The Role of Context in Biblical Hermeneutics - Essay Example

? THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS Context plays a central role in the act of biblical interpretation. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate how this is so, and why this is so. It begins with a brief examination of the role of context in communication in general, which will then be applied to the activity of textual interpretation using the concept of the hermeneutic circle as developed by Frederich Schliermacher and Hans Georg Gadamer. There is no doubt that context plays an important role not only in biblical interpretation, and not only in textual interpretation in general, but in all acts of human communication. The contextual nature of biblical interpretation, in fact, is founded in the contextual nature of all communication. Consider the following statement: “The Monkees are the greatest band ever.” On the face of it, the meaning seems obvious. It is a statement of the relative worth of The Monkees by comparison to all other musical acts throughout history. It implies that when compared with, say, the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Metropolitan Opera Company, and all of the Homeric bards, that the Monkees come out on top. However, this is not necessarily the meaning the statement is intended to convey. If it is said in a grave voice, it may mean just this. If it is said in an excited voice while at a concert, we may take it as earnest hyperbole. However, if it is said in a hipster infested coffeehouse, we may take it to mean precisely the opposite. The meaning of any statement is subject to the same sort of factors. Their sense cannot be determined by the examination of the mere words used, rather they must be understood with reference to the total situation in which they are spoken. As this is with spoken communication, so it is with written texts. To return this to Biblical matters, we may examine the following Biblical quotation: “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.”1 If this statement is truly taken without context, it makes a most surprising assertion. Namely, that God is a rock. Further, we find, with some surprise, that God, unlike other, more common examples of rocks, is the sort of rock that judges, and is just. One might wonder how to distinguish between just and unjust rocks, and indeed whether God is igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary. However, when this passages is juxtaposed with other descriptions of God found throughout the Bible, what is at first nonsensical transparently reveals itself to be metaphor. Of course, the above example is not entirely serious. No one has ever thought to read this passage as literally suggesting that God is a rock. However, this alone reveals something. Namely that everyone, instinctively, takes into account the surrounding passages, and the whole of their knowledge of the Bible when interpreting single verses. Further it sharply shows the dangers of taking biblical quotations out of context. One may ask how this works, and just how much of a role that context plays in this process. One approach would be to argue that context completely determines the meaning of individual statements, however, this seems as absurd as maintaining that context plays no role at all. It must be the case that context and statement both bear some weight in understanding a text. The German biblical and classical scholar Frederich Schliermacher proposed an interesting way to understand this relationship.2 When interpreting any text, he maintained, the part is always understood through the whole. Conversely, the whole is always understood by means of the individual parts. The relation is reciprocal. This reciprocal relation is usually referred to as “the hermeneutic circle.” An example may help to make clear how this works. One may find oneself reading through a political blog post and find oneself agreeing with it. Two-thirds of the way through, the author makes a blatantly bigoted statement. This, should, of course, give the reader pause, and the work of interpretation begins. It is possibly the case that the author merely had an unfortunate slip, or perhaps that he is bigoted but that this does not affect the validity of his argument. One determines this with reference to the whole of the post, it must be determined whether the rest of it is animated by the same bigotry. If one finds no trace of this, then perhaps the reader was mistaken, and the comment is not as bigoted as it first appeared. On the other hand, upon examining the rest of the post, some of the other statements made may assume a decidedly sinister cast. In the former case we find the whole influencing the reading of the part, in the latter case we find the part modifying the reading of the whole. Both of these continuously shape the perceived meaning of a text in the process of a reading, whether consciously or unconsciously. However, the account just given may be too narrow. We understand texts not only in reference to themselves, but with reference to other texts, that is to say, intertextually. We further understand it in relation to our total understanding of the world. Another example may be helpful here. A cursory examination of the Bible reveals that it contains a most remarkable story, or rather set of related stories. In it we see a narrative in which the forces of good, through a series of trials, and with divine aid overcome the forces of evil. The story itself contains many exotic locations, marvels, and miracles. Likewise, one may examine another text, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. In it we see a narrative in which the forces of good, through a series of trials, and with divine aid overcome the forces of evil. The story itself contains many exotic