Title

Review and Expositor 97 (2000): 443-66

“Heteroglossic Trends in Biblical Studies:

Polyphonic Dialogues or Clanging Cymbals?”

David B. Gowler

Oxford College of Emory University

The recent trends in biblical studies demonstrate that we live in a creative and dynamic era, possibly the most exciting period of the discipline’s long history. Even a cursory perusal of the program for the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, for example, reveals that biblical texts are being approached from every conceivable perspective.

Biblical scholars have described this often perplexing array of approaches with words like “diversity,” “variety,” or “pluralism.” The best term to capture the true essence of current dialogues and debates, however, is heteroglossia. Heteroglossia, as used by the philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, describes the dynamic interaction of a number of voices, ideologies, and positions, but none of them is pre-eminent; none rules or controls the others. Each “voice” (or “discursive strata”) in this roiling mass of voices—even within the same national language—consists of a set of distinctive values and presuppositions. We may speak the same “language,” but this apparently unified language contains both centripetal and centrifugal impulses; it actually consists of separate discourses.[1]

Heteroglossia (and its co-requisite term dialogic) has been used to describe the church,[2] feminist biblical studies,[3] biblical interpretation in a global context, [4] and biblical texts themselves.[5] I believe it aptly describes the current state of affairs in biblical criticism as well. Biblical scholarship is not a monolithic edifice; it consists of a community of scholars who speak in widely varying discourses, from vastly different perspectives, and utilizing extremely different approaches. In Bakhtin’s dialogical perspective, these different discourses may be “juxtaposed to one another, mutually supplement one another, contradict one another and be interrelated dialogically.”[6]

A further insight into the current state of biblical studies may be gained by a brief look at a concept closely connected to this dialogic understanding of heteroglossia: polyphony. Polyphony is a term derived from music, where it denotes a combination of two or more independent, melodic parts. Bakhtin, however, applies it to what he sees in Dostoevsky’s novels, where Dostoevsky unfolds “a plurality of consciousnesses, with equal rights and each with its own world.” The voices of the characters, alongside the author’s voice, are “full and equally valid voices.”[7] So there are many contesting voices representing a variety of ideological positions who can engage equally in dialogue, free from authorial constraints. The essence of polyphony “lies precisely in the fact that the voices remain independent and, as such, are combined in a unity of higher order” than if the voices all spoke with one voice or were subordinate to another voice.[8]

Similar to the concept of heteroglossia, the term polyphony—in all of its profoundly pluralistic aspects—is certainly analogous to current dialogues within biblical scholarship. First and foremost, Bakhtin’s perception of polyphony exhorts us to accept the divergent perspectives within biblical studies today as “full and equally valid voices.” Such divergent voices give us cause for hope, because if Bakhtin is correct: “Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction.”[9]

I do not intend to romanticize the differing (and contesting) voices within biblical studies today. To do so would be to ignore the concrete issues of power and authority that dominate or at least seethe under the surface. Bakhtin’s sense of dialogue includes adversarial relationships or contests (e.g., ideologies “battle it out”). Bakhtin wanted his readers to “feel” the forces involved in concrete competition for limited supplies of authority and territory.[10]

In effect, both heteroglossia and polyphony, as essential parts of Bakhtin’s “dialogic criticism,” are apt terms for current trends in biblical studies. Biblical scholars who utilize various strategies and approaches, even in this sometimes-agonistic environment, should recognize that other strategies, approaches, and ideologies are absolutely necessary dialogue partners. Our own positions are never independent of other scholars’ works, and our own works would be incomplete without a dialogic response to those other positions. As Don Bialostosky describes Bakhtin’s perspective: “As a self-conscious practice, dialogical criticism turns its inescapable involvement with some other voices into a program of articulation itself with all the other voices of the discipline, the culture, or of the world of cultures to which it makes itself responsible.”[11]

The task of this article is to introduce, as succinctly as possible, the energetic scholarly dialogues in biblical studies. This summary, of course, must be representative of the myriad of voices in the discipline, not exhaustive. In addition, the boundaries of the categories delineated below are extremely permeable. For example, feminist studies can be primarily historical-critical, ideological, and/or liberationist. Likewise, social-scientific criticism is often categorized as a component (or refinement) of historical-critical studies, but aspects of social-scientific criticism are certainly amenable to postmodern “new historicists.” So the following classifications must be seen as primarily heuristic and not set in concrete. As fitting a dialogical framework, one approach can overlap with another, in many and varied ways.[12]

