smith the study of religion and the study of the bible

7/28/2019 Smith the Study of Religion and the Study of the Bible

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The Study of Religion and the Study of the BibleAuthor(s): Wilfred Cantwell SmithSource: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 1971), pp. 131-140Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1461797

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132 WILFREDCANTWELL SMITHThe transitionfrom the seminary o the liberalarts department,as the locusof inquiry,has been markedconspicuouslyby a change,then, in emphasisandform and mood, but less conspicuouslythan some would like by a change incontent. The traditionalseminarydivisions of the subject matter, or "disci-plines," still characterize he religion departmentmore thoroughlythan manywish. The salient upsurge of the study of Asian religious life is an obviousexception. One may be allowedto wonder,however,whetherboth studentandfaculty eagerness in "Historyof Religion"-usually signifying the history ofreligious groupsother thanone'sown-is altogetherrelatedto the novel content,or whether it is in substantialpart a function of the new mood and method,orientationand attitude,that are brought to bear in these new studies and are

felt to be missing from the old. Does the popularityof the study of Asiareligiouslystem, at least in part, from the fact that those who study it are ableto approach it with to-day's interest, to-day's questions, to-day'smoods andmethods? The study of Christian data still seems bound within questions,moods, methods of an earlierera.Let us take the field of Bible as an illustration. If I were chairmanof areligion department, would certainlywish to have in the curriculuma courseon the Bible, and on the faculty a man competent to teach it. What kind ofcourse and what kind of teacher,however,would I be looking for?The coursesactuallyavailable,and the trainingof men actuallyavailabletoteach them, are on the whole calculated o turn a fundamentalist nto a liberal.Often they can do this with greatskill, but it is hardlyanymore a relevanttask.The more advancedor sophisticatedBiblicists have moved beyond this, to thepoint where they are competenthistorians of the religious life of the ancientNear East or of the first-centuryEasternMediterraneanworld. This is fine, forthat small group who happen to be interestedin the religious historyof thoseparticular ectorsof the totalreligioushistoryof mankind;but these men seem onthe whole little equippedto answera questionas to why one shouldbe especiallyinterested n those particular imes and places,ratherthan in, let us say,classicalIndia or mediaevalChina or modernAmerica.The sort of courseand the sort of teacher for whom I would be looking inthe field of Bible would be different. Let me attempt to delineate what, as Isee it, might fruitfullybe attempted.The coursethat I envisagewould be concernedwith the Bible as scripture.It would begin with some considerationof scriptureas a generic phenomenon.The questionsto which it would address tself would be questionssuchas these:What is involved in taking a certainbody of literature,separating t off fromall other, and giving it a sacrosanct tatus? What is involved psychologically;what, sociologically;and what, historically? How and where did it first comeabout? How did the ChristianChurchhappento takeup this practice? Whatattitudes,magicalor otherwise,towardswriting are involved? And-once thisis done-what consequencesfollow? One would wish a brief but perhapsstriking comparativist ntroduction: the concept and role of scripture n othermajor communities-Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and the like. Salient differ-


