Childs and Brueggemann: Canonical Text or Canonical Interpreter?

I’ve appreciated much of Brevard Childs’ work in terms of biblical theology and his discussion of the canon.  I’ve also enjoyed reading some of Walter Brueggemann.  In an adaptation of Childs’ Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, namely Biblical Theology: A Proposal, Childs notes Brueggemann’s criticism of his canonical proposal.  This is pretty fascinating, but also rather involved, so I’ll do my best to summarize it in clear terms (the quotes are from Biblical Theology: A Proposal, pages 40-44).

First, Brueggemann says that Childs focuses on the theological aspect of Scripture using only the text as the authority instead of the theological content.  Brueggeman says the authority should be in the theological context rather than the text itself.

Second, Brueggemann parts ways with Childs by suggesting that the “canonical interpreter” is the decisive thing that hands over (tradent) the theological norm.  In other words, Brueggemann says the interpreter is engaged in the ongoing process of actualizing the text to recover the freeing concerns God has in the world.  Childs would disagree.

Third, Brueggemann emphasizes the need to read the theological substance of the Bible from the point of view of the oppressed in society, like Israel often was (or those within Israel were).  Basically, the theological substance of the Bible has to do with the oppressed being freed from alternative power structures.  Childs, of course, wouldn’t highlight this the way Brueggemann does.

Childs says that Brueggeman, in these critiques and differences, misses his main point: “The whole point of focusing on scripture as canon in opposition to the anthropocentric tradition of liberal protestantism is to emphasize that the biblical text and its theological function as authoritative form belong inextricably together” (p. 42).   Sharply, Childs notes that though Brueggemann would cringe at this suggestion, his (Brueggemann’s) hermeneutical move is identical to that of the Enlightenment.

Why or how?  Because, writes Childs, Brueggemann separates the text and the norm (content).  Brueggemann focuses on the norm or content within a certain community in which the text begins to work.  Childs describes Brueggemann’s method: “The inert text…receives its meaning when it is correlated with some other external cultural force, ideology, or mode of existence” (p. 42).  Childs says this  proposal of Brueggemann is radically different than his own.

Here’s Childs’ punch line, so to speak.  “The saddest part of the proposal is that Walter Brueggemann is sincerely striving to be a confessing theologian of the Christian church, and would be horrified at being classified as a most eloquent defender of the Enlightenment, which his proposal respecting the biblical canon actually represents” (p. 44).

Wow! That’s pretty significance.  If you’re interested on some background layers of this discussion (the “text v norm” or “text v interpretation”) you’ll have to voyage through Hans Frei’s Eclipse of Biblical Narrative .  Also, let me note, I’m pretty sure the serious student of the OT would find bigger sections of Brueggemann’s Theology of the Old Testament helpful, as I have, though some of his methodology  might make you scratch your head (if you agree with Childs as I do).

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The Contextual Character of Knowledge

This book (or small library of books!), Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996) has been a huge help to me in the past four years (as I mentioned here a few years back).  This week, in my studies, I’ve been re-reading book 5 of this tome, Science and Hermeneutics by Vern Poythress (I also just set down his excellent The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses).  Here in chapter nine of Poythress’ contribution, he talks about the lessons we can learn from the fact that all our knowledge is contextual (i.e. theory and presupposition laden).  One specific lesson I appreciated was humility in Christian knowledge, or in my terms, epistemological humility.

“We must remember that, though the Bible is infallible, our own understanding of the Bible is not.  Hence some practice of critical self-doubt, in light of the Bible’s search-light, is in order.  As long as this doubting criticizes ourselves, rather than doubting God or doubting the Bible as God’s Word, we are acting in conformity with Christian standards” (p. 504).

