Learning the skill of close reading in order to interpret texts has always been at the heart of the Gutenberg College curriculum. Prior to Gutenberg opening in 1994, the teachers who became some of Gutenberg’s first tutors ran a graduate-level biblical exegesis program, and the experience they gained from operating the exegesis program helped them design the Gutenberg College curriculum. They had observed that few of the students who came to the exegesis program were prepared to do it. I know because I was one of the students. When I began the Biblical Exegesis Program, I had finished all but my dissertation for a Ph.D. in science, but I could only read scientific papers and textbooks. Eventually, though, I helped found Gutenberg College.
When we started to think about the college, we asked ourselves this question: What would an undergraduate-level program that prepared its students to do the exegesis program look like? In the final design of Gutenberg’s curriculum, the driving question became this: What are the major elements that prepare a student to live a good life? Part of the answer to both questions was building skills that would not only prepare the students for their choice of a career but also prepare them to live a good life.
We then began developing our curriculum by asking, “What is necessary for developing the skill of reading?” (As Christians, we were particularly interested in becoming better readers of the Bible.) We landed on a “Great Books” curriculum—a curriculum well suited to learning to read difficult texts by investigating the major works that created and comprise our culture.
In this article, I discuss learning the skill of reading well as it relates to learning to interpret well. I cannot just tell you how to read so that you simply understand and instantly become proficient because, like all skills, reading well can only be learned by doing. (Think of the skills involved in music, sports, or any pursuit—they can only be learned by doing, not by lecture.) The best I can do is to point toward the process of acquiring the skill. In the last part of this article, I will give an example of interpreting a biblical text to illustrate the importance of close reading to the art of interpretation.
Learning to Read Well
At Gutenberg, our objective for learning the skill of reading has always been to understand the intent of the authors we are reading. During the first two years of the Gutenberg curriculum, therefore, we focus on developing the skills necessary to understanding an author’s meaning (intent) in complex texts. Students take two years of Microexegesis (interpretation), in which they read together, line-by-line, selections from primary texts, including Aristotle, the New Testament, and poetry; they learn Classical Greek, which gives them experience with an ancient language and grammatical categories; and in Western Civilization, they practice reading and discussing excerpts from many primary texts while also gaining an understanding of the flow of history from ancient time to the modern world. (Classes on science, math, writing, and the arts round out the curriculum.)
During their last two years, students continue Microexegesis by reading Kierkegaard and studying biblical hermeneutics; they continue their language study with German, a modern language; and they read longer, complex texts and make critical judgments about them. They enter what we call “the Great Conversation”—that is, the long dialog concerning the major questions in life: Is there a God? Who is man? What does it mean to live a good life? The goal of the project is to take all the “parts” they have understood from the authors they have read and then construct a coherent worldview. (At Gutenberg, we believe that both knowledge and understanding one’s worldview are prerequisites for wisdom.) The curriculum takes advantage of the fact that students’ minds are now at a point in their education where they can begin to make critical judgments about complex issues, which is the last stage of mental development and a necessity for the end goal of learning to read well: interpreting meaning.
The Art of Interpretation
Interpreting written texts is a complex art. The “meaning” of a text consists of a number of parts woven into a whole. The meaning of a word or phrase is determined by its relationship to the whole. For example, suppose I say, “That is a strike, and it is good.” Is this sentence true or false? The sentence has no meaning without the context (the whole). I might be speaking about bowling, baseball, or a labor strike. In the case of baseball, I might be talking from the perspective of the pitcher or the batter. The context is necessary for the sentence to have any meaning. The process is made more complex by the fact that we start by reading the words (parts), but we must perceive the meaning of the whole before we can determine the meaning of the part. When we interpret, we move back and forth between the parts (words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, sections or chapters) to what we think is the whole (ultimately, the author’s intended meaning in the completed text) until all the parts fit together coherently. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.
