The Assumption of Inerrancy as the Productive Principle of Traditional Jewish Exegesis

In a brilliant post, Iyov notes that the assumption that every detail of holy writ is in harmony with every other detail is the productive principle of traditional Jewish exegesis. In the school of Akiva, it might be added, inerrancy also applied below the word level to such details as spelling variation. Apparently random variation was not random at all. By definition, it was fraught with systemic significance. Given that exegetical assumption, it became imperative that the orthographical details of an agreed-upon copy text, and  a reading tradition that (more or less) matched it, be scrupulously preserved. The masoretic text, for its accuracy and preservation of detail one of the most astounding linguistic artifacts of all time, is the product of a strict inerrantist hermeneutic.

The sages often ignored obvious discourse cues in the text in order to pursue particular exegetical ends. The paradox: a very high view of Scripture allowed them to do this.

It is not too much to say that the entire edifice of traditional halachic and aggadic interpretation is founded on a particularly strong version of the doctrine of verbal inerrancy. Food for thought.

Comments

[Peter Kirk]

So, are "Bible codes" of the Michael Drosnin type a proper development of traditional Jewish exegesis?

[JohnFH]

Hi Peter,

I've not read Drosnin. Somehow I doubt that he makes a real contribution to Jewish interpretation of the Bible.

Interpretation of a biblical text, however, can treat it as a code and be brilliant and illuminating, not of the text per se, but of the metanarrative a religion holds dear. In a nutshell, that is the beauty of allegorical interpretation of Song of Songs, whether Jewish or Christian.

[Alan Lenzi]

That is a very interesting observation, especially for the history of the text and its history of interpretation.

One could likewise say that inerrantist hermeneutical assumptions and the conviction that special revelation and general revelation do not contradict one another are the generative matrix for much Fundamentalist Christian creation science exegesis, too.

[Phil Sumpter]

This is interesting, thanks. I wonder if there is anything like this in the ancient church. Childs has often indicated that the differing theologies between church and synagogue led to differening approaches to hermeneutics. For example, midrash rather than allegory is typically Jewish for theological reasons.

And I wonder if the modern Christian category of the text as "witness" helps clarify this.

[JohnFH]

Alan, I think you are exactly right about the nexus between a particular hermeneutic and creation science.

But that is only half the story! Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay showing that Louis Agassiz, a predecessor of his at Harvard, was able to move beyond the paradigm of strict gradualism in the theory of evolution towards a model allowing for rapid change in consequence of catastrophes because he was steeped in the creaton / flood pattern of the book of Genesis. In other words, discerning scientists have occasionally turned their knowledge of the Bible into a plus for the building of hypotheses.

The irony is delicious. But don't expect Gould's findings to be bandied about much. They don't carry water to either side of the culture wars.

[JohnFH]

Phil,

I don't think an inerrantist hermeneutic of the kind described here was operative among the Fathers. Their exegesis was not built on the small details of the text as was contemporary Jewish exegesis.

The practice of the sages, when two legal passages of the Torah disagree on matters of substance, was to harmonize them by way of a third formulation which went beyond both. The contradictions were treated as apparent, not real, the work of harmonization was productive of new law.

In the church, the Bible did not function as a legal corpus that had to be interpreted.

[Alan Lenzi]

Yeah, I believe it about Gould's predecessor. Many very interesting theories, ideas, etc. have been generated by something like that in a person's background. Another good example may be M. F. Maury, who seems to have taken the words in Ps 8:8, "the paths of the sea," quite literally and discovered ocean currents.

I don't think I would have chosen my dissertation topic had I not had the background I did. As much as we change through life, we are still shaped by where we've been.

About the church fathers vs. the rabbis, I agree with you John, the rabbis have a very different approach to the text.