What is the importance of postmodernism?

Postmodernism is a new way of reading the Bible through a postconstructuralist lens. Some of the tenants of postmodernism are an awareness of pluralism, where there can be two elements of reality. There also isn’t one way to Truth. There can’t be any foundational belief because not everyone believes it. If everyone could agree on something, then it could be true. Postmodernism is inclusive and diverse, so there aims to be no oppression. Authority rests within the individual or the community.

There is usefulness in these ideas. This way of thinking could lead to a more peaceful world. If people accepted others’ interpretations of scripture, and agreed that both sides had some good in it, then that could create peace among people. Another positive of postmodernism is that people are more open-minded. There is more willingness to hear others’ ideas and opinions and learn from them rather than rejecting opposition right away. “Everybody’s point of view must be respected and acknowledged as equal to everybody else’s point of view” (Barton 61). Another reason why postmodern interpretations are good is that it gives people confidence in what they know even when others disagree. In order to have confidence, you have to know what you believe in, because if you don’t and someone challenges you, your foundation can be shaken, or even shattered. Postmodernism forces you to know your beliefs and be able to back them up, which I think is positive, because then you don’t have people who just accept what others are telling them without knowing exactly why they believe what they believe.

I think postmodernism, and postmodern ways of interpreting the Bible, are needed because it allows people to have a voice who have not had a chance before. It tries to tear down walls and open up interpretation to everyone. “The future will be a paradise of different readings with none privileged and all equally valid: the modernistic lion will lie down with the postmodernist lamb, the Marxist bear will eat straw with the capitalist goat, the pre/postmodernist fundamentalist sheep will safely trade biblical proof-texts with the modernist wolf and the ecclesiastical dove will dwell in peace with the academic serpent” (Barton 62).

What is Literary Criticism?

Literary criticism is a way of reading and interpreting the Bible by focusing on synchronic methods, which is evaluating the text as if it is a finished product. This can include looking at genre and rhetoric, among others. It is a way to find meaning within the text and try to see what it means as a literary work.

Genre is looked at in literary criticism. Whether the passage you are reading is a narrative or poetry, or some other genre, can affect how it is interpreted. With narrative criticism, one might try to “analyze the text with respect to thematic lines, plot, character development, point of view, or other appropriate features of narratives” (Gorman 196). By focusing on these key facts, one can discover many interesting things about the text. Unfortunately, sometimes these facts are not made applicable to the life of the church today, so it becomes just a story.

Rhetoric is another synchronic criticism. With this view, “texts exist to have an effect on the hearer/reader, and biblical writings exhibit ancient, modern, and universal rhetorical devices and forms” (Gorman 197). How is the text communicating, and is it communicating effectively? Depending on the form of rhetoric, different passages could have different meanings and effects on the reader. Because a text was written a certain way, was the author trying to communicate something different than is explicitly stated? Was this form effective or not?

Literary criticism is an overarching category that can include linguistic analysis also. This is focusing more on vocabulary, semantics, and grammar. Depending on how words are arranged and translated can have an effect on the meaning of a passage. This can go pretty in depth into linguistic analysis to figure out what words mean what and what their arrangement means. Again, these findings can be interesting, but sometimes are not applicable to life today. An interpreter can also get so wrapped up in these technicalities that he or she can miss the main message of the passage.

Importance of historical/critical methods

Historical/Critical methods of interpreting the text are important. In “Historical-critical approaches” in the book The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation, John Barton says, “the underlying motivation of ‘historical’ criticism is to free the text to speak” (pg. 17). By discovering the history behind the text and within the text, the reader can better understand the original intent of the passage. I think Barton describes an important aspect of historical criticism when he says, “where we do not know who wrote the text or what he or she meant by it, we may still be able to say that the text ‘could mean A’ or ‘could not mean B’ on the basis of our knowledge of the language in which the text was written” (pg. 17). By being able to eliminate certain interpretations, we can get closer to a good interpretation. I also think this is important because then people cannot abuse the text, and make it fit whatever they want it to say. If a person gives a certain text authority in their lives, then the text should speak to the person, and not necessarily the other way around.