Cha(lle)nging the Paradigms in Biblical Studies

The dominant paradigm in biblical studies throughout the 20^th century was the historical-critical approach, which includes methods such as source, textual, form, and redaction criticisms. Scholars from varying perspectives applied these methods in various ways and with widely divergent results, but they all basically operated within the same framework (the historical-critical paradigm) and therefore spoke similar historical-critical “languages.” Biblical texts are seen as historical evidence, and scholars attempt “scientifically” (as objectively as possible) to reconstruct historical data such as the events reported, the communities who preserved these events, or the authors who recounted them. A working knowledge of the historical-critical paradigm is still essential in order to understand the full implications of the current situation in biblical studies, as well as because the majority of biblical scholars still operate within this paradigm.[13]

Yet many biblical scholars now believe that the standard historical-critical approaches to the Bible have screeched to a halt at methodological and philosophical cul-de-sacs. No matter how refined the methodology, the horizon of historicity always recedes, and the goal of “scientific” objectivity inherently remains an illusory chimera. The question remains, however, whether we can transform these historical-critical cul-de-sacs into crossroads. I believe that we can. Perhaps we then can traverse these methodological and philosophical crossroads to deeper—and more appropriately humble—understandings of these texts and of ourselves.[14]

Literary Approaches

Viewed from the standpoint of “secular” literary criticism, most of the recent trends in biblical studies can be categorized under the umbrella term “literary approaches.”[15] Because biblical scholars use (new) literary criticism in a more limited way, however, I will follow that more restrictive use of the term.

From New Criticism to Narrative Criticism

New criticism stands within the larger movement of formalism.[16] New critics stress the autonomous nature of literary works of art and reject any tendency to substitute “extrinsic” factors for a close reading of the intrinsic aspects of literature. As autonomous aesthetic objects, these literary works of art are unified wholes that are virtually independent of their authors. As Dan Otto Via declares concerning the parables: “The only important consideration is the internal meaning of the work itself.”[17]

Early literary-critical works in biblical studies were greatly indebted (but certainly not limited) to formalism and/or new criticism. Modern literary theory was first applied to the parables, and Norman Peterson’s Literary Criticism for New Testament Critics further set the stage. The discipline did not begin to flower, however, until the early 1980’s, with the appearance of two influential books: Mark as Story, by David Rhoads and Donald Michie (1982) and Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, by Alan Culpepper (1983).[18] Rhoads and Michie depend upon Seymour Chatman’s distinction (but not separation) between story (the content of a narrative) and discourse (the form of a narrative), although they utilize the term rhetoric instead of discourse. Culpepper, on the other hand, structures his book around Chatman’s narrative communication model (e.g., the narrator as the voice that tells the story; the implied author as an ideal, literary, created version of the author that is evoked by the narrative). For many years, Culpepper’s book set the standard for what was considered to be New Testament literary criticism.

David Rhoads was one of the first scholars to use the term narrative criticism for the types of literary approaches that New Testament scholars were beginning to use. Narrative criticism, for Rhoads, is an analysis of the “formal features” of narrative that encompasses such investigations as tone, style, plot, conflict, character, setting, narrator, narratee, point of view, the implied author, the ideal and implied readers, and rhetorical techniques.[19] The focus became the text itself, the play of its language; the styles, patterns, and narrative techniques evident in the text’s final form; and the relationship between text and reader.

Studies in the New Testament focused primarily on the Gospels and Acts, but the narratives of the Hebrew Bible proved to be fertile ground as well. Many literary-critical works on the Hebrew Bible also began to appear around this time, but the term poetics was often preferred to narrative criticism. Early influential works include Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981), Adele Berlin’s Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (1983), and Meir Sternberg’s The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (1985).[20]

Formalism, in literary circles, reached its zenith during the early part of the 20^th century. New criticism, in the United States, was the dominant theory during the 1940’s through the early 1960’s. Biblical scholars, however, because of their repeated emphasis on the reader and the experience of reading, also moved beyond new criticism and formalism. As had happened in “secular” literary circles, cracks appeared in new criticism and formalism, and further developments in literary theory and philosophy transcended them. What had been long evident in secular literary theory (and, more recently, in parable study) began to exert even more influence on biblical literary criticism: the emphasis on the plurality of interpretations, the polysemous nature of texts, and the roles of readers in creating meaning in dialogue with those texts.

