I'm in the final stages of a piece I'm writing on Hebrews and the worship of Jesus. In the process of writing, I've engaged heavily with Richard Bauckham's impressive interpretive construct of how Jesus' enthronement at the time of his exaltation to God's right hand connects to his inclusion within the divine identity since eternity past. Bauckham's exegetical conclusions are so different from mine that it has been difficult for me to get inside his head.
But I think I have and, as you might expect, his interpretation is ingenious. Jesus inherits the name, YHWH, at his enthronement, but Jesus has been included within the identity of the one God since eternity past. The early Christians would have recognized this fact as soon as they understood Jesus to be on God's divine throne a la Psalm 110:1. Only the one God can be on that throne, so Jesus must be included in the identity of the one God. He therefore must have been involved with creation as part of the one God and he must be worthy of the worship of the one God.
As I said, I find this ingenious. It applies all Bauckham's exhaustive knowledge of second temple Jewish literature to the particulars of the New Testament text and comes up with an interpretation that sees the later Christian affirmations of Nicaea and Chalcedon about Jesus already there in a nutshell in the NT, "the earliest christology was in nuce the highest christology," as Bauckham says repeatedly in the string of works he's written related to this topic.
This ought to be great, right? He's done what Christian Bible scholars are supposed to do, right? He's found a way to configure the biblical evidence in its historical context so that an interpretation of the original meaning fits with later Christian faith. I don't think he would put it that way, but we should expect it to work out that way, right?
This post really isn't about Bauckham. It relates to my sense that theological hermeneutics can't quite seem to admit to itself that it is a form of reader response. In his piece on biblical monotheism, Bauckham suggests at one point, in so many words, that when we can't know for sure what a historical conclusion should be, why not assume it fits with the conclusion most convenient for faith. Again, he doesn't quite put it that way, but that's what I take him to be saying.
The problem here for me is that, in my experience, there often is a distinction between the eyes of later faith and the original, historical eyes. The way the NT interprets the OT is a case in point, and it is both predictable and amusing that some of the key hermeneutical players have devoted some energy to the NT's interpretation of the OT. Why? Because this is a point of "naughty data" that truly threatens to deconstruct the paradigm.
Kevin Vanhoozer wants to see the authoritative meaning of the biblical text as the original meaning, yet see the significance of the text as something that can vary. I would say that theological hermeneutics often goes further to change the meaning of the text by reading it against the context of the later church. I don't have a problem with this way of reading the text. What I have a problem with is what I see as the frequent slight of hand to argue that this reader response approach is really the same as an original meaning approach that gives the benefit of the doubt to Christian faith.
Perhaps I have misread what theological hermeneuticians are really trying to do. But it seems to me that the theological hermeneutic approach is a bit like having someone from your team referee the game. It's like letting the people who stand to gain from the bailout decide how to dispense the money from the bailout. It's like chairing the rank improvement committee when you're up for rank improvement. It's like having all your friends on the jury and being able to change the judge if you don't like what he or she decides.
It seems to me there is an inherent conflict of interest in the current, very popular postmodern drive to wed theology back to Bible.
My thoughts here will not be popular, and they won't open up for me an opportunity to write one of the many new commentaries that are now coming out from the standpoint of a theological hermeneutic. But after much reflection I believe that the wedge between biblical interpreter and theological appropriator should be retained, like the division of powers in the United States government. It is not that the same person can't perform both roles, it's that there is an inherent conflict of interest between the two approaches to the text.
What I want to suggest is that it is ultimately unhealthy to go completely in the way of theological hermeneutics as it currently seems to be practiced. Its current approach, as I read it, seems to be that, since the original meaning is uncertain, why not go with whatever option fits best with Christian faith. Yet this approach seems to me only a sophisticated version of the older fundamentalism. A postmodern reading of the biblical text doesn't need to be tied to the original meaning at all.
I think another, more healthy postmodern approach to biblical interpretation would see a biblical interpreter as a consultant for many readers across the spectrum. For the original meaning part of the consultation, I might suggest several possible ways of reading the biblical text depending on varying assumptions. If you believe in the possibility of miracles, here are some possible meanings the gospel texts might have had. If you don't, here are some possible meanings the gospel texts might have had. If you are interested in the original meaning of the text, here are the most likely options. If you are interested in reading these words in the light of later Christian faith, here are some possible resonances.