locations, marvels, and miracles. However, most people do not understand these works in the same way. One does not find the Bible and The Lord of The Rings shelved side by side in the bookstore. The readers of the Bible congregate in churches and take it seriously indeed. The readers of The Lord of The Rings congregate at fantasy conventions, and though they may take it seriously, they do not take it as true. This is the case because before one has read either work, one is armed with a broader understanding of the relation these texts bear to other texts, and the role they play in our culture as a whole. The reader of the Bible understands that it is thought by many to be a revealed work which contains truths about God and the world as well as historical accounts of events which occurred in the Near East. The Lord of The Rings, on the other hand, is understood by nearly all to be a work of fiction, made up out of whole cloth, by a single, very human, author. Though it may contain some truths about the world, these are due to fallible human insight, and expressed metaphorically. It belongs to an entire group of fictitious, quasi-medieval narratives by other authors such as Dunsanay and Martin. Nothing in it ever actually happened. The Bible, and The Lord of the Rings belong to different genres, different families of writing, themselves different from many other forms of fiction and non-fiction. They further have vastly different cultural contexts. This notion of genre is not only useful for distinguishing between the Bible and other texts. It is also useful for determining how to read individual portions of the Bible.3 Parts of the bible are intended as straightforward historical narratives, and parts of the bible are collections of laws, parts again are prophecies. Each of these is a form which obeys its own rules and has its own purpose. Each, then, demands to be read in different ways. The above mentioned genres always deserve to be taken into account. However, it is worth noting that the broader cultural and literary context in which the Bible is understood will itself be understood differently be different readers. The faithful understand the Bible in one fashion, and read it to glean truths about the world in which they find themselves. A historical scholar, perhaps a follower of David Strauss, will still read it in order to glean truths about the world, but these truths will be truths about history and understood within a secular context. The act of interpretation becomes complicated indeed. These complications are perhaps best taken into account by Gadamer. Drawing on the work of Schliermacher, but expanding it with the insights of Martin Heidegger, he reworks the traditional idea of the hermeneutic circle.4 The entire set of presuppositions the reader brings to the text, including their prior understanding of the text, its relation to other texts, and to the world as a whole, he refers to as a “forestructure.” This forestructure shapes the way one understands individual portions of the text. This forestructure is not something undesirable, it does not necessarily consist of “prejudices” in the negative sense. Such a structure is necessary for the understanding of any text at all, and indeed, for anything at all. The task of the interpreter is to become aware of the presuppositions they bring to the text and to allow them to change if they pull the reader up short. This version of the hermeneutic circle runs not between part and whole, but rather between forestructure and text. However, the above considerations are insufficient by themselves. It is not enough to understand the bible within a cultural context, but one must attempt to understand it within an historical context. The Bible was a product of peoples who lived in a very different world from the one which we inhabit. This must always be borne in mind. For example, some would maintain that the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah cannot be properly appreciated if one does not understand the fundamental importance of the custom of guest-friendship in the ancient world. Further, the significance of acts like anointing and foot washing is largely lost to a modern audience. The Old Testament is a product of the Ancient Hebrew culture, and is steeped in its customs and worldview. The New Testament is a product of a thoroughly Hellenized culture. But how can one access this lost world? It is surely impossible for a contemporary citizen of an advanced industrial state to assume the mindset of an ancient. The difference between these worldviews is too extreme, and even if one could fully accomplish it, it would involve so completely losing one's moorings in the contemporary world that any insights gained would be impossible to apply to our current experience. Gadamer's answer is simple: tradition. It is through tradition that we acquire our understanding of the world, our forestructure. But this understanding is itself the product of a collective experience of the world which reaches back to the original authors and later translators and commentators on the Bible. This tradition mediates between the past and the present, between the reader and the text. The individual verse in the Bible, then, is understood within the context of the broader work. The broader work is understood in reference to other texts. Texts are understood with reference to a broader culture, and all of these mutually interacting factors are understood against the background assumptions granted to us by tradition. BIBLIOGRAPHY Camery-Hoggat, Jerry. Reading The Good Book Well: A Guide to Biblical Interpretation. Nashville: Abingdon, 2007. Klein, William W.; Blomberg, Craig L.; Hubbard Jr., Robert L.; and Ecklebarger, Kermit Allan. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Dallas: Word, 1993. Read More