Victorian Interpretation

Victorian Scriptural Hermeneutics

22 c h a p t e r o n e M Victorian Scriptural Hermeneutics History, Intention, and Evolution First, it may be laid down that Scripture has one meaning—the meaning which it had to the mind of the prophet or evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers who first received it. —Benjamin Jowett, “On the Interpretation of Scripture” In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. —John Henry Newman, Essay on the Development of Doctrine Critics no longer insist upon “a dogmatic faith in the plenary verbal inspiration of every one of Shakespeare’s clowns,” quipped Pater in an essay on the history plays, satirizing the practices of literary critics, but showing at the same time that he recognized the close ties between literary interpretation and theological exegesis in his day.1 Victorian speculation on literary interpretation is deeply indebted to nineteenth-century controversies over scriptural hermeneutics, and, indeed, current literary theory is unthinkable without nineteenth-century debates over biblical interpretation. This chapter examines the rethinking of the Bible as historical narrative in the Victorian period and traces the significance of this enterprise for the project of literary interpretation. Victorian controversies over scriptural hermeneutics reveal that biblical exegetes were deeply concerned with the interpretive issues that preoccupy literary theorists today. Victorian Scriptural Hermeneutics 23 I focus most closely on Benjamin Jowett and John Henry Newman, who represent two poles in the controversy over the locus of textual meaning. As I will argue, the interpretive methods that they advocated also became key to late-twentieth-century literary debate, with Newman’s views largely winning out in their transfer to literary theory in our time. Tracing Victorian exegetical debate makes distinct the trajectory of hermeneutics in the nineteenth century from theology outwards into secular interpretation ; by the century’s end, literary criticism had become the ascendant practice. I Nineteenth-century disputes over the Bible’s meaning and status shook Victorian society in ways that we find hard to imagine today.2 Confronted with serious challenges—new scientific findings that contradicted literal readings of Genesis (it had, of course, been apparent before the Victorian period that accepting the biblical account of creation as historical fact presented problems), the introduction of the historical -critical methods of the German Higher Critics in England (in controversial and highly public texts such as Bishop John Colenso’s study of the composite nature of the Pentateuch [1862]), and Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), among others—theology responded with new exegetical principles that acknowledged the growing evidence of the Bible’s historicity. Figural approaches such as typology with its synchronic tendencies became less influential, as the claim that Scripture was a unified work designed and supervised by God became less credible .3 Exegetes adopted interpretive schemes that could somehow account for the evident lack of knowledge of scientific laws demonstrated in the stories or the obvious contradictions between narratives. Hence, theories involving the ideas of accommodation and of development became prominent, as did rationalist, naturalist, and mythical approaches to Scripture (although many theologians continued to uphold orthodox interpretive doctrines such as the inerrancy of Scripture and plenary inspiration).4 One crucial consequence of this hermeneutic innovation was the dissolution of the boundaries that traditionally separated the Bible from other literature. Methods of analysis developed in disciplines such as classics and philology entered into theological exegesis, and, conversely, approaches developed for interpreting Scripture would eventually be extended to literary hermeneutics. As exegetes contended with challenges to received views, questions of interpretive authority became increasingly significant. The Church of England, for example, held doctrines that were plainly contradicted by recent scientific findings. The liberals advocated an approach that essentially removed the Bible from ecclesiastical control. Like Spinoza before them, they contended that Scripture could be understood from Scripture itself; it did not require the supplement of church doctrine. The interpreter must be left alone with the text itself. The Conservative church, on the other hand, endeavored to maintain church doctrine and account for the seeming discrepancies between the findings of science and a fully inspired and infallible Bible. Proponents asserted that a special hermeneutics is required for Scripture alone, a move that would be imitated by some later literary critics. While the traditionalists attempted to hold on to orthodox interpretations of the Bible, the liberals, many of whom...