Prima Scriptura: An Introduction to New Testament Interpretation

By N. Clayton Croy

In this volume an expert teacher of the Bible provides an introduction to New Testament exegesis that will appeal to students across the spectrum. Clayton Croy begins with the preparation of the interpreter, proceeds to analysis of the text, and concludes with appropriation of the message of Scripture in the context of modern faith communities. He combines a step-by-step plan for historical exegesis with substantive discussion of broader hermeneutical issues. The book interacts with recent scholarship and is academically rigorous but is written in an engaging style, incorporating anecdotes, humor, scriptural illustrations, and examples of the practical payoff of disciplined interpretation. Each chapter includes discussion questions and suggestions for further reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781441214447

N. Clayton Croy

N. Clayton Croy is associate professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.

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© 2011 by N. Clayton Croy

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2011

Ebook corrections 06.28.2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-1444-7

Except as otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

To my parents, Otis and Helen Croy,

who were my first teachers of the Bible

and examples of Christian living

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1: Analyzing and Preparing the Interpreter

2: Analyzing the Text

3: Evaluating and Contemporizing the Text

4: Appropriating the Text and Transforming the Community

Appendix 1: Sample Exegesis Paper

Appendix 2: Sample Exegetical Brief

Appendix 3: Pictograph of Philippians

Appendix 4: Pictograph of 2 Corinthians

Appendix 5: Chart of the Gospel of Mark

Appendix 6: Nestle-Aland²⁷ and UBS⁴ Comparison Chart

Appendix 7: In the Laboratory with Agassiz

Bibliography

Subject Index

Author Index

Scripture Index

Notes (for Appendix 1)

Back Cover

Preface

A Complex and Contested Enterprise

In January 2005 the Executive Council of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), the largest professional association of teachers and scholars of the Bible, faced a dilemma. The council had received a resolution from a group of members responding to the recent U.S. election in November 2004. The resolution observed that values, sometimes specifically called Christian values or biblical values, had emerged in the campaign as a key political issue. The group contended that the values most commonly identified in public debates were the issues of gay marriage, abortion, and stem-cell research.

The resolution went on to argue that these values are not major concerns in the Bible, and in fact are not even directly addressed in the Bible. Rather, they tend to reflect the underlying problems of homophobia, misogyny, control of reproductive rights, and restraint of expression (including scientific research) in U.S. society today. The proponents of the resolution asserted that the moral issues dominating the biblical texts focus instead on concerns such as the well-being of individuals, the integrity of community, care for the powerless and the vulnerable, economic justice, the establishment of peace, and the stewardship of the environment. They concluded that the Society should work toward securing these goals and values.

The Executive Council had at least three alternatives:

to reject the resolution out of hand;

to endorse the resolution as an official statement of the Society; or

to refer the resolution to the membership for responses and comments.

The council wisely chose the third course. The resolution was sent electronically to 5,585 members, asking them to vote agree or disagree and inviting comments. The response was quantitatively strong (35 percent of those receiving the resolution) and qualitatively vigorous (thoughtful and spirited comments were given by 46 percent of the respondents). When the dust settled, the vote was 56 percent in agreement with the resolution, 44 percent in disagreement. The vote was unscientific since participation was voluntary, but the response was large enough to indicate a deep divide on the issues raised by the resolution.

There are several lessons in this controversy. The Society of Biblical Literature is a diverse group. The Bible is regarded as relevant, by one group or another, to a wide range of public policy issues, including social justice issues traditionally, and stereotypically, identified as liberal concerns, as well as family values similarly identified as conservative. Finally, and perhaps most poignantly, the response to the resolution indicates that biblical interpretation is a complex and contested enterprise. The SBL is a professional organization of scholarly experts, most of whom hold doctorates or are student members in the process of earning them. When trained experts disagree so sharply, what hope of consensus can be entertained by laypersons (in either the ecclesial or academic sense)?

