Reading Closely

 

            The bible is the best-selling book of all time. No other book even comes close. For centuries people have read and reread the pages of Scripture not only for guidance and personal fulfillment but also for enjoyment. In fact, many of the most celebrated authors in Western literature (as well as music, movies, television, and other artistic mediums) have borrowed heavily from the bible to produce their own masterpieces. By many accounts, the bible is an exquisite work of art that can be enjoyed on multiple levels, and the bible’s literary artistry becomes more apparent when you read it as you would any other piece of literature.

 

            This method of biblical interpretation doesn’t take as much expertise as learning Hebrew or studying ancient history, but it does take some practice. The easiest and most effective way to use this method is to read a text closely. Since writing materials were expensive in antiquity, authors couldn’t afford wasting time on long, detailed descriptions of a story’s setting but had to stick to the point. Admittedly, we shouldn’t put too much weight on a single word or phrase and over-analyze it to death, but we should read each verse carefully and pay attention to what the author is trying to communicate. For example, most people know that Jesus changes Simon’s name to Peter after calling him to be his disciple, but few people notice when Jesus reverts back to calling him “Simon” later in the story. Look at what happens in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is in agony over his impending death and returns from prayer to find Peter, James, and John asleep on the ground. He expresses his disappointment with carefully chosen words: “Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not keep watch for one hour?” (Mark 12:37). Jesus deliberately uses his old name here, which is very rare in the gospels. (Using Mark’s gospel as an example, he is called Simon only this one time after his name is changed in 3:16.) Peter’s new name signifies his vocation to become the rock on which Jesus will build his church (Matthew 16:18), while his old name signifies the former life he left behind. It’s as if Jesus is telling Peter that he has gone back to his old ways, no longer acting like the firm rock he is called to be but instead behaving like the old Simon who never new Jesus and isn’t ready to be his disciple. In fact the evangelist helps us see the contrast by beginning the verse with “He said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you sleeping?...’”

 

            Reading a text closely will go a long way in helping us understand the bible better. We often miss things the first or second time we read something, so it helps to return to a passage multiple times and try to read it again with fresh eyes. It also helps to know some of the common techniques biblical authors use to make a point. We have already seen the importance of genre when approaching a biblical text (see Catholic Approach to Scripture page), which is the most critical component of reading the bible as literature. These ancient genres also contain/exhibit many techniques commonplace in antiquity but less prevalent today. One of the most common techniques is repetition. Since biblical stories were originally meant to be read aloud for an audience who couldn’t read, authors made sure to repeat things for their listeners. A modern reader who misses something can go back and read a passage again, but ancient audiences didn’t have the same luxury. That’s why the biblical authors repeat things over and over again just in case their listeners didn’t pick up on it the first or second time. A classic example occurs in the book of Genesis where God creates the world in 6 days. After every day, the author emphasizes that God saw that it was “good,” and then at the end of the sixth day, God considers everything “very good.” The goodness of creation is an important message the author wants to communicate, and this theological truth sets an important tone for the rest of the bible. If the bible started instead with the most significant event in the Old Testament, the Exodus where the Egyptians drown while chasing the Israelites, we might question whether this God is good or merely another deity of the ancient world who is often cruel to human beings. Fortunately the bible starts with God creating a good world that he takes care of and nourishes, inviting us to interpret the rest of God’s actions throughout the bible in this context of goodness.

 

            Another important factor in reading the bible as literature is to consider the context of a passage. In other words, you should always keep in mind what comes before a passage and what comes after it. When biblical authors composed their stories, they didn’t just create a brief episode about 10 verses long and then start a brand new story right afterward completely unrelated to the preceding. Instead, they wrote entire books (or at least sections of books) and deliberately placed these passages in a certain order. Each episode is connected to what came prior to it and what follows, and frequently these connections help readers make sense of a given passage. For instance, Genesis 27 tells a story about Rebekah conspiring with her son Jacob so he can swindle the blessing of the firstborn son from his father Isaac. That blessing should go to Esau instead, and when reading the story in isolation, one might view Rebekah as a manipulative mother who plays favorites with her sons. If you look back to chapter 25, however, you’ll recall that God told Rebekah that Jacob would be the favored son, not Esau. In chapter 27, Isaac is old and prepared to give his blessing to his favorite son Esau, so Rebekah intervenes for a good reason, ensuring that God’s plan for Jacob will be fulfilled.

 

            Connections between passages can occur between stories in close proximity to one another or very far apart. Sometimes these connections occur between two different books of the bible, as when a New Testament author refers to an Old Testament text. The technical term for this technique is intertextuality, and a great illustration can be found in the opening chapters of Matthew’s gospel. Time and again the evangelist cites prophecies from the Old Testament and shows how Jesus fulfills these (see Matthew 1:23; 2:6; 2:18; etc.). Matthew aims to show how Jesus is the long awaited Messiah promised by the Jewish prophets. Sometimes Matthew makes subtle allusions to Old Testament events or passages, as when he depicts Jesus like a new Moses. Both escape death as an infant after a vicious king decrees death for all Israelite boys (Exodus 2:1-10; Matthew 2:16-18), both stay in Egypt for a while before traveling to the Promised Land of Israel (Exodus 14-Deuteronomy 34; Matthew 2:19-23), and both deliver the law to the people from a mountaintop (Matthew 5-7 / Exodus 20-40). Since Moses is the greatest human figure of the Old Testament, Matthew wants to show his primarily Jewish audience that Jesus enjoys the same lofty stature, continuing the covenant established through Moses centuries before.

 

            One final literary technique worth mentioning also happens to be easy to practice. Reader-response criticism is a type of literary interpretation that focuses on how readers are meant to react to a biblical text. This type of reading is based on the notion that the bible isn’t merely a book to be read but a living text that demands a reaction from us. Generally speaking, the biblical authors want us to take our relationship with God seriously, love one another, and so forth, but they also use individual passages to get us to think more concretely about a specific aspect of God or love. Sometimes an author tells a story with multiple characters, and the reader’s task is to pinpoint which character they identity with and discover how they’re meant to react to a certain situation. Sometimes the author presents a passage with an incomplete ending, prompting the reader to discern how the story should end. An example of identifying with a character will be considered below with the Parable of the Prodigal Son; an example of an incomplete ending appears in Genesis 18 when Abraham and God discuss the fate of the city of Sodom.

 

            God threatens to destroy the wicked Sodomites, causing Abraham to worry about God’s justice and goodness. So Abraham asks if God will spare the city if there are at least 50 righteous people living there. God agrees. Then Abraham asks if God will do for 45 righteous people. God agrees again. They go back and forth like this until God promises not to destroy the city if 10 righteous people live there, but then Abraham stops asking questions. Don’t we really want to know if God will spare the city if at least one righteous person lives there? This is where reader-response comes in. The author could simply continue the dialogue between God and Abraham down to the case of 1 righteous person, but instead, the author interrupts the conversation and leaves us with this cliff-hanger. This incomplete ending forces us to draw the conclusion ourselves, determining whether or not we think God’s justice extends that far. Our response as readers should be “Yes, God’s goodness means that the righteous will always be spared, and only the guilty will be punished,” and coming to this conclusion ourselves means we will accept this message more readily than if we had simply been told it by someone else. Reader-response criticism is especially useful on Jesus’ parables, many of which end without a formal conclusion, as we will see below.

 

Now try out this method on the story of the Prodigal Son.