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Reading Scripture with the Church

Toward a Hermeneutic for Theological Interpretation

Posted Tuesday, December 18, 2007 by Charlie Trimm
Categories: Hermeneutics
This is a helpful work in which various proponents of the theological interpretation of Scripture present essays which further their views and then respond to the essays of their co-authors. This gives them an opportunity to interact with each other to a greater extent than I have seen elsewhere.

The first chapter is by A. K. M. Adam and is a plea for abundance in interpretation. He bases this upon the belief that God has given great abundance in the text, which can be read in a variety of ways. Since this is the case, to not read abundantly is to go against what God has desired for us. Limits for this interpretation includes such factors as the rule of faith and the community of believers. He also reminds us that communication is not simply words, but occupies a much broader field. Hence, communicating our beliefs is not merely a verbal affair, but takes our whole lives.

The second chapter comes from Stephen Fowl and jumps off from a study of the literal sense in Thomas Aquinas. While we usually think of a single literal sense, Fowl shows that Aquinas believed in a multivoiced literal sense: a text has several literal senses. Hence, we can have multiple readings of texts and stick with the literal sense.

The third chapter, the longest in the book (not surprising, since it seems that Vanhoozer does not know how to write anything short) is from Kevin Vanhoozer, who uses the essay as a way to blend together his earlier emphasis on speech act theory and the authorial discourse with his more recent focus on theodrama. He looks at the book of Philemon as an example of a place where identity was found not in a social status, but in Christ. This thought is key for Vanhoozer, as he desires Christians to be free in Christ and to view doctrine as a drama: not as a dead book but as a living play. "This is the kind of theological interpretation that the church so desperately needs: dramatic interpretations that embody the script and refresh the heart" (93).

The last chapter is from Francis Watson, who builds off of the connecting of the four gospels with the four living creatures of Revelation by Irenaeus. He sees the four gospels as presenting various viewpoints, so that each is needed. I only skimmed this chapter, but it seemed that it was of a different tone than the rest of the book, as was his response at the end.

The responses were the most interesting part for me, as the authors had the opportunity to interact with each other. Watson applied his thinking on the four gospels to the author/reader problem that the other three authors had discussed in their essays. He says that both are important: the authors wrote them, but the authors were also readers (Matthew of Mark, Luke of Mark and Matthew).

Fowl thinks that some of the problem the church is having (such as the wide acceptance of the Da Vinci Code) is not due to a wrong hermeneutical theory but to bad catechesis. He thinks that biblical interpretation should not cause church division, since this only began with the Reformation. He also says that he thinks that Vanhoozer is moving closer to his view in regard to authors as far as the practical implications. He wonders why Vanhoozer is still placing so much importance on the philosophical idea of an author.

Vanhoozer (writing the longest response) argues for his view of authoral discourse, showing once again that the guards Fowl and Adam put up for their view of meaning are insufficient. He then playfully assigns each of the authors to a living creature (Watson: calf, Fowl: eagle [obviously], Adam: man [once again, obvious], Vanhoozer: eagle, or ass as he later describes himself). He argues against Fowl's point by saying that Fowl is being a little too slippery with his terms: is it a multifaceted literal sense or many literal senses? Vanhoozer argues for a "thick" literal sense (the former option). He argues against Adam by saying that he needs to move from local criteria to global criteria.

In his response Adam argues once again for his view, presenting such as statements as "'correctness' derives from blending our voices and actions harmoniously and concordantly with the surrounding voices, rather than from identical reproduction or transposition of an authoritative paradigm" (147).

Series: Book Reviews
The Gods of the Nations, by Daniel Block
Hebrew Poetry and Robert Alter
Creation According to Sailhamer
The Rise of Evangelicalism	Random book reviews from Charlie
Old Testament Theology Devotionals
The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody
Rethinking Missions with Steve Saint
Neither Poverty nor Riches
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind II
Going Places with God
A God Entranced Vision of All Things
The Meaning of Jesus: Borg versus Wright
Military History and Christianity: Do they mix?
Wright and Borg, Part 3
The Mosaic of Christian Belief
Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology
The Problem of War in the Old Testament
God is a Warrior
Holy War in Ancient Israel, by Gerhard von Rad
Yahweh is a Warrior
Is There A Meaning in This Text
Faithful Intepretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World
Engaging Scripture
Does the Bible Justify Violence?
Reading Scripture with the Church
A History of Christian Thought, Volume 1
The Darker Side of Samuel, Saul and David
War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence
Golden Compass Trilogy
Israelite Religions, Richard Hess
The Mission of God
Biblical Interpretation: Then and Now
Life in Biblical Israel
Biblical Theology
Reading and Preaching the Bible in the Worship of the Church 3
Theological Introduction to the Psalms
The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature