How Should We Hermeneutic?

In the Evangelical branch of the Christian community, we have been taught that the right way, the proper way to interpret a passage of scripture is to attempt to understand it in its historical-grammatical context. We are to put aside (as best we can) our own worldview and attempt to find the author’s original intent.  We are to ask ‘what did the author write?’ and ‘what did the author mean?’ before we even begin answering the question ‘what does it mean to me?’ Observation and interpretation before application.

And I appreciate this method. It is an attempt to be objective in our exegesis. It is an attempt to favor exegesis over eisegesis. Properly followed it would keep us from wild interpretive flights of fancy and from reading our own issues backwards into the sacred texts.

But this is not the way that our biblical predecessors worked; this was not their hermeneutic.

I’ve been reading from Luke 20: 27 – 38[i] this week, in preparation for Sunday’s sermon – the story of Jesus’ singular encounter with the enigmatic Sadducees in Luke’s gospel – and thinking about the question of hermeneutics. How should we hermeneutic? How should we interpret the scriptures?

In the story we are told that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. And this is, apparently, all that we need to know about them for the story to play out. In fact we know little about them at all – and what little we do know comes from sources that were biased against them.

In addition to their denial of the resurrection, one of the things that is commonly said of the Sadducees is that rejected everything except the Pentateuch. The Jewish historian Josephus said that they observed nothing apart from the Law. “But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: that souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of anything besides what the law enjoins them…” and “…the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers…” (Antiquities of the Jews 18.17 and 13.297)

This should not be read to mean that they kept only the Torah and rejected the Writings and the Prophets. It may mean only that they elevated the authority of the Torah over the other books of Hebrew scripture (which had not yet been firmly established. It may be “that at a time when the Jewish canon was still in flux, the best ‘ground rules’ for a dispute among the Jews who differed in their theological outlook were for both sides to draw their scriptural citations and their arguments from the universally revered written Torah of Moses” (Meier 420).

When the Sadducees approached Jesus that day with a question about the resurrection, it wasn’t specifically an attack on Jesus or his followers (though as a group that denied the resurrection, this certainly set them in opposition to the Christian audience reading the gospels.) They came to him with one of the theological questions of the day.

It was, of course, a trick question, a question designed to make the idea of a physical resurrection of the dead (and anyone who held that belief) look as foolish as possible. Their question revolved around the hypothetical ridiculousness of the system “Levirate”marriage. They took the situation and stretched it to what they felt were absurd, ludicrous conclusions: Polyandry is ludicrous – Resurrection will lead to polyandry - Therefore resurrection is ludicrous.

Jesus answers in two parts – first to side-step their trick question. He nullified their ridiculous conclusion by showing that they really didn’t understand the concept that they were trying to refute. There won’t be any need for marriage in the resurrection because the resurrected will be immortal and there won’t be the need for procreation to create children to carry on one’s name.

Then, secondly, Jesus attempts to prove the resurrection to the Sadducees by citing one of the texts that he knows they can both accept as authoritative (Exodus 3:6), but it is his interpretive hermeneutic that is under question here.

There is little in the Old Testament that speaks about a resurrection. The idea of a resurrection of the dead “does not appear except in texts that are rare, obscure with regard to their precise meaning, and late” (Martin-Achard 680). In the Old Testament there is no concept of resurrection, life after death, or rewards or punishments in the afterlife. In the Old Testament, the dead, all of them –the good, the bad, and the ugly, go to the grave, the pit, to sheol. And that’s it.

The origins of Jewish belief in a resurrection after death are unclear (Nickelsburg 685). But by the time of Jesus, many (but not all) Jews accepted the idea of a life after death. The Sadducees did not accept this theological point, and thus the debate we have recorded in the gospels. 

The text that Jesus chose to use as a defense of the resurrection, if we are following our historical-grammatical method, says absolutely nothing about resurrection.  “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6 NRSV) You can pull it apart, you can examine the verse in the larger context of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush, you can parse the words and phrases of the text, but you won’t find any clear, authorial intent to describe, define, or defend the resurrection in Exodus 3:6.

Jesus was not interpreting the scriptures the right and proper way – not the way that we have been taught to do it.  Jesus (along with the Jewish rabbis) started from a different point and followed a different set of interpretive rules and guidelines. Jesus started with his community of faith, a community “that already held to belief in the resurrection. Already confident that God does in fact raise the dead and that he had revealed this truth to Israel in the Scriptures, [they] readily found clues and intimations of resurrection in texts whose literal sense has nothing to do with the subject” (Meier 426).

