Fred Hiltz on interpreting the Bible

From here:

All of the bishops received a copy of The Bible in the Life of the Church, a compilation of resources produced by the Anglican Communion. It was created following the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Jamaica in 2009. Anglicans around the world say ‘we are formed by scripture,’ said Hiltz. “That’s true, but Anglicans also recognize that there are a variety of ways to read and interpret scripture, and it is that very point that has been so close to the centre of the debates on sexuality,” Hiltz acknowledged. He held up the new Bible study as a gift from the Anglican Communion. “It really is about how Anglicans read the Bible.” The bishops enthusiastically received the document, and Hiltz suggested that not only could individual parishes use it, but it could also be recommended to theological colleges for their curriculums. Bishop Stephen Andrews of the diocese of Algoma is anchoring a House of Bishops working group examining the study.

There are actually only two ways to read the Bible:

  1. The first is to acknowledge that it states objective truth propositionally; our job is to read it and determine what truth it is conveying however uncomfortable it might make us feel.
  2. The second is to impose subjective preconceptions on the text in the hope of making it conform to contemporary prejudice.

The Anglican Church of Canada favours the latter approach; all variations in interpretation are to be accepted equally other than the one that results from adhering to point one.

16 thoughts on “Fred Hiltz on interpreting the Bible

  1. My favourite Bible teacher is the late James Montgomery Boice, a former minister of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church. To impose subjective preconceptions on the biblical text is not the right approach to read the Bible.

  2. Bishop Andrews is/was associated with Thorneloe and I have my OT credits from Dr. Harvey. Always a bit edgy that I may have learned the wrong things but Bishops Don & Malcolm were ok with that program.

  3. We place ourselves under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and thus under the authority of God. Accepting that the Bible is the Word of God, we thus place ourselves under its authority. We thus read it in humility with the expectation of being challenged to change.

    • This works only as long as you believe that the Holy Bible is the Word of God, having been written by God Himself, and not just a collection of human writings in which people are trying to understand the relationship between God and people. As soon as a person starts believing that the bible is nothing more than that, than all manner of reinterpretations, and revisions and new editions that are motivated by things such as “political correctness” become perfectly acceptable. I fear that this is exactly what has happened within my beloved Church.

  4. “The first is to acknowledge that it states objective truth propositionally; our job is to read it and determine what truth it is conveying however uncomfortable it might make us feel.”

    Good luck with that. Sentences of more than 10 words immediately become subject to interpretation, because that’s how language works. So an entire book? Written by many different authors at different times? Translated and re-translated over centuries?

    Interpretation is necessary, because even people who believe that the Bible is objective truth do not quite agree on what that truth is.

    If God had wanted us to know exactly what He meant without any possibility of error, He would not have used language to convey His meaning.

    • Sorry Vincent, but I must disagree. The Holy Bible has only one author, and that God Himself. I will concede that he employed numerous “secretaries” to take the dictation and put words on paper. But make no mistake about who the author truly is.

      As far as “subject to interpretation” goes. What I have noticed is that happens only when someone does not like the obvious meaning of what they have read. That person proceeds to convince himself that what was meant is something else.

      Language is a wonderful gift from God, and is unequalled in its ability to convey exceedingly complicated messages.

      • God can use all kinds of preachers to bring the unconverted to Himself in spite of incorrect interpretations of the Bible. For example, Dr. John Sung (1901-1944), who had a Ph.D. in Chemistry from an American university in Ohio, became a travelling evangelist in China with no formal theological training. He was a smart man, earning three university degress within six years. He read and studied the Bible many times before he started preaching in China and South-east Asia for some 15 years until his untimely death. He brought many to Jesus, even though he held some incorrect interpretations of the Bible. The bottom line is: God is greater than all of us whether we interpret the Bible correctly or not all the time.

      • Oh, I’m comfortable with the idea that God inspired the Bible, but he also gave me a brain, and it seems obvious to me that He chose, for His own unfathomable purpose, to forego the normal stage of copy editing.

        Also, “obvious meaning”. There really is no such thing. It’s difficult to determine an obvious meaning for a three item shopping list. And language is a gift from God all right, but the Bible itself tells us that He gave it to us to confuse the hell out of us. I say this with respect, but I’m not convinced you have studied language very much. It’s the fuzziest tool there is. We all think we’re experts on language because we all speak. It’s an easy but a very dangerous position to fall back on.

        The very fact that millions of pages of biblical hermeneutics have been written over the last two millenia is a fairly good indication that the Bible is a document that invites thought and reflection. There’s nothing actually wrong with that, of course.

        • “…forego the normal stage of copy editing.”
          Do you hear yourself?

          If you actually beleive that there is “no such thing” as obvious meaning, than perhaps you would be kind enough to offer several possible meanings for the following:
          “When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” John 8:10-11

          • I do hear myself. The Bible contains multiple accounts of the same events, time and time again. Sometimes the details differ. That’s a richness, obviously, but it’s not the way you write a book when you want to be sure that everyone will get your meaning and no other.

            At 8:11, my (not particularly scholarly, it must be admitted) Bible says that the “Lord” bit is sometimes translated as “sir”, which changes the tone of the exchange somewhat (and tone matters, and is extremely subject to interpretation — hence your own comment about what you perceive as a lack of respect on my part: “Do you hear yourself?”).

            It further goes on to say “The most ancient authorities lack 7.53–8.11; other authorities add the passage here or after 7:36 or after 21:25 or after Luke 21.38, with variations of text; some mark the passage as doubtful.” And that’s before we start talking about the words that do end up on the page of the particular Bible we’re using.

            Not all textual disagreements need be about basic principles, of course. Often it is a question of emphasis, of nuance. At other times the different possibilities are quite mind boggling (Adam meaning man or humankind depending on where the word is used in Genesis).

            In this case, even with the specific words you just put on the page, an entire essay (or sermon) could be written about, for example, the reasons behind Jesus asking these questions. I mean, it’s a bit odd: the men were right there. Surely he’s noticed that he’s now alone with the woman. So was he so lost in thought that he didn’t notice? Or is he asking these questions to frame the moment as a teaching lesson? Or is he just mocking the woman (I don’t think he is, but I could imagine a less charitable reader trying to argue that)? Each of these angles gives a slightly different colour to the episode. Do _you_ know which it is? I certainly don’t. I could defend this or that view, of course, more or less convincingly depending on my skill or the strength of the case.

            That’s language. I’ve done enough translation work and I’ve studied changing usages long enough to know that to assert, upon seeing a piece of text, that “This means that” is chancey at best.

          • Of course there’s an obvious level of meaning in the Bible, AMP. John 8:10-11 both reiterates what Jesus first said in John 8:7, and emphasizes that the response of the men (who brought her) to what He first said was to leave (John 8:9).

  5. We’re debating it _now_. The only formal difference between our positions is that I don’t actually mind that you hold yours. We’re being reasonable and respectful about it. How can that possibly become something negative?
    In any case, I can only ask: why is it then that two thousand years on, we are so unsure about the “obvious meaning” of many bits of the Bible that a) we’re still arguing about it and b) we’ve split into thousands of different denominations?

    • I don’t believe that we can fully understand God. I don’t believe that we can solve all our biblical and theological problems in this life. The existence of so many different theories of atonement is not necessary a bad thing. The existence of over 41,000 different denominations keeps us humble. We can always learn from one another.

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