Facilitating an online course on biblical interpretation
A few weeks ago, I was approached by the Brethren in Christ Equipping for Ministry Team about an opportunity with a course in their Directed Study Program (DSP). They asked me whether I would consider facilitating their course, “Biblical Interpretation,” which is a required course in their program working towards a certificate with the denomination. The DSP is a program of online courses designed for those in the Brethren in Christ church (some in professional ministry, others not) who don’t necessarily have easy access to theological education.
Since facilitating the course is not a heavy load–there are no more than 15 students at a time–it would not get in the way of my primary academic duties of preparing for comprehensive exams and digging into my research topic. But it would give me the opportunity to get to use my training to help guide students through sticky hermeneutical problems. And I could stay connected to the Brethren in Christ church–one of my two denominational memberships (along with Mennonite) and the founding denomination of my undergraduate alma mater. With all of this and more in mind, I accepted the role.
I will be facilitating the online course as it is currently designed while also working to redesign the course. That latter role means that I will come up with a new syllabus, including more guidance than typical for an in-person classroom class, and new readings.
Designing this sort of course will be a bit of a challenge. The students will have taken “Bible Survey” before the class, but not a host of biblical studies courses before reaching “Biblical Interpretation.” It needs to be aimed at about a first-year undergraduate level, while also challenging students to reflect upon and interact with some very complicated topics (trying not to water them down). Also, the course is a mixture of basic elements from what one might find in an introduction to biblical studies course (literary features, historical context), a biblical exegesis course (the “nuts and bolts” of exegesis), and a biblical hermeneutics course (a little bit of theory on the perspectives behind interpretative methods) — all the while addressing concerns specific to a Brethren in Christ perspective (Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan). That’s a lot for one online course to juggle.
So, considering those challenges, what books would you use to design such a course? What are your favorites on hermeneutics and/or exegesis, or even simply the basic tools of biblical studies?
Have you ever taken a similar course? Wish you could take a course like this? What did you, or would you, appreciate most about a course like this?
By the way, in case you’re wondering, the Brethren in Christ church is not tied down by either of the terms “inerrancy” or even “infallibility.” Also, theirs is a hermeneutic focused more on praxis (“obedience”) than proper doctrine.
Interpreting the Bible: “Elite” Scholars and “Non-elite” Communities
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.
History, Theology, Ideology, Meaning and the Bible
Two of my friends, Matt Barnes and Chris Spinks, are having a lively discussion about meaning over on Matt’s blog. It all started when Matt (NT PhD student at Fuller Seminary) lamented over the “ideological” criticism that wants to do away with historical criticism. He suggested that there is no way to determine valid readings without historical tools. In the comments, I pushed back a wee bit, suggesting that historical scholars can come to a wide variety of “meanings” of many texts using the exact same methodology with the same level of skill. So, does historical research really give us the definitive meaning that we long for?
Then Chris chimed in–he did his dissertation at Fuller Seminary on theological interpretation and now is an editor at Wipf & Stock–with a much stronger push back than I had and with much greater logic. Chris has thought in detail about these issues much more than I have. Here is a fabulous set of questions from Chris:
Still not sure what you mean by “valid”? I’m not sure what are the criteria for validity. How do you know when you’ve said something about the Bible that is invalid? (These questions should not be interpreted to mean that I believe all statements are valid. I raise them out of a genuine desire to know. I think this notion of validity may be the fly in the ointment for us.)
Since the comments got unweildy, Matt moved Chris’ main points and his own response to their own post.
I generally understand and relate to the thoughts of both Matt and Chris. Though I am being trained as a social historian of texts, I do not feel I have to guard my historical-critical territory. I am theologically trained too. And I am an Anabaptist. And a feminist. Generally, I will try to come to as objective a conclusion as possible in my historical research (which is quite muddy when dealing with ancient texts). But then I move from there to consider the implications of that reading from my various perspectives–or my own singular blend of various perspectives.
One of the nice things about the discussion between Matt and Chris thus far is its civility. Check it out.
NT Wrong Has Fun With Labels
So, NT Wrong is an anonymous blogger who likes to get a rise out of folks, particularly “biblical apologists.” His latest project accomplishes that goal pretty well. He has created a list of over 100 bloggers on biblical studies and categorized them between “Very Conservative” and “Very Liberal”. First, the post appeared here, then he moved it to a more permanent home here.
