The Consumers of Cookbooks as Exemplary Readers of Texts

Continuing in the vein of biblical theology or theological interpretation of the Bible is the following quote from the pen of Christopher Seitz. Earlier, I quoted Ben Meyer to the effect that a prerequisite of any biblical theology would be the finding of a "deep coherence" amidst/within/beneath the "breaks, tangents, and oddly angled continuities" of the biblical text. Following that, I tried to show, with the help of John Goldingay, that an honest acknowledgment of such cracks in the surface of the biblical texts did not signal the end of theological interpretation and (implicitly) that the prospect of finding them need not be regarded with hostility even by people within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. But Meyer was right: one must move on to coherence. If there is to be theology, and not simply discrete theologies, and if there is to be biblical theology, then one must be able to give expression to that same "deep coherence" which the biblical writers evidently found with those who preceded them.

How then to find or express such coherence? Well, to start with, one must take a lesson in hermeneutics from cookbooks and their consumers. Seitz employs the analogy to describe what it would mean to interpret the Bible with concern for its subject matter.

If you buy a cookbook, you generally do so to cook and to enjoy what you have prepared. You could, however, buy a cookbook and seek to comprehend what cooking is about, or what this cook or that cook was thinking when he said, 'I shall cook a nice egg soufflé. The ingredients are these. The oven shall be this hot.' Or you could study the cookbook and conjecture about the history of fish preparation, if you were shrewd enough and had enough time to make comparisons throughout the history of cooking. Usually, though, purchase is made so as to cook along the lines introduced in the cookbook. If the food is good, you say, 'Brilliant. What a good purchase. I have learned to cook a great soufflé.' And, perhaps, 'Brilliant. People will be happy to eat what I have cooked.'

This is what it means to be interested in the subject matter -- not the author doing the producing, nor the circumstances of her writing or eating, nor even the energy produced by reflecting on how a soufflé is made, or what deep anguish lies in the human heart regarding soufflés that fall. No, to speak of the subject matter is to say, 'I'd like to eat a soufflé, but I do not know how to cook one.' It is not to say, 'What goes on in the mind of chefs, male and female? It is not to say, 'Eggs? How were they different in the southern hemisphere?'

. . .

A cookbook, most would agree, is constraining readers to read it in a certain way. It is constraining readers to read it so as to cook food well. The subject matter (cooking) and the form (recipes, etc.) conspire to call forth a certain kind of reading. Other ways of reading are not ruled out, but most would agree they are either subsidiary, peripheral, or are self-conscious efforts not to deal with the subject matter (cooking) so as to do something else (e.g., reflect on the history of cooking).

"Review of Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament." International Journal of Systematic Theology 2/1 (2000): here, 112-113

N.B. David Guretzki, a theology professor at Briercrest, has initiated a promising new series: 1 John: A Theommentary; here are the first and second posts. Do check it out!

Disclaimer: my posts on this topic should not be taken as a claim to any great proficiency on my part. What they reflect are brief soundings I am taking in order to satisfy a largely neglected interest.