“Clear as God's Words?”—Dealing with Ambiguities in the Bible

Abstract

“Clear as God's Words?”—Dealing with Ambiguities in the Bible Manfred Oeming Between guidance and confusion—the discrepancy between expectation and reality When humans read the Bible, they look for clear guidance. “Teach me your way, O LORD” (Ps 27:11)—the authors of the Psalms consistently pray. In difficult life situations, on the margins, in ambiguity, they expect that God shows them which way to turn. “Make me understand the way of your tenets” (Ps 119:27). In our cultures, influenced by Jewish and Christian traditions, almost everyone might agree that the Bible serves as ethical guideline helping us making hard moral decisions. But how, exactly, does that work? Human artists create works that are ambiguous and cannot be reduced to one single and unambiguous meaning. We accept this in our daily lives. For instance, when several people look at a painting, they will associate different things—and this is perfectly acceptable. Even more so, art shouldn't be unambiguous but should produce a multitude of different interpretations and reactions. This has been accepted in hermeneutics and aesthetics at least since Umberto Eco's “Postscript to The Name of the Rose” (1984). But what happens if these multitudes of meaning happen in God's Word? If the Bible is ambiguous? What in secular art is seen as positive and enriching becomes problematic in the realm of the sacred. And even worse: how can we deal with discrepancies and conflicts in the Sacred Scriptures? What happens when normative texts provide different and even opposing guidelines to important questions? “The Rabbis say: “What happens when a hammer meets a rock? Sparks fly. Every spark is the result of the hammer hitting the rock but no spark is a singular result.” This is similar to the scriptures where one verse can convey many different teachings” (bSanhedrin 24). It seems that they do not have a serious problem with the plurality of interpretations. But Protestant Theology has continuously taught claritas scripturae. According to this dogma, there are four rules: (1) No dogma necessary for salvation can be unclear. (2) The Scriptures explain themselves; if something is unclear, it can be explained by other parts. (3) If the Scriptures seem to be unclear, the reason can be found in human sin and ignorance. (4) The Scriptures are unambiguous because God has authored them and God would never contradict himself. So far the Protestant dogma. However, reality looks very different. Since the development of the historic‐critical method in Biblical interpretation, it has become obvious that the teachings of the Bible are not unified and clear; rather, the Bible contains numerous points of view. Even key themes and key ethical guidelines are ambiguous as can be shown in numerous instances. I will present one example. How to deal with strangers within the framework of Old Testament (OT) ethics A search of all Biblical passages about the ethical approach to strangers will immediately reveal that the New Testament only offers very general advice. “So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). This is a statement about the internationality of the interconnected church without hierarchy. It challenges us to invite all strangers in, which is seen as service to Christ himself (see also Matthew 25:35 “I was a stranger, and you invited me in”). It even becomes a cardinal virtue—”Remember to welcome strangers in your homes. There were some who did that and welcomed angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2) But our modern discussions about strangers are embedded in the idea of “the nation” and their competing markets. The question “How many foreigners can we accept into our country without endangering out inner peace?” is a complex one. For its answers, we rely on insights from ethics, the law, economics, and psychology. The OT offers some important insights here, since the distinction between oneself and the other, and the difficulty of living as stranger in an often hostile culture are—without exaggerationöthe key problems in the history of Israel and the theology and ethics of the OT. Three theological arguments...