'Historicity' at the core of the Gospel?

the Bible makes numerous claims - explicitly and implicitly - concerning the factuality of the events it records. At that most fundamental level, at the central core of Christian beliefs, is the fact that Christ did indeed die for the sins of humanity and then rose from the grave in a great victory over death. This forms the ground and basis of our faith. [*]

This quote is taken from a conservative Evangelical and I affirm it. In the realm of exegesis, however, it often leads to the need to interpret every Biblical story as having happened exactly as it is portrayed. As one Evangelical Introduction to the Old Testament asks: "If Jericho was not razed, is my faith in vain?"

I don't want to answer this question here, simply because I am, at present, unable to. However, I would like to ask whether the category of "history" is as self-evident as we assume, and whether it truly does justice to "the core of Christian beliefs," as Howard put it. As I read Douglas Farrow's fascinating book, Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology, I'm learning that historical events that constituted Jesus' life and mission did not just take place within history, they also transformed it. This is particularly the case with the ascension, which was "the act in which the link between our fallen world and the new creation was fully forged" (p. 39). This act has all kinds of metaphysical/cosmological consquences, consequences which lie at the heart of the Christian kerygma and thus should also be considered as being part of "the central core of Christian beliefs." In short, the Gospel does just redeem me, it redeems the very dimensions of time and space themselves. Paul Minear has made similar observations in relation to other events of the kerygma in his excellent book The Bible and the Historian (which I have posted on a number of times).

In short, though we need to say with St. Paul that "if Christ is not raised, we have believed in vain," we also need to bare in mind Paul's struggle with the ontological implications of this event. The whole of reality itself has been re-arranged around the human Christ, enthroned at the right hand of the Father. And in the light of these implications, we ought to re-evaluate once more just what it means for the Biblical narratives to be "historical," to have literally happened just as they are written. Ultimately, Scripture does not just witness to God's "mighty acts in history," (à la G. Ernest Wright) is also witnesses to his new reality, proleptically tasted in the present as the hors-d'oeuvre of the coming kingdom. Hermeneutically, that implies a vertical and not just a horizontal dimension to exegesis (see Childs' critique of the Tübingen school of Biblical Theology in Biblical Theology, 77. See also my post, The need for ontological categories in Biblical exegesis). The challenge lies in finding the correct balance between the two.

I think, by the way, that Hans Frei was touching on this too, in his response to criticism coming from Evangelicals that his narrative theology had no interest in "historical fact":

Even if I say that history if first of all the facts—and I do have a healthy respect for evidence—I come across something else. Is Jesus Christ (and here I come to the problem of miracle) a “fact” like other historical facts? Should I really say that the eternal Word made flesh, that is, made fact indeed, is a fact like any other? I can talk about “Jesus” that way, but can I talk about the eternal Word made flesh in him that way? I don't think so, just as I don't think that I can say “God created the world” and mean by that a factual referent like any other. ... Once again, yes, “Jesus” refers, as does any ordinary name, but “Jesus Christ” in scriptural witness does not refer ordinarily; or rather, it refers ordinarily only by the miracle of grace. And that means that I do not know the manner in which it refers, only that the ordinary language in which it is cast will miraculously suffice. It is historical reference (to use our cultural category) but it is not historical reference in the ordinary way: nor of course is it metaphor. [**]

[*] Howard, 1993: 35.
[**] Frei, "Response to 'Narrative Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal," in
Theology and Narrative (eds. G. Hunsinger; W. Placher; Oxford: Oxford Uni. Press, 1993), 211-212.

Update: I feel that Halden's two recent posts - Theology, Speech, and Silence and God's Incomprehensibility and Trinitarian Exploration - speak to this issue too, though in a thoroughly different manner.

Source Criticism and the Final Form

Brevard Childs has often been accused of "flattening the text," i.e seeking literary unity where there is none for the sake of sticking with the text's final form. However, it is clear as one reads his 1975 Exodus commentary that nothing could be farther than the truth. Not only does he devote extensive space to source, form and tradition critical questions, he also consistently rejects more conservative attempts to find literary unity, even questioning the usefulness of such unity if actually present (such as U. Cassuto's suggestion of a structure behind the 10 plagues of Egypt).

