One often hears in testimonies that every time you reread the scriptures, you will see something that you have never seen before. \u00a0Such a claim likely functions in two different ways. \u00a0First, restricting oneself to a particular canon can and does produce monotony, so there must be incentives to go over\u00a0the familiar\u00a0again. \u00a0Reading a text, watching a movie, eating a new dish, kissing a person for the first time likely has a certain heightened degree of pleasure because it is \u201cnew.\u201d \u00a0After that, there are diminishing returns. \u00a0Yet, there remains a promise of returns nonetheless. \u00a0There is still the pleasure of the \u201cnew\u201d even in the familiar, we are told.<\/p>\n
Second, the testimony of the \u201cnew\u201d in the scriptures after multiple readings is sometimes presented as if it were a special quality of the scriptures, one that they uniquely bear. \u00a0 The interaction between the spirit and the reader opens up new readings that were previously not possible because of a prior deficiency of the reader, or perhaps a new situation in the reader\u2019s life gives a different meaning to the text. \u00a0The scriptures uniquely offer the \u201cnew\u201d because they function differently from other kinds of literature, movies, food, or lovers.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that these two explanations for the reasons that one encounters the \u201cnew\u201d in the scriptures offer two different accounts of what scripture is. \u00a0Is scripture a canon, or is scripture an incantation? \u00a0Is scripture a limited set of authoritative texts, or does the authority of these texts derive from special qualities uniquely held by them?<\/p>\n
I confess that I discover, and rediscover the \u201cnew\u201d in the scriptures all the time. \u00a0But I have also found that I discover the \u201cnew\u201d in my spouse recently as well. \u00a0I have also recently been rereading several books that I had read very closely just a few years ago, and yet rereading them has produced a whole new set of insights for me. \u00a0It seems to me that finding the \u201cnew\u201d in the familiar is more about how we come to relate to the familiar, and the kind of care we give it, than it is about any particular quality of the familiar. \u00a0Of course, the \u201cnew\u201d was there all along in something as static as a text. \u00a0It is only \u201cnew\u201d to me because something about me has changed, not that the text has transformed itself for me, but me for it. \u00a0In this sense, there is nothing unique about the scriptures in being capable as documents to speak to us differently over time. \u00a0The key is that in order for the scriptures (or our spouse, other literature, food, etc) to transform into something new, it is us who must first transform. \u00a0Only as we change can rereading produce the pleasure of the \u201cnew.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One often hears in testimonies that every time you reread the scriptures, you will see something that you have never seen before. \u00a0Such a claim likely functions in two different ways. \u00a0First, restricting oneself to a particular canon can and does produce monotony, so there must be incentives to go over\u00a0the familiar\u00a0again. \u00a0Reading a text, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":455,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n