To let the text be the text, and not let it become a slave to theology, this is how I believe it must be. Otherwise we are only playing games with the biblical text, never truly listening to it. Of course this does shift the onus of Christian faith to the theologian. The ministerial and Christian curriculum of the postmodern age will end up having more theology than Bible or, contrariwise, the Bible taught will focus on theological readings and/or appropriations, rather than the original meaning.
We'll still want some biblical consultants around to keep theology honest and to give it historical depth. And while I'm arguing for the old division of powers here, I'm not at all suggesting that the same person can't both consult and theologically appropriate. I'm arguing for maintaining the firm distinction rather than blurring it in the manner of contemporary theological hermeneutics.
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8 comments:
For my entire life Bible scholars were expected to practice their craft primarily to support the stance of the church not to inform it of needed change. Which church commonly goes humbly knocking at the Bible scholar's door seriously asking what the Bible really meant in order to adjust the church's position? Not my denomination.
True my denomination made noisy gathering of scholars twice to examine "what the bible really said" about two different subjects--but they did so only when they already had made up their mind they wanted change (and knew that the scholar's Bible interpretation would support it.)
I think [evangelical] Bible scholarship has imagined they were the queen of the sciences but they have been self-crowned queens in most cases. What's new to me about Theological Hermeneutics is we now admit what we've been doing all the time. Only the term lacks accuracy, since for many evangelicals it is no theology they need to bible for, it is practice. Denominations call the Bible scholars together when they want to change the denominations position on tongues, or divorce more than examine subornation or enthronement. Great post!
While your post is not really focused on the verse you mentioned, I wanted to comment on it anyway. To me it seems like Psalm 110:1 gives more way to the idea that Jesus is not Y/H/V/H. As it distinguishes between Y/H/V/H and adoni, where the latter seems to mean lord in the sense of 'master'. Would this be far from the original meaning? (Ill admit I havent read many commentaries or studies on this verse)
He's found a way to configure the biblical evidence in its historical context so that an interpretation of the original meaning fits with later Christian faith.
What I find more frustrating is to see how a theologian shows how many of the dogma's cannot be extracted from the text but in the end concludes by relying on tradition that the dogma's are true.
Btw Ive been enjoying your posts on the Antichrist, especially for someone from Europe, where hardly anybody was in favour of McCain, it strikes me how many of my American friends are sending out mails about how the end is drawing near.
Blessings,
Daniel
Keith's comment on subordination or enthronement is an interesting one, as it call into question the Trinity doctrine and how that has been understood. Wasn't the Western Church the ones who took subordination side, while the Eastern Church stood for an enthronement? Doesn't the subordination and entrhonement get into how one understands the humanity of Jesus?
As far as theology is concerned, it is the "science" of keeping the Church in business. It is an art, not an exact science, as Biblical scholarship would be. This comment does not suggest that there have not been some brillant theologians, but just that they are a dime a dozen, when it ocmes to undetanding "truth". Personal truth is theological, but objecitve truth has to be based on historical science.
The text is contained within history not the other way around. If one begins with the text, then it presupposes the text as the main source of truth, whereas, historical science would understand the text within a wider spectrum of culture. The text is a cultural product, and is not meant to be the sole source of faith or "Christian culture".
And as Dr. Martin said, one must begin and end with God...but this presupposes that how one understands God is the "correct" way, so it presupposes that the Bible is the sole source of "truth" ( a supernaturalist's view). Whereas, if one begins and ends with man ( a naturalistic view), which is more reasonable, then, we approach the text in many ways, analyzing it from many viewpoints, but understanding that it is only a text that underwrites three historical traditions, the Muslim, the Jew, and the Christian.
Other religious traditions are held within other texts, which represetn their culture's understanding of God. All texts are limited by certain prejuidices and the specific author's perspective.
Daniel, I believe that the original meaning of Psalm 110:1 had to do with the enthronement of a king. The LORD, YHWH, says to the king, the Lord, take the throne of Judah.
