A HISTORY of BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

volume 1 The Ancient Period

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Copyright © 2003 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-4273-2

Contents

Preface........................................................................................................................................viiAbbreviations..................................................................................................................................xi1. Introduction and Overview Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson...............................................................................12. Inner-Biblical Exegesis in the Tanak Esther Menn...........................................................................................553. Hebrew Into Greek: Interpretation In, By, and Of the Septuagint Leonard Greenspoon.........................................................804. Philo of Alexandria as Exegete Peder Borgen................................................................................................1145. Biblical Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls Philip R. Davies...........................................................................1446. Interpretation of Scripture in the Targumim Martin McNamara................................................................................1677. Rabbinic Midrash Gary G. Porton............................................................................................................1988. The Stabilization of the Tanak James A. Sanders............................................................................................2259. The Interpretation of the Tanak in the Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha James H. Charlesworth...........................................25310. Interpreting Israel's Scriptures in the New Testament Donald H. Juel......................................................................28311. The Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists Joseph Trigg.....................................................................................30412. Alexandrian and Antiochene Exegesis Frances Young.........................................................................................33413. Jerome and the Vulgate Dennis Brown.......................................................................................................35514. Augustine and the Close of the Ancient Period of Interpretation Richard A. Norris, Jr.....................................................38015. The Formation of the New Testament Canon and Its Significance for the History of Biblical Interpretation Harry Gamble.....................40916. The Interpretation of Scripture in the New Testament Apocrypha and Gnostic Writings Craig A. Evans........................................430Contributors...................................................................................................................................457Index of Ancient and Modern Authors............................................................................................................458Index of Subjects..............................................................................................................................466Index of Primary Sources.......................................................................................................................518

Chapter One

Introduction and Overview

Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson

This introductory discussion presents an overview and summary of key topics important to the early history of biblical interpretation. The reader is referred to the subsequent chapters in this volume for more extensive discussions.

THE BEGINNINGS OF INTERPRETATION

The history of biblical interpretation begins at that unknown point in time when the first biblical traditions were created ("biblical traditions" is used here to mean any materials, such as laws, stories, sayings, pieces of poetry, hymns, oracles, etc. that subsequently found their way, after incorporation into larger bodies of material, into the biblical text as we now have it). Such creation of necessity involves a deliberate focusing on particular elements chosen from the broader experience of life, such as major events, significant laws, important customs and practices, special clan and tribal affiliations, etc. Furthermore, no tradition can embrace and embody all elements and vantage points of the subject it treats. What is selected in this creative process will be a direct result of the perspectives, social mores, religious beliefs, hopes and fears, and political and economic needs of the person or community that does the creating. Thus, interpretation is already under way.

The next step in the interpretive process comes when these created units are passed on from one generation or group to another. Admittedly, the mere passing on of traditions may not appear to be an act of interpretation, since transmission does not necessarily imply an intent to modify or reformulate. Nevertheless, even in clearly neutral contexts for transmission, where there is no conscious desire to alter or emend the tradition(s) received, the transmitters will nevertheless place their own, or their group's, particular perspective onto the material being transmitted, often without being aware that such a shift in perspective is occurring. That is interpretation, and it can occur either early in the long process of transmission, when the form is more likely to be oral, or later in the process, when the transmission is more likely to be written. Furthermore, those transmitting the traditions were, in many cases, quite intentionally altering the material they had received to make it suit their own purposes. They would not have seen anything questionable or improper in their doing so.

It is only human nature for any person receiving and conveying important traditions to view them from a perspective that most clearly makes sense in the context of that person's particular religious, cultural, social, economic, and intellectual milieu, which often will not be the same as the milieu presumed earlier by the person or group that created or previously transmitted the tradition(s). The new person or group's own milieu quite understandably becomes, in this context, the only important perspective at that point in time for understanding the materials received. For example, the motif of the exodus experience, including the various traditions and reflections associated with it, would of necessity have been viewed quite differently by a returnee to Palestine after 538 BCE than by a citizen of Solomon's kingdom. Both would have possessed the same essential core to the tradition, namely, the deliverance from Egypt, but each would have seen the shape, significance, and implications of the traditions in quite different ways.

Another example would be the stories in Daniel 1–6. Presuming, as most scholars do, that these stories existed in some earlier form before they were incorporated into the current book of Daniel, it is clear that their emphasis on avoiding idolatry, observing the kosher food laws, and overcoming the evil plotting of dictators and vengeful enemies of the Jews necessarily took on a new and more profound meaning in light of the murderous actions of Antiochus Epiphanes and his cohorts beginning in 168 BCE. So powerful were the reinterpretation and reapplication of those traditions that we today can do little but speculate concerning the focus of these stories in their earlier form(s), and the context(s) that determined their earlier meaning.

