Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism and the New Testament
As we have already seen on a number of occasions this semester, the Jews had already become a ‘people of the book’ by the first century. As with any such religion, it is not enough to have the book – one must also interpret it. This issue of Biblical interpretation has been an important one throughout the ages. At the Reformation, the radical and revolutionary idea that the individual can and should interpret Scripture for oneself shook the world, especially once the printing press made it possible for others besides the clergy and the wealthy to actually have books and read them. In my class on Biblical interpretation, I said that there is a very real sense in which Biblical interpretation is a more crucial issue than Biblical authority. Evangelical Christians agree with one another on the fact that the Bible is inspired and authoritative, and a large percentage would agree on using the word inerrant. Yet these same Christians disagree with one another on issues such as baptism, the Lord’s supper, gifts of the Spirit, predestination and election, whether or not there should be pastors, church organization and structure, the nature of eternal punishment, and quite a few other issues, including even the question of the extent to which God knows what is going to happen in the future! And when one includes other groups that at least in theory accept the authority of Scripture, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, then the differences are even greater still. Thus, to the extent that the ‘people of the book’ have a book that does not give clear and unambiguous answers to all questions that one might have, the Book will need to be interpreted. Many of the key differences between various Jewish groups and parties in this period, including the early Christians, related to the interpretation of Scripture, and many of the debates between then focused at least theoretically on Scripture. Today we thus need to look at whether in NT times there was agreement as to the methods of interpreting Scripture, and at some of the different ways that the Jewish Scriptures (what we call the ‘Old Testament’) were interpreted.
Approaches to interpretation in first-century Judaism:
We can fortunately include the approach to interpretation among the Pharisees and rabbis, since between the evidence of the Gospels, the writings of Paul (who was trained in Biblical interpretation as a Pharisee) and the later Rabbinic writings, we have a fairly consistent portrait of how this group approached and interpreted Scripture. We are going to look at some of their ‘methods’, but I use that word hesitantly. For the rabbis certainly and perhaps for others as well, these were not exactly ‘principles for correct interpretation’ so much as homiletical methods for getting more out of a text than might be obvious. Those of you who preach will probably know what I’m talking about…
This is, you will probably not be surprised to learn, a completely new phenomenon. However, there is little evidence that any group (except possibly the Sadducees) ever sought to use only this approach to Scripture. So, one example of an argument from literalistic interpretation might be the interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:4 attributed to the rabbinic school of Shammai. They are said to have argued that in the morning one should recite the Shema standing, but in the evening one should recite it reclining, on the basis of the fact that in Deuteronomy 6:7 it says that these words are to be on your lips “when you lie down and when you rise up”. The school of Hillel is supposed to have said that everyone is free to sit or stand, because that verse also says “and when you walk on the road”. However, some of these interpretations may be offered ‘tongue in cheek’. The important thing to know about Rabbinic interpretation, as I already mentioned, is that these were tools for interpretation rather than principles of interpretation. The rabbis wanted to avoid the death penalty whenever possible, and in at least one instance they used a literalistic interpretation to do so. In the Mishnah, tractate Sanhedrin 8:4, one finds a commentary on the commandment to put to death a stubborn or rebellious son. The rabbis came up with the following loopholes for getting out of the death penalty in at least some cases:
If either of [his parents] was maimed in the hand, or lame or mute or blind or deaf, he cannot be condemned as a stubborn and rebellious son, for it is written ‘Then shall his father & his mother lay hold of him’ – so they were not maimed in the hand; ‘and bring him out’ – so they were not lame; ‘and they shall say’ – so they were not mute; ‘this is our son’ – so they were not blind; ‘he will not obey our voice’ – so they were not deaf.
Here, it is probably clear, they are not seeking an answer to an exegetical question, ‘What did the text mean in its original context?’ Rather, they are looking for a loophole, to get the defendant off on a technicality.
This is the type of interpretation found quite often at Qumran. It takes a passage or book from the Jewish Scriptures and goes through it phrase by phrase, interpreting each in reference to the community, or to the subject under discussion. The Qumran community, like the earliest Christians, seems to have worked with the assumption that pretty much everything written in Scripture was about them or applied to them, and this was one way of making precisely such a connection between events in the community’s history and the writings of Scripture.
