How to read the Bible: An Orthodox perspective
Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:45 amHi there. I'm Distruzio, an Eastern Orthodox Christian. The Orthodox Church along with the Latin (Catholic), Oriental, and Anglican Churches (although this is hotly contested, I admit that this particularity is my own perspective and should not be considered the universal position of all the Eastern, Oriental, Latin Church, or even the Anglican Communion), wrote the New Testament and cannonized the Bible into the book we all know today. It was us who handed down the Creed and established what a Christian is to believe in order to avoid heresy against the Scripture.
We are not, however, sola scripturists.
Many consider the Protestants mere schismatics - not necessarily heretics. I however, struggle to maintain even this modicum of neutrality on the status of protestantism within Christianity and often give in to the temptation to label Protestants, by and large (with some exceptions of course) to be idolators. More specifically, bibliolators - worshippers of the Bible. They deny the authority of Christ and the Holy Spirit - they deny God and supplant him with themselves.
In this regard, I am a bigot. I do not shy from this label, but I am aware of the issues it raises both for my faithful expression of Christianity and for my relationships with individual Protestants. I confess but repentance is something that comes hard for me. It's a weakness.
But this flaw in my personality is not the topic of this thread. I merely elaborate to give the non-Protestant and potential non-Christian readers of this thread a bit of perspective before I delve into the meat. In other words, I do not play the text proofing game with anyone, although I can do it as well as the thumper on the corner (note that the thread in the link here provided is a parody). So responding to me as though I were a Baptist or a member of Westboro will get you nowhere.
The point of this thread is to address the bibliolatry itself - how does one actually read the bible and avoid worship of it?
I recently listened to a lecture on how to read the Bible, which inspired this thread. For those more knowledgeable Christians among you, please note that I'm not intentionally reproducing anyone else's arguments but following the structure of the lecture with what I can remember of it, along with my own input.
- Moscow Conference, 1976
I'll begin with obedience. I agree with the Protestants when they say the Bible is divinely inspired. It, as the quote above explains, is uniformly coherent and speaks with a single message divided among the several books. As such, it is the Bible - not the Bibles. But, it is expressed by human beings - individually and distinct across many years and involving many different situations. Though He spoke through individuals as they wrote the words of scripture down, He did NOT diminish their individuality. Despite the rhetoric of the more militaristic Protestant sects, coercion is alien to God. He cooperates with us. No mere tool, each author of each book expressed the words of God through their own hermeneutic - an reflection of the age in which they lived.
We are to remember this fact and maintain a measured and thoughtful approach to the authority found in Scripture.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the New Testament Gospels themselves. The legalistic perspective of Matthew reflects Jesus' fulfillment of the Jewish Law and is clearly a more ecclesiastical narrative. Universalism and love pervade Luke's account and dull the bite of the harsh language surrounding biblical descriptions of the proto-Jewish State found in the Old Testament. John is more mystical and introspective. My favorite, however, is Mark. He wrote in brusque and basic Greek. His lack of flair in writing style is exactly what makes his Gospel more personal, more gentle. Each Gospel speaks of a singular message and yet reflects the individuality and personality of the author. No book was dictated. They were experiences expressed as best as could be by imperfect men.
For the curious Christian, this means that his approach to Scripture must be bound in tandem to receptiveness and awe. He must always recall that the words are not merely words written by men, but the uncreated Word of God Himself.
More than obedience, however, the Christian needs to interpret Scripture through the Church. Now I don't mean that building that we each visit from time to time. I mean the physical worldwide Church. Our approach to scripture must also be ecclesiastical - as members of a community. We are Christians - not monads. The Bible cannot be separated from the Church. It is not an atomized thing to be removed from the world and interpreted in a vacuum. Sola scriptura is inappropriate.
For an explanation of this, please refer to the first link I provided above. Simply put, the Scripture was always and yet remains received by the individual Christian through and in the Church. Christianity would have survived without the Bible, though it would have been less authoritative. It would NOT have survived without the Church. More importantly, not even the Bible would have survived without the Church - it would never have existed.
Many critics of the Bible will neglect this fact when offering criticisms. They may, for instance, call into question the authorship of a particular book within Scripture. This may be, for some, reason enough to doubt the validity and authority of the Bible itself. For the Christian, however, it needn't matter. The Church has canonized the message contained within the books of the Bible. The Bible maintains its authority vis a vis the Church, not the other way around.
Moreover, since it is the Church that defines what the Bible is, then it is the Church that defines what the Bible says. Recall Acts 8:30,31 when Phillip comes upon the Ethiopian as he struggled to read the Old testament. Did Phillip remind the Ethiopian to read for himself? Did the Ethiopian proclaim that all he needed for God's revelation was Scripture alone? Of course, the answer to both questions is obviously no. The individual Christian is the Ethiopian. The Church is Phillip, guiding our interpretation of Scripture.
