A Beautiful Short Film

Stephen from Emerging from Babel has posted this wonderful short film, produced by Alonso Alvarez Barreda in Mexico/U.S.A. It's called Historia de un Letrero (The Story of a Sign) and has won the NFB Online Competition Cannes 2008. It's less than 5 min so give it a watch!

The Problem of a Two-Testamental Canon

I have finally come to point 3 of the humongous thread that I started in September 2007 dealing with the defining features of specifically Christian exegesis. Point 3 concerns the two-testamental nature of Christian scripture. Today, just a few words of introduction:

Despite the universal assent within the Christian church to a two-testamental Bible, there are two issues which have never received a single resolution: the scope of the Christian canon and the nature of the relationship between its two parts. The church has struggled throughout the centuries to understand the theological implications of this reality. From the Enlightenment onwards, however, the issue came to be understood in history-of-religions terms. As such, the theological question has largely been ignored as irrelevant. For the Church, the question of the integrity and scope of the two testaments, along with the nature of their relationship, is too important to be ignored.

Stay tuned for a "canonical" response to the problem ...

The Goal of Interpretation

I am concerned as a Christian theologian to penetrate these texts of Scripture and grapple with the reality which called ... them forth. Can we use both these sets of testimony [i.e. the Old and New Testaments] to guide us to God himself and to speak of his creation? In my opinion, this is the goal of interpretation as a discipline of the Christian church.

B.S. Childs, "Psalm 8 in the Context of the Christian Canon," in Interpretation 23/1 (1969), 20-31.

Christian Zionism: Some Positive Developments

John Hobbins, via Hirhurim, links to an excellent article on the theological relation between the Church and the modern State of Israel. Interestingly, it's written from a Catholic perspective and is packed with insight. I'm in total agreement with John when he says

I am not a particularly optimistic person, but after reading the article and the post, hope caught hold of me as it hasn’t for some time. In my neck of the woods, it has been hard to claim the name of evangelical Zionist because of the many crackpots out there who self-identify as such. Now, the rules are changing.

This is an issue that won't go away and needs to be addressed. Here are three quotes that stood out for me:

Ultimately, Jews and Christians must remain a mystery to each other. Christians cannot help but ­recognize that Providence has sustained the Jews through their long exile, yet they cannot explain why Jews do not recognize Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of their prophecy. Jews cannot help but recognize that Christians are inspired by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yet they cannot explain Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus, except to dismiss it as a “world-historical fiction” (in Franz Rosenzweig’s words).

For Christians, the Jewish nation stands as a living reproach to Gentile nations: They reject Christian universality by desiring election in their own flesh. For the Jews, Christianity signifies that only as individuals can Gentiles enter the people of God, and that no other ethnicity may covet their election in the flesh. Jews ­cannot affirm salvation through Christ, and Christians cannot affirm salvation without Christ.

Jews have little to fear from Christian universality; the mortal danger to their existence stems rather from the jealousy of Gentile nations who covet election.

This last quote is particularly interesting, as the principle of the particularity of Jewish election has become a cornerstone in Christopher Seitz's take on the canonical approach. See his article "'And without God in the World': A Hermeneutic of Estrangement Overcome," in Word Without End (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 41-50. For Childs, too, the "mystery of Israel" is a foundational concept.

Childs Responds to Protestant Critics

Childs' phenomenal Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture received some heavy criticism, including from some of his more Protestant colleagues. Here is his response to their worries, taken from his "Response to Reviewers" in JSOT 1980:55:

"There is another recurrent criticism, usually expressed by my Protestant colleagues, that the emphasis on tradition and canon threatens the ultimate authority of God whose will is known through his Word. Did not the recipients if the divine revelation often misunderstand and even obscure the message? I do not doubt for a moment that they did. The canon can make no claim to infallibility. However, a crucial hermeneutical issue is at stake when it is assumed that the time-conditionality of the canonical witness can be theologically "corrected" by means of historical critical reconstructions. Rather, the position being defended is that the canon functions truthfully and authoritatively in all its frailty. A different theological dynamic is at work to guide the community of faith in reflecting critically on God and the world through the canonical tradition. The interaction of the various parts of Scripture often serves to balance, check, and subordinate individual elements. Then again, the language of faith constantly adjusted the semantic level on which texts were read and heard. But ultimately, the appeal to the role of the Holy Spirit both confirms the centrality of the tradition as the vehicle of continuing instruction, and also subordinates the written word to God himself as the source of all truth."

An Amazing Offer from Logos: Forms of Old Testament Literature

I accidently came accross a pre-pub offer from Logos this afternoon which was so mouth-wateringly tempting that I couldn't resist and took the time to negotiate with my wife the financial feasability of purchase. So, I've gone ahead and spent my 180$ (115 €) on the amazing Forms of the Old Testament commentary series. Here is a description of the aim the series:

The aim of this series, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans, is to present a form-critical analysis of every book in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) based on a standard outline and methodology. Fundamentally exegetical, the Forms of the Old Testament Literature volumes examine the structure, genre, setting, and intention of the biblical literature in question. Basic to this series is its attempt to study the history behind the form-critical discussion and to reveal the exegetical process in order to enable students and pastors to engage in their own analysis and interpretation of the Old Testament texts. Each volume includes thorough bibliographies and a glossary of the genres and formulas identified in the commentary.

Not every book is present (there are 17 volumes altogether, go here for an overview), but the list of authors along with their endorsers is really quite impressive. Names that catch my attention: Brueggemann, Childs, Sweeney, Knierim, Coats, Lohfink, Murphy, Miller ... Does anyone have any opinions on the work of Erhard Gerstenberger?

What is the Sensus Literalis of Scripture?

Well, here's B.S. Childs' take on the issue:

The literal sense of the text is the plain sense witnessed to by the community of faith. It makes no claim of being the original sense, or even of being the best. Rather, the literal sense of the canonical Scriptures offers a critical theological norm for the community of faith on how the tradition functions authoritatively for future generations of the faithful. [*]

As such, the hermeneutical move which tries to bridge the gap between past and present must take place in terms of the literal sense of the final form of the text. This literal sense is not in tension with the spiritual (or figurative) sense, but rather serves different functions within the community of faith. Indeed,

the literal sense of the text is the indispensable key for the hermeneutical task of actualizing the tradition because in its shaping of the tradition it has critically rendered the material into a form suitable for future accommodation. [**]

See also my posts here and here.

[*] Childs, “The Sensus Literalis of Scripture,” 92

[**] Ibid., 93