In chapter 3 Sailhamer turns his attention to the question of the proper role of history in biblical hermeneutics arguing that its proper place is philological. With reference to the term “historical-grammatical” he says, “I contend that from its inception in the eighteenth century to the present it has undergone considerable development and change in some of its key tenets” (100). Sailhamer argues that originally, especially with reference to Johann Augustus Ernesti’s use of the term, the grammatical elements of exegesis and the historical elements of exegesis were not distinct elements but one. That is, the meaning of the biblical text was a function of understanding the grammatical rules of the Bible’s languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).
Sailhamer argues that the events (things) recounted in Scripture are best understood philologically by studying the meaning of the words of the ancient biblical texts. What modern biblical scholars—even evangelical ones—attempt to do is investigate the events (things) of Scripture in the context of ancient history and then interpret the words of Scripture with reference to “our growing knowledge of ancient history” (101). Sailhamer intimates the danger of this approach by saying, “Hence, we come to see the events apart from their biblical setting and within the new context of the ancient world” (101).
The basic difference is that the modern historical approach to hermeneutics fails to appreciate that the events of Scripture are not actual events—as if reading the text were like watching a live news broadcast of events. The biblical narratives are “written texts that recount for their readers a narrative version of the events they contain. They are, of course, not the events themselves; they are verbal versions of those events” (102). Sailhamer here reminds us that when we read the Bible we are given the author’s view of those events—an author who has done his own historical work. To seek to interpret the author’s words from one’s understanding of the events as understood independently of the author through historical reconstruction is to reverse the proper order of the “words and things” dynamic. As Ernesti reminds us “Entirely deceitful and fallacious is the approach of gathering the sense of words from things. Things, rather, ought to be known from words” (114).
Sailhamer ends the chapter by treating the impact of this reversal on biblical theology as witnessed in Friedriech Schleiermacher’s influence in the field. Finally, Sailhamer appeals to the work of Abraham Geiger to show how even the final and fixed shape of the Masoretic versions of the Hebrew Bible reflect a move away from the biblical author’s text and its meaning to a form of the text more in line with dominant Jewish peshat, i.e., historical interpretive traditions—even anti-Christian readings of the text.
Sailhamer’s use of Rembrandt paintings as an illustration of the kind of interpretive perversion of the author’s text personally helped me understand what he envisions as proper biblical hermeneutics more than anything. I simply refer the reader to page 104 for this.
Discussion Questions
1. Is Sailhamer’s use of art, namely a painting, a valid analogy for two different approaches to biblical hermeneutics? Or is it like comparing apples and oranges—the interpretation of wordless pictures and the interpretation of written texts.
2. One common criticism of Sailhamer from evangelicals is that he is against historical background information in biblical hermeneutics. In light of this chapter is that an accurate understanding of what Sailhamer is up to hermeneutically? Or is he just against a certain kind of historical background info.?
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19 comments:
Q1: Both paintings and texts are interpretations, reflecting the decisions of their creators. If we prioritize the verba in hermeneutics, then we are giving ear to the writer's intentions by paying attention to his words, not adding to or going behind them in order to understand (or control) them. In the same way, in viewing a painting, we respect an artist's decisions to show what he has chosen to show, and we resist the urge to fill in the details where he meant us to see shadows. In both cases, communication can only happen if the one who receives the message respects the decisions of the one who sent it.
Q2: Sailhamer does not deny the historicity of biblical events, and he acknowledges the apologetic usefulness of historical research and archaeology. But he insists that when you set out to study a text, you should actually study the text.
Yeah, I agree that the authoring of a painting and the authoring of a text are similar in that the artist selects and arranges his material for intentional communicative purposes. For me the whole debate hinges on what biblical authors assumed their readers understood and could thus omit from their texts. Joshua Williams at SWBTS tries to focus the discussion along the lines of "presupposition pool" between author and reader. He thinks the pool was quite small whereas most scholars think the pool was quite large. For Williams the basic presuppositions a biblical author made about his reader was that the reader would be a human being living on planet earth who reads his or her Bible. I'm not sure how one would proove this. Your thoughts?
If I'm understanding you correctly, the "shadows" of the painting/text could be identified with a "presupposition pool," things the author doesn't need to say because the readers (he would expect) already know. (I'm not sure if this is how you are understanding the "shadows" yourself, or if you're just observing this in others' thinking.) It would seem, then, according to this view, that in order to understand the text, we'd need to do the additional work of figuring out what its original audience would have known.
Two thoughts, FWIW:
1. At least in Sailhamer's scheme, it would seem to me that any work we do to figure out what lies within the "shadows" is extraneous to the work of knowing the text. It may have apologetic or historical value; but isn't his point that we should be concentrating on what's there in the received text, not going behind the text to find out what we're missing? (Though is it really possible for us, at this distance from the text, to just be philologists, and not historians, too?)
