Twenty-eight years have passed since the appearance of Vanhoozer’s Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998).  At the time I found especially in the first half of the book (chapters 1-4) one of the best critical evaluations of postmodern literary theory.  It was therefore with a sense of anticipation that I began reading this volume which seeks to integrate the historical exegesis of Scripture with the theological.  What follows is an appreciative summary of the contents, especially of interest to me as a student of the Old Testament. There are occasional critical addenda or (at the end) a point of disagreement; but the work is of great value. I hope it will become part of my own teaching and writing in the future.

Early on in this book we are assured (à la Gadamer) that the method we use in reading determines the interpretation of what we read (p. 4). For Vanhoozer this must include belief that God exists and speaks through the Scriptures. The Spirit preserves the meaning of Scripture while revoicing, reactivating, and resituating the Scriptures for a new context. The Bible’s words are the vehicle for divine speech acts (p. 12). Perhaps most importantly in Vanhoozer’s initial discussion is his assertion (p. 14), “The first thought of the biblical interpreter must not be ‘I read, therefore I am (a sovereign subject),’ but rather, ‘I read, therefore I am answerable (to God.’”  He compares Abraham’s and Isaiah’s “Here I am” (Gen. 22:1; Isa. 6:8) as appropriate responses to God’s Word. A passage has no claim on the reader unless the reader knows exactly what it is saying.  The Tabernacle perpetuates the encounter with God at Sinai and that itself evokes the image of climbing the mountain to experience God’s presence; just as Jesus did in the Transfiguration. 

Vanhoozer begins with his first chapter about the manner in which the Bible is read.  He notes that the Bible is the final arbiter of truth about God and other matters. In an important statement, he argues that being the people of God must include (p. 35): “a shared history (memory), a common life (identity), and ways of reading normative Scripture (understanding).” According to Augustine the purpose of Christian doctrine is discipleship and the goal of interpretation is community formation (p. 39). The twelfth century scholar Hugh of St. Victor identified the vocation of Christians as the reading of the Bible. It creates knowledge and morals. It also becomes a work of restoration. The Reformation exemplifies the importance of biblical interpretation and the manner in which it can change the world (p. 41). As someone who read Calvin’s Institutes as part of my seminary education and who recalled the strong connection the Reformer made with understanding the Bible and the purpose of his work, I was delighted to see Vanhoozer refer to this in his introduction (p. 42).

Where to begin? According to Vanhoozer, the first rule of “grammar” in the interpretation of the Bible is, “never confuse the Creator with anything creaturely” (p. 43). Elements of grammar and exegesis must be understood in a greater context. In fact, our “reading culture” helps to define the sort of exegesis we do.  And the proper reading of the text needs to experience God’s breaking into our own context. 

Chapter 2 builds on creating a Christian culture from biblical interpretation. Vanhoozer writes of reading by “looking along” the Bible. The spiritual sense of interpretation taps into the Holy Spirit. For the patristics, and especially the Antiochene school, the spiritual sense assumes and builds on the literal sense or historia. If Alexandrians viewed words as symbols, the Antiochene school followed the way that the text goes and regarded it as a unified whole (p. 67). Augustine preferred the interpretation that best contributes to the love of God and of one’s neighbor (p. 69). Vanhoozer traces the interpretation of the Bible as it developed in the monastery where it was guided by prayer. The development of schools and universities led to studies that addressed apparent contradictions in the biblical text. Foremost is Peter Lombard’s 12^th century The Book of Sentences, which compiled existing answers to questions.

