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A review by ben_smitty
Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church by Hans Boersma
5.0
"Since the christological reality of the sacrament displays the very character of God, we may expect biblical meaning to be infinite in its possibilities. To retrieve the sacramental exegesis of the church fathers, therefore, is to open ourselves to the infinite mystery of the meaning that God invites us to explore."
I've never understood allegorical reading since I took a bunch of Bible & theology classes from a fundamentalist-baptist university. We were taught that the text had one meaning: whatever the original audience heard in their original context. Any other interpretation was a form of eisegesis, deviating us from the true meaning of the text.
Greek, Hebrew, and other books on ancient near eastern culture and the Greco-Roman world are primary tools for mining this one true meaning.
So you could imagine my skepticism with Boersma's project: ressourcement theology, a retrieval of what he calls a "sacramental" reading of scripture, drawing from the church fathers and their allerogical exegesis. I was already learning about the authority of church tradition in interpreting Scripture, how sola scriptura doesn't actually work in real life and all that, which left me as crippled protestant. But the Church Fathers seriously believed that the Bible was the church's book, that this meant that the "meaning of the text" needed to be transformed (it doesn't matter what it meant for Israel because it's about the church), that they used the creed and confessions about Christ as the starting point-- their theology directed the text! Shamelessly eisegeting! Essentially, they could do whatever they want with it as long as it matched what the apostles taught about Christ. Reading Proverbs christologically? Who does that?
And the book is so convincing. It makes sense. But I can't take these church fathers seriously because intuitively, I feel they are "twisting" the text, being disrespectful to the text, etc. And at the same time, I get that the church owns the Scriptures -- they have every right to do this. But the cognitive dissonance remains.
My only complaint is that Boersma focuses so much on Gregory of Nyssa & Origen's interpretations of the text rather than drawing from a range of patristic exegetes. I understand that Origen's interpretations are really out there and provides a good contrast to historical-critical exegetes. Gregory is also pretty esoteric himself. But they're featured in almost every chapter and I wish I could've read more of Anselm, Ambrose, Tertullian, Polycarp, etc.
I've never understood allegorical reading since I took a bunch of Bible & theology classes from a fundamentalist-baptist university. We were taught that the text had one meaning: whatever the original audience heard in their original context. Any other interpretation was a form of eisegesis, deviating us from the true meaning of the text.
Greek, Hebrew, and other books on ancient near eastern culture and the Greco-Roman world are primary tools for mining this one true meaning.
So you could imagine my skepticism with Boersma's project: ressourcement theology, a retrieval of what he calls a "sacramental" reading of scripture, drawing from the church fathers and their allerogical exegesis. I was already learning about the authority of church tradition in interpreting Scripture, how sola scriptura doesn't actually work in real life and all that, which left me as crippled protestant. But the Church Fathers seriously believed that the Bible was the church's book, that this meant that the "meaning of the text" needed to be transformed (it doesn't matter what it meant for Israel because it's about the church), that they used the creed and confessions about Christ as the starting point-- their theology directed the text! Shamelessly eisegeting! Essentially, they could do whatever they want with it as long as it matched what the apostles taught about Christ. Reading Proverbs christologically? Who does that?
And the book is so convincing. It makes sense. But I can't take these church fathers seriously because intuitively, I feel they are "twisting" the text, being disrespectful to the text, etc. And at the same time, I get that the church owns the Scriptures -- they have every right to do this. But the cognitive dissonance remains.
My only complaint is that Boersma focuses so much on Gregory of Nyssa & Origen's interpretations of the text rather than drawing from a range of patristic exegetes. I understand that Origen's interpretations are really out there and provides a good contrast to historical-critical exegetes. Gregory is also pretty esoteric himself. But they're featured in almost every chapter and I wish I could've read more of Anselm, Ambrose, Tertullian, Polycarp, etc.