218 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?
By Jay G. Williams

"The longer I work at the task of interpreting the Bible, the more I recognize that the task of exegesis involves, more than most of us would like to admit, the bating of the exegete's soul. No one can talk about the meaning of the Bible without describing what it means to him. And when he does that, he tells the reader as much about himself as he does about the Scriptures. If he tries to escape that predicament (if it is such) through objectivity, what he does is to present himself as a detached and alienated human being."

ANY scholar engaged in the interpretation of the Bible-or any other work of literature for that matter-must sooner or later face a primary question: What is the difference between exegesis and eisegesis? In one sense, we all know the answer. Exegesis is legitimate interpretation which "reads out of" the text what the original author or authors meant to convey. Eisegesis, on the other hand, reads into the text what the interpreter wishes to find or thinks he finds there. It expresses the readers own subjective ideas, not the meaning which is in the text. All well and good. Three cheers for exegesis and a hiss and a boo for the other.

But is the matter really that simple? Can reading out of a text be distinguished so sharply from reading into it? Perhaps the best way to approach this question is by referring to a specific example. Let us suppose that our task is to discover the original meaning of the biblical story of Noah as it is found in Genesis 6:11-9:28.

I

The first problem which faces us has to do with the word "original," for we know that the flood story was not invented by the writers of the Bible. In fact, flood stories in various forms are to be found in virtually every part of the world. Whoever composed the account as it is found in the Bible simply adapted for Israelite

Jay G. Williams is Chairman of the Department of Religion at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. His reconsideration of "other-worldly Christianity" appeared in the October, 1971 issue of THEOLOGY TODAY, and he is also the author of Ten Words of Freedom: An Introduction to the Faith of Israel (1971) and Understanding the Old Testament (1973).

219 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

use a tale which had been known for countless generations. Comparison of it with the story of Utnapishtim. in the Gilgamesh Epic reveals that at many points the biblical writer was hardly creative at all.

We can, of course, compare the Noah and Utnapishtim stories in order to show how the Bible differs from its Mesopotamian counterpart, but there is no way of knowing precisely what the biblical author(s) added to or subtracted from the story, for it is probable that both accounts were influenced by other, earlier versions which are now unknown to us. Whether the Bible or the Gilgamesh Epic is closer to these earlier versions is virtually impossible to say.

Hence, we can never get to the "original" flood story. Perhaps, then, we should concentrate upon the original biblical story. What did it mean to the first Israelite story tellers? Again, we are immediately faced with severe difficulties, for quite clearly, the story which we have before us was not composed once and for all, at one moment in history. Rather, the tale grew like a flowing river, receiving substance from many tributaries during its long journey to final formulation. The work is composite; it was revised repeatedly during its long history as an oral tale. Therefore, there seems to be no way of saying precisely when it began or what it meant to the earliest story tellers of Israel.

Then how can we apprehend its original meaning? Perhaps, say some, we should simply interpret it in its final form within the context of the book of Genesis. Let us, then, try to understand the story as it was understood by those post-exilic redactors who saw fit to include it in their monumental compilation, the Torah. So be it. But we must recognize two facts. 1) The redactors did not compose the story themselves and probably had little choice regarding its place in the canon. Doubtless, it would have been unthinkable for them to omit it, even if they had found little meaning in it for themselves. 2) The post-exilic redactors and readers may very well have seen in the story of Noah meanings which, to our eyes, might appear quite eisegetical. Consider, for instance, the some-what later Apocalypse of Noah and the Book of Enoch. Although these esoteric apocalyptic documents reflect a Hellenistic, rather than a Persian milieu, it may well be that by the time the canon of the Torah was fixed, there were Rabbis already engaging in numerological, apocalpytic, and allegorical speculations. If we plan to take post-exilic Jewish ideas as the norm for interpretation, then we must be content to accept notions which appear foreign both to us and to the text as it stands.

II

The point, I think, is plain. Searching for the original meaning of a given text is like looking for the pot of gold at the end of Noah's

220 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

rainbow, for quite simply there was no one original story nor one biblical point of view which can be taken as original. Doubtless, throughout Israel's long history, Israelites understood the story of Noah in a variety of ways. Indeed, had the story revealed only one meaning it probably would have perished long ago. It remains an integral part of the sacred tradition of Israel precisely because it has spoken diversely to men of many different generations. A search for one meaning, then, is futile. We must listen to a whole chorus of interpretive voices, a chorus which sometimes harmonizes and sometimes does not. And, if we are to be true to the history of exegesis, we must add our own voice with its own distinctive melody.

