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Christian Equivalent of Midrash?


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In Judaism, the word "midrash" refers to any interpretation or theory about a biblical text.  For example, the bible introduces Noah as "a righteous man, perfect in his generations."  However, when G-d addressed him after the flood, xe describes him as "righteous," but not "perfect."  A midrash about the difference between those two texts is that one is not supposed to give too much praise to a person in xyr presence, lest xe become too haughty.

 

What's the Christian equivalent of this?

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Depends a bit on the denomination. In Catholicism, the kind of interpretation you're talking about here is called "exegesis." Colloquially, we might call it a "teaching" if it refers to a widely-accepted interpretation with institutional support from the capital-C Church. There's also "catechism," which is an official document collecting a group of exegeses that outlines the main beliefs of Catholicism. The most recent catechism was published in 1992 to help standardize religious education across the Church. LMK if this answers your question :) 

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18 minutes ago, stalwart said:

Depends a bit on the denomination. In Catholicism, the kind of interpretation you're talking about here is called "exegesis." Colloquially, we might call it a "teaching" if it refers to a widely-accepted interpretation with institutional support from the capital-C Church. There's also "catechism," which is an official document collecting a group of exegeses that outlines the main beliefs of Catholicism. The most recent catechism was published in 1992 to help standardize religious education across the Church. LMK if this answers your question :) 

Thanks, it does.

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lost_my_baggage

Interesting question. Having been raised Catholic until middle school, upon which my Italian-born dad had a "Pauline" conversion to atheism, with a mixed Catholic and Jewish background, and converting to Judaism in my 30s, belonging to a cool synagogue (pardon the run-on stream of consciousness), I find the big difference is that in Judaism, interpretation is open-ended and the questions ongoing, whereas my experience with Catholicism was the narrowing of a question to dogma. I love how the Jewish sages converse across the centuries (see Rambam and Ramban, for one example). 

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35 minutes ago, lost_my_baggage said:

I find the big difference is that in Judaism, interpretation is open-ended and the questions ongoing, whereas my experience with Catholicism was the narrowing of a question to dogma.

Judaism emphasizes thought; Catholicism emphasizes teaching.  

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39 minutes ago, nanogretchen4 said:

Much of the New Testament is interpretation of the Tanakh. 

Do you mean Old Testament?

 

Either way, it's a good point, the OT is not the same thing as the Tanakh but

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3 hours ago, Ollie415 said:

Do you mean Old Testament?

 

Either way, it's a good point, the OT is not the same thing as the Tanakh but

@Ollie415"Old Testament" is the Christian term for the Tanakh.  The Tanakh is essentially the acronym for T for Torah (the 5 books of Moses), N for Neviim (the Prophets), and K for Ketubim (other writings).  

 

"Old Testament" was a term indicating that people no longer had to care about the Jewish scriptures, because the "New Testament" was the new law.  "Old" as in not relevant; "New" as in what matters now.

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Just to clarify, “exegesis” is a generic term for interpretation of a text. It isn’t specific to Christianity.

 

Frankly, most non-Catholic denominations haven’t really been around long enough to have established traditions of interpretation, and on the Catholic side, the clergy was more about laying down the law than encouraging discussion and debate.

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9 hours ago, Tetusbaum said:

 

Frankly, most non-Catholic denominations haven’t really been around long enough to have established traditions of interpretation,

400 years has been long enough for a lot of scholarly interpretation.  

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6 minutes ago, Sally said:

400 years has been long enough for a lot of scholarly interpretation.  

Sort of! But actual interpretations are different from traditions of interpretation.

 

You can definitely find analyses of biblical passages and whatnot in, like, Jesuit writings on the topic, but these aren't things that come into the daily religious life of the majority of Christians. They generally aren't discussed in church services, for instance, and even in more focused study of religious texts in Christian life (e.g. Sunday School or Bible Study gatherings, which are aimed generally at children or adolescents), the focus is less on how others have interpreted a text and more on addressing the lesson of the text "directly".

 

Even in Catholicism, where there are a bunch of saints in the historical record who left behind writings and things, most Catholics are not familiar with the content of those writings, but rather, if they are familiar with the saint in question at all, it is with the Church's narrative regarding the saint - the events that led to their benediction, their feast day, their sphere of influence.

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11 hours ago, Tetusbaum said:

You can definitely find analyses of biblical passages and whatnot in, like, Jesuit writings on the topic, but these aren't things that come into the daily religious life of the majority of Christians.

Yes, I said "scholarly interpretations."  Biblical exegesis generally happens within scholarly circles and in professional journals, not in church bible study.  

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1 hour ago, Sally said:

Yes, I said "scholarly interpretations."  Biblical exegesis generally happens within scholarly circles and in professional journals, not in church bible study.  

Okay, then we’re agreeing.

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I guess a better way for me to phrase my question would have been "What's the English word for midrash?"

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2 hours ago, AspieAlly613 said:

I guess a better way for me to phrase my question would have been "What's the English word for midrash?"

Do you mean the English word corresponding to the Hebrew word midrash?   I think it would be "parable."  