This is not to say that individual study should not be undertaken. I am merely stating that, whatever your individual opinion of specific lines from the Bible, it must be submitted to the judgement of the worldwide Church. We are not isolated individuals reading Scripture. For the historic Christian (members of the various Churches I described in the introduction to this thread), this is common sense. For the Protestant, it is a strange revelation.
There is much more to describe this ecclesiastical way of interpreting Scripture, but I feel as though I am already boring you. So I'll move on to the final crux.
Christ. That unifying message the above quote reminds us of is Christ. He is the integral message of each book within Holy Scripture. His is the syncretic glue binding the history of the Jewish texts, the Old Testament, to the Gentile texts in the New Testament. Using typological methods of interpretation, whereby "types" of Christ and symbols of His work are detected and manifested throughout the Old Testament, that are expressed for us through the Church, we can see Christ everywhere in the Bible.
As each Christian is called to be perfected in the likeness of Christ, we must see ourselves reflected by Him in our study. This makes Scripture personal. Scripture is to be considered an intimate dialogue between Christ and myself. For instance, in Genesis, we read of God walking through the Garden seeking Adam out, calling to him. Reading the Scripture personally and with Christ in mind, we can see that God is calling out for us - for me.
I am Cain who turns away my brother and sister. I am the goat separated from the sheep. I am the thief on the Cross beside Jesus. I am Peter who denies Christ.
Conversely, the personal revelation of Scripture, through the Church, in obedience, do I see myself in the sinners surrounding Jesus yet forgiven and cherished by Him? Am I Mary Magdalene? Am I the tax collector? Am I the woman who rubs ointment on His feet?
- Desert Fathers
With all of this in mind, we see that the Scripture is not something to be read in a vacuum separated from the history, personality, and authority of the Church. It is something to be read with humility, obedience, and temperance. It is not merely a tool to absorb information, or a work of literature, or a collection of historical documents (although it can be used as such in certain contexts). It is a message directly to me, to you, by God asking where you are.
And this is exactly why I find myself so repulsed by the sola scripturist approach to salvation. They tend to use the Bible as a weapon of division - as a tool to justify their own superiority. I cannot abide that and I will ALWAYS side with the atheist who takes offense at such declarations by the bibliolator. The Protestant does not tend to see himself in scripture (although, as I admitted above, there are exceptions) but everyone else. That doesn't seem like Christianity to me. It certainly doesn't seem like they know how to read what they worship.
Thoughts?
We are not, however, sola scripturists.
Many consider the Protestants mere schismatics - not necessarily heretics. I however, struggle to maintain even this modicum of neutrality on the status of protestantism within Christianity and often give in to the temptation to label Protestants, by and large (with some exceptions of course) to be idolators. More specifically, bibliolators - worshippers of the Bible. They deny the authority of Christ and the Holy Spirit - they deny God and supplant him with themselves.
In this regard, I am a bigot. I do not shy from this label, but I am aware of the issues it raises both for my faithful expression of Christianity and for my relationships with individual Protestants. I confess but repentance is something that comes hard for me. It's a weakness.
But this flaw in my personality is not the topic of this thread. I merely elaborate to give the non-Protestant and potential non-Christian readers of this thread a bit of perspective before I delve into the meat. In other words, I do not play the text proofing game with anyone, although I can do it as well as the thumper on the corner (note that the thread in the link here provided is a parody). So responding to me as though I were a Baptist or a member of Westboro will get you nowhere.
The point of this thread is to address the bibliolatry itself - how does one actually read the bible and avoid worship of it?
I recently listened to a lecture on how to read the Bible, which inspired this thread. For those more knowledgeable Christians among you, please note that I'm not intentionally reproducing anyone else's arguments but following the structure of the lecture with what I can remember of it, along with my own input.
"The Scriptures constitute a coherent whole. There are at once divinely inspired and humanly expressed. They bear authoritative witness to God's revelation of Himself in creation, in the Incarnation of the Word, and in the whole history of salvation, and as such express the word of God in human language. We know, receive, and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church. our approach to the Bible is one of obedience."
- Moscow Conference, 1976
I'll begin with obedience. I agree with the Protestants when they say the Bible is divinely inspired. It, as the quote above explains, is uniformly coherent and speaks with a single message divided among the several books. As such, it is the Bible - not the Bibles. But, it is expressed by human beings - individually and distinct across many years and involving many different situations. Though He spoke through individuals as they wrote the words of scripture down, He did NOT diminish their individuality. Despite the rhetoric of the more militaristic Protestant sects, coercion is alien to God. He cooperates with us. No mere tool, each author of each book expressed the words of God through their own hermeneutic - an reflection of the age in which they lived.