In what, then, does the "integrity" of the final form consist, if not in its literary structure, and why is this so important to Childs?

A clue can be seen in Childs' endorsement of M. Greenberg's alternative to Cassuto's suggestion of a literary unity to the plague tradition. Greenberg simply delineates the major themes of the entire passage in its final form, which does not depend on identifying one final literary pattern. He sees the major theme of the plague story to revolve around the revelation by God of his nature to Pharaoh, to the Egyptians, and to all men. Within the movement of the book as a whole, the plagues function as a demonstration of God's power which shatter the human reisistance to this revelation.

Why does a thematic approach to the final form serve Childs better than literary analysis (the "canonical approach" has not been fully developed yet)? The answer lies with Childs' theological convictions. The text for Childs is not the product of human ingenuity alone, but has been ultimately called into being by God. The text's function within God's plan is to "witness" to the divine reality. As such, it is the divine reality which constitutes the unity of the text, and not the literal sense of the text itself. The literal sense serves as a "vehicle" to enable the interpreter to understand the broader reality behind it, but the vehicle is not to be confused with the reality itself. As such, contradictions at the level of the narrative point to the existence of various witnesses, each speaking of God from a different angle. It is in the unity of their perspectives that the unity of scripture consists and not in the existence of one perspective alone. It just so happens that the redactional shaping of the text belongs to the witness of text. This shaping functioned as a critical norm in order to guide way in which the multiple perspectives are correlated, so that it is at the level of the last redaction that the divine reality can be fully appreciated.

The theological exegete, then, is obliged both to look at the individual witnesses (e.g. JEPD) in all their particularity as well as the way in which they have been correlated by the final redactor. Ultimately, then, the theological exegete will need to draw on commentators of both a critical as well as conservative persuasion.

Ironically, this brings Childs closer to the approach of J. Gabler than H. Frei, something I will touch on in a follow up post.

NB Scripture and Theology have kindly posted this here, with a comment from internationally celebrated, world-renowned Childs expert, Daniel Driver (who, in his editing of the title, points out that this is about the early Childs).

Figural Interpretation and Temporal Succession

Following on from my Barth quote concerning the "unity of the manifold," another beautiful quote on the complex yet powerfully relevant question of figurative reading, biblical referentiality and the theological unity of the Christian scriptures, this time by E. Auerbach. This is an area that fascinates me most at the moment. For those interested in this topic, I highly recommend Hans Frei's brilliant opening chapter from his Eclipse of Biblical Narrative.

"Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first. The two poles of a figure are separated in time, but both, being real events or persons, are within temporality. They are both contained in the flowing stream which is historical life, and only the comprehension, the intellectus spiritualis, of the interdependence is a spiritual act.

In this conception, an occurrence on earth signifies not only itself but at the same time another, which it predicts or confirms, without prejudice to the power of its concrete reality here and now. The connection between occurrences is not regarded as primarily a chronological or causal development but as a oneness within the divine plan, of which all occurrences are parts and reflections. Their direct earthly connection is of secondary imortance, and often their interpretation can altogether dispense with any knowledge of it."

Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1968), 73, 555. Cited in Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (London: Yale Univ. Press, 1974), 28, 29.

What do we do with tradition?

Chris Tilling posted recently on the relation of tradition to scritpture within the Church. He made the following quote from Perriman's book Otherways:

'Scripture is like a forest. As people explore the forest, they tend after a while to follow the paths that others have taken, simply because it's easier. So the paths get well-worn and eventually become the definitive and orthodox way of getting around the forest. In fact the paths have become so well established that people have produced maps, which has led to the phenomenon of people staying at home with their maps and never feeling the need to venture into the forest at all ... It would be nice, in a way, if we could leave the forest alone for a while, let the undergrowth regrow, let the old paths disappear, and then start again, so that we come to know the forest for the first time' (9)

I note in hindsight that in the highlighted text Perriman says "in a way", qualified with "for a while." Considering that I haven't read the book, my extended response may have been an over-reaction. But seeing as it took me a while, I thought I'd post it here (you can read the ensuing dialogue here).

. . .