Clearly, there normally will have been numerous generations of interpretation/modification of particular biblical traditions before they ever appeared in the form in which we now find them in our biblical text. The earlier, normally oral, stages were followed, as Esther Menn argues in detail in chapter 2, by a long history of conscious utilization and revision of earlier written texts, continuing to the time of the Jewish community's eventual establishment of its canon and standard biblical text. Many examples could be given of the growing importance of written texts within the Israelite/Jewish community, such as the book of the law found in the temple during Josiah's reign (621 BCE, 2 Kgs. 22:8–23:25), Ezra's reading of the book of the law (Neh. 8:1-8), Jeremiah's recording of his prophetic words (Jeremiah 36), and Zechariah's vision of the flying scroll (Zech. 5:1-4). As Menn notes (p. 61), "interpretation of traditional texts was an important component of Israelite culture, before, during, and, most prominently, after the period of exile in Babylon." An especially helpful example of this ongoing expansion on earlier written traditions is the way in which the text of Jeremiah's description of the "70 years" of service to the king of Babylon (Jer. 25:11; 29:10) has been reinterpreted and reapplied repeatedly in later biblical documents (2 Chron. 36:17-21; Zech. 1:12; Dan. 9:24-27). Such interpretation enabled these authoritative texts to maintain their relevance to successive generations of Jews, who continued to need their sacred traditions to address the rapidly changing political, social, economic, religious, and intellectual conditions in which they found themselves.

Hence, at these earlier, precanonical stages, interpretation contributes, often in a major way, to the eventual shaping of the written, canonical text itself. In fact, it would be very difficult to find either oral or written transmissions of traditions that were indeed neutral, that did not grow and adapt, especially before a standard text was generally accepted within the Jewish or Christian communities. If the existence of a set, standard text of both the Tanak (the Hebrew Bible) and the New Testament, with few major deviations or significant disagreements, has not in recent centuries inhibited the creativity of interpreters who are consciously dealing with a specific religious community's clearly defined sacred (and therefore authoritative) texts, it is quite clear that in the earlier, precanonical days, there would have been far fewer inhibitions working against an open-ended reconfiguration of the shape and meaning of a unit of biblical tradition.

Thus, two crucial principles must be kept in mind if one is to have a clear grasp of the early history of biblical interpretation. First, a unit of tradition, whether in the form of an oral unit or a written text, does not convey meaning in a context-neutral manner, without reference to the nature of the audience. Whether it admits it or not, or whether it is aware of it or not, every audience brings a particular perspective through which the text or unit of tradition is screened, and it is by means of this interpretive perspective that the text or unit of material will be (re)focused and understood. The unit itself, as received, will, of course, set some limits on what interpreters may find in it, but as the ancient allegorical approach to interpretation and some contemporary modes of interpretation make clear, these limits can at times be very loose, with the text or unit serving as a Rorschach blot for the interpreter's own sense of what may be legitimately found in the text.

Second, interpretation of the biblical materials as contained in the texts and canons established by the Jewish and Christian communities was often a reflection and expansion of interpretive concerns, issues, and methods that had already appeared long before the consensual establishment of the texts and canons of these communities. Another way to put this is that any community's clearly defined sacred documents, especially ones that have had as long and rich a heritage as the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, constitute in one sense no more than a snapshot in time, a frozen moment in a long journey. Like a photograph taken during a race, they both encapsulate what came before the "Kodak moment" and anticipate what will follow. Canonization and the setting of a standard biblical text thus are carefully preserved moments embedded in the midst of a continually modulating history of interpretation. Consequently, if one is to study the history of biblical interpretation, it would be shortsighted to think of interpretation only in a postcanonical mode, since, as already noted, precanonical and inner-biblical interpretation clearly set the stage for, and in many ways anticipated, major interpretive elements in subsequent ages. This dynamic is further complicated by the fact that both Judaism and Christianity for a long time granted high importance, and indeed for many individuals and subgroups, equal or close to equal authoritative status, to numerous documents that would later be ruled by some or all of these communities to lie outside the domain of accepted Scripture. An excellent example here is 1 Enoch, which is clearly referred to in the book of Jude (vv. 14-15). Neither the Jewish nor the Christian communities gave canonical status to Enoch.

ISSUES OF UNITY AND DIVERSITY

The issue of scriptural unity and authority must also be examined carefully. After the establishment of the canons within Judaism and Christianity, it came to be assumed that the creators and early transmitters of the biblical materials knew that they were creating "Scripture," and therefore were strongly conscious of the need to interweave their teachings carefully with those of other biblical writers in order to provide an integrated whole. However, even though the rabbis and Christian interpreters came fairly early to see the need for an emphasis on the unity of Scripture, especially when confronted by what could at times be a considerable diversity within their own community, there is little to suggest that the biblical writers themselves had a clear concept of the comprehensive authority of Scripture or of the need for careful integration of its components. Indeed, in the earlier, precanonical periods, one does not sense, in the literature as it has come down to us, a concept of long-term, overarching canonical authority intended to stretch far into the future. Rather, such authority as there was appears to have been for and within the context of the immediate time and community, building upon a new understanding of respected traditions from the past. Even when reference was made to a previous authority figure such as Moses and the law he gave to Israel, the "Law of Moses" was the law as perceived at that particular moment for that particular community. Likewise, when Jeremiah had Baruch, at his dictation, write down two successive compendia of Jeremiah's words spoken during the earlier half of his career (Jeremiah 36), he did so in the hopes that the combined strength of his words would alert his contemporaries to the doom he saw to be impending and cause them to change their ways (v. 3), a purpose that appears to have been thwarted, as Jehoiakim's burning of the first copy of the scroll suggests. There is no clear indication that Jeremiah envisioned a purpose for Baruch's two scrolls beyond this. When Paul wrote to his congregations, as in 1 Corinthians, his concern to confront and solve the problems of the specific congregation being addressed was predominant, which is why some details of the discussion elude us. Indeed, one wonders if Paul might not at times have chosen his words more carefully if he had known that for nearly two millennia his epistles would be given microscopic scrutiny by so many generations of Christian interpreters.

