Eerdmans on Biblical Interpretation

[Crumpy]

I occasionally browse through a second-hand copy of Eerdmans’ (Handbook to) The History of Christianity.
1977 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Guideposts Edition, Carmel NY.

This non-Catholic view of Christianity contains an essay on the shifting sands of biblical interpretation, written by Bruce A Demerest.

It takes the view that until Luther and the Renaissance, the interpretation of scripture was non-intellectual, to a great extent. As centuries passed, biblical interpretation was largely slaved to earlier and earlier interpretations. The study of the original languages languished until the Reformation.

He refers to the literal, allegorical, historical, and anagogical schemes of interpretation as being he earliest. You will recogize these ‘senses’ as being defined in the CCC.

In the middle of the essay, he cites the work of the Franciscan Boneventura (died in 1274) (sic). He outlined a SEVEN-fold scheme of interpretation: “historical, anagogical, allegorical, tropological, symbolical, synechdochical, and hyperbolical.”

So, Demarest points out, that only the trained monks were qualified to unfold the meanings of scripture.

He points out that later, especially for the reformers, the goal was more to go back to the original texts, and concentrate on the words, grammar, logic, etc. rather than to rely on magisterial (my word) proclamations and mystical interpretations, that were not firmly based on original texts and analyses.

The essay is three pages in the edition that I have. It stops there, I suppose, to highlight the revolutionary change that came with the reformers.

 

[Crumpy]

Oh, yes, one more thing. The essay disparages the traditional interpretations of scripture (allegorical, moral, anagogical) as requiring vivid imagination.

Perhaps that reflects the antipathy between Catholics and protestants. The former generally believe that interpreting scripture takes great learning and care, and the latter subscribe that the authority emanates from the text alone, and that careful and studied consideration opens its meanings.
The essayist seems to favor the latter, which he implicitly assumes takes less imagination also, for sure.

I sense in all this, a higher level argument to support the Reformation and its rejection of Roman authority. The essayist seems to be discussing the historical situation, and does not address the more modern Catholic synthesis of interpretation in what would have been at the time, the “recent” Vatican Council and Dei Verbum in particular.

 

[TOME]

I haven’t read Eerdmans’ work so it would be unfair for me to comment on it. However, I thought I would make a comment or two on Biblical Interpetation itself.

From what I have studied, it seems that Catholic Biblical Interpetation through the middle ages and upto the 20th Century wasn’t non-intellectual, far from it, but it guiding principles were rooted in philosophy (especially Thomistic scholastic philosophy) rather than the scientific methods of modern scholarship.

Philosophy was and still remains essential for biblical exegesis, we are after all attempting to understand Divine Revelation whose truth transends physical reality, however, as time and human knowledge progressed, certain things about the Bible began to cause certain questions and even doubts to be raised about the Bible. For example, science seems to contradict the way God created the cosmos, or for that matter if God did creat the worls as found in the Bible, which creation account is the actual one? Or, if God is the loving Creator, who draws all to Himself, and if His Kingdom has a special place and concern for the innocent and helpless, how can this same God order the killing of innocent women and children and old people? Another question, why are there so many differences in the four gospel accounts of Christ life, such as did he cleanse the temple at the beginning of his ministry orat the end? Did his ministry last one or two years as found in the Synoptics or for three as in John?

These are just a few examples that were raised after the age of the Enlightment and for many a biblical interpetation based solely of a literal or philosophical interpetion was inadequate. This gave rise to the grown study of scripture using scientific methods of biblical research that developed through the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries until the present.

Here my intention is not to provide any type of criticism of any methods used in biblical interpetaion, I just wanted to present a very simple (perhaps some would say simplistic) explanation of why there was a shift in the methods used in scriptural studies.