Is "canonical exegesis" too difficult?

Christopher Hays, in a review of Childs' The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture, has the following to say about the difficulty of doing the kind of exegesis Childs called "canonical":

The intellectual entrance fee for writing good theological exegesis must be very steep. If Childs or his heirs want to claim an elevated status for their project, that ambition should come with an even higher standard of training and preparation than “mere” historical-philological scholarship. Childs certainly met any standard that anyone could set, but not every theological interpreter does. He once called for a “single method” comprising both dimensions of the text, but it is here that his omission of 20th century theologian-exegetes is most lamentable: Younger scholars pursuing a “single method” approach receive no road map from Childs—they cannot learn, in this book, from the successes and errors of their immediate predecessors. (Nor do younger scholars who are less inclined to be sympathetic receive any constructive criticism, unless they are acolytes of Brueggemann.) 

Even if Childs had explained his “single method,” there are few who can and will ever master all of the necessary skills. It may be that the array of tools one needs to conduct theological biblical criticism is so extensive that canonical criticism is not really a young scholar’s game. How then could theological exegesis be carried out without requiring one person to master both biblical studies and theology?[*] 

I appreciate the final question. I'd say that one must strain to master both. Perhaps the solution to the problem lies in the way that university/seminary curricula are structured and integrated? Can they be adapted so that future students can receive the foundation they need to go on and wrestle with the "substance" of the text?

[*] "Bard Called the Tune," JTI 4.1 (2010), 151.

Psalm 24 in early Christian exegesis (in commemoration of Ascension Day)

Yesterday was Ascension Day, and as promised in my post on Resurrection Day, I will here give an outline of the reception of a Psalm that has, traditionally, had a special place in this festival. My source is E. Kähler's excellent Studien zum Te Deum und zur Geschichte des 24 Psalmes in der Alten Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1958).

The oldest undeniable reference to Psalm 24 (Kähler wonders whether it lies behind 1 Corinthians 2:8) is in the Apocalypse of Peter, in which Peter, during the Transfiguration and the appearance Moses and Elijah (Matt 17), asks Jesus where the other righteous are. As answer, he receives a vision of Paradise filled with believers. In this vision, the righteous—who are identified with the righteous of Ps 24:6— are kept in a kind of “pre-Heaven” as prisoners. A dramatic scene then enfolds, in which Jesus and the two prophets ascend first into this “First Heaven” and then take the righteous further upwards into the true Heaven, the Second Heaven, in order to consumate their salvation. This ascension creates “great fear and horror,” implying that some kind of celestial resistance needs to be overcome. This occurs with the calling out of Ps 24:7: “Open wide the Gates, you princes.”

Here is the relevant text, with allusion to Ps 24 underlined:

And behold, suddenly a voice came from Heaven and said: “This is my dear son, with whom I am pleased, and my commandments …” And an extremely large and sparkling white cloud came over our head and took up our Lord and Moses and Elijah. And I quaked and was horrified. And we looked upwards and Heaven opened up and we saw people in the flesh, and they came and greeted our Lord and Moses and Elijah and ascended into the Second Heaven. Then the word of scripture was fulfilled: “This generation seeks him and seeks the face of the God of Jacob.” And great fear and horror occurred in Heaven. The angels grouped together so that the word of Scripture would be fulfilled: “Open wide the Gates, you princes.” Following this, the Heaven which had been opened was closed again.”[*]

This understanding of the Psalm remained incredibly fruitful throughout the history of the early church, within all the major theological centres (Palestine, Alexandria, Carthage, South Gaul, Rome, Asia Minor). For the sake of space, I will simply list the main variations and emphases as found amongst the major theologians of these schools in this period:

• For Justin, in his dialogue with the Jew Trypho, our Psalm functioned as a prophecy of Jesus' ascension. He read it in connection with the other major Christian proof texts: Isaiah 53 and Daniel 7:13. The Isaiah passage seems to have furnished him with the answer to the question as to why Jesus experienced resistance before the gates of heaven. He arose in the from of the suffering servant, as so was not recognised by the keepers of the gate.