So how should we hermeneutic? Should we be objective and neutral? Should we favor exegesis over eisegesis? Or is interpretation more fluid? Should we look for support of theological concepts we believe in texts that may not apply in the plain sense to those concepts?

Martin-Achard, Robert. “Resurrection (OT)” The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume 5. New York. NY: Doubleday. 1992. Print.

Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew Volume 3: Companions and Competitors. New York, NY: Doubleday. 2001. Print.

Nickelsburg, George W. E. “Resurrection (Early Judaism and Christianity)” The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume 5. New York, NY: Doubleday. 1992. Print.

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[i] The story is also in Mark 12: 18 – 27 and Matthew 22: 23 – 32.

Biblical Limericks: Polyandry Is just Ludicrous

The Sadducees come with a question,
one to force Jesus’ accession,
but it won’t work unless
polyandry is less
believable than resurrection.

Luke 20: 27 – 38

There is no polyandry in the bible...

Faith in the Face of Empire: Four Questions

Soon, in just a few days, people around the world will be celebrating the Passover – most of them Jewish, but among them will be not a small number of Christians as well. During the Seder (“order”) four questions will be asked and answered.  They are asked and answered every year; they are part of the story, part of the telling.  They are part of the way that the story is communicated from generation to generation.  They are questions that lead to freedom.

In chapter six (“The People of Palestine”) of his book Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes[i], Mitri Raheb asks four existential questions of his own, questions that he hopes will help lead to freedom for the Palestinian people.

1- Where Are You, God?  This is an old, old question; “a three-thousand-year-old lament that the inhabitants of Palestine have passed from one generation to the next (Raheb, 68).”  And it is a question asked repeatedly throughout the pages of scripture.  It’s not that they doubt his existence, or his love, but…

 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

    How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain[a] in my soul,

    and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
(Psalm 13:  1 – 2 – NRSV)

Raheb makes a rather striking declaration – “throughout the Bible, with the exception of the Exodus, the God in whom the people of Palestine put their faith appears to be silent (Raheb, 69).”

My friend Tim and I have been talking about this very thing today.  He has a sense of Geborgenheit in God.  Warmth.  Security. Closeness.  But this is not everyone’s experience with God.  And does not appear to be the experience of the Palestinian people.  God may have heard, and may have been moved by the cries of his people as they suffered in slavery under the Egyptians, but the cries of the Palestinians under the successive waves of crushing empires has not moved him to effect their release.

2 – Who Is My Neighbor? Another familiar question.  The Bible can be read as a collection of narratives about the land, the peoples, and identities.  The whole of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament is a struggle toward a national identity.  The New Testament flips this head over heels and “instead of identifying with one people over and against the others, which is the traditional way of forming one’s identity, it calls people to reflect on the entire process of identification as misleading (Raheb, 72).”

But in Palestine, this is not just a question of learning to accept outsiders, foreigners and one’s enemies as neighbors; it is also a question of how to relate with one’s own people.  Empires have a long history of playing various occupied groups against each other.  It’s an effective way to suppress resistance. “The siege that Israel imposes on Gaza aims at developing two diverse and unrelated identities, one in the West Bank, the other in the Gaza Strip.   The stronger these identities develop in isolation from one another, the less likely it is for their people to unite (Raheb, 73).”

3 – What is the Way to Liberation? What is the best – most effective, moral way to achieve a free and independent state? There is no real consensus on this issue.  And there has never been.  Throughout Palestine’s long history of occupation there has never been a universally accepted answer to this question.  And here Raheb identifies five patterns drawn from the New Testament that are still being used in Palestine today.

A – Fighting Back – like the zealots.  Every now and again the occupation has become too oppressive, too brutal, too insulting and some (never all) of the people have taken up arms against their oppressors.  These Intifadas (“uprisings”) are usually brief – three to five years – “That seems to be the length of time or capacity of the people of Palestine for enduring direct military confrontation. The longer an Intifada continues, the more it becomes a liability for the population (Raheb, 75).”