The Engagement with Structuralism

Structuralism did not have a significant direct impact on biblical studies, but it did prepare the way for more recent postmodern approaches. Structuralism, for example, makes clear the multiple possibilities of meaning in any text, it clarifies the basically conflictual nature of narrative, and it raises fundamental questions about the ontological reality of narrative sense, which, in turn, would lead to the more radicalized structuralism in the “deconstruction” of Jacques Derrida.[21] Structuralism is in part an intensification of new criticism, an approach that emphasizes intricate attention to the text, but it differs from the formalist nature of new criticism by seeking structures that are not apparent on the “surface level” of narratives. Structuralism focuses on the structure of language itself.[22] It seeks to penetrate beneath surface patterns in order to disclose the “deep structure” that a particular story shares with other narratives. So structuralism does not analyze in any real depth, for example, the content of a story. Instead it focuses on the “meaning effect” of a text and how it is produced; it searches for the general properties that generate specific texts.[23]

As with many of these early literary approaches, structuralism was first applied to the parables of Jesus.[24] Dan Otto Via, for example, adopted the structuralist model of Greimas, as developed by Roland Barthes. Via distinguishes between two levels of narrative: story (a created world of events and persons) and discourse (a word spoken by a narrator to a hearer; cf. Rhoads and Michie above). The story level can be further divided into plot (sequential analysis) and actants (the function, role, or status of a participant in the action). So Via’s actantiel analysis of the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, sees the actant Samaritan as wanting to communicate healing to the actant traveler. The actants oil, wine, donkey, and innkeeper aid the Samaritan. Even the robbers “aid” the Samaritan’s quest by creating the situation in which he can show compassion. In its narrative context of Luke 10:25–27, Via envisions Jesus as wanting to aid the lawyer by communicating the meaning of “neighbor.”[25]

As William Beardslee notes, structural analysis requires a special vocabulary and a diagramming system that make it forbidding to uninitiated nonspecialists.[26] Structuralist approaches often leave non-structuralist interpreters disappointed, because they do not really further our understanding of the narratives themselves.[27] In addition, literary criticism has moved into various “poststructuralist” perspectives, including reader-response criticism, deconstruction, and ideological criticism.

Reader-Response Criticism

Reader-response criticism refers to a cluster of disparate critical theories and practices prominent in North America during the 1960’s and 1970’s. These approaches share an emphasis on the role of the reader or on the act of reading in the interpretation of texts. It is, in part, a reaction to new criticism’s treatment of the text as an “object.” Reader-response criticism insists that the reading process is a subjective construction of meaning, but it affirms new criticism’s idea of the unity of a narrative and the necessity for a “close reading” of that narrative. Since “meaning” is created by readers or in the reading process, reader-response critics try to avoid relativism by situating reading either within the bounds of the text or within an interpretive community.[28] “Meaning” is not inherent in the form, structure, or words of a text; meaning is an active process, a relationship between reader and text.

Despite its theoretical eclipse in the academy, reader-response theory still has considerable influence, especially within the guild of biblical studies. Reader-response criticism has basically served two methodological purposes for many biblical scholars. On one hand, it has served as a literary approach that is “safe” enough for scholars who wish to remain within the more traditional modes of scholarship. In effect, many biblical reader-response critics, with little self-reflection on their own process of reading or the influence of their own ideologies, construct their “implied reader” in their own image.[29] On the other hand, it also has served as a transition point, a “decompression chamber” for scholars who have progressed to more overtly postmodern perspectives, such as deconstruction or ideological criticism.[30]

Conclusion: Literary Approaches

Literary approaches to the Bible have followed various paths, but currently the general direction is clear: The primary focus of attention has switched from the “text” to the “reader” (or the interaction between them). Scholars acknowledge, more than ever before, the polysemic nature of language, as well as a more active role for the reader in the production of meaning. This transition also involves a significant transformation. The ever-increasing diversity of methodologies betrays a more fundamental heteroglossia: a variety of different discourses, discourses that result from flesh-and-blood readers who experience and interpret these texts. In biblical studies, of course, this concern with readers is most appropriate. Is it not the case that biblical narratives inherently ask flesh-and-blood readers to give their responses? Perhaps, as W. C. Smith argues, “scripture” in actuality does not exist as merely words on a page; “scripture” in essence is a tripartite dialogue between the text, the interpreter, and the divine.[31]

Deconstruction[32]

Deconstruction includes modes of reading that involve both discovering the incompleteness of a text and finding a fresh, but perhaps transient, insight made possible by the “free play” or indeterminacy of a text. Deconstruction upends the Western metaphysical tradition by insisting that “truth” not only is fatally embroiled with power, it is also inseparable from and dependent on ever-changing historical contexts.[33]

