Category Archives: interpretation

Intellectual Dishonesty and Bad Hermeneutics

education, interpretation, Jesus, Paul, science and religion, theological education, women,

People frequently ask Sophia faculty and trustees what we intend to prepare our students to be and do. This entry is the fourth and final installment in answer to that question. With thanks to my faculty colleagues, Drs. Melissa Jackson and Jon Barnes, it continues our statement concerning how Sophia seeks to prepare individuals and a community for having the mind and doing the work of Christ more authentically today.

Intellectual dishonesty – The science vs. faith dichotomy that predominates in much of the church seems to require that one divorce one’s mind from one’s belief. The result is two distinct realms of discourse, two distinct worldviews, or, as Stephen Jay Gould has put it, two “non-overlapping magisteria.” In such a situation, no communication whatsoever can occur across the boundary between faith and reason. The systems produce completely incompatible understandings of the world, of humanity, and of the “criteria for human flourishing.” Looking ahead, then, neither of the two options regarding the relationship between theology and empirical science—denial or divorce—has proven to be healthy or helpful. The former inevitably results in stances such as contemporary climate change denial; the latter forestalls any communication between faith and science in an untenable epistemological dualism. Thomas K. Johnson laments the direction of Christian theology that resulted in a false dichotomy between faith and science and, ultimately, in the diminishment of Christian influence on decision-making in the public square. As he put it, “We theologians disarmed God’s people on the eve of the battle with exclusive secularism, so our people did not know how to address the public square . . . without giving the impression that person or a society must follow Jesus to know the difference between right and wrong.” The problem reaches even deeper than the somewhat arrogant and exclusivist claim that Christian ethics has roots in a sphere of truth inaccessible to non-Christians. Disdain for empirical science subjects Christian ethics to charges that it is esoteric, blindly ideological, and anti-intellectual or at least intellectually dishonest. Christian anti-intellectualism eliminates any possibility of speaking a common language with non-believers. Vibrant faith does not deny reason and experience.

Bad Hermeneutics* – Intellectual dishonesty, in turn, contributes to the ignorance and misunderstanding of the tradition rooted in Scripture that pollutes the thoughts and actions of much of contemporary Christianity. Often, the problem manifests itself in the supposed conflict between biblical faith and modern science. The biblical authors did not have, could not even anticipate, and therefore could not incorporate into their writings, the vast knowledge about the universe revealed to us by modern science. Indeed, the Bible nowhere claims that it reveals the summation of knowledge about the world. This circumstance is not a problem for believers unless they are unwilling to “harmonize” the ancient and the modern, so to speak. The Bible intends to tell the story of God’s relationship with a community of faith, not to teach science. Worldviews change continually as people acquire more information and understanding. The need to harmonize modern and ancient worldviews does not always apply, however. On many questions, especially regarding matters of wisdom, faith, and righteousness (cf. 2 Tim 3:15-16), the worldviews of ancient Israel and the early church stand against modern understandings and practices. The Bible that commissions God’s people to be “light” to the world and that calls for loving others, even Samaritans and those who hate us, as we love ourselves, does not support protectionism, isolationism, or any actions that manifest lack of empathy – personally, communally, or nationally.

Bad hermeneutics fueled by intellectual dishonesty surfaces in hyper-emphases on certain texts, read without regard to cultural contexts, literary contexts, or the empirical evidence that the world surrounds us with. One example involves the patriarchy that functions as a substrate in both Testaments because it characterized the cultures of the world in which Israel and later the Church came into existence. As early as Genesis, however, the Bible undercuts the idea that gender hierarchy conforms to God’s will. God created humankind in God’s image; both male and female reflect God’s likeness (Gen 1:26-27), for example. A range of other texts about prominent women in the Hebrew Bible contribute to a critique of the notion that gender hierarchy represents God’s intention:  Deborah, Jael, Huldah, etc. Good biblical interpretation does not shoehorn the stories of these women into a construct of the “submissive woman.” Arguably the clearest example of a text dangerously misinterpreted through selective emphasis and intellectual dishonesty is 1 Tim 2:8-12:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. (RSV)

Perhaps the first thing one should note in this text involves the fact that the author reports his own position and practice: “I desire,” “I permit” (cf. 1 Cor 7:25-26). He makes no claim to be proclaiming a divine mandate. Second, the text notably expresses as much concern for women’s appearance as it does for their silence. The description of a well-dressed and well-coiffed woman speaking before a group of men calls to mind the hetairai or “courtesans” known in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world. Paul elsewhere expressed concern that Hellenistic converts who came from unsavory backgrounds (“And such were some of you,” 1 Cor 6:11, RSV) take care to distance themselves from their pasts. Notably, those today who emphasize the idea that women should “learn in silence” rarely also decry expensive clothing, fashionable hairstyles, pearl necklaces. Third, 1 Tim 2:8-12 should also be read in the literary context of the entirety of scripture, including and especially Paul’s statement concerning the equality in Christ of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female (Gal 3:28).

Sophia intends to focus on reading scripture honestly and taking seriously Jesus’ mandate to “love the Lord your God…with all your mind.”

* (Portions of this discussion have been adapted from entries dated to February through April of 2025.)

Three Ways Baylor University Has Failed its Students . . . and the Gospel

imago Dei, interpretation, justice, love, science and religion, theological education, , , , , ,

The church often trails behind. Under pressure from conservatives, Baylor University recently returned a $640,000 grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation for a project titled “Courage from the Margins” designed to study how the church can be more welcoming to LGBTQIA+ individuals.  A matter of days later, Dr. Jon Singletary stepped down as Dean of Baylor’s Garland School of Social Work. The timing of these events suggests that conservative pressure may have also influenced Dr. Singletary’s decision. I find these developments troubling in three respects, in particular.

