A Handbook to Old Testament Exegesis

William P. Brown

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781611647990
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

Designed for both Hebrew and non-Hebrew students, A Handbook to Old Testament Exegesis offers a fresh, hands-on introduction to exegesis of the Old Testament. William P. Brown begins not with the biblical text itself but with the reader, helping students to identify their own interpretive lenses before engaging the biblical text. Brown guides the student through a wide variety of interpretive approaches, including modern methodologiesâ€"feminist, womanist, Latino/a, queer, postcolonial, disability, and ecological approachesâ€"alongside more traditional methods. This allows students to critically reflect on themselves as bona fide interpreters. While covering a wide range of biblical passages, Brown also highlights two common biblical texts throughout the work to help show how each interpretive approach highlights different dimensions of the same texts. Students will appreciate the value of an empathetic inquiry of Scripture that is both inclusive of others and textually in-depth.

PART I

Getting Started

1

A Hermeneutical Adventure

What we observe is not nature in itself,

but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Werner Heisenberg¹

Reading can be a sublime and complex process.

Renita J. Weems²

The early rabbis commended the study of Scripture in no uncertain terms.

Study it, study it—for everything is in it! Examine it diligently until you are worn out with old age by it, and do not be distracted from it; you could have no better measure than it. (Mishnah ʼAbot 5:22)

The verb translated here as “study” (√hpk) literally means “turn,” as if to say that the Bible is a finely crafted jewel that, when carefully turned, sparkles with the light of incomparable wisdom, the sum total of truth. But the metaphor is also apt in another sense. In the practice of Bible study, “turning” not only involves the text; it also involves the interpreter. Interpreting the text entails “turning things over in one’s mind,” from conjectures to new perspectives, from fresh questions to surprising conclusions. Interpreting the Bible requires discipline and focus, on the one hand, and pondering and creativity, on the other. It invariably involves change, “turning.”

Welcome to the exciting world of biblical interpretation, a world that is expanding at an accelerated rate! Biblical interpretation today covers a dizzying array of methods, orientations, and strategies—the various “angles” from which the biblical text is viewed and the various ways it is understood and lived out by readers. When a single biblical text meets differently situated readers, it is hard to predict what will happen. The reason is that textual meaning is never fixed. Meaning is not something contained within the text, as if it were waiting to be unlocked and released from literary confinement. Meaning, rather, emerges from one’s encounter with the text. It is evoked within the interactive space between reader and text. Meaning is relational. When a book falls from the shelf and lands with its pages wide open but no one is there to read it, does it convey meaning?

Truth be told, a reader is required for a text to be meaningful. By itself a text contains merely marks on a page or pixels on a screen. It does not exist as meaningful without its readers. The text comes alive, as it were, when it is read (or heard or sung, etc.), whenever it is communicated or interpreted. In the encounter, the text becomes a partner in the construction of meaning. On the one hand, the text’s meaning, when discerned for the first time, strikes the reader as something outside of the familiar range of experience. On the other hand, it is the reader who decides how the text is to be read (and communicated), like a musician playing from a score. Not unlike musical notations regarding tempo, phrasing, and volume, which determine certain parameters of a performance, there are textual signs and rhetorical conventions that cue the reader in the act of interpretation. Nevertheless, every reader creatively invests something of oneself in the interpretation of a text, in the “performance” of the text’s meaning. While the relationship forged between a biblical text and a particular reader is unique and ever evolving, it is also a relationship worth sharing with others around the table.

TEXT TO TABLE: THE MINISTRY OF EXEGESIS

With respect to biblical study, the practice of interpretation involves something called “exegesis.” The Greek term exēgēsis is derived from the verb exēgeisthai, which means “to lead out.” Formally speaking, then, exegesis is about drawing meaning from the text. But in practice (and in principle), this is far more complex than what the term itself suggests. Although exegesis is a discipline, it is not a strictly objective one (and certainly not a disinterested one), for it necessarily involves the interpreter’s active, creative, even intuitive work. While exegesis is a science that requires various tools of analysis, it is also something of an art that involves the interpreter’s imagination and creativity. Perhaps it is best to say that exegesis is neither entirely a science nor an art. It is a craft, a learned discipline cultivated over time through practice and gained from considering the practice of others. Exegesis is a lifelong venture that carries the reader from the details of translation and analysis to the creative work of communication. Decisions—both judicious and speculative, careful and creative—must be made at every step along the way. Even the tedious work of translation requires imaginative effort as much as the creative work of communication requires focus and precision.

Exegesis involves listening. It treats the biblical text as a voice, albeit distant and foreign yet in full dialogical partnership with the reader. As with any new conversation, exegesis begins with introductions: the introduction of the text and the introduction of the exegete. That is why first impressions are important, although they may not be definitive in the long run when the dialogue often proceeds in unanticipated directions. Every exegesis begins with a guess or first impression and then concludes with validation or, more often, a change of understanding. The exegesis of the text also involves, necessarily so, an exegesis of the self. Like a conversation between two strangers, exegesis is all about becoming a better listener, but not only of the text. Exegesis also involves coming to know yourself as an interpreter every time you engage the text and identifying the influences and interests that shape how you read texts. Finally, exegesis involves listening well to others at the table, a welcoming roundtable in which every seat is open and filled.

From start to finish, exegesis is a communal enterprise. You are not the first interpreter to work with a biblical passage. You follow countless other interpreters from generations past who have grappled with the text, some of whom have written about it. The commentary literature, both ancient and recent, is vast and available. Consider it a gift. Moreover, you have the privileged opportunity to work with others in dialogue, sharing your insights and listening to theirs. Do not take others for granted, especially when you are convinced that you are right about a biblical text. Often the best insights are recognized only after your own interpretive conclusions come to be questioned by others. Finally, for those who interpret texts for the sake of preaching, worship, or teaching, the community remains ever present in the mind (and heart) of the interpreter. Exegesis is inquiry in communion.

