Krister Stendahl, a biblical scholar, one-time Lutheran bishop of his native Stockholm and former dean of Harvard University Divinity School, is being remembered for his pathbreaking efforts in Christian-Jewish understanding and his plainspoken support for women’s ordination and gay rights.
Stendahl was a week shy of his 87th birthday when he died April 15 in Boston. He was lauded as one of “the most distinguished biblical scholars, theological leaders and insightful churchmen of the 20th century” by Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “He spoke what he believed was a timely word,” Hanson said, “even if what he said might provoke others to disagreement.”
The New Testament scholar began teaching at Harvard Divinity School in 1954 and served as its dean from 1968 to 1979. He was credited with expanding the diversity of the school, especially in recruiting women and African Americans. Stendahl was among the best known of Lutheran scholars advocating women’s ordination in the 1970s.
I have heard the name but do not know much about him. From this piece, it is clear that his theology was flawed. The most important thing here though is was he a believer?
A brilliant New Testament scholar. An indifferent theologian. Emblematic of the course of the Church of Sweden and TEC over the last 40 years. I pray he rests in peace and rises in glory.
As Bishop of Stockholm in the Church of Sweden he was a relentless opponent any accomodation for opponents of WO, other than giving them time to die out. Had his life circumstances been different, he would have made a fine “establishment bishop” in ECUSA.
Having read several of his works my opinion is he is a brilliant and highly respected New Testament scholar… who was a believer (why question that just because someone is…) and very very liberal.
I think some of his approaches are interesting, provocative, challenging – and also wrong to the point of being damaging to Christian faith and practice. Some represent good alternatives/challenges to traditional approaches – that force more conservative/traditional minded scholars to tighten their arguments and bolster their evidence.
You can disagree with him but you cannot dismiss him.
If he was a believer then he is in the Kingdom. God rest his soul.
I agree with driver8. Stendahl was a creative maverick as a biblical scholar, but ironically, he was all too conformist as a liberal theologian and as a predictably liberal activist church bureaucrat.
I think an example of Stendahl at his best is his early, brilliant essay on “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West” (a precursor to the so-called “New Perspective” on Paul associated with the later E. P. Sanders, along with James Dunn and +Tom Wright). As a Lutheran, he argued that in some ways Luther misunderstood his hero Paul, finding in the great Apostle to the Gentiles another soul in anguish, tormented by his sinfulness and looking for a gracious God. In his trademark iconoclastic style, Krister Stendahl rightly pointed to passages like Phil. 3:4-6, where Paul boasts that he was a model Pharisee, more zealous than anyone, and “as to righteousness under the law, BLAMELESS” to show that Luther was reading Paul through the lens of his own experience and finding it mirrored there. Instead, Stendahl pointed to the importance of Romans 9-11, and argued that Paul’s main concern behind his characteristic doctrine of justification by faith was how Jews and Gentiles were both included in the new People of God on the basis of the same gospel.
So far, so good. Alas, Stendahl was corrupted by the ultra-liberal atmosphere of Harvard and ended up rejecting the idea of evangelizing Jews and he accepted a relativist stance in theology and ethics. His presence at Gene Robinson’s consecration, as noted in the article, illustrates that ideological liberalism all too well.
But personally, I welcome his championing of the cause of political disestablishment for the Church of Sweden. As I keep trying to say at every opportunity, the great challenge we all face in the western world is coming to grips with our scary but exciting new minority status in a radically de-Christianized, post-Christendom world. The challenge is to overcome our Constantinian habits of the last 1500 years or so and relearn how to be “in the world, but not of the world,” for the sake of the world and its salvation.
David Handy+
Passionate advocate of high commitment, post-Christendom style Anglicanism of a radically sectarian, Christ-against-culture sort
Stendahl’s “The School of St. Matthew” was also very significant in its day even if this main theses have largely been discarded today.
In one way, Stendahl manifests clearly the difficulty historical criticism has in reading Scripture theologically. The methodological chasm between analyzing “what the text meant” and “what is now means” was filled in Stendhal’s pastoral practice with an ethos that was taken wholesale from the liberal culture in which he lived and moved and had his being. In an [url=http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/bulletin_mag/articles/35-1_stendahl.html]essay[/url] in which Stendhal described the way in which he loved Scripture, he confessed “If I have found a doctrine, that is my doctrine”. Sadly, I couldn’t agree more.