First, from the perspective of higher education, they both constitute an affront to academic freedom and they also call into question the wisdom of Baylor’s leadership. We are no longer in the medieval period, when church and academy were so intertwined that the results of scientific inquiry required the church’s imprimatur. There is no freedom of inquiry if the outcome has been predetermined. In purely practical terms, surely, Baylor’s administration could and should have anticipated the conservative reaction to their initial decision to accept the grant. As it is, they have brought trouble upon themselves, including the appearance of insincerity.

Second, from the perspective of faithfulness to the way of Jesus, ironically, by repudiating the project that set out to study how the church can be more welcoming – more hospitable – and by apparently pressuring Dr. Singletary, Baylor’s leadership acted contrary to the Gospel’s call to love one’s neighbor. The whole affair reminds me that institutional structures seem unable or unsuited to being Christian. Almost invariably, they seek to sustain themselves at the expense of individuals. They inevitably find it expedient to sacrifice individuals to preserve the corporate entity.

Finally, the opposition to “Courage from the Margins” rests on an inadequate and dangerous hermeneutic that selectively absolutizes scriptural texts (Lev 18:22 and 20:13, but not Lev 11:1-8 or 19:33-34), that fails to comprehend the dynamic movement toward inclusion evident within Scripture (cf. Deut 23:1 with Isa 56:3-5 and Acts 8:26-40), and that misapprehends or willfully ignores the testimony of modern science (all truth points to God). This is perhaps the most troubling aspect of Baylor’s actions. The Bible can be very dangerous and destructive when its interpreters misuse and misconstrue it, stumbling over the letter and thereby missing the spirit of liberation that breathes through it.

Too often in the history of the human struggle for justice, the church has trailed behind. In 1688, Quakers issued the “Germantown Petition” calling for the end of slavery only 69 years after the first enslaved people were brought to the colonies, but the rest of the church…. As Rev. Lauren Ng of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists has reminded us, “The Gospel calls us to radical love and justice.”

Ethical Interpretation of the Bible: Case Studies

creation, Genesis, imago Dei, interpretation, monotheism, science and religion,

This seventh and final installment of my response to a former student concerning my understanding of the authority of scripture will offer an extended case study of Genesis 1-2 to demonstrate how biblical interpretation benefits from careful attention to all three of the contexts involved in reading Scripture.

We begin for reasons that will soon become apparent with the literary context. An attentive reader of Genesis 1 and 2 will quickly recognize that they constitute two, distinct accounts. The world of Genesis 1 is watery; Genesis 2 begins with a world in which there are yet no sources to water the ground. The order of creation varies: in Genesis 1, God creates the components of the world in a hierarchical order, beginning with energy and substance and culminating in the creation of human kind in God’s likeness (plants, animals, human kind); Genesis 2 says nothing about the creation of the material world and God’s creative activity begins with Adam, after which God planted plants and then “formed out of the ground” all the animals and birds as potential partners for Adam (man, plants, animals, woman). As depicted in Genesis 1, God speaks the universe into existence; as depicted in Genesis 2, God “plants,” “forms,” and performs surgery.

So, which version tells the story ‘correctly’? Since the authors and editors of the book of Genesis were probably as capable of reading the text carefully, they almost certainly recognized the differences.  Yet, they still included both versions in the book of Genesis. Clearly, they meant for readers to take seriously both accounts and, just as clearly, they meant for readers to find significance, not in the differences in details concerning God’s “methods” or sequence, but in the fact that both accounts contribute to the truth.

If one asks what each account has to say about God and about humankind, their complementarity comes into view.  Genesis 1 depicts a transcendent God beyond the world, yet calling it into being, directing the forming universe like a conductor leading an orchestra. In contrast, Genesis 2 (and 3) depict(s) an imminent God who walks in the garden (in the cool of the day), who plants trees, who shapes clay. Apparently, when confronted by two creation accounts, the editors/compilers of Genesis did not see them as exercising competing truth claims about God’s nature and character.  Instead, they recognized that each spoke an important, but partial, truth.  The transcendent God is also with us (Immanuel).

Similarly, Genesis 1 portrays the creation of human kind as God’s crowning act and human beings as bearers of the “image and likeness” of God in the world.  According to Genesis 2, on the other hand, human beings are little more than animated clay figurines, living dirt balls. Indeed, the continuation of the account in Genesis 3 makes it clear that humans are dirt and they return to dirt, that God formed Adam/humankind (Hebr. adam) from the earth (adamah).  Are human beings noble creatures, created “a little lower than angels” (Psa 8:5) or fallible, transient mortals?  The best understanding, of course, balances human dignity and human frailty (cf. Ecc 3). We are like God, but we are not God.

A second context, the cultural context, can also shed light on the thrust of Genesis 1, in particular.  Since the late 19th century, scholars have recognized the close similarities between the Mesopotamian creation story known as the Enuma Elish and Genesis 1.  The earliest surviving manuscripts of Enuma Elish date to the 13th century BCE, and thus is probably older than Genesis 1. The likeliest explanation for the similarities is that, while exile in Babylon, the author of Genesis 1 became familiar with the Mesopotamian account of how Marduk created the world.  As important as the similarities may be (a watery chaos at the outset, seven steps of creation, etc.), the differences announce the theological intentions of the Genesis account. Chief among them are:

Enuma Elish                                                                Genesis 1

Marduk conquered Tiamat (chaos monster)               The one God spoke the cooperative world

in a battle between the gods                                       into being

Humankind made from the body of a rebel god        Humankind created in God’s image

            to serve the gods                                                         to represent God in the world

The gods are part of the universe                                Components of the universe are not deities

            (sun, moon, and stars, for example)

Thus, if one reads Genesis 1 with Enuma Elish in the background, as the first readers of Genesis would have done, one can hear in it assurances that the world is not in chaotic rebellion against God, that it does not rest on violence, that human beings are not the stuff of rebellion.  Put positively, Genesis 1 asserts that the one God created a good (see vv 3, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), indeed a very good (v 31) world. God placed in it human kind to bear God’s image and to exercise responsibility for it as God’s deputies, as it were.