At first, Wrong described me as “Very Conservative.” Apparently, he makes this judgment without actually reading my blog. He’s got over a hundred on there. I’m sure he hasn’t read all of them regularly. When I raised a question about it, he looked at my blog again and shifted me to “Fairly Conservative.” With his definitions, I shifted from:
You probably hold to the doctrine of inerrancy, or some version close to it. You can name a number of heresies offhand. And you have DA Carson, FF Bruce, or an Apollos Commentary in your bookshelf.
To:
The Bible is ‘The Word of God’ in some sense. You have spent time wondering whether ‘emergent’ or ‘emerging’ better describes yourself. You have an NT Wright or James Dunn book in your bookshelf.
The first description cannot possibly describe me for the past ten years, let alone in the few years that I have been blogging. Wrong sees it differently:
I had a look at your blog again, and see that although you’ve been squarely in the ‘very conservative’ group in the past, and some of your posts still show a distinctly fundamentalist mindset, you’ve changed to the ‘fairly conservative’ group now.
From looking at the links viewed on my blog, it appears that he went searching (the link is the actual search someone used today) for posts about inspiration, such as this one and this one. Both of those posts are from 2006 and were viewed today by one person, presumably NT Wrong. Since he’s thinking about past posts, I would assume he’s talking about these ones. Neither of these posts subscribe to inerrancy, but rather question it. If he’s saying that these posts put me in the “Very Conservative” category, which subscribes to inerrancy for him, then he did not read these posts. To just throw “fundamentalist mindset” out there without any examples, then, is suspect. I know some fundamentalists who would be surprised to hear me included in their number! It seems that Wrong searches for some posts about inspiration, scans for a few out-of-context keywords, and quickly categorizes (that’s kinda like what real fundamentalists do with biblical texts!).
For some responses to Wrong thus far, check out:
- John Hobbins, “The Joys of Being ‘Very Conservative’”
- Loren Rosson, “Apparently, I’m Liberal”
- Phil Sumpter, “Why am I ‘very conservative’?”
- Jim Getz, “I’ve been labeled a Liberal”
And many more have gotten caught up in the hubbub. The problem here is that the categories are muddled. Wrong clarifies that he does not mean political leanings, but rather attitudes towards the Bible. But what makes one liberal theologically to some laypersons, may make one a conservative in terms of methodology to other scholars. It seems as though Wrong’s emphasis in conservative labels is some sort of stance on inspiration. Notice his liberal category:
You esteem the Bible for the work it is. You spend a lot of time working out ways to read the Bible which can liberate it for different readers. You have a book on queer readings of the Bible on your bookshelf.
If you are going to liberate the Bible with ideological criticism, it seems to me that you still have an understanding of the Bible as inspired in some way. Otherwise, why would you care to “liberate” it? So, here there is a muddling between theology (a view of how the Bible might be inspired) and methodology (ideological criticism). Here is his “Very Liberal” definition:
You approach biblical books like any other books, taking the good stuff with the bad shit. You often stop and wonder why you bother with a field riddled with so many apologists. You have Foucault, Said, and Philip Pullman on your bookshelf.
I can agree with the first sentence for myself. While I do hold that the Bible is, in some sense, the “word of God” (his “fairly conservative” definition), I also believe that the Bible is a collection of ancient documents that must be studied within their historical context like any other ancient document (“very liberal” definition). The former is a theological assessment, the latter is my methodological framework. My intent is to read the text against my presuppositions and question my findings when they agree with my theological leanings as an Anabaptist Christian.
In terms of ideological versus (the attempt at) objective historical criticism in the world of scholarship, historical criticism is considered more conservative–nay, dead!–by firm believers in ideological criticism. Yet, it appears that Wrong places historical criticism as more liberal than ideological criticism. On the other hand, ideological criticism assumes some sort of inspiration or authority of the Bible, while historical criticism may but does not necessarily assume so. But they are different enterprises, operating on different interpretive levels.
In the end, it seems that Wrong’s categories are a bit muddled. But to be fair to him, these terms are muddled for nearly everyone, not to mention highly subjective. He doesn’t categorize me quite right, but that’s because he probably doesn’t read my blog on a regular basis (and apparently his recent reading was not the most careful). His categories also don’t quite fit my approach to biblical studies. I generally ascribe to a historical criticism that assesses the biblical texts like any other ancient work within their social context and also considers theological implications of those findings, including those based on ideology (esp. gender issues).
The Bible influences culture even if nobody reads it . . .
