© 1956, E.C. Blackman, Biblical Interpretation, London: Independent Press Ltd, The United Reformed Church to 63 nt'"" ~ c;~ ~ 0z BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION THE OLD DIFFICULTIES AND THE NEW OPPORTUNITY E. C. BLACKMAN LONDON INDEPENDENT PRESS LTD. MEMORIAL HALL, E.C.4 First published 1957 All rights reserved MADE AND PllINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITED I.ETCHWOII.TII, HEII.TFORDSHD!B CONTENTS Chapter Page PREFACE 7 I INTRODUCTORY 9 II THE MEANING OF REVELATION 23 III THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY 41 IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXEGESIS 65 A. RABBINIC EXEGESIS 66 B. ALLEGORY-PHILO TO AUGUSTINE 76 c. MEDIEVAL EXEGESIS 108 D. THE REFORMATION AND AFTER 116 V MODERN CRITICISM 130 VI THE PRESENT TASK IN BIBLICAL EXPOSITION 159 INDEX BIBLE PASSAGES 207 GENERAL SUBJECT 209 MODERN AUTHORS 211 s PREFACE HE aim of this book is to serve 'the cause of true exposition. The three longer chapters IV-VI are more obviously related Tto that purpose than the others. Chapter IV is historical, and tries to give an impression of how Christian teachers and preachers through nineteen centuries have in fact expounded the Bible. Chapter VI is intended to be a climax in that it ventures to lay down canons of exegesis for the preacher today. It seemed advisable to preface these larger chapters with some discussion of issues about which it is essential for the preacher to have a right judgment: the significance of the Bible as Revelation, the authority of the Bible in the setting of the general problem of moral and spiritual authority, and the function and limits of historical criticism as applied to the Bible. Bible quotations are mostly from the Revised Version. In a few cases they are my own rendering. My thanks are due to my colleague, the Rev. R. Bocking, M.Th., for his careful reading of the proofs and preparation of the index of Biblical passages. E. c. BLACKMAN New College, London. January 1957. 7 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY T is a tempting, though perhaps rath.er useless, pastime to try to find the adjective which most aptly describes the present Igeneration. The applicability of such epithets as " technical " or "atomic" is obvious enough. There would also be general agreement that " Bible-reading " is not applicable. The people of England have ceased to be, in J. R. Green's phrase, " the people of a book, and that book the Bible ". This constitutes a challenge to the Church, which stands on the conviction that the Bible is of unique value, and that without it humanity is bereft of something vital for the understanding of life. The Bible may be a best-seller, if the whole world is in view, but this is hardly true of England and Europe. And where it is read, is it understood? For the Bible needs to be interpreted. That has been admitted from the beginning. The Jewish Rabbis did it in their own way, both for their own people and for Gentiles. Among the New Testament writers we find Paul and John using Hellenistic terminology in order to make basic Christian truths intelligible to those who had no contact with Judaism. By the second century the allegorical method of interpretation was already at home in the Church, and during the course of the same century increasing attention was being paid to the Church's tradition as a guide to the correct exposition of the Scriptures.* The scholars of medieval Catholicism were diligent in elucidating the various senses of Scripture. The Reformers of the sixteenth century, having reset the S~riptures in the central place which they * c£ R. P. C. Hanson: Origen's Doctrine of Tradition (1954). 9 10 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION had lost, realised that they must give guidance concerning its true meaning, and their vernacular translations were a part of this endeavour. In the later Protestant Scholasticism there was a rigid Biblicist wing, deriving from Calvin more than Luther, which developed into modem Fundamentalism or Literalism, and this is reinforced today by the authoritarianism which is in the air and appeals to those who prize definite direction more highly than absolute truth. The Church's problem in this generation-a problem of some urgency-is to enable those who come into church membership, particularly young people who have had training in Sunday schools and religious instruction at day school, to handle their Bible with ease and find their way about it confidently, so that their reading ministers to their appreciation of it and satisfies their intellectual and spiritual need. Only so can they be built up in Christian conviction, and in capacity to make a Christian impact on society. This is a pressing need. It can hardly be