Historical Interpretation of the OT: Four Steps in the Process

Having discussed three requirements of the interpreter, we may now turn our attention to four steps in the process of interpretation itself. Earlier in this essay I drew an analogy between historiography and portraiture. Here it may be helpful to adduce another oft-mentioned that between history as a discipline and jurispru-dence (cf. 1988, 13; Ramsey, 22-23; Soggin, 20). The comparison is apt, for there are many parallels between the two fields of endeavor. Both historians and jurists, for example, are concerned to reconstruct "what happened in the in any exhaustive sense, but in terms of "significant past events," with "significance"

being measured in terms of the questions they are asking. Both rely on whatever verbal testimony and material evidence can be gathered. Both are concerned not only to amass all available evidence but also to assess the evidence critically and to interpret its significance with a view toward reconstructing the past. Both must strive not only to come to personal convictions about "what happened" and "what it all means" but must also seek to convince others that their reconstruction is plausible, probable, and to be preferred over rival reconstructions. In very general terms, both can be construed as involving the following steps: (1) Amass the evidence; (2) assess the evidence; (3) attempt a reconstruction; (4) advocate the reconstruction. We shall consider each of these briefly below.

Amass the evidence.

Without evidence there can be no historical knowledge, though there can be historical guesswork. (Stanford, 56)

The first step in historical study, as in jurisprudence, is to become apprised of the evidence. In either field the evidence is generally of two types: verbal and material.

During the so-called discovery period, lawyers preparing for a trial seek to collect as much pertinent verbal testimony/evidence as possible. They do this by locating and interrogating (i.e., taking a deposition from) all witnesses who may have useful infor-mation to impart. They also seek to learn of any material evidence that may have a bearing on the case (a weapon, a footprint, skid marks, etc.). Similarly, historians, dur-ing their "discovery period," seek to locate and "interrogate" potentially pertinent ver-bal (i.e., literary or epigraphic) witnesses. The verver-bal evidence may include biblical as well as relevant extrabiblical texts, though for some periods of history the latter

are rather sparse or nonexistent (Clines, Greenberg, 38; Miller, 1992, 65-66; Sog-gin, 36). Already at this early stage, historians' linguistic and literary competencies come into play as they "listen to" and attempt to understand the written material avail-able to them. In one respect, however, historians are in a quite different position from lawyers, for lawyers are able to interrogate their witnesses directly, whereas historians are at best able to "listen in" on communications (of whatever genre) from a sometimes distant past. Thus, historians must often work with "unintentional" as well as "inten-tional evidence" in seeking to glean information relevant to the particular focus of their study (on the distinction between intentional and unintentional evidence, see Ramsey, 4).

In addition to gathering verbal evidence, historians also seek to acquaint them-selves with whatever material evidence time, chance, and the efforts of archaeologists have brought to light. Today historians have the benefit not only of the kind of evi-dence unearthed by traditional archaeology (e.g. architectural, strati-graphic) but also of the kind of evidence the approach of the "new archaeology" produces (e.g., ecological, sociological). All of these kinds of evidence can be useful to historians seeking to reconstruct some aspect of a past event or time period. But before historians can attempt a reconstruction, there is a second step they must take.

2. the evidence.

Before present evidence can be used as the first link in a chain that leads into the past, an accurate description of that first link is essen-tial. (In this respect, as in others, we cannot hope to be right about the past if we are wrong about the present.) (Stanford, 61)

Merely amassing evidence does not result, without further ado, in a historical reconstruction. Just as evidence presented in court must be carefully assessed with respect to its reliability before it can be used as part of a hypothesis about what hap-pened, so the evidence collected by historians must be assessed, or "sifted," as Ramsey (6-10) puts it, before it can be used in historical reconstruction. It is inevitable, of course, that some evaluation of the evidence will have begun already during the dis-covery period, but it is important that there come a time when historians, like jurists, self-consciously review the evidence and endeavor to think critically about it.

