Reading in a Revised Frame of Reference

In his brilliant essay "Christ in All the Scriptures?", R.W.L. Moberly asks, "What should a Christian be trying to do with the OT at this moment in history?" He is thinking of our postmodern context, a context which "does not wish to dispense with science or technology as such ... but that is rethinking their significance within the overall scheme of things" (91). Here are his suggestions for reading in a revised frame of reference:

1) Being a good historian should no longer be a prime requirement of biblical study but should should merely be one important ingredient among others needed in the pot to produce nourashing fare. This is not least because the content of Scripture has to do with moral and spiritual realities, which require moral and spiritual literacy if they are to be handled well. As Stephen Fowl and Gregory Jones have put it, in a groundbreaking study, "the interpretation of Scripture is a difficult task not because of the technical demands of biblical scholarship but because of the importance of character for wise readings." [*] The rationality that one needs is informed not just by the technical mastery of intellectual skills but also by the moral and spiritual disciplines of the church.

2) Christ must be not only the light to which we look but also the light by which we see. Israel's texts that speak of divine sovereignty and grace, human sin and repentence, and the calling of israel to covenant faithfulness should be come more luminous, for Jesus embodies (in various ways) that of which the texts speak. Faith in Christ can give believers conceptual and existential resources for truer understanding.

3) Biblical interpretation needs to be seen as revolving around context. This involves recognising that biblical texts have many contexts. There is a difference, for example, between the originating context and the literary context of preservation. When Gen. 1 is read in its historical context, it may well be the product of "priestly" Jews in Babylon responding to the disintegration of their kingdom. When Gen 1 is read as part of a canonical collection that includes the account of personified wisdom, present with God at creation, in Prov 8, a further set of intertextual resonances and possibilities is set up. When Ge 1 is read as part of the Christian Bible, with the retelling of creation in relation to God's Logos/Word, then further resonances are set up. When one adds to this the Pauline account of Jesus as the image of the invisible God, and then the broader context of extended Christian engagement with the meaning of creation and humanity in the light of Scripture as a whole, then the question of context for the opening verses of the Bible is rich indeed.

[*] Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life (London: SPCK, 1991), 49.

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.