tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post4803060131095970499..comments2024-01-09T12:59:32.666+01:00Comments on Narrative and Ontology: The dynamic of Holy Scripture: verbum and res.Phil Sumpterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-34011894758390877412009-04-27T19:32:00.000+02:002009-04-27T19:32:00.000+02:00I'm only aware of one sense of the word: to force ...I'm only aware of one sense of the word: to force us to do something.Phil Sumpterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-49134760939122454492009-04-26T01:30:00.000+02:002009-04-26T01:30:00.000+02:00Phil. I like your last sentence, particularly if w...Phil. I like your last sentence, particularly if we take the word 'constrains' in both senses of the word.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-88400423305121967282009-04-25T20:06:00.000+02:002009-04-25T20:06:00.000+02:00What I've said above, especially to Michael, links...What I've said above, especially to Michael, links up to my post today: <A HREF="http://narrativeandontology.blogspot.com/2009/04/goal-of-gods-self-revelation-in-old.html" REL="nofollow">The goal of God's revelation</A>. I'll post soon on why I think interpreation needs boundaries.Phil Sumpterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-91120143819966487802009-04-25T19:07:00.000+02:002009-04-25T19:07:00.000+02:00Oh, and Jason, I've updated my post. Thanks.Oh, and Jason, I've updated my post. Thanks.Phil Sumpterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-7220797326515166502009-04-25T19:06:00.000+02:002009-04-25T19:06:00.000+02:00Michael,
as always I appreciate the questions you...Michael,<br /><br />as always I appreciate the questions you pose me. <br /><br />Here's a basic, gut response, done off the top of my head without trawling through the commentaries (I may get to that if you push me hard enough :) ). This kind of thing is pretty much what I've been reading in Childs and Seitz and I think Minear says similar stuff for the New Testament (see the links in the post), and I like. It fits in with broader concerns I have about truth and the function of scripture and how Christians should respond to post-modernism etc. I was a Brueggemannian for a while and soon ran aground. That may be due to my misinterpretation of Brueggemann, but these kinds of statements always send off alarm bells. It's not that they are wrong (creative imagination and adapting old tradition to new contexts is in fact a very important <EM>element</EM> of the process), but rather that there is so much more and the most important bit, <EM>das >Mehr< im Texte</EM> (as Jüngel puts it, though I suspect meaning something far more existential), is left out of the equation. Every where I look, I see the gospel as being about a concrete, external reality that breaks into our world and demands that we conform ourselves to it. This seems to be the "flavour" of the Biblical witness: it points to another dimension of reality, God's dimension, as it interpenetrates with ours. This seems to be what is going on in the canonical shaping. As Childs puts it, events are juxtaposed because they share the same "quality of time," and not <EM>just</EM> (note: <EM>just</EM>) because of the creative intertextual possibilities inherent in certain linguistic affinities or similar narrative structures (Childs says that Biblical intertextuality is "deictic," i.e. it points to what in the title of this post I have called the <EM>res</EM> (and which in the photo is the loaf of bread, contra the winding pathway in Jason's post). Of course, when discerning similarities in "qualities of time" (ontology), similar narrative structure and linguistic markers are important signals, but the issue is the intentionality and purpose of the linkages made. <br /><br />Which doesn't really get me closer to your actual question, which is about "signals" in the text. This is a brilliant question and I will think about in the course of time. Perhaps it will be the subject of a future post ... But do keep pushing me if you're not satisfied and think I'm fudging something!