Book Review: The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture by Iain Provan
A quality explanation of the hermeneutical landscape (past and present), and an argument for a kind of synthesis.
Provan, Iain W. The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017.
Overview
Iain Provan explains the “‘Protestant’ approach to the Bible” as it emerged during the sixteenth century, and he advocates for a “reformed” way Christians ought to continue reading the Bible today.[1] The historic Protestant approach, as Provan describes, is shaped by a particular view of the canon, text, perspicuity, analogy, and inspiration of Scripture. It is also marked by a primary interest in the literal or plain sense of the words on the page. Provan celebrates these characteristics of the Reformation hermeneutical method (at least as articulated by leading Reformers, though not always practiced by them), and he argues for a modern-day application of something similar but distinct – a “fifth way” hermeneutic.
Canon
Regarding canon, the Reformers believed that the Old Testament books (as we know them today) were an agreed upon set of writings (i.e., the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings) by the time of Jesus’s earthly life and ministry. During the time immediately after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, apostles and their associates also produced various writings which Christians received as “a new and authoritative prophetic ‘stream’ in history, in continuity with the OT prophets.”[2] By the fourth century AD, the formally recognized books of the Bible (thirty-nine forming the OT and twenty-seven forming the NT) simply reflected the informal reception of these books among Christians for about a quarter of a century.
Text
Concerning the text of Scripture, “the Reformers shared the broadly held Renaissance Humanist opinion of their time that texts in their original biblical languages (mainly Hebrew and Greek) should form the basis for study of the Bible.”[3] This priority of the original languages was in keeping with the Patristics, even though they generally lacked “facility in Hebrew.”[4] This was largely due to their common belief that the Septuagint “represented a perfect rendering of the original Hebrew text of the OT.”[5] Indeed, the Fathers tended to aim at dealing directly with the Greek (Augustine is a notable exception; he apparently knew little Greek), and the Reformers revived the study of Hebrew as well.
Perspicuity
The Reformers also believed in the general perspicuity of Scripture, that “no one possessing some rudimentary rules of reading ‘would have undue difficulty in understanding the plain meaning of the sacred text.’”[6] This is, of course, not to say that every passage of Scripture is equally clear or that no good faith and diligent effort to interpret a passage would ever reach conclusions that vary from another. This is also neither an outright rejection of any use of creeds or confessions, nor an individualistic untethering from ecclesiastical authority. Rather, it is to say that Scripture is generally understandable to those who make use of “ordinary means,” namely “the serious reading of the Scriptures” with “the aid of documentary and personal resources” while “refusing to read any text in ways that lead to belief or practice inconsistent with the wider biblical content.”[7]
Analogy
For the Reformers, “the literal sense [of Scripture] is not to be found in individual biblical texts by themselves,” but as the particular texts are understood in relationship with and in the context of “the whole Scripture, stretching from Genesis to Revelation.”[8] This principle of clearer Scripture and Scripture in sum interpreting particular passages of Scripture (which may be less clear or more difficult to understand) “is often referred to as ‘the analogy of faith,’” or “rule of faith,” or “analogy of Scripture.”[9] A major emphasis of this principle is on Jesus Christ. His person and work are the critical interpretive keys that unlock the all the doors of Scripture. In keeping with the exchange Jesus had with some of His disciples in Luke 24, we ought to understand that all the Scriptures are ultimately about Christ.[10]
Inspiration
The Reformers were in keeping with Christians throughout the centuries when they held to the belief that “the Bible is inspired by God, who speaks through it to the Church and to the world.”[11] This conviction necessitates the further assertion that “the Bible is infallible, in the sense that it does not lead its faithful readers into spiritual error.”[12] Thus, the Bible – the only divinely inspired and infallible text – is the ultimate authority “by which alone we should ultimately measure (as we read it literally, with ‘due use of ordinary means’) the rightness of both our doctrine and our practice.”[13]
Literal Sense
The Reformers also “placed enormous emphasis on the ‘literal sense’ of the biblical text.”[14] Indeed, there was “widespread agreement among the Reformation thinkers… that the literal sense of Scripture, rooted in its historical context, is in fact also its spiritual sense.”[15] The Reformers “sought to sweep away all the other ‘senses’ (i.e., the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses) of the biblical text in favor of the literal or literal-historical sense, which could also be referred to as the ‘simple,’ or ‘genuine,’ or ‘natural’ sense.”[16] They did not aim for an overly literalistic, but rather a plain interpretation of the Scripture, taking into consideration authorial intent, rules of grammar, historical context, and the normal use of language.