Many may know about the discussion raised by Hector Avalos about the “end of biblical studies.” For those who don’t, I will catch you up a little bit. The issue is about whether we should teach biblical studies as an academic discipline and, if so, how we should go about it. The issue obviously hits close to home for me, since I’ll be looking for a job teaching biblical studies as an academic discipline in a few years.
Hector Avalos is a trained biblical scholar (receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1991), now teaching as a professor at Iowa State University, who has become somewhat (in)famous for criticizing his own field. The book that has pushed this discussion forward is his The End of Biblical Studies, which I have to admit I have not yet read. As I understand it (and I may not), Avalos suggests that the Bible is irrelevant to contemporary culture. For Avalos, the guild of biblical scholars falsely maintains the illusion that the Bible is relevant in the interests of academic preservation. In short, we only say the Bible is relevant because we don’t want to lose our jobs.
Now, there are plenty of things that academia studies, writes about, and teaches that are not exactly thought of as relevant in contemporary culture. I believe Avalos’ major bone with biblical studies is that our study of Christian origins should not be confined to a religiously defined canon of texts. Why not also teach the Gnostic literature alongside the New Testament?
More recently, Helmut Koester (longtime professor of New Testament at the aforementioned Harvard) wrote a critique of Avalos in the September/October 2008 issue of Biblical Archeology Review (pages 11-12), the periodical of a society criticized in Avalos’ book. Koester (not surprisingly) defends the relevance of biblical studies, concluding, “The relationship of American religious life, Bible and scholarship is a vital and undeniable factor in our society—especially in the United States—however, controversial.” Avalos responds to Koester on the Debunking Christianity blog in a post entitled “Prof. Helmut Koester: A Reality Check for Him.” Avalos accuses Koester of being “short on facts and long on routine religionist apologetics for biblical studies.” Responding to this discussion, you can find an excellent treatment done by April DeConick, who attempts a kind of middle ground between Avalos and Koester.
I would like to zero in on one particular point: the relevance of the Bible to contemporary culture. Avalos suggests that people don’t actually read the Bible much and, hence, the Bible is irrelevant. On the blog post mentioned, he cites studies showing “that 21.9% of Mainline Protestants and 33.1% of Catholics ‘never’ read Scripture” and that “even those who read scripture more than ‘never,’ don’t read or apply much of it.” He says:
In fact, most Christians probably use a miniscule amount of the Bible in their lives because they do not find most of it relevant. This is not just my judgment, but that of many conservative evangelical scholars and sociologists.
[ . . . ]
1) The Bible has already lost much of its influence in American religion;
2) Any influence still left is partly the result of an ecclesial-academic complex, of which Dr. Koester is himself a part, which keeps promoting the illusion that the Bible is important. Without the constant effluence of “new translations,” among other marketing devices, the Bible would probably die.
First, I would like to ask, do people actually have to read the Bible for it to be a relevant field for academic discipline? How many people actually read the U.S. Constitution? Clearly, the Constitution is relevant. Does the mere fact that the Bible is a religious document while the Constitution is a secular legal document make the former irrelevant and the latter relevant? The Constitution is the foundation for our society’s legal system and must be constantly studied. The Bible (particularly the religiously defined “canon”) is the foundational “document” for the largest religious group in American society (people who call themselves “Christians”). Shouldn’t the fact that the Bible is little read but highly revered warrant academic investigation and education?
I can understand Avalos’ concern about jobs in academia and the “religionist” bias stronghold on biblical research. On the other hand, why do people even pursue this career if our job options are so bleak? Isn’t it because so many of us were so affected by people’s readings of the Bible (one way or another) that we became passionate about studying and teaching biblical studies? I know that’s my story. It’s the story of most every grad student I know in the field of biblical studies.
April hits the nail on the head:
Where does this leave me in terms of my thoughts on the subject? I understand Koester’s position on the reality of American religiosity and what this means for those of us who study and teach early Christianity. I understand Avalos’ position to rid the historical study of early Judaism and Christianity from its canonical limitations (including the name “Biblical Studies”), because these limitations support religious and theological interests. I personally have negotiated this front by breaking canonical boundaries in my own scholarship, creating sections at SBL which cross canonical boundaries, and teaching beyond these boundaries. But this doesn’t mean to me that the biblical texts aren’t essential to early Judaism and Christianity. In fact, their importance reverberates for centuries and centuries, and yes, they are still with us. In my opinion, teaching the bible is more important than ever in America. . . .
