Biblical interpretation: post #1 This post (and perhaps more to follow) will begin to consider the nature of biblical interpretation that many Christians, both conservative and liberal, consider an essential aspect of their faith in G**. Often this topic is treated as though there are only two camps: biblical literalists and the liberal camp. Persons who identify as “biblical literalists” often think and speak as though they are the only camp that is true to the bible. Persons who identify as “liberal Christians” often do a poor job of explaining (and perhaps understanding) how their faith is fundamentally biblical. My main task today is to show why I think it an untenable position for anyone to say that they have “the one correct biblical” position on any given topic. If you’ve been around the Christian church any length of time, it’s likely you’ve heard someone (often a pastor, but perhaps not) say that the thing that they’re teaching is really the only biblical understanding of a particular topic. Lately, I’ve heard this stated by many persons on the topic of gay marriage; however, this type of comment has been and is stated about any particular topic in which someone may evoke the bible. There are several reasons why such a statement is not reasonable. Without going into too much detail, we must first consider some of the elements that go into any interpretation of language. First, we have to know something (usually many things) about the person speaking (for example: who are they, are they male/female/other, what do they believe about things/the world/god/etc, are they funny, etc). Consider, for example, the difference it makes when Jack’s sister tell him to clean up his room instead of his daddy. In the world of biblical interpretation, this first hurdle proves incredibly difficult. Often we know literally nothing about the author. Even in the cases that we do know something, our knowledge of usually at best piecemeal and the things that we do know usually involve circular reasoning, a highly dubious interpretive art form. Second, we have to understand the context of the passage. This one is a bit trickier to discuss (and, I think, sometimes easier to gauge from a passage, though NOT ALWAYS), but I’ll do my best. Here’s an example of why context matters-yelling “fire” at a gun-firing range has a completely different meaning than yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. Context can often completely change our understanding of the biblical text as well. For example, it turns out that it matters an awful lot who the intended audience was and what they may have been trying to figure out in for the letters life that comprise a good chunk of the bible after the gospels. In another contemporarily significant part of the bible, it likely matters a great deal who the authors of Genesis 1-3 were writing to and for what purpose (unless, of course, context doesn’t really matter). At the obvious and incredible risk of highly oversimplifying this complex discussion, these two obstacles in interpretation prove overwhelmingly difficult to overcome in a way that should reasonably satisfy anyone who wants to claim certainty regarding the meaning of any particular topic or biblical text. But there is another, I think greater, obstacle that someone would also have to overcome. That is the question (too often assumed) of how we ought to “correctly” interpret the Scripture in the first place. Is the correct, in other words “god-intended”, interpretive scheme even a “literal” interpretation. Who’s to say so? We must acknowledge that decisions must be made in advance of interpretation regarding how we will choose to interpret something. Another related, at least I think it’s related, question is how Protestant Christians ended up with a 66 book bible anyway and why do we believe that each of these books is inspired by god (and no other writings are similarly inspired). There is no Scripture that we can point to for this belief. That means that we have already started with an act of faith. This act of faith may have started with a pastor, teacher, or friend that we trust. It may have started with a good dose of church history (which we have for some reason decided to adhere to). But we can be certain that it did not start with the Scriptures that it refers itself unto. At that point, we must acknowledge that we have a starting point other than Scripture. Can we also then acknowledge that the rest of our path (however delightful or fearful it may be) is also an interpretive path that we should trod with great humility, kindness, bravery, whim…and above all, love.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 03:13:06 +0000
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