Scripture as Communication: Introducing Biblical Hermeneutics

by Jeannine K. Brown

Is the Bible just a book of ancient Israelite and Christian history and practices to be read? Or are we engaging in a more interactive practice when we study God's word? Jeannine K. Brown believes that communication is at the heart of what we do when we open the Bible, that we are actively engaging God in a conversation that can be life changing. By learning about how Scripture communicates, modern readers can extract much more meaning out of the text than they could if simply reading the Bible as though it was a list of rules or a collection of stories. In Scripture as Communication, Brown offers professors, students, church leaders, and laity a basic guide to the theory and practice of biblical interpretation, helping them understand our engagement with Scriptures as primarily a communicative act.

Genres: Theology, Biblical Studies, Christian, Nonfiction, Religion, Grad School

316 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

Jeannine K. Brown (PhD, Luther Seminary) is professor of New Testament and director of online programs at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has served as a translation consultant for the New International Version, Common English Bible, and New Century Version and is the author of The Gospels as Stories and two commentaries on Matthew. She also contributed to The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary and is a coeditor of the revised Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels.

Reviews

[Isaiah Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is often difficult to enjoy required academic textbooks, but this book has been encouraging as well as informative. For my hermeneutics class, the topics within Brown’s book have been central to the entirety of the course. Some of these include definitions of exegetical tools, attempts at defining “meaning” within the sphere of Scriptural interpretation, and more specific advice on how to apply those hermeneutical skills to academic and personal readings of the Word of God.
I was made uncomfortable at first to think about “recontextualization” as it relates to Scripture reading, though Brown is right in that the genre, historical context, and specific place of authorship in salvation history have everything to do with how we are going to read the text from our perspective. She does a good job at reminding her readers that this does not imply that we are free to read our own truths into the Word of God, but that there are pre-established truths for the reader to correctly exegete from a timeless, divinely inspired, wholly relevant text.
Though there were fascinating ideas and applications presented in this book, it still felt like a textbook. I would most likely not have read this book had it not been required for my course, but there is great value in familiarizing myself with definitions and the more technical side of Scriptural interpretation.

[Matthew McBirth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on biblical interpretation. The author does well in establishing a theory of hermeneutics and then giving practical examples of it playing out. Highly recommend to anyone wanting to grow in their understanding of how one is to approach Scripture. There are sections that can become review for anyone who has studied biblical hermeneutics before, but each chapter is good and not over-repetitive.

[Nyameye Otoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally a guide to hermeneutics (and maybe exegesis in Part 2), that does justice to, and grounds itself in how communication and language actually works and functions! From all book-length treatments that I've read so far (admittedly not loads and mostly lay level), this one absolutely takes the cake.

This is the one I think. An almost 5/5 from what I've read so far. Definitely think I've found a formative book that I'll return to repeatedly! The book is divided into two parts - one "theoretical", and the other practical. 

At page 132, I've just finished Part 1 - but thought I'd do a midway review because a) I feel like the next 200 pages will be a bit of a slog and b) I have the memory of a goldfish and I am already like 5-10 books behind, and these reviews help me remember!

It is clear, balanced, practical, and honestly really engaging for what it is. Brown's approach is not vague, defensive or esoteric - and is summed up in the title, it's Scripture "as communication". It's a somewhat eclectic set of principles organically evidenced from both the actual phenomenon of Scripture, but also from "communication theory" itself. 

The principles within are ones I have come across, accept and apply, but I have never come across them as coherently as here, and all combined into one unified approach!

The first chapter or two is essentially spent defining terms (imagine that - actually being clear about what's said), before describing the theory which will be defined in the rest of Part 1 and applied in Part 2. Honestly, this book and the ideas within present such a "realistic" and grounded hermeneutic (a theory or method of interpreting something, in this case namely the Bible), that I genuinely believe if people grasped it - it would help us be more understanding of ALL communication, not just what the Bible is communicating to us. Communication frameworks help us be better readers, listeners and communicators of both God and men.

Communication breakdown is such a frustrating and common occurrence, and I cannot exaggerate how often misunderstanding or misrepresentation (unintentional or otherwise) gets in the way of clear communication or relationships. And such can be the way with how we approach texts - including Scripture... knowing what someone means is crucial to fostering any kind of good relationship. On which, Brown defines and sums up the entire approach to meaning as follows:

"meaning is the whole of what an author intends to communicate with their specific audience for purposes of engagement; meaning is textually inscribed and is conveyed within shared language conventions and mutually held contextual assumptions." (p37)

The particulary unique contribution of Brown is through the amalgamation of a few different theories of communication, applied to the Bible, namely:

• Exploring the role of Author, Text and Reader in relation to Communication and Meaning
• Speech-Act Theory
• Relevance Theory
• Literary Theory 

Speech-Act and Relevance Theory are complicated terms for some common-sensical ideas - but have definitely been some of the most formative ideas for me over the past few years as I've thought more seriously about both communication with those around me, and also with how I understand and interpret Scripture. Anecdotally, the interpreters or commentators I've found most compelling are ones who generally are careful about communication-adjacent discussions.

