Put on Your Thinking Cap
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 2 Timothy 3:16 NIV
Is useful – No, we’re not going to spend any more time investigating the meanings of “Scripture” or “God-breathed” or any of the participles of action that follow. We’ve been over that ground time and again. What I’m interested in today is the ambiguity in language and the implications for Scripture. Let’s start with this:
“Every language, by definition, contains an aspect of openness to enigma, to what eludes its grasp, to the dimension where ‘words fail.’ This minimal openness of the meaning of its words and propositions is what make a language ‘alive.’ We effectively ‘understand’ a foreign culture when we are able to identify with its points of failure: when we are able to discern not its hidden positive meaning, but rather its blind spot, the deadlock the proliferation of meaning endeavors to cover up.”[1]
What Žižek points out is that language—all language—implies and contains a dimension beyond the meanings of the terms. In order to truly understand another language, one must become cognizant of this “unspoken” realm, that is, what the language implies but does not say. It’s not just idioms. It’s the “feel” of the world through this particular lens. If you’ve ever been in a foreign culture and tried to explain yourself to someone, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Google Translate doesn’t really do it. Language is more than vocabulary and grammar. It’s gestures, intonation, nuances, implication: paradigm shift. What this means is that a native speaker of ancient Hebrew (there are none in the world today) views the world through this language lens. He “sees” unspoken things. He “hears” unseen things. And the best that we can do is try to approximate what it was like for him to be in the world. Therefore, when we apply this to Scripture, we come across Zornberg’s statements:
“There is no way of sealing the text against misinterpretation; even more, the question of will, of desire, is relevant to interpretation. The reader of this text, or of any text, comes with a grid of prejudices and expectations that inform his reading.”[2]
“The activity of reading the Torah is the activity of self-creation.”[3]
The requirement for us is to become hyper-sensitive to our own paradigms in order that we might recognize when we are likely to be reading the text as we see it rather than (perhaps) as the original audience heard it. This is no easy feat. It means constant exposure not only to the ancient text but also to our own biases, assumptions, cultural views, and theological journeys. Of course, we can simply read the text for us, treating it like modern homilies or emotionally comforting sage sayings, but that isn’t exegesis. If you really want to know what God said when He said it, then you’re going to have to undo your view before you can grapple with a different language lens. Then Scripture will be useful. Before then, it will simply be devotional.
Topical Index: useful, language, interpretation, paradigm, unspoken, 2 Timothy 3:16
[1] Slavoj Žižek, The Abyss of Freedom / Ages of the World (University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 50 cited in Eric L. Santner, On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life, p. 6.
[2] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (Schocken Books, New York: 2001), p. 144.
[3] Ibid., p. 314.
