Sten Hidal, “Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Antiochene School with its Prevalent Literal and Historical Method,” Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of Interpretation I/1: Antiquity, ed. Magne Saebo (1996) 562.
On John Chrysostom (fourth century C.E.): His first question to text from the OT was not: which is the [literal sense]? but: how can God’s people be edified by these words? And he found the usefulness of Holy Scripture primarily in the historical sense of the text.
In this post, I want to take a look at my method of reading the Bible in my devotions. I will be using an article to define certain categories:
Adam Kamesar, “The Bible Comes to the West: The Text and Interpretation of the Bible in Its Greek and Latin Forms,” Living Traditions of the Bible, ed. James E. Bowley (St. Louis: Chalice, 1999) 53-54.
Dr. Kamesar discusses various approaches to literature in the ancient world. There was Plato (fifth-fourth centuries B.C.E.), who believed that the primary purpose of literature was to teach morality, leading him to advocate censorship of works that depicted immoral activity. There was Plato’s pupil Aristotle (fourth century B.C.E.), who valued literature more for its literary qualities than for its moral lessons, meaning he saw literature mainly as entertainment. There were the Stoics (300 B.C.E. on) and the Pergamemes (200 B.C.E. on), who read texts allegorically—as having a secret meaning underneath their literal surface. The meaning could be about science (e.g., the composition of the universe and how it reached its ordered state) or ethics.
Throughout its history, there have been a variety of ways to read the Bible. And they pretty much mirror ancient exegesis. The vast majority of Christians and Jews read the Bible as a document that teaches morality. I took a class with Dr. Kamesar a few years ago on pagan exegesis, and I recall him saying that ancient Christian (and I think Jewish) exegesis looked down on reading the Bible for entertainment. For them, the Bible wasn’t about fun. It was about learning how to live! A colleague of mine at the University of Cincinnati did his dissertation on an ancient writer who put the Bible in verse, a pretty controversial move in those days! But, nowadays, we have the “Bible as literature” approach to the text, and even Christians and Jews like to be entertained by the Bible, as the existence of “Bible movies” indicates.
There have been readings of the Bible that stick with its literal meaning: one should read the text in its context, according to the rules of grammatical-historical exegesis, for that’s how we determine the meaning of any document. The Christian School of Antioch in the fourth century C.E. followed this approach, as did the Jewish method of “peshat” exegesis in the Middle Ages. And it’s how the modern historical-critical method relates to the Bible (though historical-criticism differs from religious literalism in certain respects). Then there are interpreters who try to dig beneath the literal meaning to find hidden stuff. The authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls sought end-times meaning in the writings of the prophets (pesher). The rabbis used midrash, searching for layer upon layer of significance. And Christian allegorizers looked for truths about Christ and the Christian way of life in the Old Testament. Today, there are Christians who see symbols of Christ in the OT.
So how do I read the Bible? When I was at DePauw and Harvard, my reading was often allegorical or typological, with some literalism thrown in. When I read the story of Ruth, I saw Christ’s love for me as a Christian. I remember trying to apply Samson being bound by the Philistines to Christ’s role as my personal Savior. I saw eschatological significance in the story of Athaliah in II Kings 11: the wicked queen Athaliah ruled for six years and in the seventh year was overthrown, as the throne was returned to the righteous Davidid, Joash. Similarly, Satan rules the earth right now, but there will come a Sabbath in which Jesus Christ will reign and the world will be at peace. I wanted the Bible to be about God’s love for me, free grace, and my hope as a believer. I could have cared less about whether Boaz loved Ruth. I wanted God to love me! And God’s special love for Israel (a huge Old Testament/Hebrew Bible theme) didn’t matter to me much either, for, again, I wanted God to love me. So I read the Bible in a less-than-literal fashion, and I applied to myself the Old Testament messages about God’s love for Israel (as do a lot of Christians).
When I went on to Jewish Theological Seminary, my approach had some allegory, but I was beginning to move towards a more literal method of reading the Bible. For the Song of Songs, I tried to follow what was going on in the story, but, ultimately, I applied it to God’s love for me and my love for God. I read the Book of Jonah on a surface level, and I derived from that the lesson that God’s way of doing things may transcend how we (in our pettiness) think he should act. I read Ecclesiastes literally, and I thought about the claim of many scholars that this book, which apparently denied the afterlife, emerged during the Hellenistic era, a time when the immortality of the soul was a popular doctrine. So I guess I was preoccupied with historical-criticism in my reading of Ecclesiastes: the existence of different religious ideas in the Bible, including one that tried to cope without an afterlife (although he was probably aware of those who believed in one)! For Psalms, I read that literally, and I wondered how modern scholars approached many of them on a historical-critical basis. But my literal reading of the Psalms challenged my Christian beliefs, for the Psalmist often asked God to reward him according to his righteousness. That was in marked contrast from how evangelicals told me to conduct my religious life: assume that I’m bad and deserve nothing good from God.
For my devotions at this current stage of my life (at Hebrew Union College), I mostly go with the literal meaning of the text rather than seeking hidden symbols for Christ in the Hebrew Bible. I’ve also embraced more of a literary approach, one that looks at the development of characters, such as Joab. I find that there are moral lessons at the literal level—about love for God and my neighbor. At the same time, there are times when I use analogies. I applied lessons from Ziba and Mephibosheth to the topic of devotion to God (Piety: Ziba, David, and Mephibosheth), even though the story is not explicitly about that. This isn’t a strictly literal approach, but it’s not entirely allegory, either!
There are many times when I have a historical interest in the text. When I read the prophets at Harvard, I drew from them the message of God’s unconditional love for me in spite of my sins. When I last read the prophets here in Cincinnati, however, I was concerned with whether or not their prophecies were fulfilled in history. So there are times when I read the Bible without getting moral or spiritual lessons.
Why the change in my reading strategy? I think some of it is that, nowadays, I just assume that God loves me unconditionally, so I don’t feel compelled to force every passage of the Bible into a Lutheran “justification by grace through faith alone” grid. I acknowledge that there are passages of the Bible that are more inclined to “works salvation,” and I try to honor what they’re getting at, without allowing them to shake my faith in a loving God. As a result, I’m not looking to the Bible so much for comfort these days, and so I allow it to speak for itself, whether I like what comes out of my reading or not. Usually, I’m intrigued by what I find!
Do I read the Bible for entertainment as well? Absolutely! Always have. Always will. As an ancient writer I read in Dr. Kamesar’s Pagan Exegesis class said, couching moral lessons in entertainment is an effective way to teach them!