jowett and 'original meaning
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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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8/9/2019 Jowett and 'Original Meaning'
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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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8/9/2019 Jowett and 'Original Meaning'
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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.
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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
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8/9/2019 Jowett and 'Original Meaning'
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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).
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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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