Academic biblical studies requires spending quite a lot of time in an array of primary and secondary sources.1
And among these sources, the Bible itself is the most primary. So, it’s important to maintain a regular habit of reading it for at least 8 reasons—namely, to.
- Remind yourself that biblical studies is about the Bible.
- Remind yourself that the Bible is Scripture.
- See things you won’t by reading only isolated passages.
- Correct your reading of one passage against another.
- Focus more fully and hear things you won’t by reading silently.
- Sharpen your languages.
- Find things you won’t in translation.
- Learn vocabulary.
Of these, the first 5 apply whatever language you’re reading in. The last 3 are special benefits if you’re reading the Bible in its primary languages.
1. Remind yourself that biblical studies is about the Bible.
A lot of academic biblical studies has to do with thinking critically about the biblical text.
It has to do with bringing preconceptions into question and making judgments like historians. It has to do with looking closely at the text again and again.
This work is good and important. Nothing can substitute for this kind of detailed, careful attention to a particular book, a given passage, or even a single verse.
But with this kind of close attention also comes the danger of paying so much attention to the individual trees that the forest fades from view.
There’s a risk of increasing knowledge of a small slice of the biblical literature at the cost of increasing unfamiliarity with other parts.
To counteract this tendency toward unfamiliarity, it’s helpful to cultivate a regular habit of Bible reading.
2. Remind yourself that the Bible is Scripture.
Not all biblical scholars claim membership in a particular faith community—especially one they see as relevant to their scholarship.
But biblical scholarship is a coherent discipline only because of the faith communities within which biblical texts emerged.
In practice, “Bible” might mean quite a lot of different things. It might be
- A “Hebrew Bible” without a New Testament,
- A “New American Standard Bible” with a New Testament but not an apocrypha, or
- A “New Jerusalem Bible” with both a New Testament and an apocrypha.2
But whatever its specific content, speaking of a “Bible” as such inevitably requires reckoning with a text that has been deeply embedded in the faith and practice of the communities that have cherished it.
Ignoring this history is then precisely a historical oversight. And before critical biblical scholarship lies the task of avoiding historical oversights.
In addition, if you come to the biblical text from one of its communities, reading the text for its own sake can help remind you to cherish it—whatever else you also then do with it, either analytically or critically.
3. See things you won’t by reading only isolated passages.
Specialists in any given book or corpus have a real tendency toward functional ignorance of other books and corpora.
Specialization can be logical. But it shouldn’t come at the cost of not knowing other primary literature that might also prove relevant.
For instance, while Luke and Paul shouldn’t be confused, they are at least both very early witnesses to the memory, faith, and practice of the Jesus movement. So texts like these might, in principle, just have as much to say about each other as would Josephus or Philo.
Readings of Paul might then feasibly be enriched by readings of Luke, just as much as by readings of Josephus or Philo, and vice versa.
But literature you don’t know the contents of can’t help you. So, it’s helpful to read widely across the biblical text, as also in other primary literature beyond it.
4. Correct your reading of one passage against another.
Related to the prior benefit is the fact that seeing things you won’t by reading only isolated passages can help you correct your interpretation of one passage against another.
Everyone understands some things better than others. And the more widely and carefully you read, the more the text has a chance to “push back” against interpretations you may have that are less than fully adequate.
Insight from Gadamer
H.-G. Gadamer reflects on this dynamic, saying,
How do we discover that there is a difference between our own customary usage and that of the text?
I think we must say that generally we do so in the experience of being pulled up short by the text. Either it does not yield any meaning at all or its meaning is not compatible with what we had expected. This is what brings us up short and alerts us to a possible difference in usage.
…
A person trying to understand a text is prepared for it to tell him something. That is why a hermeneutically trained consciousness must be, from the start, sensitive to the texts alterity. But this kind of sensitivity involves neither “neutrality” with respect to content nor the extinction of one’s self, but the foregrounding and appropriation of one’s own fore-meanings and prejudices. The important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meanings.3
A Personal Example
A personal example of this would be in my reading of 1 Cor 15:3a. In this text, Paul says he communicated to the Corinthians “ὃ … παρέλαβον” (“what he received”), but the text doesn’t there specify from whom he received it.
In my essay in Scripture First, I comment in passing that the reception is “from others who also preached” the same message as Paul.4 I suggest also that “part of what Paul likely received is a summary of the key components of the message that he rehearses in 1 Corinthians 15:3b–5.”5
That kind of interpretation is reasonably common for 1 Cor 15:3a.6 And it allows a few options for how one might understand 1 Cor 15:3 as consistent with Gal 1:12 and 2:1–10.7
That said, in 1 Cor 11:23a, Paul says that he “παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου” (“received from the Lord”) information specific to the Eucharist’s institution (see 1 Cor 11:23b–25). That specificity makes me wonder afresh about the source Paul implies for “what he received” in 1 Cor 15:3a.8
Resolving that reopened loop will take some more work. But it’s a good thing that it’s reopened. And at least in the interim, that reopening will cause me to downgrade the “receiving from others besides Jesus” interpretation of 1 Cor 15:3a from “likely” to merely possible or to re-entertain the idea that both Jesus and others are included.
5. Focus more fully and hear things you won’t by reading silently.
When thinking of Bible reading, the default mode is often to think of silent reading. But reading the text aloud can be beneficial too.
In a group, reading aloud helps everyone follow along at the same place. If you’re reading aloud to yourself, that’s not such an upside. You always know where you are.