Therefore, if we are to read any texts fruitfully, we must be aware of language’s incompleteness and its unfixed nature. Not only do readers have to fill in aspects of the picture suggested by a text, but language itself is unstable. “Meanings” continually shift, change, contract, and expand as a reader moves through a text, even in a text that seems to portray a clear, unequivocal (e.g., “monologic”) meaning. In John Dominic Crossan’s Cliffs of Fall, for example, he utilizes Jacque Derrida’s belief that all language is metaphoric. Metaphor creates a “void” of meaning that generates the free play of interpretations. Language thus is judged to be polyvalent—it allows no single and definitive reading/hearing to emerge.[34] More recently, Stephen Moore has offered a multifaceted critique of how biblical scholars have utilized “domesticated” versions of literary theory and have often ignored the indeterminate nature of texts.[35] Deconstructive readings offer a “counter-reading”; they read against what appears to be “in” a text to make explicit what is hidden, repressed, or denied in other readings. Meaning is not “in” the text; it is brought to it and, in fact, imposed on it. Deconstructive critics argue that much of the power and authority granted to biblical texts actually reside in the (community of) readers who espouse and sanction those texts. Reading can be an act of power, or it can be an act of “play” of experimentation and endless alternatives. But deconstruction does not mean the end of “meaning” as has often been claimed. Instead it signals an end to “privileged” notions of meaning, truth, reader, text, and so forth.[36] As A. K. M. Adam observes: “Postmodern criticism cannot accept any system of knowledge as absolute or foundational; it cannot accept the premise that some body of knowledge, or subject of knowledge, constitutes a unified totality; and it cannot accept mystifying claims that any intellectual discourse is disinterested or pure.”[37]

Such claims, as well as the contextual, ideological, and subjective aspects of deconstruction, offer a radical critique of contemporary biblical criticism, one that, so far, has been too extreme for most scholars. Yet deconstructive “counter-readings” engage crucial issues, including ethical questions many other current scholars ask (or should ask). For example, after the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Mauthausen, can the apparently “anti-Jewish” passages in the Gospels or Paul’s admonition to “be subject to the governing authorities” (Rom 13:1) be interpreted the same way? What about the texts that assume the subordination of women or the ones that instruct slaves to “obey their masters” or to be content in their condition of slavery? As Stephen Moore notes, it is ethically necessary “to read against the ideological grain of the biblical text at times.”[38]

(Explicitly) Ideological Approaches

Ideological critics usually discuss texts with reference to issues of power, gender, and class. The assumption is that texts, readers, and the interpretive strategies readers bring to texts reflect a “position”; that is, all texts, readers, and interpretive strategies are situated within certain social, gender, political, economic, and other positions. Ideological criticism can be seen as a postmodern approach, but it also predates postmodernism (e.g., Marxist criticism). It explicitly overlaps or intersects with a number of other approaches (e.g., rhetorical criticism and feminist criticism), and it implicitly overlaps with every approach. Our own experiences, gender, social position, and other social/cultural aspects prepare us to see (only?) certain aspects of what we perceive as being “in” a text.[39] An acknowledgement of our own ideological point of view, however, must also include the recognition that texts and the interpretive strategies scholars utilize all betray ideological positions. Once again, any notion that we can evaluate a text “on its own terms” not only is an illusion, it is fundamentally defective.

Ideological criticism explicitly plays a central role in various liberation approaches (e.g., Latin American, Asian, African American, South African, feminist, and gay and lesbian approaches). In scholarship on the HB, studies often focus on the liberation from bondage inherent in the Exodus.[40] In the NT, liberation studies on the historical Jesus are important contributions, such as the ones by Juan Luis Segundo (1985), Jan Sobrino (1993), and William Herzog (2000).[41] Herzog’s work on the parables, for example, utilizes Paulo Freire’s “pedagogy of the oppressed” to argue that the focus of the parables is not on a vision of the reign (kingdom) of God, but on the gory details of how oppression serves the interest of a ruling class. Jesus’ parables explore how human beings could respond to break the spiral of violence and the cycle of poverty created by such exploitation. Therefore the parables of Jesus were forms of social analysis (and designed to stimulate social analysis) that expose the contradictions between the actual situation of their hearers and the Torah of God’s justice. Herzog thus brings his own ideological perspective into the open, a move that should be applauded and emulated, even if one does not agree with his perspective or his interpretations of specific parables. In fact, Herzog gives the most cogently succinct critique of the façade of an “objective observer” that I have read: “One begins with a theory, not with facts; with a paradigm in place, not with a tabula rasa; with subjective involvement, perhaps a hidden agenda, not with a neutral position; with a subtext as well as a text, with suspicions, hunches, and guesses, not with innocence.”[42] Once again, all scholars operate with certain ideological biases; those who do not make their biases explicit merely operate from implicit ones.