The process is even more complicated than a jigsaw puzzle, however, because we do not interpret in a vacuum. We start with our current worldview—that is, all our beliefs that we think are true. Our worldview functions as a lens, and through it we “see” what we expect to see. One of my favorite examples of the role of our worldview relates to perception. Imagine that you are in Yellowstone National Park on a bright, warm summer day. Suddenly you see one of those massive thunderstorms that only the Rockies can produce coming over the ridge on the horizon. The lightning is continuous. You mention to the people with you that lightning can go from the ground to the air as well as from the air to the ground. For the first time, some people will see the lightning going from the ground to the air. They had never seen it because they had not considered that possibility. They could only “see” what they expected to see. It is the same with interpreting texts.
Because our worldview is powerful, sentences in a text or verses in the Bible “mean” what we expect them to mean. Often when I am talking with someone about the meaning of a verse or a passage, they will respond that my interpretation is not the “natural” reading of the passage. What they mean is that my interpretation does not conform to their worldview.
It is not wrong that we use our worldview to help us understand a text; it is an important element of how we know. It is conservative and a good thing. We do not suddenly reject everything we know just because we see we were wrong about something. If we did that, we would learn little over time. On the other hand, if we become dogmatic and are not open to the possibility that we are wrong, our worldview becomes static, and we will not gain knowledge and understanding.
If we are to become skilled interpreters, then, we need to hone our skill in recognizing when our worldview is not the same as the author’s. This skill is one of the most important to learn. We do this by recognizing clues that resist our worldview-grounded interpretation. We acknowledge when some part of a text does not fit coherently into our understanding of the whole—when, perhaps, the whole (the author’s intent) is not what we were expecting it to be. Learning this skill takes a great deal of discipline and humility.
Once we recognize that some part we are reading or hearing is resisting our interpretation, we need to explore what else the part could mean. We need to understand one or more parts in a new way and create a new whole. We begin a process called abductive reasoning—that is, we try to explain the set of facts (parts) by the most reasonable narrative that brings all the parts together into a whole. A good example of this process occurs in a court of law. Each side in a court case tries to explain the facts of the case in a narrative. The jury is asked to judge which narrative explains the facts the best. But while a court case ends there, the interpretive process does not.
The final stage in the interpretive process is to fit all the smaller parts together—from words to sentences; sentences to paragraphs; paragraphs to chapters, and so forth—into a coherent whole: the meaning the author intended in the complete text. This is the ultimate goal of interpretation. While the goal may not be perfectly achievable, the closer we can get to an author’s intended meaning, the better we will have “read” the text.
An Example of the Interpretive Process
The interpretive process may seem daunting in the abstract, but let me illustrate it in “real life” with an example from my own study of the Bible that emphasizes resistance to my original interpretation and the abductive reasoning I used to consider an alternative interpretation. The example is from the first seven verses of Hebrews, a small part of the book. In this article, I cannot complete the final interpretive step of showing how all the parts fit into the whole meaning of the book, but I hope to show enough to illustrate how the process of interpretation works.
First let me note, though, that the existence of many denominations and different interpretations illustrates that the Bible is a difficult text to understand. The problem is two-fold. First, the authors are separated from us by culture (including language) and time. And, second, we start with the belief that our current understanding of the text is right—that is, we believe our worldview (and thus our doctrine) is true. We find it difficult to consider that our worldview might be wrong. Gutenberg College does not teach doctrine. Following in the steps of the Biblical Exegesis Program, we believe that interpreting a text should come before deriving doctrine because if we start with our doctrine (worldview) and impose it on the text, we may miss the author’s meaning. Assuming our doctrine is true makes it very difficult to notice when a text is resisting our worldview.
Now let us look at my example from studying the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is written to Jews, and I presume that the author is the Apostle Paul, who is trying to exhort the Jews not to lose faith that Jesus is the promised Messiah even though Jesus died. It begins:
1Long ago, in many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the authority over all things, the one [appointed] throughout all time, as God created the ages (history). 3Who being the radiance of the glory of God and the imprint of his nature, and upholding all of his [Jesus’] authoritative words, and having made the purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is greater than theirs. 5For to which angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you? And again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”? 6And again, when he brings the firstborn into the Roman world, it says, “Let all God’s angels fall down to worship him.” 7And indeed to the angels it says, “He makes winds his angels and flames of fire his ministers.” [Translation mine from the Greek New Testament (Tischendorf). Bold mine]
In the first seven verses, Paul is stating that God spoke through prophets in ancient times, but in the last days he spoke through the Son—that is, the Messiah. In the rest of the passage, Paul is contrasting the Son with angels and arguing that the Son is greater than angels. Verses 5-7 are quotes from the Psalms and II Samuel.
