The State of the Bible in the Twenty-First Century

Lutherans are not the only Christians who are celebrating, worrying about, and trying to attend to the role of the Bible in the life of the Christian church. I just returned from the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion where some 8,000+ scholars listened to or read papers that not only reached back to what the Bible meant, but these papers in many cases also reached forward to what the Bible might mean for theology, ethics, and life in the church (and synagogue) today. The Hein Fry lectures at the eight ELCA seminaries in 2006 were delivered by two outstanding New Testament scholars, and Currents is pleased once more to make this lecture series available to an even wider audience. Donald A. Hagner is an evangelical; Donald Senior, C. P., is Roman Catholic.

Let all who have ears, hear!

Donald A. Hagner reports on the state of the Bible from his position as a leading evangelical scholar and begins by identifying a number of recent surveys of hermeneutical issues. He notes the widespread retreat from history and traditional methods of interpretation to the new obsessive focus on the reader rather than the text. For many the Bible is no longer the book of books, but a book among many books. While the Bible is widely attacked by those outside the church, it also suffers from abuse of the Bible by (mainly) conservative Christians. The article offers an explanation for the Bible’s loss of authority and why the Bible is no longer heard as the written word of God. The historical critical method is necessary, however, precisely because the Bible is the story of God’s acts in history. Nevertheless, the historical method has been destructive of the Bible. For this reason the naturalistic presuppositions of the historical critical method must change, leaving room for God to act in history. In its pure form the literary approach is totally hostile to history, insisting on understanding the text as a self-contained world and as strictly non-referential. Post-modernism has issued a justified critique of modernism (belief in the ability of human reason to know everything; inflated claims for objectivity). But postmodernism can lead to the impossibility of knowledge altogether and a dismissal of the idea of truth. All that is available then is opinion, and yours is as good as mine. Some of the polemics of postmodernists against historical criticism is unfair. Traditional exegetes are not as dumb as some postmodern writers make them out to be. Some of the new insights of postmodernism are compatible with a tempered historical-critical exegesis. For evangelicals the historical-critical method is fundamentally important. Christianity cannot be merely story, merely idea, merely concepts, merely images, merely ethics. Most exegetes are ultimately questing after the same thing: to make it possible to hear the voice of God in the Scriptures. Our interpretation of the Bible must be in line with the tradition of the church, the faithful who have preceded us, and a hermeneutic provided by the regula fidei. The implied interpreter of the Christian Scripture is a disciple. A theological interpretation will unleash the potential of Scripture because this kind of reading is characterized by an openness to hear and to know God in the texts.

In his second essay, Donald A. Hagner emphasizes the recent interest in the theological interpretation of Scripture, that is exegesis done with faith presuppositions upfront. Historical-critical exegesis maintains its importance, tempered by an openness to and an interest in theological reality. Charges that the Bible has no stable meaning are faced with the fact that exegetes agree on the meaning of texts 70-80% of the time. Biblical authors intend to say rather specific things, and they succeed in expressing themselves much or most of the time. If we are going to be open to deeper or “spiritual” senses of Scripture, we need to have our feet firmly planted in the exegesis of the plain meaning of the texts. John Shelby Spong is flat-footed in his approach to the Bible and does not see that many who take the Bible “literally” have dealt intelligently with the problems he raises. It is apparently a bad thing for Marcus Borg that “Being a Christian meant believing Christianity’s central doctrinal teachings.” The church must learn again the autonomy of the text of the Bible, that is, the text has sovereignty over the interpreter. Faith and the creeds are the key to correct understanding. At seminaries there must be a fundamental agreement in theology and on what the seminary is called to do—and at least some agreement on how it is to do it. There should be more required courses in exegesis and an effort to stress exegesis throughout the curriculum. The sermon is the main vehicle by which the word of God is mediated to the congregation. Therefore, we cannot afford sermons that are not biblically based, and exegetical in nature. If pastors are to preach effectively, they need to budget a good number of hours per week for the study of Scripture and for sermon preparation. We also need a robust program of adult Bible study in all of our churches. The Bible is God’s gift to the church, one of her most important resources, and we must do all we can to bring it back to the church. The word of God remains our sure anchor among the confusing voices of this lost world.

