Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Bible - Historical Criticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible - Historical Criticism. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Reviews of Konrad Schmid's "A Literary History of the Old Testament" - How the OT was Compiled

 
 
When did the Old Testament become the Old Testament?
(a crash course in the form of a chart)
Author: Konrad Schmid
* * * * * * * * * *
 
 
A Review of:
The Old Testament: A Literary History
Written by Konrad Schmid
Translated by Linda M. Maloney
 
 
by Trent C. Butler
Gallatin, Tennessee
 
RBL 08/2013
 
Schmid is professor of Old Testament Studies and Jewish History at the University of Zurich. Fortress Press has served Old Testament studies a great favor by issuing this translation of a book that should be in every theological library and on the reading list of every person doing research in the field of Hebrew Bible. Schmid’s literary-history approach builds on only a few predecessors, as he shows in his history of research section.
 
Schmid sets out his task and purpose quite clearly. “Literary history is an attempt to present and interpret literary works not simply in themselves but in their various contexts, linkages, and historical development” (1). He “deals with the presuppositions, backgrounds, processes, and intertextualities making up the literary history of the Old Testament.” (xi) To do so, he sets himself an even more arduous task, working with whatever consensus recent scholarship, at least European scholarship, has reached in dealing with pentateuchal origins, the unifying elements of the Book of the Twelve, the nature of scribal or literary prophecy, and the questioning of the Deuteronomistic History, to name a few.
 
Literary history explores the linkages among texts both as contemporary dialogue partners and as tradents interpreting the diachronic interpretations of tradition. Following the literary history rather than the canonical order differentiates literary history from introduction to the Old Testament.
 
Methodologically, Schmid isolates three layers of work: (1) literary-historical epochs (pre-Assyrian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid); (2) literary types (cultic\wisdom, narrative, prophetic, legal); and (3) concrete literary works. Much of the literary material has both oral and written prehistories as well as posthistories, since the material is basically “traditional literature.” No longer does one point to a JEPD Pentateuch but rather to limited sources dealing with Abraham and Lot, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. These limited narrative horizons were joined together into the larger theological narratives only in the exilic or early postexilic period. Similarly, prophetic studies have turned to a literary posthistory of the sayings, with redactors seen as writing prophets whose work needs to be studied in its own right. Finally, Psalms study has also turned to the written book whose arrangement shows theological emphases in “a carefully structured literary whole” (29).
 
Corollary to this for Schmid is that “not a single book of the Bible has come down to us in its pre-exilic form.”(12) Beyond this, the Old Testament preserves only a portion of Israel’s literary output, limiting one’s material for comparison and conversation. In reality, “the literary history of the Old Testament  treats those texts that survived as texts available for use in the Jerusalem Temple school that later were recognized as sacred Scripture.” (15)
 
Schmid’s literary history begins, then, with a quite different piece of literature than either evangelicalism or classic critical scholarship has advocated. The Old Testament books have (1) no salvation history frame, (2) no “early source,” (3) a new understanding of Deuteronomism, (4) a new convergence between Israel’s monarchic religion(s) and that of their neighbors, (5) new importance of literary shaping in the exilic and postexilic eras, and (6) roots in scribal interpretation rather than in individual religious geniuses (29–30). With this understanding of the available text, Schmid chooses to deal with a text in the period of its first literary formation.
 
Texts were products of ninth-century and later writers who belonged to a narrow circle able to write, the majority of the population being illiterate. Very few copies of a book were produced, with the Jerusalem library being important in production and preservation. Scribes wrote the Old Testament literature for scribes: “the audience was essentially identical with the authors themselves.” (38)
 
Schmid begins the actual literary history by looking at Israelite literature’s beginning at the time of the Syro-Palestinian city-states in the tenth to eighth centuries. Schmid erases the Davidic/Solomonic empire and its great literary creations. That the historical David and Solomon produced written documents is no more than probable. Israel began “extensive literary production” in the ninth century and Judah in the eighth (51).
 
