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BiblicalCriticism

in the World

of thePreacherby Mary Margaret Pazdan, OP

W

hen preachers reflect on their studies in seminaries and schools oftheology,many realize that connections between biblical and homileticscourses, including any prayer courses, were not always evident. In a

survey of priests who had been educated after the Second Vatican Council,Barbara E. Reid, OP and Leslie J. Hoppe, OFM of Catholic TheologicalUnion in Chicago concluded that only 27 percent of their Sunday preachingevidenced quality exegetical preparation (Barbara E. Reid, OP and LeslieHoppe, OFM, Preachingfrom the Scriptures: New Directionsfor PreparingPreachers. Chicago: Catholic Theological Union, 1998, p. 21). Preacherswant to improve. They know that exegesis-application is not adequate. Is

there a hermeneutic, a process of interpretation, that embraces personallife and preaching?

To be preachers is to respond to the Spirit's call to livesof prayer and study. We choose this foundation to build ministry

on rock that endures rain, floods, and winds (Matthew8:24-25). Prayer assists us to discern God's voice in the

midst of "resounding gongs" and "clashing cymbals"(1 Corinthians 13:1). Study opens our minds and

hearts to delight in the abundant table of livingtradition. How we appropriate prayer and

study becomes a proclamation of God'sword for our communities. This spiral

process of prayer, study, andproclamation is a new hermeneutic

that incorporates prayer and study towitness with our whole lives to the Good

News. It invites us to re-imagine what apreaching life might look like. Since this author

has been asked to present biblical tools for thepreacher, the emphasis here will be on the "study"

phase of the process. What follows is a brief outline of theentire hermeneutic followed by a more complete description

of the process.

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January/February 2006 preach 27

continued on page28

BiblicalCriticism

continuedfrom page27

A process for interpreting scripturefor preaching

I. Contemplate. Prayer and con-templation are at the heart of thepreparation process for preaching, forthe preacher can only honestly pro-claim a word that has been felt in theheart. Each person contemplates in hisor her own way. Here are some sampleapproaches.

Reflect on relationships with God,others, cosmos, and self with body,mind. and spirit:. Recognize blessings to articulate

gratitude and praise..Recognize concerns to articulateanxiety and stress..~::ugnize blessings and concerns inc, :esial and political arenas..RhDgnize blessings and concerns~ ~-urgical and yearly cycles.. ==-ro~ea few images with particularcc _'"'"Sand phrases to expressdis..zeriesJ

:..c :..c...uDnarytexts, liturgical texts,and rt~~ actions for the approachingceleb~~ ~-ash over body, mind, andspirit:.Read .b.. -uts aloud (chanting,

singing ~o'ing with images,phrases S'-mbols) or enact the ritualmove~.Read ~ tex: silently and imaginethe rima...a.:tion.

Be sti!: and know that I am God(see Psa~ 45 ~~ :.Beg for the Spirit's breath, energy,

and insighL.Listen for a connection: a word, animage. a symbol that can provide afoundation for the preaching..What question(s) arise(s) from thiscontemplation?

II. Study. There is no substitute forknowledge of the scriptures: theirstructure, their history, their culturalmilieu, and so on. The preacher who isconversant with scriptural contextsand methods of critique has a frame-work on which to project the connec-

28

tions and questions that arise from con-templation. Here are some approaches toemploy in scriptural study..Gather materials to create new

understanding; read widely..Establish context within a biblicalbook..Attend to structure of the book and

its literary genre(s)..Choose a biblical commentary (or two)..Select a preacher's commentary;perhaps include reflections fromInternet sources.

.What new insights broaden anddeepen personal contemplation?.What new insights relate to personalinterpretation of the community,liturgical celebration and season,and situations in the Church andworld?

III. Preach..Appropriate contemplation andstudy anew.Moving from personaVcommunityappropriation to specific preachingcontexts

Contemplation: Praying the textsThe heart of preaching is how we

live and enter into the word of God.

Barbara Brown Taylor comments,I also believe every sermon

begins and ends with God.Because the word of God is whata preacher wrestles with in thepulpit, and because it is a livingword, every sermon is God's cre-ation as well as the creation of the

preacher and the congregation(Barbara Brown Taylor, ThePreaching Life. Cambridge:Cowley, 1993, p. 77).In praying Lectionary texts, we let

go of their familiarity to experiencesomething new. Praying helps to shakeloose the assumption that we necessar-ily hold a common worldview and lan-guage with the author. We move from afirst naivete to the beginning ofhermeneutics. We enter into a processwhereby we understand differentlybecause we encounter a text in a new

situation. We bring our discoveries in

prayer to study. The questions we bringare especially important because theyshape and direct study.

