Note: In this series, I’m not joking although I hope to be entertaining.
What I want to do in this blog series is give an overview of some alternative ways of doing Bible study in a Christian context. There are several weaknesses in the dominant interpretative method known as Grammatical-Historical Interpretation (Hereafter referred to as GHI). And these problems are unresolved by any of the offspring of this method. This is made quite obvious by looking around at the many Bible study tools that exist and the results that they produce. In fact, GHI rather than illuminating the texts almost always results in muddying the waters and leaving us less certain about the “original intended meaning,” (OIM). What GHI fails to address is the need for intuitive and populist ways to arrive at Scriptural meaning leading to appropriate localized applications. Biblical scholars use a variation of the phrase uttered by the farmer leaning on his fence who tells the city slickers, “You can’t get there from here.” Instead, the experts in essence say, “You can’t get there from here. But I can. So don’t even bother to interpret the Bible since its far too complex for amateurs like you.” This doesn’t mean that academics have no say. On the contrary, the seminaries and scholar are crucial through their indirect influence at the highest levels. But I want to forget about the ivory towers for a moment and focus on the trenches.
Here’s a brief summary of each method:
- Alexander’s Sword: Abandoning in-depth exegesis for relativistic readings anchored by tradition and divine guidance.
- Bad Boy Bible Study: Reenvision the Old Testament as a collection of bad examples and villains rather than a catalog of models and heroes.
- Parabolic interpretation: Shun allegory and look for the punch line.
- The Three Stories: Their story. Our story. God’s story.
Let’s look at the first method and then in the next post I’ll show it in action.
Alexander’s Sword
GHI approaches the Gordian Knot of Bible meaning and tries to unravel it. The task is daunting. Texts are uncertain. History is misty. We often don’t know the original author and audience let alone the OIM. Alexander’s Sword cuts through the tangle with a single stroke. Instead of trying to get into the head of the original author and decipher the irreducibly complex OIM we simply bypass exegesis entirely and make purely hermeneutic conclusions. Alexander was not dazzled by the complexity of Gordias’ handiwork. Instead he was focused on his own agenda, expanding an empire. (At this point I can imagine several Biblical scholars who are gnashing their teeth and shouting Ichabod.) This method is entirely pragmatic. In a way it’s a capitulation to the “plain and simple meaning of the Bible” (PASMOB) that most fundamentalists are able to identify with such ease. Few Bible preachers approach the text with an empty head (I can hear you snickering). Instead they are steeped in the theological system of their faith community. And it is that ambience that is the most powerful force in governing the interpretation of the Biblical text. Most often these are at their core theological systems. The preacher’s interpretation of a Bible text is governed by a TULIP or a Roman Road or a Prosperity Theology. And despite the protests of the academics, the results of such brute force methods of interpretation are always productive. Think about this for a minute. You can explain it as a sort of spiritual natural selection in which the religious system most adaptable to the environment prevails. While proponents of GHI (and I consider myself in that category) will argue that careful exegesis is the safeguard against improper hermeneutics, we also assume that application will be highly localized and distinctive rather than homogenous. With that in mind we should be concerned rather than consoled if we see believers in another culture or epoch applying the Bible in the same way as us. Still there must be some safeguard against wackiness otherwise we end up with solipsistic readings of the Scripture that are true only because they are personal. A possible control is the concept of head and body. First, Christ as the head of his church directs it according to his will. The one who said “I will build my church” is adequate to the task and he foresaw issues like culture and language barriers as well as lack of nihil obstat endorsement. Second, as the Spirit gives life to the body it (pardon me for not saying “he.”) ensures that practical theology is governed by consensus and tradition rather than innovation and chaos.
In my next post, I’ll show Alexander’s Sword in action but first I’d like to hear your reactions and refinements of this idea.
HT: Ben Byerly for some useful links on GHI.
By the way, please be so kind as to mention this series on your blog or social network. You can click on the Share/Save button below for several ways to link.
Thanks to the following for link love:
- Peter Kirk: Lingamish the Great cuts the Gordian knot of Bible interpretation
- Henry Neufeld: Popular Exegesis – Cutting the Knot
- Ben Byerly: lingamish walks into the lion’s den (of hermeneutics) without his Alexandrian sword
Note: Trackbacks still aren’t working properly in WordPress although you can see who’s linking here in the sidebar of this blog.
