Hermeneutics

Review: Reading the Bible on Turtle Island

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Cover image of "Reading the Bible on Turtle Island" by T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias

Reading the Bible on Turtle Island

Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias, foreword by Shari Russell. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514007563)2025.

Summary: A reading of scripture that takes North American indigenous culture and experience seriously.

One of the joys of studying the Bible with college students from many cultures was that others recognized things in the text that resonated with their culture but not mine. In those years, we often talked about how God had not left God’s self without a witness in any culture. God is present among all the peoples of the world. They recognize that witness when they hear or read scripture. Yet often, Christians who engaged with North American indigenous culture considered it utterly without value. While we can read any culture into the Bible, the authors of this work believe that Creator has also worked in the cultures of the indigenous people of Turtle Island (North America). When we reading the Bible, valuing our own cultural heritages, scripture often speaks meaningfully and connects with that heritage.

This book is primarily written for other indigenous, First Nations people. The authors invite readers to join into a kind of circle dance of indigenous hermeneutics. They also use the image of a medicine wheel with four quadrants: scripture, cultural traditions, creation, and our hearts and minds. This sounds quite similar to the Wesleyan quadrilateral. Then they walk us through six episodes in scripture, read in light of this hermeneutic.

They begin with both biblical and indigenous accounts of creation. What stands out is the relatedness of all things, and our relationship to the earth, its creatures, each other, and Creator whose “breath and presence” fills all things. Then they read Jesus’ proclamation of Jubilee in Luke 4 alongside the “Harmony Way.” Jesus brings shalom that fulfills the good way of relationship with all creation, with our human and more than human kin.

The vision quest, through which a person understands who one, and one’s relation to one’s ancestors, is vital to indigenous cultures. The authors observe how important vision is in scripture noting the visions of the prophets and the Apostle Paul. But most intriguing was the idea of the four visions of Jesus: in the wilderness, the Transfiguration, Gethsemane, and the cross. In particular, the 40 day wilderness experience, following the anointing of the Spirit, parallels the vision quest.

The authors emphasize that their reading is a post-colonial reading. Indigenous experience includes the “trail of broken treaties” by which peoples were displaced from their home lands. From the seizure of Naboth’s vineyard to the exile in Babylon, scripture also speaks of dispossession. At the same time, it portrays a Creator who keeps his treaties. And the Jubilee of Jesus includes the returning of lands. Then there was the terrible experience of the boarding schools that resonate with readings of the efforts to assimilate exiles like Daniel. He stands out as a model of resistance.

The authors conclude with the many ceremonies celebrated by indigenous peoples. The authors visited sweat lodges, smudgings, circle dances, and drum circles. Rather than outright rejection, the authors note how the Eucharist is an adapted celebration. This may serve as a model for relating to other cultural celebrations.

What is striking throughout is the respect for both indigenous culture and experience, including colonial traumas, and biblical narrative. But rather than a theology of grievance, the character of this work is a focus on the Creator, our community with human and more than human kin, and restoration and reconciliation.

One of the remarkable features is an addendum that is less bibliography and acknowledgements than a naming of the indigenous scholars who preceded the authors. In this, one sees exemplified the honoring of relationships, ancestors, and mentors. These even include “settlers” who have been allies.

In conclusion, this book models some of the ways indigenous peoples might read scripture while honoring their cultural heritage. But the authors also offer insights we may miss in our own readings–our relationship with the rest of creation, a richer vision of shalom and indeed a vision of visions! We often identify with Daniel. Might we view ourselves through the lens of his captors? We are incensed with the wrong done to Naboth but do we ever identify with the dispossessors? Reading scripture with the indigenous people of Turtle Island as a “settler” both enlarges and challenges my perspectives. But isn’t that what always ought happen with scripture?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute

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Cover image of "Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute" by Frances M. Young

Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute (Doctrine and Scripture in Early Christianity, Volume 2), Frances M. Young. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802882998) 2024.

Summary: A study of how scripture was used in the doctrinal controversies concerning the Trinity and Christology.

One of the challenge early teachers in the church faced was how to articulate the evidence of the biblical text when discussing the nature of God as well as the nature of Christ as the Incarnate Son of God. These questions came to a head in the fourth and fifth centuries. The Council of Nicea in 325 AD and Constantinople in 381 AD articulated the church’s doctrine of the Trinity, of God’s singular nature subsisting in three persons. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD addressed the nature of the Incarnate Christ as the person of the divine Son, who subsisted in two natures, divine and human.