A history of biblical literature begins under the Assyrians, giving Israel its own cultural and religious identity. The reign of Manasseh (696–642) becomes the flowering of Old Testament literature. Josiah (639–609) apparently gave Judah control of the Bethel traditions. (68) Four theological streams emerged:

(1) accusing king and people, not God, for defeats (prophets and kings);
(2) literary legends of origins without a king (Moses/exodus, judges);
(3) upholding the ideal of the monarchy (Psalms, wisdom); and,
(4) anti-Assyrian concepts transferred loyalty against Assyria and to God (Deuteronomy covenant).

Written law as in the Book of the Covenant was differentiated from ethics and gave rise to written wisdom. Narrative literature in Samuel and Kings focused on individual figures. God’s intervention becomes dependent on the right action of kings. This is expressed in language akin to Deuteronomy, a linguistic style reaching down to Daniel and Baruch. Israel’s ongoing written prophecies stand without parallel and appear under the monarchy whose messenger forms they use.
 
We are stimulated and challenged to new study by this approach to study of the Hebrew Bible. If only the work could incorporate and enter into conversation with a wider range of scholars outside Europe and outside those so totally devoted to Europe’s form of redaction criticism. We look forward to updated forms of this literature pioneer.
 
Schmid organizes by chapters, each one after the opening introductions and historical reviews follows the same pattern. The chapter title is a time period each with historical backgrounds and theological characteristics followed by a classification of the literature first developing in that time period. The literature is divided by types: cult and wisdom, narrative, prophetic, and legal. The following table attempts to summarize his analysis.
 
 
 

Saturday, August 10, 2013

The Bible as a "Memory-Narrative" or "Mnemo-Narrative"




[Wikipedia] Hermeneutics /hɜrməˈnjtɪks/ is the theory of text interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts.[1][2]
 
The terms hermeneutics and exegesis are sometimes used interchangeably. Hermeneutics is a wider discipline that includes written, verbal, and nonverbal communication. Exegesis focuses primarily upon texts.
 
Hermeneutic as a singular noun refers to a single particular method or strand of interpretation. (See double hermeneutic.)
 
Modern hermeneutics includes both verbal and nonverbal communication as well as semiotics, presuppositions, and preunderstandings.[3]
 
Hermeneutic consistency refers to the analysis of texts to achieve a coherent explanation of them.
 
Philosophical hermeneutics refers primarily to the theory of knowledge initiated by Martin Heidegger and developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer in his work Truth and Method. It sometimes refers to the theories of Paul Ricoeur.[4]
 
 
Introduction
 
The inclusion of biblical stories in the bible used to be thought of as Israel's "oral history." Or, as the disciples of Jesus' "remembered history" with Him. Now, the reconstruction of the Old and New Testaments are being thought of as a "Memory-Narrative" (or Mnemo-Narrative like the cute, orange, Disney fish by the same name). In past articles (see the sidebar under Bible - Development and Canon) we have talked about the construction of the OT through the centuries (and millennia) of Israel's long, long history; and here is yet another good reminder that the church's "literalistic" reading of the Bible may not be the most appropriate way to read its ancient narratives and histories. Why? By way of a simple example, think of how hard it would be to reconstruct what happened in your church fellowship group from a year ago without revising it according to those who are listening to you (what you think they may be interested in hearing), or the topics you may wish to emphasize (and think may be worth remembering to your listeners). The upshot? Remembering a story isn't as "objective" a process as you may think. And repeating that story might not have the same affect upon a different group of listeners, like say, a humorous story, that works for one set of friends but doesn't quite work in the same way for another set of friends, falling flat when told.

The reason for this is because we, the storyteller, can get in the way of a good story. Any Sunday School teacher knows this: should they recite a bible lesson factually? Or colorfully? Or even as a funny homily from a similar life experience? My first pastor, John White, was very good at embellishing his youth raised in the corn fields of Iowa and teaching some very fine lessons from the bible (it also would hold our attention because many were humorous). Mostly, to my way of thinking, God thought that allowing us to use our colorful retelling about Him and His works amongst the nations would be a more useful pedagogic tool than a straight, boring, recitation of dry, factual history (sic, what high school history teacher can you remember? My guess is "not many!"). Left with the choice of His Holy Spirit dictating event-after-event ad naseum, or with the retelling of those events from a human author's perspective (as inspired by the Holy Spirit), God chose the latter (and really, let's be honest, could He chose any other process than ourselves? Not really).