Ideological approaches can lead to productive dialogues, such as the recent discipline of postcolonial/cultural studies. All readers—from different cultures, social locations, and perspectives—have a place at the table. No positions are privileged, none are marginalized, and all participants equally bring readings, insights, and understandings from their own unique perspectives.[43]

Feminist Approaches

Feminist inquiry in the United States traditionally has sought to expose the mechanisms by which patriarchal systems create and maintain the oppression of women, with the goal of transforming social relations. As Phyllis Bird notes, feminism insists “that women be represented equally in all attempts to describe and comprehend human nature and that they be full participants in the assignment and regulation of social roles, rights, and responsibilities.”[44]

Biblical feminism partakes in the general goals and tremendous diversity of feminism, but it struggles with how to interpret scripture. Once again, a great divergence of opinion exists among scholars, but a foundational tenet of biblical feminism is that the interpreters of the Bible never have been and never will be “objective”; all people operate from an ideological position, a social location, interests, and commitments.[45] True to its liberationist/ideological heritage, biblical feminism recognizes that in biblical texts and “mainstream” (what Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza calls “malestream”) interpretations of those texts, women are usually marginalized, omitted, reduced to their sexuality, or trivialized in other ways. We get a picture of women that men created and preserved; one that corresponds to the male understanding of women and their place in society. This “malestream” ideology (as is all ideology) is invisible to those who share it.[46]

All modern readers of the Bible suffer from what Paul Ricoeur called an “alienating distanciation” from these ancient biblical texts. Modern women readers often experience a greater amount of distanciation because the Bible, for the most part, was not written by women or with women specifically in mind. Voices of women are often silenced, both in biblical texts and in (“malestream”) interpretations of the texts. Since all writings reflect and promote a “gendered” perspective, which ultimately is a matter of power, feminist biblical critics seek to recover the lost voices of these silenced women.[47]

Because of the varied perspectives among biblical feminist scholars, it is not surprising that they take quite diverse positions regarding how to approach biblical texts. Some scholars perceive the problem of male-centered readings as residing in interpretations of biblical texts and not as inherent in the texts themselves (e.g., the equality of men and women proclaimed in Gal 3:28 takes precedence over any culturally conditioned subordination of women). Other scholars, however, insist that because of the androcentric nature of these texts, the Bible should no longer be seen as relevant or authoritative (e.g., no reading of Genesis 2-3 can gloss over the fact that women are portrayed as “secondary and inferior humans”).[48] Others take varying perspectives all along this continuum of accepting/rejecting the Bible’s “authority.”[49]

The standard typologies of feminist criticism no longer do justice to the diversity of feminist approaches.[50] One finds a great variety of approaches, interpretations, and results within feminist criticism. We therefore cannot group all biblical feminist readings together; the amount of “commonality” among “women” can be overstressed. “Womanist” readings, for example, emerge out of African-American women’s encounters with biblical texts and often include a critique of “feminism” as being a white, middle-class movement.[51] Feminist approaches, however, do tend to be interdisciplinary—even eclectic—and pose questions that are outside the established boundaries of traditional criticisms. In addition, feminist critics often employ similar exegetical strategies in their efforts to liberate texts and their interpretations from the oppressive effects of androcentric biases.[52]

For example, one of the ways elite groups maintain their domination is by creating a language system that reinforces their controlling position—hence the inherent bias of most languages toward the masculine gender. Biblical translations, also performed almost exclusively by men, traditionally privilege the male/masculine and therefore restrict or even obscure texts’ inclusive meaning. More inclusive translations restore visibility to these linguistically invisible women.