The status quo need not be wholly discouraging, however. As Brevard S. Childs observes about the general state of contemporary biblical scholarship, The very intensity of the conflicting voices serves to confirm the impression that the problem of biblical interpretation does not arise from apathy. . . . Cannot one draw the implication that in spite of confusion and conflict in respect to biblical interpretation, there is an unexpressed consensus that the Bible still possesses a seriousness of content and an evocative power for raising basic questions which offers hope in a search for its renewed understanding in the twenty-first century? (Childs, foreword to Bartholomew, 2000: xv). While Childs rightly observes that indifference to the Bible is seldom a problem, nevertheless, complex and sometimes contradictory visions emerge from its study.

Several factors complicate the interpretation of the Bible (Porter, 1997a: 11–15; Hayes and Holladay, 2007: 12–16). Some of them have to do with the Bible itself, its distance from us, and its foreignness. Other factors have to do with the interpreters, the modern readers of the text, their limitations, biases, skills, and perspectives. Both kinds deserve some elaboration.

1. Our outsider status. All modern readers are outsiders to the original communicative act of Scripture. In this sense, the Bible was not written for us. Our common humanity, the providence of God, and the illumination of the Holy Spirit enable the Bible to continue to speak to persons today, but they neither erase its foreign qualities nor provide a quick and easy bridge to a critical understanding of its message. Most of the writings of the Bible are more aptly described as having a timely message than a timeless one. Their assumptions, modes of thought, teachings, exhortations, laments, and exultations are rooted in another era and are addressed to circumstances that prevailed in the two millennia prior to the birth of Jesus and in the first century CE, not the twenty-first century CE. Among the New Testament writings our outsider status is especially evident with respect to epistolary literature. The old quip has an element of truth: when we read Paul’s Letters, we are reading someone else’s mail (Hayes and Holladay, 2007: 12). The other side of this coin, however, is that Christian readers of Scripture often feel directly addressed by its words, sometimes to their comfort, sometimes to their dismay (Green, 2007b: 50–59).

2. Language. Modern English translations make most passages of Scripture fairly intelligible, and we should be grateful for the generations of scholars who have toiled over manuscripts, lexicons, and manuals of style to make the Scriptures available in the vernacular. But the ease of reading such works belies the fact that they are the product of countless hours of intense study, debate, and decision making. We have learned much over the centuries about Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek lexicography, syntax, idiom, and style, but difficult decisions remain in which even highly trained experts are compelled to make their best guesses. Translations by necessity do not reveal the difficulty of those decisions. Neither is it a transparent fact to all readers that translation involves interpretation. Although the goal of translation is to convey the meaning of the original text into the target language and not to modify it, differences between the original language and the target language often require translators to choose among possible nuances of a word or alternative construals of grammatical phenomena. A person only needs to read a few English translations of the same passage to see how slight, and sometimes significant, differences emerge in the process of translation.

3. History. Almost two thousand years separate us from the writings of the New Testament. One need not read much of the biblical text for that distance to become apparent. Medicine was primitive, infant mortality was common, and physical ailments were sometimes attributed to evil spirits. Roman rule was sometimes brutal. Democracy at best was a Greek institution of centuries past, only traces of which existed during the Roman Republic, and human rights as a concept lay a millennium and a half in the future. The economy was chiefly agricultural, slavery was a given, and lifestyles were modest for the vast majority of people. Transportation was slow; mail service was limited to official correspondence. Religious traditions were often polytheistic, and deities were frequently conceived in anthropomorphic terms. Animal sacrifices were commonplace.

4. Cultural assumptions. The ancient Mediterranean world differed markedly from the modern Western world in its cultural assumptions (Achtemeier, Green, and Thompson, 2001: 284–88). Novelty was viewed with suspicion rather than favor, and old ways were assumed to be superior to innovation. Religion and politics were thoroughly intertwined rather than kept separate from one another. Political decisions were seldom made without first seeking divine guidance by auspices and omens. Our modern practice of beginning sessions of Congress with prayer pales by comparison to the intermingling of religion and politics in the Roman Empire. In contrast to modern American misgivings, people in antiquity generally would have had scruples about not mixing the two. Finally, both households and society at large were hierarchically structured and patriarchal. The modern Western world, of course, has unfinished business in this regard, but in the first-century Mediterranean world this assumption was commonplace, and there were few voices of protest against it.