As a result of this process of "remembering of the biblical event" through subjective, personal narration, we get into the academic disciplines of historic reconstruction known as "historical criticism" and "redactionary criticism". The former takes a hard comparative look at world history as we think we know it today from archaeological finds, while the latter analyzes how an author places his - or her's - outlook upon the world within their remembered experience, or, the experience of another.... Speaking of which, how many times have you "remembered" someone else's experience and told it back to that same person who had experienced it first-hand and found out that that wasn't how they remembered it? Perhaps you - or they - making little embellishments or wholesale storyline changes on the second and third times around?

So, you can see the depth of the problem here when it comes to interpreting God's Word.... especially as inerrant history rather than as remembered narrational (not national, but narrational) history that is historical but told from a personal viewpoint. Or remember from a collective viewpoint (by Israel, by her priests, her tribes, her people, etc). But, you say, God's Word is without error! That's true insofar as we interpret it correctly allowing for narrational oversight, undersight, cultural contextualization, ancient historical and educational knowledge (Iron Age, late Empire), etc and etc. But the biblical reader would do much better in asking "why God said this," or "why God was remembered in that fashion" than to get into the mindset of flatly stating "God's Word is without error." This would be to confuse its inspired spiritual authority in our lives pertaining to all things salvific and redemptive. And trying to equate its historical recount as errorless. The former understands that within 1500 years of historical commentary development there may be room for interpretive freedom. When we do my argument would be that we gain a much more interesting, and more complex Bible, in the process. One that isn't so locked down by dogmatic or religious statements. One that can (and well) allow for movement within our own cultures and lives about how we think about God and His revelation to us as given through human agency. Especially as our cultures today have become more dynamically complex than they were in Moses' day, or in the disciple's day, given the massive populations living today as versus the much smaller human populations living back 2000 - 4000 years ago.

Moving forward... a third category (and there are many more as I will shortly suggest) would be "literary criticism" that looks at the speech and language patterns found within a text; the kinds of literary themes present; and even the ambiguity of language itself in delving into topics we seek to dogmatize  rather than leave open lest we unduly restrict God's Word. Much can be said about this but I will leave it open for now as simply another observation.

Another redactive category is that of looking at the Scriptures existentially through ourselves as a necessaryinterpreters of God's profound Word. Or, viewing it through our modern day cultures which may be more pluralistic, multi-ethnic, educated, and certainly quite unlike the socio-cultural contexts of the ancient societies found in the Bible. Or even, by our "era-specific contexts which means how the church in the Medieval, or Enlightenment, eras may have looked at various biblical texts differently than how we do now as Modern, or Postmodern, people of the 21st Century. Thus, individual and societal views do affect how we read the Bible and its meaning of Jesus and the gospel in our lives.
 
Consequently, interpreting the Word of God as a living document (rather than as a static, dead artifact) is not necessarily a simple a process, as many in-the-pews and pulpits today have made it out to be when using the approach of reading the "plain meaning of the word" within the Bible's historical pages. A literalistic, wooden reading of the Bible simply becomes unhelpful as we discover question-after-question that must lie unanswered by this method. An approach that can make God even more distant from ourselves when approached in this haphazard way. Mostly, our street-level, uninformed, pedestrian-way-of-thinking is unhelpful when interpreting the Bible as an ancient document that is believed to be relevant for mankind today. As such, we would do well to listen to the experts rather than using ourselves as reliable guides.

