The Global Bible Commentary has been conceptualized by Daniel Patte as a practice of Scriptural Criticism – a practice of Biblical studies that self-consciously acknowledges the tri-polar character of any interpretation of a scriptural text: It involves the interpretation in terms of each other of 1) the scriptural text, 2) of the believers’ life-context, and 3) of the believers’ religious perceptions of life.
Scriptural Criticism was formulated by Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte as a description of the collective integrated critical practice by participants in the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar, Romans Through History and Cultures, as well as by many conscientious preachers we heard around the world. Scriptural criticism can be a way of studying existing interpretations (as we do when studying receptions of Romans by believers, theologians, and scholars through history and in present-day cultures) or of self-consciously producing a scriptural critical interpretation, as we will do so in the Global Bible Commentary. The description of this practice, according to which underscoring the contextual pole of interpretation is as important as underscoring its textual and hermeneutical poles, is found in Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte, Reading Israel in Romans: Legitimacy and Plausibility of Divergent Interpretations Vol. 1, Romans Through History and Cultures Series (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000).
To clarify the contextual format of the GBC, find below a few pages from this book that summarize the main features of “Scriptural Criticism”: a) The inside-cover description of the Series; and b) pp. 34-37, a part of the “Overture: Receptions, Critical Interpretations, and Scriptural Criticism” by Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte. Though they refer to Romans, these pages refer to an interpretive practice that applies to any biblical text.
A) Romans Through History
and Cultures: Receptions and Critical Interpretations
Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte, series editors
The series, Romans Through History and Cultures, includes a wealth of information regarding the receptions of Romans throughout the history of the church and today, in the "first" and the "two-thirds" world. It explores the past and present impact of Romans upon theology, and upon cultural, political, social, and ecclesial life, and gender relations.
In each volume, the authors contribute to an integrated practice, "Scriptural Criticism," which takes into account: with contemporary biblical scholars, that different readings can be grounded in the same text by different critical methods; with church historians and practical theologians, that the believers' readings interrelate biblical text and concrete life; and with theologians, that believers read Romans as Scripture.
The cover art skillfully represents that any interpretation of a scriptural text is framed in three ways: a) by an analytical frame that reflects each reader's autonomous choice of a textual dimension as most significant--see the individual studying the text; b) by a contextual/pragmatic frame shaped by a certain relational network of life in society and community--see the people joining hands; and, c) by a hermeneutical frame inspired by a certain religious perception of life--see the bread and chalice and the face-to-face encounter.
By elucidating the threefold choices reflected in various interpretations of Romans through the centuries and present-day cultures, the volumes in the series--which emerge from a three-year Society of Biblical Literature Consultation and an on-going SBL Seminar--raise a fundamental critical question: Why did I/we choose this interpretation rather than another one?
B) Overture: Receptions,
Critical Interpretations, and Scriptural Criticism
by Cristina Grenholm and
Daniel Patte (from pp. 34-36)
TOOLS FOR A PRACTICE OF SCRIPTURAL CRITICISM:
From what precedes it becomes clear that our originally open-ended intention to investigate the relationship between receptions of Romans and critical biblical studies of this text led us, the participants in the Romans Through History and Culture project, to a collective integrated critical practice which is in line with and supports recent innovations in theological education. As we, the co-authors of this Overture, reflected on this collective practice, we progressively came to understand the process of reading a scriptural text, Romans, as a tri-polar dynamic practice. This practice, scriptural reading, is spontaneously used by Christian believers as they read Romans as Scripture, but also, by anyone who reads a New Testament text with the awareness that it is held as Scripture by Christians. Scriptural criticism is, therefore, the critical approach through which the tri-polar integrated practice of scriptural reading is brought to understanding. Because this task involves elucidating how basic modes of interpretations are interwoven, it calls for the resources of different disciplines--as is the case in our project.
...............................
In the preceding pages, we have spent much time elucidating the process of scriptural reading as a tri-polar interpretive dynamic practice that interrelates:
• three basic modes of interpretation (methodologies): the analytical, contextual-pragmatic, and hermeneutical-theological modes used for the interwoven interpretation of the three poles;
• three poles (what is interpreted): the scriptural text, the believers’ life-context, and the believers’ religious perceptions of life, which are inter-defining each others, on the basis of the believer-interpreters’ three modes of existence.
• three modes of existence (aspects of the believer-readers’ existence): autonomy, relationality, and heteronomy; that is, respectively, each believer-reader’s sense of personal identity, her or his place in the web of social relations, including power/authority relations; and her or his religious experience, including encounter or lack of encounter with the holy, and a sense of the presence or absence of the divine.
.............................
Even when one has a limited knowledge of the specific views an interpreter had of the modes of existence, of the poles, and of the basic modes of interpretation during the process of interpretation, one can still analyze a scriptural interpretation as final product and describe its characteristics as scriptural readings. The interwoven use of the basic modes of interpretation in terms of specific views of the three poles and of the modes of existence frame the interpretation as final product, and one can describe how this interpretation as final product is framed in a threefold way. Three frames are inscribed in each scriptural interpretation as final product--such as the receptions of Romans. We name them in such a way that their relationship with the modes of interpretations be clear.
• Three frames of a scriptural interpretation (features of the interpretation as final product): the analytical, contextual, and hermeneutical frames.
An analogy might help us better understand the threefold framing involved in the process of scriptural reading which is inscribed in the scriptural interpretation as a final product. The scriptural reading of a biblical text is somewhat like taking a picture. As we take a picture, consciously or not (automatic cameras do much of this by themselves), we frame it in three different ways: (1) we select a subject (a flower, a group of persons, a landscape) by locating it through the viewfinder, and in the process we exclude many other things that are also in front of us; (2) we focus the lens on the subject, making sure that all its details (the petals, the faces, the trees) are clear, even though the foreground or the background might become blurry; (3) we adjust the speed of the shutter (or use a flash) in order to take into account the specific contextual situation — day or night, sunny or cloudy, indoors or outdoors, etc. Similarly, any scriptural reading frames the text in a threefold way by choosing (1) a hermeneutical frame, through which we identify the subject matter of the reading (in the case Johnson’s interpretation, a specific view of revelation and of God); (2) an analytical frame (which brings in sharp relief the most significant textual features regarding, for Johnson, ”the variety and plurality in Jesus’ speech about God”); (3) a contextual frame (which bridges the gap between text and life by taking into account the specific situation of the reading process, for Johnson, ”women’s interpreted experience”).
On the basis of the picture as final product, we can readily describe the frames of the picture by asking question such as: What is its subject, and is it well centered? Is it well focused or blurry? Is the lighting appropriate or not? But we might have a hard time saying exactly how this picture was framed and produced and why, especially if we do not know what other pictures could have been taken in this specific context, what kind of camera was used, what kind of flash was used if any, etc. . . Similarly, we did not have any difficulty describing the frames which are inscribed in Johnson’s interpretation, although much speculation would be required to elucidate how and why she chose these frames.