Re-Reading Steinmetz

Few essays of recent years have had more of an impact on biblical exegesis then David Steinmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis.” On a whim i recently returned to this now famous essay to see if it still had the same resonance that it did several years ago. Steinmetz simply argues that the medieval exegetes were not as ludicrous as the moderns have come to believe. The four-fold interpretative framework, did not flourish because it was the best method; it flourished because it was true. 

Steinmetz gets at the heart of the issue when he describes the highly problematic situation of interpreting the OT after Christ. The problem of the OT is one that still rages today. Here are he comments: 

How was a French parish priest in 1150 to understand Psalm 137, which bemoans captivity in Babylon, makes rude remarks about Edomites, expresses an ineradicable longing for a glimpse of Jerusalem, and pronounces a blessing on anyone who avenges the destruction of the temple by dashing Babylonian children against a rock? The priest lives in Concale, not Babylon, has no personal quarrel with Edomites, cherishes no ambitions to visit Jerusalem (though he might fancy a holiday in Paris), and is expressly forbidden by Jesus to avenge himself on his enemies. Unless Psalm 137 has more than one possible meaning, it cannot be used as a prayer by the church and must be rejected as a lament belonging exclusively to the piety of ancient Israel.

A text has a range of meanings. This is the reality we face. Even if i could crawl into Paul’s brain and decode his intentions, i would not arrive at the only possible meaning of a text (or even the most important meaning). Because, as Steinmetz shows, meaning is effectual and communal. A text, especially a biblical text, produces effects upon people and groups and these effects have meanings.

Now we can polish up these effects and call them “applications” so as to say that a bible passage “applies” to us, but in that very claim we are asserting that the text has particular contextual meaning. A contemporary meaning. A meaning that invades our space and reorders our world. A text that speaks to us. 

Thus, the question is not what is The singular meaning, but which meaning is true! The problem is not history (i.e. getting back to the original historical meaning) but veracity (i.e. which meaning is true). It is this sentiment that surfaces in both the beginning and the end of Steinmetz’s essay:

The medieval theory of levels of meaning in the biblical text, with all its undoubted defects, flourished because it is true, while the modern theory of a single meaning, with all its demonstrable virtues, is false. Until the historical-critical method becomes critical of its own theoretical foundations and develops a hermeneutical theory adequate to the nature of the text which it is interpreting, it will remain restricted-as it deserves to be-to the guild and the academy, where the question of truth can endlessly be deferred.

This does not imply that we all must return to the Dark Ages and apply the same methodology (which would be impossible on several levels), but, learning from the past, we must read the bible in faith and with the faith. In reality this is what the church has been doing since the apostles.

~ by irenology on June 9, 2009.