Evangelicals and the Flat Text Society
Evangelicals and the Flat Text Society
One of the most helpful books I read during graduate school was Jeffrey Burton Russell’s incisive, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians (Praeger, 1991). In it, Russell refutes once for all the earlier consensus view that Aquinas, Columbus, and other medievals believed in a flat earth. Not even Russell, however, can rescue evangelicals from the charge of treating the canon of Scripture as a flat text.
This should not be entirely surprising, given our treatment of words in general. As Marilyn Chandler McEntyre has put it in Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies:
Precision of expression is neither taught nor appreciated in a culture that has prostituted language in the service of propaganda. To the degree that we consent to cheap hyperbole, flip slogans, and comfortably unexamined claims, we deprive ourselves of the felicity of expression that brings things worth looking at into focus—things like happiness, for instance, which comes so much clearer and seems so much richer when we see it displayed in an array of colors: merriment, blitheness, gaiety, delight, contentment, joy, bliss, felicity itself.
More often than not, words are stripped of their brilliance and turned monochrome by our decontextualization. They are flattened by our isolation from their surroundings. The sheer ubiquity of words in our culture tends to strip them of their texture.
This reality has led many of my students to read the words of the Bible the same way they read the words of a blog or the words of a text message on their cell phones. Words are words. Not long ago I assigned a student an essay by a famous Marxist moral philosopher. The assignment included both elucidating the text and submitting it to critical reflection—a standard academic project. When he offered his considerations to the seminar class, he completely ignored the date, location, and background of the essay, not to mention neglecting to read a single biographical sketch of the author. He read this text just like any other text he had read. Consequently, he utterly missed every code word of Marxism in the essay, along with other important features of the argument. In other words, he failed to contextualize the words on the page and by doing so missed the force of the author’s argument. Worse, because he did not understand what the author was saying, he was at a loss to respond critically.
If this were only an undergraduate mistake it would be tragic enough. But one of the most crippling practices of evangelical culture is the flattening of the biblical text. Sola scriptura was never meant to suggest that all scripture was identical in every way. The slogan does not justify ripping the biblical witness from its context or detaching it from its genre.
Before we can accurately understand what the Word means today, we must first understand what the words meant to their hearers. Our inattention to context sometimes leads us to universalize texts that were meant only to apply in particular times and places. Putting ourselves in the political, cultural, and even geographical context of those who first heard or read the text is not always easy, but it is necessary to being good stewards of the Word of the Lord. Happily, much of the hard work has been done for us in reliable biblical commentaries. They can be a great asset—if we avail ourselves of them.
Our inattention to genre has led some people to misunderstand what we mean by a “literal interpretation of the text.” To say I believe the Bible is literally true does not mean I believe that rivers have hands when the Psalmist says “Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy” (Psalm 98:8 NIV). But I do believe that the salvation of the Lord makes his people jubilant! It just so happens, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the author uses the literary device of a psalm to communicate that truth.
Prefatory statements in sermons like “the Bible says,” or even that vexing expression heard far too often, “it says,” level the exquisite relief of the deeply contoured Word of God. No, “God said to Moses” or “Jesus replied to the Pharisees” or “Paul said to Timothy.” The words of the Bible are situated because those words were first meant for those who received them in a given social, cultural, geographical, and economic context. That, rightly interpreted, they also apply to God’s people across the centuries is a testimony to the supernatural character of God’s written revelation.
Unless evangelicals are willing to do the hard work of biblical exegesis, hermeneutics, and application, there is little reason anyone should take us seriously.
I used to be of the literal bent. As a lay person, I deferred to my pastors. I had few influences. They too–now I know–had few influences. I was part of a broad network of the underexposed. Unsatisfied by a stale faith, I then sought to explore why I believed what I believed and read much over a decade and a bit more. Topics covered Biblical scholarship among others. You mention that, "there is little reason anyone should take us seriously." True enough. I don't take seriously at all most of my pastors. I try to engage them on content-rich conversations, but they are busy. Behind the obvious social and economic constraints of the theological context's job, there are time constraints too. Few in professional ministry have time to rethink their presuppositions and more. Sermons become a revelation of some sort of a mix of sermons heard over the years, the appointed text, and whatever is their angst or issue at hand in their own or somebody significant's faith. The theological hodge-podge is visible after a few Sundays of attentive listening. I tithe. My wife loves (or maybe love/hates in an unknown trap of felt need's circularity and cycle) it similar to how I once did too. It's unfulfilling and, to sum up by borrowing one of your words, flat. "Unless evangelicals are willing to do the hard work?" Swords remain sola swords and there are no ploughshares perhaps simply because no one labours in their hermeneutical beating. I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields; the harvest is great. But the laborers? They are few.
