Part 4 of my various responses to the Matthias Media book, Women, Sermons and the Bible. Here I engage with Tony Payne’s chapter, ‘God’s word then and now’ (slightly amended 20/6/14)
This is not a stand-alone contribution. A number of contributors to this volume had pointed to the importance of this chapter for the methodological approach taken by the collection as a whole, and indicated their support for Payne’s treatment. It therefore is a critical contribution.
Does it deliver? While the opening three or four pages are promising, I have to say I ended up very frustrated with the argument as presented. Before I detail some of these concerns, I need to start with some more general observations regarding Payne’s style of presentation (also true of Bolt’s chapter at various points).
Read together, Payne and Bolt seem (to me) to have a wider interpretive agenda. They appear to be suspicious of any appeal to historical reconstruction, let alone consideration of cultural or social dimensions to Scripture. To Bolt, that is ‘digging below the text’ (165 of 271 – section 4b). Let Scripture interpret Scripture. We have very limited need for any understanding of historical, social or cultural contexts, as any such consideration will supposedly make our reading contingent and less assured.
To do this, both Bolt and Payne repeatedly seek to diminish any talk of ‘gaps’ between ‘then and there’ and ‘here and now’. Any such gaps, they affirm, are of no great significance and easily addressed by a plain reading of Scripture. Even more sinister, they seem to suggest, the naming of such gaps is for the purpose of evading and setting aside clear instructions and commands within Scripture, and is deemed as less faithful or obedient to God’s Word.
Let me be upfront in my response to this approach. Not only is it somewhat astonishing in its naivety from an academic point of view, I would suggest that it is also disrespectful of Scripture, which is given to us well and truly embedded in the messiness of human history, and invariably and wonderfully located in social context and cultural clothing. That is part of the richness of God’s Word, and its incarnation within God’s world, just as Christ himself was embedded (incarnated) historically, socially and culturally.
Attempts to minimise these dimensions is to strip God’s engagement and presence through his Word in a vain attempt to discover some kind of cultureless and socially removed entity. Assuredly, God’s Word transcends history, culture and society, and challenges and transforms them, but it can never discard them. This approach by Bolt and Payne is a form of hermeneutical Docetism.
God’s self-revelation is conveyed through words (or ‘speech-acts’). Words only function within the context of societies, and invariably reflect and convey culture. It cannot be otherwise. Any notion that translation is primarily a matter of word for word correspondence is very mistaken and seriously misleading. Words and language shape how we think, concepts that we work with, how we process information, how we explore or express experience, what we value and the worldview of a culture in which communication is located. Scripture comes to us embedded in all of the above, and our understanding of Scripture is enriched and deepened the better we understand the multiple contexts of every passage (social, cultural, historical, literary, canonical and theological).
It is simply not an option to discard social, historical and cultural considerations, and just focus on the words and text before us, as if they exist in some cultureless bubble. The appeal to allow ‘Scripture to interpret Scripture’ (valid as it is) does not resolve the issue of exploring social, cultural and historical contexts, for the Scriptures to which we might turn are themselves inevitably culture-bound, and located in social and historical contexts.
Payne’s critique of John Dickson (and Michael Bird).
I had to reread Payne numerous times to identify just how he thinks Dickson’s hermeneutical approach differs from his own. It seems tangential to the major focus of this chapter, the ‘gap’ and ‘horizons’ hermeneutic Payne associates with other evangelical approaches to exegeting and applying Scripture with regard to the ministry and place of women in New Testament mission and churches, and in our context in our part of the world today.
Payne identifies both Dickson and Bird as adopting a ‘two-step’ schema of using exegesis to determine the ‘meaning’ of a passage in its original context, followed by a consideration of our present day context and exploring the ‘significance’ of 1 Timothy 2 when related to contemporary practices of teaching. It has to be said that there is nothing particularly radical about such an approach, and it does not require a specific adoption of a ‘horizons’ hermeneutical model. Payne seems to be damning Dickson and Bird for the scholarly company they are claimed to keep.
Such an approach is standard practice, as reflected in (for example) Matthias Media’s own publication by Andrew Reid, Postcard from Palestine: A hands on guide to reading and using the Bible. In the MM website product description, it affirms that ‘God has a message for us’, but the ‘only trouble is that this message was originally delivered several thousand years ago in Palestine… Postcard from Palestine shows you how God’s Word, originally delivered so long ago and so far away, is still addressed to us today.’ In other words, we need to move from ‘then and there’ to ‘here and now’, and the book presents a model for bridging this historical and geographic gap.
Methodologically speaking, I do not believe Dickson (and Bird) are doing anything different to this, albeit with a little more recourse to informed understanding of the original context. Payne clearly has problems with their contention that Paul has a specific form of teaching in mind in 1 Timothy 2:12, and as a result restrict the significance of this passage to a similarly narrower expression of teaching in today’s context. To depict this as resulting from a different hermeneutical model seems largely contrived to me.