Amen. I may indeed be teaching at a school with a confessional stance in the future. But my hope is to help students with confessional understandings of the Bible to be awakened to the nuanced issues of history and interpretation. I hope to do my little part in aiding students with high views of the Bible to understand and apply that collection of texts in a more responsible manner.
Johannes Weiss in context
In a course I am currently taking on Post-Reformation and Modern Theology, the professor (Richard Muller) mentioned the relationship between Johannes Weiss and his father-in-law, Albrecht Ritschl. I first discovered this interesting relationship in my course on the history of NT scholarship. It’s a fascinating historical example.
Ritschl, the theological liberal (a descriptor, not a polemic), advocated an understanding of the “kingdom” that focused on morality and ethics (influenced by Kant and Schleiermacher). The little work of Johannes Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, undermined the biblical basis for Ritschl’s work. Weiss found that Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom was not so much the foundation for a moral society, but was rather deeply eschatological. Apocalyptic eschatology was not a hot topic in biblical studies at the time. Quite the opposite. In fact, it was closer to an embarrassment to biblical scholars since contemporary apocalyptic movements are considered, well, silly.
So, Weiss bucks the theological trends of his own 19th century Germany, including the imposing shadow of his own father-in-law. Weiss did, however, wait a few years after the death of Ritschl to publish his work. He also did not disagree with Ritschlian theology. Rather, he believed that Jesus’ message was eschatological, but that Jesus’ immediacy was simply wrong. While he believes that Jesus was wrong about the kingdom, Weiss also thinks that the “Exalted Christ,” if he were to return, would now affirm the agenda of liberal theology and would bring about the transformation of society.
What impresses me so much about Weiss is that he went against the grain, even his own theological presuppositions, to pursue historical research of Jesus and the texts. What a rare occurrence!
Are we still reading the Bible like any other book?
One of the big themes in the history of research on the New Testament is the idea that the Bible should be read like any other historical book. This idea is sort of what kicked off modern research on the Bible in the first place. With the dawn of the Enlightenment, scholars started thinking, why don’t we put the Bible under the same historical scrutiny as we do other works? The historical-critical method is founded on this concept.
Of course, this raises special questions for the Christian scholar of the Bible. The Christian Bible scholar says, “Well, if I’m going to read my sacred text like I’d read any other book, what happens to its sacredness.” I think most balanced Christian scholars would like to hold onto their scholarly integrity, but also remain intentional about the Bible being a unique form of divine revelation. In that way, then, as scholars, they begin by reading the Bible as they would any other book. That is, they use all the tools to probe the text in its historical situation, its grammatical eccentricities, its social context, etc. But then, after they use their historical tools (the same tools that can be used by any other historical-critical scholar), they take a step back to think about the significance of their findings, synthesizing their conclusions about the larger meaning of the text, these scholars then start to emphasize the uniqueness of the Bible. It is in considering the consequences of historical study where the Bible is no longer merely any other book. Homer just doesn’t have the same kind of significance.
I’ll go a bit further and suggest that it’s not just Christian scholars who treat the Bible as a unique or special work. It seems to me that those who are proclaiming the death of the historical-critical method of interpretation are also fundamentally stating that the Bible is unique. One does not declare the death of attempts to read Homer in historical context. You don’t even have to declare the Bible to be special divine revelation to consider it to be a unique book. Look at the history of interpretation. Because western civilization has understood the Bible to be special revelation, it has by default given the Bible a place in history that is uniquely meaningful even beyond those revelatory claims. What I’m saying is that because the Bible means so much for people, it has unique sociological significance. Because it has shaped history, it has special historical significance (speaking of the history beyond the historical context of the Bible).
Therefore, even those who don’t “believe in” the Bible have to recognize that the Bible is not just any other book. This is why we have theological interpretation, post-colonial readings, feminist readings, or any other reading related to social location or founded upon postmodernism. Why read the Bible from so many various perspectives if it’s just the same as other works?
The question now is, will we lose the great birth of biblical scholarship and forget about our attempts to read the Bible like any other historical work? Will the historical-critical method really go the way of the Dodo? I have this feeling that perhaps the people who are announcing the death of the historical method are perhaps just louder than some others in the academy. I don’t think that history is going away. It seems to me that we cannot go back to a precritical reading. Even postcritical readings make use of the historical criticism.
I think some young scholars in the historical method are a little worried that they are going into a dead end job. I don’t think so. Well, at least I hope not, because I’m one of those young scholars!