expected that the teaching of our primary and secondary schools, even when in the hands of trained specialists who are also committed Christians, should have precisely this end in view. Their aim must be mainly intellectual. In the churches, on the other hand, the aim is more definitely the production of Christian character and commitment. Now the Bible is a difficult book and the achievement of this aim calls for the greatest care and persistence. Here, as in other spheres, those who show the greatest zeal are not always the most effective teachers, and those who tremble for the sacred ark are not necessarily its real champions. Many of the young people who are ripe for exposition of the Bible are the very ones for whom a literalist or excessively dogmatic handling of it will make it unintelligible. Fundamentalism trembles to admit the difficulties the Bible presents. It comes near to saying that it needs no interpreting but only to be read and re-read. And it can fall back on the authority of the redoubtable Luther and affirm that Scripture is its own interpreter. Of course the Fundamentalist will when pressed admit the need of proper exposition, and his own expository preaching is often INTRODUCTORY II most effectively illustrated. He is anxious above all things lest any of its precious truth should be missed, and for this he merits respect. Nevertheless, Fundamentalism must be confronted with the very real difficulties it raises. It tends to quote rather than explain, in other words it burkes the real problem of exegesis. Again, it tends to shut God up within the covers of the Bible, thus failing to see the Biblical doctrine of the living God in all its breadth and depth. Fundamentalism thus falls into the condemnation of straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel. Too much straining over the letter makes a live interpretation impossible. This is not a dead issue. It must be remembered that the majority of church members and adherents in the Younger Churches outside Europe and America are literalist in their use of the Bible.* Most discerning readers find it impossible to believe that the Bible is true in every detail and that its inspiration attaches to the very words and in fact implies inerrancy. That is not Fundamentalism in the proper meaning of a noble word, for it obscures the fundamentals instead of bringing them out in relief. Brunner accuses it of getting in the way of faith. " The authoritarian faith in the Bible, when tested by the Biblical idea of faith, is both religiously and ethically sterile .... Whether the Biblical writers, and the various facts which they record, are credible has nothing to do with ' faith ' in the Biblical sense. Such ' faith ' makes us neither penitent nor thankful nor converted nor sanctified."t The Fundamentalist then is an opponent of the Gospel and not its sole champion in the battlefield against secularism. At the same time, the intention to conserve the vital elements, even though not always successful in the event, is worthy of respect. The Fundamentalist must be given credit where credit is due. He has never had any doubt that the business of the preacher is not literary essaying, nor popular philosophy, nor dabbling with religious ideas, nor even ethical improvement. So he may well feel that those who cannot agree with him on that are not able to touch him with their criticism. For they are on different standing ground; * c£ an article by A. M. Chirgwin in the Congregational Quarterly, July 195•· t Brunner: Revelation and Reason, p. 176. 12 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION they are not concerned for the same Gospel verities as he is, and thus their eloquence and their learning are expended on lesser ends. The critic of Fundamentalists has to convince them that he is doing battle on the same ground against the same enemy, and that he too is contending for the same everlasting Gospel and appealing to the Bible as the book where that Gospel is recorded, treasuring it in fact as the Word of God and not simply as inspiring literature which happens to have survived from the ancient world. Only so can the Fundamentalist be shaken out of his assumption that while he is attending to the weightier matters his " modern " fellow Christian is merely tithing mint and anise and cummin. Moreover, cognisance needs to be taken of the fact that many serious and able people, not unacquainted with the modern scientific world-view, do feel that they must take the Fundamen­ talist side if they are to give the Bible its rightful place. If they argue that it is possible to cut out dead wood so ruthlessly as to damage the life of the tree, they are on safe ground; but they are wrong to infer that it is better not to cut away the dead wood at all.