But if you read the text aloud—even by yourself—you engage another sense in the reading experience. By doing so, you push yourself that much more into the experience of reading.
Do you ever get distracted when “reading” a page silently? You then suddenly realize you have no idea what you’ve supposedly just seen while your mind was wandering.
By contrast, if you’re reading aloud, you’ll probably realize much quicker that your mind has started to wander when you run out of words coming out of your mouth.
Engaging another sense also gives you another chance to make connections in the text that you might read right over on paper but pick up when hearing yourself repeat the same phrase.
6. Sharpen your languages.
When you read the biblical text in its primary languages, you can hone your ability to work with these languages.
You’ll get a better feel for the languages by experiencing them first hand rather than only reading about them in a grammar.
Grammars do, of course, make very profitable reading on their own. 🙂 But they can’t substitute for deep familiarity with the literature they try to describe.
If you’re reading in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, you can even take the opportunity to read the text aloud too.
That way, you can practice your pronunciation and develop your “ear” for the language.
Don’t worry if it sounds bad or halting. And don’t worry too much about your choice of a pronunciation system.
As a child, that roughness was part of your learning process for your first language. It will be here too.
But gradually, you’ll find yourself making progress. You might even see things in the text that you’ve previously missed because you heard yourself saying the text aloud.
7. Find things you won’t in translation.
To communicate some things in whatever language, translators inevitably have to obscure others.
This fact is wonderfully encapsulated in the Italian proverb “traduttore traditore”—”a translator is a traitor.”9
From an English translation, you might well learn about a time when a ruler of Egypt dreamed about cows.
But English simply isn’t able to communicate the humorous irony involved in having פרעה (paroh) dream about פרות (paroth; Gen 41:1–2).
Many translations do a great job with rendering the core of what a passage communicates.
But for the fine details both within and across passages, there’s no substitute for reading the original text.
Here also, your lack of familiarity with a biblical text’s primary language can sometimes be an asset.
In translation, you might well read the text too quickly and so gloss over important elements within it.
But by reading the text in a primary language, you might pause long enough to consider it more deeply.
8. Learn vocabulary.
When you learn biblical languages, you learn a certain amount of vocabulary that occurs frequently. But even with this under your belt, there is still a huge amount of vocabulary you don’t know.
Continuing to drill larger sets of vocabulary cards might have a place. On the other hand, you may well remember the language better by seeing and learning new words in context.
You’ll also learn new usages, meanings, and functions for the vocabulary you thought you knew.
You may have learned a small handful of glosses for a word. But you’ll start seeing how that term might have a much wider range of possible meanings than the glosses you memorized.
Don’t Settle for the Cliché
Unfortunately, biblical scholars who don’t have a regular discipline of Bible reading are common enough to be somewhat cliché.
Whether you find yourself in this boat or whether you’d just like to join others who are actively in the text, I’d like to invite you to join my students and me this term as we read the biblical text.
Every term, my students and I do a daily Bible reading exercise together. Each day’s readings are quite short—normally only a few verses.
The reading plan will work whether you’re using a translation or working from the biblical text in its original languages.
If you’re working in the original languages, I’ve scaled the readings to be short enough to complete without taking too much time out of your day.
It would be wonderful to have you join us. To get started, just drop your name and email in the form below.
You’ll get an email delivering this term’s readings directly to you. And you’ll be ready to pick up in the biblical text right where my students and I are.
Looking forward to reading with you!
Header image provided by Kelly Sikkema. ↩
For further discussion, see my “Rewriting Prophets in the Corinthian Correspondence: A Window on Paul’s Hermeneutic,” BBR 22.2 (2012): 226–27. ↩
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, ed. and trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2nd ed., Bloomsbury Revelations (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), 280, 282. ↩
J. David Stark, “Understanding Scripture through Apostolic Proclamation,” in Scripture First: Biblical Interpretation That Fosters Christian Unity, ed. Daniel B. Oden and J. David Stark (Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 2020), 56. For more about Scripture First, see “6 Ways to Make Scripture First.” For more about my essay, see “Behind the Scenes of ‘Understanding Scripture through Apostolic Proclamation’.” ↩
Stark, “Apostolic Proclamation,” 56. ↩
E.g., Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, PilNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 745; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 32 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 545–46; Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 254–55; Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistles to the Corinthians, ed. William P. Dickson, trans. D. Douglas Bannerman and David Hunter, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1879), 2:42; cf. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 88–89; A. T. Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2nd ed., ICC (1914; repr., Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1929), 333. ↩
Among these are that, (1) Both passages refer to the same core gospel, but they speak about Paul’s reception of it in different ways and at different times. Galatians stresses his initial reception of the gospel from Jesus; 1 Corinthians mentions how Paul later had this same message echoed back to him by others besides Jesus (cf. 1 Cor 15:3, 11; Gal 2:2, 6–10). (2) Galatians refers to the essential content of the gospel, which Paul received from Jesus. But 1 Corinthians is concerned with the specific form of the condensation of this gospel that appears in 15:3b–5, which he may have received from others. (3) Galatians refers to the essential content of the gospel, which Paul received from Jesus. But 1 Corinthians is concerned with additional information about Jesus (e.g., details of his post-resurrection appearances) that Paul might not have been privy to the details of previously but that also didn’t pertain to the core message he preached (15:6–7). ↩
Cf. C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC (London: Continuum, 1968), 337; John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans. John Pringle, 2 vols., Calvin’s Commentaries (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1848–1849), 2:9. ↩
For making me aware of this proverb, I’m grateful to Moisés Silva. ↩