What Frances M. Young does in this second volume of her study of doctrine and scripture in early Christianity is show how the scriptures were used by the different parties to these controversies. The book begins in setting the stage with the discussions on the nature of God in the earliest centuries where the Oneness of God was affirmed but also the three persons of the Godhead. The ambiguities that remained led to further controversy.

Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the discussions of the Trinity. Chapter 2 addresses the challenge of Arius and his use of scripture and the response of Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea. Chapter 3 focuses on the Cappadocians and the decisive work of Gregory of Nyssa leading up to Constantinople. Chapters 4 and 5 turn to the unresolved questions about Christology. Chapter 4 contrasts the exegesis of Hebrews by Chrysostom and the interpretation of the Gospel of John by Cyril of Alexander. Chapter 5 centers on the polemic between Cyril and Nestorius over whether Mary was theotokos (Cyril) or christotokos (Nestorius).

Then Chapter 6 summarizes Young’s findings of the use of scripture. One was the importance of the Rule of Faith and baptismal creeds as summaries of scripture. These didn’t resolve controversy but pushed the church to articulate clearly the nature of the Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit, in whose name new converts were baptized and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who they confessed. Young also observes how the process of “prooftexting” and the effort to express the overall teaching called for extrabiblical terms to express the mind of scripture, terms like ousia (substance) and hypostases (persons). Citing Augustine, Young notes both how doctrine informs right reading of scripture and the wrestling with the body of scripture leads to refined doctrinal understanding. She concludes that it is in worship where scripture and doctrine coinhere.

I would say in reading Young, one has to work to keep the forest in view with all the “trees” in the discussion. In addition to keeping a thumb in the detailed table of contents, it might have helped to have some summaries in tabular form. Absent these, the studious reader may want to take their own notes and outline.

Young describes a process far “messier” than many of us might like. Even after the councils, not all agree, as is the case with the Nestorians. Her discussion also underscores that everyone here treated scripture as authoritative and appealed to the Rule of Faith. As I personally consider the outcomes of the Councils, I see not a power struggle with winners and losers but a process superintended by God that led to wise formulations that guide us well to this day in articulating the sense of scripture.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Enjoying the Bible

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Enjoying the Bible, Matthew Mullins. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021.

Summary: Explores how learning to read literature helps us love the Bible rather than just reading it as a divine instruction manual.

Sometimes, people come to the Bible, say a passage in the Psalms, and come away baffled. Shouldn’t we be able to just read it and get the message? Yet this is not always our experience. We walk away saying, “I don’t get it.” Or we treat the Bible as a divine instruction manual, looking for the answer to particular challenges in our lives. Or perhaps, from our Bible quiz days, if we did such a thing, we treat the Bible as an information source. But Matthew Mullins wonders whether such ways of engaging the Bible help us love the scriptures, and in turn the Triune God to whom they point.

Mullins teaches English, and he finds that for many of the same reasons, people hate poetry. They read it and don’t get it, the message isn’t straightforward. He contends that our difficulty is reading with Cartesian eyes, looking for information: who is the author and what is the author trying to say? When was it written? What is the main idea? He encourages instead, a hermeneutic of love, where we enter deeply into the passage, allowing it “to captivate, entice, comfort, shock, and even sicken” to allow ourselves to experience the emotional weight of the passage, not just the information within.

He contends that the Bible is literature and to be read literarily, recognizing the various forms that make up scripture. He contends that the literary parts of scripture, like the Psalms don’t just tell us something but invite us to inhabit a world. Psalm 23, for example, not unlike Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” elicits emotions, feelings, the sense of a world. The Psalm invites us to see what a relationship with God is like, in both times of peace and danger.

He invites us to read with our guts rather than “studying.” He encourages us to slow down, even, in the words of Alan Jacobs, to read at whim. Using poetry alongside scripture, he takes us through a number of exercises that allow us to enter into the world of the text–standing in front of it and looking, asking questions based on what we see. Three chapter follow on how we read, looking for the general sense, the central emotion, and the formal means (that is, the forms, like metaphor, used to convey meaning). He uses Paul Laurence Dunbar’s powerfully evocative “We Wear the Mask” alongside Psalm 119. He follows the chapter on the formal means with an explanation of some of the forms we encounter in scripture.