Well, driver8 (#7),
Maybe we can finally have that discussion about the limits and possible benefits of historical criticism that we never got around to over on the SF thread about biblical infallibility. And the late Krister Stendahl does seem like a good specific example of both the strengths and the weaknesses of the old style of biblical scholarship. That is, Stendahl well represents how it was so dominated by the historical method and the generally skeptical presuppositions that went along with it.
So a few quick points as fodder for discussion. And be warned, this may take more than one comment.
First, as E. C. Hoskyns and Noel Davies argued so ably in their classic book from the 1930s, “The Riddle of the New Testament,” because Christianity is uniquely rooted in historical events (unlike Eastern religions or the Gnostic New Age pap all around us today), when historical reconstruction of the seminal events of slavation hisotry is done badly, it is utterly devastating. It leads to heresy and condemns itself as spiritually ruinous. Buit when done properly, Christianity has nothing to fear from skillful, objective historical research (as exemplified say by the gospel research of orthodox Catholics like Raymond Brown or John Meier).
Second, Stendahl’s basic problem was that the assumptions and commitments he brought to his reading of the Bible were shaped more by Enlightenment rationalism and the Liberalism and humanism of elite western culture than by the authentic Christian tradition. In the end, he CHOSE to identify more with the academy and its culture and standards than the Church, with its own distinctive culture and standards. It was NOT an inevitable choice, but it was a fateful one.
In the end, we Christians choose to act in a way that accords with the principle, stated classically by St. Anselm of Canterbury long ago, that we “believe in order to understand,” not vice versa.
More to come.
David Handy+
Stendahl wrote a lot less than some other scholars, but his articles were highly influential, particularly “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” He was a good exegete, but perhaps his exegetical conclusions were a bit overstated when he got to saying what difference his exegesis made for theology and church life.
Rudy+
A continuation of my #8, addressed to driver8,
Third, because of the historical nature of the Christian faith as genuinely rooted in real events, historical research is always justified. That is, it is perfectly legitimate to ask the sort of historical questions that Stendahl did in his NT exegetical work. But unfortunately, he bungled much of that work, as his School of St. Matthew hypothesis illustrates. Better done research refutes him where he went astray, such as the meticulous exegetical work done by Raymond Brown and JohnMeier (as above), or the outstanding three volume commentary on Matthew in the ICC series by Dale Allison and W. D. Davies (which shares a similar interest in the rabbinic tradition), or the equally expert and erudite three volume commentary on Matthew by Ulrich Luz in the Hermeneia series (with his attention to Wirkungsgeschicte or the influence of the ongoing history of biblical interpretation).
Fourth, alas, there are many legitmate historical questions that we simply are in no position to answer, primarily due to the lack of sufficient evidence surviving from the ancient world. And this is where things get problematic for the Church. For the raising of numerous legitmate questions about the historicity of this or that feature of the sacred text, when there is not sufficient data from the ancient world to satisfactorily answer the doubts these entirely proper questions raise, is not edifying. The end result is to sow seeds of unbelief.
There is a profound pastoral aspect to good biblical scholarship (as demonstrated so marvelously by Brown, who always takes special care to allay the doubts raised by a careless or irresponsible reading of his work). The history must always be in service to sound theology. That is, it is always FAITH seeking understanding, not unbelief seeking understanding.
Finally, at least for now, proper use of the historical method does enrich the theological interpretation of the Bible, as well as acting as a sort of control that rules out attractive but ill-founded interpretations that are contrary to the likely “original meaning” of the text. That is, drawing upon the classic Catholic doctrine of the “Sensus plenior” or “fuller sense” of Holy Scripture, the Bible as the Word of God can contain depths of meaning never intended by the human authors of Scripture, but those fuller, deeper meanings can’t CONTRADICT the plain or literal sense, howeever much they may extend or enhance it.
Thus, historical criticism in all its many forms paradoxically helps to bridge the very alienness of the ancientness of the biblical text at the same time that it creates a necessary sense of the sacred, inspired text being written oriiginally for people in a very different time and place, living in a very different world in many ways. That is, it brings to life the kind of challenges the biblical writers faced in suggestive ways that can help us apply or preach that alien, ancient text today by finding appropriate analogies in our own time. And it does this by bringing the ancient context to life in vivid ways that stimulate our imagination and prompt us to find those anlalogous connections.