Finally, of course, interpretation of the Bible requires setting it in relation to its contemporary context.  Regarding Genesis 1, this process immediately raises the specter of the relationship between faith and science. What is true?  Did God create the universe (in 7 ‘literal’ days) or did the universe we know come about through the Big Bang and evolutionary processes over the course of 13.8 billion years? The question involves a binary choice like those concerning the nature of God (transcendent or imminent) and human beings (noble or frail).  Close examination of Genesis 1 reveals that its interests relate to ‘who’ and ‘why’ (in the sense of purpose, not causation) questions and not at all to ‘how’ questions.

Remarkably, Genesis 1 describes God’s role in creation without reference to any physical act of God. Instead, in a series of phases, God wills elements of the world to be, observes that they have become, and evaluates them. According to Genesis 1, this state of nothing except potential becomes something through God’s performative word. In stark contrast to the creator gods of the world’s mythologies, the biblical God does nothing in this account except to express volition. The backbone of the Genesis account consists of a series of statements God makes about the components of the universe, in each case before these components have come into existence (vv. 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26). All but the last employ the peculiar Hebrew verb form, with no counterpart in English, known as a “jussive,” which expresses the speaker’s will in the third person. Significantly, Genesis 1 reports that the components of the cosmos came into being, not because God caused them in any physical manner, but because God willed, authorized, enabled, or required them to come into being. God did not participate in the physical process as the first cause and, thus, from within existence. Rather, to employ Paul Tillich’s phrase, God was and is “the Ground of Being,” the will upon which beings can exist.

In contrast to the creation of light, in which case God occasioned its existence merely by expressing the wish that it exist, five moments of creation involve creaturely agency as the direct means of creation through the emergence of higher order from lower. The waters under the firmament “gather themselves together” (yiqqāwû) and the dry land “appears” (tērā’eh) in response to God’s wish (v 9). God authorizes the earth to cause (tadšē’) the herbage and trees to sprout (v 11). Similarly, the waters are to “teem” (yišrĕṣû) with life (v 20), and the earth is to “bring forth” (tôṣē’) land life in its various kinds (v. 24). John Polkinghorne (“Scripture and an Evolving Creation,” 165) calls attention to the descriptions of the creative agency of natural processes in parallel with statements that God “made” components of the world (vv 11, 20–21, and 24–25). Taken together, vv 20–21 offer an instructive amplification of the process. The author of Gen 1 has God first express the will for the existence of aquatic and avian life (v 20), then specifies that God created (bārā’) the giant sea creatures (v 21), and finally “blessed” all this life by endowing them with the capacity for pro-creation and enjoining them to fill their habitats with life (v 22). This capacity extends creaturely agency to subsequent generations of living things. Summarizing wonder at this cooperation between God and God’s creation, the nineteenth-century theologians Charles Kingsley and Frederick Temple reacted to Darwin by observing that God cleverly created a world in which “creatures would make themselves” (cited in Polkinghorn, 169).

Finally, I will offer some “principles” in summary but in no ranking:

  • It is very important to distinguish between the human and the divine components of the Bible.
  • It can be misleading to absolutize a specific passage of scripture.  The context of the whole of God’s revelation, especially in Jesus Christ, is much more revelatory and authoritative. Here it is important to pay attention to what a text says explicitly, but also to what a text does not say.
  • The virtue of humility is a chief desideratum for biblical interpreters.
  • Always operate with transparent motives, logical consistency, and coherency.  Do not pick choose among texts. Do not employ purely subjective criteria.
  • Takes care not to canonize either ancient culture or contemporary culture. We, too, will almost certainly one day be seen as having been bound to our culture and blinded to God’s direction.
  • Scripture is both fixed and living.  No one in my neighborhood owns an ox, so no one is likely to call on me to help get an ox out of a ditch, but all manner of opportunities to help another human being out of difficulties present themselves almost daily. Does the biblical prescription concerning oxen pertain to cars with flat tires.  Paul said that the letter kills while the spirit gives life.
  • Attention to trajectories can be helpful. Deuteronomy 14-15 call upon Israelites periodically to release slaves because God once delivered them from slavery.  I wish the text had drawn the logical conclusion that a God who delivers slaves does not want those delivered slaves to turn around and enslave others. It did not, however. Paul, who could write that in Christ there is neither “slave nor free,” could not bring himself to insist to Philemon, therefore, that it is simply incompatible for a Christian to own another person.  I wish that Paul had done so, but he did not.  Nonetheless, the trajectory is clear.  In the light of Exodus and Easter, slavery is contrary to God’s character and will. The Bible never quite gets to this explicit statement.  On this and many other issues, the contemporary interpreter of scripture can trace the direction in which the Bible points and extend it further, heralding love, life, and liberty!