As regards verbal evidence, two criteria stand out. In a court of law, the credi-bility of witnesses is judged (a) by whether their testimony is self-consistent and non-contradictory and (b) by whether they, the witnesses, are of reputable character. If a witness fails to tell a coherent story, falls into self-contradiction, or is out of accord with other testimony deemed to be reliable, then confidence in the veracity of the testi-mony diminishes or vanishes. But even if the witness tells a coherent story, it still may not be believed if it can be shown that the witness's character is not such as to instill confidence. If, on the other hand, the witness's character is unimpeachable, then even should the testimony seem at first confused or out of accord with other testimony, every effort will be made to come to some understanding before simply dismissing it as false or useless. In the same way, verbal (and this would include literary) evidence amassed by historians can be subjected to a two-pronged consistency/character test: (a) Is the testimony consistent, both internally (i.e., coherent and not self-contradictory)

and externally (i.e., reconcilable with other verbal testimony deemed to be

and (b) Is the character of the witness such as to engender confidence in what it says?

The first test raises some questions: Just what constitutes consistency in and among ancient documents? What level of internal accuracy must each display, and what level of agreement must there be between them, in order to earn our trust? Surely no one would expect the various witnesses in a court trial to offer identical if the witnesses did, one might suspect them of conspiracy or collu-sion. All that one expects of truthful witnesses is that their testimony in the end be complementary, or at least not flatly contradictory. This same kind of common-sense standard should be applied to literary witnesses from antiquity, not least in the case of parallel biblical texts such as we have in the Synoptic Gospels of the NT or the synop-tic histories (Samuel-Kings and Chronicles) in the OT (Long, 1994, 76-86).

But common sense alone is not enough, since what may seem sensible enough to some people living in a particular time and place may not at all seem sensible to oth-ers from a different time or place. Common sense must be augmented by sincere efforts to develop the three competencies outlined earlier in this essay. Smelik has noted, for example, that "not every literary genre will produce the same degree of his-torical accuracy" (5). Perhaps a better way to put this would be to say that not every lit-erary genre attempts the same of historical accuracy. Thus the interpreter's literary competence, for example, comes into play in discovering just what kind of his-torical truth claims a text may be making. Only when truth claims are accurately dis-cerned can a fair assessment of a truth value be made. As an illustration, consider the fact that not every visual recording of the human head attempts the same kind of representational portrait seeks to capture the overall outward appearance as normally perceived, whereas a CAT scan attempts something quite different. Either might be deemed "inaccurate" if judged on the standard of the other, but both may be perfectly accurate within their own intentionality. To cite a biblical example, much is sometimes made of the "inconsistent" pictures of the Israelite conquest presented in the books of Joshua and Judges. One suspects, however, that greater sensitivity to the liter-ary and thematic emphases of the two books would go far toward resolving the per-ceived difficulties (Younger, 1990; Long, 1994, 165-66).

We see, then, that the first test of reliability, the consistency test, must be han-dled with care and circumspection; hasty judgments must be avoided. The second test, the character test, brings us ultimately back to the issue of the background beliefs of the interpreter, however these may have been formed. When approaching biblical texts, some scholars will be predisposed (perhaps, but not necessarily, because of reli-gious conviction) to assume that they are of reputable character and are generally of course, the interpreter's understanding of them may prove itself in need of correction. Other scholars will be predisposed (again, perhaps because of their background beliefs) to assume that the texts are of questionable character and thus are not to be trusted in matters of history, at least not without external confirmation. To be sure, scholars sometimes change their views regarding the character of the biblical texts, but given the deep level at which religious convictions operate, changes of this sort occur only in the face of a rather large body of contrary evidence.

When it comes to material evidence, the assessment of reliability is based on somewhat different criteria. Before agreeing that material evidence of one sort or 95

another is "admissible," both lawyers and historians must assure themselves that the evidence is genuine, that it has been rightly described, and that it was properly col-lected. Was this knife actually found at the scene of the crime, could it have been planted there, was it properly collected and marked? Was this potsherd actually found in an Iron I layer, was it properly collected and marked?

