Reading the Bible with Anabaptist glasses
Review of The Anabaptist Community Bible (MennoMedia, 2024)
I am a fan of the Anabaptist Community Bible – now, at any rate. I was one of those who were a bit skeptical when I first learned about the project. I was mostly wrong.
A group of us have been using this Bible, rigorously and regularly, at Fellowship of Hope Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Ind., for our lectionary Bible study group since we got our copies. We meet weekly, nine or ten of us, representing a healthy cross-section of the congregation, and work on the texts we will be using in worship the following Sunday. About half of us bring the Anabaptist Community Bible (ACB), so it strongly influences our practice. We use the introductions, the notes, the maps and, sometimes, the articles at the back. There is no question but that the ACB has an appreciated and fruitful seat at our table. This Bible was created as part of the commemoration of 500 years of Anabaptism, and it functions to bring us together in practical Bible study as we remember, contemplate, and celebrate those first baptisms five centuries ago and what has grown from them since.
The ACB is a study Bible. It is the biblical text – in this case, the Common English Bible (CEB) translation – accompanied with various resources for studying the text. These include marginal notes, introductions to each book of the Bible, maps, and a section of articles at the end, as well as various other tools such as a list of Jesus’ parables. It even has artwork – a variety of woodcuts by five different artists illustrating the text.
The choice to use the CEB is what has the first, and greatest, impact on the study Bible’s function in real life, so let’s start there. The CEB has not been as widely used in Anabaptist congregations in North America as some other other versions, such as the New Revised Standard Version, the New International Version, or even the King James Version. I don’t know the reasoning for the choice, but the very fact that this version is less familiar seems to me to be helpful. Bible reading and Bible study can sometimes suffer from a sense of over-familiarity – we have heard it so many times that we think we know it. Using a version we know less well – and, particularly, using this less-familiar version together in a group – can be a fresh wind blowing through our spirits.
As for the CEB itself, there is no perfect version, just as there is no perfect tent, or perfect sleeping bag, or perfect anything else. Any version has its strengths and weaknesses. One of the most important strengths of this one is its accessibility. The sentences are not convoluted and not unduly long. It reads well aloud, and is more welcoming of those for whom English is not a first language than many other versions.
This version also tries hard to translate a Hebrew or Greek word with the same English word. That can be illuminating of the original text, and can sometimes lend itself to some woodenness in English usage. I love that “foreigner” is mostly translated as “immigrant” in the CEB, and cringe when “Blessed are the poor in spirit” comes out as “Happy are the hopeless.”
But preferences emerge in any version and mostly it’s a matter of getting used to something. I think that the more versions in use, the better, in any study venue, from private to communal. I welcome a less familiar version and would not make a decision to use or not to use the ACB on the basis of the version of the biblical text it uses. A decision had to be made and no decision about text is going to make everyone happy. Although the choice of version will be the basis upon which some people will decide whether to buy the book or not, it should not be. The ACB has merit that transcends the choice of version.
The introductions to each book are excellent and very helpful. Several times in our weekly Bible study, we have turned to them, sometimes reading them aloud and then referring back to various points as we continued our discussion. These introductions follow a simple format: context, central themes, Anabaptist lens. The first two sections help us understand what the text is saying. It is good information, concise and available.
While all this information is useful, and enters into our pondering, we often find ourselves focusing on the third section, the paragraphs about Anabaptist understandings. These sections often contain discussion of issues that arise and that matter to us. Having these articulations by known scholars of our tradition is fruitful as we dig deeper into the text. As these biblical passages become companions in life, the Anabaptist lens part of the introductions often lead the way. Useful? Yes. Inspiring? Also yes, but perhaps even more importantly, the ACB becomes a vital partner in the Holy Spirit’s work of getting the biblical text into our very being and bones. It is the kind of help and inspiration that is uniquely available in the ACB, and well worth the effort of the project as well as the price of the book.
In addition to the introductions, there are three kinds of notes, marked transparently with three different symbols in the margins. There are “Biblical Context” notes, written by an Anabaptist scholar – sometimes the same scholar who wrote the introduction, but sometimes another one. These are excellent, well written and well edited, representing both solid scholarship and a remarkable accessibility for ordinary readers. They are marked with a small lantern.
Secondly, there are “Anabaptist Witness” notes indicated with a Lamb of God symbol. These are often direct quotations, sometimes summaries of thought, taken from the biblical comments written by our Anabaptist parents as they read their Bibles. These comments are often interesting and offer a sense of reading these same texts across the centuries and geography that separates us from our forebearers. Although care was taken in the selection, and the sources are always cited for further exploration if desired, sometimes there just isn’t sufficient context to understand the comment enough to engage with it very vigorously. We usually note them as we go through the text, but frequently don’t know what to do with them.
“Community Reflection” notes are marked with what looks like three people around a table. From the standpoint of currently available study Bibles, this is the most distinctive aspect of the ACB. Over a nine-month period, almost 600 study groups from the United States, Canada, and 15 other countries studied the texts and submitted comments for consideration and inclusion in the marginal notes. There were some guiding questions and suggested procedures, but no heavy-handedness in the selection of groups or the methodology of the groups. There were attempts to include groups representing people other than white, middle-class North American Anabaptists, although as is the case in all such efforts, too few results. As a friend said recently: It’s always important to look around and see who is not here. The list of contributors speaks for itself. Yes, there were efforts to be more inclusive; yes, the vast majority of contributors are nonetheless white, North American, middle-class Anabaptists.
