John Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry has an excellent post on the state of biblical interpretation training in seminary. His post has elicited several responses and posts on other blogs. Links to these can be found at the bottom of his original post.
John laments the fact that most seminary graduates have such a poor grounding in the Bible. In a phrase that cuts to the heart of the problem, John states:
Overwhelmed by many other claims on time and mind, students end up with a merely cursory and superficial preparation in the literature that is supposed to be compass, mirror, and anchor of the ministry they will carry out.
I wanted to make two points about biblical studies in seminaries.
The first flows out of John’s statement about the other claims on the time and minds of seminarians. Part of the blame for this comes from the fact that mainline churches — including my own — do not place as much stress on the Bible as they once did. Many other things clamor to be the central mission of the church, including social justice and pastoral counseling. And many parish search committees look more for someone who can be an administrator than someone who can interpret a biblical text. Is it any wonder, then, that the people who go to seminary look to focus more on things other than the Bible?
This is not to say that social justice and pastoral counseling are unimportant. They are, but they are not the reason that the church exists. They flow out of our commitment to the gospel of Christ Jesus, a gospel that is best understood through the Scriptures of the church.
I would be surprised if there were any medical schools out there in which students studied administration more than they studied the human body. Or a law school in which actually reading the law was required in only a quarter of the classes. But that is exactly what we are doing in a number of seminaries.
Sad to say, I knew more than one person in my seminary who could quote from memory more lines of T.S. Elliot’s poems than verses of Scripture.1
My second point is that I am not sure requiring Hebrew and Greek of seminarians would improve this situation, especially if we mandated just the one year that some denominations require. If we are trying to create students who can responsibly use Hebrew and Greek, then no less than three years should be mandatory in each.
Obviously, few seminarians are going to go for this, and I am not convinced we should make them. Not all seminarians are cut out to be linguists (as my friend the Peripatetic Polar Bear can attest) nor should they be. But one year of language study creates a dangerous situation. We have all heard sermons where the preacher made basic mistakes in handling the original languages, and it often comes from thinking that they know enough of the language. Giving students one year of language equips them to make mistakes but does not really give them enough to understand the text better. I think Alexander Pope’s caveat needs to be recalled here:
A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.
Are we really convinced that Hebrew and Greek are such simple languages that two semesters of each gives the would–be pastor the tools to delve deeper into the text? I think the student’s time would be much better spent taking additional classes on interpreting the text in English.
- Granted, T.S. Elliot is de rigueur for us Episcopalians, but the Bible should be too. [back]
On December 13th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Kevin,
I agree that seminaries are often failing to educate students when it comes to the Bible. I think that there are a variety of reasons for this — too many to go into here. However, I did want to say that I disagree that Hebrew and Greek aren’t worth studying if one only studies them for a year.
One year of Hebrew or Greek can give a minister (or anyone, for that matter) the tools she needs to at least begin to think critically about translation issues. I have found that many pastors/seminarians have a very naive view of how complex the biblical languages are. A year of Hebrew or Greek can help to remove that ignorance. They won’t be qualified to exegete the text, at least not at any deep level (which is a problem at the seminary I attend. You have students taking exegesis courses who have only had a year of Greek or Hebrew, and thus they tend to make many a stupid mistakes…yet I still think this is better than someone who is ignorant of the languages), but they will be qualified to at the least look critically at the translations they use. I think there is value in that. I also think there is value in knowing Hebrew for their own personal study. Beyond that, they will at least be able to understand, though perhaps not completely grasp, critical commentaries.
Finally, and this comment is really too long already, how will someone ever know if they want to go on and have those three years of experience with Hebrew if they are never required to take the first year?
On February 23rd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
[…] competent in a biblical language, but three semesters is certainly getting closer (see my post on “Seminary Training in Biblical Studies”). Their M.Div. now features a focus on “ministry studies,” although the article does […]