How elite are biblical scholars? As an Anabaptist and a biblical-scholar-in-training, I have long wondered what my role is in my own (local and larger) community of faith. For example, Stuart Murray devotes a chapter of his Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition to “congregational hermeneutics” (find a summary of the book here). The idea is that (according to 16th century Anabaptists) only a local community, attempting to be truly obedient, could understand the meaning of Scripture together as a community. If I am signing up for the scholarly path, what does that mean for my connection to Anabaptism? Is my training going against the grain of such “congregational hermeneutics”? Where is my place at the Anabaptist table of interpreters?
As I am reading through Philip Esler’s Galatians volume, I was pleasantly surprised to find a helpful insight on this topic from someone thoroughly rooted in a social historical analysis of the biblical text (as I try to be). He discusses the “base communities of Latin America and local groups elsewhere” which reveal “a different pattern” of biblical interpretation than is found in the North Atlantic:
. . . one in which the correlation between scriptural interpretation and the scrutiny of the contemporary situation are conducted by the communities themselves, with some help from theologians functioning as consultants rather than creators of the theology. In these contexts the value of non-elite readings of biblical text becomes apparent. For, in the end, although New Testament interpreters may provide exegetical results which can be appropriated by local communities seeking to undertake correlations of the type just mentioned, it is only those congregations who can make the earliest Christian story, critically understood, their story. . . . The only realistic prospects of developing an intercultural understanding of New Testament experience are located in Christian communities. [27, emphases mine]
Just prior to this statement, Esler effectively critiques those who attack historical methods of interpretation. I can resonate with Esler’s perspective here. As scholars of the biblical texts, our interpretation must be rooted in an attempt to understand the social historical environment from which they come. Postmodern criticism does remind us that we are fallible and does warn us against absolute confidence in our own assumed objectivity. But I like the idea that my purpose is to immerse myself in the historical stuff and serve as a “consultant” to the interpretation of my community. My community as a whole takes whatever attempt at objective interpretation I have made and applies it our own subjective situation collectively.
This is not all just an idealistic pipe dream. Just in the past few months, for example, as my congregation (a Mennonite church in southern California) went through a membership discernment process, I taught a Sunday school session on “Boundaries in the Bible: Inclusion and Exclusion among God’s People.” I brought to my fellow congregants what I had learned from an in-depth review of the topic and they got into groups discussing it. They came up with insights of how the historical analysis of the Bible would apply in our own world. The session was part of a much longer process in which we explored membership issues from a variety of angles.
In the end, the community as a whole came up with the wording of the policy and decided together whether the statements accurately reflected our sense of the issue as a community. With the exception of a few, we came to a vast majority approval of our new policy. I played only a small role, but it gives me hope and a vision for finding a place outside the ivory tower of academia. I’d also like to note that I think my social historical approach offered a more transferable and applicable reading of Scripture in the process than might some other methods.
Patrick,
As you know I am deeply interested in the discussion of biblical interpretation. I am also quite interested to hear about the goings on at the Mennonite church in SoCal you mentioned, since we were once part of the same community. It thrills me that you were able to bring to bear some of your training in the discussion.
All that being said, I would want to take issue, as you probably guessed I would, with the idea that interpretation must be “rooted in an attempt to understand the social historical environment from which” the biblical texts come. You preface that sentence with “As scholars of the biblical texts…” With that caveat I don’t want to take issue. However, I would call into question whether community interpretation must be rooted in the same. The issue for me is the term “rooted in.” I would never want to say congregations should not want to critically understand the social environment of the first Christians (paraphrasing Esler). But I think social historical criticism is a tool of the congregations and not the soil in which their interpretation is rooted. I’m opening myself up to the criticism that a biblical scholar, whose interpretation is rooted in the social historical environment, may have to uproot, so to speak, when participating in congregational interpretation. Of that I am aware, and I welcome further conversation because I am still wrestling with the notion myself. Still, I believe, in the congregation scholarly methods are the hoes and spades for tilling the soil and providing for healthier roots, but they should not be the roots themselves.
Hi Chris, Thanks for your note. I thought of you while I was writing. I still haven’t read your book, but I have to get around to it one of these days. It’s relevant here!
The caveat you mention was entirely intentional. I did not intend to say what the community should “root” their interpretation in. My post was — perhaps ironically — rather self-centered in that way: I was more concerned to articulate my own role in my own community and not the requirements of the community as a whole. I appreciate you making the clarification that this idea of “rootedness” in the social historical environment of the Bible should not apply to the community. I’m not sure I yet have an opinion on what it should be rooted in (aside from humility and attentiveness to the Spirit). More food for thought.
Hi Pat and Chris.
I, too, have been thinking about this lately. When we ask the question “what is the soil of a contemporary religious communities interpretation,” it seems to me that their own context is the soil; it is there that the communities interpretation is rooted. Chris, your point is well taken that the historical-cultural approach to interpretation is a tool, not the soil, and must be understood as such. Pat, I think this is where the post-modern approaches you mention are helpful. I also think that social-scientific work can help too; social science models created for use in our day are intended to help us better understand our own “soil.” It is even better for us if those models are also applicable to the biblical text (I am thinking here of social identity and social memory theories in particular).
