I covered this a little in my introductory post,
My interpretation style will be mostly literal. By that, I mean that I will interpret my readings literally even though I realize that most Christians do not interpret the whole Bible literally. Since each group of Christians uses different criteria for choosing which parts to interpret literally, I cannot hope to make the "right" choices, so instead I will try to apply a uniformly literal interpretation to all passages presented as historical fact.But I want to expand on this a little by looking at the discussion of inspiration in the chapter "Contemporary Theories of Revelation and Inspiration" in A General Introduction to the Bible by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix. According to this book, the contemporary views of the Bible are three (pg 188):
- "The Bible is the Word of God -- orthodox" (i.e., the Bible is essentially the Word of God)
- "The Bible contains the Word of God -- liberal" (i.e., the Bible is partially the Word of God)
- "The Bible becomes the Word of God -- neo-orthodox" (i.e., the Bible is instrumentally the Word of God)
The first and last positions can be further differentiated by viewing the Bible as God's revelation verses viewing it as a record of God's revelation.
These views can be further broken down based on how one views the means of inspiration (pg 189):
- "Verbal dictation through secretaries (extreme fundamentalism)"
- "Verbal inspiration through prophets (orthodox)"
- "Human intuition through natural processes (liberals)"
- "Divine elevation of human literature (liberal-evangelical)"
- "Human recording of revelational events (neo-orthodox)"
- "Inspiration of only redemptive truths or purpose (neo-evangelical)"
That is the landscape, but Geisler and Nix do not consider all of these positions equally valid. They have a number of objections to the non-orthodox and neo-orthodox views. The following quotes summarize the ones I find most convincing (bold emphasis mine):
First, the non-orthodox views of inspiration do not fit the Biblical data. The Bible claims to be verbally inspired. For it is the writings (graphē) that are inspired (2 Tim. 3:16). ... [more examples]... But all unorthodox views reject verbal inspiration. Hence, whatever else may be said in their favor, they are not biblical. (pg 185)
Fifth, the non-orthodox views ultimately deny any objective basis for divine authority. This issue revolves around the question of who will be the final arbiter -- man or God. The Bible addresses this matter by saying, "Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, 'That Though mightest be justified in Thy words, and mightest prevail when Thou art judged' " (Rom 3:4). Instead, man's reason or subjective experience becomes the authority. For all non-orthodox views agree that the objective language of the Bible is not in itself the Word of God. That is, they deny the formula "What the Bible says, God says." This being the case, even after one discovers what Paul (or Peter, or John, et al.) said in the text he must still ask the crucial question: "Indeed, has God said?" (Gen. 3:1). For once we drive a wedge between the words of Scripture and the Word of God, then after we discover the meaning of a passage it is left to our reason or experience to determine whether or not it is true. (pg 186)
Unfortunately non-orthodox views often confuse individual illumination (or even human intuition) with God's objective revelation in Scripture. To do so is to shift the locus of revelation from the objective written Word of God to the subjective experience of the believer. In the case of the neo-orthodox view, it is claimed that the Bible is only a revelation when man is receiving it. Their claim that God is not really speaking unless man is hearing is clearly contrary to the repeated exhortation in Scripture to receive what God has spoken. (pg 187)
The common theme of all these objections, is that if the Bible is not taken as the verbally inspired word of God, then interpretation of the Bible quickly becomes subjective and arbitrary.
Of course, what Geisler and Nix fail to point out here is that what often leads people to accept non-orthodox views of Biblical inspiration is that an orthodox interpretation is completely at odds with our knowledge about the world and about the Biblical text itself. Thus, all interpretative positions have serious flaws, leading to the diversity of interpretation methods used today.
I believe the orthodox view is the most tenable view for an outsider. The outsider acknowledges that their subjective interpretation does not provide a valid methodology for interpreting the Bible. They also acknowledge that, regardless of whether or not a Holy Spirit exists, they, as an outsider, do not have access to that interpretive method. Thus, for all its problems, from an outsider's perspective the orthodox method of interpreting the Bible is the most intellectually honest place to start.
The most defensible view for a Christian is likely the neo-orthodox view. It allows the believer to ignore the Biblcial inconsistencies with reality without abandoning the claim that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. It is still subjective, but one who believes their interpretation is mediated by the Holy Spirit can claim that they have a reasonable basis for their interpretation. Of course, the diversity of supposedly Holy Spirit mediated interpretations casts doubt on the validity of that method, but it still seems better than forcing the Biblical record to battle against reality.
All interpretation of any kind is subjective. The question is not one of objectivity but of authority. The Protestant claim that scripture itself is the ultimate authority is simply wrong (as I'm sure I don't need to point out to you), and it's silly to take it seriously.
ReplyDeleteWould someone unfamiliar with U.S. legal history come up with the Supreme court's interpretation of the interstate commerce clause? I highly doubt it. Is the court's interpretation illegitimate? Quite the opposite. It is the protests of "constitutionalists" and the intent of the Framers' (whatever that may have been) which are irrelevant to the interpretation's legitimacy.