• For Irenaeus, Jesus is not recognised because he was “in the flesh.” He also interprets the dialogue between gate keeper and those requesting access as being between angels of the lower realms and angels of the upper realms.


• Tertullian is the first to categorise the Lord demanding entrance as homo (“man”).


• Hippolytus is the first to categorise the Lord as soter (saviour), a term with ecclesiological and political overtones.


• Interestingly, the Gnostics also had a similar interpretation, which in itself is not un-Christian. They identified the identity of the Lord with Psalm 22:6: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people”


• Origin applies the standard Christian eschatological interpretation to his allegorical interpretation of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem, understood as his entrance into the “true” Jerusalem. The city is astounded at his entrance and asks, “Who is this?” Again, the confusion is due to Jesus' incarnation.


• In the time of Athanasius, this standard interpretation had become so established that he could simply assume it when interpreting other texts, e.g. the motif of incarnation and exultation in Phil. 2:5-11. For Athanasius and those like him, the Psalm had become “a means of making events which would have otherwise been impossible to know about both conceivable and tellable.”


• Later Church Fathers added their own interpretations. Augustine interpreted the mythological language ethically, while Ambrosius talked of the Lord's entrance into the human soul. Nevertheless, the basic schema remained the same.


• As far as I can see, one Church Father who took an innovative but later popular route is Gregory of Nyssa, for whom the Psalm was a supplement to the written gospels themselves, reporting events not contained therein. In a sermon on the Psalm, Gregory understands the two-fold questioning (vv. 7 and 10) as representing two different events, and two different locations. The first concerns Christ's descent to earth, where he went on to conquer the gates of Hell (hence his identification as “mighty warrior”). The second refers to the gates of heaven, where he returns, having completed his mission. In order to access to the first, he became incarnate. On his return journey, however, he remained incarnate, thus the inability of the angels to recognise him on his return.


• This “Harrowing of Hell” motif finds its most significant development in the Gospel of Nicodemus (as I posted on here, thanks to Vox Stefani). According to this account, two righteous Jews who had been resurrected from the dead shortly after Jesus' own resurrection give eyewitness reports on how their resurrection actually took place. In short, Jesus entered Hell and there was a call to open the gates. Satan responded by locking them in fear. The enslaved saints inside cried out again for the doors to be opened. Satan's partner, inferus, asks “Who is the king of glory?” King David, in his function as prophet, answers with Ps. 24:8 and repeats the demand to open the door. Inferus binds Satan and, so it seems, lets Jesus in. Jesus enters, establishes his “war trophy” (Siegeszeichen), which is the cross, and then takes all the saints to Heaven.

[*] My translation, based on the German translation by E. Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (1924). Cited in Kähler, Te Deum, 54.

An ancient theological exegesis of Psalm 24

On April 19 the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated The Day of the Resurrection and, much to my surprise, has as one of its liturgical texts an extract from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. This Gospel provides us with a description of events in Jesus' career which are hidden from sight in the four canonical gospels: the moment between his crucifixion and resurrection, and the moment after the ascension, between his envelopment by the clouds and his enthronement at the right hand of the Father.

So how did the author of this Gospel find out what happened? He read the Old Testament, of course! In this case, Psalm 24 proved to be the main source of information. As Gregory of Nyssa put it, Psalm 24 is a supplement to the Gospels, providing us with additional information not contained in the canonical Four. The tradition that Psalm 24 (LXX Psalm 23) is about two events in Jesus' career (the Harrowing of Hell and the Ascension, corresponding to the two sets of questions and answers in the third strophe of the psalm) is relatively later, however. Originally the entire was read in relation to the Ascension. I will wait until Ascention Day itself (this coming Thursday) before posting more on the history of interpretation of this Psalm. For now, I share with you the Harrowing of Hell, replete with citation from Psalm 24 (underlined), kindly provided for us by Esteban of Vox Stefani:

And as the prince Satan and Hades spoke this together, suddenly there came a voice as of thunder and a spiritual cry: "Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall come in." When Hades heard that, he said unto the prince Satan: "Depart from me and go out of mine abode: if thou be a mighty man of war, fight thou against the King of glory. But what hast thou to do with him?" And Hades cast Satan forth out of his dwelling. Then said Hades unto his wicked ministers: "Shut ye the hard gates of brass and put on them the bars of iron and withstand stoutly, lest we that hold captivity be taken captive."

