Meta-exegesis on April Fool’s Day

A lamp to my feet is Your word and a light to my path.  I swore and I will fulfill it—to observe Your just laws.  Psalm 119:105-106  Robert Alter

Lamp/ light – What is the plain meaning of the text?  Isn’t that what we all want to know?  Don’t confuse me with theological propositions or exegetical extremes.  Don’t give me midrash and mystical applications.  Just tell me the plainmeaning—the simple truth that anyone can know.  After all, why would God give us instructions that are shrouded in obscure vocabulary, erudite grammar, or letter re-arrangement?  He wants us to know His expectations, right?  Does it really take years of study, advanced degrees, committees, and esoteric insight to understand Scripture?  Far too often it seems that all those scholars just lose their faith in the conundrums of research.  I just want a simple faith—like David—a lamp for my feet, a light for my path.

Well, there’s good news and bad news.  Yes, God cares.  He wants us to know.  He encourages us to know.  He commandsus to know.  Moses told us that it isn’t that hard.  It’s not too far away in some heavenly realm.  What God wants is right here.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is that men get in the way.  All men.  Even you and me.  Why?  Because God’s word comes in human clothing, and that cloth is made from the historical circumstances, the culture of origin, and the social/political situation of the author, the audience, and the interpreter.  Yes, I know, we could opt for the Pauline solution, “But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).  But we’re not talking about the natural man, whoever that might be.  We’re talking about men and women who truly want to follow God, who are committed to Him, who have His spirit about them.  Pagans might not understand spiritual things, but certainly believers should.

Nevertheless, our civilization of origin incorporates some powerful assumptions, not often recognized, that influence not only how we read the text but also what we think the text says.  Here are a few:

The assumptions underlying spiritual practice

1. Rational vs. revealed (non-rational). We expect the biblical texts to make sense, that is, to conform to our view of what is rational.  This is the Greek heritage of the West.  But the texts are Eastern and in the East there is no expectation that they will make sense.  They are commands from above, not explanations from below.  It doesn’t matter if we can’t figure them out.  Just do them!
2. Timeless vs. temporal: the temporal needs an interpreter for its application (Islam and the Imams, Judaism and the Rabbis, Christianity and the Pope, Protestantism and the solas). The biblical texts are not timeless truths derived from the rationality of the cosmos (another Western idea).  Because they belong to whatever generation wrote them, they must be interpreted (read “modified”) for us, and only a “holy” man can do that.  Therefore, all texts need an Imam, or Rabbi, or Priest to tell us what they really mean.  The simple wording of the text is not the real religious meaning.  According to Jewish orthodoxy, this interpretive function is found in the Oral Law, given initially to Moses, handed down over the centuries.  It is the true divine revelation.  The written text is only the field where the oral text is planted to produce religious fruit.  Islam is the same; the last Imam being the final word on the meaning of the Quran.  Catholicism claims the Pope is the final authority.  And the Protestants simply made everyone + the Spirit the final interpreter of the text (resulting in incredible religious chaos).
3. Unwritten vs. written – Christine Hayes pointed out that the written text is always subject to Man’s circumstances. What is codified can always be changed.  This is the role of the Oral Law in Judaism (see above), which is why it contains all the arguments about any given subject even if they are contradictory.  While the written text can’t be changed (usually), it can be reinterpreted eternally.  But the Greek idea is completely different.  The TRUE universal ethics is unwritten because it is a reflection of the cosmic order, an ontological reality.  It is, therefore, unchangeable.  Every rational person will come to see the truth of the cosmos.  Those who do not agree are simply uneducated.

With these assumptions and implications in mind, is it any wonder that encountering alternatives to our Western religious point of view seems illogical, perhaps even insane?  Yet millions believe this insanity.  How is that possible?  Well, change your assumptions and see, although I will admit that changing your worldview is not like changing diapers (but it might be just as messy).

Topical Index:  assumptions, West, East, written law, oral law, Psalm 119:105-106