Jowett and 'Original Meaning'

8/9/2019 Jowett and 'Original Meaning'

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Jowett and the 'Original Meaning' of ScriptureAuthor(s): James BarrReviewed work(s):Source: Religious Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Dec. 1982), pp. 433-437Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20005882.

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2/6

Rel. Stud. I8, pp-

433-437

JAMES

BARR

RegiusProfessor f Hebrew,

The Oriental

Institute, xford

JOWETT AND

THE

'ORIGINAL

MEANING'

OF

SCRIPTURE1

To read the Bible 'like any

other

book':

that

is

one

of

the

striking phrases

in Benjamin Jowett's sprawling essay -it is over iOOpages long - 'On the

Interpretation of

Scripture'

in

Essays

and

Reviews

(

i

86o; cf.

pp.

338, 375, 377,

404

of

that

edition,

which

is

quoted

without

further

reference throughout

this

article). Another

memorable

phrase

concerned

the

'original' meaning:

'the

office

of the

interpreter

is not to

add another

[meaning],

but

to

recover

the

original

one;

the

meaning,

that

is,

of

the

words

as

they

first struck

on

the

ears or flashed

before

the

eyes

of

those

who heard

and

read

them'

(p. 338).

These expressions

have been

understood2

to

show

that Jowett

was

propounding

an

essentially

historical

approach

to

the

Bible. Seen

in

thisway,

he was enunciating the principles of 'historical criticism'. Such criticism has

been much

preoccupied

with

the discovery

of

origins: the

origins

of

Israelite

faith, the portions

of the book

of

Amos

originally spoken by that prophet,

the

original teaching

ofJesus

himself,

and

the original

text

of

the

Old or

New

Testament.

This

quest

for the

original

has

been

so

stressed

that historical

criticism

came

in

the

end

to

be

blamed

for

excessive devotion

to

it.

In

pursuit

of

it,

we

are

told,

it

divided

the biblical books

up

into

various

sources,

and

failed

to

appreciate

them

in

their final form

as

they

stand

before

us.

Matters

of

meaning

and

authenticity

were

made to

depend

too

much

on the

historical

identification of origin and development. According to this view, Jowett in

insisting

on

the

'original meaning' is exemplifying the

rise

of historical

criticism

with its

emphasis

on

origins

in

this

sense.

It

is

difficult

to

believe, however, thatJowett,

when he

spoke

of'

recovering

the

original'

meaning,

intended

any

such

process

of

historical

research. His

essay says very

little about

historical

criticism,

and

it

presents no guidance

to

the reader about

a

historical

process

by

which

the 'original'

might be

recovered: This

should

not

be

surprising

when

one

considers themind of the

1

For

a

fuller exposition ofJowett's theory of biblical interpretation, with much detailed evidence, see

my

article

'Jowett

and the

reading

of

the

Bible

like any

other

book ', Horizons in Biblical

Theology

(Pittsburgh

Theological

Seminary),

I983.

2

So

recently, for example, Professor

Brevard Childs in 'The

Sensus Literalis of

Scripture: an Ancient

and Modern

Problem', in H.

Donner, R. Hanhart and R.

Smend, Beitrige zur

alttestamentlichen Theologie

(Zimrnerli

Festschrift;

Gottingen, Vandenhoeck and

Ruprecht,

1977),

pp. 80-93;

reference toJowett,

p. 89.

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3/6

434

JAMES BARR

man.Jowett

was hardly a historical thinker;1 his

mind was literary, linguistic

and, especially, philosophical, as was amply

recognized by his

contemporaries.

The perception of the

'original' meaning, as

Jowett

intended it, was not

primarily

a historical process: rather, it was

literary, dramatic and

philosophical. The underlying

view implied, we may say, was: a great and

classic work of literature

communicates directly. To read the Bible 'like any

other

book'

was to read

it

as one

reads Plato

or

Scott or as one watches a

play of Shakespeare.

The 'original', therefore, is

not an earlier source, nor

is it a set ibf events and circumstances lying behind

the text and discovered

through historical inquiry. The 'original' meaning

is themeaning of the text

itself. The way to understand

Plato is

to

read

the text

of

Plato;

the way to

enjoy

a

play

of

Shakespeare's

is

to see

and hear that play. The approach is

built

not

upon

a

historical,

but

upon

a

static,

view

of literature. The

'original'

that Plato

wrote

is

the

text

which

we can

still take

up

and read today. A

great and

classic

work

is

thus

timeless and

remains permanently directly

accessible.

So also

theBible: 'theBook

itself remains

as at

the first unchanged

amid the

changing

interpretations

of it'

(pp. 337

f.).

This literary and dramatic

perspective is the

reason

forJowett's

stress upon

the

'disappearance'

of

interpretation.

When

we

go

to see

Macbeth

we

forget

the

theories

and

interpretations

that we

have

heard,

and

give

ourselves up

to

the play.

'The

true

use of

interpretation

is

to

get

rid of

interpretation,

and

leave

us

alone

in

company with

the

author'

(p. 384).

