Biblical anchors

I've noticed reading people analyzing the Bible from various perspectives that there is something that everyone does but no one admits to doing. And it is simply that everyone analyzing the Bible has an anchor text or a  small number of anchor texts that there reading of everything else pivots around.

I noticed this a few years ago talking with a good friend who is a rather devoted to the John Stott interpretation. She is Evangelical Protestant by belief and Anglican by culture. Anyway, in response to something she said, I grabbed my Bible and cited a long bit of Proverbs to her. I cited this in response to something she had concluded based on a couple of verses from Malachi. I cited my section because there was no possible way to interpret them consistent with her other interpretation. I was eager to see what she would do in response.

She did nothing. Or rather, she looked uncomfortable for a moment and then went on to something from Paul that was easier to fit in with her analysis. And I realized later that she did nothing because Proverbs was of absolutely no importance to her as a book. Her understanding of the Bible came from other books and when she read Wisdom literature it was only to find isolated quotes that fit her reading from other books in the Bible. She read isolated lines when they suited her but the thought that there might be a larger and consistent set of ideas in Proverbs was of no importance to her because her entire understanding of the Bible was rooted in the letters of Paul.

Everyone does this. I've noticed, for example, a rather disturbing trend by some biblical scholars to use sections that allow them to paint the Israelites as an exceptionally war-like and intolerant nation. They leave out all contrasting context from the Bible or historical comparison to other nations beliefs and legal codes in this reading and then end result suggests that some rather nasty antisemitism is lurking not far below the surface. (No I do not want to give them even the tiny bit of publicity that might come by my naming them.)

The most common anchor text is probably some collection of letters from Paul and most modern Protestant readings use Paul as their anchor. And Christian readings in general take the Gospel and letters reinterpretation of Isaiah as an anchor in reading the Hebrew Bible.

What should we do about this? I think nothing. Well, almost nothing.

For starters, creating a new foundation for previous material is a standard modus operandi for the Bible itself. The Bible reinterprets earlier creation myths and it is of no real importance  that other cultures understood those myths differently. The Deuteronomy interpretation of the history of the covenant again changes things and so do the prophets. That the Christian New Testament turns the suffering servant into something else strikes me as entirely typical of the Jewish religious culture Christianity grew out of. I don't expect Jews or Hebrew Bible scholars to accept this for themselves but I also don't expect Christians to accept anyone who comes along saying "You've misinterpreted Isaiah". They can disregard what they want so long as they do it in a way that shows tolerance and respect.

What we do have to do, however, is be honest with ourselves about what our anchor texts are. Running around thumping the table and calling yourself a Bible-believing Christian while really being a Paul-anchored Christian is not to be honest with yourself.

And my anchor texts? Well, I think I'd like to think about that a while. I can make up a preliminary list of likely suspects easily enough: Genesis, Leviticus, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ruth, Mark, Matthew, Luke, Corinthians 1-2, Ephesians and James. Those are the texts I go back to again and again in my Bible and they, or some of them, are probably the ones that anchor my reading of the rest of the Bible. But I think each deserves more thought and will return to this.