Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Oxford University Press (2013), Edition: 1, 192 pages
Description
Christopher Bryan reflects on the often-difficult relationship between academic study of the Bible and the Church, and suggests a way forward in which scientific questions are not to be ignored, but in asking them we are not to ignore the texts' setting-in-life, which is and has always been the believing community.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Jared_Runck
This small volume by Christopher Bryan is perhaps one of the most clear-eyed analyses of the difficulties presented by the historical-critical paradigm of biblical interpretation and its always-attendant "hermeneutic of suspicion." Though he does not deny the importance of the questions such
Bryan's solution is, then, two-fold. He seeks to reclaim the Bible as the Church's Book that must be read, if it is to be read correctly, from the perspective of the historic faith and claims of the Church that gave us the canon. He also seeks to promote the literary study of Scripture as an antidote to the abusive overreach of earlier methods. The Bible, Bryan argues, must be understand as the literature of faith, if it is to be truly understood at all.
Bryan reaches this conclusion because his own academic training is as a literary critic. (I suppose in many ways, then, it could be said he is traveling the path blazed by Robert Alter.) But the final chapter of the book takes an interesting turn, as Bryan begins to discuss the importance of new advances in our understanding or orality and oral culture (especially as presented in the work of Walter Ong) to our conception of what it means to "interpret" Scripture. At the end, Bryan argues for a new kind of "participatory exegesis" (Matthew Levering's phrase), focused on "performing" or, better, "re-embodying" the text. Such exegesis creates the opportunity to re-open the questions: "What should we believe…what should we do…and what should we hope for?" These formed the key concerns of medieval exegesis and ensured the Bible is received as a "living" Book.
Much of what I've read here—the summaries, the critiques, the proposals—was familiar to me from other authors, though I've rarely seen these arguments made with such concision and clarity. Bryan definitely has a firm grasp on the underlying assumptions and problematic issues and cuts right to them.
For me, the most valuable part of the book was David Landon's appended guide to liturgical reading, a series of exercises based on 1 Corinthians 13 designed to aid those who wish to learn the art of "reading aloud" the Sacred Text. This section is broken up into 10 lessons, each with a set of creative and helpful exercises, designed to teach us the power of oral performance of sacred texts as an interpretative process. Granted, Landon deals with the English translation; yet, the patterns of intonation and stress groups, the attention to proper variation of pitch, and the alertness to textual momentum served to illuminate not just the long-recognized rhetorical beauty but also the theological power. This appendix alone might well be worth the price of the book.
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methods address, he makes a compelling case that we have here a poster-child of the law of diminishing returns. Perhaps the most dangerous effect has been the divorce of the academy and the church. Bryan's solution is, then, two-fold. He seeks to reclaim the Bible as the Church's Book that must be read, if it is to be read correctly, from the perspective of the historic faith and claims of the Church that gave us the canon. He also seeks to promote the literary study of Scripture as an antidote to the abusive overreach of earlier methods. The Bible, Bryan argues, must be understand as the literature of faith, if it is to be truly understood at all.
Bryan reaches this conclusion because his own academic training is as a literary critic. (I suppose in many ways, then, it could be said he is traveling the path blazed by Robert Alter.) But the final chapter of the book takes an interesting turn, as Bryan begins to discuss the importance of new advances in our understanding or orality and oral culture (especially as presented in the work of Walter Ong) to our conception of what it means to "interpret" Scripture. At the end, Bryan argues for a new kind of "participatory exegesis" (Matthew Levering's phrase), focused on "performing" or, better, "re-embodying" the text. Such exegesis creates the opportunity to re-open the questions: "What should we believe…what should we do…and what should we hope for?" These formed the key concerns of medieval exegesis and ensured the Bible is received as a "living" Book.
Much of what I've read here—the summaries, the critiques, the proposals—was familiar to me from other authors, though I've rarely seen these arguments made with such concision and clarity. Bryan definitely has a firm grasp on the underlying assumptions and problematic issues and cuts right to them.
For me, the most valuable part of the book was David Landon's appended guide to liturgical reading, a series of exercises based on 1 Corinthians 13 designed to aid those who wish to learn the art of "reading aloud" the Sacred Text. This section is broken up into 10 lessons, each with a set of creative and helpful exercises, designed to teach us the power of oral performance of sacred texts as an interpretative process. Granted, Landon deals with the English translation; yet, the patterns of intonation and stress groups, the attention to proper variation of pitch, and the alertness to textual momentum served to illuminate not just the long-recognized rhetorical beauty but also the theological power. This appendix alone might well be worth the price of the book.
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Original language
English
Physical description
192 p.; 8.4 inches
ISBN
0199336598 / 9780199336593