This really has to do with Christian humility: now we see in a mirror dimly and know in part (1 Cor 13.12).  It has to do with pilgrim knowledge: we’re travelers on the way, learning as we go.  The gospel truth is not something we own, possess, or master, but an awesome announcement we trust in and try to live according to (and it keeps changing us!).  We’re pilgrims in via – the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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Frei on Precritical Biblical Interpretation

I’ve been reading Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New York: Yale, 1974) for the past few weeks.  This book is quite deep and thick and rich – I know for sure I’m only tracking with the main points that Frei is making.  I enjoy it, but it’s going to take one or two more readings for me to fill in all the blanks.  The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative is not for sissies!

In this book, among other things, Frei notes the huge change/morph in biblical interpretation from the pre-critical to the critical period (roughly speaking, before and during the enlightenment).  Here are two elements of biblical interpretation that changed radically.

First: In pre-critical hermeneutics “if it seemed clear that a biblical story was to be read literally, it followed automatically that it referred to and described actual historical occurrences.   The true historical reference of a story was a direct and natural concomitant of its making literal sense.  This is a far cry from taking the fact that a passage or text makes best sense at a literal level as evidence that it is a reliable historical report.  When commentators turned from the former to the latter interpretive use of literal meaning or used the two confusedly, it marked a new stage in the history of interpretation – a stage for which deistic convictions, empirical philosophy, and historical criticism form part of the technical intellectual background” (p. 2).  If I can reword this or comment on it, I think the difference Frei is pointing out is that in the pre-critical era, the text made sense because it described history accurately.  In the critical era, the shift is huge: the text made sense in so far as it described history accurately.  Hence historical criticism grew like a weed.

Second: In the pre-critical era, “if the real historical world described by several biblical stories is a single world of one temporal sequence, there must in principle be one cumulative story to depict it” (Ibid.).  Frei goes on to say that this means the many smaller narratives fit into the bigger or main one.  Hence, interpretation in the pre-critical era consisted of figures/types (which were the smaller narratives and stories) which pointed to the bigger or main story.  “Without loss to its own literal meaning or specific temporal reference, an earlier story was a figure of a later one” (Ibid.).    The OT types and figures were promises that were fulfilled in the NT, which was one huge thing that held the Scriptures together.  What happened in the critical era of interpretation was that the literal and figurative (typological) reading of the narratives ceased to be allies and instead became almost foes.  “Historical criticism and biblical theology were different enterprises and made for decidedly strained company” (p 8.).

To summarize, Frei makes a strong case for the huge and paradigmatic shift from precritical to critical biblical interpretation.  The former (precritical, which includes the Reformers and their scholastic successors) viewed Scripture as historically reliable with types/figures as arrows that pointed to the overarching story of redemption.  When the enlightenment-critical period came, the figural and historical were divorced and almost at odds.  The BT guys focused on the figural, and the critical guys focused on the historical, which resulted in much hermeneutical hay.

More on this later.  For a great study in this, don’t forget to read Richard Muller’s Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, especially volume two on Scripture.  Muller doesn’t fully chart the above shift, but charts the waters up to and a little into the shift.  It is fascinating to see how rationalism and deism hurt biblical interpretation.  It is also fascinating from our point of view to see how criticism can be done at a “faith seeking understanding” level; we can learn from the critics, even if we don’t adopt their methods.

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Theological Reflection in the Context of the Canon (Childs)

How does a student of Scripture relate the witness of Scripture to extra-biblical evidence?  In other words, how do you deal with a “tension” between an OT historical text and archaeological findings?

Childs has a nice section in Exodus (p. 299-302) where he wrestles with this question.  Below are a few of his statements.  I’m not going to comment on it much, because I’m still digesting it myself.

First, Childs says there are two basic approaches to this question, neither of which he likes.  The first way is the “supernaturalistic” viewpoint, which controls and corrects extra-biblical evidence.  Childs says this position wants to use extra-biblical evidence, but ultimately doesn’t let the evidence speak for itself.   The second way is that of rationalism, which “represents the opposite extreme.”  “It seeks to determine the truth of the biblical testimony on the basis of critical evaluation according to rational criteria, based on past human experience.”  This position eliminates the basic theological issues of the Scripture by scientifically and rationalistically explaining away everything in Scripture. (Side: later Childs says one example of rationalizing an OT story is explaining the water from the rock in Ex 17 as a parallel to modern examples of water breaking through the crust of rock in the desert.)

