Basil Thursday (Proper 5 Year 1)
Today’s assigned readings:
Sirach 44:19-45:5, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Luke 19:28-40
I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows - was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.
2 Corinthians 12:2-5
John Chrysostom says, all of Paul’s clear statements to the contrary notwithstanding, that Paul is talking about himself here, getting caught up into heaven. He says Paul is just being really humble. Really humble. John has to wrap the text around a few trees to make that seem plausible, but every Orthodox preacher I’ve ever heard comment on this text says the same thing: why? Because no one wants to disagree with John Chrysostom.
Even when the text clearly says John is wrong - everyone just goes along, cuz, hey, it’s John Chrysostom. This drives me up a wall and I could go off on a huge rant right now… but I’ll not.
And once I sat with a priest who was reading some stuff that I wrote and he was not happy: seemed I was pulling something called “eisogesis” - which means reading meaning into the text - instead of exegesis, reading meaning from within the text. Orthodox never do eisogesis… unless you’re John Chrysostom: then you can turn the clear meaning of the text around 180 degrees and no one will bat an eye. Or if you’ve ever read Gregory of Nyssa torture meaning out of the superscriptions on the psalter, you’ve seen eisogetics in action.
In common usage, eisogesis is one of those irregular nouns. It’s only used in the second person negative:
My book is exegesis.
Your sermon is eisogesis.
Their blog is filled with bloody heresies.
But the point of this is that we’re all eisogetes: we may read in our own meaning, or may chose to read in the meaning written by a long-dead Bishops to the exclusion of all others, or may chose to read in the meanings of the Jesus seminar or the current pope… it matters not. We’re adding to the text. The same is true of those folks who claim “sola scriptura” - or ask them to explain something difficult like who was Jesus talking to when he says, in Mark 13:14, “Let the reader understand”? Any answer will be clear eisogesis: Any answer whatsoever.
Again, the point is that we are all eisogetes and I hear that to be a good thing.
Yesterday I read two essays by two rabbis and I think we can read them also into our topic today.
First, Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s post of yesterday on how Bible Scholarship impacts faith, brings us to a place that sounds like a lot of modern Christian scholarship.
First, the Bible is a human document, reflecting both timeless wisdom and time-bound bias. Second, the Bible speaks in metaphor and should be looked to for wisdom not scientific fact or unchanging sexual mores. Third, the Bible can be read to condone the greatest evil even as it can be read to uphold the greatest good. Hence the Bible is not to be separated from those who read and interpret it; it is a moving target, reflecting what the reader desires rather than what God commands.
And then we move to the “Radical Torah” blog (which I *highly* recommend for all readers!) In the lectionary used by most synagogues, this week’s Torah reading is Numbers 16:1 - 18:32, the portion called “Korah”.
Now Korah, son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi, betook himself, along with Dathan and Abiram sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth — descendants of Reuben — to rise up against Moses, together with two hundred and fifty Israelites, chieftains of the community, chosen in the assembly, men of repute. They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?”
Over at Radical Torah, Rachel makes some good points that are, for our Gentile conversation, a bit far afield, but I’d always heard this text as telling the story of the evil men who wanted to overthrow Moses. Through Rachel’s post I finally saw another side to this story: It is a celebration of what Christians might refer to as “the priesthood of all believers” and the tension between that truth and other (equally true) models of community.
These models might come into direct conflict if we see Church as another one of those irregular nouns:
We have church.
You have something, but we’re not sure what.
They have nothing at all.
The traditional view of Church is one of, if not uniformity then, at least, conformity. We craft this looking backwards with eyes occluded by our current struggles, I think. In the traditional view differences are seen as weaknesses. The motto “Diversity is our Strength” would not have applied. I speak from experience here - diversity scared me as recently as 5 years ago (it was five years ago this past Sunday that I entered the Orthodox church). But, if we look with unbiased eyes at Church history there was a lot more diversity than we like to admit: congregational, presbyterian and episcopal governance were all present. There were competing theologies. Uniformity happens as we draw nearer to Constantine, but it is artificial and enforced from without.
But if we see, instead, the community of people seeking to live God-ward or Love-ward (they are the same thing) in the way of Jesus, all living in eisogetic conversation with each other - and our spiritual ancestors - we get to a very new, very different, and I think very exciting place.
I repeatedly wonder if the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation are not the works of the Holy Spirit restoring to the Church her glorious and diverse plurality.
And for those who see such pluriform quality as a weakness, St Paul says, Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
- 2 Corinthians , Luke , Sirach
June 14th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Two questions:
Does exegesis exist? If so what is it?
How does a community set boundaries, if at all? And, if it does not set boundaries at all, what prevents Christianity (or Islam or Hinduism or Bhuddism or . . .) from simply being anything that people do? That is, if all is eisogesis, then I can never enter a Christian Church, go only to Hindu temple, never mention the Trinity, but claim to be a Christian. I am minded here of a particular priest in a certain diocese who was truly unable to define who is not an Anglican. He teaches at the diocesan diaconal school, and the students actually took him through my comments above, and he finally said that the glory of Anglicanism is that we do not know whether that Hindu is indeed an Anglican! (Yes, I know that he is extreme.)
But, with lots of caveats, I will agree with you on two things. One is that we all are eisogetes; however, this does not mean that we cannot also be exegetes. Two is that some of the Early Church Fathers definitely had odd allegorical interpretations. This was part of the reason why the Antiochian School opposed free allegorical interpretation. Over the long run, they are actually winning their argument. We love to quote allegory among the Orthodox, but, in reality, when we do theology nowadays, we do Antiochian School rather than Alexandrian School.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:15 am
“does not mean that we cannot also be exegetes”
I should have put that in, you are right… Personally, I don’t think we get one without the other. But that may just be me.
I think the Alexandrian school is winning among the Uberfrum. Which makes sense, actually. But it’s worth pointing out.
June 16th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Just to note that as a Protestant evangelical, I’d only ever heard the passage in Romans interpreted as referring to St. Paul. This was long before I’d heard of St. John Chrysostom, although perhaps some of the preachers I was listening to had come across that name in seminary.
Furthermore, the only indication from that passage that Paul was not referring to himself was that he was willing to boast of such a person, but not of himself. Unless, of course, I’ve missed something. Still, it hardly seems accurate to speak of all of Paul’s clear statements to the contrary notwithstanding.
June 16th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Whoops! I meant Corinthians, not Romans….
June 16th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Glory in such a one: one of his spiritual children is how I’ve always read it.
I think the text is rather clear. Certainly other feel it is very clear to them as well and speaking of St Paul himself.
The point being we’re all reading in - we’re all committing eisogesis. We’ve no reason to imagine any of us know more about it than the other.
But I call everyone’s attention to the “word on style” in the side bar: The purpose of the comments box on here is not to correct my errors, but to share your own responses to the scripture.
Please! Use the comment boxes to commit some eisogesis yourself!