On Being a Technician of the Word

**DISCLAIMER: only proceed if you want to listen to the self-important expressions of an insecure wannabe academic as he tries to analyze himself and justify his new career path to anyone who will listen**

I think a lot these days about how odd it is to be embarking on a career as an academic biblical scholar. Probably like most, or at least many, of those who end up in this field, I began down this path with a sincere desire to serve the church and her needs. My aims haven't changed, but I can't help but wonder how effective my academic work is at achieving the service for which I set out. It's not that I think academic study of Scripture isn't or couldn't be useful to the church, it's just that the nature of the critical task in an academic environment introduces at least one further remove between that work and its churchly reception. There is probably a broad spectrum among biblical scholars as to the directness with which they address the church: some see themselves as chiefly called to write popular and mid-level books for a wide audience, others to engage in more detailed critical research. Both paths are necessary and the choice between them must of course be a matter of personal vocation. Oddly enough, I find myself interested in the details a lot these days. If I were to encounter my 21 year old self, no doubt he would look me squarely in the face and say: your papers will be consumed when the fire of the real arrives. Yes, well, that may be true in a sense, but my 21 year old self always was a bit Manichean. What about the call to actualize one's full potential in the place where one finds him or herself as an expression of trust in the sovereignty of God? What about the need to help evangelicalism exercise patience in the pursuit of excellence rather than the all-too-American indulgence of immediate gratification on a diet of intellectual mediocrity? This is what I want to say to my younger avatar: not everyone needs to read or practice intense historical or detailed exegetical or philological work with Scripture, but if we don't free up some to do just that, we are failing in our vocation as a church and this will only lead to our plausibility structures crumbling into ruinous shambles in the next generation.

But being an academic biblical scholar is sometimes like being a technician of the word, the same way one might be a mechanic for a NASCAR team. The driver is the person who really gets to feel the power of the car, or maybe the fans in the stands who participate with such vigor and devotion. But the mechanic has to pay attention to minor issues: a loose screw here, a bit of worn tread there. From time to time, the mechanic may even have the chance to drive the car, but lucky is the one who can free the mind from technical considerations while doing so. The danger in this is, of course, obvious: it is possible for the mastery the mechanic must demonstrate with reference to the inner-workings of the machine to translate into an inability to be mastered by the thrill that originally attracted that person to NASCAR in the first place. Just so, the academic biblical scholar must constantly move between being a technician of the word and its recipient, a student who strives hard to understand the text in the original but never thereby believes (falsely) to have mastered or contained it. This is one reason why I am grateful for liturgies in churches, or the public reading of Scripture aloud. When it is done, I don't follow along in my Bible. I want to experience the word as an alien word, a word extra nos, spoken to me in divine address and not somehow as coming from my own mouth or in my own hand. Is not the word of the Lord like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock into pieces?

Needless to say, this is not always a comfortable place to be. At times I long for the sands of Egypt, to return from whence I came. There is an unavoidable tension in which an academic biblical scholar with a desire to serve the church must live. With much knowledge comes much sorrow. As Albert Schweitzer, the great if also less than orthodox New Testament scholar and humanitarian, once said, "I am a bit like one of those satraps who has been sent to the borders of the kingdom and allowed somewhat of a free hand, because they defend and protect it." Or, as Paul said, the church is a body with many body parts, and no one of them can flourish without all the others. In hindsight I can also see in my former (and, of course, all too many of my present) ambitions a will-to-power, and I wonder how many people become biblical scholars simply to exercise power over others by offering the correct interpretation. And the will-to-power is closely bound up with self-promotion: as Jesus says, they love to wear long robes and take the first seat in the assembly. Of course, correct interpretation is fine in so far as it goes, but if I can write an International Critical Commentary in the language of angels, but have not love, I gain nothing.