Baptist Hermeneutics Colloquium

Ian Birch
Baptists and Biblical Interpretation
The interest of this essay is with the question of how Baptists read the Bible, the strategies and methods of interpretation which arise from Baptist core commitments as followers of Jesus Christ. In the writing of baptist theologian James McClendon we have the proposal that baptist ( sic ) practices of reading Scripture proceed according to two guiding principles: (a) the centrality of Jesus Christ, and (b) the “this is that” and “then is now” of the baptist vision. These two elements are considered foundational for baptist hermeneutics and form the starting point for this exploration of a particular (baptist) way of reading Scripture.
As a means of developing the first principle I want to consider how Baptists read Scripture Christologically. As a method of procedure I want to pick up on a question raised by James Gordon in a series of essays by the principals of the British Baptist Colleges, Under the Rule of Christ: Dimension of Baptist Spirituality . He asks, concerning the correlation between Christ and Scripture, “what is the relationship between the words of the text and the Word that became flesh?” He suggests four prepositional ways of looking at this question: “Christ through Scripture, Christ within Scripture, Christ before Scripture, and even Christ above Scripture.” I propose to explore the implications of each of these four perspectives to Scripture read and interpreted within a Christological frame of reference.
The second hermeneutical principle McClendon identifies in baptist reading of Scripture is “this is that” and “then is now”. According to McClendon, this approach to the Bible is “not merely a reading strategy by which the church can understand Scripture; it is a way – for us [as baptists], it is the way – of Christian existence itself.” This hermeneutical method, which is Scripture's own method of interpreting itself, in, for example Acts 2:17ff, is a means by which Scripture is immediate and relevant to the Christian community here and now. This is the means by which Christians of every age, are engaged by and made participants in the narrative of redemption which Scripture relates. According to McClendon, this manner of reading the Bible and especially the New Testament is characteristic of the baptist vision and accounts for the emergence of the Anabaptists. It was the argument of Donovan Smucker that the unique contribution of the Anabaptists was exactly the recovery of the theology of the Bible. Smucker wrote that the Anabaptists were willing to follow the logic implicit in Protestantism consistently; among the Reformers they alone fully submitted to biblical authority. However, biblical authority operated under a governing vision of discipleship which meant an absolute loyalty and commitment to Christ. It is the risen Christ who is present to his people by his Spirit through the word of Scripture who causes the Bible to have the immediacy of authority and application which is distinctive of the way Baptists read the book. Therefore, I propose to consider these two principles of Baptist hermeneutics in more detail, namely reading Scripture in Christological perspective and interpreting Scripture in the light of “this is that” and “then is now.”

John Colwell
'...the word of his grace: what's so distinctive about Scripture?'
As its title suggests, the aim of this paper is to identify the sacramentality of Scripture as its distinctiveness and as determining a distinctive hermeneutic. Following reference to Karl Barth's comment on biblical hermeneutics as special hermeneutics and the sickness of general hermeneutics, the paper briefly surveys more recent trends in general hermeneutics and the manner in which these strategies have impacted biblical studies, demonstrating that the application of these strategies to Scripture falls short, of itself, of demonstrating Scripture's distinctiveness: it is not just with Scripture that we are confronted with the problem of an absent author (or speaker); it is not just the text of Scripture that has power to draw us into its world and to change us. In particular, attempts to utilise a Trinitarian adaptation of speech-act theory as a means of assuring the givenness of Scripture are found unpersuasive. Concluding that the distinctiveness of Scripture is identified in its reception by the Church as sacramental, as means of grace (rather than merely in assumptions concerning its 'inspired' origin), the paper explores that distinctive hermeneutic (manner of hearing, reading, and studying) that is demanded by Scripture's distinct identity, by the promise (rather than guarantee) of transforming presence, to be anticipated in faith rather than presumption - as with all sacramentality, God remains free even within God's own promise. The sacramental nature of Scripture and its consequent reception raises questions of communal and liturgical context (as distinct to individual readings and study), with uncomfortable implications for the common manner of academic study that, to significant degree, seems to have been shaped by an Enlightenment academic culture of objective detachment. Finally the paper briefly explores whether Baptists, both in historical practice and in principle, themselves have anything distinctive to contribute to this distinctive biblical hermeneutic both in their commitment to a corporate hearing of Scripture and in their commitment to discern the authority of Christ through their hearing of Scripture.

