The more biblical studies I learned, the harder it was to preach it UNTIL . . . (AKMA on hermeneutics)

AKMA: Interpreting the Bible in a Sea of Signs (an article well worth reading.)

. . . Once I settled into my seminary studies, however, I discovered that my fascination with biblical studies engendered a baffling problem: the more I learned in my biblical courses, the less my studies seemed to enhance my ministry and preaching. Like any good academic apprentice, I tried at first to redouble my efforts. That only aggravated the problem; I knew more and more, but the technical apparatus of my learning always seemed to stand between me and the fluent, compelling, preach-able biblical theology for which I thirsted. My increasing technical expertise did not help me inhabit and proclaim the traditions I was studying.

. . . My way forward involved learning to explore the Bible and Christian tradition without participating in the ceaseless power struggle over whose interpretation is authoritatively right and whose is wrong. This means sidestepping — recuperating from — a fixation on the illusory authority of claiming the “correct” interpretation. I offer instead a way of thinking about interpretation that still involves deliberation about better and sounder interpretations, but without pretensions to decisive interpretive authority.

. . . I’ll summarize my postmodern therapy — a way out of the power struggle — in a quick tour of a promising alternative to the familiar landscape of modern critical biblical studies. Such an alternative may necessarily appear unfamiliar, and defy some deeply embedded imperatives of modern academic biblical study.

. . . One distinguishing mark of this alternative approach is the shift from hermeneutics oriented around the written word, to the interpretation of signs (semiotics) that is oriented toward communication and meaning in general, of which the interpretation of words is but one instance.

. . . Everything signifies, and in the economy of signification, words make up only a small, specific ingredient.

. . . The illusion that “meaning” lies within our control tends to blind us to how partially we understand our interpretations, even interpretations of our own words and actions.

We thus have no overarching criterion that separates legitimate interpretive sheep from misconceived goats. We can always assert that this or that interpretation passes muster — but we cannot display an ultimate criterion that gives decisive legitimacy to our favored interpretations. This should come as no great surprise. A truly universal criterion would meet with no dissent, since its status as a transcendent, universal criterion would render dissent incoherent. Critical readers have tried to define a hermeneutical method that results in unassailably legitimate interpretations, but none has attained a consensus that befits a universal or transcendent standard.

. . . Our communications function predictably and (on the whole) quite successfully because they rely on our participation in powerful patterns of shared behavior and custom. The more thoroughly one complies with one’s neighbors’ expectations, the more likely one’s communication with these neighbors will play out to mutual satisfaction.

[Note: this is where Relevance Theory can come in.]

. . . Signifying practices constitute subcultures with their own rules of engagement, jargon, expectations, etiquette. We learn how to participate in these distinct practices by inhabiting them, acknowledging the extent to which the subculture’s traditions and axioms prevail over our own bright ideas, and learning to express our ideas in the idiom of the particular signifying practice.

The upshot:

We have to get used to the idea that we have no access to an “objective,” universal criterion for deciding the absolutely right interpretation. [Emphasis mine.] We need to allow an elasticity, a mutual generosity, that neither historicists nor inerrantists can account for. We shouldn’t be looking for “the right answer” but should rather arrive at answers by which we can live and, in the end, by which we can stand before God’s throne of judgment. Each of us has to recognize that there are plenty of people smarter and more pious than you or me who will come to conclusions about scripture that we won’t like. So — thanks be to God — we who interpret scripture in the church have centuries of the saints’ teaching to show us ways of living, embodying, these answers.

I have made these points in public forums and time after time the upshot has been lost. What people hear and fear is relativism, chaos, indeterminacy. . .

. . . Jesus did not bring the gospel by coercion. He laid out the gospel so that people were free to decide. God vindicated him, as God will vindicate all who in faithfulness perpetuate the gospel in their lives.

. . .  There isn’t some esoteric meaning in Jesus’ sayings that takes an academician to explain; the gesture of teaching to give, the gesture of giving, and the gesture of living frugally all communicate something about how we put this world’s resources to use. Thus, the disciplined study of the Bible and of its interpreters over the ages leads some practitioners to deeper, sounder faith, while it leads others to church-less skepticism. It’s not the apparent facts that determine interpreters’ reception of them, but the ways that interpreters fit them together — or can’t. . .

By shifting our interpretive attention slightly away from words’ allegedly intrinsic meanings, and noticing the world’s vast interwoven fabric of expression and apprehension, offering and uptake, we can recognize biblical writings as gestures on the part of generations of storytellers and lawgivers, authors and editors and scribes, toward helping us recognize God’s ways and God’s character. The earliest audiences for these gestures perhaps misconstrued them; subsequent generations misconstrued them; and we too are likely to misconstrue them. We cannot stave off error by intensifying our attention to methods and facts in a futile effort to impose or control correct interpretation. We can, however, work toward minimizing our errors by . . . [click on Interpreting the Bible in a Sea of Signs]

Late draft for an article published in the Yale Divinity School alumni/ae magazine Reflections, Spring 2008, pages 53-57. I reckon this draft differs from the final copy in some respects, but the differences should be slight

Technorati Tags: hermeneutics,postmodern biblical interpratation

Black Africans saved Judah?

