Some think that congregations should be more critical in selecting scripture readings. They insist upon creating a canon within the canon. But this bases the authority of the Bible not on the Bible itself, but on the Bible as read by a particular communit
The practice of public reading from the Bible according to a lectionary, which goes back to the biblical periods of Judaism and Christianity, usually presupposes that in some sense God speaks today to a congregation through the literature they regard as sacred scripture.a
However, a system of lectionary readings, even when extended over a three-year period or longer, does not include everything found in the Bible. How are the readings selected?
This question has puzzled me as I have worked on a project to help preachers interpret the assigned texts for the day. Apparently the major principle of selectivity in use, at least in Christian lectionaries, is the progression of the seasons of the liturgical calendar (Pentecost, Advent, etc.). But even when the sacred calendar is followed one wonders why some texts are chosen and others bypassed.
Today many people think that religious congregations should be more critical in scripture selection. Many passages in the Bible—and here I speak of both the Jewish Bible (Tanakh) and the Christian (Old and New Testaments)—when taken at their face value could support, and have supported, slavery, the forcible taking of land from native populations, the subordination of women, and the mobilization of a coalition for a particular political cause or national goal.
Some contend that public reading of the Bible should be abandoned altogether; others, more moderately, insist that there must be a carefully chosen Bible within the Bible or, as it has been called, “a canon within the canon.” Coming up with a principle of selection that is better than the sacred calendar is not easy.
Martin Luther appealed to the principle “what leads to Christ” and particularly to the Protestant doctrine of “justification by faith,” a battle cry of the Reformation. He was willing to ignore the Book of Esther, for example, for he felt that it “Judaizes too much” and is filled with worldly nonsense. And he had a very low opinion of some New Testament material, especially the Epistle of James.
In our time various interpreters have proposed other principles of selection, such as the experience of the poor and oppressed. A favorite part of the Bible for liberation theologians in Latin America and elsewhere is the Book of Exodus, or at least the first 20 chapters. In their view the story of God’s deliverance of slaves from bondage is not just about the rescue of ancient Hebrews from state slavery, but is also a paradigm of God’s will to liberate all the poor from oppression by the rich and powerful.1 On the other hand, those passages in the Bible that support the “establishment,” such as the story of God’s selection of David and the covenant with the Davidic dynasty, represent a kind of “fall from grace” and are not helpful in ascertaining what God is doing in the world.
Tremendous theological implications have been drawn from this selective reading of the Exodus story and related passages (many of them in the prophets) that demand social justice. The great contribution of the Latin American church, it has been said, is this discovery of a Bible within the Bible, which shows that God is not completely above the fray but “takes sides, freeing the poor and oppressed.”2 Specifically, this means that the Latin American church “must commit itself to the preferential option for the poor.”3
This is a powerful, though one-sided, interpretation of the Exodus story. The story cannot be separated from the Sinai covenant, in which God’s particular people (“my people,” Exodus 3:7) pledges itself to serve God by obeying the revealed Torah (Exodus 24:7). God’s liberation was not complete until a band of state slaves was shaped into a covenant community regulated by “statutes and ordinances” (Exodus 31:3–8). Their service of God was, paradoxically, freedom.
The feminist movement has thrown a burst of new light on scripture, and even revolutionized biblical studies, by reading the Bible anew based on women’s experience. Some have gone so far as to reject the Bible as hopelessly androcentric; others have drawn attention to neglected texts and have creatively reinterpreted familiar texts.4 Above all, they have demanded and explored the kind of theology that is based on God’s creation of humanity, “male and female,” with the implication that feminine and masculine metaphors should be used in talking to, or about, God.5
From a feminist standpoint a new trajectory through the Bible may be traced, differing from the standard lectionaries. Much will be left out, but—as Phyllis Trible remarks at the end of an exploratory essay—there will be enough for a multitude of readers, as in Jesus’ parable of the five loaves and two fishes (Matthew 14:13–21). And “when round, rightly 048blessed, and fed upon, these remnant traditions provide more than enough sustenance for life.”6
I have learned a great deal about the Bible from these various attempts to find a Bible within the Bible, especially feminist interpretations. The problem I have is that the authority of the Bible is not based on the Bible itself, but on the Bible as read in a particular interpretive community. Those who are not members of the particular community, or who do not share the group experience, feel they are on the outside. The question, then, is whether there is a more inclusive lectionary, one that is addressed to all peoples, rich and poor, male and female, Occidental and Oriental, etc. Does God speak through the Bible as a whole—through all of its trajectories? On that difficult question we shall reflect in the next column, as we consider the Bible as the “word of God in human words.”7
The practice of public reading from the Bible according to a lectionary, which goes back to the biblical periods of Judaism and Christianity, usually presupposes that in some sense God speaks today to a congregation through the literature they regard as sacred scripture.a However, a system of lectionary readings, even when extended over a three-year period or longer, does not include everything found in the Bible. How are the readings selected? This question has puzzled me as I have worked on a project to help preachers interpret the assigned texts for the day. Apparently the major principle of selectivity […]
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Among Latin American interpreters, see, for instance, J.S. Croatto, Exodus: A Hermeneutics of Freedom, trans. Salvator Attanasio (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1981).
2.
J. Matthew Ashley, “The New Evangelization,” The Ecumenist 3:3 (July–September 1996), pp. 54f.
3.
Robert McAfee Brown, Theology in a New Key: Responding to Liberation Themes (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), pp. 88, 90. Quoted by Jon Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993). Levenson gives an incisive criticism of this theological interpretation in the chapter “Exodus and Liberation,” pp. 127–183.
4.
Among many books and articles that could be cited, special mention should be made of Phyllis Trible’s elegant and pathbreaking book God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978).
5.
See Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroads, 1994); also my column, “Moving Beyond Masculine Metaphors,”BR 10:05.
6.
Phyllis Trible, “Five Loaves and Two Fishes: Feminist Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology,” Theological Studies 50 (1989), pp. 279–295.
7.
Conversation with David Andrews, minister of the Congregational Church, Middlebury, Vermont.