Chapter 3, “Biblical Studies and Theology as Polarized Reading Cultures: The State of the Question,” considers agreements between monastic and scholastic cultures of reading Scripture. For example, they agreed that the clearer passages should interpret the more difficult texts and that the Bible was divine revelation. The eighteenth century saw a major change in the manner in which the Scriptures were regarded. Denying any source in divine revelation and any transcendence, interpreters turned to viewing the Bible as a wholly human product. Allegory played no role. Human religious experience became the object of study in place of a personal God. Vanhoozer reviews the historical position of N. T. Wright who wishes to go behind the text to understand the context, vs. the position of the late Richard Hays who asks why the church’s tradition should not describe the New Testament witness (p. 90). Immanence in the biblical text has entirely pushed out transcendence.  Paul Tillich in his Systematic Theology has taken the gospel account in a new symbolic and effectively allegorical direction (“ontological parables” p. 93).  Theologians and biblical scholars both serve the Church as the community of God’s people. 

Part 2, “Figuring Out Literal Interpretation: The Letter of the Text,” begins with chapter 4 which suggests that we don’t know what literal is. It certainly includes a philological approach, but more as well. These are the words that God speaks. Pope Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, seen by many as opening the door to Roman Catholic critical biblical scholarship, affirms that the literal sense is the greatest concern of the exegete. In the same manner B. B. Warfield, the Presbyterian scholar of a century ago, taught that God says what Scripture says (p. 113). Literal interpretation can raise conflict that reflects different frames of reference from different reading cultures. As an attempt to bring together this diversity, Irenaeus identifies the rule of faith as the summary of the Scriptural teaching. 

Vanhoozer argues that the prophets of the Old Testament understood the sense of their prophetic discourse but not the ultimate referent; what he calls referens plenior (rather than sensus plenior). In an understanding (one that transcends the Platonist or allegorical) the Son of God has entered the physical world and thus achieves a connection that is eschatological.   

Chapter 5, “Defining Sensus Literalis (Part 2): From the Figural to the Trans-Figural,” points to larger goals for the interpreter, theological ones that reflect a Reformed Catholic Scriptural Imaginary. The love of God and one’s neighbor are the aim of reading Scripture. For believers, the world of Scripture study was, until well after the Reformation, a “typologically-unified whole…Its world was for believers the truly real one within which they thought and lived.” (p. 151 quoting George Lindbeck, “Two Kinds of Ecumenism…,” Gregorianum 70 [1989] 657-58). Vanhoozer calls this figural realism. He provides a key example of it in the exodus event which “refers not simply to the past event (God’s delivery of Israel from bondage in Egypt) but to a characteristic pattern of divine saving action that culminates in what God is doing in Christ” (p. 155). He follows Christopher Seitz in seeing this as a forward reading, that is, “prefigurations of Christ” (p. 157). Indeed, this “figuration” is a “a function of divine authorship, first of history, then of biblical texts” (p. 159). Thus, the spiritual sense becomes the eschatological fullness of the literal-historical sense which is thereby deepened in its sense (p. 168).

Spending time in the Psalms and citing examples, Vanhoozer considers Psalm 2. He identifies Provan’s discussion of this psalm as a coronation psalm that was extended to a king who is to come in the postexilic period. Waltke’s discussion of the messianic psalms provides a movement of these texts that deepens their canonical significance with time. Vanhoozer especially agrees with the canonical as a  means to discover the way that the words run (pp. 173-75).  While these are true and helpful, there is a more profound understanding which I don’t have a name for but cannot evade. If the gospels teach us about what Jesus said and did, the Psalms (as Jesus’ prayerbook and hymnbook) give us an understanding of what he thought and felt (Hess, The Old Testament (Baker, 2017) p. 451).  The chapter concludes with a review of Reformers such as Luther who found a single sense in the Old Testament texts directly connected to Christ, Calvin who attested a single literal sense with multiple references, and Bucer who identified the purpose of theology as living a godly life.

