The Context of Theology and Exegesis
We want to start the discussion back up after a winter break with a couple of quotes and questions:
1. The first quote is from Desmond Alexander’s From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology – “The Anthology (the Bible) itself, which abounds in intertextual references, provides most of the literary context within which its contents may be understood. There is not a book within the whole collection that can be interpreted satisfactorily in isolation from the rest. Each book contributes something special to the meta-story and, in turn, the meta-story offers a framework within which each book may be best interpreted. In this regard, the long standing principle of interpreting Scripture by Scripture makes considerable practical sense” (10).
-Here’s the question: Which word doesn’t fit in this paragraph, given a compositional approach to authorship?
2. The second quote comes from Charles Scobie, The Ways of Our God – “Studies of individual books of the Bible or of biblical authors (the Deuteronomist, Second Isaiah, Paul, John, and so on) are often regarded as studies in ‘biblical theology’. Such studies are not really ‘biblical’ unless the study of the book or author concerned is related to the total biblical context; in practice this is rarely the case” (79).
Taken together with the Alexander quote, the second question is this: is it legitimate to consider a book’s message independent of any relationship or association with the rest of the canon?
Matt,
Great questions. I’ll admit that I’m having trouble with them. The reason is that each individual book has an author who wrote that book with a purpose, to communicate something to his readers. That author, however, was writing his book within a stream of literature that has been editorially collected to form what we now call Scripture. Unless the reader is familiar with the whole Text, the spiritual and theological depth of the writing will not be appreciated to the degree the author intended. That said, those not familiar with the whole Text can still satisfactorily read each individual book of the Bible – and probably would not appreciate the connections even if they were noticed.
It seems to me that people read the Bible from many different levels of spiritual maturity, and some texts they simply won’t understand until they have become more familiar with the larger context of the Bible (e.g. the warning in Hosea 14.9). The lessons they are learning from these books are not the lessons you or I would learn, but I still think they are important parts of how they are growing to understand God and his mission.
Andy
Andy,
I personally think you’re correct: because the canon has been put together as one book, and because of the almost unmeasurable number of intertextual references, it seems to be that the most sound theological and exegetical approach is to consider the part in light of the whole.
My specific concern is with the meaning of words as used by different authors; when we read the part (book) in light of the whole (canon), do we import the meaning of words onto an author’s use of that word? I personally don’t think that is legitimate. But how do we avoid that fallacy while at the same time reading the book in light of its canonical context?
Matt Emerson
Great discussion Gents, glad we are back at it! Mr. Emerson, in regards to your first question of the post, the word in the Alexander quote that strikes me as out of place is “most”, as in the Bible itself provides most of the literary context. I suppose it makes a good bit of difference if he means that the rest of the literary context is provided from within each individual book, or somewhere outside of the Bible (which makes little sense). Maybe I am misunderstanding him here.
As for the question of how to consider the parts in light of the whole, I think Andy summed things up nicely. I’ve also struggled with how to do justice to both authorial intent and canonical unity/intertextuality when it comes to word meanings. I think we have three options on this point: 1.We define/explain words(or texts) on two levels, the “original intent/setting” of the author and then a canonical level. This approach to me, however, seems far to simplistic and creates a false dichotomy. It seems to me that authors are generally writing with a canon-consciousness. 2.We grant that the biblical writers did indeed have a canon-consciousness, and so when an author uses a particular word or phrase that creates a case of intertextuality, we take the canonically informed meaning and implication of the word to be the author’s original intent. i.e. authors mean for us to “read in” meaning from other texts. 3.We expand what we mean by “author”. What I mean here, is perhaps we need to consider the canonicler the “final author” of each text, and so meanings and interpretation created by any editing or juxtaposition of books is now “authorially intended”.
My guess is all of three of these may at times be at work. Just my thoughts, and I am still working through it, would love to hear you guys’ thoughts and feedback. In any case, I don’t think it is illegitimate to derive the meaning of words in the part (a book) in the light of the whole (the canon), otherwise “canonical theology” seems to have very little meaning.
Matt Carter
Matt C.,
I definitely agree that editing/composition should be included in our view of authorship. It is not, though, clear to me how piecing together texts or adding seams to them (e.g. the composition of the Tanak) supersedes or changes the (perhaps only subtle) differences of the meaning of words in the different parts of the whole. In my opinion word definition should be determined first by immediate context, but this does not exclude that determination being influenced by the canonical context. I’m still thinking through this as well, just some things to consider.
Matt Emerson
Matt,
I was wondering if “Anthology” was the odd word out when it comes to composition. In my understanding composition has more intentionality than what anthology can bring.
LGW