Biblical Interpretation, Cultural Understanding and Creation

The evangelical tradition has prided itself on a literal interpretation of Scripture. The assumption is that the scriptures are for the common person, not just for scholars. Early 20^th century Bible teacher R.A. Torry insisted, "in ninety nine out of one hundred cases the meaning the plain man gets out of the Bible is the correct one." This insistence arose from the conviction that the Bible was God's message to the common man rather than to the scholar. Insistence on the "literal" meaning of the text and upon common sense interpretation opened the door for viewing the text apart from its historical context. Torry’s assertion is not simply a restatement of the historic Protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture (i.e. the central salvific meaning of scripture is plain enough that even a child can grasp it). Torry’s attitude was a reflection of the democratization of America in the nineteenth century.

One of the by-products of the democratization of society was the rise of “the common man” and his understanding of reality as being the right one as opposed to that of scholars. Underpinning this whole enterprise was the philosophy/epistemology of Scottish Common Sense a view of reality brought to America by John Witherspoon who taught this philosophy/epistemology to the senior class in Moral Philosophy at Princeton where he was President. Through the influence to Princeton graduates Scottish Common Sense became the fabric which held the American world view together during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century. It continued as the foundational view of reality for conservative American Christianity well into the twentieth century and its remnants can still be seen today in some quarters of fundamentalism.

The by-product for biblical interpretation was the tendency to view the Bible as a book written for contemporary humanity rather than being an ancient book which had to be understood through the eyes and ears of the original authors and readers. This belief was one which gave birth to “Scientific Creationism” which assumed that the Bible was written to answer contemporary scientific questions. But it was not confined to that camp. The myriad of interpretations of the Genesis creation accounts regularly proceed from our presuppositions about what the text is addressing rather than engaging in rigorous interaction of the text on its own terms.

John Walton, Old Testament scholar at Wheaton delivered a lecture entitled “Cosmology in Genesis” in which he challenges most contemporary interpretations of the creation accounts asserting that we have misunderstood the intent of these text because we have read the textual accounts in terms of a post-Enlightenment scientific mindset that has assumed that the text was addressing the question of the nature of creation in the same way we think of it.

To illustrate briefly what I am saying here: when we open the epistles of Paul and he talks about “adoption” we associate the term with the contemporary Western practice of a childless couple adopting an unwanted child and bringing that child into their home and being legally adopted and raised as the child of the adoptive parents. To so understand the Pauline concept is to profoundly misunderstand what Paul was trying to communicate. In the first century Mediteranean world infants and children were not adopted. Adoption was practiced in terms of adults who were brought into the family and received full legal rights as adult sons (women were not adopted). The practice revolved around issues of care in old age and inheritance—if you have ever seen the film Ben-Hur you will remember that this was what happened to Charlton Heston’s character, Judah Ben-Hur when he was adopted by a Roman General. He received a new family name, all his old family ties were legally broken. His past “crimes” were not pardoned or forgiven, rather Judah Ben-Hur ceased to exist as a legal person. He had a new identity—his former life was dead along with all crimes and debts. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Walton argues that we have profoundly misunderstood the nature of creation in the Hebrew mind. We see creation as the making of matter—that is not the Hebrew conception.

Check out the lecture:

http://www.wheaton.edu/physics/research/symposia/conferences03/Sci_Sym.html