{"id":16753,"date":"2014-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1585"},"modified":"2014-10-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T00:00:00","slug":"scholastic-exegesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/10\/scholastic-exegesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Scholastic Exegesis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Scholastic and exegetical theology are sometimes contrasted. Scholastics reason logically from axioms; exegetical theologians go wherever the text takes \u2018em.<\/p>\n

While the contrast may have some rough truth to it, it\u2019s never been an absolute one, and can be misleading. Scholastics deal with biblical texts. More importantly, exegetes have to act like scholastics.<\/p>\n

For example: \u201cDo not answer a fool according his folly (Heb. ke\u2019iwwalto<\/em>), lest you will also be like him.\u201d And,\u201dAnswer a fool according to his folly (ke\u2019iwwalto)<\/em>, that he be not wise in his own eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bad enough that these verses are both in the Bible. Worse that they are both in the same book. Worst of all, they are successive verses of Proverbs 26 (vv. 4-5).<\/p>\n

What to do? One might conclude that Solomon or \u201cSolomon\u201d is too dense to notice a contradiction. Given the intricacy and shrewdness of the rest of Proverbs, that\u2019s a tough case to make.<\/p>\n

You can just leave them be. Proverbs says both; we memorize both and move on. Maybe the right one will come to mind when we most need it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the very form of the text demands more than that. The contradiction is a provocation, a riddling word of the wise that demands a response from the reader.<\/p>\n

One might ask, In what sense does verse 4 mean \u201canswer\u201d and is it the same sense as verse 5? Does \u201caccording to folly\u201d mean the same thing in both verses? Perhaps it means \u201cdon\u2019t answer a fool foolishly\u201d and in the second it means \u201cshow the fool his folly by your answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there some subtle hint that the \u201canswer\u201d that we should give is silence \u2013 that is, the answer is not <\/em>to answer? Perhaps different circumstances demand different sorts of responses: Though in situation X you should not answer, in situation Y you should? Or perhaps the two verses are implicitly addressed to different sorts of people, one who is quipped to answer fools without becoming one and one who is not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not here to answer the questions, only to point to the process. You can\u2019t deal with the passage without sorting through these sorts of questions. Which are scholastic <\/em>questions \u2013 probing different meanings of words, different applications of concepts in different circumstances, seeking to harmonize the apparently contradictory.<\/p>\n

All an exegete needs is to sprinkle in some \u201cvideturs\u201d and some \u201csed contras\u201d and some \u201crespondeos,\u201d and he\u2019s ready to turn Thomas Aquinas.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scholastic and exegetical theology are sometimes contrasted. Scholastics reason logically from axioms; exegetical theologians go wherever the text takes \u2018em. While the contrast may have some rough truth to it, it\u2019s never been an absolute one, and can be misleading. Scholastics deal with biblical texts. More importantly, exegetes have to act like scholastics. For example: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,1135],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hermeneutics","category-scholasticism"],"yoast_head":"\nScholastic Exegesis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scholastic and exegetical theology are sometimes contrasted. 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