I’m reading Julia M. O’Brien’s Challenging Prophetic Metaphor: Theology and Ideology in the Prophets. I have been a prolific reader on biblical interpretation and in my opinion O’Brien is doing some of the best work. I appreciate her honesty about problems in biblical interpretation and her proposals which encourage and equip modern Christians not to be paralyzed by problems in biblical interpretation. Below are some excerpts from Challenging Prophetic Metaphor.
“while the text can mean a lot of things, it cannot mean all things.” (xix)
“I would remind Christian readers that many of the issues that I raise in the Prophets surface in the New Testament texts as well.” (xx)
“To attempt to ‘fix’ the problems of the Old Testament by reading it selectively or making excuses for it is, in my understanding, not only dishonest but also dangerous.” (xxi, emphasis mine)
“I do not have to agree with everything the Bible says in order to be challenged by it, to respect it, and to learn from it.” (xxi-xxii, Emphasis mine. This is a good observation, and I’m not trying to be picky, but here Dale Martin’s point [see below] is worth mentioning. The Bible does not say anything. It has to be interpreted.)
“Almost exclusively, New Testament authors locate the primary meaning of the Scripture as a whole in how it testifies to and illuminates Jesus.” (3)
“not all who read the Prophets find them quite so countercultural or quite so paradigmatic for Christian faith and practice.” (27)
“Feminist critique, if taken seriously, makes traditional ways of doing theology with the Prophets extremely difficult, if not impossible.” (29)
“How can a person like the Bible and at the same time admit that at times it can be downright horrible? Is there a way to step out of the chasm between appreciation and critique without crashing on the rocks below?” (48)
“integrating ideological critique of the Bible with a life of faith does not come easily.” (49)
“Ultimately, Christians must stand behind a Bible that has stood behind them in times of crisis.” (50, I understand the point but I don’t like how it is worded. It sounds too much like “stand by your man.” Yes, the Bible has proved extremely helpful to many people during times of great distress and crisis. Stand behind it, though, to me, has a sound of uncritically standing by your Bible [or your man or woman]. O’Brien definitely is not for such an approach. I prefer to say the Bible is the church’s book. Dealing with it is not an option. Actually, I prefer not to use the word “Bible” at all. On my concerns about using the word “Bible” see below. I also have a blog entry on this issue which I invite you to read.
“most Christian readers will go to great lengths to protect their views about the Bible. . . No matter how many ‘problem passages’ they encounter - biblical celebrations of war, the slaughter of innocents, even the violence of Hosea 2 – many believers continue to insist that these texts are occasional blips in an otherwise steady heartbeat of a good-hearted Bible. (51, emphasis mine)
“. . . I offer a two-pronged challenge. The first is to recognize that these passages are not truly exceptions; patriarchy runs throughout the Bible, even through the ‘good’ texts. The second is to find a way to think and talk about the Bible in a way that addresses all of the Bible. Christians who do not accept all the Bible as authoritative should not affirm that they accept the authority of the Bible. (51, It is essential that additional points be made. The diversity of the Bible, the tensions/debates within the Bible make it impossible to believe all the Bible. We also have to deal with the issue of which manuscripts and which books [canonization] to use. Which manuscript to use is not obvious. Beware of scholars sure of which biblical manuscript to use. And not all Christians agree on the canon. To speak of a Bible at all is problematic. More accurately, what we have are the church’s manuscripts. )
“I do not find ‘the authority of the Bible’ to be a helpful frame for readers. I do not deny or reject biblical authority, but, as I have tried to explain, approaching the Bible in this way leads to theological dead ends and contributes to self-deception in interpretation.” (51)
”What happens if we ask questions about the Prophetic Books other than whether to accept or reject them?” (52)
O’Brien refers to literature’s (including the Bible) ability to “raise big, important questions: Who am I? What is this world? What matters? What and whom should I love?” (54)
“Not only literary texts themselves but also critique of those texts can function in the ways that I have been describing.” (55)
“in the examples I offered, readers did not formulate statements about the nature of God after encountering the biblical text and its critique.” (60, Many theologians see the Bible as primarily revealing the nature of God.)
