(Exegesis)  (Exegesis/   

        (Hermeneutics)

   Figure 1.  Modern Model           Figure 2. Postmodern Model

Blurring the Distinction between Exegesis and Hermeneutics

Today, though, the classical distinction between exegesis and hermeneutics is being called into question.  There is a conscious or unconscious assumption both on the academic level and the practical level that a text has more than one meaning.  We offer a few examples here.  

1.  Popular Preaching

John Bright, writing in the American context, says that “many a hard-pressed pastor has complained that it is unrealistic to expect him to perform [the exegetical] task and has asked to be excused from it.”  Such pastors ask:  “Is there not some shortcut?”  But Bright insists that “biblical preaching . . . begins in exegesis.”  Thus, “there can be no shortcuts.”11

I think that in Nigeria, as in America, many preachers take shortcuts.  They do not take the time to do serious exegesis.  Thus, they go directly from the text to the interpretation, by-passing the exegesis.  The congregation, then, does not hear God speaking through the text; instead, they hear a preacher speaking his own message.  But then the preacher loses his authority.

Bright says:  “Biblical preaching is the only kind that carries with it authority.  And the preacher needs authority.”  If the preacher does not preach the Bible, then he loses his authority.  So, either “it is biblical preaching or no preaching with authority.”12

2. Post-Modernism

Postmodernism is the belief that knowledge and truth are inherently subjective.  It is a rejection of the Enlightenment belief that knowledge is objective.  For postmodernists, “there is no absolute truth; rather, truth is relative to the community in which we participate.”13

When applied to hermeneutics, postmodernism can lead to confusion.  Does it really matter what the biblical author meant if a text has an infinite number of possible meanings?  What is the function of an authoritative text in such a situation?

Walter Brueggemann is a classic example of postmodernism.  He refers to the Old Testament God as an “unsettled Character”; and unsettlement characterizes the present hermeneutical situation.  In the Old Testament there is a pluralism of faith affirmations, a pluralism of methods and a pluralism of interpretive communities.  Thus, there is “no going back to a singular coherent faith articulation in the text.”14

Brueggemann says that “the great new fact of interpretation is that we live in a pluralistic context, in which many different interpreters in many different specific contexts representing many different interests are at work on textual (theological) interpretation.  The old consensus about limits and possibilities of interpretation no longer holds.”  Thus, “there can be no right or ultimate interpretation, but only provisional judgments.”15

Brueggemann claims that the Old Testament text is “powerfully polyphonic” and “elusive.”  “The elusive quality of the text . . . invites interpretation that is free, expansive, and enormously imaginative.  Thus I insist that expansive, imaginative interpretation is not an illicit abuse of the text.  It is rather activity permitted and insisted on by the text.”16

James Barr bemoans Brueggemann’s “total surrender to the postmodern Zeitgeist.”  His work is “a total surrender to postmodernism,” especially “the sort of liberal/postmodern mixture influential in the so-called ‘liberal’ churches and theological schools.”17  

For Brueggemann the Old Testament is only rhetoric.  His theology is set up as a court of law:  there is testimony, counter-testimony, unsolicited testimony and embodied testimony.  But is there no reality behind the testimonies?  Barr thinks that this is a strange court where testimonies are heard but no conclusions about real events are reached.18

Barr’s last great work makes a plea for objectivity in hermeneutics.  He says:  “We cannot take an ancient passage or ancient work like the Bible and say that its meaning has to be up-dated, brought into the modern world.”  Rather, we must “sink ourselves increasingly into its past meaning.  In the doing of this, that past meaning, which is the only meaning, interprets and criticizes our modern life as it comes into contact with our modern thoughts, traditions, experiences and histories.”19  

Barr is not a conservative evangelical.  But one must appreciate his concern for objectivity in the exegesis of the biblical text.  

3. Lutheran Christological Hermeneutics

My friend Jonathan Preus has written a couple of works on hermeneutics.  We have already considered his definition of exegesis as bringing out the meaning of a text.  This suggests a concern for the original meaning of the text.  He writes: “exegesis begins with the attempt to understand the original meaning of a passage.”  But he then says that Scripture’s “message can not be limited to its supposed ‘original meaning.’”20  

In his book on hermeneutics, Preus says that since “Jesus is alive, and the Bible is a living Word . . . the plain and obvious meaning may not be the only meaning.”  Since Jesus is the Gospel, “all Scripture must be read in relation to him.21  