5. Differences in readers’ perspectives. Interpretation is also complicated by the great disparity among interpreters. We come to the text from different places socially, economically, politically, religiously, and ethnically. We have different understandings about what is possible, what is reasonable, what is just, and what is useful. Even differences in personality type can influence how one hears the biblical text. Ben Meyer correctly points out that the foundational commitments held by various interpreters account for the most vexing controversies in biblical interpretation: The root of our deepest divisions is not lack of evidence. It is the fact of opposed horizons and, above all, of irreducibly opposed horizons, as a moment’s reflection on public controversies will suggest and as sustained reflection will confirm. Irreducibly opposed horizons are a massive human reality labyrinthine in its consequences, leading some sincerely to champion as true and good what others with equal sincerity repudiate as false and evil (1989: 81). Such fundamental distinctions in personal horizons were evident in the disparate responses to the resolution proposed to the Society of Biblical Literature.

6. Differences in readers’ abilities. Interpreters of Scripture have different levels of linguistic skill, historical awareness, spiritual insight, and common sense. As Georg Lichtenberg, the eighteenth-century aphorist, observed, A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, an apostle is hardly likely to look out (2000: 71). While we might prefer to refrain from likening readers to primates, whether of the simian or episcopal variety, Lichtenberg has a point: the quality of an interpretation is, in part, a function of the interpreter, and it will usually not be more erudite, creative, or faithful than the interpreter is. Other things being equal, a trained and sensitive interpreter has an advantage over an untrained and insensitive one. In short, the better the reader, the better the reading.

The good news, however, is that less-skilled readers can become more skilled through intellectual and spiritual discipline. On the one hand, the interpretation of the New Testament as a literary work from antiquity demands intellectual skills that can be acquired through study and practice. On the other hand, the New Testament as a religious text rewards readers who have spiritual sensitivities, and the best academic training does not necessarily confer them. Ben Meyer refers to this disposition as being attuned to the text, and he correctly notes that our culture and our institutions do not necessarily facilitate it. In view of the devastating alienations of our time, this being in tune cannot be presupposed as standard equipment among interpreters. Graduate schools do not pledge to confer or cultivate it and may never so much as mention it (1989: 90). Faith and devotion that are nurtured by Christian community can, however, cultivate this disposition, and such qualities, combined with rigorous academic training, represent the ideal hermeneutical resources for grasping the theological meaning of the New Testament.

The perspectives and abilities of an interpreter are thus the product of many things: accidents of birth, physical and psychological characteristics, education, socialization, religious upbringing, theological commitments, life experiences, and so forth. Any of these factors may impede or enhance one’s ability to interpret Scripture. Because of their critical importance, they will receive further attention in chapter 1.

Despite these complexities about how to interpret and apply the Bible, millions of people still look to this collection of writings for spiritual guidance in personal and public life. Indeed, it is the religious value of Scripture, more than its historical or literary qualities (without denigrating the latter), that accounts for its historical and cultural impact. As one introductory text on the New Testament asserts, The most distinctive characteristic of the New Testament documents is surely their function as Scripture within the Christian church. Most people who read the New Testament do so . . . because they share the conviction that this collection of documents, together with the Old Testament, comprise the Scriptures of the church, its normative witness to the work of God in the world through Jesus Christ (Achtemeier, Green, and Thompson, 2001: 1, 9).

It is to this audience that this book is primarily directed, to persons who regard the Bible as an authoritative and revelatory text, or more precisely, a collection or canon of texts. I am primarily addressing confessional readers, those who belong to communities of faith that affirm the authority of Scripture and the faith of the classic creeds. This readership is intentionally broad and thus able to encompass Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox expressions of Christianity. My hope is that the book will serve communities who regard the Bible as more than an edifying story but less than divine dictation. That describes a fairly wide swath of Christendom.

