explicitly confessional as it attempts to appropriate Scripture's message for contemporary belief and practice within the community of faith. In fact, it may be argued that ideological criticism's corrective to any false notion of unbiased interpretation, and its embracing of the reader's interpretive horizon as a hermeneutical norm has inadvertently granted the freedom required by theological interpreters to make their interests explicit.⁵

Where TIS differs from typical ideological readings is in its basic hermeneutical posture. Ideological criticism, be it feminist, liberation or something else, tends to approach the text with a hermeneutic of suspicion; the Bible is not rejected outright, but it is thought to contain both oppressive and liberating themes. The liberating impulses of the Bible may be preached, but they must first be recovered from whatever oppressive textual and historical contexts they inhabit. Responding to Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Richard Hays comments that the problem with adopting a posture of suspicion is that if the Bible is inherently oppressive, on what basis can one know or relate to God? Further, on what ground does one critique the Bible so as to render it less harmful? Fiorenza's response is to appeal to women's own experience of liberation as revelatory, and the Bible is critically read through this lens. But, as Hays remarks, 'Regrettably, many practitioners of the hermeneutics of suspicion... are remarkably credulous about the claims of experience. As a result, they endlessly critique the biblical texts but rarely get around to hearing scripture's [sic] critique of us or hearing its message of grace.'⁶

Instead of coming to the text suspicious of its content, theological interpretation assumes a hermeneutic of trust or consent.⁷ Put simply, this involves giving the Bible the benefit of the doubt, recognizing that because the people of God, both Jewish and Christian, have heard the Bible (or various parts of it) as the word of God for thousands of years they might still do so today. This conviction is essential for theological reading, and for nurturing the life of faith, as Michael Gorman comments, 'it is difficult to imagine believers being able to sustain themselves as a community for long without a basic hermeneutic of consent or trust towards their sacred texts.'⁸ It must be asked, however, if a hermeneutic of trust is merely a naïve type of fundamentalism. Theological interpreters argue that this is not the case; it is in fact warranted by the nature of the Bible. Two points can be made. Firstly, theological interpreters argue that the Bible should be read according to its own claims and invitation.⁹ Markus Bockmuehl, while advocating responsible integration of historical criticism, contends that it is impossible to make significant sense of the biblical texts without recognising the 'explosively “totalizing” theological assertions that writers like Paul and the evangelists state or imply in practically every sentence',¹⁰ and without 'facing the inalienably transformative and self-involving demands that these ecclesial writings place on a serious reader.'¹¹ Moreover, the New Testament never conceives of or encourages any attempt to access the identity of Jesus Christ apart from through the apostolic witness and the churches.¹² The point, then, is that theological interpretation is warranted by the nature of the Bible's subject matter, and by the type of reader it implicitly invites.¹³

Secondly, because the Bible has been understood as the authoritative text of the Church, incorporated in regular worship, reading and liturgy throughout an unbroken history of tradition, no interpreter can come to the text neutrally, 'but only in the context of an enduring Jewish and Christian, and consequent wider, cultural reception.'¹⁴ Appropriating the work of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, Walter Moberly sees this faith-based reception as a kind of plausibility structure - a necessary precondition for regarding the Bible as enduringly meaningful and truthful. The Church provides a context for taking the text seriously in a way that would not be so if it were merely an ancient oddity.¹⁵ From this perspective, it is those embarking on supposedly value free historical-critical enquiry that need to justify their scholarly enterprise, for in the absence of meaning attributed to the Bible from its enduring status in faith communities and its wider cultural impact, what distinguishes it from any other ancient text? Similarly, ideological critics though adopting a posture of suspicion inevitably presuppose the enduring significance and meaning of the Bible, otherwise it is hard to see how it is worth the effort of opposing.¹⁶ Vanhoozer summarises the point as thus, 'Only the assumption that these texts say something of unique importance can ultimately justify the depth of the exegete's engagement.'¹⁷

The case for reading the Bible as Scripture is a strong one. It challenges advocates of other interpretative approaches to justify their endeavours instead of assuming a monopoly on legitimacy. At the very least, TIS should be accepted as equally justified amongst the ranks of 'interested' readings. One somewhat pragmatic issue arises, however, and that is how theological interpreters envisage the working relationship between themselves and those in academic departments who are not confessing Christians. As Carson observes, Christian academics have to interact with non-Christians, but TIS sometimes appears to be advocating an exclusive huddle.¹⁸ With this in mind, the problem of bridging biblical studies and theology is not simply solvable at methodological level, for in some cases it is a symptom of the gap between Christian and non-Christian world-views, and it is not clear how thoroughly TIS authors have addressed this matter.