Preus freely acknowledges his Lutheran tradition.  He says:  “For the heirs of Luther, the Bible proclaims Jesus Christ.  Everything in the Bible finds its place in relation to its central message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”22  Thus, “the task of interpretation is to reveal the spiritual meaning behind the literal words.”23

This might suggest that a text for Preus would have two meanings, a literal one and a spiritual one.  But he does not stop there.  “Who establishes what the Bible means?”  The author, the original actor or speaker, the church and myself all determine this.  “The Bible is God’s message to each person individually, so its true meaning is what it means to me.”24

I don’t think Preus is a true postmodernist.  I think rather that he is a christological Lutheran with some existentialist leanings.  Sometimes when he speaks of “meaning,” I think he is referring to existential meaning.  At other times, he seems to be thinking of a christological or spiritual meaning.  I have deep respect for his Lutheran christological tradition.  I wonder, though, whether Martin Luther, who insisted on one plain meaning of the text, would endorse all of the “meanings” that Preus seems to allow.

4. African Inculturation Hermeneutics

African exegetes are strongly interested in the relevance of a text for our situation today.  This is to their credit.  Many European and American commentaries are highly scientific and erudite, but in the end there is often little practical relevance for the preacher or the believer.  African exegesis and preaching tend to be much more practical.

An Ibibio proverb says that when a bird flies, its legs always point to the ground.  Thus, according to Prof. Teresa Okure, scholarship must always be done in service of life.  She writes:  “Biblical criticism took off from the ground and remained poised in flight for a greater part of the twentieth century.  In the process it all but lost touch with life on the ground . . . . Scholarship now needs to land on the ground, reconnect with life and critically assess its aerial view findings for the benefit of life on the ground.”25

A study was recently made comparing African and North Atlantic (European/American) commentaries on the story of the bleeding woman (Mk. 5:25-34, par.).  The work focused on three issues in the story:  miracle, woman and blood.  In all three cases, the African commentators were more ready to relate the story to their situation.  The researcher concluded:  “African scholars insist on drawing out the hermeneutical implications of their exegesis.  The exegetical task is considered incomplete unless real life issues of the readers are addressed.”26  

One should praise African scholarship for correcting this deficiency in North Atlantic scholarship.  The Bible was written so that we might have life, and abundant life.  The God of the Bible still works in our context today.  Exegetical studies should explain how God acted then, and how he can still act today.  The practical relevance of a text needs to be stated.  

But in the process, there is sometimes a blurring of the distinction between exegesis and hermeneutics.  Okure, for example, reacts against such a separation.  She believes that no one can stand outside of the hermeneutical circle.  All exegesis should be hermeneutical or relevant to one’s contemporary context.27

Justin Ukpong moves in the same direction.  In an interesting study, he reinterprets the parable of the shrewd manager (Luke 16:1-13) from the perspective of peasant farmers in West Africa, and probably southeast Nigeria in particular.  He concludes that the manager was socially oppressed and was trying to fight for survival in an unjust world.  Thus, the rich man was the rogue, and the manager the hero.28

Ukpong calls his methodology “inculturation biblical hermeneutic,” which is “an approach that consciously and explicitly seeks to interpret the biblical text from socio-cultural perspectives of different people.”29

Ukpong agrees with Okure that “classical Western Bible reading methodologies” are “intellectualist” while Africa readings are “existential and pragmatic in nature, and contextual in approach.”30  Again, one commends the African concern for the relevance of a text.  But he enters into dangerous waters when he removes the distinction between exegesis and hermeneutics.

Ukpong says that his methodology “eschews the idea of one universally valid interpretation of the biblical text.”  He rejects the “hitherto dominant classicist approach, which supposes the biblical text to have only one universally valid interpretation.”  Instead, “the inculturation biblical hermeneutic supposes that the biblical text is plurivalent and can be validly understood differently according to different contexts and perspectives.”31  Again, he says:  “the meaning of a text is a function of the interaction between the text in its context and the reader in his/her context.  Thus, there is no one absolute meaning of a text to be recovered through historical analysis alone.”32

While I have strong appreciation for the inculturation hermeneutic efforts of Okure and Ukpong, I take issue with this last statement.  Every Bible text has an author who wrote words with a meaning in his mind.  We may not always be able to determine the original intention of the author, but we should always attempt to discover this intention.  Otherwise, we fall into the deep sea of subjectivism.  

Conclusion

We live in a global community.  We need to hear the voices of every geographic part of the church.  The African perspective on a text will give new light to a text that has thus far only been understood only through European eyes.  But in the end a text has only one original meaning.  Let us work together as Africans and Europeans and Asians and Americans to understand the intended meaning of God’s Word.