Tag Archives: Matthew 5:39

Understanding the Bible: love the text as yourself

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Biblical interpretation, or exegesis, empowers belief.  But it can also destroy it.

The interpretation of biblical texts—determining their meaning according to linguistic content and cultural / historical context—is exegesis.  Yet it allows us better to understand biblical truth claims and the Bible’s various stories (and overarching Story) by giving content to these truth claims and specifying the nature and character of their protagonist: God.

In other words, exegesis helps us know what the Bible is claiming and, literally, who God is.  And this insight is crucial in deciding how we respond to the Bible and its God.

Before delving into the two passages from last post we must consider not only exegesis but what precedes it: our orientation towards texts in general.

At its core, biblical interpretation (or exegesis) is attuning ourselves to the unique nature of the text: letting the text “be itself”.  It is neither seeking to impose our views and understandings on it nor abandoning all we know and understand, and accepting it unquestioningly.  Yet neither is this an attempt to be ‘neutrally’ disposed towards the text, as if this were even possible.

Rather it is first “listening” to the text through a posture of respect, openness, consideration—the very stance that I hope others would take towards my writing or speech!  Quite literally, I am advocating treating the text according the golden rule: loving it like another person, as I love myself.

So the co-centrality of love and truth resurfaces, for it is by putting love in conjunction with truth that we most genuinely offer the text ‘a hearing’.

In my last post, then, I referred to two biblical texts that are easily misinterpreted.  This can be due to assumptions that a) culture in biblical times is similar enough to our own that no translation between them is needed, or b) the linguistic translation of the Bible (e.g., from Greek to English) yields unambiguous results, and so c) readers can understand a Bible verse by its own content alone, without overly considering the surrounding verses, or the chapter or book that contains it.  These are false assumptions.

For example, the role of honor and shame in 1st century Palestine is key to reading Matthew 5:39 properly, “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” (NRSV).  In that culture honor was like good credit: it offered privileges and possibilities unavailable to those of lesser esteem.  So a slap to the right cheek—a back-handed slap, designed to humiliate and reduce someone’s honour—was a big deal.

So rather than advocating pacifism in the face of abusive treatment, the verse contains the implicit cultural understanding that unwarranted incidents like this would prompt a community response.  Thus it calls for the wronged individual to allow the community to intervene as the best way for right relationships to be restored between the two parties.[1. Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Sciences Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Fortress Press, 55-57.  See also Charles H. Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5-7, Baker Academic, 88-93, who argues that “non-retaliation” is a key notion here.]

Similarly, in Romans 8:28, “all things work together for good for those who love God” (NRSV), Paul’s tightly woven argument throughout Romans, the linguistic complexity of the verse, and the context of the surrounding chapter are key to proper exegesis.

In a recent paper on Romans 8:28 Mark Gignilliat notes four possible interpretations:
a) God works together with all things,
b) God works all things,
c) The Spirit works with all things for those who love God.
d) All things work together for good,
First he cites another Romans scholar who finds option d) to be “the least probable” option. Then he and argues for the one that he believes makes best sense, given the language use and context—option a) “And we know that in all things God is working together (with the Spirit) for good to those loving God.”

I am persuaded by the reasoning in Gignilliat’s paper that this is the best reading of the four. Further, this interpretation also defeats the objection that Romans 8:28 shows that God works with / uses evil (and so it has the additional benefit of harmonizing / making sense alongside of other biblical texts rather than contradicting or being at odds with passages that bear on issue of God and evil).[2. “Working together with whom?”  Biblica Sacra, 87 no. 4 2006, 511-515.  Both James Dunn and N.T. Wright agree with this interpretation (see World Biblical Commentary and New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, both on Romans.) while F.F. Bruce advocates option c), seeing the Holy Spirit in the main role: “in everything, as we know, the Holy Spirit co-operates for good with those who love God.”  In all cases the common translation, d), is rejected.]

In fact, the notion that God makes use of, or even needs, evil to bring good is called The Greater Good argument.  Such a God has more in common with Buddhist or Hindu perspectives, and Christians who hold this view typically believe that everything is “God’s will.”  But have they forgotten how Jesus taught us to pray: “…Your will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven”?[3. Mt 6:9-13.]

Clearly, things down here don’t always happen as God wills.  But that’s for another post.

Understanding the Bible: interpretation for everyone

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Having recently discussed the necessity—indeed, the inescapability—of interpretation, it’s time to examine it more closely.  What is interpretation, and how does it work?

Stated plainly, interpreting is deciding “what we make” of something—it is reading or seeing something as something.  Interpretation applies not only to texts but to situations, and its scholarly study (the field of hermeneutics, which is the theory and practice of interpretation) includes the branches of legal, biblical, and philosophical hermeneutics—the latter being the interpretation of existence.

Crucial to this decision of what we “make of” something is the setting, or context, of the object or situation being interpreted.

As I noted in my last post, interpretation is important because it allows us to gain meaningful connection to ourselves and to others, and to evaluate how (and how authentically) they connect with us.  When we consider biblical interpretation, however, we often think of it as understanding the Bible’s meaning—getting at its t/Truth in terms of ideas.

But this is only part of the picture.

Particularly, if the God of the Bible “is love” and wants to be in relationship with humanity, then the focus of the Bible itself is for readers to understand the meaning of its truth claims and adjudicate their value in order to assess whether God is real.  More so, to asses whether this God is an entity with whom I want to engage—whether God’s love is authentic and God’s offer for relationship is genuine!

Such assessments require two types of interpretation: interpretation of texts and interpretation of experience (or existence).  So a) we interpret the Bible in order to determine its truth claims and then, for those claims that are experiential—such as God loving us—b) we interpret how such claims “play out” in everyday life in order to assess their truth value.

Let’s consider the first step—textual interpretation.

As context is key to proper interpretation, so interpreting the Bible requires reading its various books in context—reading them as ancient texts written according to various literary forms (narrative, prophecy, wisdom literature, etc.).  Moreover, it means reading these texts as documents containing various literary features (hyperbole, parable, chiasm), composed for a particular audience, to certain ends (to inform, persuade, denounce, etc.).

As the Bible was not written in English, readers need to understand—or at least be aware of—the nuances of the original languages.  Further, understanding its words requires recognizing that we make sense of a given portion of text on the basis of the text that surrounds it: the “co-text.”

For example, by interpreting Romans 8:28 without duly considering its setting in Romans 8 (and indeed, in the whole book) and without due attention to its grammatical nuances in the Greek (note particularly the word “work”), we risk misreading this verse as endorsing the ‘greater good argument‘.  So we risk viewing the Bible as explaining—or explaining away—bad things as necessary for the sake of some greater good.  It does not.  I’ll explain this in detail in my next post.

Also, especially with ancient texts, we must be not only open to its words but conversant with its setting.  So we must understand the society / culture within which it was created to know the cultural expectations and understandings of its author and audience.

For example, without understanding the role of honour and shame in 1st century Palestine, we risk misreading Matthew 5:39 (when “struck on the right cheek, turn the other also”) as advocating pacifism or even abuse.  Again, it does neither.  And again, more details to follow.

Finally, the upshot of the preceding is not that we have to be biblical scholars in order to interpret the Bible well.  Instead, seeking the truth value of various truth claims is something everyone does all the time, so everyone has some experience and skill with it.  And like interpreting situations, textual interpretation is a skill that can be cultivated and improved.