In concluding, he discusses “negative capability,” our ability to wrestle with and rest in uncertainty. Entering the world of a biblical text takes time and if we are uncomfortable with lots of questions and uncertainty, we will never get to the other side of its complexity, of encountering and loving God in the text. He invites us into habituation, taking regular time to sit with texts of scripture. Then, in the afterword, he invites us into one further practice–reading aloud. Reading aloud slows us down and helps us hear the rhythm of the language. It enables us to listen to the sound and sense of the text. Done communally we hear and speak the word of God with each other, and love the One who speaks.

I found much to commend and a few sticking points. The biggest sticking point was that I felt he created a straw man of Cartesian reading. Perhaps this is a reality in his own circles, but much more common in my experience is the lost art of reading observantly, contemplatively and literarily. Many have spoken of how the internet has “broken” our brains when it comes to attending to more complex forms of writing, whether poetry or the Bible. The other issue is the focus on poetry. There is a lot of poetry in scripture to be sure, but also a lot else, with relatively less guidance for how to read these genres or forms other than to be aware of them.

Having noted these criticisms, I found much of value in his approaches to paying attention to the general sense, central emotion, and formal means of the text. I loved setting poetry alongside scripture to show similar reading strategies with each. I appreciated his encouragements that we become comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, similar to what his students (and perhaps all of us) have felt before a poem like The Wasteland. I’ve often asked graduate students why they are comfortable spending months or years studying a challenging text, trying to accurately render a historical event, understand a physical phenomena, or solve a math problem but are uncomfortable that they still have questions after studying a Bible passage for 45 minutes.

Many people don’t love scripture. They think they should but often walk away frustrated. This work can help, particularly if read slowly, working through the exercises the author gives the reader. To begin with, he leads us into some familiar texts and helps us love them. He offers strategies for reading that, if they become habits, may help us “in-habit” the text and come to love it as we encounter in it the God who loves us. And, who knows, reading Mullen might whet our appetite to try our hand at other poetry, which would not be a bad thing.

Review: Reading the Bible Around the World

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Reading the Bible Around the World, Federico Alfredo Roth, Justin Marc Smith, Kirsten Oh, Alice Yafeh-Deigh, and Kay Higuera Smith. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: A globally representative team of authors discuss the diverse social locations of different cultures that shape their reading of scripture, developing the student’s awareness of the importance of context in biblical interpretation.

There was a time (and I was influenced by this tradition) where we learned to study scripture with Euro-American interpretive tools often labelled the historical-critical method. It was an attempt to bring a kind of scientific precision to the study of texts that would lead to “assured” interpretations that were privileged above those of other interpreters because they arose from a supposedly rigorous process. Yet such interpretive work was done by people who often were blind to the way their worldview shaped their conclusions, including such things as a radical skepticism of the miraculous or the spiritual world. It was also blind to ways one’s position as part of a dominant, colonizing culture shaped one’s reading of the social and ethnic dimensions of the text. Most of this was also done by men who brought the prejudices of their gender to how they read passages about women and relations between the sexes.

The introduction of this work discusses the sea change that has occurred in biblical interpretation as scholars from every part of the world have engaged the biblical text, bringing the unique sensitivities of their cultural contexts. Women are joining men. Latino/a, Asian, and African scholars are joining Euro-Americans in studying the biblical text. The growing awareness of social location and how this shapes interpretation has led to rich conversations about the different ways we may read the biblical text, the different nuances or features we notice, and the particular applications we make shaped by our context.

In the following chapters, interpreters from different cultures describe and model what this looks like. Each describes particular interpretive emphases that shape study of the biblical text that arise in their cultural context. Then they demonstrate how this works out in their reading of Luke 10:25-37, the parable of the loving neighbor who happens to be a Samaritan, and their reading of an Old Testament passage of their choice.

Frederico Alfredo Roth discusses Latin American approaches, and the influence of liberationist approaches, a concern for the poor and the migrant, and for praxis have in approaching texts. Alice Yafeh-Deigh discusses colonial and post-colonial influences as well as tribalism and patriarchal concerns in reading texts from an African perspective. Justin Marc Smith discusses classic approaches of Euro-Americans, the anti-supernaturalism underlying many readings, and how the post-modern turn brought awareness of the social location of readers and growing self-awareness to Euro-American interpreters. Kirsten Oh recounts the intersection of orientalist, anglicist, and nativist readings of scripture, as well as the influence of underlying Confucianism and the current post-colonial context. Kay Higuera Smith rounds out the discussion with an exploration of the situation of diasporic peoples, often leading to creolized or hybridized readings.