Briefly - in the order I've listed above:

Firstly - through giving a brief history of how the roles of the Author (human or divine), Text, and Reader of Scripture have been denigrated or elevated in the history of interpretation - Brown settles on an approach that integrates all three. She does however, as quoted above, ultimately situate meaning as initiated by the Author.

Secondly - Speech-Act Theory (basically) aims to describe differences between a) what is SAID or uttered (locution) b) what is MEANT by what is uttered i.e. warning, command, question (illocution) and c) what is INTENDED (perlocutionary intention) and d) what is ACTED by the hearer of a (perlocution / perlocutionary effect). Speech and utterances don't just "say" things, they "do" things also - hence it's a speech "act".

Sounds complicated but some examples make it clear. Imagine saying to someone who is leaving the building "Oh - it is cold outside" - that is to say:

a) The "literal" words are "it's cold outside"
b) What is meant is, it's a warning about the noticeably low temperatures outside 
c) What is intended is for the hearer to be convinced and wrap up warm by putting on a jacket, but
d) They may do neither but that is out of your control

The first three of these are within your control i.e. are part of my meaning, but d) in some ways - is not. The text of the Bible often functions the same way:

Phillippians 4:10-20, is often titled in Bibles as "THANKS FOR GIFTS/SUPPORT". If you notice - Paul never actually uses explicit "thanks" language. But we understand the force and intent is to express gratitude.

Thirdly - Relevance Theory aims to explain that implications (sometimes even unintended), really are part of meaning or communication. Or in other words, communication and language is often, if not always inferential and implicit, not just explicit. This is because communicators have shared knowledge and experiences which are easily "relevant" to a given utterance in context. In the first example, although I've only said "it's cold outside", the implication is that again, a jacket should be worn - but this does not need to be stated explicitly. We share a communal understanding and framework of what it means to be cold, and because of our shared seasonal climate, it is implicitly understood understood that I'm suggesting a warmer set of clothing (aswell as the shared understanding that wearing more clothing makes one warmer).

Likewise, in Psalm 43:5, given the entire utterance, we understand that the first two questions are not "genuine" in the sense they want an answer to the "literal" question - but actually a request or encouragement to the Psalmist himself to let go of despair and hope in God.

And fourthly - after convincingly demonstrating that we can apply "speech" communication theory to texts and not just verbal, auditory utterances, this places meaning as being something which is instilled by the author - not just something which the reader can read in-and-out of a text at will. Various literary approaches are discussed to bolster this approach that seeks to respect the (sometimes implied) author(s) whilst also acknowledging that readers do come to texts with biases and that does affect the meaning they derive:

"Now, it is the case that readers often do 'create meaning'. I am safe in assuming that I frequently do not grasp the author’s communicative intention, because my presuppositions act as blinders to what the text really says. When this happens, it is quite accurate to say that I am creating meaning. The issue is not whether readers frequently create meaning by reading the text from a perspective that skews what its author intended to communicate. The question is whether this is an adequate proposal of what readers ought to do. Although readers often do create something that is not part of communicative intention and call it meaning, this action should not be the goal of reading. The reader’s misreading is not a part of the text’s meaning." (p115)

This is not to say that the reader is removed from communicative events or deriving meaning - infact the opposite - Brown argues readers are always also contextualised - and one must be aware of that, becoming more humble in readings due to our imperfect nature. A hermeneutic of trust allow us to be challenged and shaped by a text, forming us more into it's "ideal reader".

My biggest critique so far is that it definitely gets technical - but I guess it's a textbook - would love a shorter, more condensed lay version. This update / review is far dryer than the book, but there is far too much covered in the book to summarise here!

[Corbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was really good. It presents a lot of different challenges and methods about reading scripture. It also gives lots of practical examples and such for how we can put it into practice. And it sums it all up with the purpose of why we read the Bible, and that is to grow closer to the Lord and to share him with others👍🏽

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

It had a lot of good discussion, but it got pretty repetitive near the end.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scripture as Communication, as the title suggests, is a book about how we are to interpret scripture communicating to us. Jeannine Brown does this by splitting the book into two different sections, the first on the theory behind how scripture communicates, and the second on how we interpret scripture in practice. Each of these sections has different strengths, and both combine to produce a book that combines both theory and practice, a balance not always achieved in hermeneutics books.