Maybe that’s all too abstract to be clear, but I hope it is enough to spark some useful discussion.
David Handy+, Ph.D. (in NT, Union-PSCE in Richmond, 1998)
Rudy+ (#9),
I’m glad another NT scholar has now chimed in. I agree with you, Rudy. Another way of putting it might be like this. Stendahl was better at exegeting the ancient text than he was at interpreting the modern world. And thus he went astray when he tried to apply his insights from the former to the latter.
In their marvelous book, “The Art of Biblical Interpretation,” Richard Hays (an evangelical Methodist NT scholar) and Ellen Davis (an orthodox Episcopal OT scholar, both at Duke) show how responsible, skillful biblical interpretation always involves sound interpretation of BOTH the ancient Sacred Page and the modern world in all its confusing perplexity and mystery. Hays and Davis courageously provide three sample sermons each that show that they are masters at interpreting both the text and the world, both the ancient writers and editors and we ourselves in all the ambiguities of contemporary life. Their profound and appealing interpretations of Scripture have all the gutsiness and nourishing substance of thick, European breads. All too often, Stendahl’s applications of his research to modern life ended up having all the nourishment and substance of white Wonder Bread.
The fact is, as the Bible itself says, “Humanity does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4 etc). But biblical scholarship can either enrich that eating of the Word of life (when done with faith and skill and pastoral sensitivity), or it can undermine and destroy it.
David Handy+
Hello David and all, Thank you for all of your erudite comments which for me have been educational. I have a question about the concept of historical criticism. I apologize to the elves that this is getting a bit off topic but I beg your indulgance because it will help me understand the posts. My understanding, from what I am gleaning, is that historical criticism attempts to answer what did the text mean to Christians who were reading it at various points in history as opposed to what it means to Christians reading it today. What I don’t understand is how, from an orthodox (reasserter) perspective, this kind of research is undertaken. I can certainly understand one’s attempts to figure out what happened in history, ie: learn more about the historical events themselves. But to me the message of the Scripture is universal and unchanging; the human condition has not changed, and neither has its need for a Saviour. So from that, wouldn’t we conclude that say the Early Christians would have read the Scripture the same way that we do? I am not trying in any way to be polemical here. I really respect y’all so much; y’all have taught me more than you know. I am just trying to understand what it is that orthodox believers who are Biblical scholars are asking in the process of historical criticism. Thanks so much for your time.
I am just reading about Augustine’s interpretative practice in his Enarrationes in psalmos. Noticeable is that his readings of the psalms are completely christologically focused in a way that is ubiquitous in ancient interpreters but is methodologically ruled out of order in modern commentaries on the psalms. of course, his reading is itself fundamentally grounded in Christ’s own use of the psalms and what Scripture itself says about our incarnate Lord (e.g. John 1). Augustine’s interpretation is exactly a bringing together of Christ and present – but the gap to be traversed is not historical but spiritual. He exegetes not in order to understand the past but understand himself (and the church) in Christ. That is, exegesis is not first “historical” and then “theological” but is always an attentive listening that directs us to the life of grace now.
Nor, I think is “historical” work any kind of guarantee against heresy. Käsemann’s claim that “historical” analyses are a bulwark against docetism is simply false (as A.K.M. Adam has argued in his great essay “Why historical criticism can’t protect Christological Orthodoxy” reprinted in [url=http://www.amazon.com/Faithful-Interpretation-Reading-Bible-Postmodern/dp/0800637879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210025550&sr=8-1]Faithful Interpretation[/url]. Instead it is fruitful exegesis – exegesis that reshapes our lives in a Christ like manner that evidences against such untruth. Such exegesis – already grounded in the life of the church (i.e. the life in Christ) that represents again and again the story of Christ in the words of the whole of Scripture and so opens us again and again to Christ’s transfigurative grace, against what historical critics (such as Stendahl) often say – is methodlogically underdetermined. It may from time to time be historical, be figurative, be allegorical etc. – as the ancients show us. It is a modernist error to think that [i]method[/i] is the key element in interpreting Scripture. Rather it is our spiritual encounter with Christ in the life of the church.
I may not have time for a full discussion today but rather than Childs (who can’t quite escape wrongly identifying the literal sense with the past as historians can most plausibly reconstruct it) I would recommend Vanhoozer – who is becoming more and more confident in asserting the profoundly ecclesial (ie Christic and Spirited) nature of all faithful interpretation.
