Reading John 9

I'm preparing to preach on John 9 on Sunday evening. To be honest, I'm rather behind! If I had more time, I'd be wanting to look at Peter J. Leithart's Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture (Baylor Univ Press, Waco, 2009). As I understand it, he applies the approaches he talks about to John 9 as a kind of test case and example. According to the Scripture index, John 9 gets quite a bit of treatment: pages 60-64, 72-3, 100-102, 105-7, 117-8, 124-32, 136, 141-2, 161-71, 176-80, 184, 185-88, 192-95, 197-204, 206.

The OT retired?

"The Old Testament is not the Word of God Emeritus!"

Douglas Wilson, The Blenheim Lectures, 'The Gospel and Your Government'

Interpreting metaphors (and covenants): continuity and discontinuity

Miss Clarke's discussion of the interpretation of the poetry of the Song of Songs has provoked me to blog this:

Rev'd Dr Peter Leithart is discussing 'Sacramental Hermeneutics and the Ceremonies of Israel', arguing that Old Testament "ceremonial laws" (though the category is clumsy) play a part in regulating the ceremonial life of the New Testament church, with both continuity and discontinuity. Such an approach requires us to be "able to pick out those features of the two ceremonies [of Old and New Testaments] which are common" to both. He continues:

As stated, it appears to be a mystical and well-nigh impossible undertaking, but we perform similar operations all the time. We know, for instance, that Solomon's similie comparing his beloved's eyes to "doves behind your veil" (Song of Songs 4:1) does not mean a) the woman's eyes are feathery, b) the woman's eyes are pure white, c) the woman's eyes are equipped with small claws, d) the woman's eyes can fly, e) the woman's eyes each have two dark eyes of their own, f) the woman's eyes have a beak, or any of a hundred other possible analogies. How do we know this? It is difficult to say, but we do. And it is eaqually difficult to say exactly what the analogy is in this case: how are a woman's eyes like doves? That question has no straightforward or simple answer, but that does not make the comparison nonensical. Discovering appropriate analogies between baptism and circumcision, Passover and Eucharist, is much easier. The point is that we navigate through similie and metaphor and analogy every day, without a second thought.

in The Case for Covenant Communion (Athanasius Press, 2006) p117

Limits of Grammatical Historical Exegesis

This might be worth a read.

The Presence of God Qualifying Our Notions
of Grammatical-Historical Interpretation:
Genesis 3:15 as a Test Case

by Vern Sheridan Poythress

[Published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50/1 (2007) 87-103]

Abstract:

Evangelical scholars have championed grammatical-historical interpretation as an objective means of sifting truth from error. This approach has value if we use it as one focus, but limitations if we use it as a total account. The temptation arises to think of objective interpretation as implying total domination of the text in order to capture its meaning. God himself poses an obstacle in several ways to hermeneutical dominance. God as master author limits our understanding of the authorial mind. God the Spirit as inspirer of human authors limits our understanding of human author's minds. God as archetype for man as the image of God implies the necessity of understanding the divine mind in order to understand the human mind. God as master of history limits our ability to confine the text to its immediate historical and cultural horizon. God as Lord of language limits our control on word and sentence meaning. God as present through the Spirit among interpreters limits our control on our own minds. Various limitations can be illustrated in the challenge of interpreting Genesis 3:15.

Conclusion

God as Sovereign is present with human authors, with the text of the Bible, and with the recipients. On all three fronts his presence is the one true foundation for the proper functioning of communication. On all three fronts his faithfulness gives hope for our understanding. God gives us access to genuine truth. But on all three fronts there is no such thing as mastery that evaporates mystery and succeeds in fully controlling meaning.