(3) TIS reads the Bible canonically

If TIS proponents approach the Bible with the explicit conviction that behind the disparate writings of human authors is the single divine author, it is unsurprising that TIS emphasizes reading the Bible as a canonical whole.¹⁹ The canon refers to the collection of sacred writings considered authoritative and normative for Christian belief and practice.²⁰ According to Vanhoozer, appeal to divine authorship is necessary for reading the Bible as a unified canon. He claims that various attempts to identify intra-textual bases for canonical coherence have proven unsatisfactory, stating that not every book in the canon exhibits the unity proposed by any given model. Instead the only justification for reading the Bible as a unified discourse, wherein its constituent parts form a totality, is if something “outside” the text is the ground of its coherence.²¹ Vanhoozer suggests that to understand the relationship between many diverse texts and the unified whole, one might think in terms of a 'stratified semantic reality'. On one stratum is the historical discourse of the human authors which has an intelligibility and integrity of its own. On another stratum, divine discourse emerges at a canonical level. This level depends on the individual human authors, but cannot be reduced to them.²² Theological interpretation therefore involves discerning what God is saying and doing through the text at both levels of discourse, human and divine, and the parts must always be related back to the whole.

A further reason for approaching the Bible canonically is due to its reception in the community of faith. While historical-critical approaches emphasise the 'world behind the text' as they attempt to discern the actual events of the past, theological interpreters are primarily concerned with the texts in their final form. This includes the recognition that the biblical texts have historically been received in canonical form, thus Francis Watson writes, 'It is only in their final, canonical form that the biblical texts have functioned as communally authoritative within synagogue and church...this is the form of the text most suitable for theological use...the subject matter or content of the biblical texts is inseparable from their form.'²³ The very fact that the biblical texts have been received as a canon indicates that the individual texts should be mutually interpretative, as well as the parts being understood in light of the whole.²⁴ In theory this should not result in a failure to hear the distinctive theological voices of individual books; individual texts must not be subject to crude homogenisation. Nevertheless, each distinctive voice must also be understood in relation to the bigger picture, as it is 'modified or deepened by its location within a wider set of textual relationships.'²⁵

This is undoubtedly easier to state in theory, and much harder in practice. In his reading of Lamentations, Robin Parry says that the text must be read in its canonical form with the theme of weeping, and in its canonical context with the theme of hope. He urges that one should not move too quickly from weeping to hope, from Saturday to Sunday, but nevertheless remember that Sunday will come.²⁶ In response to Parry, Charlie Trimm argues that while Christian readers affirm that canonically they have hope, texts where hope is not expressed such as Lamentations should not be prematurely synthesized.²⁷ Trimm suggests that the author of Lamentations deliberately did not include hope out of a desire to express the despair of the present time. This in turn makes Lamentations a poignant text for those in despair today. Trimm's argument is that the diverse books of the Bible should not be flattened into saying the same thing, and that textual diversity reflects the human experience of diversity.²⁸ The risk of aiming for uniformity is to try and make rough edges smooth and reduce the impact of the distinct voices.