Childs: “In my judgment, a correct understanding of biblical theology in the context of the canon allows one to break out of this old impasse.  First of all, the theological concept of canon is a confession.”  The canon “serves a unique function in the relation between God and his people…. In other words, scripture is not simply one means among several others of testifying to a unique self-disclosure of God in Jesus Christ.  To take the concept of the canon seriously is to assign to scripture a normative role and to refuse to submit the truth of its testimony to criteria of human reason.”

Now Childs gives a however:  “However, the canon lays no claim to universal knowledge…”    “The integrity of the canon is maintained without calling into question legitimate areas in which the judgment of human reason is appropriate.”  I once heard an OT scholar say that extra-biblical evidence can be an occasion for reinterpretation, but not the grounds for it.  I think this is sort of what Childs is saying, if I “get” him here.

He closes this section like this: “The biblical exegete is forced to hear testimony from inside and outside the community of faith because he lives in both worlds (earlier he said that ‘both worlds’ speak the same language, share the same thought-patterns, and share similar experiences of daily life).  He dare not destroy the canonical witness by forcing it into the mold of the ‘old age,’ nor dare he construct out of the canonical witness a world of myth safely relegated to the distant past.  Rather, he confesses his participation in the community of faith by ’searching the scriptures.’  He seeks to share the bread of life with the church through the testimony of scripture.  He remains open in anticipation to those moments when the Spirit of God resolves the tension and bridges the gap between faith and history.”

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The Big Wide World of Authorial Intent and Allusion

In the book I’ve recently been reviewing here,  We Become What We Worship,  G. K. Beale argues forcefully that intertextual biblical allusions are always consistent to their historical and grammatical context (c.f. Beale’s The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism, p.91-92, 105, etc.).  Perhaps in other words, the human authors of Scripture quoted other Scripture using the grammatical-historical method of interpretation.

This is a fascinating and fruitful area of study, one area which many have written about well.  One only needs to read E. D. Hirsch,  Richard Hays, Peter Enns, Kevin Vanhoozer, and so forth to get a variety of insights into the topic of interpretation, allusion, and authorial intent.

Vanhoozer charts out a nice path in Is There a Meaning in This Text?.  I’ll highlight a few of Vanhoozer’s comments below.

“…The ‘fuller meaning’ of Scripture – the meaning associated with divine authorship – emerges only at the level of the whole canon.”  Vanhoozer notes Pannenberg’s helpful emphasis that we only know the true meaning of an event at the end of history, when the whole is complete.  Of course we do not have this “end” yet, but in the canonical sense we do – Scripture is complete.  Or, as Vanhoozer implies from Pannenberg, “judgments about meaning always involve an implicit anticipation of the whole.”

Therefore, we cannot stop just at grammatical and contextual interpretation: “If we are reading the Bible as the Word of God…I suggest that the context that yields this maximal sense is the canon, taken as a unified communicative act.”  It is the canon “as a whole” that helps solve the problem of ‘fuller meaning.’  “That is, to say that the Bible has a ‘fuller meaning’ is to focus on the (divine) author’s intended meaning at the level of the canonical act.  Better said, the canon as a whole becomes the unified act for which the divine intention serves as the unifying principle.  The divine intention supervenes on the intention of the human authors.”  “The divine intention does not contravene the intention of the human author but rather supervenes on it” (pp 264-5, emphasis his).

These are some helpful considerations for the discussion of context, allusion, and interpretation.  To summarize Vanhoozer in my words, grammatical-historical interpretation must include more than simply the historical and grammatical “situatedness” of the text.  We also need to keep in mind the end result: Christ the fulfillment and “end” of the text.

I’ll end with some questions I’ve been asking while studying this topic.

1) Can the canonical context speak louder than the immediate context as we interpret texts?  Is this what fuller meaning is all about?

2) How much do we stake on possible allusions?  What are the pitfalls of being overly certain in this area?