I leave you with a story: http://people.hofstra.edu/daniel_j_greenwood/html/Akhnai.htm#IB
While some groups take the Bible very literally, its not hard to find information on the known qualities of the writing styles and cultural backgrounds of various books, especially those of the old testament that would give a clearer picture of what the intent of the writers was.
ReplyDeleteI think intentionally deciding to take a literal view of a book that was written in a non-literal style is not going to lead to a very accurate understanding of the Bible, although it may give you an understanding of what certain groups THINK of the Bible. Of course you are free to take whichever approach you like as this is your project after all.
Hey Erika,
ReplyDeleteLots of good thoughts here! It's a bit of a novelty for me to see a skeptic paying this kind of careful attention to principles of biblical interpretation. I find it refreshing.
I just wanted to point out that it's not necessarily a straightforward step to go from a theology of revelation to a method of interpretation. In particular, among those in the orthodox camp (Scripture itself as revelation), not everyone sees "literal" interpretation as the correct approach. Obviously, as you realize, there's a need to find some restraint to the possibility of rampant subjectivism in interpretation. Some orthodox Christians, often those in the "dispensationalist" theological tradition, emphasize literalism as the way to do this. But for others, such as myself and others in the "Reformed" tradition, the emphasis is on a principle referred to as the "analogy of faith", which says that one should use Scripture to interpret Scripture (e.g. use clear passages to interpret unclear, didactic to interpret narrative, and so forth).
I can think of a couple reasons why a Christian with an orthodox doctrine of Scripture might be wary of literalism as a foundational principle of hermeneutics. One is that the concept of "literal" interpretation is not always well defined. For narrative passages it seems pretty clear what "literal" means, and for doctrinal passages like those found in the epistles it may be fairly clear. But what does it mean to interpret poetry literally, or visionary prophecy, etc? Or, to take an extreme example, how would one "literally" interpret a parable?
A second reason to be skeptical of literalism as a hermenutical starting point is that the Bible itself contains nonliteral interpretation of the Bible. In particular, the New Testament contains numerous non-literal interpretations of the Old Testament. One simple example would be 1 Cor 9:9-10, where Paul quotes an OT verse about oxen and then says that God wasn't really concerned about oxen. More theologically significant are the numerous prophecies in the Old Testament which, when taken literally, refer to the nation of Israel, but which, as interpreted by the New Testament, apply to the church and/or to Christ.
Anyway, all of that just to say that it may be a nontrivial process to get from a theology of revelation to a hermeneutical method. There are a lot of big and very hard questions here...and I'm glad to see you thinking about them!
David, thank you for providing constructive feedback instead of just stating that my methodology for reading is wrong.
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea of using Scripture to interpret Scripture is reasonable in moderation. For example, as you point out, it is reasonable to use clear passages to interpret unclear passages. However, I feel that often that principle is used to interpret clear but distasteful passages in light of less distasteful passages. This, to me, seems like something of a cheat. That said, I do think this is a useful approach to take, but one that is rather hard before having completed the Bible. =)
I also agree that literalism can be taken to far. Obviously, poetry should not be taken literally, and I have been trying not to do so. However, I think that given passages that could be interpreted literally or not, all else being equal, the outsider should choose to interpret all of them literally or none of them literally. Anything else is applying an arbitrary standard.
I am also doubtful of the interpretations of Old Testament prophecies as applying to the church and/or to Christ. Nearly every time I have looked at the context of such passages, the cited passage is taken so far out of context as to be nearly unrecognizable. It might be reasonable to describe them as literary allusions, but to call them fulfilled prophecies stretches the definition of prophecy more than I am comfortable with.
Your analysis is good, but I think that it's missing two important details (not really your fault, since the authors you quoted seem to miss them too).
ReplyDelete1) Claiming that the Bible is self-referential is odd to me. How much of the Bible was written with the intent "This is now part of 'The Bible'"? Most of the Hebrew Bible was written before long before there was any sort of unified religious text, and every book in the New Testament was written as a stand-alone document (with the exception of the Luke-Acts pairing). I don't see how the authors can say "The Bible says 'this or that' about itself" when "The Bible" didn't even exist in such a form when it was being written.
2) The authors seem to give two choices - believe the Bible, or believe individual interpretation. They seem to ignore the 3rd option - the church/Christian community. This is a huge omission, considering that it was the church as a whole that unified the books of the Bible into a canon over time and it has been the church as a whole who has worked to codify doctrine over time. I'm not saying at all that the church is infallible, but saying that we should understand the Bible as a document that was codified through the Church and thus we should look to the Church to understand how to interpret the Bible seems to make the most sense to me and avoids several of the issues presented by the authors.
Some form of the neo-orthodox view (which does not eliminate the possibility that some texts are to be read with the orthodox understanding) seems to best match the process through which the Biblical writings have actually been recorded, pasted down, and eventually accepted by the church.