It was more difficult to compare the different readings of Old Testament passages because each chose unique passages (and one did not include this). The Latin American reading of Deuteronomy 24:17-22 was especially aware of the treatment of the marginalized in this passage. The African reading of Esther emphasized the strategies both women used to subvert patriarchal dominance, an issue also wrestled with by African women. The Euro-American reading of David and Bathsheba looks at this primarily from the perspective of David and David’s sin, not seeing the incident through Bathsheba’s eyes. The Asian reading of Ruth focuses on issues of Ruth as “model minority,” combined with her invisibility at the end of the narrative, while also recognizing her distinctive character of hesed.

What was more interesting to me was the reading of Luke 10:25-37. While there were nuances of difference, particularly in application, I was struck by how similar all the readings were. All were aware of the Jew-Samaritan dynamic and drew on this in the discussion of neighboring. Yet the combined discussion offered a much richer reading of a familiar story. It suggested to me that reading with our global neighbors, when it is focused carefully on the same text leads, not to radically disparate readings, but rather fuller readings exposing aspects of the biblical text we may overlook. For example, the Latin American approach raised the question of why the unsafeness of the Jericho road was tolerated. Isn’t addressing this also a matter of loving neighbor?

The subtitle of this book is “A Student’s Guide to Global Hermeneutics.” I think this text accomplishes that task well. The overview of interpretive distinctions of different cultural contexts combined with examples, as well as reflection questions makes this a helpful text in an academic setting. It is also a helpful introduction, especially for North American Christians, to the growing global conversation about how we read scripture together. The suggestions for further reading allow one to go as far as one wants in that exploration. And what will one find? What is suggested here is a richer, deeper, and perhaps renewed engagement with scripture.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: The Problem of the Old Testament

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The Problem of the Old Testament: Hermeneutical, Schematic & Theological Approaches, Duane A. Garrett. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020.

Summary: An exploration of how and whether Christians ought read the Old Testament, contending that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and that its material still has authority and edifying value for the Christian.

We Christians have a problem with the Old Testament. We struggle to define what it is. We find it hard to read. And we struggle to reconcile it with the New Testament. How do we understand “Messianic prophecy”? How do we understand the Law in relation to Christ? What is the relationship between Israel and the church? In this work, Duane A. Garrett attempts to chart a way through this thicket of problems, proposing that the Old Testament remains authoritative for the church and edifying for the believer.

Garrett begins by surveying how the post-apostolic Fathers approached this question. While much remained unresolved, they identified the Old Testament as canonical, identified a core of texts that were fulfilled in Christ while seeing some passages as allegories of Christ, saw it as a source of moral instruction and a theological authority in their polemic efforts. He then explores two hermeneutical approaches that began early and have had continued influence at various points in church history: the allegorical approach of Alexandria and the literal approach of Antioch. The allegorical approach was uncontrolled; the literal could be argued to say nothing beyond the immediate context of the text (e.g Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled in Isaiah’s own day and that is it).

He then turns to the schematic approaches used to connect the two testaments. He considers Covenant Theology, noting the difficulty of finding the language of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace in scripture. In opposition is Dispensationalism, often problematic as historic events unravel prophetic schema and because it excludes large parts of the Old Testament from the effective canon, even while it remains in the formal canon. He follows this discussion with one of conceptual solutions considering the meaning of the canon, the meaning and focus of biblical theology, and models for organizing Old Testament theology. He concludes that no single approach is adequate and believes only a hybrid model is sufficient.

The third part of the book is Garrett’s articulation of his own approach. He contends for an approach that is neither supercessionist nor dispensationalist with regard to Israel, rooted in the promise to Abraham that includes the blessing of the nations through Israel fulfilled in Christ for Israel but also including the Gentiles. He also considers the Old Testament under the two headings of Election Literature and Wisdom Literature. He focuses the remainder of this volume to Election Literature (alluding to future volumes where I assume he will discuss Wisdom Literature).