Beyond Vanhoozer, I think Ephraim Radner uses figurative interpretation well in his various works, R.R. Reno too. Stephen Fowl writes well on all of this – though I would read the “correction” in Matthew Levering’s recently published book [url=http://www.amazon.com/Participatory-Biblical-Exegesis-Interpretation-Scriptures/dp/0268034087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210026879&sr=1-1]Participatory Biblical Exegesis[/url]. For an excellent example of what it all might look like, not in theory, but in practice see [url=http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Seeking-Understanding-Augustine-Traditions/dp/0802840124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210026953&sr=1-1]Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine[/url].
#14 NRA – let me add, tongue in cheek, I wonder whether you are really post modern enough? You are wedded to a very modernist view of what it is to interpret Scripture.
One final thing – it is a blessing to discuss Scripture with other christians – in my part of TEC it hardly occurs at all. Indeed it seems to be seen as a provocation.
physician without health (#12),
I’m sorry if my previous comments have been confusing because they presumed too much knowledge of the field of biblical scholarship. Feel free to contact me privately, if you wish for more clarification. Don’t worry; there are no “dumb” questions. One of the purposes of blogs like this is to help us all grow in understanding through the give and take of the discussions that ensue. For instance, I admit that I’m not familiar with some of the studies that driver8 has just pointed us to in his erudite indeed comment #13.
But briefly, “historical criticism” is an umbrella term for a whole variety of scholarly methods that seek to understand the Bible in a historical way. In part that means setting the biblical texts in their proper historical context, as far as that is possible to ascertain (and it’s often far from clear and debatable when you try to be precise about the exact historical context). And in part that means attempting to reconstruct the historical events testified to in Scripture (i.e., with a built-in assumption that the biblical texts aren’t complete, and usually with the strong presumption that they may not be accurate).
The historical family of methods includes such things as source criticism (when scholars suspect the present biblical text has come about through combining various earlier traditions or texts), “form criticism” (which tries to analyze the oral prehistory of texts according to general principles of how various types or “forms” of literature are related to the social settings in which they were used), and “redaction criticism” (which studies the final shaping or editing [in German parlance “redacting”] of the component parts or traditions into a coherent whole. All three of these (source, form, and redaction criticism), and similar methods, are ways that scholars try to get behind the current canonical form of the biblical text and trace how the sacred text came to be, i.e., how it evolved into its current form. Obviously, that involves a good deal of educated guesswork, which is a big part of the problem. Often there is discouraging little consensus among biblical scholars on these speculative sorts of matters. That is, these types of historical methods focus on the historical development of the text.
Then there is “historical criticism” per se, in the technical sense, which attempts to get behind the biblical text and to reconstruct “what really happened.” All of these methods involve a preoccupation with the historical CONTEXT of Scripture, rather than with the TEXT of Scripture itself. That is, they treat the Bible like a WINDOW. Historical scholars try to look through that window to get a glimpse into the distant past. But in so doing, they pay little attention to the window itself; their interest is in what they can see through it. And that is a very big part of the problem. Their speculative reconstructions of ancient history then take precedence over the actual biblical text itself.
Sorry if that’s too abstract. You’re a doctor. You’re smart and highly trained scientifically. But biblical studies as a field has much more in common with the humanities than the hard sciences. And that is one key reason why I praised the book by Hays and Davis above. Biblical interpretation is an ART, not a science. And I’m sure that driver8 would agree with me there.
David Handy+
Yo David+! I’ll keep my eyes out for you next time I make SBL. (MDiv, BTSR 1999 – and yes when I make SBL I go to he Union-PSCE breakfast)
Amen to driver8 #14 who just said that “in my part of TEC it [discussion of Scripture] hardly occurs at all.”
About historical criticism (physician without health #12), as I practice it it is the art and science of determining what the text meant when it was originally spoken and/or written. As Krister Stendahl said, it’s about “what it meant.” And then those of us who attempt to interpret Scripture for the Christian community through teaching and preaching have to try to say “what it means” (again Stendahl in his famous article, “Biblical Theology” in *The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.*
Biblical scholars use a variety of methods to determine what the meaning of the text was. In NT scholarship we use form criticism of letters and of the gospels, redaction criticism of the gospels, various kinds of literary criticism (which may or may not help with historical questions), and, more recently, rhetorical criticism of both the gospels and especially NT letters. All biblical scholars use textual criticism to try to determine the original reading of the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek text, when the manuscripts and versions disagree.