The language of consultant is helpful, i think, in this regard. We scholars work to understand the biblical text in terms of its historical and cultural context, using the tools available to us, so that we can be of assistance to contemporary religious communities as they seek to faithfully live by their sacred texts.
Thanks, Coleman. About social sciences, Esler makes the same point. They help us understand better the distance between ourselves and the world of the texts, and thus help us to better understand how we might make better interpretations connecting the two worlds.
I’d like to say as a participant in that community session that you did an excellent job, stimulated helpful questions, and relieved my own mind on a number of matters by echoing some things that I had also presented to the church in a different format and context.
I also like what Esler said in your quotation. We Anabaptists are a strange lot. We didn’t form around the doctrines of a particular authority like other Christian traditions, but came together in the shared agreement of freedom of religious conscience and reciprocity of Spirit. Our “scholars” of that time, whether Pilgram Marpeck, Bathasar Hubmaier, Menno Simmons, Dirk Philips, Melchior Hoffman, Adam Pastor, Sebastian Frank, or whoever, wrote and presented their studies and convictions for the myriad of communities, which considered them and then accepted or rejected what they wished. Many accepted the perspectives of Desiderius Erasmus and some even listened to Luther (grotesque as that sounds). Anabaptism has always been multivocal and willing to listen to all the different voices available. Hopefully that leads to more and more engagement with modern critical scholarship… but only freedom of religious conscience and reciprocity of Spirit will decide.
Thanks, slave. I like any comment that talks about approval of Luther being “grotesque”
Hi Pat,
Experts are very interesting heuristic devices to introduce into such communities; how will they respond? And what constitutes expertise for that particular community?
I took part in a colloquium in 2009 with some Baptists and I think you will probably find the proceedings very interesting when they eventually appear (Helen Dare and Simon Woodman [eds], The ‘plainly revealed’ Word of God: Baptist Hermeneutics in Theory and Practice [Macon GA: Mercer University Press, forthcoming]). Have you also read Bob Ekblad’s Reading with the Damned? Particularly interesting is the quandary created by his attempts to add historical information to his readers and the significant dangers of smothering their interpretations by doing so.
For myself, I don’t agree with your construction of the task, mostly because I don’t agree with treating historical criticism as a first order interpretation which must underpin all other ways of reading. Partly, this is because most communities like the one you mention don’t read with the anti-canonical tendencies of the historical critics. Partly, it is because few Christian writers outside of modernity and Eurocentric modes of thought would use texts that way anyway.
Best,
John
Thanks, John. I will definitely look out for that forthcoming volume. I haven’t actually read Bob Ekblad’s book yet — it’s on the this. But I met him once and spent the day at his ministry, talking with him and the people there. I think I’ve gotten the gist of the ideas there. It’s a fruitful challenge to the traditional work of scholarship.
I should clarify my “construction of the task.” Both you and Chris have had the same misunderstanding about my intention, it seems. I am not trying to argue for the foundations of how a community goes about interpreting. In that statement, I was saying that a scholar of the biblical texts (in their own scholarship) should be rooted in the social historical world of the texts. Postmodern critiques notwithstanding, I still believe we have to have history as our foundation for scholarship in the biblical texts, especially social history.
I’m not sure I would use the same phrase as “the anti-canonical tendencies of the historical critics.” I’m a historical critic and I don’t think I have anti-canonical tendencies (sounds like a psychological disorder). Whatever view a scholar takes on the canon, they can place the canonical texts in their social historical contexts and this could still be helpful to communities (even if they disagree with a particular scholar’s “tendencies”). Of course, people like me, who are interested in applying the work of scholarship in relevant ways to local communities of faith, will have to adapt the way they communicate the information between their two worlds.
I am not sure how you are using ’social history’ here. Do you mean that scholars must view texts historically, or that that they must read as located in a specific socio-historical scholarly milieu? You need to tell us what “a scholar of the biblical texts should be rooted in their social historical world in their own scholarship” actually means. I am just confused. Perhaps I’ll refrain from saying anymore until I understand you better.
Hi John, I had a brain lapse while writing that sentence! I’ve edited it. Thanks for pointing that out. I use “social history” broadly — not pinned down to a particular method or group of scholars. Basically, “social history” for me means an attempt to understand the social and cultural mix of the authors, audience, and those persons, groups, themes, etc. mentioned in the texts. I’m just saying that biblical scholars need to base their arguments/conclusions in the context(s) of the texts — just as classicists should for their texts or scholars of any other historical literature should for their texts. A pretty basic supposition, though it has been challenged.
As for what local communities should base their interpretation upon, that’s a point I’m very hazy on. People like Chris (above) have thought about this issue more than I have. I’m going to need time to hash it out. But I’m just saying that as for my role, I like the concept of considering myself (and other scholars) a “consultant” — even if it’s not 100% perfect (consultants aren’t usually permanent members of the organization for which they are consulting!).