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Introduction:
Hermeneutics
Derek Poole
Comment
Alan Wilson
From
the Director
David Porter
What
is Hermeneutics?
Brendan W Devitt
The
Bible and the Church
Alwyn Thomson
Hear
the Word of the Lord
David Bruce
Patience:
An attribute of love
Graham Cheesman
The
Bible and Christ
Alwyn Thomson
Understanding
Scripture: Issues of Gender
Fran Porter
The
Bible and the Christian Life
Alwyn Thomson
Take
me to the Theatre
Steve Stockman
Anabaptist
Hermeneutics
Walter Klassen
Reading
the Bible Then and Now
Alwyn Thomson
Cross-Cultural
Communication
Alan Wilson
SAINTS
& SCRIPTURES
The Bible and the Church
"Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox.... In like manner do these persons endeavour, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions."
So wrote Irenaeus - the second century bishop of the church in the city of Lyons - of his opponents. His church had already suffered the arrest, torture and death of some of its members in persecutions. Now, false teachers were attempting to entice the survivors away, claiming special knowledge unknown to the church and special wisdom in interpreting the Bible. Both Irenaeus and his opponents claimed to be following the teaching of the gospel and both claimed to be faithful to the Bible. How could people know which was true and which was false?
Irenaeus responded by laying down some basic rules. First, he stressed the unity of the Bible. Despite the variety of style, genre and language, despite the long stretches of time covered, despite the huge cast of characters, the Bible told the one story. At its heart was the God of Israel who was also the God and Father of Jesus Christ. In contrast, his opponents treated the Bible like a diamond mine. From it they quarried texts. These were treated as raw material which then needed to be cut and polished.
However, the question remained, Why should people listen to Irenaeus' account of the gospel rather than that of these others? Irenaeus responded with a second rule. He argued that the teaching of the apostles was entrusted to the churches that they had founded. This teaching in turn was handed on to the next generation of Christians. In particular, Irenaeus emphasised the role of the leaders of the church who were anointed by the Spirit for their task of proclaiming and handing on the gospel.
This apostolic testimony could be summarised in a few brief sentences, a summary which came to be known as the rule of faith. It provided the framework for reading the Bible. If anyone claimed that the Bible taught anything that was incompatible with the 'rule of faith' it was to be rejected as error.
Meanwhile, around the same time in North Africa, another early Christian writer, Tertullian, was taking a similar line. However, he went one stage further. Not only did he stress that authority to read and understand the Bible lay with the church, but he argued that since the Bible was the church's book those who were outside the church had no right to it - it was not theirs to read or interpret.
Irenaeus and Tertullian created a powerful weapon in the battle against false teaching, based on the assertion of a close relationship between authority, tradition and Scripture. If Christ was the hermeneutical principle for interpreting Scripture, the church -- Christ's body -- was the place where the Scriptures were truly read and interpreted.
This is the first of four short articles by Alwyn Thomson - ECONI's Research Officer - exploring how the early Church read and understood the Bible.
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