Eyre Lines

Some while ago, Richard Beck was discussing Dale Martin’s Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation, mainly as it related to how we interpret scripture (i.e. hermaneutics).

After dismissing (rightly) appeals to “the Bible says” and (perhaps less rightly) pure historical-critical “this is what the author intended to say”, he arrives at this statement, as an overriding principle to be applied to scriptural interpretation:-

“Martin takes his cue from Augustine: “Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understand the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all.” (Christian Doctrine 1.35.40)

Martin’s analysis of Augustine is clear (p. 49): “By this light, any interpretation of Scripture that hurts people, oppresses people, or destroys people cannot be the right interpretation, no matter how traditional, historical, or exegetically respectable…[I]n the end, all appeals, whether to the Bible or anything else, must submit to the test of love. To people who say this is too simplistic, I say, far from it. There are no easy answers. ‘Love’ will not work as a foundation for ethics in a prescriptive or predictable fashion either–as can be seen by all the injustices, imperialisms, and violence committed in the name of love. But rather than expecting an answer to come from a particular method of reading the Bible, we at least push the discussion to where it ought to be: into the realm of debates about Christian love, rather than into either fundamentalism of modernist historicism. We ask the question that must be asked, ‘What is the loving thing to do?'” “

I find this immediately attractive; interpreting all scripture in terms of the two Great Commandments (Matt. 37-38, Lev. 19:18, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27) to love God and love your neighbour is, for me, correct insofar as application is concerned, as these are the most fundamental principles expounded by Jesus. However, I immediately need to think of the counterexample.

If I start trying to interpret, for instance, the book of Joshua assuming that love of neighbour is an absolute priority in interpretation, I am going to have to twist the text beyond breaking point; in common with much of the “historical” account in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is no way I can see Joshua as evidencing love of neighbour, and his acts are clearly stated to have been approved by God. This is an extreme example, but there are less difficult examples, for instance in New Testament scripture where injunctions to cast out fellow believers thought to be advocating a “non-approved” interpretation of scripture are, to me, impossible to understand in a context of love of neighbour. Casting out is not the loving thing to do. It is the practical thing to do.

I have to come to the conclusion that in writing these passages, the authors were not focusing on love of neighbour as an overriding priority, they had other priorities. At that point, according to Martin’s maxim above, I either have to reject the scripture or do such serious damage to its natural meaning as effectively to destroy it. I am not happy to do that. Love it or hate it, we have the canonical bible as our scripture, and we need to deal with that fact.

So, while in terms of application, I agree completely with this method of interpretation, it cannot really be a hermaneutic, an overriding technique of scriptural interpretation. For that, more subtlety is needed, and a lot more effort.

Historical-critical analysis will yield a reasonable assessment of the intention of the author (that is, where it doesn’t yield two or more reasonable assessments between which we will need to choose). From that point, in my opinion we will need an understanding of scripture as a developing understanding of man’s relationship with God. In other words, we need to treat these documents as evidence in a history of thought.

In the case of the Hebrew Scriptures, it is possible to chart a developing understanding in many dimensions; conception of God (from tribal deity to henotheistic chief deity to monotheistic deity, and if the Intertestamentals are taken into account, to chief deity of a lopsided dualism); conception of the basis of relationship from communal and tribal to individual and tribal to individual and universal, and in terms of morality from narrowly laid down rules to a more open overriding ethics, from right behaviour within the tribe to right behaviour as regards mankind more generally, and from patriarchal, hierarchical structure towards something more egalitarian. Although I would argue that most of these movements are not complete by the time of Jesus, the direction was already clear.

In the case of the New Testament, however, there seems to me a less attractive movement, that from idealistic egalitarianism and subversion of authority structures towards a pragmatic view of how to manage a developing movement and not to diverge too radically from prevailing norms of society. Thus the role of women and of slaves is reduced and constrained and a hierarchy is developed.

In both cases, I propose that we consider the scriptures in the light of their position in developing norms of society, consider that, in the light of those, the movement towards love of neighbour as an overriding theme can be seen, and extend the direction of movement as far as we can given the constraints of our current society, always hoping to push the boundary just that little bit further.