3) Do we ultimately need to prove an allusion to make a biblical or theological point, or even to prove the unity of the Bible? [Note: there is a difference between allusion and citation/direct quote.]

4) Is our view of Scripture necessarily lower if we are hesitant to find an allusion and argue for authorial intent behind possible allusions?

5) Did the human authors of Scripture always know how their writing would be taken in later generations?  I.e. would Isaiah be angry with Paul for using some of his words as he did, or would Paul teach Isaiah, making Isaiah say “Oh, I get it now, that’s what I meant”?

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More on Beale’s “We Become What We Worship”

Chapters 4-9 of We Become What We Worship is the application of Beale’s thesis to previous and subsequent OT and NT texts that allude to or cite Isaiah 6.9-13.  By way of reminder (see earlier posts here and here), Beale exegetes and interprets Isaiah 6.9-13 as a reference to the punishment for Israel’s sin of idolatry.  His interpretation and thesis from this text is simply that a person becomes like whatever he/she worships.  He then goes to earlier and later texts that allude to or cite Isaiah 6.9-13.  In these allusions and citations, Beale finds his thesis/interpretation of Isaiah 6.9-13.

Rather than narrate out several observations, I’ll simply list a few to save time and space.

1) The careful reader will notice how many “possibles” and “probables” and “ifs” there are in this book.  This has to do again with methodology: how firm are allusions, and how do we interpret them?  On the one hand, it is good that Beale realizes his thesis is built on many “probables.”  On the other hand, the thesis, in my opinion, is weakened by so many “probables.”  For example, he submits out front that his thesis from Isaiah 6.9-13 is “hardly discernible” in Acts, yet he precedes to discuss Acts 7.46-52, 17.24-5, and 28.25-28 in light of his thesis, even though Isaiah 6.9-13 is cited only in Acts 28.25-28 (p. 184ff).  In my opinion, this was the weakest chapter of the book, especially when he drew in his temple emphasis from another work to cross-reference (better: cross-allude) to discuss his thesis.

2) I think Beale overstates his case.  Beale’s interpretation of Isaiah 6.9-13 seems like a hermeneutical Great White that swallows other concepts of idolatry.  Idolatry is a complex multi-threaded strand that runs through Scripture, which includes themes such as spiritual prostitution, witness, covenant curses, an external display of internal spiritual deadness, and so forth.  When Beale makes statements such as “Israel’s sin was essentially idol worship” and “Paul sees idolatry to be the essence of sin,” he leaves the reader wanting more biblical proof for such sweeping statements (p.36, 203).

3) Hand in hand with #2, the book subtitle (A Biblical Theology of Idolatry) is sort of misleading.  To be sure, Beale himself notes on page 16 that the book is not intended to be a comprehensive book on idolatry, but one aspect of it.  In the subsequent chapters (around 300 pages), he makes the reader think this is the predominant aspect that all of Scripture highlights and emphasizes.  Perhaps in other words, this is not really “Biblical Theology” as the reader might be familiar with in the likes of Geerhardus Vos.  I realize “Biblical Theology” is a broad term, so though there are some similarities with the Vosian type of BT, but this book is not that.   [Side note: speaking of Vos, see Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments for some alternative excellent insights into the nature of idolatry.)

I hate to be so negative about this work of Beale, especially since there are many brilliant biblical insights in this volume.  It is worth getting.  I’m simply exhorting the reader to read with care.   One should be quite careful of making too much of a possible allusion, since we simply don’t know what the author “had in mind” when he possibly used other Scripture (i.e. maybe his “hard drive” was so full of texts that he used them without specific contextual carry over).  I’m not sure what the payoff is for finding so many allusions; one can argue for the unity and clarity of Scripture without leaning so heavily on possible allusions.  One can also show from Scripture the thesis of this book without the allusions.  Still pondering this….

This book has also made me realize that there is a fine line between proof-texting the proper way to make a theological point and finding probable allusions to make a theological point: you err if you cross the line.  Perhaps this is where the BT department and the ST department need to get together and both realize the benefits and limits of each.  Many of the same dangers of proof-texting apply to using allusions.

