How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart Book Review

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart is written to cover a wide audience of readers including seminary students and arm chair readers. (Fee, back cover) The text thus introduces itself with intentions to make a contribution to biblical understanding with the statement, "Scripture is God's Word, and we want people to read it because of its great value to them. And if they do it 'for all it's worth,' hopefully they will also find its worth." (Fee, 12) In this regard, the approach that governs everything that has been done in the work is to concern itself with distinguishing the basic types of literature in the Bible called "genres." (Fee, 13) Overall, the general thesis thus is, "How the Bible should be read", and the thesis expresses itself categorically through using the various types of Biblical literature and discussing how to interpret each type.

The authors point out that some works on the subject try to be primers in hermeneutics for the common person, but other works approach the subject with a number of different methods for reading scripture. (Fee, 13) The contribution that the work makes is that it helps believers work out problems of application and it is written by two seminary professors that can protect against the hidden agendas that some that denounce biblical scholars might have (Fee, 14); moreover, this is offered as a tremendous help to the common person as few works on the subject are written by biblical scholars (Fee, 13). With over half a million copies sold (Fee, front cover), one of the biggest contributions, generally speaking, that is made is that the work can give a basic foundation for everyone that studies hermeneutics to communicate intelligently about the subject without the reader being ignorant of major developments that the world of historical and contextual biblical interpretation holds in common.

The point is that ideally the work could act as a strong bases for many other works that endeavor to find correct biblical interpretation such as could be found with commentaries and translations. As for the authors in this matter their concern is that, "...the church has too often been built with wood, hay, and straw rather than with gold, silver, and costly stones, and such work when tried by fire has been found wanting." (Fee, 75) Overall, the point is that the hope of Stuart and Fee is that their work would provide a contribution to biblical interpretation that would result in a great wealth of quality Christian development for the body of Christ (the church).

Types of Material and How the Various Types are Used

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth includes material to discuss a wide verity of topics including different genres of writing within the Bible along with translation concerns. (Fee, back cover) For example the text divides the Psalms into the seven genres of laments, thanksgiving psalms, hymns of praise, salvation-history psalms, psalms of celebration and affirmation, wisdom psalms, and songs of trust. (Fee, 212-214) The text then goes on to show patterns for each type of psalm to describe its general structure, and next the text will go on to discuss specific problems of interpretation such as the misunderstanding of the term "hate" as used in Psalms. (Fee, 222) Most importantly however is that the text focuses on a multitude of specific problems of biblical interpretation within each genre of writing.

Fee and Stuart not only focus their attention on genres, but they also focus upon rules for interpreting types of scripture. For example nine different rules are given for reading Proverbs. (See Fee, 240-241) These rules make up, by the authors views, how proverbs should be interpreted, but the problem is that an expert giving seemingly simple rules of interpretation for the non-expert almost defeats the purpose of reading the bible for one's self and gaining insight from it because instead some 'expert' mediates the meaning and explains rules in how to interpret the biblical text.

One particular problem that the Fee and Stuart text brings to light is the fact that the epistles give instructions that appear very outdated for the contemporary reader, and some people may seek to capitalize upon these problems. For example the biblical concept that women should dress in a head covering and that they prophesy in public (Fee, 55) is the kind of biblical instruction that either signifies that all the epistles are outdated or that parts of the epistles are out of date. Overall, the question of how to make since out of interpreting the scripture with some parts being applicable only in the past and with other parts being still applicable today lends itself to much discussion and investigation.

Fee and Stuart for example take up the problem of considering what scripture is applicable to today verses what scripture is not applicable by asking the question of how 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is used today in evangelical churches. Apparently everything in chapter fourteen is condemned as not being part of our century except for the part that condemns women speaking in public. (Fee, 73) Thus one of the questions that Stuart and Fee appear to be asking behind the text is, "do people find their own meaning to the text that suits their own needs and desires when reading the bible?"

Alternative Views Considered

The work of Fee and Stuart carefully expounds upon the historical contextual biblical view of interpreting scripture, but it does not focus upon the allegorical interpretation of scripture as seen in the apostolic school of biblical interpretation. For example Fairbairn (a professor of divinity) described the Bible to have both type and antitype, and in this view the types comprised much of the Old Testament whereas the antitypes comprised much of the New Testament (Fairbairn, 60). In such a view the harmony between the New and Old Testament relied upon the antitypes to fulfill the types, and a person could argue that in this regard an allegorical interpretation of scripture could be built through the parallelism. Overall, Fee and Stuart do not give much merit to the allegorical interpretation of scripture, and as a result their work only deals with the immediate context and the historical setting.

Fee and Stuart take up the possibility of a fuller and deeper meaning of the scripture than what can be plainly seen, and they write concerning the issue that, "Our problem is a simple one: Who speaks for God?" (Fee, 31) What such a view overlooks is that the typology of scripture would rest upon types and antitypes as Old Testament scripture gets fulfilled in New Testament ways such as with the classic example of the cross of Christ stepping on the serpent's head as prophesied in Genesis 3:15. Overall, condemning all deeper interpretations of scripture other than what is obvious through exegesis can have a potential for condemning the prospect of people speaking an inspired message (other than what is plainly obvious to the masses of people that can make the very same things up for themselves given enough resources and time).

The biblical historical contextual interpretation of scripture that Fee and Stuart use does not give any reading of scripture other than what would be plainly obvious to people given the correct information. When Fee and Stuart thus arrive at the book of Revelation, they write, "...most of us in the church today hardly know what to make of it." (Fee, 249) A point that can be made is that by rejecting the interpretation of scripture beyond what the common person could gain from reading the scripture what is also rejected is the ability to read a book with advanced use of typology and allegory such as can be found in Revelation.

Further Discussion and Professional Opinion

Further reading on the subject of hermeneutics that keeps in line with the work of Fee and Stuart can be done by reading How to Choose a Translation for All its Worth and How to Read the Bible Book by Book. Although further reading on the subject would expound upon the teachings of Fee and Stuart, they would not open the reader to the possibility of reading the scripture allegorically. Overall, further reading and discussion may give a broader base for understanding sensible ways of reading the scripture, but it will not open the prospect for understanding the deeper meaning of scripture.

The best professional opinion that can be given to Fee and Stuart and readers of Fee and Stuart is to give more credence to historical methods of biblical interpretation that have been used for thousand of years. Reading the scripture through the lenses of biblical principles gained from the text has a way of both denying the literal meaning of the text and denying the hidden meaning of the text. On the other hand reading the scripture without gaining principles but instead just understanding the meaning through the support of context can also be misleading. In the third case drawing in a more contemporary context for scripture can yet be even more misleading.

The best recommendation to make for biblical interpretation and practical value is to identify all the types of scripture and their antitypes and then to build extensive allegories around both as like a story that explains the links in the scripture. Once all the links are made and explained, then a person could use the same idea to build from these 'biblical allegories' out into other times in history and even until today by using the type and antitype model. Instead of the scripture having its end with Revelation with no other references to God's work, all of human history could be explained though the motif of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Overall, the fact that people do not interpret history allegorically with parallels made to the scripture suggests that people do not believe that the scripture has anything to do with the rest of history (this is about 1900 years), and sadly this gives rise to secularism and a god condemned to a book that sits on a book shelf only to be utilized when the need for salvation arises.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Fairbairn, Patrick. Typology of Scripture: Viewed in Connection with the Entire Scheme of the Divine Dispensations, Second Edition. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Smith & English, 1854

Fee, Gordon and Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 3^rd Edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003.