The Chosen & Biblical Interpretation

Interpretation is a beautifully human activity, because it's so much more than Google Translate.

It's more than saying what emotions well up inside while looking at a famous painting; homicide detectives seek to cobble together a narrative+motive from the traces of a crime scene, while husbands and wives observe each other's gestures and intentions in order to interpret them (note the increasing difficulty). But all of these acts of interpreting are aimed at one thing: finding the meaning within. “Meaning” presupposes there's another person out there who means, and that implies communication – usually vocal or visual, involving language. But is it even possible to really get 100% of what the communicator ever meant? That brings us into to where the art of interpretation is at its best –as well as its most complex and hair-brained– the understanding of ancient texts like, you guessed it, like the Bible. So much so that there's an entire branch of philosophy that studies which rules and conditions determine a good interpretation, and that, my friends, is the cobweb-filled attic we call hermeneutics. 

Nerd moment: because it is cool to see where words come from. You know the old Greek god Hermes? He was the messenger for the rest of the guys on Mt. Olympus. So his name, (Ἑρμῆς), became the root of the Greek word ermeneuo (ἑρμηνεύω) - to interpret. So hermeneutics is fittingly the "science of interpretation." But gets better. Back in the day, a bunch of the Roman gods got blurred with their Greek counterparts, such that today their Greek and Latin names are interchangeable: Zeus = Jupiter, and the like. Hermes got identified with Mercury, from which comes the word mercurial: quick, intelligent, volatile, scheming, unpredictable. Apparently that description comes not so much from the ancient mythical character as it does from the behavior of the periodic table element found in thermometers...which had to get its name from somewhere!

Let me illustrate why interpreting the Bible is so beautiful, and hard. Have you seen that crowdfunded series about Jesus, The Chosen? It has scored immense appeal to a Gen-Z, post-Covid audience on the one hand, while striving to mirror faithfully the two-millennia old Gospel narrative on the other. That fact alone should raise eyebrows: stuff people said in Aramaic thousands of years ago in a cultural setting utterly foreign to iPhone users – it's a miracle anyone beyond archeologists would care. Every successful translation presupposes an excellent interpretation, and it seems director Dallas Jenkins and his script writers achieved it. But to wrap our heads around what this takes, let's first start with an easier example.

Remember when Hamilton was the all the rage? Whenever did we suddenly start caring about going to see people on a stage with no special effects? Lin-Manuel Miranda's genius was in his rare Puerto Rican millennial blend of performer, historian, and hip-hop aficionado, daring to re-tell the story of an American founding-father (definite white-boy territory) as a Broadway rap-musical, sporting a multi-ethnic cast... There's no obvious reason such a translation of such a story from 1776 would work. But did it ever. I've got a few reasons:

1.    Miranda wrote each line of the scenes –like the My Shot sequence– as tightly “strung together as the best thick rope” he says, borrowing a few syllables from known rap songs, yet keeping the high-brow diction of 18th century America, all sung in a monotone, hip-hop rhythm that concentrates the flow of words to catch, challenge and always delight the ear of the contemporary, fast-forward, short-attention-span, diversity-sensitive moviegoer whose mind is still able to catch layers of evocative symbolism the artist weaves into the production.

2.    Maybe you have a great story to tell, but what packaging – what art form can captivate the greatest number of the hoi-polloi to stay and hear you out? Something we're familiar with. Granted, one has to be at least enough of a hip-culture insider to know that the improv-rap sequence (basically speaking in rhyme and verse while keeping time), is a niche talent esteemed traditionally though not exclusively in black urban America, iconified by Eminem's rap battles in the movie 8 Mile. Forget I said that. But just like Medieval travelling bards, only the witty and articulate succeed in this venue; and who's really surprised that Miranda's verses bear an oblique similarity to the meter of Dante's Inferno?