If/when you read this book, we’d love to hear your comments!

shane lems

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A Brief On Beale’s Intro in “We Become What We Worship”

I’m looking forward to Andrew’s next post, but since he and his wife are enjoying the presence of a new baby girl (congrats!!), I’ll attempt to fill his void with something he and I recently discussed: G. K. Beale and hermeneutics.  For now, I’ll do a small trek through Beale’s intro in We Become What We Worship (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2008).

In the intro, Beale basically lays his hermeneutical cards on the table for the reader to see.  Here’s my summary.

1) Scripture is divinely inspired – it is “all God’s Word.”

2) God’s “authorial intentions communicated through human authors are accessible to contemporary readers.”  We can’t exhaust them, but they can be sufficiently understood.

3) Scripture is organically progressive: Beale uses Vos’ metaphor of the OT as a seed and the NT as the plants growing and flowering from that seed.

4) He combines “grammatical-historical exegesis with canonical-contextual exegesis.”  This means that  he utilizes literary and historical context as well as other allusions in Scripture to the passage being studied for interpretation. Scripture interprets Scripture is included here, Beale affirms.  The allusion from one text echoed in other subsequent texts is sometimes called “intertextuality” in scholarly circles.

There are a few other helpful notes by Beale concerning his methodology, but I want to “camp out” very briefly on intertextuality.  Beale notes there are minimalists (those who are leery of seeing allusions or literary connections, and if they see them, they hesitate to find any interpretive significance to a possible allusion).  There are also maximalists: those who are quite open to finding, exploring, and using allusions and letting the allusions shape interpretation.

Of course there is a tightrope to walk here, and Beale makes note of it.  Here are some reasons for maximalists to be careful (I’m using Beale’s examples here).  1) Eisegesis – one could read too much into an allusion.  2) All proposed intertextual allusions/connections have “degrees of possibility and probability.” 3) “Weighing the evidence for recognizing allusions is not an exact science but is a kind of art.”  He later says it does involve some “guesswork.”  4) He again uses the terms “possible” and “probable” when discussion allusions.  That is, the interpreter cannot always be certain that there is an allusion.  5) If there is an allusion, we cannot be sure if the author of later Scripture was “unconscious of making the reference” or “not necessarily intending” the reader to catch it. 6) The interpreter has to guard against reader-response types of “multiple meanings” and also allegory.

So far, I fully concur.  Also, to note, Beale labels himself in the “maximalist camp.”  However, he does admit that he may tip towards eisegesis, for which the reader will have to forgive him.  He says he is aiming for objectivity while expressing his thesis (that idolaters resemble the idols they worship) from texts that he thinks prove it. “At times this thesis becomes a lens through which to see some passages in a way not otherwise seen.  Therefore, eisegesis may happen in this book, but I have tried to be aware of this pitfall and have tried to step around such dangers in order not to domesticate the evidence.”

Beale then urges the reader  – even if he/she disagrees with certain interpretations – to at least appreciate the general approach and be both loving and cautious while reading, as he attempted to be cautious while interpreting.

I still agree thus far, but a few times in the intro it felt as if Beale was not exercising as much caution as he emphasized (see list above).  Perhaps there is a[n] “[over]confident maximalist” and a “cautious maximalist.” The latter seems what Beale wants to be, while he admits he may slide into the former.

Interesting stuff.  Of course my verdict is still not in; I’ll continue through the book and write more later.  Let me end by saying the introduction was lively and stimulating, well worth the read, as Beale usually is.

shane lems

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Enns on Exodus: Authorship and OT Interpretation

In his NIV Application Commentary on Exodus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), Peter Enns tackles well the question of the authorship of Exodus as well as interpreting it.

