I must admit that I am not a blogger, but I am willing to try it out. Now...what to write about?
My current topic, I suppose, should begin where I am currently working. It was my great pleasure to take a seminar on the Sermon on the Mount with Dr. Jonathan Pennington from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was, to my delighted surprise, enlightening, motivating, and challenging in unexpected ways.
One of the most interesting aspects of Dr. Pennington's material was his hermeneutical (interpretive method of the Bible) approach, and my hermeneutical assumptions have been at least challenged. For single-meaning-multiple-significance types such as myself, there is at least one problem that should be addressed: how do we bridge that gap between meaning and significance? I mean, it's one thing to go through a technical book on how to do this (Grasping God's Word by Duvall and Hays comes to mind); it's another thing entirely to be able to describe that fuzzy path, traveling from "meaning" (what it "meant" to the author and original audience) to "significance" (what it "means" for us today). Who can articulate this well? I am not saying this can't be done, but I, for one, cannot. The practice of preaching hinges on the preacher's ability to travel from meaning to significance week in and week out, but it's one thing to do it and another thing entirely to describe the process. It seems to me to remain in that blurry field of "art" rather than that concrete method of "science".
Dr. Pennington's approach is refreshing. He challenges the notion that significance should be considered separately from meaning. I note the following: (1) authorial intent grounds us in "meaning" (whatever that word might mean :D); (2) there is a certain trajectory in the history of interpretation that is intimately related to authorial intent--and we are in that history of interpretation; (3) correct or incorrect readings of the Bible are rather understood as "good" or "bad" readings (I recall his rather apt illustration of an infrared image with "good" readings represented as very hot, and "bad" readings respresented as very cold); (4) any reading of the Word of God that neglects the cultivation of our love for God and neighbor (Augustine) is suspect (a "bad" reading); obversely, any reading of the Word that cultivates our love for God and neighbor is, at the very least, a better reading than one that neglects it.
This, to me, is potentially freeing. I have been guilty in the past, particularly due to my penchant for correction and love for truth, of taking the sledge hammer of exegetical knowledge and, in a rather unloving way, correcting those with whom I disagreed. As I suspect it is true of many who are in biblical fields of work, my tithe of correct understanding sometimes neglected the weightier matters of love and mercy. I found myself straining out a parsed Greek word and simultaneously swallowing my apathy for God and my fellow man. Can a conservative accept the view, in our anti-post-modern understanding, that it is just possible that significance is an integral part of meaning? Is it possible for me to judge my friend's Jeremiah 29:11 bumper sticker and his technical misinterpretation of it as ignoble and incorrect at the same time that I regard his cultivation of his love for God and neighbor--a direct result of his misinterpretation!--as not only noble, but right?
6 comments:
I could swear that I hear the sound of E.D. Hirsch weeping in the distance.
Shane you sound just like you would in person. I remember many of nights in Iraq at the ASP talking . Good job on the piece. Take care
Thank you for your kind words, Barry. I remember those days with fondness as well. I still chuckle at the memories.
dacroteau, I think Hirsch is helpful but incomplete, yes? I may be mistaken, but I don't think he himself describes the process of going from meaning to significance, does he?
I think one must be very careful with this notion. It is a reasonable thought for a biblical scholar to consider and remind himself of especially if he is apt to be judgmental and legalistic as a result of his knowledge. However, for the most part I think it could be very dangerous. Where would you draw the line? If meaning is determined by interpretation rather than fact, than the end result though it appears to be “good” is actually quite the contrary. That does not mean that one must get out the exegetical sledge hammer, but it also doesn’t mean that the scholar should just smiley dumbly. The silence would be more criminal than the fallacy. We as believers have a responsibility to edify one another, as Christ did, with love, compassion, gentleness and truth. Take your friend’s Jeremiah 29:11 “life verse” per se, what happens when God doesn’t shower him with prosperity because that was actually God’s words to Jeremiah, not your friend Joe. Then what? Now he thinks that God has forsaken him. Joe’s happy garden of oblivion no longer has “love” being cultivated. So, was it really good? No not at all, the truth is it was bad from the get go. In fact it is now far worse than if Joe had known from the beginning that the life of a Christ follower comes with suffering and trials. It just doesn’t jive.
Thank you for your comment, The Sage Family. Maybe a couple of clarifications are in order here: (1) The history of the Church demonstrates that, sometimes in spite of its flawed exegesis, she still advances the Kingdom; (2) I am not calling for silence. I am calling for love and a broader recognition of God's ability to work in the life of a believer; (3) related to 2, if and when we have the opportunity, we should, of course, provide a better hermeneutical approach. (4) Finally, meaning is always related directly to authorial intent, and insomuch as a person has digressed from this, he/she digresses from proper significance.
You make some of the very points I made in the classroom. I think, though, that maybe I have somehow miscommunicated the point here and perhaps this clarifies?
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