So, for example, we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls the following commentary on Hosea:
Hosea Commentary
- Translation(Pesher Hoshe`a)
4Q166 (4QpHosa)
Courtesy of the
Israel Antiquities Authority (6)
Hos. 2:10-14
1. (10)[SHE DID NOT KNOW THAT] I MYSELF HAD
GIVEN HER THE GRAIN
[AND THE WINE]
2. [AND THE OIL, AND] (THAT) I HAD SUPPLIED
[SILVER] AND GOLD
... (WHICH) THEY MADE [INTO BAAL. The
interpretation of it is]
3. that [they] ate [and] were satisfied, and
they forgot God
who [had fed them, and all]
4. his commandments they cast behind them,
which he had sent to
them [by]
5. his servants the prophets. But to those who led them astray
they listened, and they honored them
[ ]
6. and as if they were gods, they fear them in
their blindness.
7. vacat
8. (11)THEREFORE, I SHALL TAKE BACK MY GRAIN
AGAIN IN ITS TIME
AND MY WINE [IN ITS SEASON,]
9. AND I SHALL WITHDRAW MY WOOL AND MY FLAX
FROM COVERING [HER
NAKEDNESS.]
10. (12)I SHALL NOW UNCOVER HER PRIVATE PARTS IN
THE SIGHT OF
[HER] LO[VERS AND]
11. NO [ONE] WILL WITHDRAW HER FROM MY HAND.
12. The interpretation of it is that he smote
them with famine
and with nakedness so that they became a
disgra[ce]
13. and a reproach in the sight of the nations
on whom they had
leaned for support, but they
14. will not save them from their
afflictions. (13)AND I SHALL
PUT AN END TO ALL HER JOY,
15. [HER] PIL[GRIMAGE,] HER [NEW] MOON, AND HER
SABBATH, AND ALL
HER FEASTS. The interpretation of it is that
16. they make [the fe]asts go according to the
appointed times
of the nation. And [all]
17. [joy] has been turned for them into
mourning.
(14)AND I SHALL MAKE DESOLATE [HER VINE]
18. [AND HER FIG TREE,] OF WHICH SHE SAID,
"THEY ARE THE HIRE
[THAT MY LOVERS HAVE GIVEN] ME."
19. AND I SHALL MAKE THEM A FOREST, AND THE
W[ILD BEAST OF THE
FIELD] WILL DEVOUR THEM.
This is relatively literal. In contrast, we find in the more famous Habbakuk Pesher interpretation that takes the references in 1:6-11 as references to the ‘Kittim’, that is, the Romans. The words in v13 “O traitors, why do you stare and stay silent when the wicked swallows up one more righteous than he?” are commented on as follows:
Interpreted this concerns the House of Absalom and the members of its counsel who were silent at the time of the chastisement of the Teacher of Righteousness and gave him no help against the Liar who flouted the Law in the midst of the whole [congregation].
Even more interesting in terms of our understanding of how the Qumran community interpreted Scripture is their interpretation of Habbakuk 2:1-2:
…and God told Habbakuk to write down that which would happen to the final generation, but he did not make known to him when time would come to an end. And as for that which he said, That he who reads may read it speedily, interpreted this concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of his servants the prophets.
Cp. Romans 10:6-10, which is perhaps the closest use of the OT structurally. However, the same underlying principle that what was written then is really about us today is a more fundamental similarity.