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Well, this thread suggests that "exegesis" would be a better term for what I had in mind.  Thanks to everyone who responded, BTW.

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On 1/20/2023 at 3:04 PM, Tetusbaum said:

most non-Catholic denominations haven’t really been around long enough to have established traditions of interpretation

I think that's literally what Protestantism is: The establishment since the Reformation in the 16th century of traditions of interpretation which differ from Catholicism.

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1 hour ago, Ollie415 said:

I think that's literally what Protestantism is: The establishment since the Reformation in the 16th century of traditions of interpretation which differ from Catholicism.

Protestantism as established by Luther and other Germanic theologians meant adherence to the Gospels rather than the rituals and beliefs of the Catholic Church built up over the centuries.  If rituals weren't mentioned in the Gospels (which most weren't), they weren't considered by the new theologians as being truly Christian.  Protestants followed the book, rather than the Church.  

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36 minutes ago, Sally said:

Protestantism as established by Luther and other Germanic theologians meant adherence to the Gospels rather than the rituals and beliefs of the Catholic Church built up over the centuries.  If rituals weren't mentioned in the Gospels (which most weren't), they weren't considered by the new theologians as being truly Christian.  Protestants followed the book, rather than the Church.  

You're not wrong but they (the Lutherans, the Calvinists and every other Protestant sect since then) absolutely interpreted the Bible differently than the Catholics.

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11 hours ago, Ollie415 said:

You're not wrong but they (the Lutherans, the Calvinists and every other Protestant sect since then) absolutely interpreted the Bible differently than the Catholics.

No one claims the Bible is not interpreted by Christians (Aside from some highly obstinate Christians who have specific thoughts on the revelatory nature of the Bible as a text, I guess).
 

My point was that there is no equivalent in Christianity to something like the Midrash: established interpretations of a religious text that have a place within the daily religious life of laypeople within the religious community.

 

Insofar as written commentary or analysis of the Bible as a text exists in Christian religious life, it tends to be viewed as either entirely sequestered to academics within the Church hierarchy or as extremist: e.g. nailing your analysis to the doors of a cathedral and renouncing the Church to form a heretical sect.

 

There is no tradition of local priests or pastors engaging in public debate or dialog with other members of the clergy or the lay folk, and certainly no commonly cited examples of this that are for instance regularly referenced in religious services.

Edited by Tetusbaum
Adding a parenthetical jab at people I disagree with
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2 hours ago, Tetusbaum said:

No one claims the Bible is not interpreted by Christians (Aside from some highly obstinate Christians who have specific thoughts on the revelatory nature of the Bible as a text, I guess).
 

My point was that there is no equivalent in Christianity to something like the Midrash: established interpretations of a religious text that have a place within the daily religious life of laypeople within the religious community.

 

Insofar as written commentary or analysis of the Bible as a text exists in Christian religious life, it tends to be viewed as either entirely sequestered to academics within the Church hierarchy or as extremist: e.g. nailing your analysis to the doors of a cathedral and renouncing the Church to form a heretical sect.

 

There is no tradition of local priests or pastors engaging in public debate or dialog with other members of the clergy or the lay folk, and certainly no commonly cited examples of this that are for instance regularly referenced in religious services.

Parables actually are similar in usage to midrashim.  They offer stories as explanations of theological points.  

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Christian parables are from the New Testament, usually attributed directly to Jesus. It’s not quite the same in practice, as it isn’t a discussion of the text of the Bible, it just is the text of the Bible.

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Midrashim in the Talmud are attributable to specific rabbis, and stem directly from the Tanakh scriptures.    

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9 hours ago, Sally said:

Midrashim in the Talmud are attributable to specific rabbis, and stem directly from the Tanakh scriptures.    

Right, which is a key distinction from Christian parables, which are attributed to Jesus directly in the text of the New Testament. As the text of the New Testament is considered to be revelatory in origin (that is, it is a message delivered by God directly to the authors), parables are not interpretations of scripture, they are the text of the scripture.

 

Moreover, Jesus does not have a status in Christian religious life which is equivalent to a rabbi. While he certainly is viewed as a religious leader and teacher, he is also understood to be divine, either whole or in part, depending on sect. In the cosmology of Christianity, this gives him status and access to divine knowledge closer (or identical) to that of God than to that of even a prophet in other Abrahamic faiths, much less a rabbi. If there was a compilation of writings and interpretations of various clergy that was considered a central text of Christian religious life, that would be an equivalent.

 

Most Christian churches have hymnals available to the congregation, but aside from that, you’ll only find the Bible itself, with interpretation or musing on the meanings of various passages and their application to daily life largely relegated to the content of individual sermons.

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  • 4 months later...

For your question, I think there is no equivalent to Midrashic Hermeneutic. True Christians should learn Midrash, too. 

 

Lack of Midrach ability leads to 1) false teaching and false learning, 2) false theology, 3) replacement theology, 4) antisemitism, 5) liberal theology, 6) european pagan theology

 

I urge all Christians start to learn Midrash and Hebrew today. 

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