John Hobbins, Ancient Hebrew Poetry writes a fascinating post: Did a black Pharaoh wage war against Sennacherib and drive him away from Jerusalem? (9 March 2007). This post is a great starting point for anyone wishing to explore this issue further and includes a nice bibliography at the end.

Hobbins begins:

According to Henry T. Aubin, a black Pharaoh named Taharqa came to the aid of king Hezekiah of Judah, waged war against Sennacherib king of Assyria, and forced him away from Jerusalem. The title and subtitles of Aubin’s book are certainly impressive: The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC. An online summary of Aubin’s book is available here. Aubin’s captivating theory is highlighted in an article by Robert Draper entitled “Black Pharaohs: Conquerors of Ancient Egypt,” in the February 2008 issue of National Geographic.

[Draper’s National Geographic article Black Pharaohs is here – full text, including pictures.] Draper writes.

Until recently, theirs was a chapter of history that largely went untold. Only in the past four decades have archaeologists resurrected their story—and come to recognize that the black pharaohs didn’t appear out of nowhere. They sprang from a robust African civilization that had flourished on the southern banks of the Nile for 2,500 years, going back at least as far as the first Egyptian dynasty.

. . . The ancient world was devoid of racism. At the time of Piye’s historic conquest, the fact that his skin was dark was irrelevant. Artwork from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome shows a clear awareness of racial features and skin tone, but there is little evidence that darker skin was seen as a sign of inferiority. Only after the European powers colonized Africa in the 19th century did Western scholars pay attention to the color of the Nubians’ skin, to uncharitable effect.

. . . In any event, when the Assyrians left town and massed against the gates of Jerusalem, that city’s embattled leader, Hezekiah,

What do you want to do with your PhD? (comic)

If you are doing a PhD, or married to someone doing a PhD, you should subscribe to this site: www.phdcomics.com. They send an e-mail every time they post a new comic, and the 30 seconds it takes to look are usually well worth the laugh (it’s free). Below is today’s comic. Apart from the goatee, this guy looks awfully familiar (hair and eye color at least). To be honest, some of his previous appearances hit closer to home.

As for me, I think I know what I want to do – at least the general context, who I want to serve, and the types of things I want to be doing. On the other hand, I know the downsides of the job market. In a previous job, I worked with several PhDs who were basically doing glorified administration. It struck me then that I was already doing administration, though at a lower lever, and that made me wonder whether the sacrifice of time and money was really worth it. Let’s face it. PhDs in biblical studies are a dime a dozen; PhDs in New Testament are especially common. A provost of a seminary once told me that for every NT position they advertise, they get well over a hundred applications. (OT was more like 30; many were pastors looking to come return to academia.) In my program here, six of us are doing NT; only one is doing OT. (The translation department on the other hand has four candidates doing OT translation; the other one is studying the metaphor of light in both the OT and NT.) As a result, it was a little tough knowing that by choosing NT, I was basically killing any real job prospects. I’m not that good.

As for me, my basic goal when I am done is to assist African scholars in research and writing and to support African Christian leaders in a variety of ways. True there are already great people here doing that, but the field is expanding rapidly and is a little less crowded. This also explains why I wanted to do my program here. Having done undergrad and masters in the US, there is a lot I needed to learn from the African context. (Otherwise, a library is a library; research is research, and I have great supervisors and good outside contacts. I can’t ask for a lot more.) Frankly, this is a close to “home” as anywhere for me, and these are my people.

There are a lot of different ways to slice the future pie for me. Funding it is another story. That’s always the rub isn’t it?

Biblical Studies on the Web in February (almost all of it)

Kevin Wilson of Blue Chord has graciously sifted through all the web entries in biblical studies and selected a few notable ones from the month of February.

I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate these Carnivals.

My own observation (from the blogs I follow in Google reader) is reflected in this carnival. February was a rather light month. The big event in the blogosphere was the hacking and deleting of Jim West’s website. The posting of Karen Jobes’s article on translations also generated a couple of good posts (I had noted the ones by Hobbins a few weeks ago.)

Zondervan posted an article by Karen H. Jobes entitled “Bible Translation as Bilingual Quotation”. They issued an open invitation to bloggers to respond to the article and several took up the challenge. Jim Getz at Kethubim criticized the article in his post “How to Lie with Statistics: Bible Translation Edition”. At Ancient Hebrew Poetry, John Hobbins wrote two pieces in response: “Karen Jobes Squares Off against the Essential Literalists” and “Defining Faithful Translation: Why Jobes is Only Half Right”. The Epistle of Thomas joined the discussion with “Verbosity in English Translations”. Wayne Leman at Better Bibles Blog has a short discussion that contains links to some additional posts on Jobes’s paper.

But there is much much more on a number of other biblical studies subjects.