Issues of biblical interpretation are a constant theme in ministry among university (and other) students. From those trying to treat scripture as if it's a text book, to those who have little time for an ancient collection of writings filled with patriarchal, genocidal, abusive and ignorant opinions -and many in between who find some inspiration and wisdom while also wrestling with other parts that seem far less so. So, I came to this book wondering whether it might possibly be something I'd put into the hands and consideration of students and those who work with them.
In terms of the level at which it's written, I think I'd be reasonably confident that it would work in such hands. It's well-informed but deliberately eschews footnotes -which I mention as a signifier of the approach: intelligent popular, not academic but informed by scholarship.
It's written from a broadly Evangelical background and addresses people formed in that sub-culture. It's also very attentive to the British scene which is a breath of fresh air. Rightly it doesn't ignore the USAmerican scene -after all the size and money of USA evangelicalism means it has tended to drive or heavily influence a lot of British churches in the last 20 or 30 years. However, it is refreshing that a lot of examples and references are to the British scene.
A good chunk of the book addresses the elephant in the room of purportedly biblical Christianities: how to receive some parts of the Hebrew Bible as scripture. I enjoyed the deft way that the inconsistencies of approach are brought out. This is helped by starting with a good introduction to how culture affects interpretation. I enjoyed also the constructive (both critical and appreciative) approach to postmodernism (and the strangely nostalgic use of the term -I hardly hear or read it any longer). In combination this is likely to help a thoughtful general reader to consider better strategies for the reception of the 'difficult' texts in scripture, especially from some of what we often call the Old Testament.
I note that Burnhope wisely holds off from engaging directly with arguments about hot-button topics and focuses very tightly on the interpretive strategies that are being employed in bringing various texts into the debates concerned. This is an important thing to do. And of course, half of the problem in discussing such things at the moment is that fact that we're often trying both to talk about 'the issue' but also having to talk simultaneously about interpretive methods. The result is too often lots of heat but little light. So trying to help us to become wiser readers of texts, as well as savvier Christian readers of before Christ texts, is an important discipline to invite into. I think he does a good job of this.
There is also a big emphasis on the matter of framing in respect of 'the word of God' -rightly we're reminded that it's all very well having something that is the word of God -but if we can't interpret it well or do so badly, what does it profit us? (That is my way of characterising what I took from it).
One of the things I appreciated was that the chapter on culture spends a lot of effort in helping the reader to appreciate the way that our culture is about the "obvious" -the things that seem to us as uncontroversial, straight-forward, common-sense incontrovertibly true -how could it be otherwise? And we are helpfully given to understand that this may not be so -using examples from the biblical literature that shows us how what is "obvious" in one context can be fairly puzzling or even misleading in another.
For my own part, I further reflect that for those of us in a society that has evolved quite strict conventions around citation, quotation, intertextual referencing etc, it can be hard for us to recognise that while those things are part of our interpretation of what counts as 'true', these are in fact recent conventions and that it was not considered untruthful to use a famous name to title ones writing, it was normal to paraphrase as well as to quote (after all, the written texts were expensive and not readily to hand, and one relied often on memory). Many in our society are also hampered in learning to read scripture as part of a conversation between us and God because our paradigm of a book is some kind of textbook and we rarely think about how fiction, or 'faction', symbolic and analogical writing can in fact be truthful and ask whether there are points in the Bible where that might be relevant (it is at least with regard to parables, but maybe more widely at times too). Returning to How to Read the Bible Well, I was glad to see the author write what I've long thought: that many Evangelical reading strategies are actually well captive to modernity and often what Evangelicals are defending when inveighing against the relativism of post-modernism is actually very much a culturally captive approach deeply indebted to modernism and which could do with attending to the important critiques that postmodernism brings.
It still weighs with me that in the fourth gospel, Jesus speaks of himself, personally, as the Truth. Our take away should be that truth is relational (might we say "relate-ive"?) before it might be propositional, yet it seems to me that so often Evagelicals while speaking of a personal relationship with Jesus, in practice disciple people in a propositional assent system.
Link-Love
How to Read the Bible Well on Amazon
Stephen Burnhope’s Website
Stephen Burnhope on Twitter
Stephen Burnhope on Facebook
#HowToReadTheBibleWell
I should say that I received this book as a free e-copy for review purposes. I was not obliged to review it in any way but honestly in my opinion. I did need to provide a review within 30 days of receiving it, though!