Studying: The world of biblicalcriticism

How do we approach biblical inter-pretation today? Imagine a kaleido-scope. Choose an object indoors oroutdoors. Look through the lens andturn it slowly. See what amazing colorsand shapes the light produces. Biblicalmethods and resources are intricate

and varied, too. Being familiar withthem and using them are as essential topreaching as prayer.

However, studying texts with con-temporary methods can be surprisingand sometimes disconcerting. Weexperience what happened to the bibli-cal message in the shift from speakingto writing. Paul Ricoeur describes theevent as "distanciation."

The relation between message andspeaker at one end of the communica-tion chain and the relationshipbetween message and hearer at theother are deeply transformed whenface-to-face relation is replaced by themore complex relation of reading towriting (Paul Ricoeur, InterpretationTheory: Discourse and the Surplus ofMeaning. Fort Worth: Texas ChristianUniversity Press, 1976, p. 29).

Historical criticism

When we adjust our kaleidoscope tolook through history for reconstructingthe author, message, and hearer of abiblical text, we use historical criticismin an attempt to reveal what has beencalled "the world behind the text." Its

function is to interpret the relation-ships and events among persons,groups, institutions, and even societiesthat appear in a text. What happenedto persons within a particular time andculture? How does the text describe

their experience? If our connectionsand questions are about what hap-pened in Jesus' time, we begin ourstudy with historical criticism.

There are two methods that investi-

gate a text historically. The historical-

'Preach J::tnll;:arv/Fphrll~r\l r')nn~

critical method has been a significantone for over two hundred years. It isexegesis because we are trying tounderstand what the author meant for

a particular group of people whoselives and worldviews are distant fromours. The method is author-centered,which is to say that it focuses on theintentions and the context of the one

who composed the text. This methodpredominates in many commentaries,books, and journals. For example,most of the commentaries found in theThe New Jerome BiblicalCommentary(Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer,Roland Murphy. Englewood Cliffs, Nj:Prentice-Hall, 1990) use this approach.

The social-scientific method, part-ner to the historical-criticalmethod,investigatespatterns of culture andhuman behavior.It was devel- J

oped in the last few decades torespond to basic human ques-tions in light of a first-centuryMediterranean culture. Why dopersons use language in partic-ular ways to communicate withor shun one another? Why isthe household a basic unit of '

meaning? What is honor andshame? This method is also author-centered. It offers tools to discover

what first-century persons believed andalerts to the danger of interpreting a textsolely from our twenty-first-centuryworldviews.A basic text is John]. Pilch,A Cultural Dictionary oj the Bible. [A bib-liographical listing of the texts cited inthis articleis found on page D7- Editor.]Pilch also has a series for Lectionarystudy, The Cultural World ofJesus: Sundayby Sunday, Cycles A, B, C. Bruce]. Malinaand Richard L Rohrbaugh offer substan-

tial commentaries on the Gospels in their

A Social Science Commentary on the

Synoptic Gospels and A Social Science

Commentary on the Gospel ofJohn.

LiterarycriticismStudying the "world behind the text"

is one choice. It gives us an insight intoGod's revelatory activity through thewords of an author addressed to a partic-

January/February 2006 preach

IT IS NOTENOUGH'.

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ular community. Nevertheless, our con-nections and questions from prayersometimes relate to another kaleidoscop-ic design. This is the approach known asliterary criticism or the "world of thetext." It is used to analyze the narrativefeatures of a document, such as setting,plot, and characters, by entering intothe world of the narrator and examin-

ing the truth of the text without atten-tion to historical circumstances. We

can also enter this world to analyzewords, patterns, and structures.Literary criticism is text-centered.Some preachers find such narrativeand rhetorical details most intriguing.

Narrative criticism is popular because

-- ;;.;;.;;.;;.;;;-

II

we love to tell stories. Dianne Bergant,CSA,with Richard N. Fragomeni, treatsnarrative and other literary genres inPreaching the New Lectionary: CyclesA, B,C. Another resource that explicitlyaddresses the Lectionary readings is thethree-volume ecumenical work The

Lectionary Commentary: TheologicalExegesisJor Sundays Texts. The editor,Roger E. Van Ham, invited dozens of prac-titioners to do an analysis of texts thatincludes both the "world behind the text"and the "world of the text."