R. Alan Culpepper
Baptist Contributions to Johannine Scholarship (1935-2005)
In recent years there has been an interesting discussion in the Catholic Biblical Association over what is "Catholic" about Catholic Biblical scholarship. We might just as profitably ask whether there is anything distinctive about Baptist New Testament scholarship. As a step toward understanding Baptist hermeneutics, this paper will review the contributions of seven American, Baptist, New Testament scholars to the study of the Gospel of John in the last century: A. T. Robertson (1935), H.E. Dana (1940, 1943), T.C. Smith (1959), William E. Hull (1970), Ray Summers (1979), Paul D. Duke (1985), George R. Beasley-Murray (1987, 1989), Charles H. Talbert (1992), Gerald L. Borchert (1996, 2002), David R. Beck (1997), Andreas K ` stenberger (1999, 2001, 2004), and Craig S. Keener (2003). I will have to limit this review to their principal publications, publications that span seven decades and reflect the emergence of historical criticism in Baptist New Testament scholarship in America. Coincidentally, it also spans the decades of the publication and reception of Rudolf Bultmann's epoch-making commentary on John in 1941 (translated by Beasley-Murray et al. in 1971), and major commentaries and monographs by C.K. Barrett, Raymond E. Brown, Rudolf Schnackenburg, and J. Louis Martyn (who also has Baptist roots). I will be especially interested in the distinctive contributions of each of these scholars and ways in which they responded to current scholarship and anticipated emerging developments.

Helen Dare
‘In the fray': Reading the Bible in relationship
Baptist hermeneutics are self avowedly ‘Christological’. For those in membership of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, this is most clearly reflected in the first clause of the Declaration of Principle: ‘…Jesus Christ…is the sole authority in all matters of faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures…’ Such an ideal leaves itself open to the possibility of being misunderstood, mistrusted and misused and as such can result in an overly simplistic reading of a complex text, a fear of subjectivity in interpretation and a distortion of the image of God revealed in Scripture.
A counterbalance to these potential pitfalls may be found in a closer look at the God who is portrayed in Scripture. As Old Testament scholars have long been aware and as Baptists have historically proclaimed, a key motif in the biblical witness of God and God’s people is covenant. God is seen to be in relationship. Baptists covenanted to walk together with God and with each other. For Walter Brueggemann, this relationality is central to Israel’s understanding of God. Yet he finds the Old Testament reveals a God who cannot be tamed by the desire for facile understanding, for this God will not be reduced to an idol. Instead Israel often finds the need to question, even to challenge, God.
Such bold address to God rarely sits easily for those accustomed to a more domesticated image of God. Yet for Brueggemann, the covenant relationship means that God is ‘in the fray’; open to a genuine engagement with Israel. As a Baptist community approaches the interpretation of the biblical text, such an emphasis on deep encounter with each other and God will not be easy for those who approach scripture seeking either quick fix answers for today’s problems or proof text support for ‘sound’ doctrine. It will however ultimately lead to a deepening of relationship with the one revealed in the text and inform the process of Christological interpretation.

Chris Ellis
Gathering around the Word: Scripture in Worship
Scripture has been a central feature of worship amongst Baptists throughout their history. As for other Protestant groups which have not focused their worship around a weekly Eucharist, the preaching of the Word has tended to dominate. It is interesting to reflect why preaching, rather than the reading of scripture, should have held such sway and to see in this, not only cultural influences from hierarchical didacticism, but a spirituality in which God’s will is made known in the opening up of the Word through the work of the preacher.
Scripture has also figured as a vehicle of worship through the singing of psalms and the use of other scriptural material in prayers. Thus scripture becomes a means of humanity addressing God as well as being addressed by God.
But how are we to understand both the nature of scripture and it’s role in worship? A model of worship as encounter with God will provide the basis for exploring how scripture might be seen as the God-given means of enabling this divine-human encounter. Such a liturgical approach, coupled with reflections on classical personal spirituality (especially Lectio Divina), might offer the means of developing a dynamic hermeneutic which is about encountering God in scripture as the community gathers around what we call ‘the Word’ in order to meet the Word.

Paul S. Fiddes
Prophecy, Corporate Personality and Suffering: Some Themes and Methods in Baptist Old Testament Scholarship
Baptist scholars played a remarkable part in the development of modern Old Testament studies during the course of the twentieth century. In doing so, they showed a special interest in the themes of prophecy, ‘corporate personality’ and suffering, both human and divine. The paper explores the relation between these themes, and traces a study of them in a succession of scholars: T.H. Robinson, H. Wheeler Robinson, H.H. Rowley, A.R. Johnson and Rex Mason. The paper also detects correspondences between an interest in these themes and certain Baptist experiences and convictions, noting the claim of H. Wheeler Robinson that key Baptist beliefs and practices stand in a historical succession from the Old Testament prophets. The handling of the three themes by Baptist scholars also illustrates a certain kind of hermeneutics, affirming the authority of scripture as a ‘source-book’ rather than a text-book, and taking history (and the historical-critical method) seriously while also requiring reader-response in the present for faithful engagement with scripture. While the paper is a historical account of Baptist practice in Old Testament studies, it finds insights into the relation between text, author and reader that are of permanent value, as well as uncovering some creative theological ideas about the relation between God and humanity.