But when all the multitude of the saints heard it, they spake with a loud voice of rebuking unto Hades: "Open thy gates, that the King of glory may come in." And David cried out, saying: "Did I not, when I was alive upon earth, prophesy unto you: 'Let them give thanks unto the Lord, even his mercies and his wonders unto the children of men: for he hath broken the gates of brass and smitten the bars of iron in sunder; he hath taken them out of the way of their iniquity.'" And thereafter in like manner Isaiah said: "Did not I, when I was alive upon earth, prophesy unto you: 'The dead shall arise, and they that are in the tombs shall rise again, and they that are in the earth shall rejoice, for the dew which cometh of the Lord is their deliverance?' And again I said: 'O Death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?'"

When they heard all these things from Isaiah, all the saints said unto Hades: "Open thy gates: now shalt thou be overcome and weak and without strength." And there came a great voice as of thunder, saying: "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be ye lifted up, O gates of Hades, and the King of glory shall come in." And when Hades saw that they so cried out twice, he said, as though he knew it not: "Who is the King of glory?" And David answered Hades and said: "The words of this cry do I know, for by his spirit I prophesied the same; and now I say unto thee that which I said before: 'The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, he is the King of glory.' And: 'The Lord looked down from heaven that he might hear the groanings of them that are in fetters and deliver the children of them that have been slain.' And now, O thou most foul and stinking Hades, open thy gates, that the King of glory may come in." And as David spake thus unto Hades, the Lord of majesty appeared in the form of a man and lightened the eternal darkness and broke the bonds that could not be loosed: and the succour of his everlasting might visited us that sat in the deep darkness of our transgressions and in the shadow of death of our sins.

--From the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus

I wrote some comments on this on Estebans post.

See also my post Ancient Christian reception of Psalm 24.

What is "theological exegesis"?

Theses of what actually constitutes theological exegesis have recently been appearing on the blogosphere. Dan, of On Journying with those in Exile has an interesing post on how he understands the Bible. Given my passion for Childs and Barth and the idea of the text as "witness," (see, e.g. my posts Canonical process and the text as "witness" or Scripture as "witness" and the rule-of-faith) I especially appreciated this point:

(1.3) Thus, as a partial and privileged witness the Bible is understood as a text that reveals something beyond itself — God’s life-giving engagement with creation in general, and humanity in particular. Therefore, Christians treat the Bible as a sacred text, not because the text itself is sacred (or infallible, for that matter), but because the text points beyond itself to the revelation of the God of Life. As Karl Barth has said, the Bible is not the Word of God, but a witness to the Word of God — Jesus Christ.

I also appreciated Chris Tilling's response to this point in the comments:

The reason I am disatisfied with the ‘witness’ model is that it seems appropriate for much but not all of the biblical texts. Other models, such as authoritative canon, inspired word and revelation are discussed by Goldingay in Models for Scripture. He too prefers Witness but is careful how he formulates matters. Perhaps Vanhoozer’s essay in Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology may also be of interest in terms of 3.1.

Chris has supplemented this with with some of his own views in Rethinking Scripture.

Halden, too, has posted the nine theses of the "Scripture project," recently published in Hay's and Davis's The Art of Reading Scripture. I had come accross this list independently in Daniel Treier's excelent online article: "In the End, God" (a scholar to keep an eye out for, by the way). They go as follows:

