Bible Reading: A Way Forward Through the Past

A Sure Confidence
The previous post suggested concrete ways to go about Bible reading that give those of us in the church today good reason to feel confident once again in our Bible readings. The church knows how to read its book doctrinally and knows how to interpret its own text because it has done so for nearly two millinea; only a recent historical detour hid from our view the ways that “we” have gone about this task.

The Bible is a book whose explanation centers in the one upon whom it centers--Jesus, and the God whose gospel Jesus preached. (38)

Nevertheless, the charge is made by some that when we interpret it, we fall victim to a viscious circularity. We see it “this way” because we are already “convinced” of it being “that way.”

McClendon seems to suggest that it could be no other way. Indeed, we do not approach the text in a disinterested way. When we read the Scripture, it does not ask that we be disinterested; it seeks for us to see the world as it is describing it.

So Which Way is Forward?
As suggested by Hans Frei, reading the Scripture requires us to re-learn how to read it “figurally,” which is to say, a way of seeing the past as figurally present now and the future in terms of the present and past joined. Later on, McClendon refers to this as the “baptist” vision. How does the Church do this?

If we see the bible as “a single, great story, united by characters, setting, and plot. . . .we may describe the church’s bible reading task as the”

1. identification
2. of its characters
3. the discovery of its plot and subplots
4. and the exploration of its setting

all of which brings us to the central question of the identity of Jesus Christ and through that to the identify of God and God’s people the Jews and Christians. McClendon goes on to point out that the implicit author of this grand narrative is none other than God’s self and the implied hearers of the story are you and me.

What if we get it wrong?
A paradox? The bible is “an objective norm. . .”which “. . .can only be read through convinced eyes.”McClendon suggests that we cannot merely assume that when the Bible is read in community, it is impossible to misread it because whole communities can have convictions which betray the Scripture. However,

“whenever it speaks, its story not only supports and conserves, but challenges, corrects, and sometimes flatly defeats the tales we tell ourselves about ourselves. God’s Spirit who breathed upon the writers of Scripture breathes also on us, sometimes harshly. . .this is not always immediate and is never without ugly exceptions; but it happens often enough to confirm our faith in the Author of the Book.”

Implications
1. If it is as Frei, McClendon, and many others suggest, then a “figural” way of reading the scripture is a skill that is most likely not very natural to many of us. We have all done it before, likely without realizing it, but to practice our reading in this way on a routine basis might require a great deal of practice.
2. Here’s the idea as I see it. As we live our life, we learn to see our present through the lense of the past. We might begin to see how some particular story of the faith bears a particular resemblance to a current situation and gain something in being able to say, “this is that” and “that is this.”
3. We quite literally no longer have to fear the charge "you see it this way because you are bias." Yes, it is true. We are, and the speakers of such a phrase are. In addition, this text, this Grand Story REQUIRES US to be in the position of one who cannot sit on the sidelines. It demands that we decide for or against the story. It seeks us out. Once we have been grasped, we can no longer claim an objectivity if this means that we must relinquish the One who grasped us. So we can read and interpret it as a CAPTIVATED community and need not feel shame in doing so.

Major Questions: let's see some good examples of figural readings today. . .