The superficial nature of this critique can be illustrated from Payne’s own chapter and approach. When later exploring ‘his’ proposal of a hermeneutical model, Payne suggests there is a need to go deeper than the surface ‘particulars’ to discern a deeper meaning, the underlying theology (196-7). That Payne can propose this, as if most other scholars and theologians (including Fee and Stuart, Dickson and Bird) have overlooked this side of interpretation is truly astonishing. This is a standard exegetical and hermeneutical consideration, explored with much greater sophistication by the likes of Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (IVP, 2010). Suffice it to say that it is much more elaborate than Payne’s caricature of ‘correspondence of particulars’ (186).
As another example, Payne notes that first century Mediterranean culture of ‘kissing’ as a greeting may be different from our Australian culture of greetings (so it’s now OK to identify a ‘cultural gap’?). Payne’s approach: he can identify a functionally equivalent gesture within our contemporary social context that conveys the ‘underlying vision of the good’ (199). That is exactly what Thiselton’s horizon model does, and what Fee and Stuart do!
Let me pose a question at this point: why do we focus so strongly on 1 Timothy 2:12, while I barely hear a word in Payne’s chapter about 1 Timothy 2:9? It is very specific, and there is no obvious reason why it would cease to apply directly: ‘women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire.’ Now maybe Payne does urge the women of his church not to attend gatherings with braided hair, or with gold or pearls – or perhaps he reconstructs an historical context that allows him to modify such a clear exhortation?
Dickson (and Bird) would have every right to suggest their hermeneutical approach has been caricatured in this chapter by Payne, reduced to a simplistic schema and set aside with superficial critiques, before being contrasted with an approach commended by Payne that ends up looking an awful lot like Dickson’s own methodology (and as previously employed and published by Matthias Media itself).
There are a number of other features of Payne’s chapter I find quite disturbing, especially given the endorsement given by other contributors. I will only identify some briefly here.
Reductionalism and Gordon D Fee and Douglas Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
It is not clear quite why Payne chose to focus on Fee and Stuart’s book in his engagement with Dickson’s book. I am not aware Dickson made any reference to it, and it is a popular level treatment (now in its 4th edition). Both authors have far more sophisticated treatments elsewhere. Suffice it to say that Fee and Stuart are much more nuanced than Payne suggests, and indeed most of the counter-examples to their approach that Payne proposes are in fact mentioned and discussed in their text.
As a reader (and knowing Fee and Stuart’s work in various arenas), I came away feeling that Payne has presented another ‘straw man’ caricature (and there are a good many in this MM book!). We urgently need to revisit our approaches and models in reading/hearing Scripture and deepening our exegetical and hermeneutical models, but this chapter in this MM publication is so skewed it is singularly unhelpful.
Why not at least refer to some of the writings of Kevin J Vanhoozer? (eg. Is There a Meaning in this Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Zondervan, 1998; or First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics. IVP, 2002). Or alert the reader to more extensive discussions in Craig G Bartholomew’s seven volume ‘Scripture and Hermeneutics’ series? And I certainly think Anthony C. Thiselton deserves more than the briefest of passing mentions that he receives, as also Miroslav Volf’s very accessible Captive to the Word of God: Engaging the Scriptures for Contemporary Theological Reflection (2010).
My criticism is not that Payne has failed to mention or interact with such work. My frustration is that this chapter does not appear to have been informed by or reflect much awareness of such treatments, and the generalisations here look pretty weak in their shadow. Even popular treatments can reflect deeper foundations.
Historical ‘reconstruction’ and theological constructions of history
While Payne acknowledges the need to locate texts within historical contexts, he appears very suspicious of historical ‘reconstruction’. Indeed, in summarising Dickson’s critical method, he describes it as ‘a combination of close exegesis and historical reconstruction’ (endnote18). I would have thought ‘close exegesis’ was highly commendable, so it appears to be the latter element that Payne finds problematic.
Historical reconstruction, Payne says, is very speculative and open to a range of views (as reflected in the frequent lack of scholarly consensus). While Fee and Stuart rightly note that the reconstruction of context needs to be ‘tentative, but informed’, Payne responds that ‘this is hardly a solid rock on which to build obedience to the word of God’ (192). Rousing rhetoric indeed, but it reflects a serious misunderstanding of ‘history’.
All history involves ‘reconstruction’. We cannot go back to the past, let alone reproduce or repeat it. We can only ‘reconstruct’ our understanding of the past, and this inevitably involves interpretation, selectivity, a variety of perspectives or vantage points, and the gathering of a range of data and sources.
