When a religious teacher questioned Jesus on the law, Jesus answered, “How do you read it?” (Luke 10:26). That’s fundamentally the same question that lawyers routinely face from the courts in cases involving the interpretation of legal documents, including the Constitution.

That question motivates a new book of nine essays edited by Mark J. Boone and Mark D. Eckel, entitled Originalism in Theology and Law: Comparing Perspectives on the Bible and Constitution.

Fittingly, Boone’s introduction begins with George W. Bush’s short-lived nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court. At the time, Justice Nathan Hecht of the Supreme Court of Texas—who was publicly promoting Miers’s nomination—described Miers as an originalist: “She’s an originalist—that’s the way she takes the Bible,” and that’s how he described her approach to the Constitution: “Originalist—it means what it says.” Justice Hecht’s description made explicit a connection between originalism in law and originalism in biblical interpretation. As Boone later observes, others have made a similar connection. Most notably, Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein has called originalism the “fundamentalist” position in law and compared it to “religious fundamentalism,” which he says “usually represents an effort to restore the original meaning of a sacred text.”

The book’s core contention is that there are “significant connections between originalism in theology and originalism in law.” According to Boone, those connections are worth exploring because “originalist-leaning hermeneutics motivate rather a lot of Christian theology” and, in law, originalism is now the dominant theory of constitutional interpretation among five of the nine justices on the Supreme Court. But Boone adds that “originalism in biblical theology and originalism in American law must be applied with attention to the differences between the texts involved.” Those differences include the origins and sources of a text’s authority.

Boone distinguishes between a “weak biblical originalism” and a “strong biblical originalism.” The former means that “everything meant by the authors of the Bible is a part of its original meaning.” The latter means that “all biblical meaning is in the category of that intended by its authors.” He concludes that “Christian theology is committed to a weak but not strong biblical originalism” because it recognizes that there is some biblical meaning that was not available to the original authors and readers. Most obviously, for Christian readers, numerous Old Testament passages and prophecies can only be fully understood in light of the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which means that the human authors who wrote them could not have known their full meaning. In other words, the meaning of a text may supersede the human author’s understanding of the text at the time it was written and may contain a truth beyond what the human author intended.

Regarding originalism in law, moreover, Boone observes how constitutional law in the United States has moved away from an earlier focus on the intent of the drafters (or ratifiers) to the original public meaning of the text at the time it was enacted into law. Boone also observes that while the source of the Constitution’s authority is the people of the United States, the source of the Bible’s authority comes from God. He argues that a text’s meaning and the authority behind it are closely tied together. For him, biblical originalism is better understood as a form of intentionalism, whereas constitutional originalism is better understood through the text’s original public meaning. If he is correct, biblical originalism and constitutional originalism are now heading down divergent paths.

All of the book’s authors are either Protestant or Jewish experts in theology, philosophy, and political science. Only one has a law degree. Boone recognizes this deficiency and calls for more work on the topic by scholars from other Christian traditions, other faith traditions, and constitutional lawyers.

As with any collection of essays, some are more esoteric than others. None is disappointing, however, and all make important contributions to the discussion. Without prejudice to the others, I will highlight the most thought-provoking.

Eckel’s first essay argues that “originalism in law is justified by the principles of a Biblical worldview.” He begins with epistemology. He points out that “everyone everywhere begins somewhere in their thinking.” In other words, there is no Archimedean point—no neutral vantage point—from which one can look out upon the world or at any particular subject. Eckel then acknowledges, as he must, that the Hebraic-Christian view of life—his own view—is no different. It’s a nonneutral standpoint. For him, that view of life affects one’s view of “everything, including authorial intention.” As he says, “The origin of the Bible’s originalism—‘authorial intent’—begins with a Person.” Thus, the “centerpiece of originalism is that an original must exist, and, hence, an originator must create the original. Embedded within this concept is intentionality.” Ultimately, for him, God is the Author of creation who has imbued it with His intent. That pattern, he contends, “sets the stage for originalism in everything else,” including originalism in law, since authorial intent is weaved into the fabric of the entire universe.

