I am working on the so-called methodology sections for my dissertation, which explores the use and effects of the “chair of Moses” saying in Matthew 23:2–3. One of the theoretical backgrounds with which I am engaging is called “reception history” (or “Rezeptionsgeschichte” if you like the way German terms make you feel). This week, I’m trying to think through how the historical (geschichtlich) aspect of these theoretical approaches might be affected by a robust doctrine of providence.

While I am interested in a theological or theocentric interpretation of the “chair of Moses” saying, I’m also interested in a theocentric treatment of the history of this saying’s use and effects. This second interest is the one I’m pursuing this week. So I’m not here asking directly, What did God mean to communicate in the “chair of Moses” saying?—though I am ultimately interested in that question!—but rather, more indirectly, How has God used the “chair of Moses” saying in history? I think that answering the second question could be suggestive for the first.

There are many different and sometimes incompatible use and effects of this saying (as with virtually every portion of Scripture). Some interpretations are good; some are bad; developing a way to evaluate them is half the battle of this dissertation. Now, what would happen if I start with the scripturally derived principle that God, who has the first and last word on what any passage of Scripture means, sovereignly uses secondary human interpreters for his own righteous and holy ends? How do the teachings of Scripture as a whole, especially its teaching about God’s providential control of history, bear upon our evaluation of how Scripture is used?

This blathering is a way for me to prime myself for writing and also a way to let you know what I’m working on. I leave you, and I leave myself, with the following from Poythress’s Redeeming Our Thinking about History (free PDF here)—his thoughts being apropos of the questions that I’ve raised above:

The “objectivity” of the outside analyst is not an absolute objectivity that would be a “view from nowhere.” There are no views without viewers. God knows all human perspectives completely. But he knows them in the context of his own subjectivity, his being God. Each of us has partial knowledge, in the context of our finite subjectivity. In historical study, we can access truth when we have enough robust sources. But we always access truth as subjects who subjectively experience truth. In that respect, there is no principial difference between a participant and an “outside” analyst. They both expose themselves to the events.

The outside analyst is not a direct participant in the events as they happen, but in exposing himself, he becomes a participant in the reports and the consequences, which he uses to begin to know about the events. This knowledge constitutes a kind of participation in the events, by means of participation in meanings related to the events. A genuine but limited objectivity arises not by ignoring human subjective perspectives but by multiplying them. And if we are diligent and responsible before God, we do not ignore God’s perspective.

—Poythress Redeeming Our Thinking about History, 147–48

What Poythress writes about events, I might apply to specific historical uses and effects of the “chair of Moses” saying, specific instances of interpreting the saying by “outside” analysts who “expose themselves” to the text of Scripture and so “participate” in the text. And I myself participate in the meaning of the original event (the text of Scripture) as I engage these others who participate. Multiplying our awareness of perspectives on the saying—the project of my dissertation—is a way of approaching “a genuine but limited objectivity” about the saying.

Still thinking about it.