The book’s subtitle indicates that it has an (almost) exclusive focus on the interpretation of the New Testament. This restriction does not imply a devaluation of the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures. The church rejected that option when it excommunicated Marcion, the second-century heretic who discarded the Old Testament as the product of a lesser deity. Contra Marcion, the Hebrew Scriptures are Christian Scriptures, no less essential, no less revelatory than the New Testament. The reasons for my focus on the New Testament are professional and practical. My professional expertise is in the New Testament, and so I am better able to address its interpretation than that of the Hebrew Bible. Practically, I suspect that most, but by no means all, college, university, and seminary courses that deal with biblical interpretation will focus on one Testament or the other. There is not an entirely different set of interpretive principles for the Old Testament, and much of what is put forward in this book is applicable to the interpretation of either Testament, but when one turns to contextual issues, literary forms, linguistic tools, and specific textual examples, as this book will do frequently, it becomes cumbersome to treat both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek New Testament.

So the aim of this book is to propose a way for leaders of Christian communities methodically to study and reflect on Scripture, particularly the New Testament, with a view to informing and shaping the life of faith. The latter is by no means limited to matters of public policy, as was the resolution of the Society of Biblical Literature. The Bible has a variety of functions in confessional contexts. It shapes Christian identity. It provides resources for the church’s worship life. It supplies the raw material of our proclamation. It informs our theology. It guides personal piety and communal polity. And, yes, it also contains a vision for the larger society, with implications for both social justice issues and family values. In sum, the Bible shapes not only one’s personal devotion and discipleship but also informs larger matters of culture, politics, philosophy, theology, and ethics (Wright, 2005: 5–18). But before we launch into a description and demonstration of interpretive method, it will be helpful to define some key terms, to discuss a few theoretical issues, and to sketch the journey ahead. Those are the goals of the introduction.

Acknowledgments

A comprehensive list of persons who have contributed to my understanding of biblical interpretation would be a short book in itself. Here I will limit myself to those individuals who made direct contributions to the shaping, editing, and evolution of this book. My two New Testament colleagues at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Mark Allan Powell and Walter Taylor, have been sounding boards for my ideas over many years. They have influenced me in numerous and subtle ways, but they were especially helpful in critiquing and improving the Sample Exegesis Paper included in this volume. Two of our institution’s bible division research assistants, Brad Ross and Jerry O’Neal, provided exceptional assistance by proofreading the manuscript, checking bibliographical references, and offering substantive suggestions. Three colleagues read significant portions of the manuscript, providing helpful critique from their professional and/or denominational perspectives: Donald Huber of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, William H. Petersen of Bexley Hall Seminary, and John Clabeaux of the Pontifical College Josephinum. Special thanks go to Joseph Dongell of Asbury Theological Seminary for the yeoman service of reading the entire manuscript and providing valuable feedback, especially on broad, hermeneutical issues. Richard Barrett, a layman in my church, also offered several helpful suggestions. Finally, James Ernest, my editor at Baker Academic, has been a model of support, encouragement, and gentle provocation through a process that has spanned a few years.

As is always the case when others critique one’s writing, these persons saved me the embarrassment of many careless errors, improved my thinking and its expression at many points, alerted me to resources or lines of thought that I had overlooked, and generally provided the inestimable gift of the perspective of a charitable other. Any infelicities of style or judgment that remain are necessarily my responsibility, but without question, the book’s utility has been greatly enhanced by my many helpers. I am in their debt.

Introduction

Definitions, Theoretical Issues, and Preview of the Method

The most striking characteristic of biblical interpretation during the last several decades is an explosion of interpretive methods. Fifty years ago it would have been much easier to outline the steps in exegetical method or describe what hermeneutics entails. During the last half of the twentieth century, the landscape of biblical scholarship underwent as many shifts and divisions as the map of Eastern Europe.

The interpretive smorgasbord nowadays includes historical, literary, rhetorical, canonical, narrative, reader-response, social-scientific, anthropological, structuralist, and a host of ideological methods (liberationist, feminist, womanist, African, African-American, Latino/a, Asian, postcolonial, gay/queer, and so forth). Unlike a food smorgasbord, however, there is no consensus about basic food groups or what constitutes the ideal diet.

