By Subhasis Chattopadhyay –
N. T. Wright’s Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (reprint edition of 2013) is one of the most accessible books on the Bible for both Christians (cutting across denominations) and for Hindus who want to understand the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels. Wright’s chapter “Misreadings of Scripture” (109-14) should be read for possible pitfalls in Biblical exegesis. Wright, it should be mentioned, never fails to remind us that his intended audience is white and Western. It is not done in a pejorative manner, but as admitting his lack of knowledge of the Eastern religions and Churches. Wright’s humility is lacking in many other Biblical exegetes working in the First World, as will be evident in the last part of this blog entry. It is in Wright’s spirit that we begin searching for the proper version of the Bible that we need to refer to in this electronic age. On p.113, Wright says this: “Real, fresh, historical readings of the Bible, measured rigorously by the canons of real historical work, can and do yield fresh insight”. So how do I read the Bible as a Hindu in this posthuman age? A book which is not my own; a book which belongs to Indian Christians and which is very different from Hindu canons.
The Hindu canons are nominally canonical for they are innumerable and, clearly divided between those which have Vedic origins and those which predate the Vedas. The Tantras and the Agamas are held by Tantrics and Aghoris to predate the Vedas. Moreover, the Vedas were composed millennia before even the Jewish people were subjugated by the Egyptians. I come from a tradition which affirms the origins of Jainism and Buddhism as revolutionary movements against the status quo of Hindu praxes then. Jain and Buddhist scholars from antiquity have negated this idea of Hinduism being their progenitors. Both Jainism and Buddhism proclaim their autochthonous origins and their philosophers and historians point out that both religions existed before Hinduism. Buddhist scholars, like Johannes Bronkhorst have taken great pains to show how Hinduism derives from Buddhism. This, in turn, has been negated by Hindu Indologists. However, I am neither a Buddhist nor am I a Jain. I am a Hindu. So how should I read the Bible, and more specifically, which edition of the Bible? Because this act of reading comes from within unavoidable socio-cultural and economic matrices which determine my choice(s). I am not working ahistorically, within Kantian universals. My judgment is rooted in the history of my own being in the here and the now, and the history of Biblical exegesis available to me in the here and the now. This historical and socio-economic matrix from within which I try to seek scriptural validity through my exegesis is paradoxical since, for instance, the word (concept of) sin has no cognate within Hinduism. Yet, Christianity echoes with the command to sin no more.. Moreover, Hinduism is polytheistic and if we consider both Jainism and Buddhism to be extrapolations of Hinduism, then contrary to what is actually there in both Jain and Buddhist Scriptures, Jains and Buddhists too worship idols. These worships are not to be confused with latria, dulia and hyperdulia. In all of these three religions, the Tantric mode of deity visualisation is expounded. Within Hinduism, as has been remarked in my earlier posts in this website; the aim is to become a god to worship God. In Buddhism, through meditation, mandalas and yantras, the Buddhist seeker experiences the truth of emptiness. About Jainism, I mention more below.
R. S. Sugirtharajah in his Jesus in Asia (2018) shows how Christianity and Christ Himself was often (mis)appropriated by Indians, both Hindus and other Indian converts to Christianity. Some readings of the Bible by Indians seem nearly absurd. In the life-story/theology of the Jain convert to Christianity, Manilal Parekh, mentioned by Sugirtharajah in his chapter “Jesus as Jain Tirthankara” (143-66), I find it absurd how Parekh could even think of Jesus as a Tirthankara. However, Parekh did indeed imagine Jesus to be a ford-maker or a Tirthankara. It is to be mentioned in passing, that Jains of all sects do not admit of the presence of God and their Tirthankaras do not actively help devotees to overcome themselves. Jain pragmatism is well admitted within Indian philosophy and is genuinely, atheistic. All Jain Tirthankaras are examples to the Jain faithful to shed off Karma-particles, for in Jainism both good and bad actions draw to oneself good or bad Karma respectively. Karma, within Jainism, at the cost of reductionism, is a kind of sticky matter which clings to the soul. It is proper here to note that the concept of soul as understood by Christians is not there within Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Atman and soul are two different textual registers and cannot be translated. So, to return to the discussion here, which textual recension of the Bible should I be reading? To put it differently, let me contextualise the problematics of choosing the right Bible for this task of annotation. I am neither a Christian, leave alone belonging to any of the Christian denominations; nor am I a Jain, neither am I a Buddhist. For all practical purposes, I am a Hindu who lives and writes in 21st Century India. As every Indian knows, First World sojourners are not expected to know this, India is a heterogenous nation where languages and religious stresses within Hinduism differ every few miles. Thus which Bible shall I read? Let me take a practical decision about this choice of Bible(s). For as many denominations and ecumenical councils, there are so many Bibles. There are Catholic Bibles, and there are the various Protestant Bibles. Then there are books which both Protestants and Catholics agree to leave out as being of little importance for leading faithful Christian lives. There are other books which the Catholics include but the Protestants leave out. There are books which some Protestants include and which the Catholics leave out. So how do I choose my Bible?
Let me here discuss some of the obvious by-products of my own situatedness within the here and the now. The following, according to established scholars of the Bible in the First World whose readings are often reiterated by their Indian peers, is my most significant error in the last few posts. No less than an Old Testament Professor at one of the most coveted Divinity Schools in this passing world pointed out to me the flaws in my scholarship. He has written to me in an email that Walter Brueggemann is not the most significant scholar working within Old Testament studies. However, I find Brueggemann the best despite being aware of the works of other scholars in the field. Brueggemann’s concern for the problems that plague us in 2019, and his vast corpus, which is not uneven, and his accommodation of the various branches of Biblical studies makes him the best. This is a qualitative value judgment which I stand by. How many can write Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now (2014)? Despite reading so many books on Hindu Tantra, I find the late Georg Feuerstein the best scholar in recent years in that domain. Thus, to harangue me about my judgement about Walter Brueggemann is misplaced and part of the nexus which stifles independent scholarship in the name of rigour. While I know about redaction criticism and its proponents, I might choose to not reiterate their work howsoever canonical. These choices are absolutely historical and in a sense, reactions to First World iterative scholarship in India.
There is a difference between the human sciences and any textual exegesis. The human sciences aim for objectivity and accuracy in their endeavour to seek some or the other, absolute truth. They are the detritus of the European Enlightenment. Whereas all linguistic and literary studies are subjective and need necessarily not be either Marxist or Francophone. In the case of the Bible, I am aware of the fact that there is an extant corpus of iterative scholarship on how to read the Bible. For instance, I am aware of the problematics of using the term ‘Old Testament’ as against the more politically correct term, the Hebrew Scriptures. But any exegete is free to choose in the here and the now what is proper to the hermeneutical work at hand. I am aware of the use of literary tropes like pericopes in the Bible, but whether I shall use them in my work will be determined by I, who is a construct of materialist forces with the caveat that dialectical materialism is informed by God who rules over both history and historiography. Now after having rebutted First World attacks against me and First World polemics, I begin to search for the edition(s) of the Bible that I will use and the guidelines that will inform my choice(s).
Subhasis Chattopadhyay is an Assistant Professor in English at the (PG and UG) Department of English at Nara Sinha Dutt College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, Howrah. He is a reviewer with the Ramakrishna Mission’s Prabuddha Bharata from 2010 onwards, & his reviews have been appreciated by Ivy League Presses. Till 2010 he wrote for the Catholic Herald, published from Calcutta. He has been a contributor to ICM from 2017. He was the judge of an international literary festival for two consecutive years.
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