B – Observing the Law – like the Pharisees.  In this mindset the best way to achieve liberation is to commit oneself to fully obeying God’s law.  The occupation is not the result of God turning away from us, but of us turning away from God.  And the best way to ensure our release is to ensure that everyone obeys the laws of God (as we understand them).  The Pharisees of the time of Jesus were not rigid, power hunger, religious hypocrites; they were sincere followers of God who believed that the best (and only) way to live was in complete adherence to God’s law.  This understanding is comforting in several ways – it is observable and quantifiable. You can see the results of people following the laws.  And it preserves the goodness of God. God’s (apparent) silence is not evidence of God’s lack of concern or powerlessness – it is the result of our rebellion.

This pattern is found today in the political manifesto of Hamas [Islamic Resistance Movement] (Raheb, 77).”   “The group who is promoting the law today as the solution to the Palestinian problem is Hamas.  The Arabic word for law is sharia.   For Hamas, as part of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, sharia is the way to true liberation.  The fact that Hamas has been engaged in fighting Israel since 1988 should not make us think that this group belongs to the zealots.  On the contrary, in all Muslim Brotherhood writings, the main focus is on having divine law control peoples’ daily lives.  Their main fight is not with the empire, but with their own people who have forgotten their religious identity (Raheb, 78).”

C – Accommodation - like the Sadducees, walking the tightrope between God’s will and the emperor’s (Raheb, 79).  Some try to work within the system of power. Trying to please the people and keep the rulers happy. 

D – Collaboration – like the New Testament tax (toll) collectors.  “In today’s Palestine these are the subcontractors who distribute Israeli products to the Palestinian markets, who bid on contracts in Israeli settlements, or who collaborate by providing information on people and organizations.  This group wants to exploit the empire by helping to exploit its own people.  For this group, the empire is good business.  Why fight for liberation?  Long live the empire (Raheb, 80)!”

E – Retreat [ii]- like the Qumranites.  Those that hold this attitude believes that that there is no hope.  No chance. And it doesn’t matter anyway since the world is about to collapse.  They retreat into self enclosed community to wait for the inevitable end.   Then they will reemerge to reestablish the old ways and the pure laws.  Raheb identifies the Muslim Salfists and some conservative Christian free churches as contemporary examples of this pattern; “disillusioned and disinterested in politics, they maintain a faithful watch preparing for the great battle against the evil of the present (Raheb 81).”

4 – When Will We Have a State? -   Raheb relates this question back to questions in the Hebrew Bible /Old Testament (1 Samuel 8:20) and the Christian New Testament (Acts 1:6).  But, for Raheb, the question isn’t enough.  “Liberation is not an end to itself (Raheb, 82).”  It is not enough to “be like all the other nations.” It is not enough to “restore the kingdom.”  The goal must be a free and independent state.  Liberation from the control of the empire will leave a power vacuum that will inevitably be filled. 

And even this may not be enough.  “If Israelis and Palestinians are frank with themselves, they need to admit that the state project they’ve respectively worked so hard to achieve for the last sixty or so years has failed.  Israel developed an apartheid system, and the Palestinian mini-state in Gaza or the Palestinian “holes in the cheese” of the West Bank are not the dream for which people fought.  Yet, both peoples are still unable and / or unwilling to admit that hard and painful truth and begin looking for new models of coexistence (Raheb, 84).”

Previous Chapters 

Chapter 1 – Longview of History 

Chapter 2 – Dispelling the Myth of Judeo-Christian Tradition 

Chapter 3 – The Geo-Politics of the Middle East 

Chapter 4 – Omphaloskepsis  

Chapter 5 -  Seven Marks of the Empire 

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[i] Raheb, Mitri, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 2014.

[ii] In the book this is “Retrieval” (page 80) – but I wonder if it’s not a mistake.  

The Sadducees Were the First Rush Fans

We know very little for certain about the Sadducees – one of the three prominent religious groups among the Jewish people at the time of Jesus – and most of what we know about them comes from people who opposed them (so we have to read it with a cautious eye...). 

But the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus tells us that they rejected the concept of fate, opting instead for free-will. “And as for the Sadducees, they exclude fate and say that there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal. But they suppose that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are ourselves the cause of what is good, and we suffer what is evil as a result of our own folly.”  (Antiquities XIII, 173)

And in the New Testament (Acts 23: 8) we discover the idea that the Sadducees rejected the concept of angels (and presumably demons as well).