(1) Scripture truthfully tells the story of God’s action of creating, judging, and saving the world.(2) Scripture is rightly understood in light of the church’s rule of faith as a coherent dramatic narrative.
(3) Faithful interpretation of Scripture requires an engagement with the entire narrative: the New Testament cannot be rightly understood apart from the Old, nor can the Old be rightly understood apart from the New.
(4) Texts of Scripture do not have a single meaning limited to the intent of the original author. In accord with Jewish and Christian traditions, we affirm that Scripture has multiple complex senses given by God, the author of the whole drama.
(5) The four canonical Gospels narrate the truth about Jesus.
(6) Faithful interpretation of Scripture invites and presupposes participation in the community brought into being by God’s redemptive action—the church.
(7) The saints of the church provide guidance in how to interpret and perform Scripture.
(8) Christians need to read the Bible in dialogue with diverse others outside the church.
(9) We live in the tension between the "already" and the "not yet" of the kingdom of God; consequently, Scripture calls the church to ongoing discernment, to continually fresh rereadings of the text in light of the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in the world.

Richard Hays had previously listed a series of theses on the practice of theological exegesis, which I listed in my post, Reading the Bible with the Eyes of Faith. I should point out that Hays received critique from Childs in his Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, something about subordinating the Old Testament to the New.

Latest issue of Princeton Theological Review dedicated to "theological exegesis"

The latest edition of the Princeton Theological Review has taken the occasion of B.S. Childs' death to focus on the question of "theological exegesis." You can download it here. In the Prolegomena, Peter Kline succinctly indicates the challenge and promise of recent developments:

Recent scholarly and ecclesial discussions about Scripture have invigorated an interest in what has come to be called theological exegesis or theological interpretation. With no denominational, institutional, or departmental home, this movement (if it can be called such) is both elusive and full of promise. It has brought together circles that often remain apart: Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants, theological and biblical scholars, clergy and academics; yet the lasting impact on any of these circles remains to be seen. Many (even its advocates) are still asking, what is theological exegesis? As of yet, there is no uniform answer, but a minimal definition is possible. Rather than a particular method, hermeneutic, or doctrinal outcome, theological exegetes share a common conviction about the location of Scripture: the church. The Bible is not primarily the property of the academy, the culture, or the individual, but of the one Lord who gathers, upbuilds, and sends the people of God. Theological exegesis treats Scripture accordingly; it is discipleship in the mode of reading. [*]

I would hasten to add, as Murry Rae's contribution makes clear, that the key is attention to Scripture's subject matter. Not only does this accord Scripture its true function as vehicle of revelation, it provides us with the proper stance for working out how to go about the gritting business of actual exegesis.

Of particular interest is Daniel Driver's essay, which, according to the Prolegomena, promises to demonstrate the overarching continuity of Childs' career.

[*] PTR 38 (2008), 5.

Another Childs Quote: Constructive theology and Exegesis

Biblical scholars have generally prided themselves on their independence from systematic theology. Yet their greatest achievements have been accomplished in those periods when constructive theology was strong and verile.

B.S. Childs, "A Tale of Two Testaments," Interpretation 26/1 (1972), 20-29.

Luke 24:13-35 and the Dogmatics/Exegesis Relation

A while back I made the point that posing a dogmatics/exegesis dichotomy is not only impossible to implement in reality (i.e. we always assume a theology before we read; see also Ben Myers on this here), it is also theologically undesirable. This is because the object of theological interpretation is not ultimately the text but the reality to which it points: Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot be found in any one text of the Bible, but rather represents the totality of the witness of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments. To turn the Bible itself into the Word of God is biblicism.

A certain Michael has asked me how this relates to the Emmaus road story (Luke 24:13-35). I'm glad for the question as thinking about it has helped confirm for me the truth that theological interpretation is and should always be a dialectic between dogmatics and exegesis, rather than a one-way street in either direction.

"Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures."

Moberly [*] points out that the logic of Jesus' expounding the Scriptures to his puzzled disciples is that these Scriptures provide a context and a content for making sense of Jesus, when all that the disciples know about him already somehow has not "clicked"; Israel's Scriptures help one make sense of Jesus. This represents the move from exegesis to dogmatics. Yet these disciples are Jews who are already thoroughly familiar with these Scriptures, many of which they would know by heart. So, Moberly concludes, "presumably a further part of the logic of Jesus' exposition is that the disciples need to be able to read these Scriptures in a new way, in the light of all that had happened surrounding Jesus, so that they can see in these Scriptures what they had not seen before; Jesus helps one make sense of Israel's Scriptures. Thus a two-way dialectic between Jesus and Israel's Scriptures is envisaged, both being necessary for Christian understanding of the crucified and risen Lord" (80).