The original meaning of the New Testament use of Psalm 110:1 understands the LORD to be speaking to the Messiah, as Matt. 22:42-44; Mark 12:35-36; and Luke 20:41-43 make clear.
I have never found any place where Bauckham explains how the YHWH connotations of Jesus as Lord can be as strong as he makes them when the fundamental passage distinguishes Jesus as Lord from YHWH as LORD.
That being aside, my sense is that you are in a modernist, ironically all too Protestant spiral. By divorcing ourselves as Protestants from a sense of progressive revelation by the Spirit in the universal church, we run the risk of a faith that follows that progress in reverse. First one might lose the Trinity like the Socinians did in the 1500's following Luther's sola scriptura. Then we might unravel the New Testament as a development of the Jewish Scriptures. Of course who's to say it will stop there, for there are tensions as part of the development of Jewish faith. Perhaps we will unravel faith in an afterlife or unravel the cultic system in deference to some earlier prophetic position.
The "cup is half full" approach that sees the construction of Christian faith becomes a "cup is half empty" un-tracing into the atoms, which then themselves blow away.
It seems to me that there is an incredibly tangled web of factors at play here, ranging from biblical scholarship, to theology and pastoral practice. Ken, I would be interested to get your and Coach Drury's take on whether Christian scholars should stay in there own "area of expertise" or whether each of us should be more well-rounded in our scholarship. Take me for instance, philosophy is my battle field but I am cognizant enough of least the central points of biblical scholarship, theology and hermeneutics. Obviously I would like to know more than I do right now, but something that keeps me from going any further is the fear that my skills on the "battle field" will suffer. Should I let others who are more suited in these areas to "do the work for me" or should I try to be more well-rounded?
As a theologian who has explored the possibility of theological hermeneutics much in my research (limited as it is), I think that Ken is right that theological hermeneutics often breaks down to a reader-response perspective. The question becomes whether this is acceptable. The rise in the study of philosophical hermeneutics has done nothing less than show us that we cannot divorce the interpreter from the interpretation, which I completely affirm. However, there comes a time when as a biblical scholar, it seems that you have to make the best attempt possible to divorce yourself from yourself to read the text in its most historically accurate way. Doing this, I believe, should open up the possibility of doing theology with the text - we should be able to respond to the text after it has been situated.
I think a lot of the discussion depends on whether you are Catholic or Protestant. Many Protestant theologians and bible scholars argue for a theological hermeneutics that gives theology the ultimate say because the Biblical scholarship has so dominated theology over the years. In Catholicism, the opposite is true - Catholic biblical scholars were told how to interpret the text in light of the theology of the churhc, which limited the amount of room for interpreting the text in its historical context (A bible prof. here at Loyola and I talked about this at length one day).
So, I think for both sides, the issue becomes fighting against that which has dominated, and the situation calls for a continuing dialogue between biblical scholarship and theology, so that neither dominates or takes over the thinking of one group. As David Tracy said at AAR, theology must be the attempt to constantly keep open the idea of God and God's activity, never closing the issue.
Nice to read both post and comments - I have on my psalms blog finally been returning to my question from Hebrews 2006 - why is the conversation between the Father and the Son largely written as quotations from the Psalter? And why are there zero words from the human Jesus? Your editorial seems apt to me and one reason I cannot work this out alone.
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5312/Interpretation-Fourfold-Method-of.html
Here is a nice presentation of the Four-Fold method of literary interpretation championed by Dante Alighieri and other high and late Medieval writers and scholars.
The benefit of the use of this sort of methodology is that it can in fact separate the different types of readings that biblical interpretation often requires:
"the literal (historical) level, the allegorical (typological or figural) level, the tropological (moral) level, and the anagogical (eschatological) level".
In this way, LaHaye and other eschatologists can be critiqued not for projecting their interpretations of the bible forward onto a non-biblical worldview, but because they have not done the necessary historical analysis. Anyone who reads your wonderful series on the Antichrist and end-times pathology can see that your first duty is to the historical truth, as it should be.
If an allegory, a moral, or a prophecy is to be found in the bible, it must rest upon that firm foundation of historical analysis, the very first level of reading. Anything else would simply be poorly researched!
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