Porter - Dictionary of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation

New York: Routledge, 2007. – 424 p.

ISBN 0-203-96975-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN-10: 0-415-20100-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-415-20100-1

 

This dictionary has been a long time in the making. At last it is released to the world—far from complete (no dictionary could ever be), but willing to take its place as one of the tools in the enterprise of biblical criticism and interpretation. The title of the volume reflects its aim. That is, to provide a dictionary-length guide to major issues, approaches, and people that have been important in the development of biblical criticism and interpretation. Criticism addresses the variety of methods that have been developed, especially since the Enlightenment, to help us as biblical interpreters to come to terms with the issues surrounding reading the Bible. Interpretation addresses the fact that all these various methods, and those who have utilized them—including those preceding modern critical analysis—have been involved in helping biblical readers to gain understanding. The scope of the dictionary includes major time periods of biblical criticism and interpretation, the range of corpora between the two Testaments and other texts as well, critical approaches, methods, and mind-sets of significance, and even a variety of individual critics and interpreters. Whereas we have some confidence that we have covered the major critical periods and most of the significant methods and approaches, it was necessary to be highly selective regarding the individuals included. I apologize here if you think that your favorite biblical scholar—or even you, yourself!—should have been included but was not.

 

This enterprise began with the idea of Richard Stoneman, editor for Routledge. I wish to thank him for encouraging the development of this project, and for his patience as it took longer than anticipated. My hope is that this dictionary will join the ranks of the significant and growing list of Routledge volumes that have come to be important for understanding the ancient world, of which the Bible is a significant part.

 

At the outset of this project, I asked my then colleague Dr. Brook Pearson to be a coeditor with me. He gladly undertook this task and initiated correspondence and kept the databases regarding the project. Due to a variety of factors, he has been unable to continue with the project, and I have truly missed his participation. I wish him the best in his own continuing scholarly endeavors. His separation from the project corresponded to a time of transition for me from one continent to another, which has occasioned the delay in completion and publication.

 

In his stead, and at the last stages, my teaching and research assistant, Andrew Gabriel, joined the project. I wish to thank Andrew for tackling all dimensions of the project so avidly, including the databases, the ever-growing stack of manuscripts, and the electronic files. He has also been of great assistance in corresponding with authors, recruiting last-minute participants, and editing contributions.

 

My major debt is to the individual contributors. Over the course of the years, a number have wondered whether this project would ever see the black of print. I am pleased to say that that day has finally arrived. I thank you for your patience, and your faith in believing that this project was far from dead. This volume brings together scholars from several different continents, to say nothing of many different countries. One of the results of this has been the ability to benefit from a variety of perspectives reflective of the places in which these scholars do their critical work. Along the way, some potential contributors had to withdraw, and others had to be recruited. Some of these joined at the last minute. I especially appreciate the willingness with which a number of last-minute contributors accepted invitations and returned their contributions in a timely and efficient manner. I am confident that the quality of their contributions has been equal to the others, and that readers will find a surprisingly high degree of consistently fine contributions within this collection. Thank you to each of you for offering your expertise and for being willing to make a contribution to this project.

 

As a last word, I wish to encourage users and readers of this volume to explore the depths of its riches. As I reviewed articles, it became clear to me that the tapestry of criticism and interpretation of the Bible is complexly woven. The various strands include history, literature, material remains, philosophy, and a variety of other things. Many of the articles, even though the individual contributors were unaware of it, were closely intertwined with other contributions because of their common task of attempting to help us to understand biblical criticism and interpretation. My hope is that this volume helps you also in your biblical interpretation.

 

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ETHICS AND INTERPRETATION

In the last decade of the twentieth century, trends in biblical studies indicated forms of inquiry which attempt to correct overly atomized and historicized approaches to scripture. This led to questions as to how the texts prescribe and historically narrate moral or ethical formation of persons but also how these texts might function for contemporary readers and religious communities. In addition, a number of guiding questions have emerged which point up the contextualized nature of contemporary biblical studies as too often uncritically Euroand male-centered exegesis. The necessity of highlighting the particularity of modern exegetical method with its ‘scientific’ claims of normativity and neutrality turns out to be driven by overreaching universal claims of Western culture-based interpretation. Ascertaining the relationship between the Western guilds of biblical study and students from cultural backgrounds different from those guilds begs the question of the applicability of the interpretive interests of those guilds to other cultures, including noncritical, religious readers. The ethics of interpretation itself then becomes closely linked with the connection between interpretation and ethics.