Dickson is not employing a ‘reconstructive’ version of history, over against other varieties of historiography. Whichever way you approach it, it will be positing or narrating an historical reconstruction. You cannot find hermeneutical fault with Dickson (or Bird, Fee and Stuart) for employing historical reconstruction. We all do it on a daily basis, and Payne does it himself (see endnote 17, with reference to the significance of understanding something about first century Pharisees as an alternative voice and object of Jesus’ critique. Payne notes ‘it is impossible to discuss Matthew 5 and the way Jesus reads and applies Old Testament Scripture…’ without reference to our (reconstructed) historical understanding of the Pharisees).
I would point Payne to N.T. Wright’s significant treatment of critical realism and historical disciplines (over against post-modern challenges) in the opening section of volume 1 of his Christian Origins and the Question of God project. Under the section heading ‘Tools for the Task’, Wright provides a superb description of traditional biblical scholarship in the service of a ‘hermeneutic of love’, starting with authorial intention and moving into communal and relational dynamics of meaning and significance. Wright refers to ‘continuing meaning’ with reference to significance (Vanhoozer speaks of ‘intended and extended meaning’).
There is similar confusion when it comes to Payne’s discussion of the philosophy of history, and his proposal that all that is required is to locate history theologically (187-9). Now I agree with most of what Payne affirms: that in common with the first century, we are still within the same eschatological period (O’Donovan has been described as a ‘dispensationalist’ for similar views), and yes, in common with all humanity, I am a fallen creature. Where I differ-markedly- is in the remarkable conclusion Payne draws that ‘nothing of significance separates us from the hearers/readers of the New Testament’, standing with all those ‘living in these last days, applying the now-fulfilled Old Testament Scriptures directly to our lives at the end of the ages’ (189). Again, the rhetoric is stirring, but this does not eradicate the historical movement, even when understood within biblical categories of time. We are now a day closer to the Lord’s return than yesterday, and God’s purposes continue to develop. We are not in a static place in history, and it is for each generation to discern how the underlying ‘good’ is given expression in differing times and places.
In short: Payne’s positing of a theological and eschatological view of history (the last days) does not lessen the historical, cultural and contextual distance we encounter when reading Scripture. Exponents of a biblical version of ‘horizon’ hermeneutic identify the same eschatological dimension, and affirm no less the eternal truth and significance of God’s Word. Yet our understanding of that Word is deepened and much richer when we appreciate the particularities of any given context.
There is so much more to Payne’s chapter that calls for comment. His treatment of ‘New Testament exegesis of the Old Testament’ touches on well-recognised questions, but I do not believe they invalidate exploring authorial intent and original context as starting points. More is going on in this process, and it is misleading to equate it essentially with exegesis and hermeneutics. I would point the reader to G. K. Beale’s Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Baker, 2012), and his associated Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (edited with D.A. Carson; Baker, 2007).
Payne’s lack of interest in authorial intent is curious (evangelicals have been to the fore in retaining an interest in this, over against ‘reader-response’ priority). Similarly, the recognition that subsequent meanings later identified in earlier passages of Scripture does not set aside the original ‘horizon’ (of meaning and significance), but overlays further meaning upon such material. The well-established notion of sensus plenior (‘fuller meaning’) addresses this, and is readily accommodated by exponents of ‘horizon’ hermeneutics.
Denigration of scholarship
‘We are left in the hands of the scholars, hoping that the tentative but informed reconstruction we are following is the correct one (even though the scholar in the cubicle next door disagrees) so that we might obey the voice of the living God and not come under his judgement’ (193). Payne appears keen to affirm that all may engage with God’s word directly, and we do not need any ‘reconstruction’ through scholarship. Well, yes and no. I am also keen to encourage your ‘average punter’ to read the Bible for themselves, and commend approaches such as the ‘Swedish Method’ in this regard (http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2009/01/the-swedish-method/)
However, this is also simplistic. We need scholars to work through the tens of thousands of manuscripts to determine the most likely text of Scripture. And we need scholars to translate the dead languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into whatever language is needed before we can even have a page in front of us, or performed so that we can hear it. And while we can start reading when we have a reliable text and translation before us, scholars can potentially deepen our understanding of passages, and clarify their meaning and significance. God has been good to us over the millennia in raising up scholarly servants of his Word who continue to assist God’s people in our understanding of the Bible, and in countless more instances than we recognise we are riding on the backs of much scholarly research and ‘reconstruction’, whether concerning language, culture or history.
Bridging the gap: horizons and hermeneutical models.
Both Payne and Bolt adopt a method of telling a narrative (very post-modern!) that gives rise to grouping a number of scholars into one general category. The problem is, this approach doesn’t allow for the distinctiveness of various contributions, including significant critiques of other approaches that Bolt and Payne set side by side. A point of criticism is then made of one of the named scholars, with the implication that such a criticism is equally valid of the other exponents.