2. If we throw inspiration into the discussion, we have to acknowledge that some of the shadows are there because that was God's intention, regardless of any "presup pool."
You wrote, For Williams the basic presuppositions a biblical author made about his reader was that the reader would be a human being living on planet earth who reads his or her Bible.
Williams would acknowledge further presuppositions on top of the basics, wouldn't he? I mean, it's pretty hard to imagine Paul addressing one of his epistles to "Anyone, Anywhere, Planet Earth." And there would have been presups about the language of reception even in Moses' day. (The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, uses those basic presups and raises up translators.)
Thanks for the good questions!
pb
You both interesting points. I'm also interesting with Paige in knowing exactly what you are talking about Joseph?
I've always understood the analogy just as Paige has summarized it in her reply to "Q1". Maybe an illustration would help. At the end of Genesis we are left with a 400 year gap in time that gets "shadowed out" when we begin reading the book of Exodus. What Sailhamer seems to be suggesting is that instead of trying to paint in what might have happened during those 400 years to get from Joseph's situation to Moses' (something the History channel likes to do), we should instead look for clues to why Moses left it out. In this example, the major clue is in Genesis 15, when Yhwh reveals his plan to Abraham, as well as in Genesis 12-13, where the "exodus" of Abraham into Egypt foreshadows the exodus of his descendants. Filling it the gap of time with historical facts might not entirely miss the point, but would could certainly mask that feature of the text, maybe even beyond recognition. For me, that is what's at stake - missing theological textual clues for supposed historical reconstructions. Just as Rembrandt wouldn't be Rembrandt without the shadows, so Moses wouldn't be Moses without principle of selection and compositional strategy.
Gentlemen
All I mean by presuppositions is the knowledge a biblical author assumes his readers will bring to the text with them. For biblical writers they assume the reader will have basic human knowledge of life on planet earth like what a tree is or what the moon is so the author won't stop and explain this in the text. Another assumption the biblical authors clearly make is that their readers will be familiar with the rest of their Bible, making the phenomenon of intertextuality possible. Where some historical detail is needed we definitely see the author providing this in the text for his reader, anticipating such deficiencies in knowledge. The burden of proof is on us to show that this latter phenomenon is always practiced by the author when it is necessary in the text. Does that help?
I have no disagreements with Sailhamer's hermeneutic. I am just thinking of ways we can have a more unshakable rebuttal to our critics who say that we just collapse our current worldview and notions of things back on the biblical text without reference to the historical meanings of Hebrew words.
Gentlemen
All I mean by presuppositions is the knowledge a biblical author assumes his readers will bring to the text with them. For biblical writers they assume the reader will have basic human knowledge of life on planet earth like what a tree is or what the moon is so the author won't stop and explain this in the text. Another assumption the biblical authors clearly make is that their readers will be familiar with the rest of their Bible, making the phenomenon of intertextuality possible. Where some historical detail is needed we definitely see the author providing this in the text for his reader, anticipating such deficiencies in knowledge. The burden of proof is on us to show that this latter phenomenon is always practiced by the author when it is necessary in the text. Does that help?
I have no disagreements with Sailhamer's hermeneutic. I am just thinking of ways we can have a more unshakable rebuttal to our critics who say that we just collapse our current worldview and notions of things back on the biblical text without reference to the historical meanings of Hebrew words.
I'm sorry. I should have said Lady and Gentleman.
No problem, Joseph. (And in some languages you could have gotten away with just saying "gentlemen"!) :)
Yes, the addition of later-perspective historical commentary, filling things in for the assumed reader, gives us a clue as to what the writer assumed his readers would know/not know. I think this is the basis for Sailhamer's conclusion that the final "author" of the Pentateuch had a canonical perspective, because of the hints that fall at the seams of the book. (Similarly, Richard Bauckham has some interesting observations about what the intended audience of John's gospel would have already known, i.e., the gospel of Mark!)
If we are observing such clues in the text, then, we'd be in keeping with Sailhamer's "text-immanent" approach, rather than working behind the scenes to speculatively build what the audience "must" have known according to their historical setting.
I really do believe that the Bible is written in such a way that anyone who ever picks it up and reads it has in the text alone the information needed to understand the author's intent.
if you the meaning is not only in the text but also in the historical background (say 50% text, 50% background or name your price), would not each successive generation have a different meaning/truth given to them based on their knowledge of the background? Or what of people in different parts of the world with uneven levels of background knowledge? Would 2 different world class ANE historians draw 2 different meanings based on their understanding of the same event? I always thought that if the background has some controlling interest in meaning, Scripture alone is not enough.
ed payne
Re. Joseph:
I really do believe that the Bible is written in such a way that anyone who ever picks it up and reads it has in the text alone the information needed to understand the author's intent.
