When the Homily is about Immunology

Hermenuetics

As I continue to read through Scripture in Tradition I was struck by a thought. While I was attending a protestant Bible college I took a class entitled Protestant New Testament Hermenuetics, in fact I believe I still have the small green/blue hardback book - I shall have to go and look for it. Anyway, it occured to me that the interpretive method we were taught really was grounded in a sort of historical literary science and it made me think: Gee, even an atheist could properly interpret the scritpures if he or she simply employed this technical methodology we are being taught. I don't believe this is the case.

from Fr. Breck's book...

A further element of Orthodox biblical interpretation...concerns an inner conviction that roots the exegesis firmly within the life of the ecclesial community. This is the conviction, shared universally by patristic tradition, that one cannot interpret the Scriptures faithfully or accurately unless one lives in accordance with them... Their proper - that is, their true or "orthodox" - interpretation requires on the part of the interpreter a life of personal repentance, ascetic struggle and worship...this is the key to understanding Jesus' enigmatic statement in Mark 4:11, "To you has been given the secret of the Kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables."

I bet the gnostics loved that verse. Fr. Breck goes on to clarify how this is NOT gnostic in that it is a gift offered freely to all (to the extent that we participate - kinda like saving faith) such that we are able to transform "...the work of exegesis from rational analysis into genuine theology: a living witness to the life-giving God."

This is really why we can see in the Orthodox Faith (as described by Kyriacos Markides' in his book Mountain of Silence) men with PhD's being taught by old monks who never surpassed grade school. Really, now, what good is education without wisdom?