William Swartley, in his article “Essays on Biblical Interpretation: Anabaptist-Mennonite Perspectives”, describes four reasons why historical criticism is essential. I will summarize his ideas. His first point is that the Bible stories happened in history, which can help us see the causes and effects of situations. For example, a reader could then notice themes of promise and fulfillment if they follow the historical context. His second point is that scripture is very diverse. We can become involved with the scriptures. To notice the main points, there may be some ideas that run counter to them, but these are all important. For example, Jesus took some Old Testament scripture and highlighted it for the people, while other passages he turned around. He applied what was necessary for his day. Swartley’s third point is a moral method that involves Jesus-based discernment. Jesus is the Way, and so we must check our interpretations with Jesus’ model for our lives and God’s will in our lives. Swartley’s final point is that we can bring our own thoughts to the reading for a fresh encounter with the text. This is like the two horizons. If we allow it, the text can change us.

Historical criticism can be very helpful when trying to interpret a text, as long as we allow the text to speak for itself. We can bring our own thoughts and experiences with us, and see how they interact together to form truths about God’s world.

Distantiation

J. Severino Croatto uses the term distantiation in his book Biblical Hermeneutics: toward a theory of reading as the production of meaning. He uses this term to mean the distance between two things, which results in ideas and language being lost.

Croatto mentions three occurrences of distantiation in the process of reading a text. These three distances are between language and speech, between speech and text, and between text and rereading.

The distances between language and speech happen when someone is trying to get a thought from their head into the spoken world. He says that the “badge” of this first distantiation is “the ‘closure’ of meaning. No temporal of spatial distance is involved, of course; the ‘distance’ is of the logical order” (pg. 16). The exact thoughts of the speaker will not be understood by the listener, since the speaker must put into a language or set of signs that the listener must interpret. The speaker will close meaning whenever they speak, while meaning is then opened up for the listener, which they have to interpret for themselves.

Another occurrence of distantiation is between speech and text. This text can either be oral or written. “A text is a ‘texture,’ etymologically, a web, in which the elements of language (words, sentences, literary units, and other elements) are organized according to structural functions that as such produce a meaning” (pg. 16). This is similar to the first distantiation, because as soon as ideas are written down, they are open to interpretation. Also with written texts, there can be hundreds of years between the author writing his or her thoughts and another person reading and interpreting that text. “The disappearance of the author of a text, the shift in addresses, changes in the life context engendering questions about the message—all these factors occasion a distantiation with respect to the first production of meaning, that of the act of discourse” (pg. 34).

The third hermeneutic distantiation occurs between text and rereading. Each time you reread a text, you will come to it with more knowledge than you did the previous time you read it. You will have a larger reservoir or meaning for the text. “The greater the distance, the more numerous will be the perspectives of a rereading of the text” (pg. 34).

These different distances within interpretations of text are important to realize. Whatever the author or speaker was trying to communicate may not match exactly with your interpretations. This is not a bad thing, but can create a richer understanding of a text.

Pre-understanding in Interpretation

Our pre-understanding plays a role in how we interpret biblical texts. Every person will bring some kind of personal idea or history to whatever they interact with in life. We all have experiences that shape how we view whatever else we come in contact with. The same goes for when we read the Bible. We will use what we know and have experienced to give us an idea of what the text is saying to us.

Anthony Thiselton in his essay “Biblical Studies and Theoretical Hermeneutics” from the book The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation describes pre-understanding as that “which we bring to the text in order to acquire a deeper understanding of it.” Just with a surface reading it is hard to look past any personal bias or tendency toward something that you would have. The natural reaction to learning new things, I believe, is to somehow connect it to your own life and experiences. So a person reading a biblical text will attach meaning to the text based on his or her past experiences. It helps us understand what we are reading.