Feminist critics also raise women to visibility in other ways. Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza argues that the Jesus movement was egalitarian and that women played important roles in that movement, roles that have been suppressed and ignored by later traditions and interpreters.[53] Antoinette Clark Wire attempts to reconstruct the portrait of the women prophets in the church of first-century Corinth who have been “silenced” by tradition.[54] As Ekkehard W. Stegemann and Wolfgang Stegemann note in their comprehensive survey of the Jesus movement, there initially was a certain tendency, especially in Corinth, towards the equality of the roles of men and women. A countertendency developed, however, which began to restrict female participation in the ekklesia. The church began to subordinate women in order to adapt their roles to the more widely accepted ones of the “traditional ideal women” in society as a whole. This subsequent development toward traditional patriarchal roles became a “positive advertisement” for Christianity in later biblical texts (e.g., 1 Pet 3:1-2) as Christians began to desire greater (positive) recognition by the Roman majority society.[55]

All of these studies raise critical, complex interpretive issues, ones of tremendous importance for the church today. A small number of scholars still seek to affirm the patriarchal traditions found in biblical texts, so these texts continue to be (ab)used to justify the oppression of women. For a growing number of Christians, however, this approach is extremely inadequate,[56] and the gap between these ancient texts and (post)modern society grows wider. To most Christians in the United States, for example, the patriarchal system depicted in these texts is clearly oppressive to women. Is it not true, however, that the standards of the kingdom of God as proclaimed by Jesus, although incorporating elements of that patriarchal system, actually provide a devastating critique of that system? In the words of Fiorenza, “Thus liberation from patriarchal structures is not only explicitly articulated by Jesus but is in fact the heart of the proclamation of the basileia of God.”[57]

Rhetorical Approaches

Rhetorical criticism can be seen not only as the oldest form of literary criticism but as the most comprehensive.[58] As Terry Eagleton explains:

“Rhetoric . . . shares with Formalism, structuralism and semiotics an interest in the formal devices of language, but like reception theory [e.g., reader response] is also concerned with how these devices are actually effective at the point of “consumption”; its preoccupation with discourse as a form of power and desire can learn much from deconstruction and psychoanalytical theory, and its belief that discourse can be a humanly transformative affair shares a good deal with liberal humanism.”[59]

Similar to all of the other current approaches discussed in this article, a singular method of rhetorical criticism does not exist. Rhetorical criticism consists of a collection of critical approaches united by a “rhetorical stance”: the critic’s concern with the social nature of reality and the interrelationship between language and human action. Rhetorical criticism involves the study of the effects of language and attempts to understand how language creates those effects. Rhetorical critics therefore look to theories and methodologies that can explain and evaluate the motivations of speakers, the responses of audiences, the structures of discourse, and the changes in a communication environment.[60]

Rhetoric has had a tremendous influence since its development in ancient Greece and Rome, but current interest in biblical rhetorical criticism began with a Society of Biblical Literature presidential address by James Muilenburg in 1968.[61] Amos Wilder, however, had earlier (1964) led the way in New Testament studies with his classic work, The Language of the Gospel: Early Christian Rhetoric, in which he noted the “inseparable relation between form and content in all texts.”[62] These two scholars primarily understand rhetoric as a matter of style (but including certain historical interests), one that concentrates on the aesthetic or inherently literary properties, with a focus on metaphorical, stylistic, and structural features.[63]

Soon, however, classical rhetoric was playing a more prominent role in New Testament rhetorical criticism, primarily through the influence of the classicist George Kennedy.[64] Kennedy critiqued the emphasis on “rhetoric as style” as being a limitation and even distortion of the discipline of rhetoric as understood and taught in antiquity. For Kennedy, rhetoric is that quality in discourse by which speakers or writers seek to accomplish their purposes.[65] Yet, by the first century BCE, rhetoric in antiquity had a pervasive influence well beyond classical rhetoric. For example, the preliminary rhetorical exercises found in the various progymnasmata (ancient rhetorical treatises that were used in “secondary” education) represent widespread educational practice, and everyday modes of discourse were saturated with rhetorical modes of argumentation. Revising, expanding, and condensing brief literary units (like the pericopes found in the Synoptic Gospels) were basic preparatory exercises for both writing and speaking.[66] These progymnasmata clearly demonstrate that rhetoric primarily is an attempt at persuasion or argumentation—skills necessary for success in public life.

The modern shift in scholarship to (re)envisioning rhetoric as primarily a means of argumentation was greatly assisted by the emergence of the “new rhetoric,” especially with the publication of the important book, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation.[67] “Rhetoric” does not merely concern stylistic features; it encompasses all speech (e.g., everyday conversations) and all aspects of all speech (e.g., as social discourse, as a means of societal formation, and a focus on the social and cultural contexts of the speaker/writer and audience).[68] Language is inherently a social activity that accomplishes an end (even if that particular end was not “intended”).

An excellent example of promoting dialogue between and among various biblical scholars is the “socio-rhetorical analysis” of Vernon K. Robbins. Socio-rhetorical analysis attempts to provide a programmatically-oriented approach by which we can interpret various texts and critique our own and others’ interpretations of those texts.

