On Sentire Cum Ecclesia, David talks about a commonality between Jewish and Christian scriptural interpretation traditions. Here is a summary of the Jewish method known as Pardes:
Pardes refers to (types of) approaches to biblical exegesis in rabbinic Judaism (or – simpler – interpretation of text in Torah study). The term, sometimes also spelled PaRDeS, is an acronymn formed from the name initials of the following four approaches:
• Peshat — “plain” (“simple”) or the direct meaning.
• Remez — “hints” or the deep (allegoric: hidden or symbolic) meaning beyond just the literal sense.
• Derash — from Hebrew darash: “inquire” (“seek”) — the comparative (midrashic) meaning, as given through similar occurrences.
• Sod (pronounced with a long O as in ‘bone’) — “secret” (“mystery”) or the mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation.
And here is a summary of the patristic method, as outlined in the Catechism:
115 …[O]ne can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. …
116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal” [St. Thomas Aquinas].
117 The spiritual sense…
1. The allegorical sense…
2. The moral sense…
3. The anagogical sense….
118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses: “The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith; The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.”
Why no mention of Higher Criticism and textual criticism ?
The piece is about what the rabbinic and patristic traditions have in common, not about what methods are best, or even what methods there are.
Higher and textual criticism don’t belong in a list of traditional methods, as they apparently date back no further than the 17th century at the earliest.
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..and let’s have no childish jokes about “sod.” (smiley face.)
In other words, we can read scripture whichever way suits our book.
We can interpret the very same biblical passage as being literally true, allegorically true, comparatively true, or mysteriously, incomprehensibly, true.
I suppose we can also interpret it as literally false, allegorically false, comparatively false, or just plain old wrong, but in a mysteriously inspired, incomprehensible, sort of way.
If we like.
On the other hand, it might do us a lot more good to take the dogs for a walk.
Get the stink blown off us.
Still, Chris will enjoy this.
It is important that the spiritual sense is secondary to the literal sense in the sense that it derives from it and depends upon it. So your “allegorical” or “mystical” reading must have a basis in your exegesis of the plain meaning of the text. Note also that it is in the literal exegesis that the Historical-critical methods today have their place – yet one ought to proceed from this to derive the Spiritual meaning.
You make it sound as though reading the Bible was based on sheer whimsicality. That is not true – JP’s point is that there are methods: that is, ways of reading it that are based on principles. And some methods are more valid for certain purposes than others. And it can be read not only from different POVs, but also under different aspects – what people make of it depends on their information about it & their attitudes to it; and also upon what it is in itself.
It’s impossible to explain in any detail why this so, except at the cost of writing horribly long posts. That sounds evasive, which is not satisfactory; but so be it.
Also to be considered is that it is not the only body of texts that has been read in a number of ways – understanding of how it is read often suffers from the unspoken assumption that no other text has been read in similar ways. But the treatment of the Homeric poems (to mention only ohe example) has at several points resembled the treatment of the Bible.
A reason for the variety of methods of reading is that the Bible itself is several different things:
a body of ancient Jewish texts
the national literature of an Eastern Mediterranean people
a book used in Divine Worship both by Jews & Christians
a source for the history of Hebrew, Aramaic, & Greek
a source for the religious ideas of the Jews
a body of texts that can be used to make comparisons with other religions of the period the Bible covers
a revelation of God, His character, acts, and purpose
a source of devotional reading
And some of these have subdivisions – its use in the liturgy includes use in the sacramental rites of the Church, & in its daily office of prayer. The reading of it as *lectio divina* is an offshoot of its liturgical use.
Its academic uses are often not explicitly theological or Christian or evenJewish. To understand Genesis 1-3,one no more has to believe in the reality of the God of Christians than an Assyriologist has to believe in the gods Marduk & Ea in order to understand the so-called “Babylonian Creation Epic”. To study the literary origins of the encounter of Marduk with Tiamat, which is central to the BCE, one does not pray to Marduk: one looks at the Sumerian myth of the vanquishing of the Azag by the god Ninurta. On a wider scale, one can look at other fights between a god or hero & a monster or other enemy – Perseus & the sea-monster, St. Michael & Satan in Revelation 12, JHWH & the Sea in Exodus, the goddess Astarte & Yamm (= Sea) in Egypt, the harpooning of the Seth-hippo by the newly-crowned Pharaoh as Horus, & many others: such as Beowulf & Grendel’s mother; St. George and the dragon, or the many tales of French Saints who were said to have slain or made captive various dragons.
All of these details are worth studying – and they can be studied from various POVS, & under various aspects.