If these early individuals addressed their contemporaries rather than unseen future generations, it is also true that they were not focused strongly on carefully coordinating their words with those of others whose works would also eventually find their way into Scripture. Indeed, there is no indication that they would have even understood the concept of Scripture, certainly not in the sense in which the Jewish and Christian communities defined it in the late ancient, medieval, and modern eras. Nor could they have known which books would eventually be placed in the canon. Biblical writers alluded to and quoted other documents (or traditions) as having some sense of authority, which could at times be strong. But that appeal to authority (exemplified where the New Testament quotes or alludes to material from the Tanak) was driven not by an overall, encompassing desire for articulating the comprehensive unity of all Scripture, but rather by the desire to support the point currently being made (for a rather extreme example, see 1 Cor. 9:8-10). It would fall to later teachers within Judaism and Christianity, once the concept of a unified corpus of authoritative religious documents had become an imperative, to try to forge a broad consensus of scriptural teachings that could somehow embrace within it the divergence of perspective that was the inevitable result of hundreds of years of very different religious, cultural, sociological, historical, and economic factors playing on the lives and writings of the many different individuals and communities that produced these numerous documents. No doubt the vehemence with which the church put down Marcion, who argued that the god of the Tanak was not the god of the New Testament, shows how sensitive the church was concerning this matter of the substantial diversity present in Scripture. Marcion was an astute interpreter, and he put his finger on a raw nerve when he pointed to the strong diversity found within and among the numerous documents of Scripture. Even though the church shouted down his voice, the diversity of interpretation in the church for so many centuries certainly arose not only with the diversity of the interpreters but also with the diversity contained in the documents themselves. Marcion saw the diversity of Scripture more accurately than many in the church might like to admit.

The matter of the diversity within Scripture comes to focus especially when one looks at the shape of the canon in the various Jewish Christian communities. For example, the scope of the Tanak in the Jewish and Protestant Christian heritages, when compared to the significantly different Roman Catholic and Orthodox heritages (see pp. 33-36 below), clearly demonstrates this diversity, since the various groups each found it necessary to define and articulate their concept of scriptural unity by including or excluding documents which were seen to aid or inhibit specific ideas defining their own concept of unity. This also constitutes interpretation, at the most foundational level.

Luther is a classic example of one who wished to have a more rigorously defined, tightly-focused concept of scriptural unity. This led him to opt for a shorter canon of Scripture (interestingly enough, the same canon for the Old Testament as that used by the Jewish community, which he later so vehemently vilified). It even led him to call James "an epistle of straw," although there is no indication that he ever sought to remove it from the canon of the New Testament. Luther and his intellectual progeny have consistently pushed for a strongly unified perspective for interpreting Scripture, focused around the distinction of law and gospel.

On the other hand, many Christian interpreters in the ancient period, who often focused on the need for extensive interaction with the rich intellectual environment in which they found themselves, tended to put more emphasis on the ability of Scripture to appeal to a broad spectrum of the population of the ancient Mediterranean world. In this sense they were following the lead of the first-century Jewish interpreter Philo of Alexandria, who was well versed in, and wanted to appeal to, the Hellenistic heritage of the world he knew. It is not surprising that these circles of Christian interpreters preferred the longer canonical list of the Septuagint, since a number of the "additional" documents it contained provided, through their variety, increased opportunity for dialog with the broader world. By the Middle Ages, when the church had come to dominate western civilization in Europe, the church's authority dictated how Scripture was to be interpreted, so the greater diversity in the longer canon of Jerome's Vulgate was not seen as a potential threat to the concept of Scriptural unity. The church could simply declare by fiat what the correct interpretation was, thereby preserving the unity of meaning. In any case, at this time the number of those who studied and interpreted the Scriptures of the church was relatively small, and deference to the authority of the church was great. Judaism had, by this time, ceased to debate with any intensity the unity of the Tanak. Jewish scholars focused on details of daily practice in following the laws initially provided in broad scope in the Torah and debated the fine points and seeming contradictions in the Mishnah and the Talmud, far removed from any challenges to the unity of the Tanak text itself.

(Continues...)

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