There are several bits of conventional “wisdom” with regard to reading and understanding the bible that generally make me want to pull my hair out. In the past, I’ve addressed many of them: the meaning of the word “literal,” the question of inerrancy/infallibility, and the nature of biblical authority in orthodox Anglicanism. This morning I’m turning to address following often-heard assertion:
“The bible is open to as many interpretations as there are interpreters.”
Those who say this generally mean either that:
1. The true meaning of the biblical text is difficult to attain, virtually indiscernible to the average reader. Moreover, in the process of interpretation the reader inevitably imposes his or her own meaning onto the text leading to further confusion and distortion.
Or
2. There is no “true meaning” that inheres in an absolute sense to the text itself. Rather true meaning arises from within the hermeneutical conversation that takes place between the contemporary reader and the ancient writer. Thus, “meaning” is always in flux. It makes no sense, from within this understanding of hermeneutics, to speak of “the meaning” of the text. There are only “meanings” and they are contingent upon the historical and cultural context of the interpreter.
The first meaning of the assertion generally comes from orthodox believers seeking to safeguard what they understand to be the primary place of the Church in biblical interpretation. They come generally from an anglo-catholic or Roman Catholic background. The point is not that the scriptures cannot be interpreted by individual readers but that that the Church is the best or the only correct interpreter of the scriptures.
I have dealt with this point in the article “Is Sola Scriptura Anglican?” While it is certainly true that no individual interpreter should read and interpret the bible in a vacuum and that the classic interpretation of given passages ought to always be given primary deference and respect, the Church can err. She is not an “infallible interpreter.”
But more to the point, the myriad of interpretations that do in fact exist does not mean that the bible is “open” to a myriad of interpretations any more than any other book. The bible was written by human beings who were divinely inspired and equipped to communicate with other human beings. The bible is thus no more difficult (and no less) to understand than any other work of literature.
It is intended to communicate content and it does. The same principles or rules of reading and interpreting that you apply to secular literature apply also to the scriptures. If it is possible for someone with a high-school education or less to read and understand the essentials of “Great Expectations” without an English Lit professor sitting by, it is certainly possible to read and understand the essentials of the “Gospel of Matthew” without a priest or a bishop.
Of course a professor (like a priest, bishop, or commentary) will help bring out the true depth and richness of the text and correct any misunderstandings, but so long as the high-school reader applies basic literary principles to the text, he or she should be able to come out with a basic and essentially accurate reading of the text.
No book is a “wax nose”. There is a meaning to all literature and that meaning is discernable to the average reader who applies the proper literary principles.
This does not in any way negate the need for the Church or tradition as the primary referent in understanding the bible but it does mean that individuals are able to read and understand the bible in an accurate way.
Why then do we see the myriad of sometimes whacked out interpretations? This problem stems from a basic failure to apply basic literary principles to the biblical text. For some reason, and this is unfortunately widespread in the evangelical world, when people read their bibles they read them in ways that they would never read any other book. They pull passages out of context and give them meanings that the text simply cannot support and apply them to situations that have no similarity to the situation they originally addressed. The book, “The Prayer of Jabez,” and the ensuing evangelical craze, is one recent and widespread example of this sort of decontextualized misapplication of God’s Word.
The second meaning of the assertion almost always comes from revisionists who embrace a radically pessimistic epistemology (the word “epistemology” refers to the question of the capacity, or lack thereof, of human perception to recognize and understand reality as it is in itself). Christian revisionism, which winds its way back to Schleiermacher and, ultimately, to Immanuel Kant, is thoroughly skeptical with regard to our ability to “know”, in an absolute sense, much of anything beyond the self and the experiences of the self.
Thus, the revisionist who appeals to the variety of individual interpretations is generally arguing for the subjective or contingent nature of the text. The bible means what the reader wants the bible to mean so there is no real point in arguing doctrinal matters by appeal to the scriptural text. If you tell me that homosexual behavior is wrong and then appeal to Romans 1:18-32 as a proof text, I can simply say: well, that’s your interpretation, that’s your understanding of the text utterly contingent upon your perception and your cultural/historical prejudices. And not only that, the text itself is utterly contingent upon the ever varied cultural/historical prejudices of the writer. It is simply a production arising from the personal perceptions and experiences of an ancient follower of God.
