It’s Time to Acknowledge Influences of Different Schools of Biblical Interpretation

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

In 2020 the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) approved their new Standards of Accreditation, and they are drastically different from the 2010 version. Most notably, the modern language requirement for doctoral students has been replaced by languages that are “appropriate and germane to the specialization.” Which means that studying German is out (modern), and studying Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek (ancient) are back in! While this is an overstatement of the facts, because theological schools have not caught up to the new accreditation standards, many students in theological education have been questioning the need to study German as a requirement of obtaining a doctoral degree, particularly in specializations to which German theologians have not contributed. There are also some theology professors who have been openly questioning the reading of Christian theology through a German lens.

In the 19th century theological education in the United States began making a shift towards the German influenced higher criticism, which is a method of interpreting the scripture from a scientific and skeptical perspective. This method, while embraced by Union Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School, was initially rejected by Princeton Theological Seminary.  Additionally, many Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant scholars were suspicious of what would become known as theological liberalism. This led to the “battle over the Bible” at many theological schools in the 1920s, and once-conservative seminaries like Vanderbilt Divinity, would eventually adopt “modern” or liberal theology as a part of their curriculum.

Then came the 1960s, and the social/political uprisings against Western European colonial empires that swept across the globe. From Africa to Asia to Latin America, nations were fighting for their independence, and a theological response accompanied these uprisings. Liberation theology begun to challenge the authority of the Catholic Church in Latin America, while Black theology and Feminist theology began making inroads in the United States. This led to a different reading of the scriptures that not only challenged the traditional interpretations, but also higher criticism. Stony the Road We Trod, edited by Cain Hope Felder, is a seminal classic in African American biblical interpretation. Scholars who contributed to this work called the historical critical method (also called higher criticism) the most “Eurocentric method of biblical interpretation.” And while some of the contributors to this book called for “a new set of controllers,” to be used as guard rails for historical criticism, other scholars called for the “repudiation of this method.” Eventually, those who advocated for “controllers” would win out, and many liberation theologians and Bible scholars still use historical criticism as an interpretative method.

So, it is noticeable that ATS is moving away from the modern language requirements of higher criticism. One other factor that has gone almost unnoticed in theological education, is the renewed interest in the study of the Early Christian Church. The University of Notre Dame, Wheaton College, Baylor University, and Yale Divinity School have all established programs in this field in recent years. Yet there is a difference in this iteration of Early Church studies that is distinct in nature from previous revivals in this field. There has been an unparalleled focus on African and Asian theologians and Bible scholars as indigenous to their contexts, instead of the “whitewashing” that Tom Oden accuses Adolf von Harnack of in his book How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. This also appears to be a departure from the field of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, which has somehow made many historical figures in antiquity white.

With that said, many young black scholars are returning to their roots, Africa. Along with a few white and Asian scholars, the interest in Early African Christianity is now the subject of academic scholarship. However, unlike in the past, this focus is not on who are as Africans in scripture, but instead on how much Africans have contributed to our understanding of scripture and theology. This leads me to the three schools of biblical interpretation that most people subscribe to, whether they know it or not.

Alexandrian School

The School of Alexandria dates to the 2nd century, and most of the biblical scholars and theologians from this school were indigenous Coptic (Egyptian), and not Greeks or Romans according to Tom Oden. The Alexandrian School was known for the literal and spiritual interpretation of scripture. Athanasius, also known as the “Father of Orthodoxy,” defended the theology of the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and the Christian understanding of the Trinity at various ecumenical councils (similar to a General Conference) and throughout Egypt and Roman Africa. However, the belief in the spiritual interpretation of the scriptures by the Alexandrian School, also called allegory, led to misinterpretations in some instances.

Antiochian school

In response, the School of Antioch, which also dates back to the 2nd century, developed what some are calling the “historical contextual” method. This method emphasized the need for scripture to be interpreted as it was understood by the original audience. Simply put, Antiochian School (Syria) limited the use of allegory for interpreting the scriptures as needed. The differences with Alexandria were more theological than biblical and rooted in the divinity of Jesus. And like the Alexandrians, their theology and interpretation methods were worked out at various ecumenical councils. The impact of the School of Antioch still reverberates in how Christians read the scriptures today.

Tubingen School

The historical critical method (higher criticism) was originally developed by Dutch theologian/philosophers Erasmus and Baruch Spinoza in the 17th century, and gained traction in the academy in 19th century Germany, first at the University of Berlin and then at the Tubingen School. The denial of the miraculous events in scripture, doubts about the resurrection, and questions about the books that were left out of the canon of scripture became the hallmarks of this method of interpreting scripture. And it is worthy to note that the German theologians have never been a part of any ecumenical councils, which means that historical criticism was developed entirely by Europeans. This method has become the standard of biblical interpretation in American theological institutions, including United Methodist seminaries.

Call to action

As the 30th anniversary edition of Stony the Road We Trod was released on November 30th, it is time for African American Bible scholars (and their counterparts) to re-evaluate how unsuccessful putting controllers (liberation theology) around historical criticism has been, as evidenced in the #BlackScholarsMatterSymposium sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature. This method must be repudiated, which is what some Bible scholars called for when the original edition of Cain Hope Felder’s book was released in 1991. And it is time for Bible scholars to embrace the interpretive methods of the ancient Africans and Asians from the Schools of Alexandria and Antioch. This is how John Wesley read the scripture, literally. Wesley rejected the historical critical method of Erasmus and Spinoza, and Methodists today should follow suit.

Finally, it is past time for us to realize that Christianity is an Eastern religion, there are no Americans in the Bible, and God did not speak to anyone in the scriptures in English!

Sources

Felder, C., ed. (1991). Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. Edited by Cain Hope Felder: Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press.

Oden, T., (2007). How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Odell Horne, Jr. serves as president of North Georgia Conference United Methodist Men. He has a Master of Arts degree in African and African American Studies and is a Doctor of Theology candidate in Contextual Theology.