So historical criticism is not just one method; it’s a toolbox. Hope this helps.
Rudy+
Rick, where might you be in Louisiana?
Rudy+
I do think that Childs is rightly lauded as the one who inspired the theological work that has begun to reappropriate Scripture for the church. How extraordinary that this even has to be said – but it is true – every word of Scripture is given that we might love and obey God.
For too long biblical exegesis has been something that was done outside the church with explicit methodological bracketing out of the very matters that the church experiences as most fundamental. Too many seminaries produced clergy who didn’t know what on earth Scripture was for. They knew a bit about the ancient near east and first century Judaism but little nor nothing about how to use Scripture now (or better, how to let Scripture use them). We see the fruits of that, in part, in TEC.
Good people like Richard Hays, who is committed to making using his scholarship to speak theologically of the life in Christ, have begun the effort to reclaim Scripture for the church. I think others – including some of the folks I mentioned above – are now taking the task further.
The real question is whether this work will bear fruit – not just in theory – but in ecclesial communities where Scripture powerfully shapes their shared lives. A very differently shaped clerical formation in seminary would surely assist in this. A more powerful awareness of, and teaching about, the enscripturation of the liturgy would also help.
thank you David and Rudy for your helpful explanations.
Driver8 (#13, 14, 19),
Thank you for your thoughtful posts, and not least for the recommended resources in your #13. Actually, I’m very interested in patristic interpretation of Holy Scripture too. I’m so glad for Thomas Oden’s groundbreaking series, the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, being issued by InterVarsity Press. And when it comes to the early Father’s “figurative” method of interpreting God’s Word, I’d add another Anglican biblical scholar who has done some marvelous work here, namely the great OT expositor, Christopher Seitz of ACI fame. His book “Figured Out” is a great introduction to the subject, as is patristic scholar Frances Young’s outstanding earlier book, “Virtuoso Theology.”
Im afraid the controversial thread on biblical infallibility over on SF may have given you (and others) a false impression that my main concern was defending the validity of historical criticism. Actually, my chief academic interests in biblical scholarship are in the rapidly growing field of literary analysis, especially the subfiled of “intertextuality,” or how all written texts presume and interact with earlier texts. And my own area of specialization is Luke-Acts and the masterful literary artistry that Luke displays, including his subtle and very effective way of alluding to earlier biblical texts. And the Fathers were wonderfully adept at detecting biblical echoes and allusions that we are generally deaf and unable to hear today.
And that was in part because for the Fathers, the primary context for interpreting any biblical passage was not its presumptive original or historical context, but the full canonical context, i.e., how any passage fits into and is illuminated by the sweep of the entire biblical witness as a whole. I’m all for that.
In that sense, I am a true disciple of one of my teachers back at Yale Divinity School, the late, great Brevard Childs, though I’m not as close a follower of his as Dr. Seitz. But I do stress that while it’s valid and often helpful to pay some attention to the diachronic aspects of the Bible (how it has evolved over time, as most of the Scriptures clearly weren’t written by one person at one time but are the product of a complex process of the gradual shaping of a living tradition, under God’s providential guidance), I try to stress that it’s even more important to pay close, detailed attention to the synchronic dimension of the Sacred Page. For it is surely the final, authoritative form of God’s Word that we are called to “hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest,” as Archbishop Cranmer’s famous collect says, and always with the goal that we may “embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasitng life” found there. For as 2 Tim. 3:15-17 and John 20:31 make clear, the primary purpose of the Scriptures is quite practical. It’s to instruct us in the way that leads to eternal salvation through faith in Christ, and to equip us for our various ministries. Or as Augustine’s exposition of the Psalms indeed shows, as you’ve mentioned driver8, the Scriptures point us to Christ (John 20:31 again, and 5:29), so that we might believe in Him, and that believing “we might have life in his name.”
I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Bible is so important, that we should use ALL the tools and aids that we can in order to understand it more fully. But yes, in the end, if we are to under-stand God’s Word and use it properly, we must be willing to STAND UNDER it, humbly and obediently.