Robbins utilizes the metaphor of a rich, thick tapestry to explain the nature of texts. When we look at a thick tapestry from different angles, we see different configurations, patterns, and images inherent in its warp and woof. Similarly, when we explore a text from different angles, we see multiple textures of meanings, convictions, values, emotions, and actions. Thus Robbins’s typology incorporates what he calls the various “textures” of texts.[69]

Inner Texture: The inner texture includes various types of linguistic patterns within a text, structural elements of a text, and the specific manner in which a text attempts to persuade its reader. These elements are traditionally part of what is called a “close reading” of a text, where one is able to recognize and interpret the internal literary-rhetorical features and patterns in the text.

Intertexture: This texture designates a text’s representation of, reference to, and use of phenomena in the “world” outside the text being interpreted. Readers should be able to recognize and interpret a text’s citations, allusions, and reconfigurations of specific texts, events, language, objects, institutions, and other specific extra-textual contexts with which the text interacts.

Social and Cultural Texture: A text interacts, in a complex relationship, with society and culture, for example, by the way it views the world; by sharing in the general social and cultural attitudes, norms, and modes of interaction which are known by everyone in a society; and by establishing itself vis-à-vis the dominant cultural system as either sharing, rejecting, or transforming those attitudes, values, and dispositions at various levels.

Ideological Texture: Ideological texture is concerned with the particular alliances and conflicts nurtured and evoked by the language of the text and the language of the interpretation as well as the way the text itself and interpreters of the text position themselves in relation to other individuals and groups. Readers should be able to recognize and interpret the ideological point(s) of view a text evokes, advocates, and nurtures, as well as their own ideological point(s) of view as readers.

Sacred Texture: Sacred texture refers to the manner in which a text communicates insights into the relationship between the human and the divine. This texture includes aspects concerning deity, holy persons, spirit beings, divine history, human redemption, human commitment, religious community (e.g., ecclesiology), and ethics.[70]

The importance of Robbins’s socio-rhetorical analysis is that it is a comprehensive attempt to provide a programmatic model to establish and facilitate necessary dialogues among the very diverse scholars currently found within the guild of biblical studies.

Social-Scientific Approaches[71]

Social-scientific criticism is the analysis of the social and cultural dimensions of the text and its context through the utilization of the perspectives, theory, models, and research of the social sciences.[72] Many social and cultural elements found in ancient literature like the Bible are not usually self-evident to modern readers; these aspects therefore can be virtually incomprehensible without an understanding of the social and cultural processes that influence these texts.

In some respects, sociology and interest in social history have a long tradition in biblical studies. The works of Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch, and the “Chicago School” of Shirley Jackson Case and Shailer Matthews are but a few examples. Yet current social-scientific efforts arose independently of these influences, and, along with literary criticism, would challenge the foundations and assumptions of the historical-critical hegemony in biblical studies—even though social-scientific criticism is most often considered a component or refinement of historical-critical approaches.

Only during the last thirty years have biblical scholars rigorously attempted to engage the social sciences in order to present the theoretical and methodological foundations for more nuanced and interdisciplinary analyses of the Bible and its social contexts. Studies over these three decades can be loosely grouped into six categories.[73]

First, scholars describe social data in order to illustrate some aspect(s) of ancient society but do not attempt to analyze, synthesize, or explain these social facts in any social-scientific fashion (e.g., Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus).[74]

Second, other scholars take these interests a step further and integrate social, economic, and political aspects in order to construct a social history of a particular period or group. The emphasis, however, is on historical aspects; social theory and models are not generally utilized (e.g., Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism).[75]

Third, other studies deliberately include the use of social theory and models in order to investigate, for example, the social forces leading to the emergence of early Christianity and the formation of its institutions (e.g., Gerd Theissen, The Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity).[76]

Fourth, scholars interested in the social and cultural environment, especially aspects of cultural anthropology, have focused attention on the social and cultural scripts (or “codes”) that influence, guide, and constrain social interactions. The deliberate use of explicit theory and models of the social sciences is a necessary prerequisite of this approach (e.g., Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World).[77]

Fifth, the biblical texts themselves are interpreted through the explicit use of the research, theory, and models of the social sciences (e.g., John H. Elliott, A Home for the Homeless; noted above). As our knowledge of relevant social and cultural approaches becomes more advanced, our insights into the working and meaning of biblical narratives will continue to grow.