The effect of this methodological explosion is twofold. On the one hand, interpretation is potentially enriched by the wide variety of lenses through which texts may be read. The new interpretations or readings resulting from these methods can be complementary: different but not disparate. On the other hand, chaos and confusion may result from the proliferation of interpretive methods. This is particularly so for interpreters who do not have the luxury of leisurely, abstract musing in multiple modes. Those who interpret Scripture in confessional contexts for personal or congregational guidance often have more practical and pressing goals. When one studies Scripture with a view to proclamation, teaching, and shaping Christian discipleship, one can easily feel overwhelmed by a dozen options rather than enriched. In the smorgasbord image, these interpreters are looking for meat and potatoes that will nourish life more so than exotic foods that tantalize the eye and pique the palate.

Let me clarify my perspective, lest I appear dismissive of newer interpretive methods. Both enrichment and confusion have resulted. The new insights that have been gleaned from strategies such as rhetorical, sociological, narrative, and feminist criticism—just to name some of the most fruitful techniques—are to be received gratefully. But the welter of methods leaves some interpreters, especially beginners, confused. Sandra Schneiders rightly observes, The new voices, until recently peripheral, are establishing themselves inside the camp. Increasingly the question of the coherence of the project of biblical interpretation, given the plurality of methods and the validity of multiple interpretations, is emerging as urgent (1991: 24). In the chaos it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these methods are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They have common features that can be gleaned and incorporated into a basic eclectic method that will serve the practical needs of ministers, teachers, and students.

That is the aim of this book: to provide a starting point or foundation, not the final word. I do not, however, imagine that an eclectic approach can possibly incorporate all the benefits of the new methods that have arisen in the last few decades. Explicit and rigorous rhetorical, sociological, narrative, and feminist readings will open perspectives on texts that the method described in the succeeding chapters will only suggest indirectly. Nevertheless, a basic method of interpretation with a finite number of discrete steps still has much value. When Sunday is looming and a preaching text or a Bible study lesson plan is staring you down, a practical, methodical approach to biblical interpretation is needed. This is true for both newcomers and seasoned exegetes. A trusty cookbook with a step-by-step method serves both beginners who are learning the culinary arts as well as master chefs, whose skill derives from a well-honed habit of attention to details. Far from stifling creativity, mastering a basic methodology enables creativity by providing it with discipline and direction.

Several preliminary issues and matters of definition need attention. Some of these are ancient cruxes; others have arisen in the theoretical debates of the last several decades. Needless to say, volumes have been written about each of the following questions. The treatment here makes no pretense of being comprehensive, but rather seeks to orient beginners to the journey ahead. Before one embarks on a lengthy voyage, it is wise to learn something about the history of seafaring and the prevailing ocean currents.

What Is the Meaning of Meaning?

If the interpretation of Scripture has something to do with deriving its meaning, an appropriate starting point is to inquire as to what we mean by meaning. The answer to this question is neither simple nor self-evident. Indeed, there are several meanings for the word meaning, and the occasional conflation of these meanings has, according to some theorists, worked much mischief in the field of hermeneutics.

The basic meaning of meaning is referential. A word is a linguistic sign that means that thing to which it refers. Thus the meaning of book is that bound collection of printed pages that you have before you. The meaning of eyes is the pair of ocular organs you are using to read this sentence. Referential meaning applies most obviously to physical things. This kind of meaning can easily be grasped by the mind when the referent can be grasped by the hand. It is less apparent what the referential meaning of a highly abstract word would be, such as abstraction. Referential meaning is also inadequate for complex sentences, metaphor, or interjections. For example, the referential meaning of rats may be a certain genus of rodent, but that meaning scarcely applies in the sentence Rats! The library is closed.

An alternative theory that avoids these weaknesses is the ideational theory of meaning. According to this theory, meaning inheres in the ideas and concepts that lie behind language. For some philosophers this was a way to preserve meaning from the limitations of language. By this view, language is finite, able to convey thought only imperfectly. The inability to find words to express one’s thoughts is a common experience, but one could argue that in such cases the thought itself is unformed. Does thought truly exist apart from language? Ideational theories have the opposite problem from referential theories; they are inadequate for physical things. The meaning of elephant as a mental concept is quite different from an actual elephant. If there is an elephant in your living room, most people would want it to be of the ideational variety.