David Handy+
Rick in Louisiana (#16),
Greetings to you, brother, as well. I hope you’re in Western LA and thus blessed to have +Bruce McPherson as your bishop, though there are certainly worse ones than +Charles Jenkins. In case you hadn’t guessed, I happen to know that “Rudy” above is in Louisiana too. I don’t know if you had professor Scott Spencer as a teacher when you were in Richmond at BTSR, but we have become friends and I respect him highly. He is an expert on Acts and shares my fascination with Luke’s literary finesse and skill.
And Bill Matz (#20),
You’re welcome. I’m glad someone is getting something out of this rather learned discussion. Maybe you guys can help bring this lofty thread down to earth and make it more practically useful. Don’t be intimidated by all the jargon and names some of us are throwing around. We’re all in this to grow and learn. After all, one of the basic principles of the Protestant Reformation was that the Bible is the book of the whole People of God. That’s why it was to be translated into the language of all the people, and preached from regularly and faithfully. And it is part of the priestly privilege of all believers and would-be disciples to feed themselves from the riches of God’s Word and to share in the corporate discernment of what God is saying to us through it.
David Handy+
Intertextuality – at least in terms of how the NT appropriates (and refigures!) the OT – is one of the principal justifications for the continuing value, even necessity, of such interpretation in the life of the church. The Christological meanings the NT says are to be found in the psalms – say psalm 110, Psalm 2, Psalm 118 and so forth – and the very process of Canonisation should, and historically has, inspired the church to Christological interpretation of all of Scripture. Or think of the Sarah/Hagar story, or the rock in the desert or Moses staff and so on.
Such interpretation is ruled out of court if we imagine that task is to establish historically “what it meant” and then somehow bridge the chasm into “what it now means”. Indeed though Scripture itself is full of such interpretation is is widely called by historical critics arbitrary, capricious, “inventive” and neither clergy nor our communities are can figure out what toi make of it (given the prevailing historical critical paradigm), let alone use it be refigured themselves.
Perhaps the last – almost unremarked place where the church is presented with it outside of Scripture is in the liturgy. Think of the powerfully Christological figurative use made of Scripture in so much of our worship (e.g. the Easter Vigil).
I do agree agree that a variety of ways of using Scripture are wholly appropriate indeed necessary (which is not Stendahls view by any means) – if history is useful, great, if figuration is useful, great etc… – and that the ultimate point of Scriptural interpretation is to transform lives and communities from glory to glory. Which is to say that Scripture should be seen as relational – God’s self communication that people might know him, love him and serve him.
Thank you David and Rudy for answering my questions. Your explanations are very helpful to me. Thanks for all you do.
physician without health (#24),
You’re welcome. Glad if it was helpful. I was afraid it was perhaps too detailed and technical. Unfortunately, perhaps the most serious problem with modern biblical scholarship is that it has so often left most people (clergy as well as laity) with the impression that the Bible is just too complex a book for amateurs to hope to understand “properly.” All too often, biblical scholars have fostered that misleading and false impression, as if no one could or should ever dare to interpret the Bible for themselves, or to teach and preach it responsibly, without four Ph.D.s, knowing all the requisite ancient languages, and doing a thorough, time-consuming exegetical analysis of the Scriptures every time we use them.
If I recall correctly, you are blessed to have sat under the marvelous teaching and preaching of Paul Zahl+ there at the cathedral in Birmingham, AL (before he went to Trinity in Ambridge). And Paul, as a champion of the Protestant “face” of Anglicanism, has helped remind us that a precious part of our Anglican heritage is the conviction that the Bible belongs to the whole People of God. And it’s part of our privilege in the “priesthood of all believers” to share in the interpretation of the Church’s Book. That is, having cast off the oppressive medieval notion that the clergy had a monopoly on interpreting the Bible, we dare not submit again to a yoke of bondage by meekly accepting the false idea that only the world’s greatest academic experts, teaching at the most prestigious faculties and most honored by their peers, can possibly understand the Bible.
Nuts. That’s pure nonsense. And very destructive and dangerous nonsense too.
David Handy+
I think it would be great if we had a document like “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” (Pontifical Biblical Commission) in the Anglican Communion. The document I cited is really good for saying that historical criticism is pretty much the cornerstone for biblical interpretation. I think that’s helpful.