Part 3 of the book is entitled “Transfiguring the Literal Interpretation: The Light of Christ.”  It begins with a chapter on “Shedding Light on Literality,” where the question of a “literal” interpretation of Genesis 1 is considered.  Neither myth or exclusively science, the concern is for God, who he is and what he does (p. 198, alluding to Derek Kidner). In introducing the opening verses of the Bible, the author picks up his theme from p. 43 about not confusing the Creator and that which is created.  Vanhoozer is correct that this and Genesis 1 presume creatio ex nihilo, though without explicitly teaching it.  Although a careful study of the structure of Gen. 1:2 may in fact teach this doctrine (à la David Tsumura), texts such as Col. 1:15-17 are clear on the matter (though not discussed by Vanhoozer who refers to the less direct Rom. 4:17).  The author well develops the speaking role of God in creation as well as in all of redemptive history that follows. Basil of Caesarea noted how God separated the creation of light (day 1) from the creation of the sun and moon (4^th day) in order to teach that light does not originate with the sun.  Augustine identified the initial light as immaterial or spiritual. He noted that it prefigured the Incarnation and the light of the world. For Aquinas light begins with the triune God and is the light of the mind, or knowledge. For Calvin the life-giving property of light that comes only from God provides for its appearance before that of the sun. For Gordon Wenham the seven days of creation are analogical to identify a coherence and purpose to the account. With Barth the creation of light is a means by which God makes himself and his glory known. Vanhoozer concludes that we are children of light (Eph. 5:8; 1 Thess. 1:5) and that we must understand the Bible as God’s work “in the economy of light.” (p. 223).

Its size and central location suggest that Vanhoozer’s seventh chapter, “The Transfiguration of Christ: Light Revealed,” provides the major focus of his work. The Transfiguration event fulfills the incarnation by giving the light described there. It also anticipates the great consummation.  The shining of Jesus’ face manifests the uncreated light of the Trinity.  The appearance of Moses (the Law) and Elijah (the Prophets) demonstrate the coming of a new order as they remind us of previous mountain top experiences. The discussion topic of the exodus (the Greek word used for the topic of discussion among Moses, Elijah, and Jesus), implies the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The statement of the Father, identical to his one other time of speaking to the world in the Synoptic Gospels at Jesus’ baptism, expresses “the single most important fact that God wants the church and the world to know” – listen to him! (p. 241 Bruner). Origen notes how the human nature of Jesus now reveals his divine nature. For Jerome the shining face and garments correspond to the worlds of Scripture. Peter’s suggestion to build tents betrays a misunderstanding that the Law and the Prophets are inseparable from the Gospel.  For Aquinas this event promises the disciples that, like Jesus, they have a future beyond the cross.  Jesus’ human body, like the Scriptures, become the medium for divine glory.  Jonathan Edwards describes how the illuminating ministry of the Spirit in our minds and hearts provides a clear view of divine glory.  Eastern Orthodoxy perceives how God’s glory shines through material things, even Jesus’ face. This is an exhibition of Jesus’ divine glory, present with him from the beginning (p. 256 John of Damascus). For Gregory Palamas, like Jerome, the letter of the text connects with Jesus’ shining clothing and the light illuminating both.

In the gospel of John the seven signs glorify Christ (e.g., 11:4), similar to the Transfiguration as found in the other gospels but not in John (p. 262).  John also sees in Jesus’ suffering and being lifted up on the cross an exaltation (12:23, 28, 33). Nicodemus’ night visit to Jesus (John 3:2; “he was in the dark,” p. 265), illustrates the misunderstanding of the Old Testament revelation concerning Jesus’ identity and mission. The Son is not an allegory of the Father but “the radiance of the glory of God” (Heb. 1:3; p. 266). 

Vanhoozer uses the Transfiguration as a Framework for the interpretation of the Old and New Testament.  He summarizes this in five statements or theses:

“1. The transfiguration has hermeneutical significance, helping us understand not only the identity of Jesus but also what it means to read the Bible literally and theologically.” (p 266). On p 267, Vanhoozer borrows a magnificent quotation from Douglas Harink, 1 & 2 Peter (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible; Brazos, 2007, p. 156): “The light that shines on the apostles on the mountain of transfiguration is the light that shines in the darkness when God created the world…the light that will shine from the new Jerusalem.”

