Jowett and the 'Original Meaning' of Scripture

Author(s): James Barr

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Religious Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Dec. 1982), pp. 433-437
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20005882 .
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Rel. Stud.

I8, pp- 433-437

JAMES

BARR

RegiusProfessorof Hebrew, TheOrientalInstitute,Oxford

JOWETT AND THE 'ORIGINAL MEANING'

OF SCRIPTURE1

To read the Bible 'like any other book': that is one of the striking phrases
in Benjamin Jowett's sprawling essay -it is over iOOpages long - 'On the
Interpretation of Scripture' inEssays andReviews ( i86o; cf. pp. 338, 375, 377,
404 of that edition, which isquoted without further reference throughout this
article). Another memorable phrase concerned the 'original' meaning: 'the
office of the interpreter is not to add another [meaning], but to recover the
original one; the meaning, that is, of the words as they first struck on the
ears or flashed before the eyes of those who heard and read them' (p. 338).
These expressions have been understood2 to show that Jowett was
propounding an essentially historicalapproach to the Bible. Seen in thisway,
he was enunciating the principles of 'historical criticism'. Such criticism has
been much preoccupied with the discovery of origins: the origins of Israelite
faith, the portions of the book of Amos originally spoken by that prophet,
the original teaching ofJesus himself, and the original text of theOld or New
Testament. This quest for the original has been so stressed that historical
criticism came in the end to be blamed for excessive devotion to it. In pursuit
of it, we are told, it divided the biblical books up into various sources, and
failed to appreciate them in their final form as they stand before us.Matters
ofmeaning and authenticity were made to depend toomuch on the historical
identification of origin and development. According to this view, Jowett in
insisting on the 'original meaning' is exemplifying the rise of historical
criticism with its emphasis on origins in this sense.
It isdifficult to believe, however, thatJowett, when he spoke of' recovering
the original' meaning, intended any such process of historical research. His
essay says very little about historical criticism, and it presents no guidance
to the reader about a historical process by which the 'original' might be
recovered: This should not be surprising when one considers themind of the
my

1 For a fuller exposition

ofJowett's
article
'Jowett and the reading

with much detailed

theory of biblical
interpretation,
evidence,
see
of the Bible "like any other book"',
Horizons
in Biblical Theology

(PittsburghTheological Seminary), I983.

2 So recently, for example,
Professor Brevard Childs
in 'The Sensus Literalis of Scripture:
an Ancient
and Modern
Problem',
in H. Donner,
R. Hanhart
and R. Smend, Beitrige zur alttestamentlichen Theologie

(ZimrnerliFestschrift;Gottingen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1977), pp. 80-93; reference toJowett,

p. 89.

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JAMES BARR

434

man.Jowett was hardly a historical thinker;1 hismind was literary, linguistic

and, especially, philosophical,
as was amply recognized by his
contemporaries.

The perception of the 'original' meaning, as Jowett intended it, was not
primarily a historical process: rather, it was literary, dramatic and
philosophical. The underlying view implied, we may say, was: a great and
classic work of literature communicates directly. To read the Bible 'like any
other

was

book'

it as one

to read

or Scott

reads Plato

or as one watches

play of Shakespeare. The 'original', therefore, is not an earlier source, nor

is it a set ibf events and circumstances lying behind the text and discovered
through historical inquiry. The 'original' meaning is themeaning of the text
itself. The

way

a play

enjoy

is to read

Plato

to understand

the text of Plato;

is to see and hear

of Shakespeare's

that play.

The

the way

to

approach

is

built not upon a historical, but upon a static, view of literature. The 'original'
is the text which

wrote

that Plato

we

can

take up and

still

read

today.

great and classic work is thus timeless and remains permanently directly
accessible. So also theBible: 'theBook itself remains as at the first unchanged
amid the changing interpretations of it' (pp. 337 f.).
This literary and dramatic perspective is the reason forJowett's stress upon
the 'disappearance' of interpretation. When we go to seeMacbeth we forget
the theories and interpretations that we have heard, and give ourselves up
to the play.