In the first section on the theory of interpreting scripture as communication, Jeannine Brown provides us with a communication framework where God speaks through human authors. She covers many topics I will only list here: meaning, perlocutions, speech-acts, and the three categories of author, text, and reader. The strengths of the book are evident throughout this first part. Jeannine Brown works hard to render complex topics understandable to the reader, a task I believe she succeeds at. She interacts with philosophical categories, and, at least for me, provides a great introduction to many different ideas about meaning and communication. She works hard to establish what many evangelicals take for granted: that God is speaking through the text, and we can trust Him to make Himself understood.

The second section dives into practical guidance for interpreting scripture as communication. She considers genre, the language of the bible, the social world of the bible, literary context, intertextuality, and contextualization. The standout part of the section was her take on contextualization. She devotes two chapters to contextualization. For Brown, we would be better served to think of recontextualization instead of contextualization. We cannot merely contextualize the bible to our own context straight from the text. We must understand the text in its own context, and then we can recontextualize the text for our own context. Along with this idea of recontextualization she also has several piercing criticisms of reducing the bible to mere propositions. Drawing from the theoretical framework laid in part 1 she argues that reducing the bible to only propositions would be missing the communicative intent of the author. The point of the Psalms is not only, or even primarily to communicate abstract truths. We should be wary of elevating our own understanding of the best way to communicate truth over the way God has chosen to reveal truth Himself, which is rarely in abstract propositions. To elevate our own way of thinking above God’s way of thinking is dangerously close to idolatry.

She does limit hers interlocuters to a group of modern North American biblical scholars. I didn't see any interaction with the interpretive theories of the past, or with other takes on how scripture communicates such as Karl Barth. While this was not her goal, I was hoping to see her engage more with these other viewpoints. This does get to the two weakest aspects of the book in my mind. Prayer and the role of the Holy Spirit are almost entirely neglected in this book. She outlines well a model for understanding and interpreting scripture as God communicates to us, but I am left unsure what role God needs to play in the proper understanding of scripture in this model. The second weakness is that she can overstate her case a bit in some of her practical guidance chapters. She sets down firm rules where a rule of thumb would be better. An example of this is where she says we should not infer the meaning of a word from its etymology. While this is solid advice, examples can be given where scripture does seem to derive the meaning of a word from the etymology. This is good advice, but not a hard and fast rule, which I don't think she allows for this nuance in her writing of this section. Another example of this from the same chapter is where she warns us against reading all possible meanings of a word into a specific usage. The example word she uses, ruach, would seem to have multiple meanings of wind and spirit in Genesis, even if not in the Exodus example she used. As advice, I think her warnings are wise, but any good interpreter knows when to break them. I don't think she is as careful with this distinction as she could have been.

Jeannine Brown goes to pains to avoid misunderstanding in Scripture as Communication. She gives clear definitions, repeats what was earlier said, and provides summaries and conclusions summing up each chapter. The topic is not light or easy to read about, but that is not due to Jeannine Brown's fault. She is excellent at getting her main points across in this book, and I found myself convinced by much of her argumentation. I can't say the book was riveting reading, but I found myself stretched and challenged by the material in the book. The positives of the book heavily outweigh the negatives, and this book is definitely worth reading and wrestling with.

[Daniel Woodfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second textbook I had to read for a module on Hermeneutics at seminary. This was a book which could have done with being shorter. Brown has a number of jewels strewn throughout the book, and the basic premise of conceiving of Scripture as an act of communication has a number of helpful implications. However, her writing varies between unnecessarily dense in some chapters, to a bit unhelpfully structured in others. She clearly has an amazing grasp on the material for herself, but I wish she had cut 50 pages and streamlined the writing. I needed Hermeneutics by Virkler and Ayayo, and Playing by the Rules by Robert Stein, to help clarify Brown's writing. This is a helpful addition, however, to Virkler and Ayayo as Brown writes with a wider grasp of theological and hermeneutical issues (it is worth comparing the two sections on application). Brown's use of speech-act theory is also helpful, if technical at times.

[Brian Hui · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two great gifts of this book. First, Brown recenters the author’s intent, but not naively. She draws from the benefits and critiques of text and reader centric hermeneutics into a nuanced but grounded approach towards the question: What does this passage mean?