Once lawyers or historians have assessed the reliability of the verbal and mate-rial evidences that they amassed during the discovery period, they may begin to try to put the pieces together into a plausible reconstruction of what happened. This brings us to the next step in the process of historical interpretation.

3. Attempt a reconstruction.

If history is no more than the handling of data, then it can be done by a copying clerk or a machine. But surely it is a very human activity.

(Stanford, 97)

It is tempting to liken the task of historical reconstruction to the piecing together of a complex jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of evidence that has been tested and found reliable must find its place in a believable picture of what happened and why. In at least one significant respect, however, the jigsaw puzzle analogy breaks down. This is the fact that there is really only one way to put a jigsaw puzzle together, only one picture is possible, and it can be viewed from only one angle. Regardless of who is put-ting the puzzle together, there is only one right way to do it. Historical reconstruction, by contrast, is more complicated. As we noted earlier, historians can approach their task from various different vantage points, with various concerns in mind. Like portrait artists, to recall our earlier analogy, historians may each view their subject from a dis-tinct perspective and under a particular light and thus paint portraits that look rather different from one another. This is not to imply that the possibilities are limitless or that just any picture will do; all good portraits must at least be compatible with one another, once the differing perspectives and styles have been taken into account.

Historians, too, may approach their subjects from different angles and under different lights, and arrive at different pictures. The primary concern of some contem-porary historians is to reconstruct "history from below." Their focus is not so much on individual persons and events as it is on the general mode of life and the living condi-tions of a particular society or stratum of society. For their purposes, the material evi-dence yielded by archaeology, for example, may be more telling than literary evievi-dence, which may speak little of the life-ways of people in general. More traditionally, how-ever, historians have tended to focus on specific events and individuals. For their pur-poses, archaeological evidence is seldom sufficient, for "although it is a good source for clarifying the material culture of times past, evidence is a very poor source of information about specific people and events" (Miller, 1987, 59). Artifacts and material remains are essentially mute. Until the archaeologist or historian begins to describe what they are, they have no voice. But in the process of description, the archaeologist is inevitably, even if unconsciously, interpreting the data. Thus, as F.

Brandfon (30) has forcefully argued, it is a fallacy to assume that archaeological evi-dence is somehow more "objective" than other kinds of evievi-dence. To learn about spe-cific people and to reconstruct spespe-cific events, historians need verbal evidence.

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It should be obvious from the above considerations that historical reconstruc-tion is anything but automatic or mechanical. Historical reconstrucreconstruc-tion, as Stanford notes, is a "very human activity": "In all these approaches, historians employ their intentions, their hopes and fears, their beliefs, their methodological, even metaphysi-cal, principles, their grasp and use of language and of languages, their

capacities, and so on. All these are all relevant to the major task of seeing and under-standing the past, and hence making a reasonably accurate and functioning mental model of it" (96).

This then is the situation. Historians have at their disposal both material evi-dence and verbal evievi-dence. The significance that they assign to each will in large mea-sure be a reflection of their particular interests, whether in the general life-ways of a people and period or in specific individuals and events that have catalyzed historical change. For the former, the material evidences are useful; for the latter, there must be greater dependence on the verbal (i.e., literary) evidence. These two kinds of approaches, sometimes referred to as the nomothetic and the ideographic, may peace-fully coexist and even at times enrich one another. As respects OT history, for exam-ple, the generalizing information provided by nomothetic studies of material evidence can often add flesh to the skeleton provided by the ideographic information derived from literary study of the texts. Problems sometimes arise, however, when scholars, who for one reason or another dismiss the OT narratives, nevertheless proceed to pro-pound historical reconstructions involving specific events. To do this they must con-sciously or unconcon-sciously import some interpretive

religious, or whatever. And here again one can see what a very human activity histori-cal reconstruction is.

