INTERPRETATION (in-ter'prt-ta'shiln) OF T'FrE OLD TESTAMENT.
1. Introduction. The science of the interpre tation of Scripture has passed through as long and tortuous a course as chemistry or astronomy. As alchemy and astrology led up to these sciences, so the efforts of Jews and Christians to explain the Scriptures have prepared the way for the modern system of interpretation now current. in the study of any ancient literature. This consists in giving the plain and obvious meaning of the text, as understood by the men for whom it was first written.
The belief that the Bible was a divine book almost completely closed the eyes of ancient in terpreters to its human elements. If they some times theoretically admitted them, they prac tically ignored them. Its literary character, its poetry, its history, were overlooked. It was re garded as an arsenal of divine sayings. Hence, both Jews and Christians sought to find their theories and speculations confirmed by it. They did not ask what the writers intended, but rather what meaning the language would bear. The re sult of this abuse of Scripture was that the Bible, which we regard as a book for the common peo ple, was sealed ; so that among the Jews none but a rabbi was capable of setting forth the sense of the Old Testament, and among the Christians only the Church could determine the significance of the Bible.
2. Ancient JeWish Interpretation. Arnolig the Jews there were two schools of interpreters: the Palestinian, which used the Hebrew consonantal text, and the Alexandrian, which used the Sep tuagint translation.
(1) The Palestinian School. The character of Palestinian exegesis may be best observed in the Talmud, including the Mishna, or develop ment of the Law ; the Gemara, or expansion of the Mishna, and its further modification in the 13araitha. The Jerusalem Talmud was edited A.
D. 39o; the Babylonian, A. D. 365-427. The Tal mudic commentary is called Midrash, investiga tion, embracing the Halacha, legal enactment, and the Haggada, or illustrations by tales, parables, or allegories. While the rabbis have reduced their mode of interpretation to rules, nothing could seem more lawless, more casuistical, more fantastic, than some of the interpretations in the writings named. In the same connection should
be mentioned the KABALA (see article), which re gards each letter of Scripture as the source of the greatest mysteries.
(2) The Alexandrian School. The most prominent figure in this school is that of Philo, born about B. C. 2o at Alexandria. Though he found the allegorical method employed in the exe gesis of Homer and other Greek writers, as well as in that of the Old Testament, he is worthy of special prominence, because of his pre-eminent ability, his effort to reduce the allegorical inter pretation to a system of rules, and on account of his influence, more or less immediately, on the interpretation of the Church Fathers. While retaining the literal sense for the instruction of the common people, he adopted the allegorical for th.ose who were capable, as he thought, of a higher .conception of the Scriptures, and turned the plainest narratives into metaphysical abstrac tions, since it was his belief that the Greek philos ophy, of which he was an ardent admirer, could be found in the Old Testament.
(3) The New Testament Writers. As might be expected, Palestinian, and traces of Alexan drian, exegesis are found in the New Testament, both in the Gospels and the Epistles. Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts xxii :3). He was saturated with Jewish learning and schooled in Jewish modes of thought. When he became a new creature in Christ, he did not cease to think and reason like a Jew ; hence, his mode of interpretation is essentially Jewish, but the guiding pow.er of the Divine Spirit has at all times kept him from s.uch extravagances as we find in the Talmud. Now, while we must admit that the human method of interpretation employed was incorrect in form, it was used by Divine wis dom as the only suitable means of conveying truth in New Testament times. An age ac customed to the Jewish mode of interpretation could not make any more use of the modern method than a boy, who has studied only primary arithmetic, could make of a treatise on comic sec tions. Hence, a New Testament interpretation of the Old is abundantly justified as a necessity of Divine Providence.