Orange Proverbs and Purple Parables

The Enterprise of Reading the Holy Scriptures as Scripture

Brookman

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781498209489
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In the words of Saint Augustine, the Bible is long, complicated, and difficult to read. Orange Proverbs & Purple Parables is a book about reading the Bible. How does one become a more spiritually discerning and critically appreciative reader of the Holy Scriptures? What does it take to become a better interpreter of biblical texts? This book explores wide-ranging approaches and considerations germane to the enterprise of reading. The catch phrase used throughout the book is that of reading the Holy Scriptures as scripture. What goes into reading the Bible as scripture? What are some of the major elements inherent in this endeavor that should be of concern to the one who aspires to become a deep, thoughtful reader and an effective interpreter? This book weaves through a labyrinth of characters and disciplines as it explores this enterprise of reading the Holy Scriptures. The likes of Chomsky, Augustine, neuroscience, Barth, linguistics, theological interpretation, Origen, metaphor theory, devotional reading, and Jerome, along with many more people and fields of inquiry, are all garnered to encourage the reader in an exploration of the enterprise of reading the Holy Scriptures.

1

What’s in a Title?

Ah, Shakespeare and Wittgenstein!

You probably remember Juliet’s lines as she waxed eloquent in one of the better-known scenes in Romeo and Juliet. From the balcony she crooned,

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet,

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

and for thy name, which is no part of thee,

Take all myself.

Act 2, scene 2

We recognize that Shakespeare, as the author, had Miss Capulet ask the famous question, and one intriguing aspect of the scene is how he had Juliet dabble in the realm of the philosophy of language when she uttered those words, “What’s in a name?” There is an entire academic field of study known as the philosophy of language in which the boundary lines of philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive studies meld interestingly together. One of the major players in that field was a fellow with a rather catchy name—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951). He made his mark in the philosophy of language as he wrestled with the relationship between statements and reality. The concept of a name was very important to Wittgenstein. He argued that a name is what he called a “simple sign.”1 The word rose would be what Wittgenstein would consider a simple sign. He would agree with Juliet. Were the object we name a rose be named otherwise, the object would remain the same. In this case, for instance, its alluring fragrance or its bedazzling beauty would, most certainly, not change.

There are not too many people around who would argue the point that Shakespeare’s writings supply more well-known and widely quoted phrases than any other English language author. Yet, there is a great propensity for people who operate within American popular culture to misquote or merely paraphrase thoughts or texts—even those of Shakespeare. Naturally, the true purists see that as desecrating “The Bard.” Not being a Shakespearean purist, I must admit that I have tainted the language of the man a few times myself. I think it irritates the socks off my daughter, who is somewhat of a Shakespearean devotee. Of course, it is usually not by design or with malice that I, or for that matter anyone, would twist or pervert the near-sacred syntax of the guy. But I do remember the reaction I once received from my daughter when I said, “Discretion is the better part of valor.” You would have thought I got caught swearing a blue streak. She threw me a glare that could have sunk a battleship. (I can’t remember if that is the proper idiom or if I just mangled someone else’s great line too.) Yet, the true Shakespearean purist knows that the line properly quoted is, “The better part of valor is discretion.” That is what I mean by near-sacred syntax. After all, I had the words right; only the order was somewhat skewed. I allude to Juliet’s line “What’s in a name?” because I wish to commence this book with a couple of comments about its title.

Shakespeare and Wittgenstein lead us to consider that the naming of a thing, in this case the naming of a book, is of some importance. In English, one might ask the question, “What is the name of the book?” That is exactly equivalent to asking, “What is the title of the book?” The title of a book oftentimes carries significant weight behind it. That is, any given book having a flashy or witty title would probably outsell the same book saddled with less than a catchy title. I suspect any publisher could verify that hypothesis.