Allegory appears here and there – but not often. It is only one of many literary genres of text in the Bible. The Bible is not a book, but a library, and identifying the genres has depended very largely on knowing what genres were used for what purposes in the ANE. This in turn has depended on understanding the languages and texts of the Ancient Near East – & until very recently – c. 1840 – the Bible was the only source of any length for the literature of any ANE culture; and this affected its interpretation. And many of the past ideas about how to read the Bible have endured to this day – some Catholics find the idea that Isaiah was written by several authors shocking – they are far more at home with pre-critical ideas that never raised that possibility, simply because that possibility did not suggest itself. And it does not occur among the Fathers, or the Reformers.
At least if the Net is any guide, part of the problem is that many Christians, & ex-Christians, do not have the literary appreciation to realise that what author X shows character Y doing does not necessarily reflect the intentions of author X. A further complication attends the use of the Bible, read as a transcript of God’s Will: for the activity & character of God are read off from (say) the Flood narrative, as though the human author did nio more than contribute the writing that represents the words. The HA ceases to been seen as a human author writing the narrative as a conscious and intelligent author in a specific culture, & becomes little more than a mouthpiece for the Divine Author. So the ideas & theology of the HA, are attributed directly to the DA; without any suggestion that the HA was a limited human being with a limited undersanding of God. And it gets worse. The Bible is seen as a text everywhere conveying perfect & perfectly self-consistent & perfectly moral Divine Truth – there is no sense on the part of some readers that the books are the record of the education of a people whose ideas about God include elements that later Biblical authors found wanting.
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No doubt we all agree that the Four Ways of Reading Scripture can equally be applied to the reading of “Through The Looking Glass,” “Anna Karenina,” or “Being And Nothingness.” (Though possibly not “The Da Vinci Code.”)
Or do we?
Or that an ignoramus reading a book will inevitably be reading an ignorant book?
(Bit of Derrida-ish, post-modernism there, perhaps?)
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With this post in mind, Toad tried a little experiment. He opened the Bible completely at random, (honestly!) and this is the first thing he read:
4. O Lord God of hosts how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?
5. Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure.
How should Toad read this? What does it all mean? How can God be angry, anyway? Seems like God is being somewhat unkind.
How come Toad’s guess, as to the meaning of this, is not as good as anyone else’s?
I’m sure this passage speaks to Toad in some sense of the suffering he experiences.
How can God be angry, anyway?
It seems that Toad has seen his way thru this. Of course God, being pure spirit, never gets angry but people tend to project their human nature onto him – anthropomorphism.
One needs to factor in that the ancients did not distinguish between the active and permissive will of God so what God merely allows (suffering) they would describe as God causing.
A good rule of thumb is to read the passage in context – read the whole chapter/psalm. And then read again in the context of scripture as a whole and what we know of the nature of God.
God Bless
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“…so what God merely allows (suffering) they (the ancients) would describe as God causing.”
The very notion of God “merely” allowing suffering is sufficient for Toad for now.
A bit of suffering is, no doubt, bracing and instructive for us all, Chris.
But surely, the recent Tsunami, the Lisbon and Haiti Earthquakes, Malaria, The Black Death, Thyphoid, Smallpox, The Holocaust, Newt Gingrich, the New Zealand Health Service, Overpopulation in the Asteroid Belt, and Mel Gibson movies is going a bit over the top?
Chris suggests that Toad read the book of Job for more about suffering.
There are certainly times when too much suffering can overwhelm and crush people. In those moments we ought to reach out in compassion and do what we can to relieve suffering. At least some of Toads examples are things we can do something about.
For what it is worth, God himself suffered appalling suffering on the cross. So it’s not as if God just sits above all our suffering. He actually enters into it with us. Lots of people find that realizing that helps them to get thru it.
God Bless
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But all the undesirable things Toad listed (and many more besides) have come to pass after Christ’s death. Which would appear to suggest he died in vain. Nothing has improved.
Many things are actually worse.
Or so Toad thinks.
(Although leprosy seems to be a bit less prevalent, we must say.)
Cheer up Toad ! I know the February winter can be dull and depressing in Europe.
The Jewish sages said much the same thing. One looked out his window, saw that the world didn’t seem to have changed, and declared “how can the Messiah have come if things are still the same ?”
But if we look closely enough, we can see that things have changed for the better. The presence of Christ in the Church and in his baptised people has healed them and helped heal the world.
Their faith has moved them to build hospitals and schools, feed the hungry, heal the sick, eradicate diseases, develop science and technology, outlaw slavery, grant rights to women, help rebuild after earthquakes and respond to Newt Gingrich and Mel Gibson.
And, of course, we have Toad and all those wonderful people who care for Compostella Trail pilgrims.
God Bless