"Hearing" the Bible and presuppositions
Brueggemann makes an interesting comment in his preface to The Message of the Psalms. He opens the book itself with two quotes, one from John Updike and another from Jose Miranda, Communism in the Bible, which goes like this:
It can surely be said that the Psalter presents a struggle of the just against the unjust.
Brueggemann identifies Miranda at the “extreme” but wants to point to the helpfulness of Miranda’s thought. For example, he says, “With force and regularity the questions of justice, righteousness, and equity are regularly [sic] brought to the throne, often to our surprise” (13). But what really caught my eye as I was reading was actually Brueggemann’s qualification in using Miranda’s quote:
I have not set out to do liberation theology, as Miranda might urge, for I have been committed to no goal but to hear the Psalms. [12-3]
This strikes me as a powerfully healthy perspective for a Bible scholar. As for myself, I am continually drawn to the ideas of liberation theology in its struggle for justice. So, when I read the Bible, I will certainly be informed by that perspective and be attentive to themes of justice, power, etc. On the other hand, as I am developing my scholarly tools at this stage of my career, I must find ways to “hear” the biblical texts without molding them to fit my ideological perspective (I realize I’m departing a bit from Brueggemann’s intention here).
Many folks are, of course, announcing the death of historical methods in studying the Bible. We live in postmodernism now (or “pomo” for the cool kids among us) . . . how can one presume that we can find the meaning to anything? Is it not arrogant to say that we might be able to reach the “intention” of a text? Is not our assumption of the meaning we find in any text a product of our social and cultural location as well as our ideological presuppositions?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps we need a balance here. I am going to go out on a limb and say that there are some things that history can tell us. I think most people would agree (Bruno Bauer excepted) that Jesus actually existed as a real human being. We can discover certain things about the social, political, and cultural world that Jesus and his followers may have inhabited. Sure, we can debate about the meaning of our findings (this is the work of scholarship), but should we just throw our hands up in the air and say that our debates get us nowhere, let’s all just read the texts from our own perspectives? I don’t think so.
On the other hand, postmodernism and ideological criticism gives us a helpful corrective: we can’t know everything. Like my friend, Matt, I’m inclined to say it is helpful to recognize our presuppositions in our research. I think that if we are honest with ourselves and know what we would like to see in the texts, we can become more productive scholars. So, I am an Anabaptist with affections for liberationist and feminist readings of the biblical texts. I then seek out texts that challenge those perspectives and try to, as Brueggemann states, “hear” them.
I suppose what I now have to be careful of is that I don’t go so far to the extreme of looking for texts that challenge my perspective that I am more predisposed to see challenges than otherwise.
Reading the Bible "literally"
When I was in high school, I spent a couple years as a fundamentalist. To be honest, apart from the horror I caused my parents and the damage I did to my friendships with “unbelievers,” I am in many ways happy that I had this time. Not only did my close-minded bibliolatry (that is, worshiping the Bible) lead me to the kinds of probing questions that now drive my career in academic biblical studies (in many ways, I am often disproving assumptions I once ardently held), but it also gives me an “insider’s” point of reference for speaking of those we call fundies. One point that often confused me in those days was the need to read the Bible “literally.” My pastor mentioned that we need to read the Bible “literally” rather than “allegorically.” Apparently, “liberals” (i.e., any person who was not a fundamentalist) read the Bible “allegorically.”