The key point here is that it is the risen Jesus himself, an extra-textual reality, who positions us to be able to understand the texts that at the same time point to him. How do we get to know the Jesus who interprets the Bible for us? There are many ways, but central is the community of the church, who has preserved the Gospel for us and communicates it to us in summary forms such as in creeds and theological summa. One can't, on theological grounds, remove dogmatics from the activity of exegesis.

[*] R. W. L. Moberly, "Christ in All the Scriptures? The Challenge of Reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture" Journal of Theological Interpretation I.I (2007) 79-100.

Intentionality and the Final Form

I've been struggling to understand the relationship of authorial/editorial intentionality and theological interpretation of the final form of the text. Childs distinguishes the 'canonical approach' from Redaction Criticism by pointing out that the focus of interpretation is on the effect created by the editorial work on the final form, which is distinct from the actual intentionality of the editors themselves. Thus, he can say the following:

"Whether or not one can determine the motivation for joining Gen. 1 with Gen. 2, the present juxtaposition within a larger literary context affects the semantic level on which ch. 2 is read." (JSOT 16, 1980: 54).

Yet, at the same time, he does believe that some sort of intentionality is vital for the canonical approach, such that our interpretations should be 'coerced' by it (e.g. in this article) I've just re-read Seitz's intro to Word Without End, and I feel that I'm on the road to understanding what the nature of this 'intentionality' is.

The 'canonical intentionality' of the final form includes the discreet intentionalities of the tradents, yet is at the same time of a different order (or at a different level). It goes beyond them somehow. This, at first, seems an odd idea (Barr called the concept 'magical'). However, a truly theocentric reading (which is how Childs sells his idea) is interested not in the text itself, but in the reality (res) to which the text points. This reality is (arguably) theological and is outside the text (hence allegory over midrash for Christians). In other words, the truth to which the text witnesses is greater, richer and more complex then the individual authors could have perceived. It encompasses the text, author and reading community.

The various tradents of the traditions did their work in reponse to this one reality, such that they participated in it while never comprehending it fully. To the degree that the tradents submitted to this reality, their combined messages were consistent with it while never fully comprehending it. It would then seem logical that even traditions which were accidentally brought together (a reality Childs affirms) would speak of this truth more adequately when heard in concert. To get back to the author's conscious intention is to make an anthropocentric move, one which from the outset assumes revelation is not a case of an external reality evoking a response from a people united by covenant and faith. This qualifies Childs' use of 'reader response' theory. The reader is responding to something that was 'intended', though ultimately it God who is intending and not the individual authors.

This assumes that there is a single reality behind the diversity, thus ensuring that canonical interpretation can only really be done by those who believe it in the first place. A secular approach will struggle to comprehend a move that goes beyond concrete, historical intentionality (including the postmodern variety, which focuses on our concrete, historical intentionality).

Does that make sense? Feel free to tell me I'm missing the point ...

UPDATE: Murray Rae wrote an excellent essay on this topic in the first edition of the Journal of Theological Interpretation. It's entitled "Texts in Context: Scripture and the Divine Economy" and can be read here (after Joel Green's short intro).

R. Hays: Reading the Bible with Eyes of Faith: The Practice of Theological Exegesis

I'm excited to a have my first copy of the newly developed Journal of Theological Interpretation (see blog reactions here and here). In the comments below a potential parallel was pointed out between Childs' hermeneutical presuppositions and the first article of the journal by Hays (pp.5-21). I've given it a read and have decided that Hays' definition of what constitutes theological exegesis would be palatable to Childs. Like Childs he believes that we come to the text with a particular angle of vision, which can be inhibited or enlightened depending on our presuppositions. As Hays says,

"what we ordinarily take to be "real" is in fact a distorted picture of the world, and it is only the revelatory power of God's word that casts a true light on the landscape of human experience and, at the same time, heals our capacity to see" (p.6).