A third theory of meaning connects it with human intention. The meaning of a word is that which the speaker or writer intends by it. This theory has certain advantages. It relates meanings to minds, human consciousness. Surely all expressions of meaning and construals of meanings involve human minds. This theory also accounts for the fact that the same linguistic symbols may not in all cases convey the same meaning. The meaning of flat in the utterance I’m mad about my flat has a very different meaning if uttered by an angry American motorist stranded on the roadside or an enthusiastic Londoner moving into a new apartment (Caird, 1980: 50). In either case, the meaning is that which the speaker intends. Critics of this theory point out that an author’s intention is often accessible only through the words of the text. If the words are ambiguous, how does one get behind them to the author’s intent? In addition, what does one do with ancient texts whose authors are unknown (e.g., Hebrews) or pseudonymous (e.g., 2 Peter)? Authorial intention is not to be dismissed, but in the case of ancient authors, usually the most one can hope for is a reasonable understanding of the author’s communicative intention: what the author intended to say and succeeded in expressing in the text. Why an ancient author wrote a certain thing, that is, the author’s motive, is often beyond our ability to ascertain (Fowl, 2000: 74).

A fourth theory equates meaning with significance. The meaning of an utterance or a text is the importance, relevance, and impact that it has. This definition of meaning is especially seen in the adjectival form meaningful. Speech or writing is meaningful when it has consequences for the hearer or reader. It may arouse interest, inspire action, or evoke awe. Meaning as significance is the sense normally elicited when we add a short prepositional phrase to the question "What does this mean . . . to you? Mark Allan Powell has conducted an informal experiment showing that professional interpreters in particular (in this case, Christian ministers), when presented with a biblical text, respond differently to the question What does this mean? as over against What does this mean to you? (2001: 28–56, esp. 51–53). This experiment highlights the difference between meaning as human intention and meaning as significance, for which Powell uses the roughly equivalent language meaning as message versus meaning as effect" (2001: 22–27). By either set of terms, the latter sense of meaning clearly transcends the former. Readers frequently find meanings in texts (= significance or effect) that go beyond the author’s meaning (= intention or message).

Finally, semantic theories of meaning stress the author’s choice of certain words from a large stock of linguistic options and the author’s placement of those words in certain syntactical relationships. The meaning of a word in an utterance and the meaning of the utterance itself are determined by those contextual relationships.

This brief discussion by no means exhausts the possibilities. Indeed, one standard work on the subject delineates sixteen different meanings of meaning (Ogden and Richards, 1989: 185–208). But the above remarks should be sufficient to give the reader a sense of the philosophical questions that lie behind the act of interpretation. The most important distinction among the meanings of meaning is the one between the intention of the writer and the significance of the writing to the readers. Clarity on this point will lessen the confusion when we come to consider and evaluate diverse interpretations.

What Is Meant by Exegesis and Hermeneutics?

Both of these terms come directly from Greek words. Exegesis first referred to a detailed narrative or description and then came to mean a detailed explanation or interpretation. The meaning of the English is similar: an explanation or exposition; especially, an interpretation of a literary text. Etymologically the Greek word derives from a verb meaning to lead forth, to draw out. Although etymology does not determine meaning, a relationship can be seen in the idea that exegesis involves a drawing out of the text’s meaning. (As we will see later in this chapter, some practitioners take issue with that implication.) Hermeneia referred first to an utterance or expression of thought, then to an interpretation, either in the sense of a translation from one language to another, or in the sense of an explanation of the meaning of a text or statement. (The Greek word is related to the god Hermes, who served as the bearer of messages between the gods and mortals.) In English, hermeneutics refers to the study of methods or principles of interpretation.