“2. The transfiguration suggests an analogy (analogia corporis) between the human body of Christ and the letter of the biblical text, a correspondence grounded in their both being divine accommodation of the one living and active Word of God.” (p. 267).

“3. Transfigural interpretation does not change but, rather, glorifies the literal meaning.” (p. 268).

“4. Transfigural interpretation is a distinctively Christian approach to reading and therefore belongs to special rather than general hermeneutics.” (p. 269).

“5. Transfigural interpretation is from faith to faith, requiring readers to have the ‘eyes of their hearts’ enlightened by the Spirit (Eph. 1:18).” (p. 269).

Vanhoozer argues that the doxological rule for interpretation therefore varies Augustine’s rule (choose the reading that most fosters the love of God and neighbor) to: “Choose the reading that most glorifies God and that most promotes the light of Christ in the life of the reader” (p. 270).

Chapter 8, “Transfiguring the Literal: Light Refracted,” considers the manner in which the mount of Transfiguration was “a second Sinai, there a miracle of old was repeated” (p. 272; quoting Dale C. Allison, The New Moses: A Matthean Typology [Fortress, 1993], pp. 246-47). It thus magnifies the literal sense, moving from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18; p. 273). 

In the Transfiguration, God’s actions and Words confirm that Jesus is the vice regent appointed by God in Psalm 2 (p. 282).  Here is the divine exegesis of this Psalm. God’s glorious presence in Moses’ “transfiguration” (Exod. 34:29-35 as part of chs. 32-34) presents that presence as a sign of the blessing and judgment of the covenant. The identity of Moses’ shining face occurs in this passage (p. 285). Although some have identified this as a medical condition (Propp), or as horns as may appear in an eclipse (Sanders), the emphasis is on the role of this as evidence of God’s ongoing presence and forgiveness among his people (a statement already found in von Rad’s Old Testament Theology). The 13^th century BC Zukru festival at Emar also has the face of the chief god, Dagan, covered when he is moving among the citizens of Emar; and uncovered when passing the special standing stones that represent Dagan’s divine presence outside the city (Hess, Israelite Religions, pp. 117-18). Vanhoozer does not mention this; yet the uncovering of Moses’ shining face before God and its covering when he was among the people, surely connects the bearing of God’s glory in Moses’ person as part of this picture (and as understood in this manner by the people of Israel).  The comparison of Moses’ veil with the veil of the temple curtain in this context of hiding the divine glory from Israel’s eyes is also noted (p. 288).

As Vanhoozer turns to consider Paul’s use of this veil imagery and Exodus text in 2 Cor. 3:6, he finds Paul “as mediator of a new, supercharged covenant,” and follows Hafemann in seeing Paul’s self-understanding as that of a new eschatological counterpart to Moses (p. 293). Hafemann sees the hiding in Exodus as a means of protection for a sinful people so that they are not harmed by the glory of the LORD (p. 298). Turning to the Transfiguration and its picture, Vanhoozer finds that “Moses’ glory was but a reflection of the God who is light itself, whereas the light on Jesus’ face came from within” (p. 300). A veil separates sinners and the glory of the letter of the law that could kill (Melanchthon). However, despite its power, it does not fulfill the Spirit’s purpose for life. This life giving potency becomes Paul’s more glorious ministry with unveiled face (2 Cor. 3:16). Yet the veil still hides the truth from the Jewish readers of the Old Testament (p. 303).  The veil is removed by Christ at conversion allowing for the Old Testament to be literally in Christ’s light. The glory of Christ was always there but veiled. The Old Testament refers directly to the Son as a Christophany. Christ is the literal agent; the Rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Christ was always there but in the gospels seen by Moses in the blazing light of the Transfiguration (p. 308, referring to Bucer).  This Transfiguration represents the shift from the old age (“letter”) to the new age (“spirit”) through the illumination of the Old Testament’s literal sense.  In other words, the Transfiguration changes the first heaven and earth, as well as those who witness it on the mountain. 

