The Ethics of Interpreting the Bible: language problems

November 01, 2003

language problems

First, I'm very glad we've moved on from Childs, as although I'm old enough to remember the period of which he was writing, it seems ever so distant to me now!

Second, I have a major problem understanding Schussler Fiorenza, as she writes in that special version of English that is as far as I know exclusive to american academics. I could use a course in the ethics of interpreting academic American English...
But anyway, I do suspect she is addressing the current world in which I live.

What nobody seems to have asked about yet though is the assumptions behind the title of the seminar. Why do we need to have any special "Ethics" for interpreting the Bible, that is special and/or different from the ones that might apply in any other discipline? I'm sorry, but I want to ask this kind of question.

I don't comprehend any of the people (some of whom are very vocal right now) who appear to regard the Bible as possessing some special property that allows them to selectively disregard some of its apparent "rules" but insist that others (well currently one other in particular) are not culturally conditioned and do apply to modern times. To me, as a (retired) professional engineer (I don't like to say scientist) this is indistinguishable from saying that the Bible is "magic".

I hope this is not too unorthodox a view...

Posted by simons at November 1, 2003 11:22 AM

Comments

Simon, Great post!

I think that some of this gets clearer if we allow ourselves to define Ethics and Testimony differently. When Schussler Fiorenza uses the word "Ethics" in this article she is referring to a second order reflection on the state of biblical scholarship. So, it is not the ethics of the bible (stuff about how we should live) that she is after and neither is it a story telling the morality or ethos of biblical scholarship (that would be first order). Rather, it is deliberately reflective and removed. Is this useful?

Let me define testimony as the embodiment of the biblical text. This is a move that I always want to make but I don't really mean anything special by it. I simply want to signal the way in which people can tell and act out the story of the bible, that is give witness or testimony, in a generally satisfactory way.

So, I think in general that as Christians we are more excited about testimony than we are about ethics. We want to immerse ourselves in the simultaneity or flow of our lives and do this in an authentically Christian way. This is very difficult but through praticing virtues like the fruits of the spirit we can do it (at least sometimes). So let's imagine a group of people who do this well. Let's say they are biblical scholars. (This is not Schussler Fiorenza's claim). These people still need an ethics to guide/help/correct their interpretation because the practicing of Christian virtues hasn't freed the text from its patriarchal chains.

The Ethics of interpretation then is more about how we read than it is about how we live. It offers a corrective to our readings. This is useful in the way any corrective is useful. Sometimes we need ethics to do this because testimony hasn't accomplished it.

Posted by: Trevor Bechtel at November 4, 2003 08:30 PM

Simon, I’ve put some energy into arguing a point close to your claim that “The Ethics of interpretation then is more about how we read than it is about how we live.” There’s an important sense in which “the ethics of interpreting the Bible” involves the way we live our lives, our testimony (as Trevor says).

On the other hand, the ethics also involves how we get to the notion of the Bible such that it might affect how we live — right? The Lotus Sutra has relatively little effect on how I live (I can say that pretty safely, since I’ve never read it). The Bible does influence my practice, very much so; but my interpretation of the Bible as a noteworthy text (more than the Epistle of Diognetus, or Calvin’s Institutes, entails an interpretive judgment also.

So it all gets pretty complicated, fast.

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