The Contemporary Context of Scripture

interpretation, nationalism, particularism, science and religion

This sixth installment of my response to a beloved former student’s question concerning the authority of Scripture deals with the third context in which one must set Scripture in order to hear God’s Word in the words. In addition to the cultural context that produced the text and literary context in which one finds the words, one must also attend to the contemporary context in which readers find themselves.  The two-fold challenge involves avoiding the danger of assuming that the intellectual and cultural world of the Bible corresponds perfectly to contemporary circumstances, on the one hand, and failing to allow the biblical perspective the opportunity to critique modern assumptions, on the other.

Often, the problem manifests itself in the supposed conflict between biblical faith and modern science.  The authors did not have, could not even anticipate, and therefore could not incorporate into their writings, the vast knowledge about the universe revealed to us by modern science. The Bible nowhere claims that it reveals the summation of knowledge about the world. But, then, nothing in the Bible indicates that its authors wished to give instruction in mathematics, biology, chemistry, geography, anthropology, physics, etc. Sometimes the Bible reflects understandings of these aspects of reality that are manifestly wrong. The ancient Israelites were not good mathematicians.  According to the biblical account of the construction and furnishings of Solomon’s temple, Solomon “made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference” (1 Kgs 7:23 = 2Chron 4:2-5).  Using the formula c=πd (circumference equals π times the diameter) results in a value of 3. for π (30= π10, 30/10 = π).  The ancient Israelites were not good zoologists.  “You may eat all clean birds. But these are the ones which you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey…the hoopoe and the bat” (Deut 14:11-18 par. Lev 11:13-19, RSV). Bats are mammals, not birds. The ancient Israelites were not good anthropologists. The so-called “Table of Nations” in Genesis 10 lists the descendants of Noah, in the biblical view the ancestor of every human being after him, through his three sons.  Japheth became the ancestor of “the coastland peoples” along the southern and eastern Mediterranean; Ham became the ancestor of the peoples of northern Africa; and Shem became the ancestors of the Semitic peoples, including the Israelites, the Aramaeans, and the Mesopotamians. The Table of Nations does not name the ancestors of the northern Europeans, the Asians, the aboriginal Australians, or the aboriginal Americans – because the author of the Table of Nations knew only the Fertile Crescent.

This circumstance is not a problem for believers unless they are unwilling to “harmonize” the ancient and the modern, so to speak.  The Bible intends to tell the story of God’s relationship with a community of faith, not to teach science. Worldviews change continually as people acquire more information and understanding. I can understand that the ancient Israelites could not compute π; the decimal point had not yet been invented. Nonetheless, I do not want to fly in an airplane designed using biblical math.

The need to harmonize modern and ancient worldviews does not always apply, however. On many questions, especially regarding matters of wisdom, faith, and righteousness (cf. 2 Tim 3:15-16), the worldviews of ancient Israel and the early church stand against modern understandings and practices.  For example, the world that produced the Bible knew nothing of modern hyper-individualism.  Instead, Scripture reflects the high cultural value placed on “the people of God” and “the body of Christ.”  The Scripture that speaks well of only three (David, Hezekiah, and Josiah) out of all the kings of Israel and Judah and that asserts “Jesus is Lord!” (in contrast to the confession of loyalty to the emperor “Caesar is Lord!”) cannot be reconciled with Christian nationalism.  The Bible that commissions God’s people to be “light” to the world and that calls for loving others, even Samaritans and those who hate us, as we love ourselves, does not support protectionism, isolationism, or any actions that manifest lack of empathy – personally, communally, or nationally.

The supposed conflict between the faith and science surfaces especially with regard to the Bible’s creation accounts and viewpoints on cosmology and evolution. The situation provides an opportunity for a couple of case studies that will demonstrate how biblical interpretation benefits from careful attention to all three of the contexts involved in reading Scripture.  These case studies will constitute the final installment of this series.

The Literary Context of Scripture

deuteronomy/deuteronomism, interpretation, Isaiah, Job, particularism, Pauline epistles

This fifth installment in my response to a former student will discuss the second context that good biblical interpretation must take into account.  In addition to the cultural context that produced scripture, a given passage of scripture must be understood in terms of is literary context beginning with its immediate surroundings and extending to the entirety of Scripture. The failure to do so will certainly result in misinterpretation or the absolutization of a given text over against other texts in Scripture and contrary to the tenor of Scripture as a whole. Often this sort of privileging one text over others betrays inconsistency, incoherence, and bias on the part of the interpreter. In other words, observance of the literary context of scripture requires criteria applicable across Scripture that take seriously all Scripture as authoritative without rigidity.

A few examples should demonstrate the importance of this principle. The first installment of this series has already discussed the case of Job’s friends, whose speeches addressed to Job sound orthodox and pious, except that in the context of the whole book of Job, they stand under God’s negative evaluation expressed at the end of the book (Job 42:5). Yes, often we have to read to the end if we want to understand the message of a biblical book.  Memory verses can mislead.

The case of Ezra’s decree that Jewish men in post-exilic Judah must divorce their foreign wives and disown any (entirely innocent!) children that resulted from the union illustrates the need for setting a given text in the context of the whole Bible. Two issues intertwine here: divorce and particularism. Upon returning to Yehud (Judah) with the mandate of the Persian King Artaxerxes to regulate religious affairs there (Ezr 7:25-26), Ezra, whose priestly pedigree traced all the way back to Aaron (7:1-5) discovered that some among the populace had “not separated themselves from the people of the lands with their abomination,” but had intermarried with “Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites” (9:1-2, RSV). The discovery prompted Ezra to offer a lengthy prayer of confession (9:3-15), in which he alluded to Deut 7:1-5. The Deuteronomy text prohibits Israelites from intermarrying with a list of peoples closely aligned with the list in Ezr 9:1-2 suggesting that the motivating factor for Ezra was adherence to Deuteronomy.

