Spotting and Combating Cultural Eisegesis

There has been an uptick in cultural eisegesis in  recent years. This typically occurs when an interpreter will attempt to proffer an interpretations that is far removed from what would be the plain reading of a text. This requires an explanation of how the interpreter arrived at the non grammatical historical interpretation. One method involves a fallacious appeal to culture.

What is cultural eisegesis
In order to answer the question of what cultural eisegesis is, one must first know what eisegesis is. Eisegesis is the opposite of exegesis – which means literally to draw out. Exegesis is that of drawing out of a text that which is present in the text. If eisegesis is the opposite, then eisegesis means to read into the text that which is not there. Cultural eigegesis, then, is reading cultural understanding into a given text.

The persuasive power of this method lies in the fact that culture CAN impact interpretation. While cultural analysis is technically eisegesis from a textualist point of view, Cultural analyses that are limited to exegesis of  the cultural understandings that the author would have brought into the writing of the text are still to be consider exegesis.  Consider the passage in Mark 7. The plain meaning is that Jesus is condemning the exaltation  man-made traditions over the commands of God.

Mar 7:6-13  He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME.  (7)  AND IN VAIN THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN.’  (8)  For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”  (9)  He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.  (10)  For Moses said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER’; and, ‘HE WHO CURSES FATHER OR MOTHER, LET HIM BE PUT TO DEATH.’  (11)  But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God),  (12)  then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother,  (13)  making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

The cultural  context here provides us with information not in the plain reading of the text. In this case both Jesus and the disciples would have understood this as a rebuttal to the Rabbinic  teaching that there existed a secret oral Torah that was known only to the priests. Jesus here was condemning what would later be called Talmudic Judaism. Notice that the cultural interpretation is compatible with what is found in the text, adding supplemental information and nuance. The cultural understanding does not contradict the plain reading of the text because it was cultural exegesis of the cultural understandings that framed the original intent of the authors. In Cultural eisegesis, however, cultural analyses will often produce interpretations that will contradict the plain meaning of the text.

Examples of cultural eisegesis
There are several examples of cultural eisegesis  that have made the rounds lately. In each of these cases an appeal was made to culture to make the text to mean the opposite of its plain meaning.

Licona has made the rounds by suggesting the the Chicago Statement on Scriptural Inerrancy needs to be revised. He argues that the gospel writer employed embellishments to the text (i.e errors) because they employed Greeco-Roman narrative style and that that such embellishments are part of this Greco-Roman narrative methodology. This view has multiple problems. One is that the gospel writers, except Luke, are Hebrews, not Greco-Roman. Licona’s cultural analysis commits the genetic fallacy, as it assumes the writers employ the Greco-Roman narrative style simply because they live in the Roman civilization, ignoring both the Hebrew background of the New Testament writers and the proclivity for the Greek Fathers to prefer Hebrew narrative.

Licona’s claims run diametrically opposed to the claims of the New Testament about itself. We read in 2 1:16 Peter that “we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. ” Paul writes in Col 2:8 that “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” There was no love of Greco-Roman narrative among the Apostles.

Christicommunity has done a documentary video fully exposing Licona’s fallacy in a podcast which features two if the architects of the Chicago Statement .

 

Licona is not alone among scholars who have used cultural eisegesis to relativize Scripture to culture. The Literary Framework Hypothesis promoted by John Walton and other Ancient Near East Scholars uses similar methods. In addition to the fallacy of cultural eisegesis, these inevitably lead down the road to heresy as one must conclude that Jesus and the apostles were wrong for taking these as literal history.

Annunaki/Pagan gods
There has also been an uptick in claims that the Annunaki or other Pagan gods are the actual Creators of the Heavens and the earth. The argument is two fold. The first part is linguistic, claiming that since the Hebrew word for God (Elohim) is plural, that it must be referring to multiple gods. The second rung of the argument is for the commentator their favorite Pagan gods into the text as the pantheon that created the Heavens and the earth.

There are several problems with this. There is a linguistic problem, a philosophical problem, and a theological problem  with culturally eisegeting  Paganism into Scripture.

The linguistic problem is the fact that whenever the plural Elohim is used to refer to the God of Israel or the Creator of the world, it is embedded in sentences where all other parts of speech are singular. Furthermore, the plural Elohim is for God  in Deuteronomy where God is explicitly described as One – “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!” The word for one is echad, a word to be used for physically or logically composite unities such as the Trinity. The correct description of a God who is physically a singularity but logically described as three person in one substance is consistent with the employment of a grammatically plural term of God in sentences where the grammatical alignment is singular.

There is one philosophical problem with  trying to read any of the various strains of Paganism into the Bible: The philosophic or world-view context. Reading Paganism into the Bible based on what appear to be surface similarities fail due to the huge  world-view discrepancy between Paganism and Judeo-Christian thought. The Judeo-Christian worldview posits a transcendentally existing person who spoke the universe into existence – a universe emerging from information. Paganism posits a materialistic evolutionary worldview where gods are merely demigods that emanated from the primordial ooze which is assumed to exist. The worldview discrepancy makes a coherent mashup or re-interpretation of Scripture with Paganism impossible.