David,
I’m very much interested in this series. Keep it up!
[...] has started what looks like becoming a fascinating series of Exegetical Sketches by describing the Alexander’s Sword method of interpreting the Bible, and contrasting it with the grammatico-historical method which is at least in theory recommended [...]
[...] Ker at Lingamish has started a series in which he looks for ways to bypass the Grammatical-Historical approach to Bible s… and look for ways that would allow more people to get involved in the [...]
Looks fun.
“Refining” thoughts and questions.
1. I’m not not sure wielding the Alexander’s sword depends on “abandoning in-depth exegesis.’ Some of the most “Alexandrian Sword” exegesis I see prides itself in the depth and rigor of its exegetical methods (in the service of defending a particular tradition or interpretation.)
2. Good Boy Bible Study—seeing the OT as a collections models and heroes—can be just as off track as Bad Boy Bible Study. Christianity is not moralism; any humanist can preach from a moralist OT.
3. “Second, as the Spirit gives life to the body it (pardon me for not saying “he.”) ensures that practical theology is governed by consensus and tradition rather than innovation and chaos.” ??? Which tradition? What consensus? How do we know whose practical theology is guided by the Holy Spirit, and which ones are “man-made”?
Questions for down the road.
What happens when “their story” fits “God’s story” in that historical context, but it doesn’t fit what God is doing in “our story.” I’ll quote Daniel Kirk’s now disappeared blog (hence no link):
the problem isn’t the historical criticism, the problem is that the deeply historicized nature of scripture has been left behind when doing the theology. It hasn’t been a truly biblical theology because it has strived to be an theology of “timeless” truth. The historical critical enterprise itself should have clearly pointed the way in the opposite direction, and driven a diachronic theology that recognizes the highly contingent nature of all theologizing–especially biblical theology.
Maybe your your Three Stories approach will help resolve that problem. (Here’s to hope!)
Will there be a place for detailed exegesis in your Three Story idea? (I’m guessing that’s where you’ll wind up looks like you are going). And if there is a place for detailed exegesis, how will you get around the fact that you need historical and socio-cultural scholarship to help bring out the meaning of a particular passage? (something many evangelical grammatical-historians gloss over.)
While the text (vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and even immediate context) gives the primary encoded signals towards the intended meaning, the original meaning depends on a number of contextual factors—many of which we no longer have access to. Let me give a current example: “Obama leans left” or “Obama is maintaining most of Bush’s policies.” While we may agree generally with what these comments mean in one sense, even in the current context, we will weigh them positively or negatively depending on where we are coming from. In other words, primary communicative meaning depends on a lot of contextual factors.
For me the bottom line problem with biblical interpretation for the masses is that we simply don’t have enough enough socio-cultural background to understand meaning of specific stories or passages. This is fine if we want to pay attention to the big picture—the big story (which incidentally is where I lean), but then where does detailed exegesis come in? What do we do with texts that don’t make much sense from our cultural perspectives no matter how we slice and dice them? (Unless we wield the Alexandrian sword; something I think many evangelical grammatical-historical scholars do without admitting.) Further, how do we know which texts to weigh more than others as we work out specific church practices?
I’m looking forward to seeing how your story pans out
.
[Can you add a "click to receive an e-mail of comments in this post" button?] (From David: Thanks for the suggestion. It should be working now.)
Thanks to you too for the link love, in your update.
Thanks also for the followup comments notify button. I should add one too. But it doesn’t seem to be in wordpress.org, only wordpress.com.
It’s this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
Thanks. The plugin is working for you, as I received my comment notification. But I remember there is a reason why it might not work on my blog. I’ll try it out anyway.
I think the plugin is now working on my blog, but there are possible problems so it may not continue to work. Try it and see.
[...] post: Exegetical Sketches: Alexander’s Sword On Wednesday, May 24, 1738, he opened his Testament (evidently practicing a sort of bibliomancy) at [...]
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[...] David Ker has started a new series of perspectives on reading the BIble: sharply characterized and entertainingly explored. It starts here with Alexander’s Sword. [...]
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[...] reported nearly two weeks ago on what David Ker has called the Alexander’s Sword method of interpreting the Bible. In the light of this I was interested to read the first part of Ajith Fernando’s guest post [...]
[...] Exegetical Sketches: Alexander’s Sword: Peter Kirk mentions this: here and here here [...]