Bruce Ellis Benson "The Improvisation of Hermeneutics"

I would like to begin by way of a personal example. I have over the past few years began to seriously question whether or not “biblical interpretation” should be taught. I have a small Bible study discussion group that meets on Sunday mornings at our church. I have thought, on several occasions, that it would be good to teach a class on interpretation. And yet as I contemplated this I realized that each time we opened our Bibles on Sunday morning to study we were conducting a biblical interpretations class – and we were doing it quite well! Without even realizing it we were all becoming better interpreters of the Bible because we were all doing interpretation. Furthermore, upon reflecting upon Benson’s piece I believe it may be possible to stifle the process of biblical interpretation by putting in place rules and regulations, which unnecessarily burden the sincere seeker. There must be room for imagination in interpretation. Or, as Benson puts it, “improvisation.”

Benson’s essay, "The Improvisation of Hermeneutics" is the opening act in Part 4 of Hermeneutics at the Crossroads. He specifically addresses some of the ethical concerns of hermeneutics. Benson states in the conclusion: “My concern here is a deeply ethical one. If the author should not die so that the reader may live, then neither should the reader have to die so that the author may live…As interpreters, we owe much to authors and their texts. But authors and texts are – if not equally – at least clearly dependent upon interpreters and interpretive communities.” (205) This quote echoes Benson’s refusal to give a privilege to either author, text, or interpreter in the hermeneutical process. Rather, what interpretation is is the result of an improvisational moment similar to that of a jazz performance: “The typical way in which jazz pieces are performed is that the “head” or melody is stated, then succeeding choruses improvise upon it, and then the performance concludes with a restatement of that melody…The further one can go – and still remain in touch with the piece’s structure – the better the improviser one is.” (206)

An improvisational model of hermeneutics, as Benson develops it, would seek to do justice to both the author, the text, and the interpretive community. (194) This is not merely a license for play on the part of the reader. For example, Benson comments on a Scriptural hermeneutic: “A pastor is not allowed to ‘improvise’ on 1 Corinthians for a sermon in the same way that Paul was ‘allowed’ to improvise on Old Testament and early Christian texts in composing 1 Corinthians. There are ways in which an improvisation can be deemed ‘faithful’ to a text and ways in which it can be deemed ‘unfaithful.’” (205) As such, it is improvisation “all the way down” including on the part of the author. Benson puts the author and reader alike in a process of improvisation. In fact, “It is safe to say that in jazz the roles of composer and performer are so clearly interwoven that a clear distinction between the two is significantly complicated – even though there is still a distinction.” (197) Hence in jazz improvisation is actually the intention of the composer. (198) In my view these thoughts of Benson’s go to an essential hermeneutical point: Interpretation can never be strictly defined in advance. Interpretation must always make room for revision. This goes back to my point in the opening paragraph regarding the learning of hermeneutics. Rules are helpful for learning hermeneutics, but they must always be held with an open hand. This is true even in the case of Scriptural interpretation. One might think that after all of these years of interpretation we would finally have the correct interpretation, and many in Christian circles would make this claim, but each community and even each individual must make an interpretive decision, and this is a decision that can only be relevant if it is actually made in a moment of decision and not simply a moment of rote repetition. And this only become a conscious and relevant decision if it is one that an individual has learned to make by the actual doing of interpretation.

Regarding these last few thoughts Benson actually echoes this on pages 202-03 and brings in Derrida (and then Hirsch): “Attempting to determine what ‘the piece has to say’ or ‘the text has to say’ is not merely a matter of playing the ‘right’ notes or reading the words…Earlier we mentioned Derrida’s conception of a ‘doubling commentary’ that acts as a ‘guardrail’ for the text. While Derrida clearly thinks such a commentary is important, he also thinks that this ‘doubling’ is possible only to a limited extent. For even in doubling there is already an improvisatory moment.” (202) So, improvisation is required even if we want to be most true to the author and the text: “Even when we try to be mere ‘imitators’ or provide ‘literal’ translations of texts, those imitations and translations invariably go beyond the text.” (203)

Finally, I would like to highlight a question that Benson raises regarding the relationship between “improvisation” and the text itself. For Benson the relationship is not one that is simply stated. His view seems to be the last of three options: “Performance practice actually affects the very identity of the piece, not in the weak sense of bringing out possibilities but in the strong sens of actually ‘creating’ (or, rather, improvising) them.” (204) Admittedly, this “complicates” things a bit. Specifically, it complicates the identity of the piece/text. “The piece becomes in effect a historical entity that is affected by subsequent interpretations. On this account, the identity of the piece may subtly change over time, even though its identity would still be continuous. In such a case, its identity would be similar to many other historical entities, such as human persons, who retain their identity despite mental and physical changes.” (204) Benson points to a dramatic example of this in the composition of Round Midnight, which was composed and altered by several performers, including Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. (204, 196-97)

For many of us talk about a text changing over time causes us to cringe a bit. However, this is a good cringe, I think. It goes to the importance of preserving the integrity of the text and of the responsibility readers have to the text and the author. However, what I appreciate about Benson’s perspective is the refusal to oversimplify the interpretive process. Benson’s insightful essay effectively utilizes analogies from the improvisation in jazz to provide a very general model and goal for hermeneutics – a process of creativity that continually re-evaluates itself in order to carefully preserve the rights of the author, text, and reader and act in an ethical and just way to all of those who are shareholders in the hermeneutical moment.


Citation: Bruce Ellis Benson, “The Improvisation of Hermeneutics” in Hermeneutics at the Crossroads, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, James K.A. Smith, and Bruce Ellis Benson (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006).

Other essays reviewed in Hermeneutics at the Crossroads:
Bruce Ellis Benson "The Improvisation of Hermeneutics"
James K.A. Smith "Limited Inc/arnation"
Kevin Vanhoozer "Discourse on Matter"
Nicholas Wolterstorff "Resuscitating the Author"