is to get rid of interpretation,

true use of interpretation

'The

and

leave us alone in company with the author' (p. 384). It is the text that will
then communicate its own meaning. All study of critical theories and all past
interpretations can only be propaedeutic: in the end they must fall away
while we submit ourselves to the text itself.
Jowett's negative attitude towards traditional interpretations of the Bible
is easily misunderstood. The effect that disturbed him was a semantic one.
It derived not from the rise of interpretative traditions but from their effect
they had been

once
as

if the meanings

then came

of the Bible

long established. Words

of these same words,

as

they were

used within

this was

work,
if words

within

philosophy.
from

it destroyed
character

it were

It was

essential

therefore

it was

for the discovery

semantic

of meanings
and not

of literature

be obvious

that

the scriptural

1 'Jowett was never historical

of the European Mind

about

in theNineteenth

taken

the Fathers

had

interpretations
not basically

was

process

was

suggested

If one

Testament.

read

it as

of dogmatics,
it would
senses different
from those of later
textbook

(or about much

Century (Cambridge:

again

as a literary
be destroyed
in later Greek

the many

historical

the New

as a scholastic
words

dialogue
as definitions

emphasis

No

literary.
within

would

to distinguish

itself. This

and

of the Bible

the character
of a Platonic

in the senses

read

the one sense of scripture

historical:
a work

absurd:

just as the literary

later,

the Bible itself. To

theologically defined, usage, were the meanings within

Jowett

to be read

else)': 0.

Cambridge

Chadwick,

University

Press,

The Secularization
I975),

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p.

I50.

JOWETT

AND

'ORIGINAL

MEANING'

435

interpretations. The true sense, Jowett thought, was thatwhich was conveyed
by the text, as in any other great and classic work.
Far from being an exemplar of historicalcriticism, Jowett came a good deal
closer to thosemore modern movements which have sought to replace itwith
something better, such as the 'biblical theology' of the post-war period or
the 'canonical criticism' of today. He had little interest in identifying the
earliest sources or the most genuine words; he saw the Bible as literature
rather than as historical evidence; and, though he saw progressive revelation
within it, he took the complete books as they stand as the normal base for
understanding. Moreover, he took the entire Bible as a special corpus which
must be interpreted from itself and through itself.
The demand that the Bible should be understood 'like any other book'
has often left the impression that itwas to have no more authority than any
other book, indeed nothing special about it at all. Jowett however himself
clearly ruled this out. To him itwas axiomatic that the authority of theBible
stood far above that of other literature: 'no one who has a Christian feeling
would place classical on a levelwith sacred literature '(p. 337). However, the
Bible had diversity within itself, and its statements did not correspond exactly
with scientific or historical fact, indeed they did not universallyagree with the
full theological truth as revealed in Jesus Christ. The notion of inspiration
had to begin by taking account of these facts. But this did not reduce the
Bible to the level of any other book. The interpreter, by understanding it
'like any other book', only discovered that it was not like any other book.
'When interpreted like any other book, by the same rules of evidence and
the same canons of criticism, theBible will still remain unlike any other book '
(pp. 375, 377). Nor was it the case that theBible could be understood without
any special theological insight. Even when one read it like any other book,
the interpretation of scripture required 'a vision and faculty divine' (p. 337),
which was not needed for the study of aGreek poet or philosopher. This vision
and faculty divine were needed in order that one might grasp the subject
matter of the Bible; but they followed, and did not overrule, the guidance
of language and literary form, plus the evidence of facts, which applied in
the same way as with other books.
ThusJowett's view of scripture was a remarkably biblicist one. The Bible
was a completely special case. 'Scripture is a world by itself, from which we
must exclude foreign influences, whether theological or classical' (p. 384).
'To get inside that world is an effort of thought and imagination, requiring
the sense of a poet as well as a critic' (ibid.). Though he used the idea of
progressive revelation, which he considered in any case to be supported
expressly by scripture itself, he clearly affirmed the essential unity of Old
and New Testaments. There was a 'deep-rooted identity' of the two
'in the revelation of one God of perfect justice and truth' (Commentary
on
Thessalonians, Galatians and Romans, I855, i. 353), and, just as the

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JAMES BARR

436

teachings of Christ, and the letters of the Apostles, each had their peculiar
and different contributions tomake, so theOld Testament conveyed certain
lessonswhich were not communicated 'with equal point or force in theNew'
(p. 416).