It is the text

that will

then

communicate

its

own

meaning.

All

study

of

critical

theories and

all

past

interpretations can

only be

propaedeutic:

in

the end

they must

fall

away

while

we

submit

ourselves

to

the

text

itself.

Jowett's

negative

attitude towards

traditional

interpretations

of the

Bible

is

easily misunderstood.

The effect that

disturbed

him

was a

semantic

one.

It

derived not from

the rise

of

interpretative

traditions but

from their

effect

once

they

had been

long

established.

Words of

the Bible then

came to

be read

as

if

the

meanings

of these

same

words,

as

they

were

used within

later,

theologically defined,

usage,

were

the

meanings

within the Bible itself.

To

Jowett

this

was

absurd: it

destroyed

the character

of the Bible

as a

literary

work, just

as

the

literary

character of

a

Platonic

dialogue

would

be

destroyed

if words

within

it

were

read

in the

senses

taken

as

definitions

in later Greek

philosophy.

It was

therefore

essential

to

distinguish

the

many

interpretations

from

the

one sense

of

scripture

itself.

This

emphasis

again

was

not

basically

historical:

it

was

semantic

and

literary.

No

historical

process

was

suggested

for

the

discovery

of

meanings

within the New Testament. If

one

read

it

as

a

work of

literature and

not

as a

scholastic

textbook of

dogmatics,

it

would

be

obvious

that

the

scriptural

words

had

senses

different

from those of

later

1

'Jowett

was

never historical about the Fathers

(or about much else)':

0.

Chadwick,

The Secularization

of the European Mind in the Nineteenth

Century

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

I975),

p.

I50.



4/6

JOWETT

AND

'ORIGINAL

MEANING'

435

interpretations. The

true sense,

Jowett

thought,

was

that

which

was

conveyed

by the text,

as

in

any other great

and classic work.

Far from being

an

exemplar

of

historical

criticism,

Jowett

came a

good

deal

closer to thosemore

modern

movements which have

sought

to

replace

it

with

something better, such

as the 'biblical theology'

of

the

post-war period

or

the 'canonical criticism'

of today.

He had little

interest in

identifying

the

earliest

sources

or the

most

genuine words;

he saw the Bible as

literature

rather than as historical evidence; and,

though

he

saw

progressive

revelation

within

it,

he took

the

complete

books

as

they

stand

as the

normal

base

for

understanding. Moreover,

he took

the entire Bible

as a

special

corpus

which

must be

interpreted

from itself

and

through

itself.

The demand that

the

Bible

should be understood

'like

any

other

book'

has often left the impression

that

it

was

to

have

no more

authority

than

any

other book,

indeed

nothing special

about it at

all.

Jowett

however

himself

clearly ruled this out.

To

him itwas

axiomatic

that the

authority

of the

Bible

stood

far above

that

of

other literature:

'no

one who has

a

Christian

feeling

would

place

classical

on

a

levelwith sacred literature

'(p. 337). However,

the

Bible had diversity

within

itself,

and its

statements

did

not correspond exactly

with

scientific

or historical

fact,

indeed

they

did

not

universally

gree

with the

full

theological

truth

as

revealed

in

Jesus

Christ. The notion of

inspiration

had to begin by

taking

account of these facts. But this did

not

reduce the

Bible to the level of

any other book.

The

interpreter, by understanding

it

'like any other book',

only discovered that

it

was not like any other

book.

'When

interpreted

like

any

other

book, by

the same rules of

evidence

and

the

same

canons

of

criticism,

theBible will still

remain

unlike

any other book

'

(pp.

375,

377).

Nor

was it the case that the

Bible could be understood without

any

special theological

insight.

Even when one read it like

any

other

book,

the

interpretation

of

scripture required

'a

vision and

faculty

divine'

(p. 337),

which

was

not

needed

for the

study

of

a

Greek

poet

or

philosopher.

This vision

and

faculty

divine

were

needed

in

order

that

one

might

grasp

the

subject

matter of

the

Bible;

but

they followed,

and did

not

overrule,

the

guidance

of

language

and

literary form, plus

the

evidence

of

facts,

which

applied

in

the

same

way

as

with other books.

ThusJowett's view

of scripture was a remarkably biblicist one.

The Bible

was a

completely special

case.

'Scripture

is

a

world

by itself,

from which we

must

exclude

foreign

influences, whether theological

or classical'

(p. 384).

'To

get inside that

world is an effort of thought and imagination, requiring

the

sense of

a

poet

as

well

as

a

critic'

(ibid.).

Though he used the

idea of

progressive revelation, which he considered

in any case to be supported

expressly by scripture

itself,

he

clearly

affirmed

the

essential unity

of Old

and New Testaments. There

was

a

'deep-rooted identity' of

the two

'in

the

revelation

of

one

God of

perfect justice

and truth'

(Commentary

n

Thessalonians,

Galatians and

Romans,

I855,

i.

