Joel B. Green is an author and professor working in the area of biblical interpretation at Fuller Theological Seminary. Seized by Truth identifies an issue in the field of biblical interpretation: does the fact this is Christian Scripture affect how we read, approach, study, and interpret the Bible? Green takes the reader on a journey of understanding why this is important, how the reading of the text has developed and changed over time, and what it takes to “read the Bible as Scripture.” Unfolding in the reading of Seized by Truth is the very real passion that Green has for the issue. The details matter, for it is not Green’s desire that readers do less of the important and hard work of biblical interpretation – rather it is Green’s desire that readers realize “‘the Bible as Scripture’ is first and foremost a theological statement.” In the interpretation world where methods like the Scientific method of theory then test and finally prove whether the theory is right or disproved, Green wants us to consider the “aim” of Scripture before we dissect it. The many criticisms that range from historical to specific people groups, like the feminist criticism all matter in our pursuit of interpreting the Bible. It is a piece of literature that needs to be understood with its place in history, genre, and form. Green’s central point in Seized by Truth is this: “we come [to the Bible] not so much to retrieve facts or to gain information, but to be formed.” This central theme is what Green builds on over and over throughout the book, helping his readers see themselves as part of the process and not an outside entity. Green lays out his book in a fashion that helps the reader journey through their own understanding of not only biblical interpretation but also what it means to read the Bible as Scripture for themselves. “Scripture is far more concerned with shaping our imaginations, our patterns of thinking, which inevitably, find expression in transformed commitments and practices.”
Chapter one Green begins with unpacking why a new view of reading the Bible as Scripture is necessary. He explains that to “take the biblical texts as Scripture has to do with the aim of Scripture…to ‘shape person’s identities so decisively as to transform them.’” Then he moves into helping the reader understand the pitfalls of using interpretive tools and methods. Green helps us see the benefits then of using the interpretive tool belt at our disposal from the perspective of formation. “The practices of interpretation that have arisen since the late 1700s are not thereby cast aside, but they are dethroned” Green says this to signify the place that interpretive methods have in the reading of Scripture. All methods are helpful for seeing the text clearly but for Green something more is needed.
Chapter two opens as a way for Green to share his “Aims and Assumptions” concerning the biblical texts. The case has been made to read the Bible as Scripture in chapter one, now assuming that we regard the biblical texts in this manner, some major intersections are faced. The first is the birth of the church at Pentecost. How was Scripture read by these first century people? They read through a lens of Jesus as God’s Messiah spoken about in the Hebrew Scriptures. Next we then must address the place of the Old Testament in the Christian canon of Scripture. What is developed by Green then is the idea that all people who read the Bible as Scripture need “a theological transformation: a deep-seated conversion in their conception of God and, thus, in their commitments, attitudes, and everyday practices.” Once we realize that all people need this conversion, we also come to an impasse, “whose mail” is the Bible? Is this book actually written for us, yes! Scripture even testifies to the fact it was written for more than just the identified recipients. So Green masterfully acknowledges “to speak of the church, theologically, is to speak of its oneness across time and space” meaning “there is only one people of God” to whom the biblical texts are addressed.
Chapter three introduces the reader to some resources for the reading of the Bible as Scripture. Green develops four ways that the reading of Scripture must be: “ecclesially located, theologically fashioned, critically engaged, and Spirit-imbued.” Reading Scripture is affected by the formation one undergoes in a faith community. Green says this is important for our understanding not only of how we are affected in our readings but the implications of the reading. Reading Scripture can also not be completely “neutral”. “We inevitably bring with us our own interests and commitments.” Learning as we do from how the New Testament authors and from the church as a whole, we can see that it is critical for the reading of Scripture to be found in the whole of God’s story. This theological stance keeps us from the pitfalls of misusing a text because it was plucked from within it’s theological context of creation, fall, redemption, and re-creation. Green also stresses that we engage in a plethora of possible readings, which again helps to avoid the pitfalls of any particular one. “To read the Bible as Scripture is to leave open, at every turn, the possibility that our interpretive traditions are erroneous and in need of reformation.” One of the harder concepts but central to Green’s book is “reading Scripture must be Spirit-imbued.” This challenges to the reader to “deny our autonomy” and let God do the work of transformation in the interpreters life first.
Chapter four discusses the methods for doing interpretation as readers of the Bible as Scripture. Green observes that these methods can be placed into three categories: “behind the text, in the text, and in front of the text.” It is important for Green to reiterate that “no particular method can be identified as the correct one, nor can any method ensure a faithful reading of the Bible as Scripture.” This is because the desire is for a silver bullet to interpretation, this would equate to taking the hard work out of biblical interpretation. Rather the methods and strategies employed by scholars should be taken within the “theological aims of Scripture and the ecclesial context within which the Bible is read as Scripture.” Furthermore Green offers the need for a detailed approach which he calls “a close reading of the text…in context.” A reading strategy which involves “one set of questions inviting another in an often unruly order” contrasted to a step by step process of analyzing and dissecting. The goal then is less of finding the perfect method but rather “forming good people so that they might read the Bible.” Methods all have their place in our understanding of a biblical text and all are important, but all must be evaluated by “the community of believers” in which a reader is located.
Chapter five is where most people want to begin, the authority of the Bible as Scripture. Green begins by stating in more detail the issue from chapter one concerning why the Bible is not regarded as Scripture. Green also unpacks for the reader why “American Evangelicals” have muddied the water with “infallibility” and “inerrancy” because they “do not take us very far.” It is far more important for the church to approach Scripture as the place “to learn what God has said and is saying about humanity and the cosmos; it is there, in the community of the faithful, that we have our ears and eyes restored so as to hear and see, from God’s perspective, ‘what actually is.’” Green’s argument on authority rests in “the faith statement that this book is our Book, these scriptures are our Scripture.”
As a student of the Bible I often shied away from doing anything other than historical criticism, since learning that this is largely due to the methods employed by my faith tradition. Reading Green’s book has opened my eyes to seeing new possibilities that do not negate my tradition, but rather open new doors. I do not have to throw away my belief that the biblical texts are inspired by God to study closely, and I do not have to leave reason at the door when I open up my Bible either. Green challenges me to go deeper in my studies because before I focused on retrieving information or marveling at the facts others amassed, but as Green points out: “we come not so much to retrieve facts or to gain information, but to be formed.” I am forever shaped by Seized by Truth in my view of how one should read the Bible. I am not reading it to discover its secret code but to encounter the Lord God as the Spirit reveals Him to me in the Word.
Bibliography
Green, Joel B. Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007.
Originally posted on my old blog on October 19, 2016