The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Bible, biblical literature S 53

Compare “a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law” (Romans 3.28) with “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2.24). From ancient times, Jews and Christians have developed other means of interpreting the Bible. They sometimes call this interpretation exegesis, which means “reading out of” the texts. Some dis tinguish exegesis from eisegesis. This very obscure word means “reading into” the texts. Traditional Jewish Interpretations In Jewish tradition God did not just reveal himself to his people through written words. He also did so orally, in the form of traditions handed down from generation to generation. Judaism has traditionally held that worshippers need this “oral Torah” to make sense of the written Torah. For example, the written Torah says to keep the Sabbath holy, but what does that mean? The oral Torah answers that question. For example, it tells what kinds of things one can and cannot do on the Sabbath. Accord ing to tradition, oral Torah began with Moses, the first rabbi, and continued through rabbinical discussions. Today the oral Torah is found in the T ALMUD . In antiquity and the Middle Ages, Jews interpreted the Bible in other ways, too. Many ancient interpreters favored a kind of interpreta tion known as allegory. They thought that biblical stories such as the Tower of Babel may not have been literally true but were told to make some point. Other interpreters favored the literal mean ing. In the Middle Ages some of them wrote com mentaries on parts of the Bible, explaining what the text actually said. An important example is the commentary on Torah by a writer known as Rashi (1040–1105). The approach of Moses Mai monides (d. 1204) was different. A philosopher, he believed that God was one and incorporeal, that is, had no body. His famous Guide of the Perplexed demonstrated that, although the Bible speaks of God as having body parts such as a face and arms, he actually has neither. Thinkers in the tradition of K ABBALAH took yet a different approach. They found hidden, mystical teachings

had been lost and forgotten. Two discoveries from the 1940s have become particularly famous. The D EAD S EA S CROLLS , discovered in 1948 in jars hid den in caves, contained biblical texts from the sec ond and first centuries B . C . E . They also contained writings specific to the community that produced the manuscripts. The Nag Hammadi Codices, dis covered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, contain many writings in the Coptic language, especially in the tradition of G NOSTICISM . ( Codices means books.) Among them was a complete copy of the ancient Gospel of T HOMAS . In modern times scholars have gathered 52 writings left out of the Bible into a collection that they call the Pseudepigrapha. It includes several apocalypses, books of wisdom literature, psalms and prayers, books that expand on biblical stories, and a set of books called testaments, such as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. Unlike the Old and New Testaments, these testaments are actually individual books. Other modern collections, less standardized but no less interesting, gather all that remains of the various gospels outside the New Testament. Jews and Christians do not recognize these texts as authoritative. Nevertheless, they are very important. They also help us understand much better the religion of Second Temple J UDAISM (from 538 B . C . E . to 70 C . E .) and early Christianity. They help us understand the processes that led the books of the Bible to be written, standardized, and accepted into the canon. Finally, they help us identify and appreciate the distinctive themes of biblical books. INTERPRETING THE BIBLE Many people use the Bible as a source of “proof texts.” That is, they want to demonstrate a point, so they look for a sentence that makes the point and quote it. Members of other religious com munities, such as B UDDHISM , often approach their religious texts in the same way. One problem with this method is that it takes quotations out of con text. Another is that it usually depends uncriti cally upon a translation of the text. A third is that people can use it to prove contradictory positions.