Several factors argue against claiming Ezra’s decision as a precedent with respect to divorce, and certainly not to mass divorce. There is reason to question whether Ezra’s efforts to honor Deut 7:1-5 may not have violated Deut 24:1.  To be sure, Deuteronomy permits a man to divorce his wife “if … she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her….” In the rabbinical debate over the precise connotations of “indecency,” the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel held contrasting positions. Shammai argued that “A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of sexual misconduct…,” while Hillel maintained that “(He may dismiss her) even if she has merely spoiled his meal….” (Sifre, Piska 269). Nothing in the Ezra case suggests that the wives divorced were guilty of sexual misconduct. Nothing suggests that the husbands involved wanted to divorce their wives for any reason, including their cooking! Of course, Christian readers of Ezra 9-10 will also want to include the New Testament as context. Probably in reference to Deuteronomy 24, Jesus prohibits a man from divorcing his wife “except on grounds of unchastity” (Matt 5:32; 19:9, RSV). Luke’s version omits the exception (16:18).  Paul warns against being “unequally yoked” (2 Cor 6:14-18), but he does not require divorce, which would contradict the teachings of Jesus.

Similarly, the particularism evident in Ezra’s abhorrence of intermarriage with non-Jews presents its own difficulties.  First, by Ezra’s day many of the peoples listed in Deuteronomy 7 and Ezra 9 no longer survived as identifiable people groups. Second, Deuteronomy expresses an interest in protecting religious purity, not ethnic identity. Third, the book of Ezra does not record that God issued a directive to Ezra that he should require 84 men (10:18-43) to turn their backs on their wives and children. Instead, Ezra himself drew an inference from scripture that may not have been entirely apt. Fourth, and most importantly, Ezra relied on a single text instead of the broader testimony of Scripture. Joshua 9 records the incorporation of the Gibeonites into the covenant people.  Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, Ruth was a Moabite, and Bathsheba was a Hittite, yet all were in the direct lineage of David, and thus of Jesus (Matt 1:3, 5, 6). Further, Ezra failed to take into account the promise stated in Isa 56:3: “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people.’”

Isaiah 56 figures prominently in another example of the need to put scripture in the context of scripture. Deuteronomy 23:1 explicitly prohibits eunuchs from entering “the assembly of the Lord.” Yet, in a later time, Isa 56:4-5 promises, not only foreigners (see above), but also faithful eunuchs the contrary: “For thus says the Lord: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off.’” Again, Christian interpreters of will want to put these texts in context with the New Testament.  Acts 8:26-40 records the account of Philip’s encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch – thus, both a foreigner and a eunuch – on the Jerusalem-Gaza road, whom ironically Philip found reading from the book of Isaiah. In response to the eunuch’s question, Philip explained “the good news of Jesus” and the eunuch asked immediately to be baptized. So, Philip baptized him (vv 36-38). Careful readers of the Bible do not absolutize single texts. The words of the Bible can become the Word of God when we pay wise attention to their context in “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

The Cultural Context of Scripture

creation, family, Genesis, imago Dei, interpretation, revelation, women, ,

This, the fourth installment in my response to a former student, turns attention to the second axiom that can provide a guardrail against reading into Scripture our own preferences, namely careful attention to the three contexts against which any biblical passage should be read: the cultural context it reflects, the literary context in which it is situated, and the cultural context of its reader. Scripture is culturally and historically rooted. The individuals who composed the various sections of the Bible quite naturally reflected the worldviews, the cultural practices, the societal norms, the crises, etc. of the times in which they lived. Interpreters of scripture should not automatically assume that these cultural and historical contexts, in themselves, convey any information concerning the will or character of God. Often such cultural artefacts trouble contemporary readers of the scripture. If, however, we recognize them as such, we can forgive the ancients for being ancients. (One day our descendants will look back on us with horror, or, if we’re lucky, pity.) Examples abound.

  • The author of Genesis 1 shared with the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians (remember that Abraham came originally from Ur in Mesopotamia) a cosmology that envisioned a solid dome suspended above the earth, separating the space beneath it from the waters above (Gen 1:6-8).  The Hebrew word translated “firmament” in the KJV (raqiya`) comes from the world of the metal-smith and means “a thing hammered into a shape.” The ancients had no concepts of the vast expanse of space, of the difference between stars, planets, and moons, or of a solar system. The Bible does not want to tell us to replace what we know today with ancient ideas.  Instead, with the author of Genesis 1, we can assert that the existent universe (regardless of its shape) is God’s good creation.
  • The ancient Israelites lived in the midst of cultures that practiced polygamy. It was a given, so the Israelites practiced polygamy. God did not endorse the practice. God did not inspire or require them to do so. Neither, however, as far as the Bible records, did God prohibit the practice until, arguably, the New Testament era. Consequently, we should regard biblical polygamy as a cultural artefact, not a vital component of the scriptural witness.
  • For the ancient Israelite, the death of a man before he could father children posed a compound threat. He would be without memory, his heritage would revert to another line of the family, and his wife would be without means of support. They found a solution, so-called levirate marriage, in which a younger brother of the deceased married the widow and the first child conceived in that marriage was considered the child of the deceased in a legal fiction. Even those who claim to interpret the Bible “literally” recognize the culture-bound nature of this practice and the texts that call for it (Deut 25:5-10).
  • Patriarchy functions as a substrate in both Testaments because it characterized the cultures of the world in which Israel and later the Church came into existence. As early as Genesis, however, the Bible undercuts the idea that gender hierarchy conforms to God’s will. God created humankind in God’s image; both male and female reflect God’s likeness (Gen 1:26-27).  According to the account of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, God did so because God recognized that Adam was alone.  God decided to make Adam a nigdo (Gen 2:18, 20), a unique Hebrew word comprising a preposition that means “opposite, over against” with a pronoun that means “him/his” and that functions grammatically here as a noun.  Although many translations render it “helper,” which hints at a secondary or subservient role, it ‘literally’ means “his opposite” or “his counterpart.” In fact, the Genesis 2 account explains that, because of the way God created Eve, a man leaves his parental home and “cleaves” to his wife – not the other way around. A range of other texts about prominent women in the Hebrew Bible contribute to a critique of the notion that gender hierarchy represents God’s intention:  Deborah, Jael, Huldah, etc.
  • Examples of culture-boundedness appear in the New Testament, too, and one of the clearest examples also reflects a patriarchal substrate. The author of 1 Tim 2:8-12 wrote:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. (RSV)

