(1988:32). These scholarly interpreters became the scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the Law
that were so maligned by Jesus. In the words of Herbert V. Klem, they soon "demanded that the
people come to their institutions, learn their special language, memorize a large corpus of
material, and learn the cantillation style of the teacher all as prerequisites for learning their
,,important teachings. They required that the people be extracted from their popular modes of
expression and learn the skills of a special mode of communication before this new information
could be come available" (1982:83). It is no wonder that Jesus had problems with them!
These scholarly interpreters--the scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the Law--tended to interpret
the Old Testament text more literally. But even with these various collections of halakah and
haggadah interpretations the Jewish people remained people of the story since the primary means
of instruction and debate continued to be oral. Although the scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of
the Law in Jesus day had a growing access to texts and scrolls--and despite their sometimes
rigorous religious training systems--most Bible interpretation was still filtered through the
common oral communication systems of the day to the common people. Even Jesus himself,
when quoting from the law, says, "you have heard that it was said...but I say to you..." (cf. Mt.
chapter 5). As far as we know, Jesus never wrote any of his material down. His was an oral
ministry and he was a master of the oral form, filling his messages with parables, proverbs, pithy
sayings and the like.
thirty to forty years until they were gradually written down, collected and put in their final form
as the four gospels that we have today. Correspondingly, the early followers of Jesus in the book
of Acts were people of the story; with Acts itself being a gripping account of the progression of
the Gospel as commanded by Jesus in Acts 1:8.
The Apostle Paul, through his letter writing, made use of the technological superiority of the
Roman road system of his day to carry on a ready correspondence with the young churches he
had planted along those same roads. His various audiences of Hellenistic Jews, Roman God-
fearers and pagans--scattered throughout the Roman world--were familiar with the more
cosmopolitan systematic rhetorical style that Paul so oftentimes followed in his letters.
Irregardless of the particular style used by Paul, the early church remained people of the story.
The majority of Pauls letters were not studied alone by individual readers, they were read and
listened to by entire congregations. So, for example, when the Corinthians read Pauls letters to
them out loud in their congregations they decided together what Paul meant; they interpreted his
letter to them as a group.
The culturally-accepted genre of the written letter was used by Paul as the means to an end:
communicating orally the truths of the Gospel to his various congregations spread far and wide.
He continued using the systematic rhetorical style of argument in which he had been schooled.
What had changed was that now for Paul everything in the Old Testament had to be interpreted
in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; a Christo-centric hermeneutical
4. Jesus was also competent in the hermeneutical methods of the Jewish religious leaders of his day and used them with great