It might be countered that the story of Noah is an extreme example. Surely there are biblical texts which can be dated historically and can be understood within their original context. In one sense this is true. Many of the oracles of Jeremiah, for instance, can be dated rather precisely and can be taken, more-or-less, as the ipsissima verba of the prophet himself. Can we not then determine the original meaning of his words?

Even when one selects such a text, there are problems. Meaning always arises for human beings within a specific social, linguistic, and cultural context. To apprehend jeremiahs original meaning, we must somehow enter his context ourselves; yet how much do we really know about it? The book of Kings tells us a little; Jeremiah and Ezekiel tell us more; archaeology has a few tidbits of information to present. But with all this at our disposal we still have precious little understanding of how the average Israelite who inhabited Jerusalem in 590 B.C. really thought and felt.

What we must always bear in mind is that the Bible is a "minority report," not a presentation of the faith of all Israelites. How then can we determine what Jeremiah meant to his contemporaries? Jeremiah gives us many glimpses of the reaction of the populace and the Establishment, but these glimpses are from the point of view of the minority, from the vantage point of Jeremiah and his followers. Furthermore, even if we take Jeremiah at face value, it is clear that his words meant different things to different people. Baruch and jehoiakim heard him with dissimilar ears.

But perhaps that's all irrelevant. What about Jeremiah himself? What did he mean to say? Surely we can determine that by a careful reading of the text, can we not? Immediately we are faced with three basic problems:

(1) To what extent is the jeremiah presented to us in the canont he "real' Jeremiah? What did be say in those oracles which have not been preserved? To what extent have the redactors offered us a theologically biased vision of him?

221 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

(2) Even if we accept the book's presentation as accurate, can we really understand the man who stands before us in the text? The more I am confronted by Jeremiah, the more strange he appears to me. What did this man who was driven by the ruach Yahweh, performed symbolic acts to bring events to pass, and predicted the future with uncanny certitude, if not exactitude, really think and mean? Can we ever penetrate that barrier of time and culture and spirit which separates us from him? Can we finally come to think as he thought? I must confess that I have enough difficulty understanding the meaning-context of my six-year-old son or of the black man who lives in a ghetto just a few miles away. I can hear them, but can I understand them as they understand themselves? And now I am supposed to bear and understand a prophet living in a radically different social and cultural context more than 2,500 years ago!

(3)Finally, though this may be a point with which many may wish to take issue, the prophet himself may not have completely understood the meaning of his own words. There are impressive indications, at least, that Jeremiah did not sit down and compose his oracles the way a modem scholar writes his articles. On the contrary, his words erupted from the depths of the spirit and flowed from his mouth, as it were, automatically (cf. Jeremiah 20:9). Therefore, though the words reflect both Jeremiah's personality and the world view of the time, they also have a kind of independent existence and meaning which even the prophet himself may not have been able to fathom.

Indeed, true poetry is invariably more than a simple communication of conscious ideas. The words break forth; the poet may refine and, to a certain extent, harness them, but they have an independent reality of their own, a reality which transcends any later interpretation which the poet or his followers may give to them. An interview with the prophet might resolve some problems but ultimately would not be particularly helpful in determining the meaning of his oracles. In poetry, words speak for themselves, directly to him who hears. Their meaning emerges within the hearer's context, for his time and person. It might be of historical interest to learn, if we could, what meanings the oracles of Jeremiah had for Baruch, Jehoiakim, and for the prophet himself, but that would not tell us what the text "means."

III

This observation leads us to the crux of the problem. As an interpreter of Scripture, each man brings with him a whole pile of intellectual and emotional baggage which cannot easily be dispensed with. In fact, to jettison it would be about like trying to

222 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

perform a self-styled prefrontal lobotomy. In order to think at all, we must think within a cultural and linguistic context, and that context decisively shapes both what we see and what we are likely not to see.