A further canonical challenge faced by theological interpreters relates specifically to the nature of the Old Testament. Firstly, the Old Testament comprises a pre-Christian set of texts which were selected, arranged and regarded as authoritative largely before the advent of the Christian faith.²⁹ Consequently, theological interpretation actually begins with the New Testament's recontextualization of the Old Testament, especially as it is read in the light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Thus any reading of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture raises difficult interpretative questions about issues such as Christ's relationship to the law and the Church's relationship to Israel.³⁰ Secondly, the Old Testament originally existed in Hebrew and Greek (LXX). Moberly observes that the New Testament implicitly acknowledges both as authoritative, and Patristic writers such as Augustine favoured the Greek whereas Jerome favoured the Hebrew. This raises an interesting question: 'What then is the authoritative text of the Old Testament for the theological commentator?'³¹ Given that TIS authors typically praise Patristic interpretation and seek to reclaim its benefits for today, perhaps they too will advocate in due course the dual authority of both Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments for theological interpretation.

The issues raised thus far are just a sample of challenges faced by canonical reading. The intentions of TIS are nevertheless apparent. Theological interpretation must go beyond merely describing the theological perspectives of the diverse biblical texts, and press towards the question of canonical synthesis.³²

1Green, Practicing, 15.

2Ibid., 16.

3Richard B. Hays, “Reading the Bible with eyes of faith: the practice of theological exegesis,” JTI 1, no. 1 (2007):

12. With Barthian resonances some TIS authors emphasize the trinitarian nature of God's self-revelation, and that

Scripture is almost an extension of God's very nature and a medium of his self-communication that in turn draws reader

back into communion with the triune God. See Fowl, Theological, 1-12; Kevin Vanhoozer, “Imprisoned of Free? Text,

Status, and Theological Interpretation in the Master/Slave Discourse of Philemon,” in Reading Scripture with the

Church: Toward A Hermeneutic for Theological Interpretation, A. K. M. Adam et al. 76-77 (Grand Rapids: Baker

Academic, 2006).

4Vanhoozer. “Introduction,” 22-24; Fowl, Theological, 7.

5Michael Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis: Revised and Expanded Edition (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2001),

144.

6Richard B. Hays, "Salvation by trust? Reading the Bible faithfully," Christian Century 114, no. 7 (1997): 218.

7Ibid.

8Gorman, Elements, 144.

9Michael Allen, “Theological Commentary,” in Theological Commentary: Evangelical Perspectives, ed. R. Michael

Allen, 5 (London: Continuum, 2011).

10Bockmuehl, Seeing, 46.

11Ibid.

12Ibid., 47.

13Spinks, Bible, 11.

14R. W. L. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 6. See also

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967).

15Ibid., 7.

16Ibid., 11.

17Vanhoozer. “Introduction,” 21. See also R. W. Jenson, “Scripture's Authority in the Church,” in The Art of Reading

Scripture, eds. E. F. Davis and R. B. Hays, 27-29 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

18Carson, “Theological,” 203.

19The major influence is Brevard Childs. See especially “The Exegetical Significance of Canon for the Study of the

Old Testament,” VT Supplements 29 (1977): 66-80. For a helpful overview see Francis Watson, Text, Church and World

(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 30-45.

20John Webster, “Canon,” in DTIB, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, 97 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005).

21Vanhoozer, “Imprisoned,” 68.

22Ibid., 69.

23Francis Watson, Text Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,

1994), 16-17.

24Webster, “Canon,”100.

25Trevor Hart, “Tradition, Authority, and a Christian Approach to the Bible as Scripture,” in Between Two Horizons,

eds. Max Turner and Joel B. Green, 198 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).

26Robin Parry, “Prolegomena to Christian Theological Interpretation of Lamentations,” in Canon and Biblical

Interpretation, ed. Craig Bartholomew et al.(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 413-415.

27Trimm, “Evangelicals,” 318.

28Ibid.

29R. W. L. Moberly, “What is Theological Commentary? An Old Testament Perspective,” in Theological

Commentary: Evangelical Perspectives, ed. R. Michael Allen, 174 (London: T&T Clark, 2011).

30Fowl, Theological, 31.

31Ibid., 175. For further discussion see also J. Ross Wagner, “The Septuagint and the 'Search for the Christian Bible',”

in Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible, eds. Markus Bockmuehl and Alan J. Torrance, 17-28 (Grand Rapids:

Baker Academic, 2008).

32Hays, “Reading,” 13.