What the real problem is is that we’ve got biblical scholarship and theological teaching and learning on one hand, and then on the other hand (maybe now it is 3 football fields away) we’ve got the praxis of parish ministry. I see the Gene Robinson debacle as the natural outcome of thinking that we can make decisions in the church without FIRST doing a thorough and rigorous theological analysis. The Episcopal Church decided to move ahead without doing its theological homework. We’re now reaping what has already been sown. And I can’t see any way out of it at the moment.
Rudy+
Driver8 (#23),
Well, well, we seem to be finding more common ground than it seemed at first. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Let me switch roles and play the part of a critic of historical criticism too. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the scholarly quest for recovering the “original intended meaning” of the Bible was the common argument that every biblical passage therefore had one and only one meaning, that intended by the original author. A classic expression of this mistaken notion was the highly influential essay on biblical interpretation by Oxford don Benjamin Jowett in the liberal collection called “Essays and Reviews” in 1860. It is perhaps worth noting that Jowett was primarily a classical scholar, and he interpreted Homer in the same way. And C. S. Lewis makes a scathing, passing remark about Jowett’s baneful tradition of interpretation of Homer at Oxford in his sarcastic essay on historical criticism of the Scriptures in “Fern Seed and Elephant.”
The fact is there are many possible contexts for interpreting any biblical passage. And the context you choose to highlight makes a big difference in what comes into focus, and what stays vague and unnoticed. That is, every verse of Scripture has mutiple contexts. There is the immediate literary context of the surrounding verses or paragraph, then the next larger literary unit (perhaps a chapter or more), and so on in expanding concentric circles. There is the context of the whole book in which the passage is found, or the whole collection of writings by that author or that group of writings. There is the historical context in terms of the circumstances presumed by the passage, which often makes a big difference indeed. Then there is the cultural context, including parallel or contrasting ancient literature that sometimes sheds valuable light on the Scripture’s inspired witness.
But not least, there is the full canonical context of the Bible as a coherent whole that tells the story of God’s redeeming love for his fallen, lost, rebellious creation and in particular his saving deeds on behalf of his own covenant people. And then there is the broader context yet of the liturgical context (best exemplified by the splendid Easter Vigil, as you’ve mentioned). Plus the wider context of the Church’s interpretive tradition, including the “rule of faith,” or the creedal tradition that summarizes what Scripture is all about, and the homiletical or commentary tradition and so on. And then there is the corresponding variety of personal, ethnic, and social contexts that we bring to the Sacred Page as readers and hearers.
All of this rich and varied multiplicity of contexts makes it impossible to restrict the Bible as the Word of God to having merely one universal meaning, which never changes and which everyone should agree on. Jowett was wrong. Historical criticism was misleading in that regard in its proud and vaunted claim that it alone provided “the true meaning” of the Bible.
I’m pleased and gratified to see that you and I are finding more and more in common, driver8. I’m sure if we keep this up, we’ll discover even more common ground.
David Handy+
#26 There’s a really interesting critique of the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s document, precisely on the grounds that it is seriously mistaken about historical criticism, by Lewis Ayres and Stephen Fowl.
“(Mis)reading the Face of God: The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”, Theological Studies, Vol. 60, 1999
I could have sworn that I once found it online but I can’t locate now without subscribing to Questia. Here is part of their conclusion (the Gregory they mention is Gegory Nyssa, a fourth century bishop and the Eriugena is John Scotus Eriugena, a ninth centrury Irish theologian):
NRA I don’t think we disagree about the big things and in a discussion with others would find ourselves very much shoulder to shoulder. Like you, I am passionate about Scripture and it grieves my heart to listen to the prevailing discourse in TEC about Scripture.
Here’s a great quote from Augustine about the emotional impact reading the psalms had upon him. Would that we were are church where more people had their breath taken away, and cry out in love, as they met Christ in Scripture:
Hi David, yes, I was blessed to have Paul Zahl as Pastor and teacher and now Frank Limehouse. I am now convinced that I did not know the Gospel prior to my arrival at Advent. Paul taught us to interpret parts of Scripture through the lens of the whole, much as did Martin Luther (akin to the “full canonical context” that you describe above). And yes, he did encourage personal and small group Bible study, which has been a blessing to me. One thing which has been a real eye opener is that in spite of changing “historical context,” the problems with which we grapple are the same today as what is described in Scripture. As is written in I think Ecclesiates, there is nothing new under the sun. Thanks again for all you do.
physician without health (#30),
You’re welcome. Thanks yourself for your testimony. There are many of us who went to church for years and years before we finally caught on to what the Gospel is really all about and turned to Christ in repentance and faith. I went to church every Sunday as a child, but I had a profound conversion experience at the age of 14, when the truth of the gospel finally came home to me.