Second, she covers a great range of hermeneutical issues, with examples. But ultimately for the purpose of Scripture itself, to shape us into God’s redeeemed people.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As part of a hermeneutics class, this book has been extremely helpful as an academic introduction to understanding Scripture as communication. It begins with a heady dive into theory, followed by in-depth practical insights into how and why the theory can and should be applied. It was well worth the read, and I anticipate referring back to my notes and highlights throughout as I continue growing in better biblical interpretation and application.

[Porter Sprigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great approach to biblical interpretation. Exploring the biblical message in light of speech-act theory is very helpful. I feel like I’ve been using this approach a lot during my life but to see it articulated in a thoughtful and culturally engaging way is exciting and helps make sense of how different people approach God’s Word differently.

[Chloé Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful understanding of how to read and interpret scripture which builds its understanding from scratch, beginning with definitions and building up from there. Some of my classmates found the structure of the text difficult to follow (which I thought was worth mentioning), but I loved it.

[Kenneth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brown appears to be giving new insight and definition to an established academic field. Unfortunately, that means a lot of preamble to discuss every topic. This is not a bad book, per se, it is just too dense to be accessible for a beginner hermeneutics student.

[Richard Mounce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done, but she tries to do too much IMO

[Matthew Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic overview of Discourse Linguistics

[Douglas Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scripture as communication is a good hermeneutics text. The unique approach the author has is that Scripture is communication - it is a model that declares that God speaks and he speaks to people with the intention that people, we, would hear and understand. Scripture is a conversation, it is interpersonal and has the potential to be transformational. The communication theories are academic "deep water" and take some concentration to work through but are useful. I particularly appreciated Brown's appendices at the end of the text that provides a "road map" for different genres in Scripture.

[Daniel Pandolph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not theologically bad. Just dry. It was a real slog to finish. That said, for whatever reason, I finally grasped speech-act theory and how it helps with biblical interpretation. So that was good.

[Kenzie Buchan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brown's voice in her writing is so clear and encouraging even though this is a high-brow sometimes dry academic work there are many moments that are super affective.

[Caleb Rolling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good mid-level introduction to biblical interpretation. Not as popular-level as “How to Read the Bible for All its Worth,” but not too advanced for those new to the world of biblical studies.

[camila · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good introduction to hermeneutics!

[Natalie Judson]

Skimmed this for school

[Adam Lambdin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a great journey through strong interpretive theory in the first half, then the author shifted gears and focused on practical interpretive strategies in the latter half of the book. She really formed something of an eclectic viewpoint bringing out interpretive principles from an author and reader-centered perspectives, but she defines meaning in relation to the authorial intent of the original author without thinking that we can peer into the mental acts of the original author in composing the book or letter of the Bible. She was a little heavy on Speech-Act theory where we get into what the text does. I am not sure how much weight I personally put on Speech-Act theory and locutions, illocutions, and perlocutions and all that, but I will need to read more fine works delving into these issues as I have the time. it was definitely thought provoking.

[Cassie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the dryest, most boring textbook I have ever had the displeasure of being forced to read. It was as if the author did not actually want to teach anyone anything, but rather just wanted to sound really smart. I understood about 10% of what I was reading, maybe less. It took me a whole day to read two chapters of this book. It was horrible, and I do not recommend this book. The content was not necessarily bad, but the way it was written was. It was much too formal and archaic for undergraduate students. And maybe that's the professor's fault for assigning us this book, but it was way above what I could understand, and it really just made me so frustrated.

[Todd Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first glance, this book fills a void in the hermeneutics library because it utilizes Speech Act Theory as its organizing principle. That being said, it fails, ultimately, to deliver. Brown addresses many significant issues, but as an introductory hermeneutics text, she does not interact with literary genres at all (apart from the appendix). This could be used as a supplemental text, but definitely not as the primary text.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for my hermeneutics class this semester. VERY complex - especially for people who haven't had previous exposure to communication theory. Fortunately, I had, and it made some areas of this book much more enjoyable than they otherwise might have been. Bordering on a must-read for modern interpreters of Scripture.

[Randy Hulshizer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scholarly exploration of biblical hermeneutics. I didn't agree with everything the author said, but she did a good job of supporting her views. This is not really a "How-To" manual, so if that's what you're looking for, look elsewhere.

[Jen Schaefer]

A book for class, but pretty good. written by a Minnesotan!

[Josue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for those interested in hermeneutics.

[Shari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good if you're into this sort of thing. Very microscopic! I had to give it a three because I learned from it, but it was painful to get through.

[Philip Mcduffie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good resource to help one read the Bible well.

[Patty Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated the knowledge this book gave me, but it took some time to adjust my reading style to understand everything!