The Greek word translated as “angel” is angelos, and it is usually translated as “messenger” or “angel.” Given my understanding of what “angels” are, however, questions immediately come to mind—that is, the passage resists my initial interpretation. Why does Paul begin by claiming that the Son is greater than the angels? What would Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah be thinking? Since the major point of Hebrews is to encourage these Jews to continue believing that Jesus is the Messiah and not to lose heart, the Jews must somehow be thinking that angels are “higher” than the Son. But why would they be thinking that? What turns on that point?
And something else seems odd. Hebrews 1:7 is a quote from Psalms 103:4 in the Septuagint (104:4 in the Hebrew Bible) where David is claiming that God makes winds “his messengers” and flaming fire his ministers. The verse is not describing angels as we commonly think about them. Several other passages might shed light on the subject, but I think the most relevant one is Exodus 3:1-6:
1And Moses was shepherding Jethro’s sheep. (Jethro was his father-in-law and the priest of Midian). And he brought the sheep from the wilderness, and he came to the mountain of Horeb. 2And an angel of the Lord was being seen by him in a flame of fire from the thorn bush, and he (Moses) was seeing that the bush was burning by fire but the bush was not being consumed. 3And Moses said, “Passing by, I shall look at this great thing—because why the bush is the bush not being consumed.” 4As the Lord saw that it was bringing (him) to see, the Lord called him from the bush saying, “Moses, Moses.” And he (Moses) said, “Who is it?” 5And he (God) said, “Do not come near here. Remove the sandals from your feet. For the place on which you have been standing is holy ground.” 6And he (God) said to him, “I am the God of your fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.” And Moses turned his face away. For he was acting reverently, looking down, before God.” [Translation mine from the Septuagint]
This passage is very illuminating. Moses saw an “angel” of the Lord. This is our Greek word angelos. In this case, the angelos is a burning bush that is not consumed. The voice calling from the burning bush identifies himself as the God of Moses’ fathers. This is a special case of a “messenger,” who is the transcendent God himself represented in the created order in a particular form—a form that only lasts during the period of the interaction and then is gone. This special case is called a “theophany.” Throughout the Bible, God Himself shows up in a variety of forms: for example, the pillars of clouds and fire, one of three men with whom Abraham meets, and Jacob’s wrestling partner. A theophany, then, is an option for angelos.
However, are theophanies a viable option for the “angels” in Hebrews? Will this understanding resolve the “resistance” in the Hebrews passage? It has the potential to do so. At first, I could not see why Jews would be thinking that angels or messengers were more important than the Messiah. However, the idea that a theophany might be more important than the Son seems more viable than an angel being more important. If the Jews were enduring hardships because they believed that Jesus was the Messiah and yet he died, perhaps they began to think that it made more sense that the Messiah would be a theophany. The coming of the Messiah would be the coming of God himself to rule over them. That seemed more in line with their expectations for the Messiah. The possibility that Paul, in the first couple of chapters of Hebrews, is arguing that the Son is more important than a “theophany” makes more sense than the Son being more important than “angels.” While a theophany is an embodiment of God Himself, its role is to last only as long as it is needed for its special purpose. The Son, on the other hand, is the imprint of God’s nature (Hebrews 1:3), and He has authority throughout the ages—unlike theophanies that are ephemeral. So, understanding that “theophanies” is the intended meaning of “angels” in Hebrews seems like a more plausible option for what Paul means when he says that Jesus is more important than angels.
This illustration provides an example of identifying resistance to an interpretation and proposing a new interpretation for a part (the word angelos) that might make more sense of the whole. These are critical skills to develop in order for an interpretation to capture the meaning of the text—that is, the author’s intent. Modeling these skills—beginning with the skill of close reading—has been a cornerstone of Gutenberg’s curriculum for over thirty years because we know that these skills will serve our students well in all aspects of their lives.
This article first appeared in the Winter 20235 issue of Colloquy, Gutenberg College’s free quarterly newsletter. Subscribe here.