As you develop the craft of exegesis, you are entering a particularly exciting time in the history of biblical interpretation, a revolutionary time in fact, as is the case with other disciplines of inquiry. In act 2, scene 1, of the play Legacy of Light by Karen Zacarías, Dr. Olivia Hasting Brown addresses a group of Girl Scouts about her profession as an astrophysicist. She concludes with Einstein’s discovery of relativity and what it reveals about the universe:

Suddenly you have a more chaotic, volatile universe; not a Puritan on a bicycle, but a Hells Angel on a Harley. Throw in the fact that the universe is still expanding and you have a complex, interconnected universe gunning on all cylinders and making one hell of a wheelie while barely respecting the dynamics of physical law. (Zacarías 2007, 65)

This riveting description of a dynamic universe applies well to the contemporary world of biblical interpretation. Exegesis too has become more volatile and complex, gunning on all cylinders and roaring forth in all directions.

A number of factors have contributed to such dramatic change: the shift away from apologetics toward a more open-ended and dialogical approach to Scripture, a move away from defending the Bible to bringing the Bible into honest conversation. Also, the world is changing, culturally, economically, and physically. As the world has become more globalized, so it has become more interconnected. More and more readers from diverse contexts are entering the “House of the Interpreter.”³ That is to say, awareness of the multicultural community of readers has dramatically heightened within the last several decades. The assured results of exegesis of past generations are contested and destabilized by new generations of readers from various contexts. Voices long marginalized or silenced are being heard. Readers from across the global South and East are joining those from the North and West to sit at table together. The multiple ways of interpreting the biblical text reflect this growing diversity of readers, making every exegetical insight at once generative and provisional.

A cursory glance at the myriad approaches available today, from critical to cultural, literary to ideological, may seem overwhelming. But here we are, and jump in we must. Nevertheless, the active fray of exegesis need not be cause for bewilderment, but ultimately cause for wonder. If exegesis is fundamentally “reading seeking understanding” (cf. Acts 8:30), akin to Anselm of Canterbury’s definition of theology,⁴ then the joy of understanding, the excitement of new insight, and the thrill of new perspectives are more than simply by-products. For all its hard work, exegesis can be and should be an exercise of “inquisitive awe.”⁵

THE HERMENEUTICAL ADVENTURE

Exegesis is only the beginning; it marks the start of an adventure that interpreters, from biblical scholars to philosophers, have reflected on over the centuries. How does one arrive at meaning or gain understanding of a text? The structure of the journey is the stuff of “hermeneutics.” This rather technical-sounding name comes from the god Hermes, son of Zeus and the Olympian messenger known for his cunning, swiftness, and agility. In Greek mythology, Hermes delivered messages from the gods to mortals. Regarding the Bible, however, or any ancient text for that matter, the hermeneutical work of interpretation is neither swift nor cunning. Slow and stumbling are more like it. The text is never fully accessible; it will always be more than what we think we know about it. A historical and cultural chasm separates the modern interpreter and the ancient author, filled only partially (and sometimes erroneously) by the long and venerable history of interpretation. We cannot fully grasp what an ancient text said to its intended audience any more than we can transport ourselves back in time and conduct interviews.

Still, by attempting to peer across the hermeneutical divide, we can catch a glimpse of what the ancient text could have meant through language study (philology), literary analysis, historical research, and comparative work. Such lines of investigation help us to develop a matrix of possible meanings, some more plausible than others. But we can never overcome the hermeneutical divide; the full meaning of the ancient text remains ever elusive. When a telescope probes the night sky, it not only brings into view objects from great distances; it also looks back in time, measured in light-years. Given the great distances traversed by light, telescopes are the only time machines we have. The more distant the galaxy, the older and more obscure it is to the observer and the faster it is moving away. Such is the built-in limitation of sight, thanks to the finite speed of light. Similar is the limitation of hermeneutical understanding, thanks to the span of time and our own cultural distance. Call it the finite speed of life.

There is, moreover, something broader about the hermeneutical enterprise than simply determining what the text could have said in its earliest or originating contexts. If that were all there is to hermeneutics, biblical interpretation would be strictly a historical enterprise, an antiquarian’s quest. For many of its readers, however, the Bible is more than an ancient artifact; it bears profound relevance, and in ways not necessarily reducible to author’s original intent, however partially that can be “retrieved.” What the text means, in other words, is as critical as what it once meant.⁶ Discerning the text’s meaning includes interpreting the text in the light of one’s experience and within one’s community. One cannot interpret the biblical text without interpreting oneself and one’s context.

While exegesis is a matter of best interpretive practices, hermeneutics is more theoretically oriented: it explores how the process of interpretation is to be understood. While this handbook is devoted primarily to the practical level of interpretation, some hermeneutical overview is needed. Interpretation, specifically exegesis, is “a practical skill,” whereas hermeneutics operates more on the philosophical level (Conradie 2010, 298). For our purposes, we recognize that the act of interpreting Scripture is a peculiar one. It is different from interpreting other ancient (or modern) texts, for it requires more than simply studying from a distance, as if biblical texts were simply ancient documents housed in a stuffy museum. For communities of faith, biblical texts are considered authoritative and transformative. They teach and move people; lives are changed. They have relevance and currency. Walter Brueggemann talks of texts that “characteristically erupt into new usage” (2000, 1, 18). They “explode” with new meaning, propelled beyond the interpreter’s own analytical or critical insight. Interpreting biblical texts requires creative and empathic imagination as well as analytical acumen and lexical profic...