Do we need to ‘interpret’ the Bible?
Some years ago a well-known Christian leader, minister of a large and influential church, proclaimed:
I don't interpret the Bible. I just tell yous what it says.
How you react to that statement will say quite a lot near your mental attitude to the Bible, its interpretation, and the role of ministry.
On the i hand, this could exist understood as a humble argument of deference to Scripture. I don't want to come in the way of your reading of the Bible; I just want to enable you to read the Bible for yourself and assist you with this. To this extent, the argument is faithful to the dynamic which is nowadays throughout that multi-faceted and extended cultural and theological process often labelled 'The Reformation'. Both Wycliffe and Tyndale, pioneers in translation of the Bible into English language, emphasised the importance of unmediated engagement with the Scriptures. Tyndale famously responded to clergy who opposed his efforts:
If God spares my life, I will take intendance that a plowboy shall know more of the Scriptures than you lot practice.
More than than that, my ascertainment is that most of united states, most of the time, when nosotros read the Bible 'devotionally' in daily reading, will ofttimes accept a sense of immediacy equally we read—nosotros feel nosotros are simply reading the Bible (not 'interpreting' it) and in doing and so we are 'simply' hearing God (we hope).
On the other manus, this statement could be read as a statement of presumption. My view is not merely an interpretation—it is what the Bible says. So anyone who disagrees with me is in fact non beingness faithful to the Bible; there is no other legitimate view than mine. Ironically, this approach not just makes discussion with others difficult, it also closes down the possibility that our estimation at any one point is imperfect, and might modify, abound or develop, so it in fact inhibits continued learning nearly Scripture.
The reality of class is that we are all interpreters, whether or not we acknowledge it explicitly. In fact interpretation is at the heart of the New Testament, at the heart of Christian faith, and at the middle of mission.
Hermeneutics at the heart
Our word 'hermeneutics', the more than technical term describing the whole process of biblical interpretation, derives from the New Testament. At the beginning of John's gospel, we read:
They said "Rabbi" (whichbeing translatedmeans Teacher), "where are yous staying?" (John 1.38)
This text, every bit is typical of John'south gospel, is heavy with significance. John the Baptist functions as a 'witness' to Jesus (as set out twice earlier in the chapter), and so models discipleship as pointing others to Jesus. He describes Jesus every bit 'The Lamb of God', already anticipating his sacrificial death, whose significance this gospel highlights by depicting Jesus dying at the moment that the passover lambs are sacrificed. There are 'two' disciples, using the Deuteronomic number of witness (Deut 17.six, Deut 19.15; see also Numbers 35.30) which Jesus draws on after in John 5.31, and which features in the trial narratives in all the gospels. Jesus turns and asks the greatly existential question 'What do you seek?', to which the (as yet unnamed) disciples respond by asking where Jesus 'abides' or stays—at surface a question about Jesus' home, but in the globe of this gospel's constant double meaning, an enquiry nigh Jesus' home in his Male parent's volition. Jesus returns to question of constant in John 15.v where he, the true vine, becomes the truthful disciple's true home.
But at the crucial moment of encounter, we meet the give-and-takemet-hermenueo, pregnant to translate or interpret. It comes as a parenthetical bated from the author to the reader, a feature typical of John. The comment is in fact more than an interpretation than a translation; 'rabbi' literally means 'my great one', merely of course rabbis functioned as teachers. But the key significance of the comment is that it shows that John is writing for an audience who are in a different social, cultural and linguistic context from that of the original event. That is why interpretation is needed. (We see the same dynamic at other places wherehermenuo and related words occur: Matt 1.23, Mark 5.41, Mark 15.22, Marker 15.34, John 1.38, John 1.41, John 1.42, John ix.7, Acts 4.36, Acts 13.viii, Hebrews 7.2.)
And, every bit the gospel's writer makes clear, the impulse for making these events known in a new context is missional, 'that you [the reader in a different context, reading in a different linguistic communication] may believe' (John 20.31). Because mission (in this sense) is a distinctive business organization of Christian organized religion, and so is translation and estimation—wherever there is Christian mission action, there is interpretation.
It is also worth noting that in moving from Hebrew or Aramaic to Greek, the New Testament is taking these events from a earth of security where they are easily understood into a larger, uncertain world where they could hands be dismissed or misunderstood. To practise mission is to be vulnerable (Matt x.xvi), and to engage in interpretation is to be vulnerable, and to accept risks. I think this is a key reason why the statement I began with has so much appeal.
Jesus as Interpreter
Whatever Christian missional action must flow from and exist a participation in the missional action of God. 'As the Male parent has sent me, so I am sending you' (John xx.21). Do we then find that the renewed mission of God to humanity in Jesus leads to fresh interpretation and understanding of God? Indeed we do. On the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, Jesus draws aslope two disciples who know the Scriptures, and are familiar with all the events of Jesus' life, but cannot relate the two together. So Jesus draws alongside them:
And start with Moses and all the Prophets, heexplained to them what was said in all the Scriptures apropos himself (Luke 24.27).
Once again, we discover our wordhermeneuo (this time in a compound withdia-). Jesus is not listing all the predictive prophecies subconscious in the OT which the disciples have not spotted (as I was taught as a teenager!). No, he is interpreting the OT in the light of himself, and in then doing besides interpreting himself to them in terms they tin can empathise. (When Luke records that 'Jesus was recognized past them when he broke the bread' I don't retrieve he is pointing forward to the presence of Jesus in Communion, just back to the terminal supper where Jesus renewed God's covenant.)
We run across the same dynamic in Paul, where he is constantly interpreting the OT Scriptures in the light of Jesus. And at the beginning of the letter to the Hebrews we read:
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, simply in these final days he has spoken to u.s. by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. (Heb ane.ane–ii)
There is both continuity and newness in God'due south actions in Jesus, and the old needs to exist interpreted in the light of the new. Hebrews so offers an extended exercise in reinterpretation of the OT, and peculiarly of the sacrificial arrangement, merely in passing besides the creation narrative, in the light of Jesus. Note that hither and elsewhere the movement is primarily in this management—making sense of the sacrificial organisation in the low-cal of Jesus, more than making sense of Jesus in the light of the sacrificial system. (For a contrasting approach, see some of the comments on my mail well-nigh Jesus and God's wrath.)
To put it theologically,the Christ event is an act of estimation. To be a follower of Jesus is to be an interpreter—backwards, in terms of agreement what God has washed in the by, and forwards, making this known to people who exercise non withal understand.
(Outset posted in 2013)
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