Too, we would do well to remember that Jesus is the Bible's center. Should our Lord and Savior become lost within the Bible's pages than we should consider some other process or interpretation that would see Jesus-theology as the focus of its history.... This would be known as a Christo-centric hermeneutic (or method of interpretation). If not, the Bible becomes a cold, impersonable, history book rather than as a living document for our spiritual lives (kinda like American history when remembered apart from its personal stories). The Bible is God's living word into our lives today. As Paul once said to Timothy, we must enter in carefully to the study of the Word lest we be found fools and false prophets, alarmists and unworthy shepherds. And this is good advice both for the Christian as well as for the non-Christian analyst who would tell us of the Jesus of our faith. I don't expect the non-Christian to be able to tell me of Jesus as my Savior.... Perhaps for that person Jesus may be seen as a political zealot, or as a Jewish insurrectionist, but to understand the God of the universe as become incarnate as my Savior and Lord, will be out of their reach. Which doesn't mean that they don't know what their talking about historically, but that its spiritual impact is beyond them. As believers we listen, we discern, we think, we ask questions at all times. Both to those outside the house of God as well as to those within the house of God. We are at all times culpable (accountable, but flawed) for our interpretation of God and life.

At the last, the Bible for the Christian must be as theological as it is historical, as personal as it is reflective. But it must be historical if it is to be theological. That is, the Jesus of history must also be the Jesus of my Christian faith. The trick is to know what kind of Jesus and Bible we as Christians read. Thus my plea today to divide God's Word carefully using all the resources at hand, and not just our favorite dogmas that reinforce our views (say a preferred church view, for example). For me, literalism doesn't work. It misleads. It misinforms. It doesn't quite fill out the complexity of God's story blending with His creation and with humanity's movement and change.

Hence, the external factors cited above are just some of the observed influences that help open-up and recreate a storyteller's story. By transference, by the time Israel began codifying its Hebraic canon (or Old Testament) in the Second Temple period (600-500 BC) many of its historical events, social movements, and personal experiences of God had already occurred as complete. By the time of its codification Israel had suffered exile into Babylonian lands and there God used this time of "wilderness experience" to teach His people again about Himself (thus the stories of the Exodus, and cycles of judgment in Judges and the prophetic books). These stories held RELEVANCE to Israel's shattered faith as it began to purposefully reconstruct what was left of her belief in God and disbelief in themselves as final anchors in the world of men. At the last, through Daniel and Nehemiah, God restored His people to the land of Canaan, but as a broken people broken into a thousand different pieces, belief groups, and religious viewpoints about God as found in her Intertestamental period between Malachi and Matthew (400BC - 6 BC).

Each of Israel's collective histories paid homage to her belief that God had not abandoned them. That He would lead them to a more sure salvation than by the works of her own hands. To a Messiah that would come, filled with the Spirit of God, declaring by word, deed, and very life, God's love and mercy, justice and wisdom, forgiveness and hope. Each of these collective stories having been preserved by the priests of the restored Second Temple wishing to tell about their God who redeemed them. Their recommitment to this God of their faith. And Israel's place in the world as herald-and-banner to the Messiah to come. As they reconstructed the Old Testament Scriptures they were reconstructing their spiritual beliefs and assurances. Which was not an easy task considering that the worship of God and His Word was not written down in whole, but in part (at best it resided in incomplete fragments and disseparate scrolls). Or dependent upon faded oral stories from long, long ago. Whose temple scrolls had been lost, or ill-preserved, or had undergone desperate times of regional/national upheaval in Israel's life. Times like being forgotten for decades - neither rehearsed nor practiced. Disobeyed. Lost by war, by pride, by Baal worship. And by dominating selective religious interests (sic, Aaron's desire to make an image of God; Joshua and Judges cycles of rebellion and doubt; Samuel's laxity as a great high priest before God; Northern Israel's separation from the Kingdom of Judah, etc).