Also, in referencing J.M. Chaldenius, Thiselton says, “all interpretations of the Bible depend on ‘viewpoint’.” If I read a passage of scripture, I will most likely interpret it within the context of a young, white, American female. A young man living in China will probably interpret the same passage very differently. Even a young, white, American female who lives in inner city Chicago will probably interpret the passage differently than me. We would all have a pre-conceived view of the world and how it works, so we would make our interpretations fit that view.

Pre-understanding plays a fairly big role in how we interpret biblical texts. It will affect our surface reading, and it probably would take some effort to try to remove those thoughts when trying to go deeper within the text, without a bias viewpoint.

What is the Bible?

In order for a text to have any authority, we have to give it authority in our lives. Some people could view romance novels as their bible, while the ‘Bible’ that I grew up reading consists of the Old Testament (without Apocrypha) plus the New Testament. What people view as a bible can be any readings that they base their life around and try to live accordingly. So many different writings with the title of ‘bible’ are not similar at all to the Old and New Testaments. For example, if you search any online bookstore, there will be different cooking bibles and guitar bibles, along with others. I think though that when most people refer to the Bible, they will be quoting similar scripture, but there is no guarantee.

‘The Bible’ is the name of the canon, and what is thought of as the Word of God, but I don’t think that God has stopped speaking to people, or has stopped inspiring people to write God’s words. I may view someone’s contemporary writings as having near the same authority as how I view the writings of Paul, depending on whether I believe the author is in line with my view of God and Jesus. The older texts have a wonderful context of being near the time when Christ lived, but having a modern author write in our context is valuable too, I believe. These are men and women who are following God, and who are trying to do God’s will, and share God’s words with everyone.

James Bowley in his book Introduction to Hebrew Bible talks about what we call The Bible as being more of a library than a book. There are so many different authors and writings that are compiled into our canon that to try to wrap it up into one ‘writing’ would be doing an injustice to it. There are also many different types of Bibles for different denominations and religions. Some versions might have a couple more books than the other one, but the majority of the writings will be the same.

A question this brings up then is what do we say when we quote scripture? Can we say, ‘The Bible says…’, or should it be, ‘The author of Deuteronomy says…’. But do we believe that all scripture is inspired by God, and therefore is all the Word of God? So can we just say, ‘God says in Matthew that…’? We also have to remember that not everyone gives every book we have in our Bible authority, and different people have different Bibles, so we need to be aware of this and be sensitive to what others believe and what they have canonized.

Perspectives on Bible Reading

I believe, that like most people, I have a hybrid of ways that I read and interpret the Bible. If I look at the Bible reading chart, my first impression is that I use mostly Reader-Response Reading when I read the Bible. I find it helpful when reading a passage to find some way to relate it to my life. I think that in this way the Bible is still speaking to people, and is still an active piece in our lives, rather than just something that was written thousands of years ago from which we can learn nothing. If it was just an historical piece of literature, what would be its purpose for us today?

I do like when it says that ‘Reader-Response interpretation can happen in groups of communities of readers’. I think there is a lot of value in reading and interpreting the Bible within a community. I could get really off base with my interpretation, and it will be checked by another person if we are interpreting as a group. God can speak to all of us in different ways, and God has given us all unique personalities, so we will all think a little differently, but we can learn a lot more that way also.

In the ‘Chart of Exegetical Methods’ I think that I would fall more into the existential methods of interpreting. I probably do mostly spiritual reading and embodiment or actualization. I think the Biblical text can be used as worship, and we can learn so much about how to live our lives from the Bible. I do not think that the Bible means much to us at all if we do not embody what it says. If we do not follow the teachings or live our lives as the Bible tells us to, then what authority have we given it?

By reading and interpreting the Bible in these different ways, I try to use what I read and apply it to my everyday life. I use the Bible to learn more about God and how God wants me to live.