Persistence and resistance in Palestinian Christian uses of scripture

The metaphor of the Bible as a contested territory is not original. NT Wright uses it powerfully at the start of his epic New Testament and the People of God. In the light of this image, it is possible to see the attempts of Palestinian Christians to settle upon an interpretation of scripture, one that does not concede to the interpretations of those who think their land really belongs to the Jews, as an important textual intifada.

Arguably, however, this struggle - as with many resistance movements - threatens to make the most impoverished even less secure in their textual land. The Palestinian farmer turfed off their land is less concerned by where borders fall and sovereignty is asserted than by retaining the rights derived from the fact that he grew up on the land, has made the land fruitful, and expects his children to inherit the fruit.

Likewise, the textual felah is the Palestinian Christian who does not have the time or language with which to engage in protracted debates about the meaning of various texts, but who cares deeply about the Bible as addressed to them as Christians, and who performs it every Sunday through liturgy. This person is under threat as much from the exclusive focus upon interpretation as from a specific exclusive interpretation itself.

Performing scripture in worship is to claim it as one's own canon. To say 'it means so-and-so...and that's all that matters' is to rob others with different interpretations, and to rob those for whom interpretation is secondary. Contesting the Bible as territory, subject to the interpretations of the most gifted theologians, is perhaps necessary, but it is not the only way to claim this land. Does not the person born in a land, tilling it despite its rocks and thorns, have an inalienable claim to it that does not depend upon the territorial compromises of the powerful? Can Palestinian theologians begin by affirming this relationship while engaging the interpretative enemy? Can we say at the outset that the person who uses scripture to worship God has an inalienable claim to that scripture that is not dependent upon their intellectual assessment of it?

One evangelical friend summed it up like this for me:

"When you interpret only, the text is away from you - you don't own it. When you chant it you own it. From time to time I go to the Orthodox for a wedding or funeral, and when I saw them chant Psalm 91 they were with tears in their eyes. For them if it is about Israel, it is about them. The Old Testament is their text as much as the New."