Yet, it is true that even if the title of a book were different, the book would, itself, remain the same. Remember, the rose would still be the same thing even were it not called a rose. In antiquity, however, books did not have flashy, market-driven titles. In fact, in the ancient world, written works usually did not have titles at all. As it has been noted with regard to the naming of ancient works, the “situation is complicated by the fact that the concept of a book title was not as well established in antiquity as it is today: ancient titles often seem not to go back to the authors themselves, and particularly at early periods works might have had no title at all (being known by their opening words).”2

As you will see in the next few pages, the books of the Bible are good examples of this phenomenon of the title of a book being taken from the first word or first few words of the written work.

Naming the Books of the Bible

Quick, can you name the first five books of the Bible? Everyone probably knows the title of the first book of the Bible, and as you mentally tried to list the first five books just now, the first word out of your brain was Genesis, right? But, did you know that Genesis was not the original title of the book in its earliest form? That is because all of the commonly used English titles for the first set of books in the Bible, i.e., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy have come to us through a historical process, and none of the titles by which we now know those books were original to the work.

In the case of the first five books, all of them are from a section of the Bible known as the Pentateuch, a Greek term (pentateuchos) meaning, literally, five cases or implements or containers.3 The word, Pentateuch, does not actually occur in the Bible. This term may have originally referred to five boxes or cases in which separate scrolls may have been kept, but it also may very well be connected in some way to the fivefold division of the first section of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, namely, the Torah. In English, that collection of five books is oftentimes referred to as the Law. Those books were originally composed in Hebrew,4 but they were all translated into Greek in the third century BC. That translation, known as the Septuagint, became very widely used as the Greek language flourished throughout the Near East in the Hellenistic Period (333–63 BC).5 Indeed, the Septuagint was the version of the Scriptures commonly used by the first several generations of Christians as New Testament writers quoted and paraphrased widely from that Greek translation. When it comes to tracing the titles for the various biblical books, one needs to appreciate the panoramic view of change that took place as the text moved from its original language (Hebrew) into the Greek language and then into Latin.

Thus, while Genesis was originally written in Hebrew, the ancient Israelites and later post-exilic Jews did not call the book Genesis. Rather, what originally became the title or the name of the book was the first Hebrew word on the scroll of that book (Bereshit–בראשית)6 which usually is translated with the majestic English phrase “In the beginning.” This was a very common practice in the ancient world, widely used far beyond the Hebrew cultural sphere.

Known by the Latin word, incipit, the first word or phrase of a book or manuscript was used as the normal way of referring to texts in antiquity. Thus, the practice far preceded the Latin term that was later used to label it. In fact, the tradition of titling or labeling a work by its first word or phrase goes all the way back to Sumerian scribes in the third millennium BC who oftentimes used an incipit on clay tablets.

In the case of the Bible, as with just about any book from antiquity, the use of an incipit was the usual way of referring to a written work. Thus, for example, in the book of Exodus, the incipit used was actually the second word of the book (Shemot–שמות). That word translated literally means “names” as the opening line of the text of Exodus begins, “These are the names . . .” (Exod 1:1). The book of Leviticus was originally known to the Hebrews as Vayyiqra (ויקרא) which is literally the verb for “and he called” (Lev 1:1), and that is the first word of the text. In the case of the book of Numbers, the original incipit was actually the fifth word of the opening line of the book in Hebrew. The book commences, “Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wild...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: What’s in a Title?
• Chapter 2: Orange and Purple Texts
• Chapter 3: Orienting Oneself
• Chapter 4: Reading as One Ought
• Chapter 5: Methods of Reading
• Chapter 6: Conceptualizing a Method
• Chapter 7: The Fractal Nature of the Holy Scriptures
• Chapter 8: The Sfumato of the Holy Scriptures
• Chapter 9: The Lamb, the Elephant, and Biblical Interpretation
• Chapter 10: Mapping the Metaphorical World
• Chapter 11: Toward the Virtuous Act of Reading
• Bibliography