Reading the Bible Badly. Karl Allen Kuhn

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СКАЧАТЬ Savior. The wealthy, learned, alien Magi of St. Matthew’s Gospel complement the poor, ignorant, local shepherds of St. Luke’s Gospel. Foreshadowing the universality of the Church, these Gentiles and Jews worship God Incarnate to show that salvation is offered to all men.40

      A common theme in these descriptions of the magi and their devotion to Jesus is the assumption that they would have been men of great learning familiar with the Israelite Scriptures. I guess this is possible, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this contention. Indeed, there was likely a sharing of religious thought between Israelites and Persians starting around the late sixth century BCE and continuing on for at least the next hundred years. But we do not know how long such interreligious dialogue lasted or its extent, and we simply cannot validly assume (1) that it continued into the first century BCE and that (2) it was occurring among this particular group of magi. Even more telling, if it was the case that the magi were led by Israel’s Scriptures to await the birth of the messiah and rightly interpret the significance of the star, then why wouldn’t Matthew—who emphasizes that Jesus’ birth fulfills the Israelite Scriptures—have included that information?

      Celebrating the Magi as Matthew Did

      As I stated at the start of our discussion of the magi, when reflecting on this story American Christians do well to emphasize that Jesus offers God’s salvation to all humankind, and celebrate those who like the magi embrace Jesus with eyes and hearts of faith. But we also tend to cast the magi as characters we find admirable: Scripture-reading, prophecy-discerning, wealthy, wise men.

      But such readings undercut the story’s original intent to challenge our notions of wisdom, power, and self-sufficiency. After all, it is the wise and wealthy and powerful ones in this story who recoil with fear and hatred when hearing the news about Christ. They plot to encounter Jesus on their terms. And eventually, they kill him.

      The magi didn’t come to Jesus because they were wise. They came because they were led by God, and had just enough sense to keep following the star. The magi came not representing royal elite. They came because they were infantile enough to know goodness when they saw it, even if they didn’t fully comprehend yet what it was all about and the implications of their actions.

      “I praise you Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children” (11:25).

      What would it mean for us to truly identify with those the world finds silly, naïve, trashy, powerless, and childish? Rather than reading this story through a self-gratulatory set of lenses, as if the magi are discerning wise people just like us, what if we grasped that the saving reign of God makes little headway among those who hoard their riches, who seek to preserve their privileged positions, who celebrate their status at the expense of others, who so trust in their own manner of “wisdom” that they are blind to the way of blessing God is making known in plain sight before them?

      Remembering our Roots, and Honoring our Ancestors

      When it comes to biblical interpretation, context is (nearly) everything. At least that is the case if one is interested in reading biblical passages in a way that is similar to how many of the first recipients of these texts would have heard them. I hope my discussion of Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth and Matthew’s story of the magi illustrates the importance of engaging three different contexts when it comes to reading the Bible well.

      The Worlds of the Text

      Many interpreters refer to these contexts as the world behind the text (social and historical contexts), the world of the text (the literary context of the surrounding work or narrative), and the world in front of the text (the context of the readers themselves). What follows is a very brief description of each. For illustration purposes, I also summarize how engaging each of these worlds may enable us to become more faithful readers of Luke 2 and Matthew 2 (and by extension, most other biblical texts).

      The World Behind the Text: how our reading of the text makes sense with respect to the time and place in which it was written. What historical, political, economic, and cultural realities are reflected within the text and must be addressed in order to understand the text more fully?

       Understanding what life was like in the first-century world, including grossly inequal distribution of resources, widespread poverty, Roman propaganda casting Caesar as Savior and Lord, and Israelite hopes for deliverance, helps us to discern the revolutionary character of Luke’s story and the contrast he dramatically depicts between Caesar and Jesus, between the Roman world and the Realm and rule of God.

       Understanding that most Israelites in Jesus’ day would have regarded magi as silly and foolish helps us to see the ways in which Matthew’s portrayal of the magi leans on and exploits these popular conceptions in order to say something startling about the kingdom of God and what it means to be part of it.

      The World of the Text: how our reading of this text fits with its immediate context, and the tendencies of the rest of the biblical work in which it appears. How does this passage or story contribute to the interests of the work as a whole?

       Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’ birth builds upon Luke’s characterization of Jesus in the preceding narrative as the divine savior whose advent will upend prevailing patterns of power and right the wrong of gross inequity (recall Mary’s hymn in 1:47–55). It also further prepares us to recognize the ongoing manifestation of these themes in the narrative to follow.

       Matthew’s frequent characterization of Jesus’ followers as marginalized members of society, even “infants,” and Jesus’ consistent critique of wealth, power, and those who wield them for their own selfish pursuits, reaffirms our sense that Matthew also intended to present the magi as marginalized characters who had the humility and faith to receive God’s call.

      The World in Front of the Text: how our own biases, limitations, and interests shape our reading of the story. What parts of our lenses might not be well-suited to engaging this text faithfully, and how can we adjust our lenses to allow the text to speak on its own terms?

       It is important for us to be aware of our tendency as American Christians to sentimentalize the story of Jesus’ birth and overlook its political, social, and economic dimensions—the parts of the story that make many of us uncomfortable. As American Christians, we often resist the integration of religion, politics, economics, and social stratification, and yet Luke’s gospel, like the other Gospels, consistently presents Jesus as addressing such matters as integral to the arrival of God’s kingdom.

       We also do well to be aware of the tendency throughout the ages and even today of Christians and Christian authorities casting the magi according their own interests and biases. Christians have often characterized the magi in ways that reflect their own self-image or selfish objectives, and in doing so have skewed Matthew’s witness to what it means to embrace Jesus as Emmanuel.

      Reading with Respect

      Not only does being mindful of these different contexts help us to become better, more critical readers of the Bible, it can also help us to be more respectful and faithful ones.

      The Bible preserves the gathered testimonies of our spiritual ancestors, spanning over a millennium, to their experience and understanding of God, their history, and sense of what it means to be God’s people. We are the privileged—very privileged—heirs of these sacred traditions. But if we read this holy testimony without any concerted interest or effort to hear it as it was originally intended to be heard, then whose voice are we hearing as we encounter it? Are we truly engaging the testimony of our ancestors, or just our own voices?

      Moreover, СКАЧАТЬ