<br /><br />Brad,<br /><br />I'm glad to be of help. As I said to Michael above, this concern for "ontological reality" arose from my own experience of having gone through a "postmodern" phase (whatever that word means), in which I was all about narrative construals of reality which reshape our vision of the real and construct community. There is so much that is good about that, but without a concrete referent, without "substance," it remains a breath of intellectually sophisticated wind. I have issues with Brueggemann on this. <br /><br />Thanks for your views on the phrase "unfinished drama" (which Jason endorses below). Your definition certainly changes the meaning of the phrase as I understood it, but it looks as if I misunderstood it anyway! Concerning your definition: I would still say that the canon does "close the conversation or the range of possibilities for the drama it narrates," to a degree at least. As Childs has put it (who informs just about everything I think ... embarrassing perhaps, but there we are), the canon has both a negative and a positive function. It prescribes a circle (or "arena") within which creative freedom may occur, but outside of which lurks heresy. I understand this arena to apply not just to the outer boundaries of the canon (which books can we draw upon) but to the internal structure of the canon itself (the shape of the books), as well as the intentionality that gave them that shape. Perhaps that is the sticking point ... I've rediscovered the value of a concept of intentionality which ought to constrain our interpretations. In my book, that intentionality is ultimately <EM>kerygmatic</EM>, i.e. "pointing," "deictic," like John the Bapists finger in that painting which so captivated Barth. A focus on narrative structure alone which treats the Bible as a hermeneutically sealed vacuum can be open to all kinds of abuse. (By the way, this is why I prefer Sternberg's approach to literary issues, rather than, say, Alter). <br /><br />Jason,<br /><br />thank you for getting back to me. I realize that this post may come across as a full denial of what you have posted. I hope that my comments above to Michael and Brad have clarified a bit what my concern is. I'm not reject imaginative construal per se, just applications of this concept to the task of theological interpretation which stay at that level and don't get to what I consider to be the heart of the issue. So I do agree with what you say, I just think that this innately human gift needs to be constrained by something, and that something is ... I guess I would say ... not so much the literary structure of the narrative as the reality that this narrative wishes to broker. It is the "substance of the gospel" which constrains our interpretative freedom, and that is in fact the crux of all theological (or any decent) interpretation.<br /><br />Feel free to tell me I missing something :)Phil Sumpterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16491514886782881340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-58242704404510103562009-04-24T23:20:00.000+02:002009-04-24T23:20:00.000+02:00Phil,
Just to clarify: the whole post is actually...Phil,<br /><br />Just to clarify: the whole post is actually a quote from Walsh and Keesmaat.<br /><br />To defend (at least) one of their claims, however - the Bible as unfinished drama. I understand this not in the strict sense that Walsh and Keesmaat perhaps see it as (I'm much more comfortable with Brad's reading here than with the grammar of 'historical innovation'), but they are certainly right to draw attention to the freedom and imaginative flexibility that properly attends faithful Christian exegesis.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-79968005693205757672009-04-24T18:40:00.000+02:002009-04-24T18:40:00.000+02:00This is incredibly helpful. I hadn't given enough ...This is incredibly helpful. I hadn't given enough thought to the differences between imaginative construal (or creative freedom) and the recognition of the presence of the same ontological reality "here and now" as was "there and then."<br /><br />Regarding the "unfinished drama" of Scripture, it seems to me the idea is that the Bible does not <I>close</I> the conversation or the range of possibilities for the drama it narrates to be found and named, lived and enacted in new and profound ways before the end of which it <I>does</I> speak. In that sense, Scripture may be spoken of as an "unfinished drama."Brad Easthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09342341127122254107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6547653347296107692.post-65743793045213715952009-04-24T18:05:00.000+02:002009-04-24T18:05:00.000+02:00Hi Phil,
how does the biblical composer signal to...Hi Phil,<br /><br />how does the biblical composer signal to the reader that what he is up to [insert biblical author and argument of choice] is this:<br /><br />"the language of [Isaiah] witnesses to the occurrence of an event that participates in the same kind of [redemption] as the [first Exodus], as well as every other act of God since" <br /><br />and not this:<br /><br />"a creative re-construal of a received tradition for a new historical situation"?<br /><br />Or in other words, how do you as a reader detect the difference between a sameness in the ontological identity of the events to which the text points vs. a sameness in textual representations?<br /><br />MichaelAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com