The history of biblical interpretation—a tale of two cities

Submitted by Andrew Perriman on

The history of biblical interpretation is a tale of two cities—not London and Paris (Dickens), or even Jerusalem and Athens (Tertullian), but Alexandria and Antioch. In the third and fourth centuries Alexandria stood for an allegorizing approach to interpretation that sought to maximize the theological payload of a sacred text. Antioch stood for a more constrained approach that was more concerned to uncover the original historical meaning of the text than to exploit it to meet the theological needs and prejudices of the later reading community. The chart shows very roughly how this division has persisted right through the history of interpretation—indeed, it is arguably the defining feature of the history of interpretation. If anyone wants to suggest significant corrections or additions to it, please let me know.

Read time: 4 minutes

A hymn of praise to the anti-Caesar

Submitted by Andrew Perriman on

This is a much debated passage, a good part of the discussion having to do with the question of whether it reflects a “high christology”. Is Jesus presented here as a preexisting divine figure who becomes incarnate as man, who dies (for the sins of the world), and who then is re-identified with the divine kyrios? The part about preexistence and incarnation I have my doubts about, though I wouldn’t rule it out—it appears to rely far too heavily on the single phrase “being in the form of God”. The climactic identification of Jesus as kyrios is clear.

But the standard high christological or incarnational reading in most cases completely misses the Jewish-narrative-historical-eschatological-whatever import of the passage. In other words, Philippians 2:6-11 is not another iteration of the evangelical divine redeemer myth; rather it speaks of the significance of Jesus in the historical clash between YHWH and ancient paganism. To recover this perspective we simply need to suppose that Paul, or whoever wrote this extraordinary hymn to the anti-Caesar, was thinking both biblically and contextually.

Read time: 6 minutes

Modern evangelicalism is the new Gnosticism... well, sort of

Submitted by Andrew Perriman on

I have long harboured the suspicion that in certain respects, in certain habits of thought, modern evangelicalism has more in common with second century Gnosticism than with first century Christianity. I accept that the analogy is impressionistic and cannot be pushed very far, but I still think that there is something in the view that modern evangelicalism operates with a core a-historical redeemer myth not so different from Gnostic redeemer myths: the redeemer descends into the world to rescue people from their sins and, in the end, transport them to their true home in heaven. This mythicized narrative controls much of the language of evangelical piety, worship, evangelism, and popular theology. It barely makes contact with the biblical narrative of a historically situated people.

Read time: 3 minutes

Election, A radical New Perspective on

Submitted by Andrew Perriman on

Calvinism is right to highlight the biblical rhetoric of election, foreknowledge and predetermination. It is wrong, however, in its understanding of the narrative in which that rhetoric is deployed; it is wrong about the purpose of election.

Reformed orthodoxy claims that election is an absolute premise of personal salvation. John Piper, for example, writes:

Election refers to God’s choosing whom to save. It is unconditional in that there is no condition man must meet before God chooses to save him. Man is dead in trespasses and sins. So there is no condition he can meet before God chooses to save him from his deadness.

We are not saying that final salvation is unconditional. It is not. We must meet the condition of faith in Christ in order to inherit eternal life. But faith is not a condition for election. Just the reverse. Election is a condition for faith. It is because God chose us before the foundation of the world that he purchases our redemption at the cross and quickens us with irresistible grace and brings us to faith.

Read time: 6 minutes

Election and the martyr church

Submitted by Andrew Perriman on

Context is everything. Take Paul’s highly rhetorical statement out of context, separate it from friends and family, subject it to solitary confinement throughout long periods of cultural change, beat it about the head a bit, interrogate it mercilessly from behind the blinding light of a rationalist individualism, and you could probably get it to sign a confession that it is a longstanding supporter of the Calvinist doctrine of the election of a limited number of predetermined individuals to salvation. But before it was so dreadfully abused by the theological mukhabarat, it was a happily law-abiding member of an argument, and I suggest that our humanitarian task now is to rehabilitate it.

Read time: 5 minutes

The election of Gentiles

Submitted by Andrew Perriman on

The story of what happened in Pisidian Antioch is well known (Acts 13:13-52). Paul and Barnabas are invited to speak in the synagogue. Paul relates how God chose their fathers, brought them out of Egypt, suffered their folly in the wilderness for forty years, destroyed the “seven nations in the land of Canaan”, gave them that land as an inheritance, raised up David as a king, from whose descendants he has finally “brought to Israel a Saviour, Jesus, as he promised” (13:17-23). The rulers and residents of Jerusalem rejected this saviour and had him executed, but God raised him from the dead, which Paul understands as a fulfilment of Psalm 2:7—meaning that God has given to Jesus, as Israel’s king, not the land of Canaan but the nations as his inheritance (Ps. 2:8).

Read time: 7 minutes