Sixth, in recent years scholars have begun to combine the insights of social-scientific criticism and other disciplines, such as literary criticism (e.g., David B. Gowler, Host, Guest, Enemy, and Friend).[78] A foundational element in this integration is the fact that readers produce meaning in their interactions with texts, but they only do so by (implicitly and/or explicitly) participating in a dialogical complex of socially-constructed practices and conversations with which texts and their readers inherently interact.

What modern readers discover is that these ancient texts represent social and cultural elements far removed from anything we have experienced; social and cultural elements that we can only (partially and tentatively) reconstruct through the social sciences; social and cultural elements that we can never fully understand.[79] Yet social-scientific criticism can begin to open our eyes to the world of, behind, within, and in front of these texts. It makes us better readers, not only because we begin to have a better understanding of the social and cultural aspects of the texts, but also because we begin to understand our own social and cultural contexts, as well as our own interpretive strategies as readers. Literary readings and social/cultural constructions are dialogically related; these apparently distinct disciplines are actually mutually interdependent.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The new approaches outlined briefly in this article certainly do present readers/interpreters of the Bible with a bewildering array of choices.

So what do we do? Do we bemoan this diversity of approaches as the demise of the discipline? For those people who choose this route, certainly the “confusion of languages” in the Babel story of Genesis 11 proves to be an apt analogy. On the other hand, should we instead celebrate this diversity as a rejection of the strait jacket of interpretation imposed by the dominant culture, as an openness to differing perspectives, or even as a more honest appraisal of the nature of biblical texts, their various contexts, and their readers? For those people who prefer this analysis, the analogy of the “tongues of fire” at Pentecost in Acts 2 is more appropriate.

In spite of the complexity and technical terminology of these approaches, biblical criticism, in some respects, is actively engaging concrete, practical matters. One critical influence from modern literary theory, for example, is the issue of an interpreter’s ethical responsibility. This responsibility, says the literary critic J. Hillis Miller, faces in two directions: There should be a responsive and responsible ethical moment in the act of reading. Secondly, however, there should be a responsibility that leads to action in social, political, and institutional realms. Interpreters have a responsibility to texts and authors, to students and colleagues, and to society at large.[80] As Mikhail Bakhtin noted, “I have to answer with my own life for what I have experienced and understood in art, so that everything I have experienced and understood would not remain ineffectual in my life.”[81]

If ethical responsibilities in reading texts and in responding to them in social action are addressed in secular literary criticism, how much more so should they be addressed in biblical studies? This issue has moved to the center of contemporary literary studies, and recent works in biblical studies increasingly reflect this emphasis as well.[82]

The best attempt, so far, to deal with the implications of these issues for the church and for Christian proclamation is Walter Brueggemann’s Texts Under Negotiation.[83] Brueggemann argues that the “objective certitude and settled hegemony” of the “old ways of knowing” are now contextual (what one knows depends on where one stands or sits), local (we voice local truth and propose that it pertains elsewhere), and pluralistic (knowledge is a cacophony of claims, each of which rings true to its advocates). Brueggemann concludes that the practice of Christian interpretation in preaching and liturgy is also contextual, local, and pluralistic: “We voice a claim that rings true in our context, that appears authoritatively to our lived life. But it is a claim that is made in a pluralism where it has no formal privilege.”[84]

Brueggemann, however, does not advocate an end to objectivity, but does endorse perspectivism: The world is perceived, processed, and articulated from a perspective that has the power to make sense of experienced life, even though it cannot be “proven” or absolutely established. This entails a shift from an objective claim of hegemony to a contextual, local perspective. This shift “accurately describes our pastoral situation. We may not like it, and folk may not acknowledge it, but it is so.”[85]

Brueggemann believes that this shift from hegemony to perspective is an enormous opportunity for Christian ministry and that the Bible is the “pivotal element” in this scenario. The role of the Bible is crucial in this enterprise because it is the “live word of God.”[86] The rest of the Brueggemann’s book then illustrates exactly what this approach means for our interpretation of biblical texts and how this approach can enact a “season of liminality” in which the Spirit may bring newness.

As we face our own decisions about which approach(es) we should utilize for interpreting biblical texts, the challenges are daunting, and the difficulties are many. Yet the rewards can be great. The value of this diversity of approaches lies in the fresh dialogues created with these ancient narratives and with each other. As readers of these texts and as members not only of the church but of the human community, we have an ethical responsibility to encourage more open discussions, not to establish or perpetuate limiting boundaries and limited agendas. There is inescapable involvement with a myriad of voices, ones similar to us, as well as ones from much different perspectives. May the polyphonic dialogues continue, because the biblical texts—and the world around us—urgently request these dialogues.