And I agree that the really important issues transcend time and space. For truly human nature hasn’t changed over the centuries, and there are classic, perennial issues that the Church has struggled with from the beginning. And in that sense, yes, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccles. 1:9). And to skip to the end of that most unusual and skeptical of books in the Bible, the Preacher observes, “Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Eccles. 12:12). Well, with the explosion in the number of scholarly publications on the Bible these days (which is in fact something new), I could read around the clock, 24/7, and not keep up even with all the professional literature coming out just in my own specialty, the subfield of Luke-Acts. I know you doctors face similar challenges keeping abreast of research in your field.
But personally, there is a genuinely new development taking place in America that I find very encouraging. There are now record numbers of lay people studying the Bible in serious, in depth study groups. There has been a welcome proliferation in recent decades of demanding, comprehensive study programs that cover the entire Bible. That is, literally millions of laity each week now gather for intense Bible study programs such as the Presbyterian course Kerygma, or the Methodist equivalent called DISCIPLE (my favorite), or TEC’s well-known four year program EFM (Education For Ministry, based at Sewanee, but flawed by excessive liberalism). This is unprecedented, and a very, very promising development.
David Handy+
Maybe we should ask Canon Harmon or an elf to start out a new thread on historical criticism and other methods of biblical studies and how they do/should relate to the church. What do you think?
Rudy+
Rudy+ (#32),
I’m certainly in favor of that idea. The SF thread on biblical infallibility attracted a whopping 407 comments before it got so extremely cumbersome to load that the SF crew shut it down. After all, we “reasserters” keep on saying that this fight for the soul of Anglicanism is not just over homosexuality but over two rival gospels, and the authority of God’s Word is at the very heart of the dispute. I think there’d probably be significant interest shown in such a thread.
The question is how the thread would be started. Kendall+ could choose any number of stimulating posts to launch the thread (i.e., already exisitng articles). But my personal suggestion would be something by +Tom Wright. He is clearly the leading Anglican NT scholar in the world right now, and he’s written some short, accessible things on biblical interpretation and biblical authority.
So I second the motion, so to speak. All in favor, post “Aye.”
Elves, are you monitoring this? What do you say?
David Handy+
Count me as an aye.
One excellent place to start is the book by Karl P. Donfried, [i]Who Owns the Bible?[/i] It deals with the question of how the Bible is used in church settings, and it suggests that there is something of an “alien hermeneutic” going on in many circles.
Rudy+
The Bible comes from the Church, not vice-versa.
rob k (#36),
Well, I thought this thread had petered out, but you may have revived it.
You said, “The Bible comes from the Church, not vice versa.”
I’d modify just one word. I’d advance the perhaps complementary counter-claim that the Church also comes from, and lives by, the message of the Bible. That is, I see it very much as a two-way street (in good Anglican fashion, balancing the Protestant and Catholic viewpoints here).
Hence I’d rephrase your line, “The Bible comes from the Church, AND vice versa.”
And I think that Karl Paul Donried, a respected Lutheran NT scholar cited above by Rudy+, would agree with me. FWIW, while his book “Who Owns the Bible?” is indeed a fine one for study and discussion, I think it’s too long for the kind of thread-starting discussion Rudy has proposed. I still hope that Canon Harmon or the Elves will respond somehow to his suggestion of a new thread. As your comment shows, rob k, there’s plenty of fodder for lively discussion.
David Handy+
Well, there is always *The Last Word* by N. T. Wright. It deals more, though, with biblical authority rather than the uses of the tools of historical criticism and what Donfried calls an “alien hermeneutic,” which are what I was interested in.
In answer to #36 above, I would want to point out that the NT was written by people in the early church, but that the Bible does have an authority that comes from God and exists through and in the church. I wouldn’t want to make an absolute separation between Bible and church because of the fact that the church acknowledges that the Bible is the Word of God. I also liked the part of Archbishop Williams’ Advent Letter that talked about Scripture.
All best,
Rudy+