This term is used sometimes to refer to the literary genre so popular in this period, often called ‘Re-told Bible’, in which Bible stories are retold with embellishments and additions to fill in the gaps. If you have read any of Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews then you have seen a sample of this genre. Other examples have been found at Qumran, and the rabbinic literature also contains many examples. One famous example is the Book of Jubilees (from sometime during the second century BCE), which tells the story of Moses receiving not just the Law, but the whole of the Pentateuch on Mount Sinai, complete with information about not only creation, but also where Cain got his wife from:
4:1-13
And in the third week in the second jubilee she gave birth to Cain, and in the
fourth she gave birth to Abel, and in the fifth she gave birth to her daughter
Awan. And in the first (year) of the third jubilee, Cain slew Abel because (God)
accepted the sacrifice of Abel, and did not accept the offering of Cain. And he
slew him in the field: and his blood cried from the ground to heaven,
complaining because he had slain him. And the Lord reproved Cain because of
Abel, because he had slain him, and he made him a fugitive on the earth because
of the blood of his brother, and he
cursed him upon the earth. And on this account it is written on the heavenly
tables, 'Cursed is ,he who smites his neighbour treacherously, and let all who
have seen and heard say, So be it; and the man who has seen and not declared
(it), let him be accursed as the other.' And for this reason we announce when
we come before the Lord our God all the sin which is committed in heaven and
on earth, and in light and in darkness, and everywhere. And Adam and his wife
mourned for Abel four weeks of years, and in the fourth year of the fifth week
they became joyful, and Adam knew his wife again, and she bare him a son, and
he called his name Seth; for he said 'GOD has raised up a second seed unto us
on the earth instead of Abel; for Cain slew him.' And in the sixth week he
begat his daughter Azura. And Cain took Awan his sister to be his wife and she
bare him Enoch at the close of the fourth jubilee. And in the first year of the
first week of the fifth jubilee, houses were built on the earth, and Cain built
a city, and called its name after the name of his son Enoch. And Adam knew Eve
his wife and she bare yet nine sons. And in the fifth week of the fifth jubilee
Seth took Azura his sister to be his wife, and in the fourth (year of the sixth
week) she bare him Enos. He began to call on the name of the Lord on the earth.
And in the seventh jubilee in the third week Enos took Noam his sister to be
his wife, and she bare him a son.
Jubilees also goes into some detail regarding the fallen angels whose actions brought the flood on the earth. Another distinctive of the author’s viewpoint is the conviction that even the Patriarchs kept the details of the Law of Moses even though it hadn’t been given yet. This is an idea that turns up again much later in the rabbinic literature.
Beyond this limited use of ‘Midrash’ to refer to rewritten Bible, there is also a much broader use of the term in the rabbinic literature, in reference to any type of interpretation that looks at a text from multiple angles to see what can be got out of it, rather than simply taking a literal reading of it. The rabbis had a number of principles they appealed to for this purpose. The oldest seven of them are attributed to Rabbi Hillel:
1) From the lesser to the greater (if…how much more)
2) Verbal analogy (link based on use of same word in two different passages)
3) Use of same phrase in different passages
4) Two texts are related to establish a principle, which is then applied more generally.
5) From the general to the particular or vice versa.
6) Solution by comparing to another instance/passage (not necessarily verbal parallel).
7) Meaning established by context.
Latter rabbis came up with still other principles. If these proved insufficient, they could even at times appeal to something almost but not quite like textual criticism. They would suggest readings that sound like the word in the text, with different vowels or changing one letter or the like. [Is this what is used in Matthew 2:23?!]
What is interesting in relation to New Testament background is the way a couple of these principles appear to turn up in the use of the OT in the NT. For example, in Romans 5:15-19 we have a number of typical arguments ‘from the lesser to the greater’.
[One wonders if this is not the basis of the rationale of much use of the OT – if this was said of Israel in general, how much more does it apply to the king of Israel, the Messiah!]
In
Hebrews 3:7-4:11, an OT passage is re-interpreted eschatologically by linking
passages that all share the same word ‘rest’. See also John 7:23; Matthew
12:5-6,11-12.
Although it is found in the Rabbinic literature, and there is an extent to which the more far-fetched pesher interpretation at Qumran could be classed as ‘allegorical’, the allegorical interpreter par excellence was Philo of Alexandria. He was seeking to show that the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures and Greek philosophy were in essential agreement, and acting as an apologist to the Greco-Roman world. He thus used allegory to take stories that might seem to present God anthropomorphically and anthropopathically [explain these words], and actions by the patriarchs that might seem of questionable moral character, and turn them into illustrations of the mystical inner life of the soul that seeks after God. This was a practice that the Greeks had come up with to take their own myths, which presented the gods as extremely anthropomorphic and even immoral, and find some philosophical teaching that could be allegorized out of the texts in question. When an interpreter resorts to allegorizing, it is usually a clear sign that he or she is uncomfortable with, or doesn’t know what to say about, the literal meaning of the text. This is why Christians regularly allegorize war and miracle stories from the Old Testament.
Discuss Galatians 4:21-31
Concluding discussion seeking practical application: Did the NT authors simply ‘use the methods of interpretation of their time’? If so, to what extent should their interpretations of the OT or their methods of interpretation be binding on and normative for us today?