The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Orthodox Christianity

Abstract

Abstract The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Orthodox Christianity investigates the various ways in which Orthodox Christian, i.e., Eastern and Oriental communities have received, shaped, and interpreted the Christian Bible. The introduction, “Balancing Tradition with Modernity,” sets the tone and scope of the volume, and is followed by five parts. Part I, “Text”: The Orthodox Church has never codified the Septuagint or any other textual witnesses as its authoritative text. Textual fluidity and pluriformity, a characteristic of Orthodoxy, is demonstrated by the various ancient and modern Bible translations such as, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, etc. Part II, “Canon”: In the Protestant and Roman Catholic situations, the canon of the Bible, specifically the Old Testament canons are “closed” and limited to thirty-nine and forty-six books, respectively. In contrast, the Orthodox canon is “open-ended,” consisting of thirty-nine canonical books and ten or more (e.g., Ethiopian canon) anaginoskomena “readable” books (Septuagint additions). Part III, “Scripture within Tradition”: Unlike the classical Protestant view of sola scriptura and the Roman Catholic way of placing Scripture and Tradition on par as sources—means of divine revelation, the Orthodox view accords a central role to Scripture within Tradition, with the latter conceived not as a deposit of faith but rather as the Church’s life through history. Part IV, “Toward an Orthodox Hermeneutics,” and Part V, “Looking to the Future”: The last two parts survey Orthodox “traditional” hermeneutics consisting mainly of patristic commentaries and liturgical interpretations found in hymnography and iconography, and the ways by which Orthodox biblical scholars balance these traditional hermeneutics with modern historical-critical approaches to the Bible.