I am not sure I agree completely, though I mostly agree. Maybe I would say that they possess all the information they need right there in the text, but that their information processing skills might need an assist. (I.e., even a good philologist, who is able to focus on the text in a careful way and note those "compositional seams" and themes, had to learn his craft and lexicon from somewhere other than the text before the text became clear to him.)
Re: Paige
My comment assumed of course that one knew Biblical Hebrew Aramaic and Greek. If one picks up the Bible in the original language and has the skill to decode the language one can understand the text by reading the text.
Joseph --
Okay, I was thinking "ordinary reader" (that's who I mainly rub shoulders with), not "biblical scholar." (Which raises for me the questions of how well one can understand the text without personally knowing the original languages, and how well prepared contemporary pastor-candidates are to bridge the gap between the scholar and the ordinary reader to make up for what is lost in translation.)
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I recently had to address this question at my church, in an Isaiah class I was teaching. I spent the first two weeks introducing the class 1) to biblical prophecy in general, and 2) how to read biblical prophecy. In the second class I made a big deal about a point Sailhamer made in an essay called "Preaching the Prophets" (I can't remember the book it was in). For him the "sermon" of the biblical prophet (say, Isaiah in the 8th century) is different than the sermon of the prophetic author (say, the author of Isaiah in its final form, sometime after Isaiah preached). What we're after is not the sermon by the historical Isaiah, but the message of the sermon of the author, who faithfully passed on and extended the historical Isaiah's sermons and predictions.
I made a big deal about this because I wanted the class to know that they didn't need to have a degree in ANE history in order to understand the book of Isaiah. All they have to do is understand the book by reading it over and over again, as if they were listening to a pastor preaching a message. Of course knowing the original languages would benefit them greatly in understanding this text, but numerous English translations capture the meaning and sense of the text quite well (especially if you read with more than one translation). The last thing I want to even suggest at the ordinary reader (i.e. most of the people that read the Bible) is that they are unable to understand the text because they aren't smart enough. How demeaning and arrogant that would be (especially knowing how little I still can grasp!). Sure, Scripture (especially prophecy) benefits the wise reader most (Hosea 11.9), but it also makes us wise for salvation and changes us (2 Tim 3.15-17).
That is one of them most attractive parts of a holistic/compositional approach - any believer is able to understand the text by reading it and connecting the dots. Other approaches either over spiritualize the text, taking it to mean anything, or make reading the Bible such a task that it can overwhelm someone.
Just read it, enjoy it, ask it questions, take notes, read it again, enjoy it, etc.
Andy
I don't mean to suggest that an English only reader cannot get the Big Idea of a passage or book. The original languages enables one to see greater exegetical details and intertextual connections that are more difficult to see in translation. I don't like to say it or even admit it, but the fact remains that it is a profound advantage and privilege to read the Word of God in Hebrew and Greek and a bit of Aramaic. And the fact is that God has spoken to the world in Greek and Hebrew sentences. I don't know any way around it though I wish I had one.
Do you all think I've overstated the importance of the languages here? I really am open to being wrong about it, I just don't know how to look at it right now any other way.
Hi, Joseph, I just read your note about languages.
One of the wonderful things about the Bible is that it is translatable, which the Koran is not (at least, for its spiritual effects). So language upon language can carry the biblical message.
BUT there is no substitute for reading it in the original. You are right, I think, that there is a great privilege in knowing the original language of a text (witness Sailhamer's profit from his knowledge of German!). And Andy is right that ordinary readers do not need this knowledge in order to grasp the meaning of a text well-translated. But the ordinary readers DO need an Andy, or a Joseph, or a well-trained pastor who can be a bridge here and there, where knowledge of the word-play or idiom of the original would enrich the reading.
And if you are competent in the original languages, the whole package of the knowledge you gain of the Scripture is a gift you can give to others, even while you enjoy the benefits personally.
I'm curious: are you guys pastor-track or scholar/professor-track people?
I want to be on both tracks. I think the advantages of the original languages are primarily 3.
1. It forces a slower more careful reading of the text that is harder to achieve in one's original tongue.
2. I makes one more certain of his or her understanding of the text.
3. It makes it possible to see inner and inter-textual connections when the author uses specific words strategically in different parts of his text where the same Hebrew words in each part are often translated with different English words in each part for the sake of good English style. The English reader will likely miss the intended connection.
This is why I call on pastors to know their languages and teach the languages to as many of their people as they can through the local church ministry for free.
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