This is not to say everything is utterly relative. While perception beyond the self is suspect, the revisionist would say that personal experience does provide a somewhat tangible, albeit unstable, grounding for faith. Shared experience of a collective body can create an even more certain ground. If you wonder at the revisionist pairing of love for liturgical togetherness and table-fellowship with theological heterodoxy, wonder no more.
Truth, to the extent that we can know it, can only be found in the shared experiences of the risen Christ within the community of faith. That experience will always be changing because the body always changes. Thus, to the revisionist mind, to apply ancient texts in a prescriptive or proscriptive way to contemporary circumstances is absurd.
Ironically both the revisionist use of the phrase “there are as many interpretations of the bible as there are interpreters” and the orthodox use outlined above tend to erode any confidence an individual may have in his or her own reading of the biblical text.
How far both of these arguments are from the sentiments of St. Augustine who praised the scriptures, writing that the biblical text is like the ocean: shallow enough for a small child to enjoy the waves lapping up on the seashore and yet so deep that even the strongest swimmer cannot plumb its depths. In other words, even the simple or uneducated reader can understand the basic or plain sense of the scriptures and yet the most learned scholar cannot grasp the fullness of their meaning.
The core problem with any assertion that the bible is unknowable to the individual, whether it is made by a revisionist or an orthodox believer, is that the assertion itself is ultimately self-defeating.
As I argued above, though inspired and superintended by God, the bible, like every other book, was written by human writers and those writers intended to communicate specific content. There is then no reason to set the bible aside in some special category. If the bible is indecipherable, unknowable, and/or meaningless, then all literature, all speech, is equally indecipherable, unknowable and/or meaningless.
In fact to say, “The bible is open to as many interpretations as there are interpreters” would itself be indecipherable, unknowable and/or meaningless.
The argument that the bible is open to as many interpretations as there are interpreters is ultimately a deconstructionist argument.
The one who makes it consciously or unconsciously undermines the process of communication itself.
Before my anglo-catholic readers object to strenuously to what I have written above, let me say that I know the argument from the catholic perspective is not that the bible is indecipherable to the individual reader. Rather, the argument from the anglo-catholic/Catholic perspective is that while the individual may come close to a valid or true reading, only the Church can provide the true reading in its fullness and authority. And, of course, this is a valid argument.
The (first) problem however, is that it necessarily wrests the meaning of the text away from its primary location, the intent of the author, and places it with the Church. To do this you must trust implicitly in the infallibility of the Church (as Rome does) and deny, despite appearances, that there has ever been a time when the official interpretation/teaching of the Church has ever been at odds with the teaching of the scriptures. Anglicans confess that the Church has erred and will continue to fall into error and for that reason we must continue to return to the text itself as individuals, as parishes, and as a Communion and test all things, even classic interpretations, in light of the truth revealed there.
The second problem is epistemological. If only the Church, through her teaching office, can provide an authoritative reading of the biblical text because all individual readings are at least to some extent unreliable, then there is no reason to expect the individual to be any better at understanding the teaching of the Church than he or she is at understanding the bible.
Who will authoritatively interpret the Church’s authoritative interpretation?
This point was driven home to me the other day while watching the Eternal Word Television Network, the Roman Catholic cable channel created by the remarkable Mother Angelica.
There is currently a fascinating teaching series running on EWTN led by Fr. Corapi (a fantastic preacher by the way). The series is a section by section study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Fr. Corapi leads the series like a protestant evangelical would lead a bible study, examining the text and helping his hearers come to a deeper understanding of the intent of the Church.
Apparently, the Catechism is just as “open” to misinterpretation as the bible. Thank goodness for priests like Fr. Corapi. But then Fr. Corapi’s teaching will no doubt be misunderstood. Who will help us to understand Fr. Corapi’s teaching on the Teachings about the Word?
If words carry specific content and meaning, then the words of the bible carry just as much specific content and meaning as any other book. The core and essential meaning of the bible is understandable to even to those with the most rudimentary reading skills so long as the normative literary principles that apply to every other book are applied. This in no way negates the primary need for the teaching function of the Church, but it does mean that the individual believer has direct access to the Word of God and that not all individual interpretations are valid interpretations.
The text itself provides the measure for all interpretive efforts, even those of the Church.
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“If the bible is indecipherable, unknowable, and/or meaningless, then all books, all speech, is equally indecipherable, unknowable and/or meaningless.”
Sounds like a Gnostic nirvanah to me!