Some authors offer general literaryinsights: Elizabeth Struthers Malbon,Hearing Mark: A Listeners Guide andMichael Willett Newheart, Word and

Soul: A Psychological, Literary andCultural Reading oj the Fourth

Gospel. Others attend to literaryfeatures that may be of mostinterest to peachers: David J.Ourisman, From Gospel toSermon: Preaching SynopticTexts; Bonnie BowmanThurston, Preaching Mark;and Robert Kysar, Preaching

John. Students often commentthat it is not enough to study

only for a homily. Studying theBible is a way of life for preach-

ers. Being at home with the word isone milieu for studying Lectionary

pericopes. Of course, one must also beat home with the liturgy in order tobuild the bridges from one Sunday tothe next and over the course of a litur-

gical season.Rhetorical criticism, which also

operates in the "world of the text,"studies how a particular structure andarrangement of words produce a persua-sive message for hearers/readers.Analyzing the Letters of Paul via rhetori-cal criticism gives us a glimpse of Paul'soratorical skill, how his communities

received his preaching, and what strate-gies are available for preachers today.

Charles B. Puskas, Jr., The Letters ojPaul: An Introduction and JeromeMurphy-O'Connor, Op, Paul the Letter-Writer: His World, His Options,His Skills

continued on page 30

29

BiblicalCriticismcontinuedfrompage29

provide excellent introductions torhetorical criticism.In his PreachingPaul,Brad R. Braxton examines the effective-ness of Paul's rhetoric for both first-

century and twenty-first-century com-munities. Likewise, Nancy LammersGross in her If YouCannotPreachLikePaul. . . attempts to make Paul's lettersaccessible to the contemporary preacher.If our connections and questions fromprayer focus on the text, we begin studywith literary criticism.

therefore, of i~terpretations" (PaulRicoeur,InterpretationTheory:DiscourseandtheSurplusofMeaning.pp. 31-32).

Our connections and questions fromprayer thus often find a home in a thirdkaleidoscopic design. How does the textrelate to the present-day community andpreacher? Contemporary readerresponse or "the world in front of thetext," that is to say,the world of the per-son or community reading the biblicaltext now,is another place to begin study.This approach provides the tools neededto interpret texts for a local communitythrough a mutual correlation and cri-tique between the worldviews of authorsand readers/hearers. In other words, thetask is to compare the world of theauthor with the world of the contempo-rary reader and in so doing uncover newmeanings or the "fuller sense" men-tioned above. Becauseof its focus on theworld of the one reading the text now,contemporary reader response criticismis said to be reader-centered.

What do we need to know about read-

ers and hearers? An ongoing analysis ofpersonal and community worldviews isvital. Today, "social location" is a newcategory that includes social, ethnic, cul-

tural, and gender identity as means ofidentifying the reading audience

and their potential response tobiblical texts. Fernando F.

Segovia and Mar yAnn Tolbert edited

two volumes forreaders to hear

biblicalstories

throughothers'

Contemporaryreaderresponsecriticism

There is also a profound "fullersense"or "deeper meaning of the text, intendedby God but not clearly by the humanauthor" (PontificalBiblicalCommission,"Document on the Interpretation of theBible in the Church." The ScriptureDocuments: An Anthology of OfficialCatholicTeachings.DeanP.Bechard,ed.CollegevilleMN: Liturgical Press, p.283). Here the Pontifical BiblicalCommission highlights another experi-ence of distanciation. When the biblical

message is written down, there areunknown readerslhearers. Each gen-eration of this future audience

brings its own experiences andcontext to the task of biblicalinterpretation. Ricoeurnotes, "It is part of themeaning of a text tobe open to anindefini tenumber ofreadersand,

30

experiences, Reading from the Place,Volume 1: Social Location and Biblical

Interpretation in the United States andVolume 2: Social Location and Biblical

Interpretation in Global Perspective.Theyinterpret stories with many types of lib-erationist and feminist criticism. Also,Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringeedited an ecumenical Women~ Bible

Commentary: Expanded Edition (withApocrypha). Women offer an introduc-tion and summary of each biblicalbook and focus attention on

passages where female characters andsymbols appear.

Preaching:The word comes to lifeThe Word that we encountered in our

contemplation and prayer has accompa-nied and guided us in our study andencourages us to proclaim a specificpub-lic witness to our experience. Thehermeneutic of our study has led us to a"second naivete" that allows us to inter-

pret the biblical text from a new perspec-tive. This new perspective lends a fresh-ness and urgency to our preaching thatmay not otherwise have been possible.

Preachers know that God gives theword to us in our prayer and dailylives. Whether we study on our own orwith others, whether we use one bibli-cal tool or another, we are always in thecompany of "so great a cloud of wit-nesses" (Hebrews 12:1). We dependupon the Spirit to join our voices withtheirs to witness anew the power of apreaching life. .Mary Margaret pazdan, OP is a member ofthe Order of Preachers (Dominican Sistersof Sinsinawa, Wisconsin) and a professorof biblical studies at

Aquinas Instituteof Theology in Saint

Louis. She offerscourses and work-

shops on biblicalhermeneutics and

preaching.

preach January/February 2006