Rex Mason
Hermeneutics - The inter-face between critical scholarship and the faith of the community
The paper will seek to defend the judicious use of biblical critical scholarship in the face of recent criticism, not only from the right, but also from more recent literary and philosophical theories. It will argue that biblical criticism, with its emphases on the ‘plain meaning of the text', context and the proper recognition of literary genres, offers a valuable check on some of the more extreme and subjective examples of ‘faith' readings of the Bible.
Yet, in the communities of faith, biblical study is not undertaken from merely literary or antiquarian concerns, but because the Bible has been written and preserved by communities of faith down the ages, and so has proved to be both the product of, and the maintainer of, the faith and life of those communities.
Hermeneutics is, then, the process by which the communities of faith seek to make ancient writings relevant for their worship, faith and conduct today. And, the paper will argue, in this we are aided when we recognise that this hermeneutical process already began within the Biblical literature itself, a process often alluded to as ‘Inner-biblical exegesis' by those who have made it their special area of interest. The paper will ask whether this ‘inner-biblical' process offers guidance for our hermeneutical practice today.

Mikeal Parsons
Baptist Identity and the Acts of the Apostles: Insights from the Baptists' Bible
In Baptist Ways , Bill Leonard has described Baptist identity as “dynamics moving in tandem across a wide spectrum of belief and practice” (p. 6). In place of particular and potentially static rubrics (“priesthood of the believer,” “authority of Scripture,” etc.), he proposed a series of dialectics as a way of understanding the inherent tensions within certain related concepts and ideals; these dialectics include , among others, authority of Scripture and the liberty of conscience; ministerial and lay authority; religious liberty and Christian citizenship. In this paper, I will use some of Leonard's dialectics to explore the way Baptists (especially in the seventeenth century) used the book of Acts to articulate their distinctive beliefs and practices. This material is drawn from a larger project, the Baptists' Bible , which seeks to gather Baptist interpretations of the Acts of the Apostles over the last four centuries.

Simon Perry
Baptists and Bible Study
According to the Baptist Union's "Declaration of Principle", the Christ revealed in Holy Scripture is "God manifest in the flesh." The supposedly communal practice of 'Bible Study', as the name implies, has the dubious capacity to keep this avowedly 'enfleshed' God safely confined within the 'non-flesh' world of the text. To study Scripture implies for many that we consider it an object to be studied, a resource to be unlocked, a set of Gnostic truths that must be understood and subsequently 'applied.' But some Baptists have produced Bible Study notes that are carefully researched at an academic level and thoroughly usable by those without academic theological qualification, with the hope that the word become flesh in the believing community.
Rev Lewis Misselbrook has been preparing such bible studies for Baptist Churches over the course of fifty years, during which time he has covered every book of Scripture. His notes betray a highly distinctive and thoroughly 'baptistic' way of reading scripture, with a strong emphasis on the Spirit's guidance, not simply in 'understanding' the text, but in baptising the reading community 'into' the text. His Bible study notes invite Baptist communities to enter the world of Scripture with far more than only their brains engaged, so as to encounter the God of that text who is manifest in the flesh.

Simon Woodman
The Dissenting Voice: Journeying together towards a Baptist hermeneutic
On the subject of scriptural interpretation, the Baptist Union of Great Britain Declaration of Principle states ‘that each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret…’ However, when the (Baptist) Dissenting community read scripture, the question inevitably arises of what to do with the dissenting voice? Or, to put it another way, how are interpretative differences to be handled? The community-based model of interpretative authority developed by Stanley Fish finds many resonances with the Baptist approach to scriptural interpretation, and this paper explores ways in which Fish’s approach can inform the development of a Baptist hermeneutic. Central to this task is the mechanism by which ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ readings are evaluated, and the role which communication plays in the emergence of an authoritative voice.
However, Fish’s approach poses a fundamental theological question regarding the authority of scripture: If the responsibility for interpretation rests solely with the reader and the reading community, in what sense is the ‘word of God’ to be considered authoritative? In answer, Karl Barth’s understanding of ‘the witness of the Holy Spirit’ in the community of readers is explored. By this account, the practice of community interpretation becomes, not an interpretative free-for-all, but an exercise in holy listening, with the possibility emerging of the voice of dissension being heard as the voice of the Spirit, speaking to the community from beyond its boundary. In this way the Baptist Dissenting voice is one which is inevitably and gloriously defined by interpretative diversity, as the Word of God speaks afresh to each new situation.

The ‘plainly revealed' Word of God?

Baptist hermeneutics in theory and practice

20-22 January 2009 @ South Wales Baptist College, Cardiff

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