“Taught by God: Ancient Hermeneutics for the Modern Church” – A Review
Brandon D. Smith. Taught by God: Ancient Hermeneutics for the Modern Church. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2024. 208pp. Paperback. ISBN 978-1087752730.
Years ago, I wrote an article strongly affirming Fee and Stuart’s phrase, “A text cannot mean what it never meant.” This phrase captures the essence of historical-grammatical exegesis. In this view, the overwhelming task of the Bible reader is to discern what the words of Scripture meant to the original audience. While I am not prepared to abandon my commitment to the historical-grammatical method, recent scholarship challenges my assumptions.
In Taught by God: Ancient Hermeneutics for the Modern Church, Brandon Smith argues that the Christian tradition has consistently read the Bible very differently than modern exegetes. Smith, theology chair at Oklahoma Baptist University, believes the church is better served by ancient hermeneutics than modern approaches. Smith does not suggest abandoning all historical-grammatical techniques in favor of excessive allegory. Rather, he advocates adopting pre-modern “sensibilities.” These ancient sensibilities can be summarized as 1) attention to historical and literary structures, 2) reading the Scripture as a unified text bearing witness to Christ, and 3) allowing the Bible to transform our character. Earlier Christians assumed these sensibilities, whereas modern interpreters too often disregard the last two points.
The work is divided into two parts. First, Smith argues for the benefits of these sensibilities by using examples from premodern Christian thinkers. His examples range from the Apostolic Fathers to the Reformers. The second part attempts to put these insights into practice by offering four homilies of various texts. Through these, he shows how his approach is a valid Christian reading of the text.
Smith begins by discussing the importance of the text of Scripture, “the way the words go” (33). He insists that there was consensus among premodern interpreters to understand the plain meaning of the text. Using literary, historical, or rhetorical tools has always been a Christian practice. Current scholars should not be afraid of historical-grammatical analysis, but they should not be beholden to some of its presuppositions. One of the more interesting claims Smith makes is that Origen of Alexandria had a much greater appreciation for the “literal” meaning of the text than is often recognized (44).
Aside from his interactions with Origin, Smith explores the exegetical care found in Chrysostom, Hugh of Saint Victor, and Martin Luther. Smith’s point is that premodern interpretation takes seriously “the words God has given us” and does its best to understand them. At the same time, the divine origin of the text has such unity and depth that it is a mistake to miss the larger picture of Scripture by focusing solely on the original audience.
Christians should feel at liberty to see Christ in the story of Abraham and Isaac or the Hebrew young men in the fire because Christ himself has told us that these stories bear witness to him.
What is this larger picture? It is a unified story that bears witness to Jesus Christ from first to last. Smith calls this “theological and Christological unity,” a concept he roots in Irenaeus’s hermeneutical method. Irenaeus, like all premodern interpreters, was guided by the “rule of faith.” The “rule of faith” is an early summary of the Christian message that affirms the redemptive work of the triune God through the person of Jesus Christ in human history. This summary is what all Scripture, even the Old Testament, is ultimately about. Gnostics, Irenaeus’s opponents, read the Old Testament with disdain because they miss its Christological meaning. Smith recommends Irenaeus’s approach as a fundamentally Christian view of reading Scripture.
Christians should feel at liberty to see Christ in the story of Abraham and Isaac or the Hebrew young men in the fire because Christ himself has told us that these stories bear witness to him (Luke 24:27). The original audience would not have seen these passages are bearing testimony to Jesus, but believers must.
Irenaeus was not unique in his Christological reading of the Old Testament. Smith shows this sensibility in Athanasius, Aquinas, and Calvin. These figures represent different traditions within Christianity, but they form a unified approach to scripture. Calvin’s redemptive-historical approach to Scripture complements Athanasius’s emphasis on the rule of faith or Aquinas’s scholastic method of exegesis. Smith’s synthesis of these different voices runs the risk of ignoring real differences between these figures, but it makes an effective point—premodern exegesis was unapologetically Christological. While Smith would caution against excessive or untethered allegory, he makes room for this ancient interpretative technique when supportive of the larger Christological themes of Scripture.