I used to be of the literal bent. As a lay person, I deferred to my pastors. I had few influences. They too–now I know–had few influences. I was part of a broad network of the underexposed. Unsatisfied by a stale faith, I then sought to explore why I believed what I believed and read much over a decade and a bit more. Topics covered Biblical scholarship among others. You mention that, "there is little reason anyone should take us seriously." True enough. I don't take seriously at all most of my pastors. I try to engage them on content-rich conversations, but they are busy. Behind the obvious social and economic constraints of the theological context's job, there are time constraints too. Few in professional ministry have time to rethink their presuppositions and more. Sermons become a revelation of some sort of a mix of sermons heard over the years, the appointed text, and whatever is their angst or issue at hand in their own or somebody significant's faith. The theological hodge-podge is visible after a few Sundays of attentive listening. I tithe. My wife loves (or maybe love/hates in an unknown trap of felt need's circularity and cycle) it similar to how I once did too. It's unfulfilling and, to sum up by borrowing one of your words, flat. "Unless evangelicals are willing to do the hard work?" Swords remain sola swords and there are no ploughshares perhaps simply because no one labours in their hermeneutical beating. I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields; the harvest is great. But the laborers? They are few.
I used to be of the literal bent. As a lay person, I deferred to my pastors. I had few influences. They too–now I know–had few influences. I was part of a broad network of the underexposed. Unsatisfied by a stale faith, I then sought to explore why I believed what I believed and read much over a decade and a bit more. Topics covered Biblical scholarship among others. You mention that, "there is little reason anyone should take us seriously." True enough. I don't take seriously at all most of my pastors. I try to engage them on content-rich conversations, but they are busy. Behind the obvious social and economic constraints of the theological context's job, there are time constraints too. Few in professional ministry have time to rethink their presuppositions and more. Sermons become a revelation of some sort of a mix of sermons heard over the years, the appointed text, and whatever is their angst or issue at hand in their own or somebody significant's faith. The theological hodge-podge is visible after a few Sundays of attentive listening. I tithe. My wife loves (or maybe love/hates in an unknown trap of felt need's circularity and cycle) it similar to how I once did too. It's unfulfilling and, to sum up by borrowing one of your words, flat. "Unless evangelicals are willing to do the hard work?" Swords remain sola swords and there are no ploughshares perhaps simply because no one labours in their hermeneutical beating. I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields; the harvest is great. But the laborers? They are few.
Fee & Stuart, in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, wrote, "The Bible cannot mean what it never meant." That simple statement revolutionized the way I approach and study Scripture. Your thoughts deeply resonate with me. Thanks for posting!
Fee & Stuart, in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, wrote, "The Bible cannot mean what it never meant." That simple statement revolutionized the way I approach and study Scripture. Your thoughts deeply resonate with me. Thanks for posting!
Fee & Stuart, in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, wrote, "The Bible cannot mean what it never meant." That simple statement revolutionized the way I approach and study Scripture. Your thoughts deeply resonate with me. Thanks for posting!
Andy, yet even within the authors use the work of their predecessors in ways unique to their own theological projects.
Andy, yet even within the authors use the work of their predecessors in ways unique to their own theological projects.
Andy, yet even within the authors use the work of their predecessors in ways unique to their own theological projects.
I have no argument with your points and objectives, but I really stumbled over this statement:
"Before we can accurately understand what the Word means today, we must first understand what the words meant to their hearers."
Is this really so?
I think that historical context and reception *ought* to be something educated Christians know about and commonly look into, but it will provide no certain answers, no uniform and single early church viewpoint," nor would knowing the range of opinions in the early church provide some type of universally valid and authoritative standard for all subsequent interpretations. We would still be trapped in the hermeneutic circle doing our own interpretation of the past in the present.
I would say this points to the need to understand and accept and grapple with the whole tradition, seeing it as the product of exactly this process to understand, recover, and receive in the present what might otherwise seem locked in the past, and in words that will not stay put.
I think too of the simple core of Augustine's hermeneutic: if a reading of the text is consistent with the message of God's love for humanity, then it is not wrong. If it is inconsistent with that message, it is badly wrong.
Simple people and children often "misread" things and are more in line with truth than a standard, correct intellectual answer. This point should not be pushed into an apology for anti-intellectualism but for humility and grace. To receive insight and revelation, one can't always be instrumentalizing knowledge, texts, and others — trying to make them do work for us, to give us the answers we seek.
I have no argument with your points and objectives, but I really stumbled over this statement:
"Before we can accurately understand what the Word means today, we must first understand what the words meant to their hearers."
Is this really so?