Perhaps the first thing one should note in this text involves the fact that, as discussed in the first installment of this blog series concerning 1 Cor 7:25-26, the author reports his own position and practice:  “I desire,” “I permit.” He makes no claim to be proclaiming a divine mandate.  Second, as mentioned in the immediately preceding installment, the text notably expresses as much concern for women’s appearance as it does for their silence. The description of a well-dressed and well-coiffed woman speaking before a group of men calls to mind the hetairai or “courtesans” known in the Hellenistic Mediterranean world. Paul elsewhere expressed concern that Hellenistic converts who came from unsavory backgrounds (“And such were some of you,” 1 Cor 6:11, RSV) take care to distance themselves from their pasts. In our culture, expensive clothing, fashionable hairstyles, pearl necklaces, and rhetorical skill do not encode “courtesan,” although we might agree with Paul that Christians who wish to represent a holy God to the world may wisely give some attention to appearances.  Third, as I will discuss at greater length in the next installment, 1 Tim 2:8-12 should also be read in the literary context of the entirety of scripture, including Paul’s statement concerning the equality in Christ of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female (Gen 3:28).

While, in many cases, we should not and cannot replicate the assumptions and practices that constitute the background for many biblical texts, the fact that ancient culture shines through biblical texts does not negate their capacity to become Word of God for us. They are not, or need not be, merely historical artefacts.  Instead, interpreting scripture well requires us to undertake ‘cultural translation,’ as it were. If we transpose the thrust of a given passage into a comparable contemporary context, we will find that an insight into God’s will and character or a principle for human conduct sounds across the ages.

‘Literal’ Interpretation?

interpretation, revelation, translation, Uncategorized, women

This, the third installment in my response to a former student, turns attention to a few considerations to keep in mind to guard against mishandling Scripture given its anthology status and the history of its formation. It may not be correct to describe these “considerations” as “principles,” because one might construe the term as a depiction of biblical interpretation as a methodical, even mechanical, procedure. Interpreting the Bible well requires wisdom beyond the mere application of rules. Still, certain reminders can provide guardrails against what is sometimes called eisegesis, the act of reading into Scripture one’s own preferences rather than reading out of Scripture the message it intends to convey.

The first among these axioms involves the importance of the plain meaning of the text in its original language. Of course, not all readers of the Bible have facility with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The very fact that most readers of the Bible rely on translations suggests a number of cautions. No translation of any piece of literature,
including the Bible, from one language to another perfectly and fully captures
the intention, the subtleties, and the art of the original. Consequently, one’s choice of translation represents the first important decision one makes as a student of the Bible.

Some translations (KJV, RSV and NRSV, for example) employ the so-called ‘formal correspondence’ approach in which the translator attempts to represent each element in the original with a corresponding element in the translation.  A simple example is the translation of the German sentence “Das ist eine Katze” into English as “That is a cat.”  The prominent alternative, the ‘dynamic equivalency’ approach, seeks to render whole units of speech into the receptor language such that it preserves the ‘gist’ of meaning but, usually, in a more colloquial form.  A major weakness of the ‘dynamic equivalency’ approach involves the tendency to translate, not just from one language to another, but from one worldview and cultural background to another.

Paraphrases also enjoy some popularity because of their readability.  They are, however, paraphrases, not translations at all. Readers should not rely upon them as sources for theology or ethics, faith or practice.

The term plain meaning of the text should not be confused with the dangerous term literal meaning. Surely responsible interpretation begins with the “plain sense,” but some passages of scripture are “plainly” hyperbole, parable, allegory, fiction, even satire or sarcasm. Furthermore, those who insist on interpreting the Bible literally often exercise a degree of inconsistency in the effort that reveals theological biases. Interpreters must guard against selectively emphasizing certain biblical texts, for example.  They must also always keep in mind their human propensity to employ subjective criteria. Typical examples of this interpretive inconsistency include treatments of texts in the Hebrew Bible that deal with eating pork and of New Testament texts that deal with women in authority. If one wishes to say that the Bible means what it says, but then entirely disregards explicit prohibitions, it requires one to explain how any portion of the Bible could have become entirely invalid. In other words, it requires one to admit that at least portions of the Bible must be interpreted and it requires a coherent and transparent hermeneutical approach.  If one wishes to base one’s stance against women in ministry on 1 Tim 2:13, consistency demands that one also take a stance against women wearing “braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire” (1 Tim 2:9).  Otherwise, one engages in special pleading.

The Literary Character of the Bible

interpretation, revelation, Uncategorized, , ,

This second installment of my response to a former student concerning my understanding of the authority of scripture will deal with the importance of reading any literature, including the Bible, in accordance with its inherent character.  Science fiction books are not science textbooks.  It is important to listen to the Bible regarding its nature instead of applying a priori definitions to it. So, what is the literary character of the Bible?