Clearly the semantic fields of both the Greek and English words are overlapping. The usage of the English words in biblical scholarship has been somewhat fluid, but attempts are often made to distinguish hermeneutics from exegesis. Sometimes a rather simple distinction is offered: exegesis pertains to what the text meant; hermeneutics pertains to what the text means (Stendahl, 1962: 419–20; R. Brown, 1981: 23–44). But this is not the most helpful way to frame the matter. The meaning of a text does not automatically change simply by the passage of time. This way of distinguishing the terms conflates meaning with significance. What an ancient text means in modern times is really a matter of the relationship between the historical meaning and the modern readers and their context. This "meaning to someone," especially someone far removed from the original act of communication, is more properly a matter of the text’s significance.

A more helpful way to distinguish exegesis from hermeneutics is to see the latter as the broader, more theoretical term, concerned especially with philosophical notions of meaning, language, and understanding, and with the formulation of interpretive principles. Exegesis would then refer to the practical application of those principles in interpreting specific texts. In short, hermeneutics is theory; exegesis is practice.

Another way of saying this is that exegesis has as its object a text to be interpreted, whereas hermeneutics takes a step back and reflects on the very process of interpretation. As Ben Meyer puts it, If the object of interpretation [or exegesis] is to understand the text, the object of hermeneutics is to understand the understanding of texts (1989: 88). Hermeneutics is, in effect, the philosophy of interpretation, and discussions of it by its leading theorists tend to be very theoretical. In contrast, discussions of exegesis often read like a how-to book.

This book is concerned with both hermeneutics and exegesis. The large central portion of the book (chapter 2) has a how-to section on exegetical method. Surrounding that center, chapters 1, 3, and 4 take up pre- and postexegetical matters, though that language is somewhat artificial since all the chapters address a unified interpretive process. There is a logical sequence to the exegetical steps in chapter 2 and to all the chapters in the plan of the book, but the real-life practice of interpretation may unfold differently or shift emphases according to the particulars of the interpreter, the text, and the hermeneutical context.

Where Is Meaning to Be Sought?

Northrop Frye, a prominent twentieth-century literary critic, once wrote: It has been said of [the German religious mystic Jakob] Boehme that his books are like a picnic to which the author brings the words and the reader the meaning. The remark may have been intended as a sneer at Boehme, but it is an exact description of all works of literary art without exception (1962: 427–28). Some scholars would take strong exception to such a sweeping statement, but it forcefully articulates a point of view that became popular in the latter half of the twentieth century. The question can be stated simply: Where is meaning to be sought? Or perhaps, who or what determines meaning? Ben Meyer calls this the most basic hermeneutical issue: "Do texts mediate meaning to us, or do we lend meaning to texts?" (1994: 2) When readers read, do they discover meaning or generate it? Do they construe it or construct it? Northrop Frye clearly thought that the reader was the primary supplier of meaning, but at least three different answers have been given to the question of the source of meaning. These three answers also outline the major phases in literary theory. It would not be exaggerating to call them paradigm shifts.

1. Meaning as located in the author’s intention. The traditional view was that meaning was inextricably linked to the author. Obviously this view draws upon the understanding of meaning as authorial intention: the text means what the author intended it to mean. For most people this theory has the aura of common sense. Anyone who has ever said, written, or thought, That’s not what I meant! is a believer in the importance of authorial intent. This view of the locus of meaning prevailed from the early eighteenth century up to the mid-twentieth century. It received its definitive statement, however, in the book Validity in Interpretation, by E. D. Hirsch (1967; see also Juhl, 1980; Knapp and Michaels, 1982; and F. Watson, 1997: 95–126). Hirsch argues that meaning is rooted in the author’s consciousness, specifically in the desire to convey a certain understanding by means of a sequence of linguistic symbols. Hirsch distinguishes meaning from significance, the latter being the importance, relevance, or value of a particular meaning.

Meaning is that which is represented by a text; it is what the author meant by his use of a particular sign sequence; it is what the signs represent. Significance, on the other hand, names a relationship between that meaning and a person, or a conception, or a situation, or indeed anything imaginable. (Hirsch, 1967: 8)

If the author and the interpreter are competent, Hirsch insists, this meaning is accessible and repeatable: it can be conveyed