Reading the Bible for all its worth

Fee, Gordon D. & Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. New York: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1993.

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth is written as a practical, hands-on guide for persons interested in biblical hermeneutics. Although this may sound like a strange concept, the book strives to provide a relevant way for contemporary Christians to interpret the Bible within a contemporary context. The authors, two seminary professors, assume that readers of their work are committed believers. But many readers, because of their busy lives, may not necessarily have a chance to fully examine the historical context that produced the Bible, the differences between the Old and New Testament narratives, the genesis of the three synoptic gospels, the Gospel of John, the Epistles, Acts and The Book of Revelations.

Summary: Issues addressed

In their discussion of the Bible, the authors give special stress to the literary qualities of different sections of the Bible and the uniqueness of different Biblical genres. The authors attempt to provide clarity to debates whether the Bible should be taken literally within the evangelical community, stressing that genre is key to understanding how literally certain passages should be understood. Some books of the Bible were meant to allegorize an issue, and to take these books at face value is mistaken, because it is making something literal originally intended as a metaphor. Although theirs is not a literalist approach, this idea does stress a kind of philosophy of a return to origins in the intention of the authors, but an intelligent return to origins.

The book combines Biblical criticism with modern theology, but with a stress upon using the background of the Bible for today's spiritual community with an understanding of how the Bible applied to its original context. The book also includes advice on choosing a translation, acknowledging that most persons are not fluent in the original, now dead languages, of the original texts. When offering suggestions about selecting a translation, the authors prefer such works as Today's New International Version of the Bible, which includes gender-neutral language when referring to human beings. They believe this most appropriate for Christian communities today, given the social changes that have occurred in the world since the document's original authorship to an ancient audience.

This idea underlines the central mission of the book, to bridge the gap between the scholar of the Bible and a believing layperson. "The concern of the scholar is primarily with what the text meant;" that is, what it meant in the past, while "the concern of the layperson is usually with what it means," in his or her own life context today. (14) It is possible, the authors say, to have both.

Summary: Major Themes

The guiding principle of the book is that of believing scholarship. The authors seek to merge what may initially seem like two opposed points-of-view, the scholar who sees the Bible as a network of mythologies sewn together and the believer that sees the book as a unique, living document. "The believing scholar insists that we must have both [past and present]" when interpreting the text. (14) The authors point out that reading the Bible with an eye only to for personal meaning can lead to error, simply because the person only sees their biases and opinions. Rather than simply examine the text, the interpreter only sees him or herself, or his or her community bias. But belief and scholarship are wedded, in the views of the authors. Otherwise scholarship may descend into merely rote knowledge, and focus on issues of relevant to a very narrow segment of the community in a way that is just as inaccurate as only seeing the Bible as a guide for today, not as a product of the past.

Analysis: Point-of-view, ideological and implicit and explicit perspective

The authors have what might be called a moderate evangelical, but not fundamentalist view of the Bible. They stress that Biblical hermeneutics seeks the contemporary relevance of ancient texts and thus affirm the spiritual benefits of Christianity. But they do not discount the value of contemporary Biblical scholarship, such as an examination of the emerging Christian community that produced the Pauline epistles, for they believe that by placing the texts in their original context that issues such as the ability of women to preach the gospel today can have greater clarity. The authors do not explicitly identify themselves with any one ideological section of the current debates within either the theological or academic communities. Rather, they explicitly identify themselves as moderates.

Knowing when, for example, a Biblical book of the Old Testament was authored -- before or after the Babylonian exile, makes a different in terms of the level of desperation or rage reflected in the words of the prophetic author. Knowing how much money was worth during Jesus' time, for example that a penny was an entire day's wage for a worker puts statements in the gospels in a more meaningful context. (22) Such contextual location does not deny the relevance of either the emotions or the teachings in the works, but takes reading the Bible beyond a mere exercise in solipsism, or simply looking for reflections of contemporary life within the text.

What kind of evidence do they bring to support their viewpoint? Is it adequate?

This book approaches the Bible by dividing the book into thirteen chapters. Reflecting the Christian perspective of the authors, these seminary professors approach the New Testament before the Old Testament, beginning with the Pauline Epistles. However, this approach has some relevance, because the difference between epistles, often written as chastisements or guides to the Christian community, must be understood differently than more allegorical books like the "Song of Solomon," or instructional parts of the gospels that record the ministry of Jesus in the form of parables. By focusing on the different ways of interpreting genre, rather than proceeding chronologically, the authors are able to use the order they select as an additional teaching device in a way that underlines their core themes.

For example, when discussing the First Epistle of Timothy, which traditionally prohibits female preaching, they suggest that these passages are misinterpreted when applied in a contemporary context, and that if one does not interpret the Bible in light of the meaning of the words of the original language and situation, then it would mean that women ought not to even leave their homes unaccompanied, much less preach. The author was striving to establish a rule of conduct that was feasible for the Christians of his day, and to distinguish Christianity's uniqueness from Judaism and Roman life.

One of the most interesting discussions is found in the author's analysis of the four gospels. The authors stress that the gospels are portraits of the same life, but seen from different perspectives and different points of time, depending on their authorship. Their diversity is their strength, not their weakness, as the author is not privileged to the words of Jesus firsthand. Mark brings to the forefront Jesus' messianic qualities in his account, while Matthew stresses Jesus' Jewish origins and place in the evolution of the Davidic royal line. Luke, Matthew, and Mark share many of the same words and bits of dialogue, but their different placement suggests that they had access to different sources, and their location of these sayings shifts the meaning of the text, and provides different significance. In other instances, like Jesus' last words on the cross, the words are different, and underline, for example, Mark's witness and perspective of Jesus as a suffering savior, in contrast to Matthew and Luke's stress upon Jesus' resignation forgiveness of his persecutors, or John's stress upon Jesus as a being from heaven to earth to accomplish His mission. The Holy Spirit inspires all of the gospels, and uniformity of narrative is not a necessary condition to prove the truth of the gospels.