This was Israel's history. A history filled with societal turmoil amid its spiritual development, and redemptive evolution, from Abraham to Jesus through 1500 years of historical formation. As an example, try retelling America's story of colonialization to its citizens living within the period of the Revolutionary War 350 years ago.... Our modern stories of America's birth will probably sound very unlike how those living in the 18th Century would have retold America's early history. What worked for those early American societies does not have the same impact upon us here today. Even so, Israel's view of itself had changed over the long years of its societal birth and formation. Let us, as readers of God's Word, become then more careful discerners to the Word of God, and not be so easily swayed by pulpit or press just what is, or what is not, God's Word.... My guess is that it is a lot more complex and forgiving than we would like to make it out to be by our pet theories or interpretations. My guess is that God is amazing even as His re-creation in our lives can be too. If anything, Israel's history is one of recreation at the hands of an amazing God. One they misunderstood and didn't count on. Of a God who lifted them up to praise His name even as King David had raised his banners to his God in Psalms, and hymns, and on musical instruments. This is the kind of redeemer God who is beyond our imagination. Who forgives our sin. Our shortcomings. Our disbelief. Who tells us that He loves us as no other. Who will give us life by His life in Jesus. And spiritual assurance. And presence when we had none but ourselves, lost and alone in our own wilderness of sin and turmoil. This is the kind of God that the Scriptures do testify of. To this we may only proclaim Amen, and Amen. Thus is Israel's testament to her own remembered history even as we do today with ours.
 
R.E. Slater
August 2, 2013
 
* * * * * * * * * *
 
 
 
Archaeology and the Exodus Story as a “Mnemo-Narrative”
(and no cracks about “finding mnemo” please)
 
by Peter Enns
July 30, 2013
 
Below is a half-hour video passed on to me a while back by an archaeologist friend of mine. It is of a lecture given by Israeli archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan University.
 
The lecture is entitled, “Can Archaeological Correlates for the Mnemo-Narrative of Exodus be Found?” I think I embed the video properly, but if not, you can click the link above.
 

 
I find this sort of thing fascinating. Maeir’s main point is that the exodus story in the Bible is the end product of  narratives (plural) that came down to the biblical writer from different times and which he compiled into a narrative (singular). He compares the exodus story to an archaeological tell–dig down and you go further back in time to earlier stages of the story.
 
Part of Maeir’s lecture focuses on what he feels are misuses of archaeology by those who seek to find correlation between archaeological findings and the biblical narrative. One of the problems with that approach is that the “biblical narrative,” though still capable of depicting history, is nevertheless a memory–a “mnemo-narrative.”
 
Following the work of such scholars as Jan Assmann, Maeir points out that memories are not simply reports of events but reconstructions of events.
 
Common experience will bear this out when we think of how we recall the past as individuals. We, often unwittingly, shape our retelling of the past to reflect how we see the past and ourselves in general. We collapse together discreet events, we invent dialogue, etc., not to deceive but to in an effort to bring the past into our current experience of ourselves.
 
Understanding the biblical story of the exodus as a mnemo-narrative, Maeir argues, helps explain why there is no archaeological support for it–even though an event of this magnitude could not stay in hiding for long.
 
Based on how these things are normally handled in the ancient world, one would expect Egyptian sources not to ignore the departure of about 2,000,000 slaves and the crippling of the Egyptian power base (as in the plagues). They would need to explain it, i.e., they would have to spin it, as, say, an indication that their gods were angry with them for some failure. That is a common way that ancient cultures “explained” military defeat. The worse the defeat, the better an explanation was needed.
 
Maeir reasons that archaeology and the biblical narrative do not match up not so much because nothing happened, but because of the nature of the biblical narrative as a mnemo-narrative. The exodus story that we have is the result of a process of “remembering” the past through ongoing reception and appropriation over time. Those memories were–as are all memories–transformed and shaped by those very communities that embrace and transmit them.
 
Seeking correspondence between archaeology and the biblical narrative of the exodus is, therefore, misguided, for it treats the biblical narrative is a single-layered report handed down essentially unchanged from early on and that can be placed side-by-side with potential archaeological remains.
 