Chapter 9, “Transfiguring the Reader: Light Reflected,” notes how a transfiguring interpretation changes the reader who reflects the light they see. We struggle with texts and with other readers; but in the end we struggle with ourselves before God (p. 320).  This is true with Job who recognizes God as sovereign but also worthy of trust, despite experiences to the contrary (p.323). On p. 324 Vanhoozer asks the important question as to whether we are teaching our students to be readers or critics. The twofold danger is that (1) the author is treated as one voice among many equal contenders or (2) as a channel for the reader’s own ideologies. As to the latter, Vanhoozer makes the important distinction between identifying the social location of the interpreter and allowing that location determine the interpretation (p. 328).  There is no privileged context; only reading communities. The interpretation of the text depends not only on asking what this means; but also “who am I” in relation to the text (p. 333)? The power of the Spirit is less essential in discovering the original meaning but more significant in removing the veil that prevents us from seeing the light of Christ in the letter of the text (2 Cor 3:14-16, pp. 342, 344). Otherwise, the cross and Christ’s death appears ugly, tragic, and senseless (p. 345). In this matter, I think of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics.  There the cross is not only the representation of beauty. It is the form that transforms all forms, redefining the category of beauty and the value it carries.  Commenting on 2 Cor. 3:18 18 (NIV: And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit) Vanhoozer writes, “When Christians read the Old Testament, they, like Moses, behold something that transforms them” (p. 346). Reading the Bible with unveiled face transforms us into the image of Christ (p. 350).  Paul may have had in mind the Transfiguration of Moses that changed his face. More than Moses, Paul now sees how his own ministry transforms his hearers. Quoting Kimble, “We become like what we behold; what captivates us shapes us” (p. 352; Kimble, Behold and Become, p. 36). Christ is formed in us (Gal. 4:19; p. 353). Failing to behold Christ’s glory falls short of appreciating the literal interpretation (and its glory) as well as the spiritual interpretation (p. 354).

The final chapter, “Conclusion: Beatific Lection: Transfiguring Christian Reading Cultures,” opens (p. 357) with the receptivity admonished by no less than C. S. Lewis in his The Problem of Pain: “For we are only creatures; our role must be that of patient to agent…mirror to light, echo to voice. Our highest activity must be response, not initiative.”

Vanhoozer advocates a close canonical reading which follows the way the figures run across the Scriptures toward Jesus Christ. Discerning the transfigural interpretation will magnify the body of the text. We do the text its greatest justice when we read it “with all the saints” and interpret it spiritually. Within the church our “reading culture” becomes “responsible for and responsive to the divine address of the biblical text” (p. 360). The author is correct regarding God’s voice in the Transfiguration, “it is because Christ alone is the visible manifestation of God, God’s glory in the flesh, that disciples ought to listen to him alone” (p. 361). And so Jesus Christ is at the heart of the beatific vision (cf. von Balthasar’s comment above), which like Moses viewing the Promised Land, we only see from a distance.

There is so much of value here that I hesitate to reflect on the final pages of Vanhoozer’s work. The author has provided a catena of quotations from across Christendom that sing of the truth and value of his transfigural approach. We can leave it at this point having received the blessing and guidance necessary for a more fully integrated hermeneutic. It is when we follow Vanhoozer into his (largely borrowed) interpretation of the Song of Songs that things go awry and the garden falls into the danger of becoming quicksand.  

In light of all he has written we might expect that Vanhoozer would wish to find Christ in the Song of Songs. Indeed, we might suspect he would be desperate to do so. And so it is. Ancient interpreters “for nearly nineteen centuries” read the Song figurally “as an ode to Christ’s love for the church” (p. 364). It is only in the modern age that “most modern interpreters view the Song as an ode to erotic love.” But is this true? Did not Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Calvin, Edmund Spenser, and J. G. von Herder move away from the allegorical to the literal? See my The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction, Baker, 2016, p. 497.