Smith’s most significant criticism of modern hermeneutics is its disregard for ethical transformation. His research highlights how premodern Christians universally saw that the Bible would bring about personal moral transformation in the church’s life. In this effort, Smith interacts with Justin Martyr to showcase the goodness of Christian philosophy as a way of life. For Justin, Scripture was much more than propositions about God; rather it was God’s means of transforming people. This point is one of Smith’s strongest. Advocating the spiritual and moral transformation that comes from our interaction with God’s word, Smith challenges modern academic hermeneutics and unites academic concerns of textual meaning with kerygmatic efforts to illicit response to the Word.
While previous generations have assumed that the Bible had the power to transform the inner life of a person and the ethical vision of the church, modern hermeneutics too often stops at historical or grammatical knowledge.
William Tyndale’s desire to bring God’s Word to the people in their language illustrates the idea of the Bible as a transformative book. Tyndale’s efforts at Bible translation were not simply for personal study, but for the church to hear, understand, and live out the word of God. Smith also uses the work of Augustine and John of Damascus in this discussion. These patristic thinkers laid the foundation of Scripture as a book that morally transforms God’s people. Smith’s arguments on this point are persuasive.
While previous generations have assumed that the Bible had the power to transform the inner life of a person and the ethical vision of the church, modern hermeneutics too often stops at historical or grammatical knowledge. When modern theologians do go from text to praxis, they often do so in a way that distorts the actual words of the texts. While Smith does not explicitly make the connection, one sees this modern tendency in various homosexuality-affirming pastors or liberation theologians. The moral transformation wrought by the Word only occurs when the words are followed seriously.
The work ends by illustrating the author’s arguments through the exposition of four texts. Smith chose texts from Numbers, Malachi, the Gospel of John, and Hebrews. These chapters allow the reader to see Smith’s proposals in action rather than remain as theory. What struck me about these homilies was how ordinary they were. In a good way, they sound similar to the kind of sermon I have grown accustomed to hearing in church. Most Christians intuitively see Korah’s rebellion as more than a historical anecdote. It makes sense to see our sin in Korah’s defiance or Christ’s compassion foreshadowed by Moses. The Apostles and the Church Fathers taught us to read the Old Testament this way.
I found Smith’s approach to Scripture refreshing. His desire to read Scripture is in line with the great tradition of the Church. His proposals express the intuitions and sensibilities commonly found in the pulpit. In this way, Smith gives words and academic credibility to common Christian practices. Following Smith’s ideas, pastors should feel comfortable moving beyond questions like: What did this text mean to its original audience? While this question is fundamental because the words of Scripture are the standard, Christ and the apostles have taught us to see a larger narrative than this. Smith’s explanation of this reality can be refreshing to young biblical scholars and pastors.
Although Smith’s arguments are persuasive, his rejection of the historical-critical method can read like a strawman argument. (Smith uses the term historical-critical rather than historical-grammatical. These terms have different connotations but can be used somewhat interchangeably.) Smith offers an oversimplified view of the goals of historical-critical analysis.
He takes modern scholars to task for portraying premodern exegesis as an untethered allegory, but he may make a mistake in the opposite direction. Smith does little to establish guardrails against the kind of allegory Origin has become infamous for. At the same time, Smith also sees too much consensus in premodern interpretation. He may be correct in pointing out the points of agreement between the Alexandrian and the Antiochian schools, but his analysis seems to flatten out all the differences between the Ancient Fathers, Medieval Catholics, and the Reformers.
In the final analysis, Smith’s work is an introductory text intended for the non-expert. His oversimplifications allow his argument to flow well and his good points to land effectively. For undergrads or young seminary students, this work could serve to get one’s feet wet in the thinking of key theologians in the Christian tradition. Readers will get a sense of how towering figures like Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin handled the text of Scripture. This alone makes this a worthwhile book to read. Through interaction with these great voices from Church history, Smith proves his thesis that the church has been taught by God (through Christ, the apostles, and the Fathers) how best to interpret Scripture. If you know someone who loves theology or hermeneutics, it would make a good Christmas present.
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Excellent review David! I may have to put this in my stack o’ books! Hope you’re doing well.
I enjoyed your review, David. Very illuminating and helpful.