This is a non-foundationalist approach in that it recognises the central role of community in forming us as interpreters and thus seeks to locate interpretation of the Bible within the broader context of church tradition. I'll limit my review to what Hays considers 12 identifying marks of "biblical interpretation oriented to the knowledge of God":

1. Theological exegesis is a practice of and for the church. These texts have been passed onto us by the church's tradition as the distinctive and irreplaceable testimony to events in which God has acted for our salvation. As such the are to be regarded at the outset as Scripture, not merely as a collection of ancient writings whose content is of historical interest. These texts are to be normative for the community.
   
2. Theological exegesis is self-involving discourse. Interpreters themselves are addressed and claimed by the word of God that is spoken in the text, and we are answerable to that word. As a result theological exegesis will frequently contain pronouns in the first and second person. Such readings are closely interwoven with worship.
   
3. At the same time, historical study is internal to the practice of theological exegesis. The reasons for this are theological: God has created the material world, and God has acted for the redemption of that world through the incarnation of the Son in the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth.
   
4. Theological exegesis attends to the literary wholeness of the individual scriptural witnesses. The Bible must be read neither as an anthology of disconnected theological sound bites nor, on the other hand, as a single undifferentiated story. Rather, the Bible contains a chorus of different voices, and the distinctive integrity of each part in the chorus is essential to its polyphonic performance (cf. the fourfold Gospels).
   
5. The fifth point is the dialectical converse of the previous one: theological exegesis can never be content only to describe the theological perspectives of the individual biblical authors; instead, it always presses forward to the synthetic question of canonical coherence. We must seek the big picture, asking how any particular text fits into the larger biblical story of God's gracious action.
   
6. Theological exegesis does not focus chiefly on the hypothetical history behind the biblical texts, nor does it attend primarily to the meaning of texts as self-contained works of literature; rather, it focuses on these texts as testimony. This means we need to learn to stand where these witnesses stand and look where they point in order to learn to see as they see. In this way we will find our vision trained anew.
   
7. The language of theological exegesis is intratextual in character, i.e we should remain close to the primary language of the witnesses rather than moving away from the particularity of the biblical testimony to a language of second-order abstraction that seeks to "translate" the biblical imagery into some other conceptual register.
   
8. Theological exegesis, insofar as it stays close to the language and conceptions of the NT witnesses, will find itself drawn into the Bible's complex web of intertextuality. This includes citations, allusions as well as typological correspondences between the testaments.
   
9. Theological exegesis thereby is committed to the discovery and exposition of multiple senses in biblical texts. OT texts, when read in relation to Jesus, take on new resonances.
   
10. Learning to read the texts with the eyes of faith is a skill for which we are trained by the Christian tradition. Consequently, we can never approach the Bible as if we were the first ones to read it - or the first to read it appropriately. Theological exegesis will find hermeneutical aid, not hindrance, in the church's doctrinal traditions.
    
11. Theological exegesis, however, goes beyond repeating traditional interpretations; rather, instructed by the example of traditional readings, theological interpreters will produce fresh readings that encounter the texts anew with eyes of faith and see the ways that the Holy Spirit continues to speak to the churches through the same ancient texts that the tradition has handed on to us.
    
12. Finally, we must always remember that we are not speaking about our own clever readings and constructions of the text but, rather, of the way that God, working through the text, is reshaping us (cf. Hebrews 4:12). This means that theological exegesis must always be done from a posture of prayer and humility before the word.

Despite the many points of commonality with Childs' approach, there is still room for qualification (especially the overly NT emphasis of point 8!). Hays goes on to give a case study in relation to the Christology of Luke 7:18-23. I have to say, I find it hard to see the difference between his exegesis and that of a more talented historical-critic in tune of intertextual issues and the implications of the text for the bigger picture. For an example of theological exegesis which more seriously works with the two testamental nature of the Bible, I recommend Seitz's essay "Isaiah in New Testament, Lectionary, Pulpit" (1998:213-228).

Nevertheless, this is promising stuff and will definitely be a reference point for work to come.