How do the Scriptures of Israel speak a word to those who are not of Israel? The Scriptures of Israel are now most commonly known as the Old Testament. This term is problematical for many reasons, but all possible alternatives also have their own difficulties. When reading these texts, it is important to remember that some of them were written over 3000 years ago to a very different culture to that which we have today. As such, care has to be taken when reading them to ensure that mistakes and misunderstandings do not occur. The trouble with this is that nobody truly can read the text objectively, as there is too much baggage and modern culture imbedded in every mind for this to be possible. Throughout history readers of these texts have faced this problem. This goes right back to the days of Ezekiel and then Ezra. It continues through the New Testament time when the Pharisees and Saducees dispute, the Early Church has many conflicts about it and the Reformation disputes were about this. It continues to the modern day and the conflicts abound. There is clearly no definite, correct way of reading the Old Testament, but an attempt is necessary in order for each to be able to read and understand it. The biggest difficulty with understanding the Old Testament for readers is that each section of book was written by either a certain person or school of people who were very different and in a very different place and culture to those whom are found later. A rich businessman in New York will find little to relate to in Amos� ministry in the Israel. But, he is expected to find something in this book of the Bible. The socio-economic contrasts are clearly vast. It is how he is to do this where the difficulty lies. He will have an in-built set of pre-conceived ideas and prejudices and he cannot possibly read it objectively. The same is also true for any person throughout history. The Old Testament was not written to be read objectively however. It is a religious work and has a message to be put across. It was written by people in a certain environment and culture for people that they could relate to at the time. They did not expect people in this day and age to still be reading them. This is not to say that they have no relevance for people today, but it is a reminder that objectivity is impossible in the Old Testament. Objectivity could also detract from the shape and reading of the work, though scholastically this would be preferable. Experiences both individual and historically collectively cause the Old Testament to be �refracted� through history to those readers later than the writer. When deciding on the Old Testament canon, the Church Fathers were faced with essentially five options on how to treat it. The first, and most radical was to discard it and all references to it in the new scriptures. The heretic Marcion was to be the chief advocate of this. He ignored the Old Testament and of the newer scriptures merely an abridged Luke and abridged versions of the ten epistles of Paul. James D. Wood is correct in his assertion that Marcion�s abilities as an interpreter are to be questioned due to his narrow and limited �Bible� (p. 43-45). The church disagreed with this as he was effectively saying that the God of Israel was different from the God of Jesus. This was heresy, but actually performed a useful function in that it forced the church to decide upon its own canon to give it �credibility� in its reproof of Marcion. Another option to be considered is that of selecting portions of the Old Testament. This was a dispute that even those of the Jewish cult found controversial. The Pharisees and Saducees that found such notoriety in the Gospels had a chief disagreement over this very issue. The Saducees advocated just using the Pentateuch and the Pharisees supported using the prophets and writings as well, giving us the TaNaK. The Church eventually settled on the Pharisees� point of view. Another option that was open to the early church was to Christianise the original Scriptures. This would involve altering the texts slightly so as that they were more directly applicable to the life of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. This is an extension of the typological theme so prevalent in early Christian exegesis. Fritz Stolz emphasises the significance of this (p. 140-143) in his analysis of the relationship between the two testaments. Typology involves relating a story as indicative of Jesus� or other main characters such as the apostles� lives and actions. An example is the story of Isaac, which is related to Jesus in that the father is sacrificing his son because he has to. To Christianise this story for instance would involve insertion of text such as �this is what YHWH would have to do to his own son� or some such text. This idea was abandoned, as altering the Holy Scriptures was deeply offensive to many people, particularly those of Jewish stock. Theologically, it ran into many problems as the texts were written many years previously and were regarded as being divinely inspired. There were great difficulties in attempting justification of alteration of divine works. Another option that was open to the church was to write summaries and commentaries on the scriptures and relate them to the new experiences and events that happened. This was already an existing idea in Jewish thought with the ideas of Midrash and Halakah. The Talmud, which is still in use today, is an example of the Jewish application of this idea. The Qumran scrolls contain some attempts at commentating on the scriptures for a Christian audience. Kugel and Greer cite Paul�s explanations of the scriptures in his epistles, such as that found in 1 Peter 3:8-12 which associates Jesus� words with Psalm 34:12-16 (p. 128-129). However, only small instances such as these remain canonical. The Christian church abandoned other versions, though Judaism continued with this as already seen. The final option that was open to the Church was to correlate the Old Testament with a second Testament, i.e. the New Testament. As the New Testament didn�t really take form until the time of Irenaeus, this was a fairly late idea, though earlier attempts to use some of the gospels for instance may have been in existence. This involves such ideas as relating Jesus to the suffering servant in Isaiah such as Philip does in Acts 8:35 (Kugel and Greer p. 130-131). This was used by the early Christian apologetics in order to prove the validity of the resurrection and the rest of Jesus� teachings. This was in the face of strong Jewish criticism as was encountered by the majority