Takeaways
Provan offers his “reformed” reading of Scripture as a “fifth way” in contrast to four other ways.[17] The first way is that of historical criticism. He celebrates the critics’ commitment to “establishing single, original, and literal meanings for biblical texts.”[18] However, Provan is also concerned that advocates of this first way generally obscure and complicate the question “of how we can move from the past of the text to its present” in order to confront, teach, or edify the reader.[19] The second way is a postmodern reading, “emphasizing the independence of texts from their authors and the role of the reader in constructing meaning out of the texts.”[20] “Here,” says Provan, “the emphasis lies on an undogmatic, perspectival approach to theology, in which an omnipotent God actively at work in the world is replaced by a weak God who does not intervene in nature… [and] the highest human virtues, correspondingly, are weak rather than strong.”[21]
The third way is represented by “The Chicago Constituency,” as articulated in the document known as “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics.”[22] The concern of this group is that there be a “‘single, definite and fixed’ meaning expressed in each biblical text – the ‘grammatical-historical sense, that is, the meaning which the writer expressed.’”[23] Provan seems to prefer this third way to the other three, but he also thinks this method does not give due weight to natural theology and the relationship of hermeneutics to the development of knowledge and experience in the world outside the Bible.
The fourth way is represented by the Counter-Reformational Protestants who are “sympathetic to some Roman Catholic and Orthodox critiques of the Protestant understanding of the Bible… [and their] sharp distinction between Scripture and Christian tradition.”[24] This group argues that “the church existed before the Bible,” and the “Rule of Faith” is tantamount to “the core tradition of the Church.”[25] So too, this group is marked by a “Platonist-Christian synthesis” and an emphasis on “participatory or sacramental ontology.”[26] Provan seems most critical of these fundamental assertions of this fourth way.
In an effort to borrow from the best of each of these ways of approaching the Bible (though more from some than others), Provan prescribes his fifth way. Provan argues that his approach is largely in keeping with the hermeneutical method articulated by some of the main early church fathers (Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian) and two representative Reformers (Luther and Calvin). Neither the Patristics nor the Reformers uniformly obeyed their own articulated hermeneutical principles, but Provan says that we should hear what they said, even if we must also deviate from their practice.
Analysis
It is true that God has given us two “books” of revelation (special and natural, Scripture and creation), but only one of them comes with an explanation in His own words.
Provan’s main argument against the third way (or “Chicago Constituency”) is that the historical-grammatical hermeneutic can unhelpfully downplay and even reject the knowledge we might gain from natural revelation. Provan seems to stand in opposition to the axiomatic naturalism and obscurantism of the first way, to the utterly subjective reader-response emphasis of the second way, and to the muting of genuine biblical authority of the fourth way. But it not clear to me that Provan actually reveals a principled weakness in the third way.
He certainly exposes a practical weakness, in the sense that many Christians have adopted false or naïve interpretations of Scripture about cosmology, astronomy, or history. But one can easily argue that such bad interpretations have far more to do with the cultural, political, scientific, or economic circumstances of the day than the hermeneutical method itself. The material of natural theology (namely creation as we observe it) must also be interpreted, and those who do the work of interpreting natural phenomena are just as prone as biblical interpreters of arriving at false or naïve conclusions.
Conclusion
It seems to me that the posture of simultaneous trust and skepticism is rightly oriented in such a way so as to aim trust in the direction of biblical interpretation from believing Christians (both past and present) and skepticism in the direction of unbelievers’ interpretations of the natural world. This is especially necessary because of the reality that unbelievers often mean to undermine biblical revelation and authority. There is no scenario whereby Christians in this world will have infallible interpretations of special or natural revelation, and we ought not put down our guard against worldly wisdom’s persistent effort to subvert God’s wisdom. It is true that God has given us two “books” of revelation, but only one of them comes with an explanation in His own words.
[1] Iain W. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017). 8, 21.
[2] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 79.
[3] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 9.
[4] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 251.
[5] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 251.
[6] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 9.
[7] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 305.
[8] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 10.
[9] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 11.
[10] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 123.
[11] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 11.
[12] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 11-12.
[13] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 313, 343.
[14] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 10.
[15] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 10.
[16] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 84.
[17] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 21.
[18] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 13.
[19] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 14.
[20] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 14.
[21] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 14.
[22] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 15.
[23] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 15-16.
[24] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 16.
[25] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 17.
[26] The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, 18.