Sunday, June 03, 2012

1.2 Does History Matter in Interpretation?

... continued from yesterday
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One of the first new interpretive thoughts I had in college came on being exposed for the first time to a commentary that started by saying things like this: "Thessalonica was located on the Egnatian Way on a trade route that ran along Macedonia to the north of Greece from the east toward Rome." The information seemed completely irrelevant to me, not because I didn't think the location had any impact on the meaning of 1 Thessalonians but because I read the verses of the Bible as timeless propositions.

I had grown up reading the Bible more or less non-historically. True, I did have a sense of the biblical story that started with creation and moved to Adam, Noah, Moses, and so on to Jesus. But this is not a historical view of the Bible.  This is a story created out of the Bible from the inside, not a historical view of the Bible that understands the individual writings as moments in history themselves. That understanding was completely foreign to me.

So I read 1 Thessalonians not as a moment in Paul's ministry in the first century but as a source of timeless truths to believe and live by. I read 1 Thessalonians as an answer book or as a manual of conduct. I did not read it as a letter written to address a certain situation at a concrete place and time.

Let me jump ahead and give you a glimpse of my thinking now, over twenty-five years later. First, the books of the Bible at least spoke to their first audiences. This seems pretty obvious. Surely the Thessalonians got something out of the letter that says it's written to them. If so, then the meaning of 1 Thessalonians relates at least to the way words were being used at that time.

There are words that seem to leap across time, that seem timeless. "Love your neighbor as yourself" probably does mean different specific things at different times, but surely the gist of love has some common ground at all places at all times.  But surely the first meaning of 1 Thessalonians was the one the Thessalonians understood. If I ask myself, "What was the most likely meaning of 1 Thessalonians given how people used words and thought about the world at the time?" surely I am asking the question most likely to get me to the first meaning of 1 Thessalonians.

This new way of thinking soon led me to other questions. Sure, there are instructions Paul could have given the Thessalonians that were "Thessalonian-specific." But would God have allowed those sorts of instructions to end up in the Bible? In other words, given that the first meaning of the Bible was a meaning directed at ancient audiences who are long dead, would God have allowed any "situational" or "time-specific" instruction to them to end up in his "timeless word"?

Let me illustrate with an issue where 1 Corinthians comes into conflict with current Christian practice: head coverings for women...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ken,

Speaking of history and interpretation, you posted your thoughts on the definition of 1st Century monotheism a while back, here:

http://kenschenck.blogspot.com/2008/08/defining-first-century-jewish.html

Have you published your view yet in book form?

~Kaz

John C. Gardner said...

Query: How do we reconcile the intent to the original audience with the idea that Scripture is God's revelation and written also for us? Do we use consensual Christian tradition? Impose our own eisegesis? What do we do about the inerrant claims that are included in the Wesleyan Articles of Religion?

FrGregACCA said...

"What do we do about the inerrant claims that are included in the Wesleyan Articles of Religion?"

Any claim to inerrancy must take into account contexts of various sorts, authorial intent, and genre. For example, an interpretation of the creation stories in Genesis that allows for evolution does not have to challenge inerrancy, nor does an understanding of Jonah or Job as inspired fiction. Neither does understanding I Timothy 2:11-15 as a disciplinary decision, limited in scope.

Ken Schenck said...

Anon, alas I have many incomplete things on my hard drive...

John, there is more than one way Christians have addressed the duality of audience to Scripture. Just a few that come to mind are 1) to reinterpret the text to where it seems to address us directly (often done without realizing it; 2) to set up a process by which points of continuity between "that time" and "our time" are identified; and 3) inclusion of us and them into a larger narrative that includes both.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ken,

I hope I don't seem a pest, but is that work now dormant on your hard drive still pending publication, some day? Any chance at an ETA?

~Kaz

Ken Schenck said...

Kaz, could you email me? ken.schenck@indwes.edu

Anonymous said...

Hi Ken,

I sent you an email with the title "Your Monotheism Defining Book". Have you received it?

~Kaz