A well known preacher here in Sydney has often been heard to say that evangelicals are not in the business of “interpreting” scripture. I’ve always thought this was an odd thing to say. Surely this is exactly what we are doing when we come to a passage which is hard to understand and which doesn’t present itself with immediate clarity. Surely we are “interpreting” the text when we translate from Greek and Hebrew into English. What is this preacher talking about? Is he advocating an approach where we just respond to an unaided reading of the text, with no recourse to commentaries or other aids when trying to unlock the difficult bits?
It’s helpful to realise that we can mean different things when we talk about “interpretation”. For example, “interpretation” can mean:
1. translation;
2. uncovering the meaning of a particular text when the text is from another culture;
3. attaching meaning to a text from our own context and experience, hence providing an “interpretation”.
I think it’s this last one which the preacher in question is arguing against. It’s worth considering the difference between the last two options given above.
Often those who might oppose our reading of a text will say “That’s just your interpretation!” But as an evangelical, I don’t see myself as providing an “interpretation”. Rather I’m seeking to “read” rather than “interpret”, and this “reading” uses the tools of exegesis and history to uncover the text’s original meaning from its cultural and grammatical context. This assumes that the text has an original purpose and meaning, and that this original purpose and meaning is still worth our attention. I guess in doing this we are seeking an interpretation according to definition 2 above, but I would call this “reading” rather than “interpreting.”
On the other hand, there are some approaches which seek to remove the text from its context, leaving it as an entity in itself. This text then has meaning attached to it from modern contexts. While it’s an appealing idea to see texts “released” so that they can do many weird and wonderful things, I think that too much is lost with this approach. My fear is that we end up ‘bastardising’ the text; we leave it without an origin. And by removing the text from its origin we only enslave it to our own context; we use it to tell our own story. We may as well not play games and just say what we think, avoiding the temptation to marry our opinions to a text which we have “neutralized.” This is especially important if the original context still has very real implications which are imposed upon us. Because the NT texts were born from the context of a resurrected Lord who is still ruling and claiming his rights over us today, then they are texts which cannot be “interpreted” in separation from the ongoing rule of the risen Lord Jesus, and are also texts which still have a claim on us who live under his Lordship.
So what can we say about “interpretation”? It’s true that we must “read” the text and not “interpret” it, if interpretation means reading our own stories and experiences into a passage which has been divorced from its context. But “reading” does not simply mean “reading” like we would read a novel. It means reading with an eye to the ground out of which the text was born, a ground which saw Jesus rise from the dead and establish his ongoing rule, a rule which carries the original meaning of the NT through to our current context.
I hope all that makes some sense. It is 1.59AM after all. I guess I’m trying to tie the ongoing relevance of scripture to the ongoing Lordship of Christ. Perhaps I’ll write some more on this issue one of these days, at a more thought friendly hour.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Exam report card
The MTC third year exams which finished last week were really hard work. I thought that nothing could be harder than second year, but I was wrong. One week later and only now am I feeling like I haven’t been hit by a truck. Here’s my take on each of the exams…
Old Testament 3 (theology)
This was our opening exam and the one which took the most preparation. The paper consisted of three compulsory questions drawn from a pool of 16 which were known to all candidates, plus one unseen question which we could pick from a number of options. Sound complicated? Yeah, not the most straightforward affair. Even though we knew the questions they were really hard and took a bit of research. This meant that while we actually learnt a lot of OT Theology, our preparation for the rest of the exams suffered. The lecturer who set the paper’s format but was on sabbatical during second semester so we couldn’t go and exact our revenge. I’m not sure how we would have done this, but some disciplinary action was necessary.
This paper receives a C.
Old Testament 3 (exegesis)
No real surprises here, but the texts which were set were only parts of larger compositional units. This made it hard to talk about structure…“This text forms ¾ of a chiasm.” Awkward.
I give this paper a B+
New Testament 3 (theology)
Again no real surprises. The questions followed the syllabus fairly closely, to the point where some questions allowed for exact regurgitations of particular set readings. The paper could have been improved by adding another question to the Pauline theology section (only three options to choose from), but the questions here were interesting enough, although predictable:
How useful is it to search for a ‘centre’ in Paul’s theology?
and
Asses the view that Paul was ‘called’ and not ‘converted’ on the Damascus road.
The New Perspective question felt a little impossible:
What is the essence of the ‘New Perspective’ understanding of Pauline theology?
This is like asking “what is the essence of being Australian” or “what is the essence of being male”. You know it when you see it (although in Newtown…), but it’s many things nonetheless.
This paper receives a B+
New Testament 3 (exegesis)
This year’s NT3 exams were both two hours in length, which I felt made the whole experience a little easier. The one common complaint was that the texts in this year’s exegetical paper were a little long, so after translation there wasn’t enough time to make adequate comments. But, the new format included a new section where no translation was required but where theological comment was asked for on a pair of related verses. Interesting.
This paper deserves an A-.
Doctrine 3
This was the paper I was least prepared for. Thankfully it was devoid of Robert Doyle’s mega-long, quotation-based questions. They were shorter and to the point, which was nice. Most people found four questions which they felt comfortable answering, but it seems that they were the same four questions for everybody. I even answered two on eschatology, which was my least prepared area in my least prepared subject.
