Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers by Christopher Hall

Christopher Hall in Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers seeks to provide a summary and introduction to the church fathers and their views concerning Scripture. He examines four church fathers of the east: Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom; and four church fathers from the west: Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great. Hall also details the hermeneutics of the Alexandria, Antioch, and Patristic camps. His goal is to compare and contrast the allegorical and plain meaning of the text while allowing the readers to objectively decide about how they will approach the Scriptures themselves. He succeeds in his goal; and to his praise, the positive aspects of his book far outweigh the negative.

Picking out a couple of positive and encouraging aspects of this book: first, this writer enjoyed the author's emphasis and detailing of the church father's respect for tradition. Though in this writer's mind some fathers respected tradition too much, this writer was still encouraged by Hall's emphasis upon background and the eternal corporate reality of the church. With individualism having a dominant seat in American evangelicalism, it was encouraging to see a healthy emphasis upon and respect for tradition. Though tradition never trumps Scripture, if God the Holy Spirit has never encouraged other Christians in history to possess the same interpretation of a text as an interpreter, then the interpreter is probably going beyond the meaning of the text God the Holy Spirit intended. The new perspective on Paul is just one example of this disrespect for the tradition, creeds, confessions, etc. of those able-minded men that came before. N.T. Wright for example lives in the tradition of the Reformation while denying the essential mark of the Reformation: justification by faith alone.

Second, this writer enjoyed the intriguing interaction of the author with postmodernism and how the church fathers help the contemporary church approach the text with a sense of objectivity while still remaining in the orthodox tradition. It is interesting and encouraging to witness Hall's detailing of the benefits of postmodern thought on the discipline of hermeneutics. Though the author details more negative consequences of postmodernism, he acknowledges that postmodern thought has helped the slaves of reason gain healthy freedom in the interpretation process from the cult of individualism, helping them to understand the impossibility of absolute autonomous objectivity. Unfortunately, with this freedom has come the destruction of truth for the sake of pragmatism, but the author does encourage his readers to take the good of postmodernism, while discarding the loss of truth. Hall is correct in that the hermeneutics of the church fathers help contemporary Christians at least witness the interpretation process within a specific cultural tradition without the influence of the Enlightenment. Hence, though premodern, the church fathers help with the sin of individualism in the contemporary church by pointing to tradition as proof for purported interpretations, though tradition is not absolutely authoritative.

One negative aspect of this book was its lack of examples detailing how the church fathers carried out their exegesis. More examples would have been beneficial in order to help the reader clearly understand the interpretational method of the fathers. However, due to this work being more of an introduction, the author's lack of examples is understandable, for readers will still be encouraged to further glean from the church fathers' hermeneutical methods. Furthermore, though there are warnings and a subtle Protestant bias, enough information is given concerning the church fathers for the reader to pursue an "objective" approach to the Scriptures with a healthy respect for their fellow Christians who have come before. Readers will be encouraged to stand on the shoulders of giants without submitting to the purported authority of tradition.