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THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 133ences, as well as striking similarities,could be touchedbriefly. (For example,the thesis could be consideredthat in the Islamic system the Qur'in fulfills afunction comparable o the role played in the Christianpattern ratherby thepersonof JesusChrist while a closercounterpart o Christianscripturesare theIslamic Hadith "Traditions.") The role of formalized and sacralizedoral tra-dition in some societies,as distinctfrom both writtenscriptureon the one handand ordinarycolloquial discourseon the other, might also be broached. Thereligious significanceof the introductionof writing into humanhistorywouldbe touchedupon, perhaps. The basic issue would be: scriptureas a religiousform.All this,however,would be introductory nly. The bulk of the coursewouldbe historical: an investigation nto the historyof the Bible over the past twentycenturies. Before one considersthis with any specificity,the prime point is torecognizethat in this fashionthe Bible would be treatedas a living force in thelife of the Church. My own field is Islamics;and in that field I devote a fairamountof time and energyto trying to makevivid to my studentsthe fact thatthe Qur'an, f it is to be understood n anything remotely approaching ts re-ligious significance,must be seen as not merelya seventh-centuryArabiandocu-ment (which has tendedto be the way in which WesternOrientalists, s distinctfrom religionists,have treatedit) but also as an eighth-, and a twelfth-, and aseventeenth-,and a twentieth-centurydocument,and one intimatelyintertwinedin the life not only of Arabiabut also of East Africa and Indonesia. For theQur'ln has playeda role--formative, dominating, iberating,spectacular-in thelives of millions of people,philosophersand peasants,politiciansand merchantsand housewives,saints and sinners,in Baghdadand Cordobaand Agra, in theSoviet Union since the Communistrevolution,and so on. That role is worthdiscerningand pondering. The attempt to understand he Qur'in is to under-standhow it has fired the imagination,and inspiredthe poetry,and formulatedthe inhibitions,and guided the ecstasies,and teasedthe intellects,and orderedthe familyrelationsandthe legal chicaneries, nd nurtured he piety,of hundredsof millions of people in widely diverse climes and over a series of radicallydivergent centuries.To study the Qur'dn, hen, is to studymuch more than its text; and muchmore of socialconditionsthanthose thatpreceded(or accompanied)its appear-ance in historyand contributed o its formation. The importanthistoryfor anunderstandingof this scripture(as scripture) is not only of its backgroundbutalso,and perhapsespecially,of its almostincredibleongoing careersince. Whatproducedthe Qur'dn s an interestingand legitimate question,but a secondaryone; less minor, less antiquarian,religiously much more significant, is themarvellous question, What has the Qur'in produced? Indeed, any interestthat the formerquestionmay have is derivativefrom the powerof some at leasttacit answer to the latter. It is because of what the Qur'in has been doing,mightily and continuingly, n the lives of men for all thesecenturiesafter it waslaunched,that anyone takes the trouble to notice its launchingat all. For re-ligious life, the story of formativecenturies is logically subordinate o that of


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134 WILFRED ANTWELLMITHsubsequentages. (It is possible to overlook this fact only from within faith;that is, only when the significancefor the laterperiod is taken as given.)The Qur'in is significant not primarilybecause of what historicallywentinto it but becauseof what historicallyhas come out of it; what it has done tomen's lives, and what men have done to it and with it and through it. TheQur'in is significant because it has shown itself capable of serving men as aform throughwhich they have been able (have been enabled) to deal with theproblemsof their lives, to confront creativelya series of varied contexts. Tounderstand he Qur'dns to understand oth that,andhow, this hasbeen happen-ing.One may go further and ask: What kind of being is man, that he can takesuch a book (one that outsidersoften do not even find interesting) and,havingmade it a scripturefor himself, can go out into the world and in terms of itbuild a communityand a civilization,produce literatureand art and law andcommercialstructures, nd in termsof it continueto find meaningand couragein life when the civilizationwanes,and nobility in deathwhen life wanes?He is a feeble and sorryhistorian who underestimates-under-perceives-the power of symbols in human life, or the power of a scriptureto functionsymbolicallyand as an organized batteryof symbols.

To returnto the ChristianBible. It has not playedin Western or Christianlife the centralrole that the Qur'dnhas played in Islamic life; yet the query,what significancehas it had, is clearlyno mean question.The first point, then, is to see the Bible not merelyas a set of ancientdocu-ments or even as a first- and second-century roductbut as a third-century ndtwelfth-centuryand nineteenth-century nd contemporaryagent. Since I my-self am an historian,I supposethat my evident predilection s to treat this his-torically,and to feel that in no other way can its significancebe understood.As alreadysuggested,however,I feel that its role (and indeed the role of any-thing else) in historycan be illuminated,and even mustbe illuminated,by lightthrownon humanhistory by psychological,sociological,and comparativistper-spectives. The dominantpoint in this case is to understand he potential andthe actualroles of such a scripture n the life of the imagination, ts role as anorganizerof ideas, images,and emotions,as an activatingsymbol.The analyticmode that for some time has dominated Western intellectuallife, particularly cademic ife, tends to take anythingthat exists and to breakitdown into parts. Historianstoo have become victims of this, even at times tothe point of failing to recognizethat the first businessof any historianis to beastonishedthat any given thing in the historicalstreamdoes exist and to try tounderstandhow it came together and what its coming together subsequentlymeant. If somethinghas been important,we must analysenot only it but alsoits importance; ts history,almost,is the historyof its importance. The analysisof a thing is interesting,and can be highly significant,but only subsidiarily;strictly,the historyof that thing begins once its partsare synthesized. The his-torian'stask is to studythe processof synthesis,plus the subsequentprocessofthat synthesisas it moves through aterhistory.