A Literary Anthology

First, the name itself reveals something important, namely that the Bible is not monolithic.  “Bible” derives from the Greek expression ta biblia (“the [collection of] little books”) used in the early Church to designate the books of the canon in aggregate.  Although modern editions of the Bible have the appearance of a single book, appearance masks the long history of composition and compilation that produced it. No one knows how many authors and editors contributed to the books that comprise the Bible. The books of Psalms (Asaph, the sons of Korah, Ethan, Heman, etc.) and Proverbs (Agur, Lemuel, a number of unnamed wisdom teachers, etc.) mention multiple authors and, along with Lamentations and probably Song of Songs, constitute anthologies. Ecclesiastes represents the work of an editor who collected the teachings of Qoheleth, “The Preacher,” and published them with a brief editorial introduction (Eccl 1:1) and postscript (Ecc 12:9-14) admonishing readers to handle the words of Qoheleth with caution.

The Process of Collection or Canonization

Writing over more than a millennium, the authors and editors of the sixty-six (as enumerated in the Protestant tradition) components of the scriptural anthology had no awareness that their works would one day become part of the collection that came to be called the Bible.  God did not first reveal the Table of Contents of the Bible. When the Evangelist wrote the Gospel of Matthew, he did not think that he had written the first book of the New Testament! (In fact, in historical order, the first New Testament book written was probably either Galatians or 1 Thessalonians). At the time, there was no New Testament and no “plan” on the part of its authors to produce it.  Instead, a centuries-long process in which the community of faith, first the Jews and then the Christians, came to recognize these books as a necessary source for their faith.

It is helpful to think historically.  No one can be sure which of the books of the Hebrew Bible, or portions of books like the Psalms, were written first, or when. They will have circulated individually, probably on scrolls. Incidentally, we probably would not even think of “the Bible” as a single book were it not for the Greek invention of the codex (book with turnable pages).  In the era when “books” were written on “scrolls” one would have needed a wagon to transport the individual books of the canon.  One could certainly not have carried it in its entirety in one’s hands.

Scholars can say with relative certainty that, sometime in the late exilic or post-exilic periods, probably circa 300 BCE, the believing community had come to regard the five books grouped together to comprise the Torah (the Law, also called the Pentateuch or “five books”) as authoritative.  Books like Isaiah and Jeremiah existed and circulated alongside the Pentateuch, but did not attain canonical status until a century or so later (cf. the “Letter of Aristeas”).  Significantly, this second section of the Hebrew canon, the Nebi’im or Prophets, contains Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings (the so-called “Former Prophets”), the three major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel), and the twelve minor prophets (usually written on one scroll and referred to as “the Book of the Twelve” or the Dodekaprofeton). The Hebrew canon remained ‘open,’ as it were, to the inclusion of still other books until sometime after Jesus, who regularly referred to the scriptures as “the law and the prophets” (Matt 7:12; 22:20; Luke 16:16; cf. John 1:45; Rom 3:21), reflecting the fact that, in his day, the third section of the Hebrew Bible had not yet been defined as canon.  Sometime after Jesus, probably motivated by a perceived need to close the canon to Jewish-Christian literature, the Jewish community acknowledged the significance of a series of other books, known collectively as the Kethubim or “the Writings.”

The cases of the books of Esther, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes offer instructive perspectives on the process whereby the faith community came to recognize certain individual books as authoritative during the period of the formation of the Kethubim. According to the Mishnah (mYad III:5), during the time of Rabbi Akiba (c. 50-135 CE), there was some uncertainty concerning canonicity of these three books: Esther because it does not even mention God (cf. bMeg 7a); Song of Songs both because it does not mention God and because of its undeniable eroticism; and Ecclesiastes because of its skeptical tone. According to the Talmud (bSan 101a) and the Tosefta (San XII:10), Rabbi Akiba argued strongly against acknowledging the eroticism in Songs by singing it in a secular “banquet house.” In the end, the association in popular practice between each of these books and an important festival (Esther – Purim; Song of Songs – Passover; Ecclesiastes – Feast of Booths or Tabernacles) seems to have swayed sentiment in favor of their canonicity.

The New Testament canon took shape over a much shorter period. Several positions regarding which books should be considered authority surfaced in the early centuries of the church. When Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria issued his pastoral Easter letter of 367 CE, he listed the familiar 27 books of the New Testament, although in a different order.

It is important to remember that the believing communities, both Jewish and Christian, produced scores of other books during the period of the formation of the canon. Some books seemed to speak more clearly to the community than others, however. In fact, for Christians, two criteria seemed to determine whether a book would be considered canonical:  apostolicity and catholicity (in the sense of universal). First, the book in question must have been able to claim connection directly to the generation of those who knew Jesus during his lifetime. (Paul dealt with the accusation that he was not truly an apostle on these grounds. He maintained that the Damascus Road experience qualified him as such.)  Contact with Jesus of Nazareth lent authenticity. Second-hand information would have been unreliable.  Second, the book must not be parochial, but speak to the whole church everywhere and across time.

A Collection of Diverse Genres

In accordance with its character as an anthology, “Bible” is not, itself, a literary genre. The books in this anthology represent tens, if not scores, of distinct genres, each requiring a distinct interpretive approach. As already mentioned, the book of Psalms contains prayers; Deuteronomy offers guidance on applying the axiomatic principles of the Decalogue in concrete situations. Song of Songs comprises a cycle of, sometimes quite erotic, love songs.  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the rest are prophetic books. Daniel and Revelation are apocalyptic literature. Each of these genres calls for different interpretive approaches.  One could say that one can hear the word of God in them on different frequencies.