All these comments were edited and placed in the margins of the texts to which they refer. As we use them in studying the same texts, these comments provide a vital grounding in the language, experience, and perspective of other Anabaptist groups nurturing themselves and also struggling with the texts. The notes – thoughtful, sometimes surprising, often forthright and moving – provide a particular color to the ACB. It’s a form of companionship and friendly comfort I’ve not experienced in other study tools.
The selection of essays printed in the back of the ACB on “Anabaptist Perspectives on Biblical Interpretation” is where my ambivalence lies. I am deeply grateful for the range of topics and the care with which they have been written and edited. I am also deeply grateful to have these expressions in this readily available format – it is my hope that this collection can be a fruitful place to enter into a wider and more inclusive conversation about some of our core beliefs about the Bible at this point in time.
In the spirit of nurturing that conversation, then, let me describe briefly my uneasiness in regard to a couple of these essays. There is much to like about Meghan Larissa Good’s “Reading Scripture with Jesus: What Does It Mean to Practice a Christocentric Hermeneutic?” She very helpfully explores what a Christocentric hermeneutic looks like as we think about reading the Bible as a whole. It is a concept that Anabaptists have talked about generally without enough specific definition and, in her remedying that gap, I welcome the article. Nevertheless, there are some significant issues with a Christocentric hermeneutic that should at least be mentioned. Jesus as hermeneutical key has a shadow side as well as a helpful one.
Certainly, the early Anabaptists appealed to the words and ethics of Jesus to counter the arguments being used against them. But there are problems in moving from a heartfelt and desperate strategy that emerged from legal debate and social threat to a general philosophy of interpretation.
First, a Christocentric hermeneutic can ignore the hermeneutic key that Jesus himself gave us with his teaching on the love of God and others. Good cites this teaching (1,538) without noting the irony that what she is suggesting in some ways supplants the teaching. We can work with both but more care is needed. Second, a Christocentric hermeneutic can become antisemitic. There is no doubt that Jesus was fully immersed in his Jewish religious culture. There is no doubt that Jesus knew his Scripture well and that he used it to interpret what he was doing and to understand his own life, death, and resurrection. All such inquiries into how he engaged with his sacred texts are legitimate. It is also quite true that the early Christians combed their Scriptures to find ways not only to understand Jesus but to legitimize him. They certainly used what became our Hebrew Bible or Old Testament to shape, inform, and communicate the good news that became our New Testament.
But to then turn these hermeneutical moves on their heads, so to speak, and reverse the direction – that is, to use Jesus to legitimate the Old Testament – has implications for how we understand and treat our Jewish neighbors and friends. We must find ways as Christians to acknowledge Jesus as an authoritative interpreter of his Scripture and to recognize that he doesn’t speak to most of the texts that are nevertheless sacred for us as Christians. We must also find ways to claim the Old Testament as our sacred text and acknowledge that it is not only ours – the Hebrew Bible also belongs to Judaism. A Christocentric hermeneutic cannot and should not erase that reality.
Skewing our trinitarian theology can become another shadow side of a Christocentric hermeneutic. There is no question but that Anabaptists have a theological investment in Jesus. There is nothing wrong with that. But we also claim to be trinitarian, and there are aspects of Good’s take on a Christocentric hermeneutic that border on elevating Jesus at the expense of God and Spirit. Her contention that “Jesus is God in the light” (1,538) is especially troubling in this regard. Whatever the theological mysteries of trinitarian theology, suggesting that Jesus defines God seems to be a misstep, and certainly violates Jesus’ own self-understanding of being obedient to the Father.
It is not clear to me that there is an Anabaptist consensus about a Christocentric hermeneutic. We have noted some needed corrections – to creeds and theologies – that have downplayed Jesus’ teachings and nonviolent actions in his world. But let’s have more conversation on a Christocentric emphasis on hermeneutics and theology.
Finally, just a word on the article by John Kampen on “Anabaptists, the Bible, and Antisemitism: How Christians Have Misinterpreted Scripture.” I am so immensely grateful for his work on antisemitism, and this article is especially essential in a context in which we are exploring a Christocentric hermeneutic. I understand and empathize with his reluctance to discuss antisemitism and what is happening in Gaza in the same breath. Three years ago, I would have agreed with him. But now, even as we acknowledge that we Mennonites have penitential work to do regarding what happened to Jewish people, especially in World War II and since, we must also recognize that too many Anabaptists are supporting the genocide of Palestinians. It is far from easy, but the Anabaptist heart has to be large enough to say a resounding “No” to antisemitism and a resounding “No” to genocide – and, yes, in the same breath.
Despite these quibbles, and including these quibbles, I am so very thankful to have in hand the Anabaptist Community Bible and would heartily recommend it to any Anabaptist – well, really and truly, to any Bible reader. It is an amazing tool for our reading the Bible for the sake of our faith, our communities, our very lives. I am grateful for those who conceptualized it, for the hard work of each study group, scholar, adviser, artist, editor, producer, donor, and salesperson involved in this remarkable labor of love. Let us use it, often and well.