There is a huge theological program with eisegeting culture into Scripture, as it will inevitably lead one to conclude that Jesus and the apostles are wrong. There is an entire industry of scholars such as Michael Heisner, John Walton, and others who would have us believe that Gen 1-11 was universally understood by the ancients to be allegory and poetry and not intended to be historical because of surface similarities to other ancient near eastern cultures (ANE).  As Jesus and the apostles all regard the first eleven chapters of Genesis as history, to deny its historicity is to deny Jesus is who He claims He is ( a fallible god is not God) and that the apostles speak authoritatively.

 

Jewish eisegesis of Hebrews

I recently came across an advertisement on Facebook for a Messianic Jewish commentary on the book of Hebrew, purporting to analyze the New Testament book of Hebrews in a Jewish context. It purports to “provide readers with the missing historical context and Jewish concepts necessary to understand the epistle within Judaism rather than in antithesis to it.”

The thing about Messianic Judaism is, is that all variations of it hold that observance of the Mosaic Covenant is obligatory for Jewish people. This advertised work that purports to teach the Jewish cultural context from a Messianic Jewish perspective will run into direct contradiction to the plain reading of Hebrew 8:7-13, which plainly teaches that the Mosaic Covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant. (This is not to be confused with the idea that the Church has replaced Israel. for more information on this topic, Read “The Olive Tree – Towards a Messianic Systematic Theology.“)

It should be noted that whenever the cultural interpretation diametrically opposes the plain reading of the text without any linguistic clues in the text to justify this, then one must abandon the grammatical historical hermeneutic. Maintenance of a  theology that makes observance of the Mosaic Law obligatory requires that the plain reading of Hebrews 8 be rejected, as that interpretation clearly teaches that the Mosaic Covenant is no longer in  force. The Messianic Jew must argue that this text meant something radically different to the Jewish audience, and lacking specific evidence or clues in the text itself, one simply reads the ideas perceived to be culturally normative and read them, into the text, making the text fit the narrative.

A proper approach to using culture in Biblical interpretation
The Proper Approach to using culture in interpretation involves using * principles: It (1) Analysis   of cultural background nuances or provides additional background information, because it is  the background , (2) any cultural interpretations that are diametrically opposed to the plain reading of the text should raise red flags, and (3) The grammatical-historical hermeneutic should always be the foreground and  default in the absence of historic facts or literary clues that suggest a different hermeneutic.

1. Analysis   of cultural background nuances or provides additional background information, because it is  the background. It should not be intended to replace the text ans does not represent the true relationship of most texts to their culture. Texts are not merely products of their culture but exist in response to the culture. Cultural eisegesis fails spectacularly when it is applied to counter-cultural texts. The Bible is profoundly countercultural.
2. Any cultural interpretations that are diametrically opposed to the plain reading of the text should raise red flags. These are usually attacks on the integrity of the authors, scribes,  and translators of texts. While humans are not infallible creatures, those who bring to us the Bible are, for the most part acting with high levels of scholarship and integrity. This should not be dismissed with out strong reasons. This goes doubly so when the authors are the apostolic recipients of full plenary verbal inspiration from God to write the original docs of the books of Scripture.
3. The grammatical-historical hermeneutic should always be the foreground and  default in the absence of historic facts or literary clues that suggest a different hermeneutic. There are three arguments arguments that favor the grammatical-historical hermeneutic over alternatives.The first is one that disfavors the critical-historical hermeneutic, which sees Scripture as merely a product of human evolution and subject to hermeneutics which redact the text to fit the scholarship. We are to take the Scriptures themselves at face value claim that it is the words of God and that any textual criticism be focused on determine which manuscripts best reflect the original autograph. We do not get to decide which verses are Scripture based on our own biases.

   The second disfavors allegorical based hermeneutics. Any text intended for public interpretation (exoteric) MUST have a literal hermeneutic as the baseline or default. In such a regime, non-literal genres are indicated by features of the text itself, and in the absence of those a literal interpretation is to be assumed. without that constraint, the text becomes objectively meaningless, having whatever meaning the interpreter reads into the allegory and absolutely nothing more.

   The Third argument for the grammatical-historical method is that without it we would not have the Old Testament. We read in the story of Josiah that the apostasy of Israel got to the point where people forgot that the books of the law even existed until  Shaphan discovered them in the Temple. When this law was read to King Josiah, he rent his clothes and facilitated great revival in the hopes of staving off God’s judgment. While it did not stop judgment it did renew interest in the manuscripts of the books of the law and the histories.  During the first diaspora to Babylon, these scholars took these manuscripts with them. After the Israelites returned from Babylon, Ezra rebuilt the national life of Israel from the documents as the former apostasy/idolatry  destroyed knowledge of any oral traditions. Ezra rebuilt the national life of Israel by employing grammatical-historical hermeneutic to the manuscripts they had

   “Neh 8:1-8  Now all the people gathered together as one man in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded Israel.  (2)  So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding on the first day of the seventh month.  (3)  Then he read from it in the open square that was in front of the Water Gate from morning until midday, before the men and women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.  (4)  So Ezra the scribe stood on a platform of wood which they had made for the purpose; and beside him, at his right hand, stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Urijah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah; and at his left hand Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbadana, Zechariah, and Meshullam.  (5)  And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up.  (6)  And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. Then all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” while lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.  (7)  Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law; and the people stood in their place.  (8)  So they read distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and they gave the sense, and helped them to understand the reading.”