I give Doctrine 3 a B+
Ethics 3
I worked really hard for this one. Ethics was something I struggled with all year, but I was determined to get it. I reckon it finally came to me in the days before, which is a good thing. The paper was the best of the lot; questions were stretching but accurately reflected the content of the course and enabled us to apply the skills which the course attempted to teach us. Some of the wording was interesting and betrayed certain presuppositions:
Are Christian ethics relevant to people to people who are not Christians? Illustrate your answer with reference to Old Testament Israel.
Can we call OT Israel “Christian”? Hmmm…
“Unplanned motherhood represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as an equivalent to a ‘death of self’.” In a society where abortion is legal, what can Christians do to undermine its ‘attraction’?
That the Christian would want to undermine abortion assumes a certain stance, so this question can be seen to jump down the path of ethical logic a little too quickly. Nonetheless, the question of the application of a certain moral position is an interesting and important one, and it’s refreshing to break out of first order questions and to get to the pointy issue of acting upon moral theory.
Speaking of which, the last question was a real cracker and was compulsory for all taking the exam:
A cohabiting couple, who are not Christians, come to you in some distress. The woman is not yet pregnant yet yearns to have a child. The man professes to love the woman, but insists that he will leave her if she falls pregnant. They agree to several meetings with you.
What Christian moral arguments about this situation will you seek to outline and persuade the couple of, and what suggestions, advice and/or instructions about what to do will you offer?
Wow. That’s what the whole course is getting at; enabling us to actually be effective in that situation.
Well done Andrew Cameron. You get an A+.
Old Testament 3 (theology)
This was our opening exam and the one which took the most preparation. The paper consisted of three compulsory questions drawn from a pool of 16 which were known to all candidates, plus one unseen question which we could pick from a number of options. Sound complicated? Yeah, not the most straightforward affair. Even though we knew the questions they were really hard and took a bit of research. This meant that while we actually learnt a lot of OT Theology, our preparation for the rest of the exams suffered. The lecturer who set the paper’s format but was on sabbatical during second semester so we couldn’t go and exact our revenge. I’m not sure how we would have done this, but some disciplinary action was necessary.
This paper receives a C.
Old Testament 3 (exegesis)
No real surprises here, but the texts which were set were only parts of larger compositional units. This made it hard to talk about structure…“This text forms ¾ of a chiasm.” Awkward.
I give this paper a B+
New Testament 3 (theology)
Again no real surprises. The questions followed the syllabus fairly closely, to the point where some questions allowed for exact regurgitations of particular set readings. The paper could have been improved by adding another question to the Pauline theology section (only three options to choose from), but the questions here were interesting enough, although predictable:
How useful is it to search for a ‘centre’ in Paul’s theology?
and
Asses the view that Paul was ‘called’ and not ‘converted’ on the Damascus road.
The New Perspective question felt a little impossible:
What is the essence of the ‘New Perspective’ understanding of Pauline theology?
This is like asking “what is the essence of being Australian” or “what is the essence of being male”. You know it when you see it (although in Newtown…), but it’s many things nonetheless.
This paper receives a B+
New Testament 3 (exegesis)
This year’s NT3 exams were both two hours in length, which I felt made the whole experience a little easier. The one common complaint was that the texts in this year’s exegetical paper were a little long, so after translation there wasn’t enough time to make adequate comments. But, the new format included a new section where no translation was required but where theological comment was asked for on a pair of related verses. Interesting.
This paper deserves an A-.
Doctrine 3
This was the paper I was least prepared for. Thankfully it was devoid of Robert Doyle’s mega-long, quotation-based questions. They were shorter and to the point, which was nice. Most people found four questions which they felt comfortable answering, but it seems that they were the same four questions for everybody. I even answered two on eschatology, which was my least prepared area in my least prepared subject.
I give Doctrine 3 a B+
Ethics 3
I worked really hard for this one. Ethics was something I struggled with all year, but I was determined to get it. I reckon it finally came to me in the days before, which is a good thing. The paper was the best of the lot; questions were stretching but accurately reflected the content of the course and enabled us to apply the skills which the course attempted to teach us. Some of the wording was interesting and betrayed certain presuppositions:
Are Christian ethics relevant to people to people who are not Christians? Illustrate your answer with reference to Old Testament Israel.
Can we call OT Israel “Christian”? Hmmm…
“Unplanned motherhood represents a threat so great to modern women that it is perceived as an equivalent to a ‘death of self’.” In a society where abortion is legal, what can Christians do to undermine its ‘attraction’?
That the Christian would want to undermine abortion assumes a certain stance, so this question can be seen to jump down the path of ethical logic a little too quickly. Nonetheless, the question of the application of a certain moral position is an interesting and important one, and it’s refreshing to break out of first order questions and to get to the pointy issue of acting upon moral theory.
Speaking of which, the last question was a real cracker and was compulsory for all taking the exam:
A cohabiting couple, who are not Christians, come to you in some distress. The woman is not yet pregnant yet yearns to have a child. The man professes to love the woman, but insists that he will leave her if she falls pregnant. They agree to several meetings with you.
What Christian moral arguments about this situation will you seek to outline and persuade the couple of, and what suggestions, advice and/or instructions about what to do will you offer?
Wow. That’s what the whole course is getting at; enabling us to actually be effective in that situation.
Well done Andrew Cameron. You get an A+.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
