Christian Exegesis vs

Sometimes someone puts something so obvious in such plain terminology that you cannot help but submit to it and share it. Jaroslav Pelikan was such a scholar.

Biblical exegesis avoids antiquarianism because it is intent on discovering what the text teaches, not merely what it taught.

This is so obvious once pointed out that I feel ashamed for not having thought it myself. It seems most profound to someone like me because I went to the sort of seminary that prioritizes “merely what it taught” as the grounding of scriptural meaning. But of course everyone at an evangelical seminary is supposed to believe that the word of God is active and present in the life of the church.

But secular exegesis can ONLY get at what the text taught. For instance the image of God in Genesis 1. Someone like Dan McClellan probably thinks this is what it taught:

1) humans, at least Adam and Eve, are idols God fashioned after himself

2) primarily he did this because creation itself is a kind of temple and God did what the other cultures did at the time, place idols of the gods in their temples

and that’s basically where it stops. But the Christian can never stop there. We can accept those ideas as stated but we immediately see the consequences. If we are to image God then we are special. God did not fashion his idols of himself after bulls or snakes, but rather in the Genesis account he created our body plan to be his image. And when his son comes to be our Immanuel, our God with us, he looks like us too. This is what the text teaches, that humans are called to image God. It is in some sense the difference between grammar and reading. One can decode English if its grammar is present but one cannot comprehend what is said without some level of understanding, or putting the pieces together.

But seeing what the text teaches requires a certain level of faith. Anyone can, with enough time and resources, come to a reasonable approximation of what the text taught, but only with the eyes of faith can one see what it teaches. This is why the western Christian no longer thinks it teaches that slavery is allowable, and why the atheist is obsessed with what it taught. One has the eyes of faith, putting all the pieces together, the other eyes with no faith, taking the pieces apart and dissecting them on their own.

Some may say this pits the text against itself, but scripture does do that itself sometimes, and I think ultimately on purpose. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are in some sense opposed to each other, one presents the good life of wisdom and the other that life is meaningless apart from wisdom. And throw Job in there and there’s more contradictions. But scripture is always unified by God, just as those texts are unified by Wisdom (who we Christians think is God). Sometimes the Gospels present different accounts, sometimes seemingly outright contradictory accounts, of Jesus. Yet in the end the eyes of faith can, eventually, see what the text teaches.

In some sense though you don’t even need faith to see how the text teaches vs taught dynamic works profoundly. What the scriptures taught about the image of God ended slavery, so then what does the scripture passages that regulate slavery teach today? Any of the slavery commandments are no longer necessary in our context because slavery is basically gone from the west. What the text teaches us is somewhat context dependent. It has little to say to a culture that is sexually conformed to Christian values regarding homosexuality, and much to teach a culture that embraces homosexuality.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.