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THESTUDYOF RELIGION ND THESTUDYOF THE BIBLE 135There has developed a tendency,one might almost say, to "studyhistorybackwards,"s though the task of the historianvis-a-visany phenomenon n thecourseof man'sstorywere to observeit and bit by bit to analyseits componentpartsandcausesandantecedents, nd to tracethem fartherand fartherbackintomore andmoreremoteantiquity. Does the historianneed remindingthat time'sarrow is pointed the other way? That the historyof a thing is ratherits on-going life, its ramifyingresults,its developmentand growth and change,even-tually perhapsits disappearance r disintegration (forwards) into parts or itstransmutation nto something else? By all means let us, with regardto any-thing, know how it became;but let us study furtherhow and what it went onbecoming. The studyof historymust be in largepartthe studyof creativity.The first imperative or the studentof the Bible, accordingly, n the modernworld, is not to take the Bible for grantedand then to see what it saysor whatconstituentelements went into it, or anythingof that kind;but rather o explainhow it came about as a scripture,how it came to be that the various elementsthat compriseit were put together,and how it came about that Christianscon-tinued, centuryafter century,to find reasonto go on prizing and sacralizing tand respondingto it-and with what results.One minor illustration. Marcionused to be regardedas a "heretic," nd he

has been studied as a man who wished to "leaveout" the Old Testamentfromthe Bible. This pre-supposesa two-TestamentBible, insteadof being astoundedby it. It is possibleto takeMarcion,rather,as an illustrationof the fact thatwecannot takefor granted hat the ChristianBible shouldbe in two parts (let aloneexist at all), that it should subsume the Jewish Bible by a device that simul-taneously ncorporatesand supersedes t, and so on. Involvedhere is the subtlequestion of the relationship between two religious systems or communities:One could touchbriefly here on the somewhatcomparable, omewhatdifferent,Islamichandlingof both ChristianandJewish positions,as things once valid butnow superseded, ndon the generalissue of how a religious Weltanschauung ancope with anothercommunitythat is historicallyprior to it in time, but mayprove incapableof coping with one that arisessubsequently. It would be goingtoo far afield to explorethis issue at any length,but any treatmentof the Chris-tian Bible that failed to deal with it at least seriously, f briefly,could hardlybeconsideredadequate. The fact that the Jewish Bible is called (and not merelycalled; rather, s perceivedas) the "Old Testament" n Christendom(and stillin the HarvardPh.D. program!) has had profoundconsequencesboth in Chris-tian historyand in Jewish history (through Christian-Jewish elations).(A comparativistaside. The historyof the Jewish Bible, despite the sim-ilarity of text, would constitute a different course--or a separatesector of theBible as scripture. The fact that the same materialhas functioned,of coursedifferently, in the lives of two different communitiesover the centuriescoulditself be educative,and exciting. How differently,it would be the business ofsuch a study to unfold. That the story of the Exodus served--mightily--as asymbol [activating, alvific?]of liberationfor Jews in a way perhapscomparable


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136 WILFRED ANTWELLMITHto that of the Resurrection or Christianscould be explored. And so on. ButI leave all this aside.)The fact having been considered,then, that the Christian Churchdecided(consciously or unconsciously) to have a scripture,and constructivelydeter-mined that it shouldhave this particularone, the story just begins. The historyof scriptural nterpretationhas been a traditionalstudy (it is even a sub-rubric,or optionalextra,in the generalexaminationsof somepresentBible doctorates);but this is only a smallpartof the issue that is now raised. The interpretation("hermeneutics")of the Bible, and even a study of that interpretation,pre-supposesthata Bible exists and even presupposeshat it is (or has been thought)worth interpreting-presupposeswithoutcommentthe verythings thataremostfascinatingand have been most decisive.The questionis not merely,given a scripture,how did the Churchexegete itat various stages; but also, what roles did that scripture play, what differencedid the fact that the Church had one, make in the life of the Catacombists,nthe intellectualizingof the Fathers, n the reactionsof Christiansat Rome in thetime of the barbariandevastations,and so on. What was the significanceof aBible in the Dark Ages, when exceedinglyfew people could read? And in theHigh Middle Ages, for scholastictheology and for Gothic cathedralsand thereligious orders? In the life of the imagination in mediaeval times, did thevignettes of incidents from the life of Jesus impinge on the consciousnessofEurope through biblical passages, directly, or through stained-glasswindows?Later,how did the Bible function in shaping the mysticalimaginationand thepoetryof St. John of the Cross?For a studyof the Bible and its role in the religious life of man, the Refor-mation obviously signifies a massive new development. (Most Biblical studiesfor the past hundredyears n our seminariesand academic nstitutionshavebeenstudies from within that transition,rather than studies about it. They haveassumedthat the Bible has the status and the importance hat the Reformationgave to it, rather than scrutinizingand interpretingto us that status and im-portance. It is from this assumption, or instance,that currentBiblical scholar-ship and its doctoralprogramsarise and thereinfail to see, even to-day,that forthe subsequentWest, it is the Bible that has made ancientPalestinesignificant,not vice versa.) What the new post-Reformationrole for the Bible did topeople, to their imaginations, o their perceptionof the world, to their sexuallife, to their dominationof a new continent in America,are such mattersthat,if one does not understandhem,surelyone does not understand he Bible.Along with the Reformation as-of course-a major factor of historicalchange in the role of the Bible in Christendom, nd along with a wide rangeofother large and small factorsoperativeat about the same time, anotherclearlymajorfactor was the invention and widespreaduse of printing. Our envisagedcoursewould examinewhat happenedto the role of the Bible in personalandsocial life when it was not only translated nto the vernacularsbut was alsomultiplied mechanicallyby type-print. (The relation of printing to scriptureis not straightforward, owever. In Christendom, he Bible was virtually the