He starts with the successive covenants of the Old Testament and the developing understanding of how Israel is chosen to bring blessing and redemption to the world, chosen in Abraham, given the pedagogue of the Sinai covenant to teach, and the Davidic Covenant of an everlasting future Davidic king. These all point to a fulfillment beyond the Old Testament horizon, found in the New Covenant in Christ. Garrett turns to the Law and traditional understandings, particularly of the divisions of civil, ceremonial, and moral law–a division made nowhere in the Law itself. Garrett sees the law as part of a covenant document at the same time demonstrating a need for a new covenant, fully realized in Christ. It is both an ideal of righteousness and basis of judgement. Finally, for the believer, the law is a teacher that in Christ leads those who meditate upon it into the righteousness which is theirs in Christ.

Garrett discusses narrative, and particularly allusive patterns in narrative, where later material alludes to earlier material. He notes that we ought read such material backward, to prior texts and not forward to future ones. Finally, Garrett discusses prophecy, looking at Hosea and Joel as case studies. Considering Hosea 11:1 (“Out of Egypt I called my son.”) Garrett argues that Hosea is using representative recapitulation and that while this is not a prediction of Jesus time in Egypt, Matthew uses the same method of representative recapitulation in his account of Jesus. Hosea doesn’t predict Jesus, but Jesus fulfills Hosea, or is the culmination of this allusive material. Garrett, in an appendix, applies a similar approach to Isaiah 7:14.

I think many of us have reached similar conclusions, if we are dissatisfied with the traditional schema. What Garrett does is help us think more deliberately about the “problem” of reading the Old Testament, the different kinds of material we find there, and how we read the narrative arc where so much allusive material occurs. He brings discipline to intuition as well as an approach that avoids supercessionism or artificial constructions not grounded in scripture. Most of all, he grounds a vision of the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ in a way faithful to good interpretive practice rather than forced or undisciplined approaches. I look forward to seeing how Garrett continues to develop this approach.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Reading Scripture as the Church

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Reading Scripture as the Church (New Explorations in Theology), Derek W. Taylor. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020.

Summary: Brings Dietrich Bonhoeffer into conversation with three theologians concerning how the church reads and interprets scripture.

The printing press, the Reformation, vernacular translations and rising literacy put the Bible into the hands of many more Christians, leading to a rise of personal Bible reading, contributing both to personal devotion, and the rise of idiosyncratic interpretations. The latter makes it ever more apparent that scripture is meant to be read and interpreted as the church, within Christian communities.

Derek W. Taylor explores the contribution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the reading of scripture in community in a conversation with three other theologians: John Webster, Robert Jenson, and Stanley Hauerwas. Bonhoeffer was a leader in the Confessing Church movement that resisted Hitlerian tyranny, and the seminary community at Finkenwalde, a ministry centered around reading scripture within community. The central idea coming through in this volume is that of following this risen Lord who calls his people to follow him in discipleship into his mission in the world. Taylor unpacks this in four parts:

  1. The church as a creation of the word. Here he draws on John Webster’s idea of the church as creatura verbi. What Bonhoeffer brings to this is the idea of the risen Christ without whom the community of the church cannot exist.
  2. The church as an institution. Taylor brings in Robert Jenson who emphasizes the importance of reading within the traditions of the church, allowing how the church has read to influence how we read. To this Bonhoeffer adds the dimension of the living Christ who has been leading this church into all truth throughout history.
  3. Reading as a congregation. Taylor focuses on a leading exponent of ecclesial theology, Stanley Hauerwas. Hauerwas sees the church’s reading together as enacting the community. Bonhoeffer would counter that the gathered community is the place addressed by the risen Lord, and led by him into discipleship.
  4. The church as missional community. Here, Taylor doesn’t draw upon a particular theologian but notes that Bonhoeffer’s missional theology is inherent in the question “Who is Jesus Christ for us today?” that addresses the community in its given context.

The most significant conclusion to this discussion for me is one Taylor makes in his epilogue. He states:

By examining the church in terms of its identity-defining relationships, I have suggested that this hermeneutic is not a method but a posture and that this posture can be most succinctly summarized as the ongoing act of discipleship (p. 258).

For Taylor, scriptural interpretation can never be codified into the fabric of the church nor its history of interpretation. Rather, the risen Lord speaks through scripture leading his people, forming them as disciples and leading them into mission, helping them to be both ever true, and ever new in their life together and work in the world. Taylor brings Bonhoeffer in conversation with three theological interpreters of scripture, and adding his own insights, offers a rich account of how we might read scripture as the church.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.