Later on people often thought that the unity of the Bible had been upheld
by traditional Christianity but damaged by historical and critical studies;
but for Jowett it was the other way round. It was the various traditional
orthodoxies that had continually failed to cope with the full range of biblical
material. He roundly excoriated their 'unfair appropriation of some portions
of Scripture and an undue neglect of others' (p. 358). It was his own proposal
for interpretation through the one original sense, he thought, that would
provide balanced coverage for the entire scripture. This had what would now
be called an 'ecumenical dimension'. Some have thought that liberal and
modernizing theologies have accommodated scripture tomodern trends and
fashions; for Jowett it was the traditional orthodoxies that had done this.
They had bent themeanings of scripture to their own doctrinal positions and
conformed them distortingly into 'the language and practice of our own age'
(pp. 353, 356). Critical study, on the other hand, would realize the principle
that the Bible is 'a bond of union to the whole Christian world' (p. 426);
and the removal of non-biblical ideas and interpretations, 'artificial notions
and systems' as he called them, would lead to agreement in the understanding
of scripture.

Far, then, from being an apostle of historical criticism, Jowett has much
greater affinity with later 'biblical theology' and with the holistic hermeneu
tical

trends of today. At
modern

These

on

been

the whole

matter.

is a different

this is so. Content

least in form

have

trends

anti-liberal,

and

have

been

anxious to avoid reading modern liberal ideas into scripture. The influence
of Religionsgeschichtehas thus been effective: it is perceived that ancient
religions and religious mentalities were enormously different. Jowett, one
may

read

feel, did

well

a historical

followed

not produce

a picture

liberal

approach
of Pauline

ideas
but

he did not
that seemed

theology

this not because

and

into scripture,
because

he

try to do so. He did

near what
anywhere

the Apostle might have actually thought.

His

affinity

with

about

the attitude

which

distinguished

particularly

was

Schleiermacher
of the educated
between

elite
the

to that German

close

considerable;
to religion.

'outer'

form

tradition,

both were

Jowett's
and

which

the

concerned

view of language,
'inner soul', was

in turn

became

the

ancestor of the twentieth-century ideal of the 'theological dictionary'. This

position, dividing sharply as it did between linguistic form and thought
fitted with

content,

and his supposed

the actual words of St Paul

the split, often wide, between
thoughts, a split which was evident in the Commentary

latent

on the Epistles and was noted by contemporaries, especially by the then

youngJ. B. Lightfoot (Journalof Classical andSacredPhilology, iii,March I856,
8I-12

I).

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JOWETT

AND

'ORIGINAL

437

MEANING'

To sum up, Jowett was certainly a 'biblical critic', and he well typified
the alliance between biblical criticism and liberal theology which was to be
influential for some time. But his words about the 'original' do not mean
that he was a historical critic, and the idea of historical solutions to biblical
problems ismarkedly lacking in his thought. He was a critic in the sense that
themeaning of scripture, as he believed, was very different fromwhat tradi
tional interpretations had maintained, and also in the sense that the relation
between scripture and truth was not a constant but a variable one. In other
respects his approach to the character of scripture followed a remarkably
traditional design. Its weakness lay above all in the failure to produce a
convincing picture of what St Paul - or any other biblical writer - may
probably have thought. This weakness derives not from a historical bias, but
from a lack of historical perspective, and, above all, from the domination of
a philosophical set of interests. If one needed to be a poet in order to penetrate
the world of the Bible, there would then be the question from what source
the poet drew the images with which he depicted thatworld. Jowett's poetry
drew its images too largely from the world of Hegelianism and liberalism.
Twentieth-century biblical theology, which also saw the Bible as a special
world, and in this sensemay be said to have fulfilled part ofJowett's design,
drew its images from a world as different from the twentieth-century world
as possible; a good deal of its inspiration came, in fact, from those traditional
interpretations which Jowett had so emphatically rejected.'
1 For
England:

of Jowett
see P. Hinchliff,
recent assessment
another
or "Why really great men are never Clergymen"',

'Benjamin
forthcoming

and the Church

Jowett
in Balliol Studies.

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of