Put another way, the exodus story we have in the Bible, whatever its historical foundation might be, is a story that is not open to archaeological verification because the story reflects more how later Israelite communities came to understand the past in view of their present purposes for remembering.
On one level, there is nothing tremendously new here, though Maeir helpfully brings the study of memory to bear on the perennial issue of archaeology and the Bible.
 
Any thoughts on this, especially from those who might be abreast of biblical archaeology and the process of memory?
 
 
 
For Further Reading:
 
Reviews of Konrad Schmid's "A Literary History of the Old Testament" - How the OT was Compiled
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Peter Enns - Historical Criticism and Evangelicalism: An Uneasy Relationship

 
by Peter Enns
July 1, 2013
 
 
An Introduction.
 
Modern biblical scholarship—also referred to as historical criticism, and less often today “higher criticism”—has an uneasy history with evangelicalism. In fact, evangelicalism’s intellectual component is largely a sustained response to the methods, philosophy, and conclusions of historical criticism. In some cases that response has come in the form of the rejection of historical criticism, in other cases a synthesis or adaptation of its methods and conclusions with evangelical theology.
 
The tensions are rooted, I feel, in the core commitment of the evangelical movement to the authority of Scripture. Since Scripture is divine revelation, i.e., God’s self-disclosure, its “authority” is tied explicitly to inerrancy and a number of corollaries such as historical accuracy and the essential theological harmony of Scripture.
 
Scripture’s function in evangelicalism is to lay down the basic map of Christian thought and practice, what we are to understand about God, Christ, Scripture itself, the human condition, and Christian practice. The task of historical criticism, on the other hand, is to peer “behind” Scripture and inquire as to its origins and meaning as understood within the cultural context in which the various texts were written. These two diverse approaches to Scripture are not easily compatible.
 
In principle, evangelicalism is not inimical to historical inquiry. In fact, one of evangelicalism’s hermeneutical pillars is the interpretation of Scripture in its historical context and in line with its original, intended, meaning—what is typically referred to as “grammatical-historical interpretation.” The tensions with historical criticism are not over the mere idea of investigating Scripture in the context, but in manner in which historical critics get there and the conclusions that they reach. In both respects, historical criticism has tended to undermine evangelical premises of biblical authority.
 
What complicates matters considerably for evangelicals, however, is that the general contours of historical criticism are widely persuasive, even universally so outside of evangelical (and fundamentalist) communities. I see four general, interrelated, aspects of historical criticism that are well established in biblical scholarship and also, in various ways, at odds with mainstream evangelicalism’s understanding of the nature of Scripture.
 
 
1. Biblical origins. The Old Testament we know today has a lengthy developmental history, both oral and written. The drawing together of these traditions that did not commence in earnest until the Babylonian exile (6th c. BC) and did not come to an end until sometime during the Persian period (roughly 5th and 4th centuries BC) at the earliest. This does not mean that the Hebrew Bible was written out of while cloth during this period. Some books or portions of books clearly were, but many others were added to or updated in some way.
 
[Similarly,] issues surrounding the formation of the New Testament are similar, but involve a much shorter period of time.
 
 
2. Perspectives of the biblical writers. When speaking of their past, the Old Testament writers were not working as modern historians or investigative journalists to uncover verifiable facts (as we might put it). They were more storytellers, conduits for generations—even centuries—of tradition, which they brought together to form their sacred text. In the Old Testament we have Israel’s national-religious story as seen through the eyes of those responsible for giving it its final shape.
 
This is not to say that they invented these traditions on the spot, but they “packaged” their past as they did to address their present crisis—exile, return, and an uncertain future. Israel’s inscripturated story both accounts for this crisis and also points the way forward to the hope that God has not abandoned his people but has a glorious future in store for them.
 
A similar issue holds for the New Testament, where the Gospels reflect the experiences and thinking of various Christian communities a generation and more after Jesus’ ministry on earth. They, too, are presentations of Jesus and the early missionary activities that reflect the perspectives and needs to the respective communities.
 
 
3. Theological diversity. Given historical criticism’s focus on matters of biblical origin, the diversity of the various biblical texts is highlighted with no pressing concern, as we see in evangelicalism, to draw these diverse texts into a harmonious whole. Hence, historical criticism speaks freely of the different theologies contained in Scripture.
 
