Many factors influence how we read any document, including — perhaps, especially — the Bible. Spending some time exploring factors that influence our own reading is an important and useful exercise. The complex, multi-faith territory of #ExploringBabylon is just one area in which a good grasp of one’s own filters can be clarifying.
Here are some resources to help in that effort.
1) Social Location
Over twenty years ago, Fortress Press, a Christian-oriented press in Minneapolis since 1962, published two volumes on “Social Location” and Bible hermeneutics:
Are some readings of the Bible more objective than others? More privileged? More true? How does one’s own life situation shape one’s reading of the text? What will acknowledgment of the validity of a variety of perspectives mean for historical-critical methods of interpretation?
The first volume included a “self-inventory” developed by faculty and students of Christian seminaries.
Gottwald, N.K. “Framing Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary: A Student Self-Inventory on Biblical Hermeneutics.” Reading from This Place, Vol. 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States. F. F. Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. 256-261. (On-line source here.)
Of particular note for the purposes of this blog and #ExploringBabylon:
ATTITUDE TOWARD JUDAISM
What is my view of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity? To what extent is my view informed by direct experience of Jews or Jewish communities? How does my view affect my understanding of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments and my understanding of the religious identity of Jesus, Paul, and other central figures in the New Testament.
2) Diversity and Social Location
Decades later, the same press issued The Peoples’ Companion to the Bible, designed to help readers both “formulate their own social location as a key to understanding the Bible and its import for them” and “reclaim the Bible as a multicultural, dialogical, and living tradition.” As part of the latter effort, the book includes a self-inventory, updated but quite similar to the previous one, also intended for Christians, primarily students.
“A Self-Inventory for Bible Readers.” Peoples’ Companion to the Bible. DeYoung, Gafney, etal., eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010, xxix-xxxii. (Related resources and link to download “Introduction,” which includes the self-inventory, at Peoples’ Companion page.)
In the 2010 version, the question on Judaism is gone, and this one has been added:
Your religious community. If you identify yourself now with a particular religious community, how would you describe the way the Bible is understood and read (if it is) in that community? What is the cultural or racial makeup of your religious community? Is a diversity of people an important value in your religious community? Does this affect the way the Bible is understood?
3) A Different Location
The self-inventories cited above are powerful and useful tools. They are designed explicitly for Christians, however.
On the face of it, Jews and Christians share some sacred text. Our approaches to that text, and the overall context in which we read, differs enormously, however. In addition, Jewish and Christian religious communities are organized differently, so Bible-reading influences will reflect different sets of dynamics.
This blog failed to find a parallel instrument for Jewish readers of the Bible. If anyone knows of such a source, PLEASE share it! Meanwhile, here is a draft effort, “Jews’ Self-Inventory for Bible Readers DRAFT.”
The “Customary Exposure” question, for example, has been adapted for Jewish readers:
How do you usually encounter the Bible, if at all, today?
Through the Torah and Haftarah [weekly prophetic] readings, and any related commentary, during services? Through weekly commentaries/dvrei torah [words of Torah]? Group study, in- or outside of religious services, on the weekly Torah and Haftarah?
Do you recite or study psalms through the prayerbook? outside the prayerbook? Do you study from other Writings or the Prophets?…
Here is Self-Inventory DRAFT in PDF. It is also posted on Academia.edu for sharing in that forum.
Comments and suggestions from those willing to test-drive this inventory are most welcome.
"A Song Every Day" 