3.    It is a version of “American history for grown-ups,” the pundits say, showing the founding-fathers not only in a less-than-glorified, human light, but also in making them relevant by engaging the social hot buttons like racism as concerns even back then – and don't look now, but maybe history is once more able to teach us something...gasp. It becomes a window (or a mirror!), by which to see something else. Love it or hate it, that's the kind of art that stands the test of time.

Back to the Gospel, there's this scene in the synagogue of Nazareth where Jesus says Isaiah's Messianic prophesies are fulfilled. For context, let's look at the corresponding gospel passage – Luke’s account keeps it brief, almost breathless: “All spoke well of him and marveled at his gracious words... [then he said:] ‘there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet. Yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.’ On hearing this, all the people in the synagogue were enraged...and led Him to the brow of the hill...to throw Him over the cliff.” 

The poor first-time reader is like “well that escalated quickly – why’d everyone get mad?” There are cultural presuppositions –background knowledge– without which these gospel scenes seem like a lot of overly-emotional people looking for something to disagree about. So the question is set squarely before us: what exactly do we (let alone screenplay writers), need to rightly interpret the Bible?

For starters, we should recognize that the Church holds out to us God's Word in Scripture as a treasure. Once the Word became flesh in Jesus, Christians understood that God doesn't hold himself back from anything human, including our language and ways of understanding; that means even those nerdy hermeneutical techniques can afford us insight into Scripture...

30 years ago this month, the Pontifical Biblical Commission, presided by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, put out a landmark document: the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. It names, among other things, what the study of hermeneutics brings to the table:

1.    There's necessarily “pre-understandings” and, frankly, prejudices, that will color our understanding of Scripture; that's not a bad thing, especially when I study and appreciate the different traditions of meaning that surround those words I want to understand.

2.    There's the need for an affinity between text and interpreter, meaning I must want what it wants, and care about what it values - basically, believing in and loving Jesus calibrates your understanding of the text.

3.    The recognition that the text's meaning is not prisoner of its time period but open to actualization and meaning for today; which is to say the meaning of those words –amazingly– is supposed to come to completion in me, today, and also that thousands of years later certain passages jump out at us so much more than they did for Augustine or Aquinas – like the details of Jesus' burial in the light of the Shroud of Turin. 

Now back to The Chosen. The above scene in the synagogue (s.III, ep.3) is so beautiful, because it fills in the missing lines of dialogue in a way that strikes us as...true. To illustrate, the words below in blue are from the gospel, and those in red are the added script:

“...but only Naaman the Syrian. You may be the people of the covenant, but that will not bring you my salvation. If you cannot accept that you are spiritually poor and captive in the same way that a gentile woman and a Syrian leper recognize their need, if you do not realize that you need a year of the Lord's favor, then I cannot save you!”

This script makes for a breathtaking scene because: 

• it makes sense in accounting for the shift in the mood of the audience – if we've done our homework and understand how fiercely proud the Jews were of their status as the chosen people, then it would be clear such a comment would go over like a lead balloon;
• it neatly combines this apparent insult with the apparent bombast of the earlier statement: “this passage [about the year of the Lord's favor, in Isaiah] is here fulfilled.” Both together = “you can only be saved by me, the Messiah.” Now that would press all the buttons, making mob-style execution a (nearly) understandable reaction; 
• we love also it because it sits in harmony with the overall sense and rhythm of the Gospel. There's nothing that evokes an eyeroll, or comes across as obviously invented;
• you get the feeling that the people making it actually believe it. 

What does it take to get into the head of a biblical character, let alone Christ's? You'll have to start by reading what he read, getting familiar with what he knew. Then what would it take to enter into the experience of the one who wrote down those words of Jesus, so often qualifying them with: “...that the scriptures would be fulfilled”? That's the job of The Chosen screenplay guild, but only? It has been the sacred prerogative of Christians throughout the ages to let the Word grab them by the lapels and shake them up. Biblical interpretation, prayerfully done, is our privileged door of entry to the knowledge of the heart of Christ who continuously reveals himself to his Church, drawing and inviting us to deeper intimacy with him, bearing fruit in the entrusted mission of proclaiming his Kingdom.