Many thanks to those of you who responded to my most recent post on authorial intent vs. reader-response. I received one sarcastic message that said, in effect, “Can you believe that someone would dare criticize you?” However, this individual misread my intention, which was not to complain about an unfair review but rather to raise for discussion several issues that are in my view highly significant for those with a high view of Scripture, including the following: (1) Is the reader in charge or the author? (2) Is the biblical text autonomous? (3) What is the task of exegesis? (4) What is the role of the commentator? and so on.
To give a bit more background on the review, it was written by a member of the Nyack College faculty who has degrees from Wheaton College (B.A.), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A.), and Westminster (Ph.D.). Apart from the paragraphs cited, the review was largely positive.
Rereading the critical portion of the review I cited in my previous post, I am struck by the repeated references to “literary”: both “literary artistry” and “literary studies” are mentioned twice. It appears the reviewer holds to a hermeneutic that views textual meaning as in some sense autonomous from the author (be it human or divine) and as apprehended by the reader in reflection on a given text. In his response, Mike Bird rightly points to the work of Kevin Vanhoozer and Anthony Thiselton here, who have shown that authors are communicative agents and texts communicate acts whose meaning cannot be legitimately derived in isolation from authorial intention.
As Jeremy Pierce astutely observed in his remarks, rather than merely empower the reader to construe textual meaning any way he or she chooses, the reviewer actually does attempt to provide textual evidence that Yahweh’s wooing his wayward people as a lover resonates in John 4. The question, then, becomes: By which criterion or criteria, if not authorial intent (whether human and/or divine), should we judge the validity or plausibility of this kind of interpretation? It seems that it is at this critical juncture that the distinction between biblical theology and a postmodern reader-response approach emerges. Several of those of you who responded to my previous post, in my opinion, rightly opted in favor of the former while rejecting the latter.
Now it seems that the reviewer, for his part, uses the criterion of aesthetic pleasure derived by the reader in contemplating possible textual meanings. Consider the following quotes: “I enjoyed the process of contemplating it”; “it led me to a deeper appreciation of Yahweh as lover”; “[s]tudents . . . deserve to have their imaginations and aesthetic impulses fully engaged” (emphasis added). The role of the commentator, in such a scenario, is that of raising a variety of meaning possibilities (invariably blurring the lines between authorially intended and reader-constructed meanings) in order to stimulate the (post)modern reader’s artistic imagination and aesthetic impulses.
On an exegetical level, however, I continue to be hesitant to embrace the “Yahweh as a wooing lover” symbolism in John 4, for this amount to a close to allegorical reading of the text when a more straightforward reading of this narrative seems more in keeping with the genre of this text. There is no necessary textual link between Jesus being called a bridegroom in the previous chapter and John 4; the setting of Jacob’s well brings in salvation-historical dimensions (Jesus is greater than Jacob, cf. John 1:51); Jesus’ request for a drink in verse 7 and the reference to food in verse 32 hardly “frame the story as a betrothal type-scene”; and the woman’s sexual immorality need not be spiritualized or allegorized but is a natural part of her interaction with Jesus that exposes the woman’s sin in order to show her need for a Savior (cf. John 3:3–5).
Having said this, the present discussion shows, once again, that many disagreements are to be found, ultimately, not on an exegetical but on a hermeneutical level. Have I been unduly recalcitrant in depriving readers who “deserve to have their imaginations and aesthetic impulses fully engaged”? Am I the exegetical equivalent of the “Grinch who stole Christmas” from those seeking to feast on an exegetical smorgasboard of culinary delights of interpretations, whether authorially intended or not? Or have I been careful to observe proper boundaries set by the task of exegesis which are vital in fulfilling the interpretive task as outlined in 2 Timothy 2:15: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth”?
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I’m currently working on a Ph.D. in NT at TEDS, and I’ve been thinking a lot about these issues this semester because I’m taking “The Use of the OT in the NT” with Dr. Carson and “Advanced Theological Prolegomena” with Dr. Vanhoozer. For what it’s worth, I am firmly in agreement with you, Dr. Kostenberger. You’re definitely no Grinch!
BTW, this evening I’m finishing up ed. Stanley Porter, and I’ve found your concluding chapter that responds to each essay to be fair, gracious, and insightful.
Follow up: I’m finishing up “Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament.” (My HTML coding didn’t come through on that last post.)
I’m not sure if this is what you’re saying, but I’m a little hesitant to discourage imagination in general in commentary writing. I think imagination is a faculty that’s too often lacking in commentary writers. I don’t think imagination should just run free. It needs to be disciplined. But imagination is sometimes required to see how two seemingly contradictory statements might fit together, to conceive of explanations why characters in a biblical narrative might act in a ways that make little sense to us, to make inner-biblical connections that not all will see, and so on. But it does need to be a disciplined imagination. What is imagined must be subjected to the text so that it does not go against it. It should also not involve too much certainty when it doesn’t come out of the text itself, particularly if it seems to go against what the text suggests. But sometimes imagination does serve a purpose. That’s consistent with everything you said, but I thought it was worth pointing out.
Well said brother. Thanks for exegeting what is there and helping us understand it. I appreciated your defining exegesis and distinguishing it from hermeneutics. It seems that some are mixing up the two in illegitimate or confusing ways in evangelicalism. May God not be silenced when he speaks in the Scriptures, and may we be humble and striving to understand accurately what he says.
Andreas,
1. It was good to see you at IBR. Good luck with anything on the “Gospel Genre” category.
2. You should take a look at Dale Martin’s recent book, “Sex and the Single Saviour” which eschews authorial intent, and yet at SBL there was a whole session dedicated to examining what Martin had said in his book (assuming his intent was lucid and available in his book). Someone ought to do an article review of this book as an example of the inherent contradiction within postmodern approaches to Scripture.
Andreas
I have just read the review in JETS on your John Commentary.
I have to say that apart from the mild “post-modern” rhetoric, the review was almost all positive.
Of course this assumes I have discerned the reviewers intention correctly.
I do assume he wanted me to understand him?
To be perfectly honest, I feel your commentary is a model of brevity in this day of multi vol commentaries, see for e.g. Keener’s two bloated volumes on John.
I for one am glad that you have taken the road you did and not succumbed to this post modern “all things to all men” which cuts the text lose from any anchor it has.
“More power to your elbow” to state a colloquiallism.
best Wishes
Gerry Todd