Of course, many biblical books contain narratives of various sub-genres. They do not purport to be something like “scripts” written by God directing human beings to do and say what God wanted done and said. They are stories that report what people did and said, often contrary to God’s will, in fact. Here, it may be well to point out the distinction between prescriptive texts (love your neighbor) and narrative or descriptive texts (just about anything David ever did).

Since the Bible records God’s relationship with God’s people, it includes a significant proportion of narrative material relating events in the life of God’s people.  David committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged the death of her husband, Uriah, to hide his crime.  God did not direct David to do so; David did these things on his own. The Bible records it because it was an important event in David’s relationship with God – a negative event, but an important one.  The Bible abounds in accounts of human misbehavior: violence, sex, deceit, theft – the whole range of possibilities for human wrongdoing.  God inspired none of these acts.  The Bible faithfully records it all, however, because to say that God enters into relationship with people is to say that God becomes involved in messy human lives.

Since the Bible records God’s relationship with God’s people, it records God’s involvement in a specific branch of human history.  God called Abraham, a native of Ur in Mesopotamia; God called Moses, an adoptive Egyptian prince.  Israel took shape as a people and a nation amid cultures that had already developed writing, that had legal systems, that had established societal norms and practices. It should not be surprising that Abraham continued many of the customs and practices (polygamy, for example) he had learned in Ur, nor that Moses and the Israelites of the Exodus would continue the institution of slavery.  God met these people where they were; God did not create their culture.  Over time, through relationship with God, the people of God came to clearer understandings of God’s character and God’ will. The Bible records the history of that growth.  To take a snapshot of a moment in that history and make it definitive is to miss the grander, broader picture.

The Bible is not a monolith. It does not communicate God’s will unfiltered by the experience of the human beings who fill its pages and who authored it. The Bible can become God’s word for the reader who engages with it profoundly, for a prolonged period, and with wise hearts, and open ears.

Ethical Interpretation of the Bible

interpretation, Paul, Pauline epistles, revelation, Uncategorized, wisdom literature

Ethical Interpretation of the Bible

A beloved former student whom I taught early in my career at the undergraduate level recently contacted me via social media to ask whether some of the views I express there represent changes in my thinking since that earlier time in my life and career. Specifically, this former student equated my public positions regarding a number of hot button social issues with an abandonment of confidence in the authority of Scripture. I responded that a fulsome treatment of the questions put to me would far exceed the scope of social media communications and promised to publish such a treatment on my blog very soon. Over the next several weeks I will publish here a detailed explanation of the principles or axioms that guide me as I read Scripture.

This first installment of my response will, by way of preamble, assert that simply reading the Bible guided by the slogan, “the Bible says it – that settles it,” as though the Bible requires no interpretation leads one into a number of dangers. It is important, for example, to distinguish between the WORD of God, the word of God, and the words of God. The first is the Logos incarnate, the second is a term the church uses to acknowledge the Bible as a source for our faith; yet, the Bible is neither per se nor in toto the “words” of God. Lengthy speeches by Job’s friends constitute about half of the book. They make arguments that sound very orthodox and pious. Eliphaz the Temanite can represent them here:

“Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you. Receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart…For God abases the proud, but he saves the lowly. He delivers the innocent man; you will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands” (Job 22:21-22, 29-30 RSV).

These statements sound like some good memory verses, but the end of the book reports that, after speaking with Job, God spoke also to this same Eliphaz: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:5 RSV). In other words, the speeches of Job’s friends do NOT communicate God’s will. Instead, they function in scripture as part of its rich dialogue in the effort of the faithful to seek understanding.

No less than the Apostle Paul made clear on one occasion that one should distinguish between his personal opinion and the will of God.  In response to a question from the Corinthian church concerning the desirability of remaining celibate in light of, what they thought would be, the imminent Parousia, Paul advised them: “Now concerning the unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.I think that in view of the present distress it is well for a person to remain as he is…I want you to be free from anxieties” (1 Cor 7:25-26 RSV, italics added). One wonders how often Paul may have stated a personal opinion without indicating it as such. In much the same way, the Bible’s narratives report what Abraham, Naomi, David, Mary, and Peter said, not God’s words. It is simply dangerous to regard everything in the Scriptures as a statement directly from God.

Indeed, often the challenge is to comprehend how a particular passage can possibly be understood as word of God. The so-called imprecatory psalms clearly belong in this category. What is God’s word for God’s people in statements such as the conclusion of Psalm 139 (vv 8-9), an exilic prayer asking God to take vengeance on the Edomites and the Babylonians.

O daughter of Babylon, you devastator!

Happy shall he be who requites you

with what you have done to us!

Happy shall he be who takes your little ones

and dashes them against the rock! (RSV)

The entire Psalter, of course, asks readers to grapple with how to consider it the word of God.  After all, every psalm represents human speech addressed to or about God. The psalter includes not only imprecatory psalms such as Psa 139, but complaints and laments charging God with inaction (cf. Ps 74, esp. v 11; Ps 79) alongside prayers of thanksgiving and hymns of praise. They are not the words of God, but, in the context of the overall witness of Scripture to a God who desires relationship, they constitute the human side of the dialogue.  God’s people need them as models. It is important to distinguish between the WORD of God, the word of God, and the words of God.

Moses’ Identity Crisis and Ours

Exodus, identity, interpretation, justice, reconciliation, wealth

Exodus 1:8-2:15

A Sermon Preached for Ginter Park Baptist Church, Richmond VA 8/23/20