The Song is love poetry and it points to something more that is suggested at various points in the poem. But does the “evidence” that Vanhoozer cites demonstrate this? There is the garden context as alluding to the Garden of Eden; the point of view of the woman as telling the Song; the absence of the male lover (God); God’s troubled relation with Israel who is a vineyard (Isa. 5); Exodus allusions in a mare among pharaoh’s chariots (1:9); frankincense and myrrh (4:6) also found in the Tabernacle; and God’s address to his covenant people where the bride stands for Israel (pp. 365-66). 

Yet, these are problematic. If there was an intentional allusion to Eden one would expect to find rivers, gold, and onyx in the garden of the Song. Yet this is all missing. Streams occur once describing the boy’s eyes (5:12). God is found only in the male’s head, arms, and legs, in Solomon’s palanquin, and in the earrings of the girl (1:11; 3:10; 5:11, 14, 15).  Nowhere do any rivers, gold, or onyx appear in the garden. This no more alludes to Eden than it does to any other garden. The woman telling the Song and the implication of the “absence” of the male lover are assumptions that do not stand up to comparisons. A review of the relevant ancient Egyptian love songs (Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs, 1985, pp. 3-81) reveals the same degrees of interaction between the male and female lovers, and nothing in the Egyptian or biblical Song that describes absences of the male. One may think of Song 5:2-8 but the boy begins the scene by coming to the girl’s room, not running away. We are never told why he leaves. When he speaks again in 6:4 there is no mention of his absence. There is no correlation with some sort of divine judgment. There is no disagreement between the lovers or any sense that the girl has “sinned” against the boy. Far from a symbol/allegory/type of God’s anger at Israel, this is the one text in Scripture after Genesis 3 where physical love between the boy and girl is celebrated unconditionally. 

The text of 1:9 has no allusions to the exodus. Reference to the female horse is unique here in all of Scripture. It emphasizes her beauty, nobility, and value; not anything to do with the exodus of Israel (Hess, Song of Songs, 2005, pp. 63-64). The images of frankincense and myrrh in 4:6, as in 1:13 and 3:6, remind the boy of the girl in terms of sensual imagery, not cultic sacrifice (p. 137). The bride does not “stand for” Israel (or the Church). There is no connection made. This is unlike Ezek. 37:11 where the dry bones stand for Israel, or Eccl. 12:1 where the connection is made between the word pictures (vv. 2-7) and old age. Nothing so explicit is in the Song. If the girl was Israel (or God’s people) and the boy was God or Christ, when did Israel awaken (or arouse!) God as in 8:5?  How does that picture fit? 

It is so much preferable to begin with the “literal” use of the word (verb and noun) for “love” that occurs in the Song; ’āhab. This form is always translated in the Song by the Greek word agapē; not by eros “erotic” or by phileō “act as a friend.” This fact alone sets the message of the Song to teach (Hess, Song of Songs, p. 35): “The Song fills a necessary vacuum in the Scriptures because it endorses sex and celebrates it beyond all expectation. Although abuse is possible and to be avoided, sex is not inherently evil, nor is it limited to a procreative function. Instead, sex enables an experience of love whose intensity has no parallel in this cosmos and serves as a signpost to point to the greater love that lies beyond it.”  In this manner, I agree with Vanhoozer that the Song is not only to be interpreted as literal or as allegory. “Rather, they are meant to be taken together as a figurative description of Christ’s love for church and the church’s desire for union with Christ,” understood correctly (p. 368).

By bringing together so great a cloud of witnesses, Vanhoozer succeeds in demonstrating how an interpretation that embraces the historical and grammatical underpinnings of the Reformation and all who believe the Author’s intent can be sought and found, will bring the blazing fire and light of the Spirit can permeate the words themselves and transform the words of the text and the life of the reader into the image of Christ.

Richard S. Hess, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages
Denver Seminary
May 2025