對自己解經立場的檢視與反思My personal reflection on how I interpret Bible

Tao-jen Wang 王道仁 97003

“And no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matthew 11:27, NRSV)  Reading Bible and trying to know God is impossible without God’s own help.  May the Lord guide me on this reflection paper.

Background

I was born in Taipei during the 1970’s, when Taiwan was struggling with diplomatic crises and in the same time trying to transform from a developing country into a developed country.  Politically Taiwan was moving toward democracy and the culture in Taiwan was rapidly changing and mixed with traditional Chinese, American and Japanese influence.  Education in Taiwan was mostly authoritative, but became more open as I grew up.  My thinking tend to be simultaneously modern and post-modern and this might come from my cultural background.  And maybe the conflict between Taiwan and China made me often think about justice when I read Bible.  I also stayed in the United States for four years when I was a pre-schooler, so my boldness in asking questions might be influenced by that.  Feminism movement had its influence in Taiwan, but often more in words rather than in action.  But at least conceptually I am also influenced by it.

My parents’ and I go to the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan regularly and my hometown church had a good relationship with Campus Evangelical Fellowship.  My mother studied in Taiwan Theological College and Seminary, China Evangelical Seminary and The South East Asia Graduate School of Theology and I also studied in China Evangelical Seminary and Taiwan Theological College.  So I have my conservative roots, but am also exposed to a diverse range of theologies. 

Interpreting Bible: Bible itself as a basis

So those mentioned above are my background, which influenced my interpretation of Bible either consciously or unconsciously.  But how do I interpret Bible? Or what is the position of my own hermeneutic theory? I hope to form my standpoint from Jesus and Bible itself, since I think human knowledge had its limitation and knowing God and knowing how to interpret Bible must come from God Himself.  And Bible is our best source to know Jesus, so I will use Bible as a basis to discuss. 

Inerrancy of Bible

First of all is the discussion of the “inerrancy” of Bible.  Jesus stated the basis of inerrancy in Matthew 5:18, “until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”  So I believe that though Bible is prone to human error, God somehow helps our Bible to be “inerrant[1]”  in a sense.  At least we can rely on Bible to know God and His plan for human.  As for some minor discrepancies within Bible like those among the four gospels, I do not think it to be a major concern.  On the contrary, I think those increases the credibility of Bible as a historical record since forged documents always seek harmony with themselves.

Saying Bible is inerrant does not mean that interpreting it word by word in its literal sense is the only valid way of interpretation.[2]  Obviously some of the passages in Bible are not meant to be interpreted like that such as Psalms.  I agree that when Bible wants us to do this we should, but I am also concerned that doing this too strictly and inflexible without focusing on the living God and individual human might lead to the error of the Pharisees: they “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:24)  What I think we should do is to know that “we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Romans 7:6)  We should seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit to interpret Bible and try to know God and know what God wants us to do.  We should also be careful not to use this as an excuse to twist Bible to fit our own view. 

The three approaches: the author, the text and the reader

When I interpret Bible, there are three approaches I would like to consider: the author, the text and the reader.[3]  As we can easily see from Bible, Jesus and his disciples often mentioned the author when they quoted the Old Testament.  During the passage discussing divorce in Mathew 19:3-9, Jesus talked about Moses’ intention in that particular time and space, which shows that Jesus cares about the author and the original meaning to the Jews.  But the author approach is not the whole scenario because we do not see Jesus and his disciples try to do deep historic research of Bible and authors of Bible often do not mean to write a Bible.  And Jesus and his disciples never analyzed the form, the redaction process or the source of Bible[4]; they simply accepted the canon.[5]

And the reader’s approach is also obvious when Jesus and his disciples use the Old Testament to address their everyday life, such as when Paul used the passage of ox to discussed his apostolic rights in 1 Corinthians 9:1-12.  But the reader approach is also not the whole picture, since as 2 Peter 1:20 says, “First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.”  One cannot twist the Bible to say what one wants the Bible to say like what Satan did when tempting Jesus.  Sometimes we might wonder if some of the usage of the Old Testament in the New Testament were unrelated to the context of the original passage, like the usage of the “cornerstone” in Matthew 21:42.  But I think we should also differentiate using the Old Testament to describe similar experiences from interpreting the Old Testament itself.

When it comes to the text, Paul’s discussion of Abraham being justified by faith in Romans 4:1-25 is a good example.  Paul did not just cut one sentence from the Old Testament for argumentation; instead, Paul delved into the story of Abraham and found that it was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness when he was uncircumcised.  And the faith of Abraham is toward the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, which is also related to the life story of Abraham.  But I do not think the text’s approach is neglecting the author or the reader; it is supported and strengthened by them. 

When it comes to which approach gets the precedence, I tend to lean more on the text’s approach.  This is because the author and the so-called history are too far from us and the text is more reliable as a basis, which I also believed to be historical.  And when the reader’s approach became dominant, it is hard not to twist the meaning of Bible. 

The discussion of multiple meanings

There are a lot of discussion concerning if a passage of Bible can contain multiple meanings.[6]  I think multiple meaning is possible when God, the ultimate author of Bible, wants it to have multiple meaning.  When Bible says “a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” in Ephesians 5:31, it clearly have two meanings according to Bible itself.  But multiple meaning of a passage does not mean every interpretation and meaning is valid.  On the opposite, any meaning is only valid when God approves it.  Since we are not God, we are not the ultimate judge, but we should also defend against false teachings and “rightly explaining the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

Conclusion

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13)  May the Spirit of truth guide me when I am interpreting Bible, and lead me back if I go astray.

Reference

Osborne, Grant R. (格蘭‧奧斯邦). The Hermeneutical Spiral (基督教釋經學手冊). Taipei: Chinese Evangelical Fellowship, 1999.

Porter, Stanley E. ed. Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006.

Schneiders, Sandra M. The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

Tate, W. Randolph. Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991.

---

[1] I disagrees with Schneiders on this concept: Schneiders totally rejected Bible to be inerrant due to discrepancies in Bible, the ambiguous nature of symbolic revelation and her denial of absolute Biblical authority.  I think symbolic revelation can still convey meaning to a certain degree or language would not even had any literal meaning at all.  And I do not see evidence that Jesus and his disciples rejected absolute biblical authority, but this also depends on what we mean by “absolute biblical authority.”  See Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 27-40, 53-55.  For an argumentation on conveying meaning through metaphor, see Grant R. Osborne (格蘭‧奧斯邦), The Hermeneutical Spiral (基督教釋經學手冊) (Taipei: Chinese Evangelical Fellowship, 1999), 399-404.

[2] Tate assumed an inerrant Bible means verbal inspiration, but I think even a conceptually inspired Bible can also be inerrant about God if God wants it to be like that.  See W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), 170.

[3] For a brief overview of the three approaches, see Tate, Biblical Interpretation, xvi-xxi.

[4] For a discussion of source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism and canonical criticism, see Tate, Biblical Interpretation, 176-185.

[5] Scholars might disagree on what “canon” was during Jesus’ time, but no matter which canon we choose or whether the canonization process was completed or not, the final form of what “it is written” was used.  See Stanley E. Porter ed., Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006), 38-58, 261-265.

[6] For a discussion of multiple meaning, see Tate, Biblical Interpretation, xix, 185, 188.  Also see Osborne (格蘭‧奧斯邦), The Hermeneutical Spiral (基督教釋經學手冊), 387, 547.