4. Advocate the reconstruction.

At the very heart of historical activity is the point where the his-torian, in completing the construction of the past, begins to look to the present and the future and to consider how this new-found knowledge can be shared with other people. (Stanford,

Like visual representational artists who, having caught a vision of their subject, work at their craft so as to share their vision with others, so historians work at their craft so as to share with others their understanding of what the past looked like. But more than that, historians, like lawyers, must advocate their reconstruction of what happened and why. The accent at this stage is on persuasion, not proof in any absolute sense, for as McCulloch observes, "historical descriptions cannot be proved true beyond all possibility of error" (4). At best they can only be shown to be probably true, or true beyond a reasonable doubt. Here again, the individual human being, with his or her own beliefs about life, the universe, and everything, intrudes him- or herself into the question of what constitutes reasonability or probability. This means that what one person finds reasonable or persuasive, another may not. In historical advocacy, there are no knock-down arguments, nor is there a particular kind of argument that is a dis-tinctively historical argument. Since history, like law, is a

(Harvey, 54-59), many kinds of arguments may be used in seeking to persuade others of a particular reconstruction. As Ramsey notes, "The element which is common to all

the arguments of the lawyer or the historian (or anyone else) is the obligation to give reasons for his conclusions" (22).

Now, one may think to ask whether advocacy, that is, the construction of an argument meant to persuade, is even necessary in some contexts. What about homoge-neous communities of faith (which I would regard as an apt description not only of var-ious religvar-ious communities, but also of some secular circles whose faith consists more in what is denied than in what is Are the rigors of historical argumentation beneficial, or even necessary? I would contend that they are, if for no other reason than the opportunity they afford for self-correction. Has my period of discovery overlooked any vital evidence? Have I properly assessed the have I properly inter-preted both the material evidence and the literary evidence? Are the logical steps I take in moving from evidence to historical reconstruction valid (on the nature of argumenta-tion, see Long, 1994, Is my move from the available data to a conclusion sup-ported by adequate warrants and backing? Have I considered possible rebuttals to the logical arguments upon which my historical reconstruction rests? Am I sufficiently aware of how my background beliefs affect what I am willing to consider as warrant or backing?

At all these points, the rigors of historical advocacy provide opportunities for But this raises a larger question. While it is easy to see how I can aug-ment my evidence base if I have overlooked something, how I can emend misinterpre-tations of evidence, and how I can adjust arguments if they are flawed, is there some way to correct the fundamental belief system that affects the way I see everything else?

Can I do this by sheer force of will? Or must I look to some higher This is a question that faces everyone interested in the historical interpretation of the OT who delves deeply enough into the issues involved to discover that "dominat-ing all technical considerations of evidence, method, interpretation and construction is the individual human being" (Stanford, 96).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

W. J. Abraham, Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism, 1982; B. T. Arnold,

"The Quest for the Historical Israel Continued: A Review Theological Review 24, 1992, S. W. Baron, The Contemporary Relevance of History: A Study of Approaches and Methods, 1986; J. Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, 1984; A.

Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, 1983; F. Brandfon, "The Limits of Evi-dence: Archaeology and Objectivity," Maarav 4/1, 1987, 5-43; G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, 1980; D. J. A. Clines, What Does Eve Do to Help and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament, 1990; F. E. Deist, "Contingency, Continuity and Integrity in Historical Understanding: An Old Testament Perspective," Scriptura G. Gar-bini, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel, 1988; S. A. Geller, "Through Windows and Mirrors

Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative, 1983; F. Brandfon, "The Limits of Evi-dence: Archaeology and Objectivity," Maarav 4/1, 1987, 5-43; G. B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, 1980; D. J. A. Clines, What Does Eve Do to Help and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament, 1990; F. E. Deist, "Contingency, Continuity and Integrity in Historical Understanding: An Old Testament Perspective," Scriptura G. Gar-bini, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel, 1988; S. A. Geller, "Through Windows and Mirrors