A review of the history of exegesis makes clear just how important the eyes of the reader have been in the interpretation of Scripture. St. Paul, for instance, was obviously an intelligent man, but when he looked at the Hebrew Scriptures he saw things most of us certainly would miss. Who among us, for instance, would read the Hagar story found in Genesis the way he did (Galatians 4:24ff.)? A fourth-century Christian like Augustine also apprehended meanings in Scripture which now appear very peculiar to us. On almost every page of the Old Testament he saw allusions to the Trinity, predictions and types of Christ, allegories teaching various moral and spiritual values. Within his cultural and spiritual context it all seemed quite plain and obvious, but to us his works seem extraordinarily eisegetical. That isn't really in the text at all, we tend to say. He just read into Scripture what he wanted to find.

The same could certainly be said of those medieval rabbis who engaged in the fine art of gematria and found in the numbers of the Hebrew letters all sorts of esoteric messages and meanings. The theosophistic eyes of the Kabbalist seem to us obscurantist and, at the very least, peculiar. Almost equally reprehensible to the modem reader are the Aristotelian eyes of the medieval schoolman, the guilt-ridden interpretations of the Protestant reformers, and the sweet pieties of nineteenth century interpreters. Even as recent a scholar as George Adam Smith, who wrote so beautifully about the prophets, seems to us pietistically quaint. What interpreter would write such purple prose any more?

The truth of the matter is that from our lofty and enlightened perspective the whole history of biblical interpretation seems to be a history of eisegesis. Even the great interpreters, like Origen, Rashi, and Calvin, appear to have read into Scripture almost as much as they read out. In many instances, the most that we can say in their behalf is that they tried hard but, of course, didn't have our more scientific means for investigation at their disposal. Today we know so much more about the Bible and its historical background that we can arrive at firm and indubitable conclusions about matters concerning which they could only guess.

Archaeology has given us new insights into the history and culture of both Israel and her neighbors so that we can now date events much more certainly and can reconstruct, in ways undreamed of by our predecessors, what "really happened." The study of ancient languages has informed us immeasurably about the original meanings of many Hebrew words and phrases and has, in a number of instances, radically altered our understanding of the

223 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

text. Source and form criticism have given us a much clearer picture of how the Bible came into being and the purpose it once served. Studies in the history of religions have supplied us with important parallels among Israelite and non-Israelite religions. All of this has turned us from the eisegesis of the past to true exegesis.

IV

Or has it? Although we must all stand in awe of the tremendous achievement of modem biblical scholarship and must not fail to appreciate what has been accomplished, we must also recognize that although modern scholarship illumines certain aspects of the text, it tends to blind us to others. Since I am myself deeply indebted to such scholarship and hence am at least partially blinded, it is difficult to produce cogent examples of this assertion, but let me try my best.

(1)Archaeology as a discipline is devoted primarily to an examination of remains of the past with an eye to reconstructing what actually took place. What was the material culture of Canaan like during the Middle Bronze period? Did Solomon actually build stables for his many horses? How extensive was the resettlement of the land after the Babylonian exile?

Such an enterprise has been and is of special interest to the biblical scholar, for the archaeologist has been able to assess the historicity of many biblical reports and produce explanations for several otherwise enigmatic passages. We have learned that Abraham, as he is depicted, does fit quite well into a Middle Bronze environment, that Jericho could not have been defeated by Israel in the thirteenth century (the city was already in ruins), that the temple of Ba'al Berith at Shechem could have been used as a temple-fortress.

All of this is of great interest, but it also may easily blind the interpreter to other essential features of the text. For instance, I suspect that the significance of the Jericho story is not particularly historical at all but is rather mythological and liturgical. Archaeologists who have unearthed Jericho can tell us about as much concerning the meaning of the story as scholars who have studied the historical Macbeth can tell us about Shakespeare's play. That is to say, positivistic emphasis upon what "really happened" may very well blind us to the meaning of the myth of Joshua itself.

(2)Philology and linguistics have also greatly expanded our horizons in a certain direction. We now know much more than our ancestors about Akkadian, Hurrian, Ugaritic, and Hittite linguistic patterns and hence can sometimes offer good calculated guesses about the meaning of apparently obscure Hebrew words. We can say with relative certainty that some phonetic changes are probable

224 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

while others are not. Therefore, we can speak with much more certainty about Hebrew etymology than men one hundred years ago could.