In chapter 3, “The Torah is not in Heaven: Living Originalism and Political Integrity in the Oven of Akhnai,” Daniel Weissglass argues for a “modest originalism,” one that includes not only authorial intent for the meaning of a particular law but also the intent behind the legal system designed to interpret and apply it. In doing so, he draws on the Talmudic story of the Oven of Akhnai, in which the voice of God himself is seemingly rejected as an interpreter of the law on the basis that the law is “not in heaven.” As Weissglass sees it, the story corresponds to the doctrine of “living originalism” as formulated by Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin, according to which the Constitution is not always interpreted according to its original meaning but sometimes according to the fundamental principles that the Constitution establishes.

In chapter 4, “Sacred Scripture, Sacred Constitution: Individual Religious Hermeneutics and Constitutional Interpretation,” Nicholas Higgins and Micah Allred argue that originalist methods of reading sacred religious texts correspond to originalist methods of interpreting the Constitution in the minds of the American electorate. Specifically, they descriptively argue that constitutional hermeneutics flow downstream from voters’ theological hermeneutics.

In chapter 6, “The Originalism Hermeneutic in Biblical and Constitutional Context: Comparing and Contrasting the Notion of Originalism in Two Very Different Fields,” Mark Snoeberger considers the best way to describe a dispensationalist hermeneutic. Dispensationalism, a strain of Protestant theology associated with Charles Ryrie and Dallas Theological Seminary, stresses a “literal” hermeneutic. Instead, Snoeberger suggests that dispensationalists adopt the label “originalism,” though he caveats that “the Bible is inspired, but the United States Constitution is not.” Consequently, “because of the miracle in inspiration, original intent, and original public meaning are rendered synonymous in a way that is true of no other literary corpus ever conceived.”

In the book’s final chapter, Eckel considers ultimate things. He contrasts two worldviews—biblical and secular—and their relationship to authority. According to a biblical worldview, God and His laws are the ultimate source of authority, and all of us are under that authority. By contrast, according to a worldview in which there is no higher authority than human authority, nothing is fixed, and there is neither a standard nor a judge to mediate between conflicting preferences. Eckel argues that originalism works well with a biblical worldview, but he also argues that originalism doesn’t work well absent a biblical worldview since such a world resists fixity.

One topic that warrants further exploration is “original public meaning” in the context of biblical interpretation. Does it matter? And if so, how does it work? Law & Liberty readers will recall John O. McGinnis and Mike Rappaport’s recent excellent essay, “What is Original Public Meaning?”, which argues that original public meaning in the context of the Constitution is best understood as the meaning that those well-versed in law would give to a provision (the legal meaning), not the meaning that the ordinary public would give to it (the lay meaning). In the context of Protestant theology, which holds to the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, the distinction may prove to be one without a difference. Yet the distinction might matter for those who consider themselves under the Roman Catholic magisterium or who follow various Rabbinical traditions.

Another topic that the book does not take up is whether originalism (of any stripe) is a suitable interpretive tool for the Bible given its tremendous diversity. The Bible contains 66 books written in numerous genres over 1,500 years by dozens of authors writing for diverse audiences. The Old Testament, for example, contains narrative, law (covenantal, moral, civil, and ceremonial), prophecy, and poetry. To this list, the New Testament adds parables and epistles. Does originalism work better when interpreting some genres but not others? That issue also warrants exploration.

Originalism in Theology and Law does a fine job breaking ground regarding the relationship between originalism in law and originalism in theology. Overall, its collected essays provide a firm foundation for further exploration, though readers unfamiliar with the Bible, Protestant theology, and the Jewish tradition might labor. One hopes that Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians, adherents to other faith traditions, and lawyers will heed the invitation to build upon it.