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138 WILFRED ANTWELLMITHlife and society,we can apprehendmuch more significantlywhat was happen-ing when the Bible functionedmythically. We have not yet had much seriousstudyof the historicalprocess by which this function has become disintegratedin moderntimes. To carryit out would requirerigorousscholarshipand bril-liant sensitivity;but it would be enormouslyrewarding.With the relativelyrecent rise in westernconsciousness, ulminatingin thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries,of the new sense of history,and the(consequent?) careful and rigorous distinction between history and myth,something majorhappened. One might put the matterthis way. Previously--certainlyall throughthe Middle Ages, the earlyReformationstage, and amongpious Christiansright up until the twentiethcentury-the Biblical stories func-tioned simultaneouslyas both myth and history. When a sharpdiscriminationbetween these two was pressedin Western intellectuallife, what happened byand largewas that the West opted for historyandrejectedmyth. This was trueeven of the Church,which when it had to choose decided to treat the Biblehistorically. (An heroic choice? And a fateful one. It speaks well for theintegrityand courageof the Church's eadersthat they chose relentlessly o pur-sue what they thought to be truth,in this dilemma;but it speaksfor their lackof creativediscernment, hat they, like theircontemporaries,houghtthathistoryhad to do with truthbut mythdid not.)Might one almost make symbolicof this development,the moment (eigh-teenth century) when Bishop Ussher'sdate 4004 B.C.was bestowedon the firstchapterof Genesis? Later, he Churchagonizedover the fact that that date forcreationwas wrong. We may recognize now that the problem was not thatparticulardate,but any date at all, the giving of a date; the notion that one isdealing here with historicaltime, ratherthan mythical time. (More exactly:this becamea problem. Fortherewas an earliertime when it was not so, a timebefore Europehad discovered hatmyths do not have dates.) If insteadBishopUssher had used,and editions of the Bible had put in the marginsor at the topof the page, the phrasein illo tempore,would our history over the past whilehave been different?

Probablynot, becauseonly now are we beginning to apprehend ntellectuallyor self-consciouslywhat kind of realm it is, what dimension of our life, towhich that phrase,or "once upon a time," refers. When a medieval peasantwent to church and saw in a stained-glasswindow or heard in a sermon anincidentfrom the life of Jesus,he did not apprehend hat incidentas somethingthat happenedhistorically n our modern sense of history. Rather,his appre-hension was a complex one, in which the counterpart actorsto what we todaywould regardas the mythicalwere, I shouldguess,at leastas substantialas thosecounterpart o our modern sense of literal chronologicalhistory. Through thesacramentsand much else, but also becausehe lived before the separationbe-tween myth and history,Christwas a presentreality in his life-in a way thathas ceased to be the case for most modernmen, at the end of a processof de-mythologizationthe course of which a modern student of the Bible ought tobe able to trace for us. The impetus to demythologize,and the price that our