We are to remember this fact and maintain a measured and thoughtful approach to the authority found in Scripture.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the New Testament Gospels themselves. The legalistic perspective of Matthew reflects Jesus' fulfillment of the Jewish Law and is clearly a more ecclesiastical narrative. Universalism and love pervade Luke's account and dull the bite of the harsh language surrounding biblical descriptions of the proto-Jewish State found in the Old Testament. John is more mystical and introspective. My favorite, however, is Mark. He wrote in brusque and basic Greek. His lack of flair in writing style is exactly what makes his Gospel more personal, more gentle. Each Gospel speaks of a singular message and yet reflects the individuality and personality of the author. No book was dictated. They were experiences expressed as best as could be by imperfect men.
For the curious Christian, this means that his approach to Scripture must be bound in tandem to receptiveness and awe. He must always recall that the words are not merely words written by men, but the uncreated Word of God Himself.
More than obedience, however, the Christian needs to interpret Scripture through the Church. Now I don't mean that building that we each visit from time to time. I mean the physical worldwide Church. Our approach to scripture must also be ecclesiastical - as members of a community. We are Christians - not monads. The Bible cannot be separated from the Church. It is not an atomized thing to be removed from the world and interpreted in a vacuum. Sola scriptura is inappropriate.
For an explanation of this, please refer to the first link I provided above. Simply put, the Scripture was always and yet remains received by the individual Christian through and in the Church. Christianity would have survived without the Bible, though it would have been less authoritative. It would NOT have survived without the Church. More importantly, not even the Bible would have survived without the Church - it would never have existed.
Many critics of the Bible will neglect this fact when offering criticisms. They may, for instance, call into question the authorship of a particular book within Scripture. This may be, for some, reason enough to doubt the validity and authority of the Bible itself. For the Christian, however, it needn't matter. The Church has canonized the message contained within the books of the Bible. The Bible maintains its authority vis a vis the Church, not the other way around.
Moreover, since it is the Church that defines what the Bible is, then it is the Church that defines what the Bible says. Recall Acts 8:30,31 when Phillip comes upon the Ethiopian as he struggled to read the Old testament. Did Phillip remind the Ethiopian to read for himself? Did the Ethiopian proclaim that all he needed for God's revelation was Scripture alone? Of course, the answer to both questions is obviously no. The individual Christian is the Ethiopian. The Church is Phillip, guiding our interpretation of Scripture.
This is not to say that individual study should not be undertaken. I am merely stating that, whatever your individual opinion of specific lines from the Bible, it must be submitted to the judgement of the worldwide Church. We are not isolated individuals reading Scripture. For the historic Christian (members of the various Churches I described in the introduction to this thread), this is common sense. For the Protestant, it is a strange revelation.
There is much more to describe this ecclesiastical way of interpreting Scripture, but I feel as though I am already boring you. So I'll move on to the final crux.
Christ. That unifying message the above quote reminds us of is Christ. He is the integral message of each book within Holy Scripture. His is the syncretic glue binding the history of the Jewish texts, the Old Testament, to the Gentile texts in the New Testament. Using typological methods of interpretation, whereby "types" of Christ and symbols of His work are detected and manifested throughout the Old Testament, that are expressed for us through the Church, we can see Christ everywhere in the Bible.
As each Christian is called to be perfected in the likeness of Christ, we must see ourselves reflected by Him in our study. This makes Scripture personal. Scripture is to be considered an intimate dialogue between Christ and myself. For instance, in Genesis, we read of God walking through the Garden seeking Adam out, calling to him. Reading the Scripture personally and with Christ in mind, we can see that God is calling out for us - for me.
I am Cain who turns away my brother and sister. I am the goat separated from the sheep. I am the thief on the Cross beside Jesus. I am Peter who denies Christ.
Conversely, the personal revelation of Scripture, through the Church, in obedience, do I see myself in the sinners surrounding Jesus yet forgiven and cherished by Him? Am I Mary Magdalene? Am I the tax collector? Am I the woman who rubs ointment on His feet?
"Better someone who has sinned, if he knows he has sinned and repents, than a person who has not sinned and thinks of himself as righteous."
- Desert Fathers
With all of this in mind, we see that the Scripture is not something to be read in a vacuum separated from the history, personality, and authority of the Church. It is something to be read with humility, obedience, and temperance. It is not merely a tool to absorb information, or a work of literature, or a collection of historical documents (although it can be used as such in certain contexts). It is a message directly to me, to you, by God asking where you are.
And this is exactly why I find myself so repulsed by the sola scripturist approach to salvation. They tend to use the Bible as a weapon of division - as a tool to justify their own superiority. I cannot abide that and I will ALWAYS side with the atheist who takes offense at such declarations by the bibliolator. The Protestant does not tend to see himself in scripture (although, as I admitted above, there are exceptions) but everyone else. That doesn't seem like Christianity to me. It certainly doesn't seem like they know how to read what they worship.
Thoughts?