An illustration of this is quite stark with regard to Hans-Georg Gadamer, and his ‘horizon’ approach to hermeneutics. As Payne tells it, driven along by the ‘prevailing hermeneutical wind’ initiated by Gadamer (with the suggestion that such approaches are suspect as being essentially shaped by cultural winds), the likes of Anthony Thiselton, Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, are grouped into a ‘horizon’ hermeneutical approach. That is fair enough. John Dickson and Michael Bird are added to the mix by association, although without any specific reference on their part (that I am aware of) to the ‘bridging horizons’ hermeneutical model.
A quote from the highly respected moral theologian Oliver O’Donovan is later introduced. O’Donovan’s concerns (as explained by Payne) are with the amoral worldview in which our contemporary horizon is embedded.
Payne summarises O’Donovan’s position as suggesting ‘that the two-horizons hermeneutic is an ultimately doomed attempt to mend this radical breach that our modernist view of history has created’ (note, these are Payne’s words, not O’Donovan’s). Payne’s quote from O’Donovan then addresses the futility in ‘fusing’ two moral horizons together, where the modernist horizon will invariably absorb the ancient.
The two-horizon model appears dead in the water, at least as Payne tells it.
What Payne has not clarified for the reader is that O’Donovan’s comments are addressed specifically at Gadamer’s historicist and moral paradigm, shaped as it is from his stance as a mid-twentieth century German philosopher. In technical terms, this is a heuristic critique. The philosophical location out of which Gadamer speaks cannot be ‘fused’ with an ancient biblical worldview.
The problem is not with the model as such, but its employment by Gadamer. O’Donovan does not have the adaption of this hermeneutical model by the likes of Thiselton in his sights (nor Fee-Stuart etc.). Indeed, O’Donovan does not even refer to Thiselton. As employed by Thiselton, the new horizons model is used to allow the contemporary reader/hearer to better identify and be informed and shaped by the biblical horizon (and worldview). Thiselton has not bought into the philosophy of history that O’Donovan criticised in Gadamer, but demonstrated that the model can be appropriated and helpfully employed in an explicitly Christian context where there is a high view of Scripture, and an acceptance of a biblical worldview. In fact, subsequent to the material quoted from O’Donovan (as cited by Payne), extensive interaction has occurred between O’Donovan and other biblical scholars and theologians exploring hermeneutical approaches in ways that challenge and critique our contemporary world and moral horizons (see A royal priesthood?: the use of the Bible ethically and politically : a dialogue with Oliver O'Donovan, edited by Craig G. Bartholomew (and others); Paternoster Press/Zondervan, 2002).
In brief, O’Donovan’s line of criticism has not undermined the two-horizon model in itself. Gadamer’s employment of the model has flaws, but others (such as Thiselton) have relocated the model (heuristically speaking) and employed it within a biblical worldview and theological framework.
Rumours of the death of the new horizons hermeneutical model are premature! Payne’s grouping of Gadamer’s approach with Thiselton and Fee-Stuart overlooks the ability of the latter scholars to discern and critique failings in Gadamer and address them in their adaptation of the model. O’Donovan’s criticism of Gadamer does not apply to whole group as identified by Payne.
Conclusion
This has been a long response to Tony Payne’s chapter, reflecting in large measure the extent of my frustration with what is offered there. It seems to be that his critique of Dickson is tangential at best, and the attempt to find a hermeneutical issue to explain Dickson’s conclusions is largely contrived. Dickson has employed well-established and quite mainstream critical and interpretative methods.
In the process of critiquing Dickson, Payne draws in a wider range of considerations and targets for critique, and it is in his diminishing of historical, cultural and social considerations that I am most troubled. Payne seems most concerned with the horizon model of hermeneutics. The purpose of the horizon model is to find avenues to connect up and bridge the historical, contextual and cultural gaps that exist between reader/hearers today, and what are in reality ancient texts, recognising them as God’s living Word that continue to speak into today’s world and audience.
It is in this spirit that I finish with a quote from Gordon Fee:
This let us say with uncharacteristic passion: the ultimate aim of exegesis (as I perceive it) is to produce in our lives and the lives of others true Spirituality, in which God’s people live in faithful fellowship both with one another and with the eternal and living God and thus in keeping with God’s own purposes in the world…
I would therefore make bold to insist that proper exegesis should be done in the context of prayer, so that in our exegesis we hear the text with the sensitivity of the Spirit. Only as we ourselves do our exegesis in the proper posture of humility—on our knees, as it were, listening to God—can we truly expect to speak the Word of God with clarity and boldness so as to comfort, inspire, or speak prophetically to God’s people, the people for whom these texts were written in the first place. (To What End Exegesis? 280).