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The Bible as a Literary Text

The Bible is the Word of God and yet it is interpreted in many different ways. Louise Needham finds out why.

In modern critical theory the idea of the surface meaning of a text being less important than what it conveys in imagery, form and allusion is still considered new and revolutionary. The key to a text is reliant not on the literary canon, biography or history, but on what it conveys to the reader. This is a trend that extends into biblical criticism. A movement away from discussions of whether the gospels are historical has been replaced by a literary understanding of analysing what the gospel writers were trying to convey about who Jesus was.

From the entire canon of the Bible only the four gospels and Acts purport to be historical narrative telling the story of the life of Jesus and the spread of the church. The gospels are without question literary constructs relating the life of Jesus to the Hebrew texts. In the 4^th Century Cassian highlighted four levels of scriptural interpretation: literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogical. An example of this might be that every time Jerusalem is referred to it is meaningful on four levels: 1. Jerusalem as the earthly city, 2. as the church, 3. as the souls of faithful Christians, 4. as the heavenly city of God. By the Middle Ages figurative interpretations of even such things as Paul’s letters had overshadowed the literal. Theories of symbolism, the psychological readings of Freud and his many successors, deconstructive readings of Derrida alike depend upon medieval and ultimately biblical critical practices.

Interpretation of the bible was further popularised at the time of the reformation in which if you could afford it and if you could read it you could interpret it. This was a highly contentious issue in the 15^th Century, as it was felt the power and authenticity of the Bible was being tainted.

In the romantic period the gap between art and reality was being increasingly accentuated. Schleiermacher explored this gap between art and reality developing a theory of hermeneutics within the context of biblical criticism. In this theory he looks at the complex relationship between reader and text and the totality of the reader’s culture. Just as there can be no view from nowhere, so all written texts had to be understood as coming from a particular person at a particular time. This means that there is no key to scripture, and that understanding is an unending task.

This view that understanding is relevant to what the reader brings to the text, and also what historical and political issues the Gospel writers were attempting to address at the time, is one that many Christians have had problems accepting. The Bible is said to be the word of God, and the Gospel writers envisioned as mere shadow writers. They are not writers with agendas, but rather mouthpieces for God. It is arguable, however, that whether or not the gospels are historical it is what they convey about Jesus that is important, and the message remains clear: Jesus is Messiah.

Perhaps then this new form of criticism should be embraced. It does not take away from the message that the Gospels are trying to convey, and perhaps even makes them more accessible to a modern audience.

Louise Needham

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Last modified: 25th November 2005