All of this has led to more accurate translation and sometimes to surprisingly new interpretations. At the same time, we must never forget that the ancient Israelites did not know the rules of modem linguistics and hence indulged in a type of "etymologizing" which, to the modem scholar, appears only laughable. Therefore, to understand Scripture as ancient men understood it, we may very well have to forsake modern linguistics and its objective rules. For instance, from a scientific point of view the noun 'elah (terebinth tree) is probably not the feminine form of 'El (Power or God) at all. This, however, does not mean that Israelites did not think of the terebinth as embodying the female power of Earth which balances the male power of the Heavens.

The implication of much linguistic scholarship is that to understand and interpret the Bible one ought to know, for instance, Ugaritic. That, however, seems to be a most peculiar conclusion, for the compilers of the Torah themselves probably did not even know that there had been such a language and would have been little interested in it if they had. Can von Rad really understand the Torah better than Ezra could? What, then, do we mean by "understanding?"

(3)For a long time, source criticism was all the rage. The object of such criticism was to separate out the various sources of a given document, date them, and then evaluate the original meaning of each. Not so very long ago, Fleming James wrote a book which, among other things, described the personality of each of the authors of the sources of the Pentateuch.

I suppose that some good did come out of that laborious era of "source mining," but it also produced more than a little blindness. Look for instance, at the exegesis of the Noah story in the Interpreter's Bible. The sources of that marvelous narrative are analyzed, but scarcely a word is said about the meaning of the text. It lies before the reader like an inert, dissected corpse. The person who wishes to interpret the story can only ask, does source criticism really help at all?

Furthermore, in the quest for sources, the analyst has often employed modem standards of consistency which may appeal to us but which may also be quite foreign to the intent of the "original" authors. As a result, the unity of the text is destroyed and its meaning is obscured. An example from the Noah story occurs to me. One of the most perplexing episodes for modem interpreters is that of Noah's drunkenness and his consequent curse of Canaan (Gen. 9:18-27). The story is well-known, if only because of its peculiarity. Noah, after having been saved from the flood, be-

225 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

comes a vintager. He makes wine, gets drunk, and lies naked in his tent. Ham enters the tent, sees his father, and then goes out and informs his brothers. Shem and Japheth, in response, go in 'backward, so as not to see their father, and cover him. When Noah wakes up and learns what his youngest son has done, he curses Canaan, predicting that he will be a slave to his brothers.

At least three problems of interpretation arise:

a.Why was it wrong for Ham to see his father naked?
b.Why does the text say that Noah learned what his youngest son had done when Japheth and not Ham was his youngest?
c. Why does Noah curse Canaan and not Ham?

To solve these problems nearly all modern critics assert that the given text is a conflation of sources. Canaan must have been Noah's youngest son in the "original" account. The name Ham was introduced because of the influence of another source, represented in the passage immediately following, which lists the sons of Noah as Shem, Ham, and Japheth. So source criticism justifies itself again.

But is such legerdemain necessary? Because the critics have concentrated on sources, that has appeared to them the logical answer. Last year an undergraduate student proposed to me an alternative solution which seems at least equally plausible. The key to the solution lies in Noah's reference to his youngest son. What was it that Japheth did which Noah learned about? The only thing that the text mentions is that be discreetly covered Noah. What is wrong with that? Only that Ham and not Japheth should have done it!

Ham's crime was not in seeing his father naked, but in not covering him. In this he failed to observe his responsibility as the second son. He should have either covered Noah immediately or returned with Shem to do so. Therefore, Noah, observing that Ham did not understand the correct relation among sons, predicted that Ham's youngest son would suffer. Canaan is to be forced to do what his elder brothers ought to do. That is, because the Hamites do not observe the correct rules of filial responsibility, Canaan will become a slave to his unethical brethren.

Is this legitimate interpretation? I happen to like it myself, particularly because it preserves the text intact. Had the source critics been less concerned with the separation of J and P, they might have seen it for themselves. One wonders, given the different standards of consistency and logic of ancient Israelites, how many other passages might be better understood without resorting to a theoretical conflation of sources.

My point is not that the source and form critics are always wrong. Rather, what I am saying is that concentration upon matters of source and form can produce a blindness to other features of the

226 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

text which may be equally important. Surely, if exegesis is meant to bring us to a point where we can think like ancient men, higher criticism seems to be leading in the wrong direction, for few ancient men cared much about questions of composition and authorship.