I appreciate where Perriman is coming from - trying to stay awake to the particularity of the text and the implications of this particularity for our faith - but I think he needs to get clear on the nature of Christian faith itself first, before priviliging the Bible over tradition (how pretentious do I feel when I say that! Oh well). Here are my responses to comments:

From the previous post, Chris said:

But this makes me feel like Perriman's project runs the risk of neglecting the interpretive tradition of the church, and its central creedal statements

I think the risk is greater, it concerns the nature of Christian faith itself. Christian faith is not, in the first instance, about reading the Bible faithfully. It's a response to the Gospel, the God's work and word in Christ to which the four canonical Gospels only witness. They are not the Gospel themselves, they are signposts to the reality that preceded them, encompasses them and grasps us to make us want to read them in the first place.

This distinction between Gospel and text means that theological exegesis requires the paths in the forest, it requires tradition, for without the creedal summaries of the Church (which I define broadly, including Billy Graham's little pamphlets) we wouldn't know why we are reading and what we are reading for. The problem with the Pharisees was not that they were somehow lacking in a pre-traditional, un-mediated reading of the text but that they hadn't grasped the true substance of the text. Neither did the disciples, despite the fact that they knew the text's Substance personally on a daily basis. It took the post resurrection encounter with the extra-textual living Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit to open their eyes and to see what had been in the text all along. This extra-textual event "opened up" the text's true meaning (it's "spiritual" rather than "literal" meaning, to use patristic categories). It was because of this vision that the church was capable of reading the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament in the first place. Paul's hermeneutic, so scandalous to the historical-critical mind, was informed by this understanding of what had really been going on all the time (in seiner Exegese, er hat den Text verstanden, wenn nich erklärt, to use Dilthey's categories). It didn't matter how well or sensitively he read his Bible, without meeting Jesus he wouldn't have grasped the Bibles true meaning.

Thus, if "tradition" is understood to be a systematic formulation of the essence of Christian faith, then tradition is not only helpful to exegesis, it is necessary. I don't know how we'd read the Old Testament otherwise.

Which is why I disagree with Perriman's statement that

[Tradition] may arise out of our reading of scripture, but all sorts of problems arise, it seems to me, if we then reverse the process and allow our reading of scripture to be shaped by our later theological formulations

If Scripture is understood not to be the reality itself, but just a signpost to the reality (i.e. a "witness"), then a true theological grasp of individual texts requires that we to our reading in the light of broader formulations of what this single reality is. The two-testamental canon of scripture is a multifaceted witness to a single reality and its in our apprehension of the whole that we understand what is "really going on." The apostles experience of Jesus recalibrated their interpretation of the Old Testament. Our understanding of the Gospel should recalibrate our understanding of both testaments. We should never be content to remain of the surface, but, as Childs puts it, we need to pierce through to the true subject matter.

Which is why I find the following statement one-sided:

For there to be a genuine dialogue between scripture and tradition scripture must be seen for what it really is, independent of tradition as far as possible - otherwise it's a dialogue heavily weighted in favour of tradition.

Apart from struggling to understand in what sense Scripture "is independent of tradition", the true relationship is dialectic. Each area of discourse needs to be seen in the light of the other. It won't do to have a one way street going from Scripture to Tradition. This is an impossibility, both theologically and epistemologically.

I hope this makes some kind of sense ... I highly recommend Barth, Childs and Seitz on this topic. Frei wrote some great stuff on the need for typology in order to grasp the essential unity of the biblical message.

Gold dust for Childs-junkies!

I don't like to post more than once a day, but Daniel Driver over at Occasional Publications has just posted something that, for Childs-junkies like myself, is gold dust! He's dug up a very rare transcript of Karl Barth and the Future of Theology: A Memorial Colloquium Held at Yale Divinity School January 28, 1969—held barely a month after Barth passed away. Brevard Childs and Hans Frei were among the panelists. At the back of the book is a transcript of a question and answer session that followed the paper session. Daniel helpfully summarizes the main points and then types out the bits relevant to Childs and Frei.

My favorite is this bit:

Childs lines up with Frei (indeed, partly learns from Frei) on "the heart of the problem: that for Calvin, the sensus literalis IS Jesus Christ. And it was only when you have the eighteenth century identification of the literal sense with the historical sense that you’re just hopelessly lost."

When they say this (Frei: "That's right.") nobody knows what they're talking about.

I love it! Read the whole dialogue here!