Kugel on early Jewish biblical interpretation, with help from Jesus and Paul

Since reading his Traditions of the Bible, I have been fascinated by Kugel's articulation of the four assumptions about the Bible made by Second Temple Jewish interpreters. Part of what shook me initially was the extent to which such assumptions were part of the Christian tradition in which I was raised. These assumptions were, to greater or lesser degrees, taken for granted without any critical examination. But what surprised me was that I was reading the Bible through the same lens as the ancients. Yet their assumptions were based on some perceptions about the Bible that did not necessarily hold up for me given the richer and fuller understanding of the nature and origins of Scripture as understood by contemporary theologians. In fact, the uncritical embrace of some of these assumptions has led to some rather unhealthy, even harmful, ways of reading the Bible today. For example, seeing the Bible merely as a handbook or instruction manual for life. While the impulse behind this way of reading can be defended (Christians do indeed believe that God's word is relevant in all times and places, and it has something to say to us today), the extension of that to reading the Bible as a handbook-for-living-today has the potential to set up the well-intentioned reader for some exegetical and hermeneutical disasters. Especially so when one seeks to discern the 5 biblical steps to financial independence or 7 Bible secrets to a happy marriage or the biblical way to eat healthy. Sadly, such an approach not only goes off track but it can end up missing the point of what the Bible actually does have to say about what it means to live a good and whole life in the world today.

So here are the four assumptions Kugel lists (taken from his chapter in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview). These are assumptions that seem to be made by ancient interpreters as they read and interpreted what came to be known as the Hebrew Bible or TaNaK (the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings).

1. Scriptural texts were basically cryptic; while the text may say A, often what it really means is B.
2. The basic purpose of Scripture was to guide people nowadays; although it talked about the past, it was really aimed at the present.
3. Scripture contained a single, unitary message; it was altogether harmonious in all its details and altogether true. Everything was perfect.
4. All of Scripture was of divine origin: God had caused the ancient sages or historians or psalmists to write what they wrote. Therefore all of it was sacred. (Kugel, "Early Jewish Biblical Interpretation," pp. 151-178 in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview [Collins and Harlow, eds; Eerdmans, 2012], here pp. 165-166)

Once one is attuned to such assumptions, it becomes an engaging exercise to begin to spot when they are at play in the New Testament as people like Jesus and Paul provide their interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel. Two examples:

In Mt 22:23-33 Jesus is described as giving a striking instance of the assumption that the Scriptures do not just describe the works and words of God in the past, but that they can be understood as God's words spoken directly to the reader or hearer. In this instance, the Sadducees sought to paint Jesus into a corner where he must either deny the resurrection or the relevance of the commands of the Torah (their assumption even in coming to him is that the laws of the Torah applied in their day and forever). They brought to him what I imagine was their stock example: seven ill-fated brothers who, in sequence, marry one woman, then die, leaving the next brother to obey the law of Moses and marry the woman. The issue then is, in the resurrection, if indeed there is a resurrection (the Sadduccees denied it), whose wife will she be. The response of Jesus is itself rich with exciting interpretive challenges (in short, no marriage in heaven, "they will be like the angels"...) Jesus went on to address the real point of their question, the reality of the resurrection. He cited Exod 3:6 where God was speaking directly to Moses. And here is where it gets VERY interesting for our purposes of looking at assumptions about Scripture. In citing this verse, Jesus says, "Have you not read what was said to you by God?" Here Jesus explicitly states that what God said to Moses, and what was later written down as part of the book of Exodus, is in reality a word that God spoke directly "to you" the contemporary listener or reader. And thus here are several of Kugel's assumptions, illustrated for us in one passage. God's words in the past have contemporary relevance, and often communicate something more than just the surface meaning.

The second example is from Paul. In 1 Cor 10:1-11 Paul discusses the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites and draws an interesting conclusion: "These things happened to them to serve as an example (Greek: tupos; German: ein Vorbild), and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come" (v. 11). Clear as day, the historical account given in Exodus is history, yes, but it is also more than history: it has contemporary relevance as an example. In fact, it was written down "for us." Further, this passage contains the interesting extra-biblical tradition that the rock (from which the Israelites drew water) followed the Israelites around the wilderness. And Paul's interpretation is that this was a spiritual rock, and that that rock was Christ. This illustrates the notion that the meaning of the Bible is below the surface, cryptic, but that it can be discovered with the right reading lens. For Paul this lens was christological, and the Scriptures were now to be read in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, as pointing to the redemptive work that God would accomplish through him.

Jesus and Paul shared a set of interpretive assumptions with their fellow Jews of antiquity. First, in speaking and acting among the Israelites of old as recorded in the Scriptures, God was speaking a message to them. Second, this message was relevant for their day and so should be heeded. Third, that message was, to a certain extent, cryptic: it was hidden below the surface until the right teacher with the right tools could bring it to light.

The New Testament thus includes and holds up a way of reading Scripture that was strongly culturally and historically conditioned but one that would become normative for Christians of all times, taking root in and even shaping the reading practices of later times and subsequent cultures. Contemporary readers of Scripture do well to examine these ancient assumptions about reading the Bible, and to consider how they contribute to our own assumptions about reading the Bible.