 

One of the dominant strategies for linking interpretation and ethics is the study of biblical hermeneutics and texts from a character-ethics perspective. Some of the leading representatives of this approach are Robert Brawley, Walter Brueggemann, Jacqueline Lapsley, William Brown, Daniel Carroll, Lois Daly, Ellen F. Davis, Mark Douglas, Carol Newsom, Terence Fretheim, Ann Jervis, Marcia Y. Riggs, and Ronald Smith. In this context moral formation, identity, and perception become a kind of exegetical grid for the approach to scripture along with constant attention to the role of community in shaping moral identity. One of the characteristics of this approach is to outline the historical lineage of the approach according to three periods of modern interpretation, reflecting upon the contribution of J.I.H. McDonald. In the first period, from the nineteenth to early twentieth century, liberal scholarship appears to reflect new Enlightenment methods of biblical criticism and ethics. In the second period this approach already undergoes deconstruction separating the hard historical content of the ancient biblical text from contemporary cultural reflection typical of mid-twentieth-century skepticism and existentialism. In the third period, postmodernist recovery of texts, ancient or modern, resolves the question of access and cultural utilization of text through an ironic universal axiom of unavoidable interpretive bias which has always radically colored the reading and interpretation of the Bible in every period and in every context. Instead of being a single, universalizing interpretive strategy or set of privileged interpretive strategies, this latter approach seeks to recognize the radical multiplicity of interpretive standpoints without privileging any one perspective—indeed, rejecting the whole notion of a privileged perspective.

 

If a distinction is made between studying scripture for its clues as to ancient instruction and narration of character formation and its contemporary function in this regard, the interpreter of course has not escaped a particular context of contemporary interpretation but is merely asking a set of fresh questions of the text. Nevertheless, fresh questioning of the text has revealed a rich array of contemporary scholarly output. This includes looking at how ancient Israel employed narrative, liturgy, and ritual in the religiosocial-formation of its young. The rehearsal of epic narrative included the placement of the contemporary readers within decisive historical events for the purpose of defining and shaping the character of a new generation of members of the community of YHWH. Through a complex and lived process of contemporary community embodying a narrative by seeing itself as embedded in that narrative the communal sense of obligation to the God of the commandments was conveyed by that narrative.

 

The narratives of scripture shift a great deal in terms of their dramatis personae and frequently focus upon a singular individual within the community. The formation of character within the community of YHWH is often highly complex and defies simplistic codification and transmission. The personages of Abraham and Sarah, Rebekkah and Isaac, Joseph, Moses, and David, include ambiguous and conflicting portrayals which betray the struggle for moral character, and God’s intimate involvement in that struggle. These are those who explicitly or implicitly are portrayed as ‘friend of God.’An ethical realism pervades these biographical narratives where the judgment of others can be quite negative as against demonstrations of divine favor and forbearance. The guiding characteristic of these narratives is to present a kind of intimacy of relations between the person portrayed and God, often in spite of disparaging judgments concerning this person by the community. In many respects then, the texts of scripture function as depth perceptions on human character.

 

While the biblical texts portray the irreducible presence of the community in moral formation, the decisive presence of biography is also at play. Character is not in the end a communal but a personal trait which is indicative of the formation of a ‘self’ possessed of independent moral judgment and action. The composition of the wisdom literatures of the Old Testament, from Proverbs to Qohelet, conveys this interest in the self from multiple perspectives. From optimistic aphorisms to confrontation between the human friend of God and God, these texts portray contexts of lived experience and interpretation in intimate relation with God. There appear two trajectories of moral formation, one in which the human being and the community is the object of divine favor and even chastisement with particular individuals as models not so much of unambiguous faithfulness to God but of God’s faithfulness to God’s people. The other trajectory is one of imitatio Dei, of imitation of God’s character, who unilaterally gives and saves sinful people (cf. Ezek. 24:15–27), as motivation for obedience to the Torah and life in the community of God.

 

In turning to the New Testament, significant attention is paid to the life of Christ and of the apostles in recent scholarship where imitatio Dei becomes imitatio Christi. Emphasis also upon charismatic experience and the reality of the immanent presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the first believers is also evident (cf. Gal. 5:22–25). Discipleship texts, didactic and narratival, as displaying Jesus’ unique ethics of the Kingdom of God in distinction from other forms of ancient moral vision can be highlighted. The quintessential disciple, one who follows Jesus (Matt. 4:19; 8:19; 10:38; Mark 8:34; Luke 14:27; John 12:26), or who imitates apostles, and others who in turn are imitating Christ (Phil. 3:17; 2 Thess. 3:7, 9; Heb. 13:7; 3 John 1:11) fulfil a process of character building rooted in exemplarity, both positive (John 13:15; Acts 20:35; Rom. 4:12; Gal. 3:15; 1 Thess. 1:7; 1 Tim. 1:16; 4:12; James 5:10; 1 Pet. 2:21) and negative (Col. 2:15; 2 Pet. 2:6; Jude 1:7). Throughout the literature a broad spectrum of interpretation reflects creative inter-textual linkages between the Testaments.

