Optimal Ingredients For Effective Interpretation
What are the ingredients for optimal interpretation? What I found interesting from a book titled, "Doing What Comes Naturally," is that the author puts forth that optimal interpretation has less to do with the modes of communication (i.e. verbal, written, etc...) that are used for communication and more to do with an understanding of context that the words are used within for each party in communication. It isn't that words are not important, for they are, it is just that the author stresses the importance of 'context' in connection to effective interpretation.
For example refer to the optimal interpretive contexts in comparison to the hazardous interpretive contexts below:
Optimal Interpretation:
- Friends Face to Face ~ Understand Context and Intention ~ Shared History ~ Able to Clarify Confusion
- Friends through a Letter ~ Understand Context and Intention ~ Shard History
- Non-Friends Face to Face ~ Similar Contexts that Stabilize Understandings provide mutual understanding of intention
Hazardous Interpretation:
- Any occurrence where there is a heterogeneous audience (i.e. different epistemology/beliefs, different contexts, different presuppositions, etc…)
- Any occurrence where there is a difference in culture; this interpretation difficulty increases through the addition of distance and time.
In summarizing the thoughts above: the greater the distance from the context of the message, the greater the work of interpretation that is needed. In other words, two friends with similar contexts, shared history and understanding of intentions have a better platform for optimal interpretation through a letter or email than two strangers visiting face to face with vastly different belief systems. Not only will there be more work with the addition of distance between the contextual source and the interpreter, but there will also be a greater risk and hazard in interpreting the source incorrectly.
Applying this to biblical hermeneutics one can then see the importance of 'context' for optimal interpretation and the urgency of giving proper attention and diligence to biblical interpretation. In thinking about scripture: we are not friends with the original authors; we do not share the same cultural contexts; and we are separated by space and time. The only thing more difficult, according to Fisk, for biblical interpretation would be that of fictional literature.
It is then obvious why there are so many different biblical views these days. The problem is not the original text of the Bible but the difficulty in interpretation due to being separated from the Biblical authors and their scriptural intentions by some 2,000 years of contextual time and several thousand miles of contextual culture.
What this means is that as students of the Biblical Texts we can give ample time in understanding the cultural context, cultural language and customs that the original Biblical texts were written, in order to understand the original intention of the authors. Thankfully, we live in such a time that there is a plethora of information available to us through Biblical internet sources and free Biblical software so that we can grow in our Biblical interpretation.
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