As far as the authorship of Exodus goes and the lack of firm evidence that Moses wrote every single jot and tittle of it, does not mean “interpretive chaos.”  “To acknowledge that the author and the audience cannot be precisely identified is not to say that we can freely mold the text to any shape we desire.  Even though we do not have access to the mind of an author, we most certainly have the words he has produced, and it is to these words that we are bound.  Our starting point for interpreting the text, therefore, is not a private notion of what an author intended.  It is the other way around: A correct handling of the words on the page – the only ‘objective’ data we have – allows us in due time to offer some suggestions as to what the author’s intention may have been.  In other words, understanding the author’s intention comes at the end of the interpretive process, not the beginning” (p. 21).  “I have often mused that the reason why the Bible itself is so relatively mute and even ambiguous on the question of human authorship is to remind us of who the ultimate author is” (p. 22).

How do we interpret Exodus as an ancient text?  “A Christian reads the Old Testament armed with the knowledge that Christ actually did rise from the dead, and that that fact affects the interpretive process.  It is the event that has shaped us as a people of God.”  “The Old Testament is not an an ancient text with which we have to struggle somehow to find creative ways to bring its timeless principles into our world.  God has already ‘interpreted’ the Old Testament by raising Christ from the dead.  In doing so, God has put the period and exclamation point on Israel’s story” (p. 27).  This, Enns says, is how the NT authors approached the OT, so we do well to follow.

“The book of Exodus is not waiting there for us to bring it into our world.  Rather, it is standing there defining what our world should look like and then inviting us to enter that world.”  “The story of Exodus…is designed to tell us what God is like, how he thinks of his people, the lengths to which he will go to deliver them, and the proper response of God’s people to this great deed.  Applying the book of Exodus begins with the understanding what the story is supposed to do and then seeing how we, as God’s people, fit into that story” (p. 31).

Enns and Childs seem like a great combo to use when studying Exodus.  Yet I also want to check out both Cornelis Houtman’s three volume work and Nahum Sarna’s JPS commentary.

shane lems

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New Baker Theological Interpretation Material

Piggybacking off The Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (DTIB), Baker has released two similar volumes, namely Theological Interpretation of the Old Testament and Theological Interpretation of the New Testament, edited by a favorite of the Reformed Reader, Kevin Vanhoozer.  After scanning them briefly via Amazon’s reader, I noticed they would be somewhat helpful, but probably too much of an overlap of regular evangelical commentaries (i.e. the TIOT and TINT contain sections on each book of the Bible such as “the history of interpretation” and “the message of ____” and “the structure of ____,” and so forth.).  They are priced reasonably, though are not long – both are around 300 pages.  Find them on Amazon, and skim through yourself.  Let us know what you think!

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Childs on *Commentating*

Phrases like this make me want to read Brevard Childs’ entire commentary on Exodus straight through (taken from the preface and introduction to his OTL commentary on Exodus):

“The purpose of this commentary is unabashedly theological.  Its concern is to understand the Exodus as scripture of the church.  The exegesis arises as a theological discipline within the context of the canon and is directed toward the community of faith which lives by its confession of Jesus Christ.”

“Yet the author is aware that serious theological understanding of the text is dependent on a rigorous and careful study of the whole range of problems within the Bible which includes text and source criticism, syntax and grammar, history and geography.  Nor can the hearing of the text by the Christian church be divorced from that other community of faith which lives from the same Bible, and from the countless other stances outside of any commitment to faith or tradition.”

“The aim of this commentary is to seek to interpret the book of Exodus as canonical scripture within the theological discipline of the Christian church.  As scripture its authoritative role within the life of the community is assumed, but how this authority functions must be continually explored.”

“This author does not share the hermeneutical position of those who suggest that biblical criticism is an objective, descriptive enterprise, controlled solely by scientific criticism, to which the Christian can at best add a few homiletical reflections for piety’s sake.”

I can’t wait to read more!  I’m sure many readers of this blog know exactly what Childs is talking about in that last sentence – as if commentaries are scientific endeavors (objective) which are divorced from faith and life (subjective).  Any commentaries come to mind?

Stay tuned for more Childs….

Brevard Childs, The Book of Exodus, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004).

shane lems

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