353), and, just

as the



5/6

436

JAMES

BARR

teachings

of Christ,

and

the

letters of

the Apostles,

each had their

peculiar

and

different

contributions to

make, so the Old

Testament conveyed

certain

lessonswhich were not communicated 'with equal point or force in theNew'

(p.

416).

Later

on people often

thought that the

unity of the Bible

had been upheld

by

traditional Christianity but

damaged by

historical

and critical studies;

but

for Jowett

it was the other

way round.

It was the

various traditional

orthodoxies

that had continually

failed

to cope

with the full range

of biblical

material.

He roundly excoriated

their

'unfair appropriation

of some portions

of Scripture

and

an

undue

neglect

of

others'

(p. 358). It

was his own proposal

for interpretation

through the

one

original

sense,

he thought,

that would

provide balanced coverage for the entire scripture. This had what would now

be called

an

'ecumenical

dimension'. Some have

thought

that liberal and

modernizing

theologies have accommodated

scripture

to

modern trends and

fashions;

for Jowett it

was the traditional

orthodoxies

that had

done this.

They had bent

themeanings of

scripture

to their own doctrinal

positions and

conformed

them distortingly

into

'the

language and practice

of our

own age'

(pp.

353,

356).

Critical study,

on the other

hand, would

realize the principle

that

the Bible

is 'a

bond

of union

to the whole

Christian world' (p.

426);

and the removal of non-biblical

ideas

and interpretations,

'artificial

notions

and

systems'

as

he

called them, would

lead

to

agreement

in

the

understanding

of

scripture.

Far, then,

from being

an apostle of

historical criticism, Jowett

has much

greater

affinity with later

'biblical theology'

and with the holistic hermeneu

tical

trends

of today.

At least

in

form

this is

so. Content

is a

different

matter.

These

modern trends

have

on the whole

been

anti-liberal,

and have

been

anxious

to

avoid

reading

modern liberal ideas

into

scripture.

The

influence

of

Religionsgeschichte

has thus

been effective:

it is

perceived

that

ancient

religions

and

religious

mentalities

were

enormously

different.

Jowett,

one

may

well

feel,

did

read

liberal

ideas

into

scripture,

and

this

not

because

he

followed

a

historical

approach

but because he

did

not

try

to

do

so.

He

did

not produce

a

picture

of Pauline

theology

that seemed

anywhere

near

what

the

Apostle might

have

actually thought.

His

affinity

with

Schleiermacher

was

considerable;

both

were

concerned

about

the

attitude

of

the educated

elite

to

religion.

Jowett's

view of

language,

which

distinguished

between

the 'outer' form and

the 'inner

soul',

was

particularly

close

to

that

German

tradition,

which

in

turn

became

the

ancestor

of

the

twentieth-century

ideal of the

'theological

dictionary'.

This

position,

dividing sharply

as

it did between

linguistic

form and

thought

content,

fitted

with

the

split,

often

wide,

between

the actual

words of St

Paul

and his

supposed

latent

thoughts,

a

split

which

was

evident in the

Commentary

on the

Epistles

and

was

noted

by

contemporaries,

especially

by

the

then

youngJ.

B.

Lightfoot (Journal

of

Classical

andSacred

Philology, iii,

March

I

856,

8I-12

I).



6/6

JOWETT AND

'ORIGINAL

MEANING'

437

To sum up, Jowett was certainly

a

'biblical critic', and

he

well

typified

the alliance between

biblical

criticism

and

liberal

theology

which was to

be

influential for some time. But his words about the 'original' do not mean

that

he was a historical critic,

and

the idea of

historical solutions

to

biblical

problems

is

markedly

lacking

in his

thought. He

was a critic

in

the sense

that

the

meaning of scripture,

as

he believed,

was

very

different

from

what tradi

tional

interpretations had

maintained,

and also

in

the

sense that

the relation

between

scripture

and

truth

was not

a

constant

but

a

variable one.

In

other

respects his approach to the character

of scripture followed

a

remarkably

traditional design. Its weakness

lay

above all in

the failure

to

produce

a

convincing picture

of what

St

Paul

-

or

any

other

biblical writer

-

may

probably have thought. This weakness derives not from a historical bias, but

from

a lack of historical perspective, and,

above all, from the domination of

a

philosophical set of interests.

If

one

needed to be a poet

in

order to penetrate

the

world of the Bible,

there would then be the question

from what source

the

poet drew the

images with which he depicted that world.

Jowett's poetry

drew its images too

largely from the world of Hegelianism

and liberalism.

Twentieth-century

biblical theology, which also saw the

Bible as a special

world,

and in

this

sense

may

be

said to have

fulfilled part

ofJowett's

design,

drew its

images

from

a

world

as

different from

the

twentieth-century world

as possible; a good

deal of its inspiration came, in fact, from

those traditional

interpretations which

Jowett had so emphatically rejected.'

1

For another

recent assessment

of

Jowett

see P. Hinchliff, 'Benjamin

Jowett

and the Church of

England:

or

Why really

great men

are never

Clergymen ',

forthcoming in Balliol Studies.


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