One practical implication is that the evangelical hermeneutical methodology of allowing “Scripture to interpret Scripture” tends to fall on deaf ears among historical critics. Reading Genesis, for example, through the eyes of Isaiah or Paul in order to understand the meaning of Genesis would be like reading Shakespeare through the eyes of Arthur Miller and expecting to gain from it an insight into what Shakespeare meant.
 
 
4. The problem of historicity. This last aspect of historical criticism in effect summarizes the previous three: the Bible does not tell us what happened so much as what the biblical writers either believed happened or what they invented. This is not to say that historical critics think nothing of historical importance can be found in Scripture, but that any historical information is inextricably bound up with the perspectives and purposes of the biblical writers.
 
 
In Summary.
 
There are other ways of outlining the nature of historical criticism, of course, but this will do to highlight why tensions exist between historical criticism and evangelicalism. The former presents us with a Bible that the latter is loathe to accept in toto because of its significant theological ramifications.
 
Yet, most evangelical biblical scholars understand the persuasiveness and positive impact that at least some aspects of historical criticism have had on our understanding of Scripture. One need only glance at a decent evangelical Study Bible or commentary to see that impact.
 
The tensions between evangelicalism and historical criticism have not been settled, nor will they be in the near future, at least as I see it. There seems to be an implicit détente, where it is acceptable to mine historical criticism and appropriate its theologically less troubling conclusions but to draw the line where those conclusions threaten evangelical theology.
 
This sort of back-and-forth dance can ease tensions temporarily, but it virtually guarantees that each generation of thoughtful evangelicals, once they become sympathetically exposed to historical criticism, will question where lines should be drawn and why seemingly arbitrary lines have been drawn where they are.
 
The fact that these inner-evangelical tensions keep coming up anew each generation suggests that older solutions to these tensions are not persuasive but more a temporary stopgap measure to maintain evangelical theological stability. A possible way forward is to promote an explicit synthesis between evangelical theology and historical criticism in order to achieve, potentially, a more lasting peace. The difficulty here, however, is that such synthesis might threaten the very structure of evangelicalism to the breaking point.
 
I am an advocate for such a synthetic discussion, though I would also stress that historical criticism is not the end all of biblical interpretation for the spiritual nourishment of the church. But where historical matters are the focus, historical criticism is a non-negotiable conversation partner.
 
As I see it, the pressing issue before evangelicalism is not to formulate longer, more complex, more subtle, and more sophisticated defenses of what we feel God should have done, but to teach future generations, in the academy, the church, and the world, better ways of meeting God in the Scripture we have.
 
 

Translation and Theology - Jesus and the Early Church's Reading of the Greek OT Bible (the Septuagint)

 
 
 
Here’s Something about the Bible of the First Christians I Bet Many of You Didn’t Know (you’re welcome)
Accordingly, when anyone claims, “Moses meant what I say,”and another retorts, “No, rather what I find there,” I think that I will be answering in a more religious spirit if I say, “Why not both, if both are true?” And if there is a third possibility, and a fourth, and if someone else sees an entirely different meaning in these words, why should we not think that he was aware of all of them?
- Augustine, Confessions 12.31.42
 

  
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
 
 
ADDENDUM
 
"One of my observations is to ask how language can be fluid and flexible enough
to accommodate limited theological and historical understanding. Indeed, this
is the strength of the (b)ible as it passes between the generations of man from
one socio-cultural era to another!" - r.e. slater
 
 
 
cf. sidebar: "Bible - Authority and Interpretation"
 
 
For additional reading  pursuing articles under the sidebars of "Bible".
Here are a couple you may find: 
 
A Jewish Perspective of the Bible
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-jewish-perspective-of-bible.html
 
Barnum Synagogue
 
 
 
Development of the Hebrew Bible Canon
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/11/development-of-hebrew-bible-canon.html
 
A Jewish Bible Passage Unscrolled