I think that historical context and reception *ought* to be something educated Christians know about and commonly look into, but it will provide no certain answers, no uniform and single early church viewpoint," nor would knowing the range of opinions in the early church provide some type of universally valid and authoritative standard for all subsequent interpretations. We would still be trapped in the hermeneutic circle doing our own interpretation of the past in the present.
I would say this points to the need to understand and accept and grapple with the whole tradition, seeing it as the product of exactly this process to understand, recover, and receive in the present what might otherwise seem locked in the past, and in words that will not stay put.
I think too of the simple core of Augustine's hermeneutic: if a reading of the text is consistent with the message of God's love for humanity, then it is not wrong. If it is inconsistent with that message, it is badly wrong.
Simple people and children often "misread" things and are more in line with truth than a standard, correct intellectual answer. This point should not be pushed into an apology for anti-intellectualism but for humility and grace. To receive insight and revelation, one can't always be instrumentalizing knowledge, texts, and others — trying to make them do work for us, to give us the answers we seek.
I have no argument with your points and objectives, but I really stumbled over this statement:
"Before we can accurately understand what the Word means today, we must first understand what the words meant to their hearers."
Is this really so?
I think that historical context and reception *ought* to be something educated Christians know about and commonly look into, but it will provide no certain answers, no uniform and single early church viewpoint," nor would knowing the range of opinions in the early church provide some type of universally valid and authoritative standard for all subsequent interpretations. We would still be trapped in the hermeneutic circle doing our own interpretation of the past in the present.
I would say this points to the need to understand and accept and grapple with the whole tradition, seeing it as the product of exactly this process to understand, recover, and receive in the present what might otherwise seem locked in the past, and in words that will not stay put.
I think too of the simple core of Augustine's hermeneutic: if a reading of the text is consistent with the message of God's love for humanity, then it is not wrong. If it is inconsistent with that message, it is badly wrong.
Simple people and children often "misread" things and are more in line with truth than a standard, correct intellectual answer. This point should not be pushed into an apology for anti-intellectualism but for humility and grace. To receive insight and revelation, one can't always be instrumentalizing knowledge, texts, and others — trying to make them do work for us, to give us the answers we seek.
Why are we looking for either "certain answers" or a "uniform and single early church viewpoint" again?
Why are we looking for either "certain answers" or a "uniform and single early church viewpoint" again?
Why are we looking for either "certain answers" or a "uniform and single early church viewpoint" again?
Dan, I understand your point that historical context is not an end-all be-all. However, I'm not sure that was the point being made in the paragraph you cited. The invoking of historical context was meant to be a caution against universalizing passages meant for a particular situation, which I think is a good caution (and from what I've read of your comment I'm not sure you would disagree). Does that understanding alleviate or answer some of your concerns?
Dan, I understand your point that historical context is not an end-all be-all. However, I'm not sure that was the point being made in the paragraph you cited. The invoking of historical context was meant to be a caution against universalizing passages meant for a particular situation, which I think is a good caution (and from what I've read of your comment I'm not sure you would disagree). Does that understanding alleviate or answer some of your concerns?
Dan, I understand your point that historical context is not an end-all be-all. However, I'm not sure that was the point being made in the paragraph you cited. The invoking of historical context was meant to be a caution against universalizing passages meant for a particular situation, which I think is a good caution (and from what I've read of your comment I'm not sure you would disagree). Does that understanding alleviate or answer some of your concerns?
Again, why the pursuit at all of a be-all-end-all? There are passages that might have meant this and might have meant that in an original context. And these seem passages have been used by author canonical authors to emphasize something else. And then later, they've been repurposed to mean yet something slightly different by this group or that group (skillfully and unskillfully both IMO) in the Christian era since. All this together is the tapestry of hermeneutics above and below and sometimes within the text itself. The reason the world was once flat was because we wanted it to be flat. We wanted to be at the center. Instead, we're not and the plates beneath shift over times that make our lives tiny. It's as if the dust we'll return to groans in expectation for something that all creation is not yet. Similarly, the text is flat because we want it to be flat. We want it to mean one thing and we want to know the one thing and we want to be certain and to be right and again at the center not just geospatially but spiritually. You asked why should anyone take us seriously. Sometimes I wonder, why should the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost take seriously what we so seriously treasure in the flatness of our faith?
Again, why the pursuit at all of a be-all-end-all? There are passages that might have meant this and might have meant that in an original context. And these seem passages have been used by author canonical authors to emphasize something else. And then later, they've been repurposed to mean yet something slightly different by this group or that group (skillfully and unskillfully both IMO) in the Christian era since. All this together is the tapestry of hermeneutics above and below and sometimes within the text itself. The reason the world was once flat was because we wanted it to be flat. We wanted to be at the center. Instead, we're not and the plates beneath shift over times that make our lives tiny. It's as if the dust we'll return to groans in expectation for something that all creation is not yet. Similarly, the text is flat because we want it to be flat. We want it to mean one thing and we want to know the one thing and we want to be certain and to be right and again at the center not just geospatially but spiritually. You asked why should anyone take us seriously. Sometimes I wonder, why should the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost take seriously what we so seriously treasure in the flatness of our faith?
