Private Interpretation...

...the Licona-Geisler Controversy grinds on.

Mike Licona's recent book offered an allegorical interpretation of Matthew 27's odd story of the saints rising after the crucifixion.  Evangelical doyen Norm Geisler felt that this was a denial of inerrancy and has been leading a jihad against Licona ever since.  Apologianick offers this summary:

Here is what Geisler has done in the issue.

He has issued a petition behind the scenes for people to vote on about whether Mike is violating Inerrancy or not.

He has been instrumental in causing Mike to lose a job twice, including personally contacting people to warn them about Mike.

He has caused further financial loss to Mike by getting him uninvited from speaking engagements and has done the same to two supporters, Paul Copan and Gary Habermas.

Apologianick also notes:

What I am most concerned with what I see in the blogosphere is unthinking. Now someone has complained that the Geisler video made some people look like drones. In all honesty, when I go to the Geisler Facebook page, a lot of people do a really good job of demonstrating that. For some, it’s simply the case of “Geisler has spoken. The case is closed.”

I honestly wonder if some might take the Mormon hymn of “Praise to the Man” and simply change it from Joseph Smith to Geisler.

In fact, I have a difficulty in some ways with Paul saying he is my fan. I often realize the position that I hold and a lot of people will take what I say very seriously and think “I want you to really study what I tell you.” I often do this trick at work where if someone tells me their birthday, I can tell them what day of the week they were born on. So many customers upon seeing this say “I believe you!” I don’t like that. I want them to check me first. Make sure what I’m saying is true instead of just being willing to believe me immediately.

I fear when I go to Geisler’s page, I see a lot of “yes men.” These are the ones that think “Well Geisler said this in response and that settles the issue.” That is not a position that should be given to any man save Jesus Christ. It should not be given to Geisler. It should not be given to Mike. It should not be given to me. I understand Paul is not doing this with either of us, but are we in danger of following another man instead of Jesus? Do we not remember 1 Corinthians? “I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow Cephas.” It should be for all of us “I follow Christ.” Oh we’d all say we do, but are we following Christ but necessarily through the lens of a mortal man?

This affair is obviously quite serious for Licona. It also serves as a warning to others who might offer theological speculation that would cross Geisler or other powers in the Evangelical world.

But where is "private interpretation" in any of this?  Alister McGrath calls private interpretation "Christianity's Dangerous Idea" and the fountainhead of all modern virtue, but in this dispute we don't see any adherence to this supposedly quintessential Protestant virtue.  What we see are lines drawn in the air enforced by excommunication and people who are following a de facto magisterium of one self-appointed person.

Ironically, this particular fight wouldn't be happening in Catholicism. Catholicism is comfortable with the idea that scripture may be read symbolically as well as historically.  In The Death of the Messiah, Raymond Brown writes:

"When one appreciates the symbolic, poetic, and popular apocalyptic character of the four lines of 27;15b - 52b with the phenomena they describe, they offer no major problem.  They are clearly attached to the death of Jesus on Friday afternoon, when the ominous judgmental tone that precedes the raising of the holy ones."

Does this mean that the saints didn't rise on Friday afternoon?  No, not necessarily, but this approach does permit a diversity of understanding in that it is willingness to accept a tension to exist between symbolic and literal truth.  As Christian Smith observes:

58. Distinguish between formulations of truth and the truths that the formulations express. This step follows from the previous one. For evangelicals, things say what they mean and mean what they say. Lines are drawn, people get clear on where they stand, and clarity and consistency throughout is paramount. That is its literal, either/or, univocal approach at work again. That view also reflects Protestantism’s central emphasis on the word. As Protestant pulpits replaced Catholic altars, as printed Bibles displaced icons and devotional practices, Protestantism made words—discrete written and spoken units of language—the medium for grasping and conveying Christian truth. Correct words, for Protestants—particularly for evangelical rationalists—are therefore nearly themselves sacred, because Christian truth itself is represented directly in the right words.18

Catholics also care very much about right words. But their approach to words is a bit different in a way that turns out to make a big difference. Catholicism, in short, recognizes a gap between words and what the words express or represent. For Protestants, the words are the truth. That is why one must get them exactly right. For Catholics, by contrast, words formulate expressions of truth. There is not in Catholicism a literal, exact, univocal correspondence or identity between words and truth. Much of truth, especially truth that directly concerns God, is in Catholicism a mystery. Ultimately the truth is God. And God is not words.19

So we use words to understand and express those mysteries to the very best of our ability. That is what humans—even those in possession of divine revelation—do. But the words themselves can never fully capture or embody the truth. The words point us to the truth. They are good witnesses to or mediums for expressing truth. But the truth itself does not consist of the assemblages of words.

Smith, Christian (2011-06-09). How to Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps (pp. 104-105). Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

The willingness to accept this tension is also the willingness to accept mystery.  Christian Smith observes that the antipathy toward mystery is very modern:

For most of Christian history, the material and spiritual world was much more enchanted, thicker with spiritual meaning, and full of greater mystery than modern evangelicalism knows. Modernity suffers a “mystery deficit”—an inability to even conceive of unknowns and realities beyond those accessible to rational understanding. Indeed, that mystery deficit is central to the corrosions of secularization. Evangelicalism participates in that mystery deficit.

Smith, Christian (2011-06-09). How to Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps (p. 36). Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.