Donald Senior, C.P., surveys the lively field of New Testament studies today and then concentrates on three theses developed by the Pontifical Biblical Commission today. In its document “On the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,” the Commission held that there must be an affinity between the interpreter and the biblical text itself that includes love, reverence, and respect for the biblical text. Other items: the Scriptures are inspired, but fully human productions; the Bible has multiple layers of meaning; the Scriptures speak to us, and not just to me; the Scriptures are in harmony with ecclesial tradition; every passage is to be read in the light of the entire canon and in the light of Christ and the teaching authority of the church; and the church must seek to incarnate its meaning into the life and mission of the church. As to the relationship; of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, the Commission asked, Can Christians still lay claim to the heritage of the Old Testament after the Holocaust, and does the New Testament itself contribute toward hostility toward the Jews? The Commissioin shows how the New Testament itself recognizes the authority of the Old Testament, traces major motifs through both testaments, and concentrates on the portrayal of Jews and Judaism in the New Testament. It insists that the New Testament never taught a definitive separation from Israel or that the church substituted for Israel. The Commission noted the fundamental continuity between the testaments, but also takes full account of discontinuities. New Testament polemical texts have to do with concrete historical contexts and are never meant to be applied to Jews of all times and places. The document draws on half a century of scholarship on first century Judaism and it embraces the historical critical method and the essentially communitarian and ecclesial context of biblical interpretation. In its document on the relationship of the Bible and morality, the Commission highlighted the role of the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. Its document noted a characteristic moral horizon in Scripture, the dialogue in Scripture between revealed moral values and those drawn from reflection on human experience and reason, the critical stance of the biblical tradition toward some assumptions of human cultures, and a certain progression or development within the biblical tradition on some moral issues. Distinctions are drawn between permanent principles and those which are time bound, but the Bible assumes a stance of social responsibility and gives a strong eschatological cast to moral reflection.

In his second lecture, Donald Senior, C.P., notes that in our age the church is experiencing itself as truly universal in character. Indigenous churches throughout the world have a sense of their own cultural context and potential contribution to the whole. Other conditioning factors are cultural diversity, secularization, and interreligious relationships. Paul and Matthew had to negotiate the tensions between community identity and community outreach. Implicit in the call of Isaiah and Jeremiah to go to the nations was Israel’s conviction, emphatically repeated by Paul in Romans, that the God of Israel was also the God of the nations. The paradox of God choosing to bring about the world’s salvation through a Crucified Messiah helped Paul realize that before this God all were on the same footing and all would be offered salvation through the graciousness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Encounter with the Crucified and Risen Christ enabled Paul to retrieve his Jewish convictions and to see them as a call to transcend the tradional boundaries of his own faith community. Matthew portrays Jesus in Jewish tonalities, as the person who fulfills at every turn the promise of the Hebrew Scriptures, and whose disputes with the religious authorities are a conflict over the interpretation of the law, not abrogation of the law. But Matthew ends his Gospel by looking out toward the nations. The initial restriction of mission to the house of Israel falls away beyond the earthly lifetime of Jesus. One impetus for this newly configured mission was triggered by the experience of actual Gentiles whose faith in the Christian message enabled them to shoulder their way into the community and thus to change its historical horizon. The consistent emphasis in Matthew on doing the works of righteousness is illustrated in the Sermon on the Mount. The so-called contrast statements in the Sermon move the level of ethical respose to a deeper and more heroic response that does not abrogate the intent of the law. Acting with integrity and love, even to loving the enemy, makes one perfect or complete as God is complete. Acting in accord with the teaching of Jesus aligns one with the will of God and enables one to enter the reign of God. The author concludes with four proposals to extend the common ground between Paul and Matthew as we face our own mission challenges. Paul and Matthew show us ways to be faithful to our past and open to God’s future.

The current ELCA emphasis—Book of Faith: Lutherans Read the Bible—is primarily internal, encouraging Bible study throughout this church and also asking how our Lutheran heritage should shape our reading of Scripture, also in our time. But this centripetal focus is also centrifugal since mission is always the church’s middle name and since our focus on Scripture should benefit in many ways the whole people of God. Finally, this issue of Currents reminds us of the great joy of ecumenicity, namely, that we have much to learn from dear sisters and brothers who do not bear the name Lutheran but who love the Lord and the Scriptures at least as much as we do.

Welcome them!

Ralph W. Klein
Editor

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