“ideological critique calls for Christians to take responsiblity for what they say about God – for the ethics of biblical and contemporary talk about God.” (60, I would add the need for Christians to take responsibility for what they say about the Bible, how they describe it. Calling the Bible the Word of God is, at worst, dishonest and dangerous, and at best, misleading and encourages some people of God to be violent and hateful, and to do other horrible things.)
“Perhaps we will find God not simply in the words of Scripture, but in our wrestling with them.” (60)
Dale B. Martin in Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation has also made important contributions to the discussion about biblical interpretation/theological method. Below are some excerpts from Sex and the Single Savior.
“The text cannot interpret itself.” (5)
“I sometimes illustrate my point when asked to speak about ‘what the Bible says about homosexuality.’ I put the Bible in the middle of the room or on the speaker’s podium, step back, and say, ‘Okay, let’s see what it says. Listen!’ After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence and some snickers, I say, ‘Apparently, the Bible can’t talk.’ This is not the frivolous gimmick it may initially seem. Our language about ‘what texts say’ tends to make us forget that the expression is a metaphor. Texts don’t ’say’ anything: they must be read. And even in the reading process, interpretation has already begun. (5, I would note that even in the process of selecting what oral traditions to use, what manuscripts to use, what books to include in the Bible, and how to translate a word into another language interpretation has begun. Interpretation begins even before we get to the text. For example, in one sense, the different endings of the gospel of Mark are interpretations of, not just additions to, earlier renditions of Mark. In one sense, Matthew and Luke and John are interpretations of Mark and all the oral or written traditions before them. What we have is one long interpretive process. Interpretation involves not just texts, but oral traditions.)
“I have tried to expose the complications of biblical interpretation in order to shine light on the agency of human interpreters and to insist that the ‘text itself’ does not exercise its own ‘agency’ in its own interpretation. Texts do not interpret themselves; they must be interpreted by human beings.” (1)
“The people who are nowadays the most violent are those most secure in their theological-epistemological foundations.” (16)
“We must admit that we are without secure foundations for knowledge. In the end, there are no guarantees that we or anyone else will not use the text unethically. There are no reliable foundations. The answer to that problem is not just to keep insisting that there are but to learn to live faithful and ethical lives without secure foundations.” (16)
“Foundationalism often leads to unethical practices because it masks the very real interpretive agency of the human interpreter and thus allows the interpreter to avoid responsiblity for the truth, goodness, morality, and social effect of her or his interpretation.” (16)
“translation, which is itself, a highly interpretive and creative activity.” (19)
“anxieties about interpretive freedom and textual indeterminacy” (31)
“Similarly, N.T. Wright, though allowing experience some kind of role in ethical discussion, insists that it does not provide a reliable enough foundation to equal Scripture. . .Wright believes that experience is too subjective and open to interpretation. . . ” (157)
“The fact is, it is misleading to act as if Scripture can be set up as an independent source for knowledge apart from experience.” (157, The Bible, from my perspective, is, in part, canonized experience. Tradition is, in part, authorized experience. There is a fine line between experience and Scripture and tradition. It’s time to be honest about experience as an equal source for our theology and practice.)
”there is no reading of Scripture that is not experience. The entire dualism should be jettisoned, especially when used as rhetoric to dismiss other people’s experiences or readings of Scripture in order to privilege only our own. Not only is such rhetoric deceptive; it is also immoral and self-serving.” (159)
“But how do we know our interpretations of Scripture will not be misinterpretations? How can we guard against unethical uses of the Bible? Are there no standards, methods, or safeguards against the misuse of Scripture?
Unfortunately, the truest answer is, ‘No.’ There are no absolutely dependable criteria or methods that can assure us that we will read Scripture rightly.” (181)
Martin titles the section from which the above quote is taken “Floating On A Sea Of Faith.” That’s the best we can do, float on a sea of faith. What we have is faith, not certainty. We also have communities of Christians. We have experience. We have science. We have reason. All our sources are problematic.
The world needs people honest about their religious texts, and it needs people willing to embody their best religious texts. We spend way too much time studying texts and not acting on them. Well, that’s another sermon and another blog.
But back to scholarship on Biblical interpretation, back to theology, in my opinion, Julia O’Brien and Dale Martin are making enormous contributions. There are many other scholars doing exceptional work (Greg Carey, for example), but make sure you give O’Brien and Martin your attention.
