Uncertainty, Take 2

When we come to the Bible, the nature of our situation multiplies the polyvalence of these texts a billionfold. First, we have millions of individual readers each of whom brings his or her own unique "dictionary" to the text--where the text itself is made up of at least 66 books written in three languages all over the ancient world over the course of a 1000 years or more. I assume that there is of course a high degree of overlap of interpretation on many issues. But there is also the x factor of individuality that we observe in any old Bible study group where someone says, "When I read this passage, I think of..."

And here let me mention just two distinctions: denotation and connotation, and the question of literal versus metaphor.

Take the word dog. The literal denotation of this word is an animal with which most humans are probably acquainted. Words often do have concrete references in the world that anchor their meaning somewhat. In my opinion, Derrida's approach to language goes to an extreme by not taking the frequently referential dimension of language into account (cf. Ricoeur).

On the other hand, Wittgenstein has made it very clear that words and expressions do not have to be referential--in fact that any referential dimension to words is really icing on the cake. Wittgenstein's linguistic breakthrough allegedly came when a friend of his gave him the Italian version of the finger and said something like, "Hey Ludwig, picture this." Wittgenstein realized that the real meaning of the finger does not correspond to some real world referent that you can picture.

Once the bubble of the "picture" theory of language is busted, its failure seems all too obvious. To what real world thing does the word "is" correpond? Or righteousness? Indeed, while I believe we must affirm the objective existence of God apart from ourselves, I would argue that most people do not really use God-language in this way. Even to ask a question like, "Why should I believe in God?" often betrays that a person uses God language not in reference to a Being that either exists beyond this universe of doesn't.

The historical question of God's existence is a question that has nothing to do with personal benefit any more than the question of my existence does. Why should I believe you exist, Ken? Because I do--whether you like it or not.

So words often have a denotation that is grounded in the world outside ourselves. In other instances, the denotation will not have any real world referent. It is only in recent times--mainly because of these kinds of discussions--that I think of a goose when I use the phrase "go on a wild goose chase." For most of my life I understood what these words meant with no thought of geese or chases. The meaning of the phrase is no longer tied to any concrete reference--a foreigner could understand the phrase without knowing what a goose was.

On the other hand, connotation greatly multiplies potential ambiguity. If a person is being ironic, for example, the meaning of a statement may be the exact opposite of what the person really means: "That dress sure fits." Slap.

And what kind of a dog do you picture. We may know what the denotation of a dog is, but is it a comfy American poodle in a pet hotel while it's upper class "parents" go on vacation (maybe they take the dog with them). Or is it a scrawy third world dog that has to fend for its own food, is susceptible to rabies, and is less likely to make it into the house than the chickens are?

And if an author goes metaphorical, then any vague similarity between literal denotation and the intended meaning becomes the governing factor. Non-literal uses of language multiply potential variance in meaning out the wazoo. When Philippians 3 says, "Beware of the dogs," what does Paul mean? Did Philippi have particular problems with traveling bands of dogs?

To understand Paul, we will need to know a vast deal more than what a dog looks like. Did Jews refer to non-Jews as "dogs"? Did they do so in part because Gentiles were not circumcised? So is Paul referring to Jews here? Jewish Christians? Jewish Christians who tried to get Gentile Christians to get circumcised? Were there already people like this at Philippi that Paul knew about? Where was Paul when he wrote these words? Had he recently written Galatians? Was this chapter originally from a different letter Paul had earlier written the Philippians, given that some think 3:1 goes off on a diversion until chapter 4?

We cannot answer many of these questions with certainty. I presently think that Paul was imprisoned at Ephesus when he wrote Philippians. I think he had recently written Galatians and was still reeling from Jewish Christians undermining his ministry there by telling his Gentile converts that they weren't ensured salvation from God's wrath unless they go all the way and get circumcised. I think Paul is warning the Philippians in case some of these same Jewish Christian missionaries come to Philippi.

I also think Paul is being deeply ironic by referring to such individuals as "dogs." He is basically calling individuals whose flesh is circumcised by the name they normally call people who are uncircumcised. Am I sure of all this? Not at all.

As usual I have gotten a little off my outline. My intention was to show how polyvalent the biblical text is. I started by talking about individual readers and how many different interpretations they can come up with. My second point was to be how many different interpretations denominations come up with. But rather than give you examples, let me simply point to the fact that there are over 20,000 different Protestant denominations in America that claim to get their beliefs and practices from the Bible.

My third point was to talk about the original meaning and just how much diversity of interpretation there is, not just among scholars today (at this point in time), but especially when you consider how scholarship goes through stages and phases. The consensus of scholarship today, at least apparently more informed than that of yesterday, can change at any moment when a new moment of new reflectivity or a new archaeological discovery surfaces.

With regard to my explanation of Philippians 3:2, I have a plausible hypothesis. But it is not the only or even necessarily most common one.

But we particularly get to the rub when we ask what the original meaning might have to do with anyone alive today. There are no Jewish Christian missionaries going around arguing this sort of thing today. Even when you have a scholar coming up with some plausible hypothesis, the process of identifying "timeless principles" in the passage introduces another element in the equation that involves many, many variables. We try to identify the points of similarity and dissimilarity between the original meaning and some contemporary context in order to appropriate the text for today. In a way, we are looking for the right "metaphorical" meaning for the text. How is this text "like" our contemporary situation.

Again, I am not arguing that a text cannot have a stable meaning in a particular context. What I am arguing is that the formula for any given meaning is quite complex. In the case, of Scripture, no one should be surprised how many billions of different interpretations there have been in the history of these texts. And even if every one of them is a stable product whose formula we can potentially identify. The meaning of the text "alone" (which doesn't actually exist--a mind is required for meaning to occur) is clearly highly unstable in itself.

Well, I consider this entry a failure of economy. It will have to be seriously pruned to get to what I will say at the end of the month conference. My point has been to bring across the level of uncertainty that truly surrounds the meaning biblical texts. I do not throw up my hands as some, convinced of the pointlessness of trying. Some would say I haven't really gotten my own point (is Bill Patrick listening out there? Keith Drury would do this with regard to the original meaning I think).

But I would say that there is a great deal of reflectivity going on in this post--more than the vast majority of Bible readers have reflected on. I believe that someone aware of these distinctions can identify with clarity a good number of stable meanings the text takes on in specific contexts. Once we have taken this step--to the limits of our current reflectivity--we are adequately prepared to ask the next question, which is which of these is the meaning of the Bible as Scripture.

If we define the Scriptural meaning of the biblical text as the significance these texts have for us (and of course we might have that debate), as God's living word to us, then it is the meaning of these words as we are to appropriate them to today. Perhaps the original meaning is on the path to this significance, but it cannot be the meaning of the Bible as Scripture by definition. Even when we find out that the situation with regard to murder is more or less the same today as it was then (which I frankly doubt it really is when we get to the level of connotation), we have not stopped at the original meaning on the path to the words becoming Scripture. We have gone on to the final step of asking how to jump the gap between then and now.

More (sorry) to come...