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THESTUDYOF RELIGION ND THE STUDYOF THE BIBLE 139culturehaspaidfor this and for its inabilityo remythologize,re mattershatit is thebusiness f a religiondepartmento studyandto elucidate. (Bultmannis to be studied n relationnotto the firstcenturyo muchas to the twentieth;justas Wellhausen as onceinterestingor an interpretationf the secondandfirstmilleniaB.C., utnowforthe nineteenthenturyA.D.)Mythandhistory an be re-integratedy the modern ntellect,perhaps, yponderinghe role of mythin humanhistory. The course hat we proposewouldbe no lessrigorouslyistoricalhanthemost austere f historiographies;but it wouldbe the historyof myththatwouldbe illuminated,r better, hehistoricalunctioning f myth,the historyof manwith myth (and morere-cently-aberrantly?-withoutt?). An historicaltudyof theBible, o be donewell,would nherentlyave o be anattempt typical, omewouldcontend, f areligiondepartment'sask n general) o understandumanhistory s thedramaof man'sivinghis life in historywhilebeingconsciousf livingit in a contexttranscendingistory. The mythical,ar fromcontrastingny longerwith thehistorical,annowadayse seenas whathasmadehumanhistoryhuman. Eventhosewho do not see this,mustrecognizehatthe mythicalhas in substantialpartmadehumanhistorywhat t hasin factbeen. Certainlyhehistoryof theWest is in significant egreea historyof the roleof the Bible. Ourtask, m-portant ndexhilarating,s to elucidate his.Mostilluminating f all to elucidate,wouldbe how the Biblehas served,and formanystill serves, piritually:Whatis the meaningof the (historical)factthatthrought menhavefoundcommitment,iberation,ranscendence?nit overthecenturies avecome ntofocusfor itsreaders umandestinyandallman'sultimate oncerns.At certain istoricalmomentst hasgivenbothshapeandpower o men'sdrive-or call-to social ustice; t othermoments,o theircapacity-orgift-to endureyrannynd error.It is a scripturen that t deals,has dealt,so far as the actual ives of personsandgroups s concerned,nlysecondarily ith finitethingsandprimarilywith infinite;here hasbeengivenformman's enseof living-in terror,ascination, ystery,ndgrace-in relationto what s more hanmundane,n himselfandbeyond. ThroughheBiblemenhave oundnotmerely ncienthistory utpresentalvation,otmerely esusbutChrist,notmerelyiteratureutGod,millionsattest.Thosewhodo notuseorunderstandhesetermsmustwrestlewiththe fact thatmultitudes f menhavethroughheBiblebeeninvolvedwiththatto whichtheygive suchnames. Tostudythe Biblemustbe to striveto understandt as a channel,which it hasobservablyeen,betweenman and transcendence.The Bible has not itselftransformedives,but has introducedmen to that whichtransforms,ts com-mittedreaders ffirm,the historical bserver eports,and the departmentfreligionmustnoteandinterpret.Thefinalsectorof ourcoursewoulddealwiththequestion,Whatdoes theChurch,what does modernman, do with the Bible now? Now that we knowand understand hat the materialthat constitutesthe Bible is what the historicalcritics tell us, what next? Now that we have some sophisticatedawarenessofthe role of scripturesn variouskindsof culture,of the role of symbols n various


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140 WILFRED ANTWELLMITHkinds of psychologyand society, of the role of myth in human consciousness,what next? Now that we have seen what the Bible has been in man's life inthe past, what shall it be now? This part of the course could be descriptiveandanalytic,a studyof the processof what hasrecentlybeen and is now happen-ing. It couldalso, in the case of some scholarsandteachersof a possiblycreativequality,be constructive.The role of the Bible in contemporaryChristianlife--in personal piety, inliturgy, in theologicalnormativeness, n much else--would be an inquiry con-tinuouswith a studyof the dynamicrole of the Bible in the life of the Church,and of Western society,over the past many centuries,as well as instructiveinitself.

What the Bible has been, has done, what role it has played in human life;and what it is doing in modernlife, what role it is playing; and in a few caseswhere imaginative extrapolation s allowed, what it may become, what role itmay or might or should yet play in our lives--these are significant questions,which a religion departmentmight surelytackle,both legitimatelyand reward-ingly. The relationof the Bible to Palestine,one is almost tempted to say,wemight leave to the Orientalistdepartments. Fromreligion departmentswe lookfor some study,I would hope historical,of the relationof the Bible to us.If I were chairmanof sucha department, would verydeeplydesireto havea courseamongthe departmental fferings on the Historyof the Bible as Scrip-ture. Yet where could I find a man with doctoraltraining equipping him inthis field?

smith the study of religion and the study of the bible

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