Based on that I believe that the Sadducees were, in fact, the first Rush fans.




There are those who think that life is nothing left to chance,

A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.

A planet of playthings,

We dance on the strings

Of powers we cannot perceive.

"The stars aren't aligned

Or the gods are malign"-

Blame is better to give than receive.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;

I will choose a path that's clear-

I will choose Free Will.

There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,

The cards were stacked against them- they weren't born in lotus-land.

All preordained-

A prisoner in chains-

A victim of venomous fate.

Kicked in the face,

You can't pray for a place

In heaven's unearthly estate.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;

I will choose a path that's clear-

I will choose Free Will.

Each of us-

A cell of awareness-

Imperfect and incomplete.

Genetic blends

With uncertain ends

On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.

They Were Not the Liberals

I frequently hear the Sadducees of the New Testament described as the “liberals of Jesus’ day.”  Maybe it’s because conservatives grow tired of being compared to the “legalistic” Pharisees, and want a way to strike back.  Jesus had harsh words for the Sadducees too, and if they can get a jab in at the liberal/progressive/socialists, it’s all well and good.   Here are two descriptions of the Sadducees that I pulled from a very quick search on the internet, illustrative of the kind of attitude many today have toward the Sadducees described in the New Testament.

The Sadducees were the liberals of Jesus' day. Most of the priests were Sadducees. They were of the elite class of the day. They often applied Hellenism to their lives. Sadducees didn't believe in an afterlife, didn't believe in a resurrection, and didn't believe in the existence of angels.  

The Sadducees were the secular branch of Judaism.  They did not believe in a resurrection or an afterlife; they were the closest things to secular humanists or atheists in their day.  And thanks to the Romans the Sadducees largely controlled the lucrative Temple and the money and political clout that went along with it.

Or maybe you’ve heard the children’s song, “I Just Wanna Be a Sheep”[i] which includes the verse:

Don't wanna be a Sadducee
Don't wanna be a Sadducee

'Cause they're so sad you see

Don't wanna be a Sadducee

But it’s not a very accurate comparison.  It is true that they rejected a belief in the afterlife and in angels and demons – but they didn’t reject these because they were “liberals.”  In fact, we might be more accurate in saying that they were the more conservative[ii] of the leading Jewish parties – as they opposed the relatively recent theological innovations and additions of the Pharisees.  They drew their faith from the Torah, the books of Moses, and rejected the ‘oral law’ additions created by the pharisaical rabbis.  The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that they also rejected a fatalistic attitude, and believed that humans have free will to do good or to do evil.  They weren’t necessarily more (or less) Hellenistic (influenced by Greek culture) than other Jewish groups.  And it’s certainly not at all true to say that they were the “secular branch of Judaism.” 

We know relatively little about the historical Sadducees – and the bulk of that comes from the writings of people who disliked and opposed them, so we have to read it with a cautious eye.  The Sadducees came into existence as a political / theological force during the time of the Maccabees -about the same time as the Pharisees.  But where the Pharisees were largely from low and middle class (terms that don’t necessarily mean the same today as they meant then…) and from rural areas, the Sadducees were aristocratic, wealthy land owners, and associated with the priests and Temple in Jerusalem.  They seem to have dropped out of existence with the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.

If you’ll look back through the book of Luke, you’ll see that we’ve only just now encountered the Sadducees – after Jesus has entered Jerusalem.  Thus far he’s spent most of his time in Galilee – where he would have encountered the Pharisees, and thus far his major opponents have been the Pharisees.  But now that he’s finally reached Jerusalem (after a 10 chapter journey – Luke 9: 51 – 19: 41) and now that he’s intruded into the territory of the Sadducees (his clearing out of the Temple would certainly have attracted their notice and their ire) we will begin seeing the Sadducees more frequently and the Pharisees less so… (Though, this is working from the assumption that the phrase “teachers of the law and chief priests” is meant to indicate the Sadducees.  If that’s not the case then we only see them only this one time in Luke 20: 27 - 38.)[iii]

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[i] Words and Music – Brian M. Howard - http://www.butterflysong.com/index.cfm?pageID=32

[ii] Keeping in mind, of course, the words “conservative” and “liberal” are relative…

[iii] Matthew has the Pharisees and Sadducees linked much closer and appearing together throughout his gospel.  Mark has them only in this one story as well, and they do not appear at all in John’s gospel.