 

One of the ways in which a bridge is built between a historical rendering of ancient moral formation in the biblical text and contemporary use of the text is ancient Christian interpretation, e.g., martyrdom texts of the second and third centuries, from Polycarp to Perpetua and early interpreters/commentators such as Augustine. Of interest in martyriologies are the theological and moral parallels of endurance which are narrativally constructed between the Passion narratives of Jesus and also of Stephen (Acts 6–7) and the portrayal of the lives of the martyrs themselves. Lives of martyrs, as with the lives of Jesus and his first disciples, exemplify the essential moral teachings of the New Testament (cf. Luke 17:25; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Cor. 10:13; Col. 1:11; 1 Pet. 2:19) in obviously ultimate ways.

 

Discussion of the ethical use of scripture as an always interpretive, contextualized endeavor means that it is a self-consciously cross-disciplinary one. Whether as dialogue partner or resource, social sciences, philosophical ethics, global politics, and literatures are all part of the contemporary construction of interpretations. One of the most frequent utilizations of texts is the exploration of moral formation that results in pacific character- and peace-making activity. Particular attention is paid to Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount where peacemaking is frequently considered the sum of all virtues, which include humility, generosity, self-control, compassion, self-scrutiny, commitment to restitution, purity of thought and action. Exploration of the relation between God’s action of salvation, justification, and reconciliation (Rom. 5:1–11; Phil. 2:1–11; and Eph. 2) and human imitative action are at the cutting edge of contemporary discussion. In addition, questions of community formation and boundary setting, the understanding of wealth and possessions (e.g., Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–35), the role of women and minorities, of strangers and displaced persons, of former ‘deviants’ and those who return to their deviancy, of political power and religions outside Judaeo-Christian boundaries find rich resources and complex expression in contemporary literature.

 

The whole question of the use of scripture as instrument of moral formation is analyzed in this vein. What is the hermeneutical function of a text in view of such authoritative status and also the history of authoritative misinterpretation and failures of interpretation? At the heart of this discussion is the very question of the history of crossdisciplinary interpretation. Are Aristotelian ethics compatible with biblical ethics? What are the continuities and discontinuities of Judaic and Christian biblical ethics? If biblical ethics are a complex arrangement of prescriptive and descriptive elements for purposes of worship and personal understanding, is there a relativity of biblical ethics that tends to be discounted?

 

References and further reading

 

PERRIN, NORMAN (1920–1976)

Norman Perrin was born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom, in 1920, the son of a factory worker. He graduated from the Hinckley Grammar School in 1936 and then helped to support his family. The implementation of his plan to study biblical theology was interrupted by the Second World War. From 1940 to 1945, he was an intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force, analyzing aerial photographs in North Africa. There he learned Greek in a military canteen within earshot of Rommel’s Afrika Corps.

 

After the war, Perrin visited Israel and resumed his academic and ecclesiastic pursuits. At the University of Manchester he studied with T.W. Manson and graduated with a B.A. in Theology in 1949. He married Rosemary Watson and, while pastor of the Westbourne Park Baptist Church in London, enrolled as an external student at the University of London. He received his Bachelor of Divinity in 1952 and was ordained in the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1953. He continued as an external student while serving his second pastorate at the Sketty Baptist Church, Swansea, South Wales, and received his Master of Theology from London in 1955.

 

In 1956 Perrin attended Berlin’s Kirchliche Hochschule. The following year he went to the University of Göttingen to study with the distinguished Semiticist and interpreter of Jesus’ parables, Joachim Jeremias. In 1959 he graduated magna cum laude and emigrated to the United States where he joined the faculty of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. His revised Göttingen dissertation was published as The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus in 1963.

 

In 1964 Perrin accepted a position at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Increasingly absorbed by Bultmannian hermeneutics, popular at Emory, he now came under the influence of Eliade’s studies of myth, and Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. He became an American citizen in 1967, divorced, and married Nancy Denney. Though he was diagnosed with cancer and had a kidney removed in 1969, he died unexpectedly of a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day, 1976.

 

Perrin’s professional academic career lasted only seventeen years. Yet, he wrote eight books, thirty articles, and forty book reviews. He also translated two articles and three books from German. Perrin was a specialist in form criticism, redaction criticism, and Bultmannian existentialist hermeneutics. He helped to pioneer ‘new’ literary criticism. He made major contributions to the study of the Kingdom of God; the Son of Man; the historical Jesus; parables; the Gospel of Mark; New Testament Christology; and myth and symbol in the New Testament. He also wrote The New Testament: An Introduction (1974). He was a Guggenheim Fellow and in 1973 was honored as President of the Society of Biblical Literature.

 

Perrin’s life and work later became the subject of a dissertation and several articles by Calvin Mercer. His legacy was celebrated in video, lecture, and personal reminiscence at a special session of the Society of Biblical Literature on November 25, 1996, the twentieth anniversary of his untimely death.

 

References and further reading