Hmmm. I thought to myself: Maybe I misunderstand what an allegory is. Is it not a story in which each character, figure, or event could function as a representation of some abstract idea? Perhaps some “liberal” Christians read certain texts symbolically, such as the resurrection as a symbol of some kind of hope, rather than a historical reality. But allegorically? This is an allegorical interpretation:
The table made from acacia wood is the Holy Scripture composed out of the bold words and deeds of the holy fathers. . . . This [table] has length, because it suggests to us perseverance in religious undertakings; width, because it suggests the amplitude of charity; height, because it suggests the hope of the everlasting reward. (Bede, On the Tabernacle [Holder trans.], 21)
That didn’t seem to be what “liberals” were doing. Indeed, I left fundamentalism when I started studying the Bible academically as an undergraduate, and after making the shift, I have never taken a text “allegorically” that I didn’t think was supposed to be taking allegorically. Revelation, for example, has allegorical elements. Many parables are something close to allegories. But, after my transition, what set me apart from my fundamentalist brothers and sisters was my desire to locate the biblical texts within their own social, cultural, and historical environment. In Paul’s interpretation of the Greco-Roman “household code” in Ephesians, for example, I saw something quite revolutionary. Paul was not going to “rock the boat” and change the lingo for headship and submission in marriage, but instead he redefined it. What does it mean for a husband to be the “head” of his wife? To love her sacrificially . . . not to “tell her what to do” or “make the tough decisions” or “be the spiritual leader.” The verse 5:21 sets up the passage: Submit to one another. He doesn’t need to spend much time saying how wives submit to their husbands because this is an accepted cultural reality. He does spend some time, though, showing how being a “head” in marriage can actually mean submission. So, which reading is more “literal”? Mine? Or the endless horrid wedding sermons on this passage that talk about the husband being the “spiritual leader” of the household? Actually, I feel that my reading more accurately considers what the text “literally” meant for the author and his readers/hearers. My fundamentalist friends understand the “literal” meaning (or the “plain sense”) of the passage to be how these particular words sound today.
Whomever we decide is more “literal,” the fact remains that “literalness” is not the main distinguishing characteristic here. The main difference is how willing one is to contextualize the words of the Bible within their original situation. True, many fundamentalists work with the original context and do scholarship in this area, but usually (forgive me for my broad generalizations) with the intent of proving their understanding of the “literal” meaning is correct. So, let’s drop this whole litmus test of who “reads the Bible literally.” This is a remnant of the Protestants reacting against what they saw as convoluted allegorical interpretations of parts of the Roman Catholic Church of the time (something like what I quoted above) [Note: I'm not dissing Catholics here]. But the dichotomy has changed! I read literal texts literally. I read symbolic texts symbolically. I try to make sense of the evidence that we have as best I can, without trying to “prove” some particular doctrine. I’m not claiming that I am without an ideology or that I am some saintly or infallible interpreter of the biblical text. No, but I try to be willing to let the biblical text and its environs challenge my ideology, to let the text read me. And I think that’s the difference.
Permitting all goes as planned, I will be taking my third doctoral seminar next quarter while at Fuller for my MDiv. It is a class on the “History of New Testament Scholarship” taught by Donald Hagner. That’s why I’m thinking about interpretation these days. It strikes me that the study of the history of scholarship is the interpretation of interpretation. It is difficult to wrap my mind around how many interpretive layers we have to deal with to think about the Bible, in its many forms. I think we would all do well to remember just how much interpretation is going on and hope that it gives us a little humility as we try to be our own interpreters.
Sir Reads-a-lot: "I Like Big Bibles"
This video is disturbing on so many levels, and yet funny at the same time. Interesting how they “Christianize” an offensive sexist rap song and turn it into an offensive Christian sexist rap song:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTYr3JuueF4]
Here are some notable lines:
- When a girl walks in with a KJV and a bookmark in Proverbs, you get stoked. Gotta name engraved, so you know this girl is saved.
- Ooh, mamma mia, you say you want koinonia? Well, bless me, bless me, and teach me about John Wesley.
- I ain’t talkin’ bout a paraphrase, cuz Paul wouldn’t use those anyways.
- So, I’m sittin’ here thinkin, “What if… I find me a girl that shows midriff?” You can have those bimbos, I keep those chicks that do devos.
- A word to the Christian sistahs, I can’t resist ya. I do God’s time wit’ ya. But I gotta be straight when I say I wanna pray till the break of day.
- Baby got it goin’ on, like the wife in Proverbs 31. We just might get engaged, when we finish readin’ this page. Cuz it’s worn, it’s torn, and I know that girl’s reborn.
- So, Ladies [Yeah?], ladies [yeah?], do you wanna save people from Hades? [yeah!] Then read it, till the pages fall out, even white preachers gotta shout.
- 39 + 27 = 66 books. And if you’re Catholic, there’s even more.
And a whipping motion at the end? What is that supposed to symbolize? I admit that this video makes me laugh and that’s primarily why I’m posting it. But the more I ponder it, the more I think this version is more offensive than the real version. Why? Because this version promotes the oppression of women under the religious auspices of an authoritative sacred text. Perhaps we can dismiss Sir Mix-a-lot, but the implication in this version (by “whiteboyDJ”) is that a woman is supposed to be pious and submissive because that’s what God has ordained and that’s what a holy Christian man wants.
Oh well, I guess I’m just a “weenie who gets the Bible on CD.”
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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