This is not to say that contemporary biblical scholars lack objectivity. On the contrary, in their attempts to avoid the apparently futile, sectarian quarrels of the past and arrive at certainties, scholars have attempted to rid themselves of those subjective and communal biases which divided Christian scholars and to adopt a more scientific and detached attitude. The success in achieving this end is quite apparent. At least among many of the greatest scholars, one finds little of the author's own piety intruding into the work.

What has not been so often observed is that scientific objectivity itself represents a new subjective bias. The communal biases of Protestantism and Catholicism have been more-or-less given up, but have been replaced by the faith commitment common to the secular university. The decision to repress one's own personal religious preferences and to examine the text with detachment is itself a subjective decision which allows for certain kinds of insight and precludes others.

V

One thing is certain. The Bible was not written to be read with objective detachment. It was and is the poetry of faith and was intended to be heard as such. Its power lies in its ability to evoke meaning in the reader and hearer, and that it has done for centuries. The attempt to get back to some original, immutable meaning, whether it can be believed any longer today or not, is an attack upon that power. It is an attempt to stop the clock by fixing the flow of meaning once and for all. The more objective and detached one becomes, the more eisegetical one is according to biblical standards.

The longer I work at the task of interpreting the Bible, the more I recognize that the task of exegesis involves, more than most of us would like to admit the baring of the exegete's soul. No one can talk about the meaning of the Bible without describing what it means to him. And when he does that, he tells the reader as much about himself as he does about the Scriptures. If he tries to escape that predicament (if it is such) through objectivity, what he does is to present himself as a detached and alienated human being.

For at least a century and a half we have been living through an era dominated by a strong sense that the meaning of human life can somehow be discovered in history, in a history which has been rather positivistically conceived. Hence, it was appropriate that scholars seek to find meaning in the Bible by analyzing it historically and critically. The quest has been for the historical Abraham,

227 - Exegesis-Eisegesis: Is There a Difference?

the historical David, the historical Jesus, as though historicality would somehow legitimize the "truth" of the text.

Today we stand on the doorstep of a new age, an age which seems to be turning from the hard positivism of the past to a new kind of spiritual life. Not that we are returning to nineteenth century piety. Today's students are engaging in the widest variety of spiritual activities, from the practice of Yoga to the reading of Tarot cards and the I Ching to ecstatic dancing to the glory of Jesus. We may very well expect that as these students turn to the Bible, they will also exegete in a new way, a way which may seem quite peculiar to older scholars.

Among other things, the student of the new age is no longer so concerned about reconstructing what "really happened" or what the original sources actually were like. Rather, he is likely to be interested in the Bible as a literary mirror in which he can see both himself and the mysteries of the cosmos reflected. Far from worrying about whether there was a world-wide flood which only one family escaped or how Genesis 6-9 was composed, he now tends to look at the Noah story as a roadmap for expanding consciousness and judges it accordingly. Astrological images jump out from the text in much the same way that variations in sources once attracted older generations. Numerology has again come into vogue. What is the numerological significance of the age of Noah and of the various periods on his voyage? What relation does the story have to the Mahayuga of India and the death of the fourth Sun in ancient Maya? Do the dimensions of the ark have any secret symbolic significance?

Now I am sure that many established biblical scholars win wring their hands in despair at these examples of eisegesis. And perhaps it is eisegetical from a more sober historical point of view. But do we need to worry about that? It is true that archaeologists and literary critics still have much to teach and surely should not be neglected. But is their work really any less eisegetical than that of the new "Kabbalist"? Is not eisegesis the inevitable result of the human condition; can anyone see with eyes other than his own? The question is not exegesis or eisegesis but rather what is revealed to and about the interpreter in the interpretation.

Careful reading and thought are still to be commended. Surely texts can be misread and bad arguments given for this opinion or that. Still, we have arrived at a time when we must admit that the varieties of legitimate approach to Scripture are far more numerous than we thought. My hope is that the "rulers of the discipline" will, in time, come to recognize this fact as well. If they do not, they may well be cast in the role once occupied by the ardent churchmen who castigated the followers of Wellhausen during the first decades of this century.