Again, why the pursuit at all of a be-all-end-all? There are passages that might have meant this and might have meant that in an original context. And these seem passages have been used by author canonical authors to emphasize something else. And then later, they've been repurposed to mean yet something slightly different by this group or that group (skillfully and unskillfully both IMO) in the Christian era since. All this together is the tapestry of hermeneutics above and below and sometimes within the text itself. The reason the world was once flat was because we wanted it to be flat. We wanted to be at the center. Instead, we're not and the plates beneath shift over times that make our lives tiny. It's as if the dust we'll return to groans in expectation for something that all creation is not yet. Similarly, the text is flat because we want it to be flat. We want it to mean one thing and we want to know the one thing and we want to be certain and to be right and again at the center not just geospatially but spiritually. You asked why should anyone take us seriously. Sometimes I wonder, why should the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost take seriously what we so seriously treasure in the flatness of our faith?
Alex, I understand and agree with the point about not "universalizing"/extrapolating meanings from texts that could not possibly have been intended for their original audiences, but I think that is only a meaningful point in a scholarly context where it is less needed in any kind of healthy school. The idea that some texts in the Bible are "only to apply in particular times and places" is a mis-statement or an extremely eccentric view that creates many more problems than it solves. Think about it.
The practical problem facing the average devotional reader is to discern what the text has to say to them now, often without recourse to any historical study. Devotional reading may be helped by it but has no for such knowledge and learning. It simply needs to be formed or limited (disciplined?) by Augustine's hermeneutic — the rule of charity: http://percaritatem.com/2008/02/02/st-augustine-the-principle-of-charity-the-gift-of-multiple-meanings-and-scriptura-ex-scriptura-explicanda-est/
Bad interpretation is often uncharitable. Maybe the worst readings are always clearly hateful. We can't even read about divine wrath and judgement, vicariously enjoying a bit of "playing God" as if schadenfreude can become a type of holiness. Of course there are texts to tell us this too, but the rule of charity forces us to see look for love in even the most brutal (and seemingly irrelevant) places.
Alex, I understand and agree with the point about not "universalizing"/extrapolating meanings from texts that could not possibly have been intended for their original audiences, but I think that is only a meaningful point in a scholarly context where it is less needed in any kind of healthy school. The idea that some texts in the Bible are "only to apply in particular times and places" is a mis-statement or an extremely eccentric view that creates many more problems than it solves. Think about it.
The practical problem facing the average devotional reader is to discern what the text has to say to them now, often without recourse to any historical study. Devotional reading may be helped by it but has no for such knowledge and learning. It simply needs to be formed or limited (disciplined?) by Augustine's hermeneutic — the rule of charity: http://percaritatem.com/2008/02/02/st-augustine-the-principle-of-charity-the-gift-of-multiple-meanings-and-scriptura-ex-scriptura-explicanda-est/
Bad interpretation is often uncharitable. Maybe the worst readings are always clearly hateful. We can't even read about divine wrath and judgement, vicariously enjoying a bit of "playing God" as if schadenfreude can become a type of holiness. Of course there are texts to tell us this too, but the rule of charity forces us to see look for love in even the most brutal (and seemingly irrelevant) places.
Alex, I understand and agree with the point about not "universalizing"/extrapolating meanings from texts that could not possibly have been intended for their original audiences, but I think that is only a meaningful point in a scholarly context where it is less needed in any kind of healthy school. The idea that some texts in the Bible are "only to apply in particular times and places" is a mis-statement or an extremely eccentric view that creates many more problems than it solves. Think about it.
The practical problem facing the average devotional reader is to discern what the text has to say to them now, often without recourse to any historical study. Devotional reading may be helped by it but has no for such knowledge and learning. It simply needs to be formed or limited (disciplined?) by Augustine's hermeneutic — the rule of charity: http://percaritatem.com/2008/02/02/st-augustine-the-principle-of-charity-the-gift-of-multiple-meanings-and-scriptura-ex-scriptura-explicanda-est/
Bad interpretation is often uncharitable. Maybe the worst readings are always clearly hateful. We can't even read about divine wrath and judgement, vicariously enjoying a bit of "playing God" as if schadenfreude can become a type of holiness. Of course there are texts to tell us this too, but the rule of charity forces us to see look for love in even the most brutal (and seemingly irrelevant) places.