of the New Testament writers. This can be seen to be the only surviving example in significant quantity of how the early church sought to interpret the Old Testament. The audience of the Old Testament has changed many times since each book has written. From the local community in which the author/s lived through the Holy Roman Empire and the Reformation up to the present day, we see a vast cross-section of history. No author could possibly account for all these people and aim his/her book at each and every one. Yet each and every person is supposed to have access to it. Effort must be made to understand the culture that each author/s lived in. This helps people take the words in something closer to context. Application of laws and theological disputes to present day situations is possible to an extent via usage of this method. Even then, it is often unclear as to who the author/s was/were and where they were writing and in what context. Only one hundred years ago, the discovery was made that Isaiah consisted of three separate books moulded together. It was written over a vast period of time. Even more people wrote the Old Testament as a whole over an even longer range of time. It is useful to examine the history of interpretation past that already covered to the modern day. This shows how it is possible for a great many people over many different epochs to read the Bible and find it inspirational. In the Middle Ages there was little new ideas present in the interpretation of the Old Testament. The influences of the Antiochian and Alexandrian schools of thought are present. The Alexandrian being more prominent according to Wood (p. 71f). The Latin Fathers such as Rufinus were primarily responsible for the continuation of the exegetical comment by those such as Origen and Clement. The Antiochian school was less influential, Theodore of Mopsuestia was the most distinguished translator of these works and he was suspected of unorthodoxy. Unorthodoxy was much reviled in the medieval period. The most marked features of Biblical interpretation included their acceptance that there were many ways of interpreting the same passage. The Jewish influence also grew in the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament. The Jewish exegesis had been continuing independently under the influence of Philo. Contemporary Jewish tradition also stressed the manifold nature of the Old Testament. (Wood p. 79-75). This notion is of course found today in that many different Christian denominations see different parts of the Bible differently to other denominations and differently again to those of Jewish or other faiths. This is the continuation of this manifold idea but not in the same manner in which it used to be. This is potentially a valid way to read the Bible but creates problems in that it creates vast possibilities for the meanings proposed in the Old Testament and New Testament which are not easily resolved and aligned with each other. The Reformers extend the importance and authority of the Bible even further than it had already been. The dispensation of the vast body of tradition that had built up with the Catholic Church that was advocated by the Reformers such as Luther and Calvin re-positioned the Old Testament as pivotal to Christianity with the New Testament. They restored the personal note to the Bible according to Wood. (p.85f). Wood contends that by dispensing with the rein imposed on one side by the church and by the individual on the other, interpretation of the Bible was thus freed. Luther interprets the Bible in terms of religious insight and with a Christological application. Calvin, though his ideas were similar to those of Luther, was the careful, diligent scholar who built up a system of Biblical interpretation. He was one of the greatest interpreters of the Bible. Zwingli concentrates mainly on separating interpretation from the grasp of the Church. He viewed the Bible as its own interpreter. These three great Reformers were hugely influential on their contemporaries and even to the present day. The ideas and theological theories that they propounded were widely followed and adhered to by a people that had become disillusioned with the Catholic Church. As such these were crucially significant for biblical interpretation. Of course, the Catholic Church still had a vast many followers, but it had to react to the effects of the Reformers� ideas. The modern day has a vast body of literature on Biblical interpretation and the immense diversity is such that generalisations are impossible. It is perhaps most useful to look at a case study. China has never had a Christian population of more than one per cent. This is very unusual in the world and for a country with such a numerous populace that this is a cause of much concern for the church. This is perhaps because Christianity has long been seen as inextricably linked with western domination. The noted Chinese Protestant Theologian Zhao Zichen stated that �To the African, God speaks as if he were an African, to the Chinese, God speaks as if he were a Chinese�. The church as a whole has perhaps ignored this too much. This is because Asian culture is vastly different from that of a Western world. The importance of Chinese spiritual works such as those of Confucius and Mencius are perhaps to be regarded as important to Christian life. (Kwok Pui-Tan p. 8f). The universal nature of interpretation of the Bible as spread by the missionaries in the pivotal period of missionary expansion limits it and makes it hard for it to be applied to different people in different cultures. New attempts are now being made to interpret the Bible for those in this region. The political regime also creates difficulties. In conclusion, there are many ways of interpreting the Bible, so numerous through the ages that it is impossible to properly chart them completely. Interpretation of the Old Testament is possible to those outside Israel as despite it being written in different, specific situations and cultures, it has a spiritual context that can be read throughout the ages. Different interpretations must be reached, if not on an individual level, at least for each different group of people. The message is not just for those of Israel. Bibliography The Interpretation of the Bible by James D. Wood (1958) Gerald Duckworth and Company. Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World by Kwok Pui-Tan (1995) Orbis Books. Interpreting the Old Testament by Fritz Stolz (1974) SCM Press Ltd. Early Biblical Interpretation by Kugel and Greer (1986) The Westminster Press, Pennsylvania.
