I can't stop saying "ontological"

I posted this comment on Facebook and a friend asked me what "ontological" means. My answer turned into a short essay  outlining not only what it means for me but also why I can't stop saying it. Here's my answer:

It literally means "the study of being,” but I’m using it in a particular way. When I say something "is" something, and emphasise that by saying that something "is ontologically" something, it means that I am making a fundamental statement about its "nature." 

It's a vague concept, I know. I'm not actually interested in proposing a general theory of the nature of reality - I don't think human language and concepts can even do this as we are part of what we're trying to describe and we can't stand outside "it" in order to analyse it. Rather, I'm interested in the question of how we should read the Bible. This entails asking what it "is." The answer to this involves saying things like: it's a composite product of an ancient Israelite culture produced over a long time span. 

There is also another element, however, of what the Bible "is," for one finds all over the Bible statements that its purpose - regardless of its human particularity - consists in communicating the will and the identity of God to those who want to know it. It says that this purpose is something that God himself wills, that it is in fact the primary reason for the Bible's existence in the first place, and that God himself makes sure that this purpose is fulfilled within the lives of those who read it. So, if you take this self-depiction seriously, then according to the Bible the answer to the question of what it "is" is that it is a vehicle of divine revelation and salvation. In other words, the Bible sees itself as part of a broader context, a context even broader than the human one, namely the context of a history of salvation in which the eternal God is constantly revealing himself to humanity through this book. 

Yet, there is one further step: the Bible also says that what God himself decides to do in our created space and time is ultimately an expression of something that he himself eternally "is." God himself has a "being" but this being is dynamic, not static. The church calls this the "ontological Trinity," because it believes that God "is" an eternally loving relationship of three distinct persons, who we call the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (this, by the way, is what Christians mean when they say God "is" love; this is an ontological statement; God's being "is" the love of the Father and the Son in the Spirit). It therefore follows that the answer to the question of what the Bible "is" is ultimately related to the question of who God "is." Eternally, the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and the bond that unites them is the Spirit. Temporally, i.e. in our created time, this eternal relationship "unfolds" to allow us to participate in the relationship. The Son became flesh and through his work of salvation for mankind by conquering the power of death on the cross he "brings" us into the eternal relationship that exists between him and his father. 

This process of "bringing in", however is, from our perspective not yet complete. In other words, those who now in our time put their faith in the Son receive a "foretaste" of a fuller relationship that is to come. This is why Christians are people who are "waiting" for the fulfilment of time, the "kingdom of God" on earth in which humanity can finally enter into the eternal relationship that God is. In the "meantime," that moment between the Son's historical redemption of humankind (around 33 A.D) and his return, humankind itself is to grow in that relationship that has been started but not consummated. And it does this by reading the Bible. The Bible "is" the place where this relationship grows. God already knows us. The Bible "is" the place where he makes himself known to us “in the meantime”, so that we can respond to him in worship and adoration in anticipation of the day when we can finally “come home,” which is into his arms as a son into the arms of his father. 

This has consequences for question for how I should read the Bible, which I won’t go into now as I’ve already written a ridiculously long comment! My point is just this: when most people ask themselves what the Bible “is,” and therefor how they should read it, they often just stop at the human bit and so end up reading it partially. Their decision to do this, however, is not only inadequate to the nature of the Bible, it is based on a prior assumption about what “ultimate reality” really is. Whatever that reality is, it doesn’t look like the one I just described above. They are commited to a different "ontology" than the one the Bible witnesses to. This is why the category of “ontology” is so important for reading the Bible. It helps us think about what the Bible “is” in a way that does justice to what it claims for itself.

Dealing with anachronism in Exod 16:1-36

Assuming one wishes to read the Old Testament as "Christian scripture," how does one deal with the presence of anachronism in the storyline? As part of my general overview of Childs' approach to Biblical exegesis, I turn today to Childs' treatment of the anachronism that is found in the story of the manna and quails (Exodus 16:1-36).

According to the story, God commands that the jar of manna be placed “before the Testimony” (i.e. tablets of the Ten Commandments; עדות; v. 34). The problem is that the Ark, which contains the Testimony, hasn't been built yet. Childs rejects both the pre-critical solution to this problem, which says that God's command was given by way of anticipation, as well as the typical historical-critical solution, which say it was simply an oversight on the part of the redactor. Childs interpretation is also not “post-critical,” in the sense that he does not attempt to bracket out the question of the history of the text and remain within the "story world" of Exodus. Rather, he notes that it is often the case that “chronological inconsistencies usually reflect definite theological concerns” on the part of the Biblical editors[1] and proceeds to deduce that intentionality from the effect created by its present placement. In light of this broader editorial activity, he concludes the following:

It is much more likely that also here there is a theological point which caused the writer to override the chronological sequence. A jar of manna which is the sign of God's sustaining mercy is kept alongside the tablets of the law. Indeed, the sign of divine grace preceded the giving of the law of Sinai! Still the emphasis of this passage does not fall on establishing the priority of the manna, nor should the chronology be pressed. Rather, the point of the text focuses on the testimony that the manna and the tablets belong together before God. In New Testament terminology, the gospel and the law cannot be separated.[2]

Note that Childs is happy to let the tension stand at the level of the narrative: there is a genuine anachronism. But this is only a problem to a modern reader, for whom chronological consistency is an overriding concern. When seen in the light of its diachronic development, Childs tries to get to the matter that was editor's concern, and that is theology. You could say God's time over against our time. The "divine economy" trumps "profane history," such that we catch a glimpse into the order of events that really matters: in salvation history, grace always precedes law. 

Childs is also sensitive to the issue of over-weighting the editorial concern. In his opinion, the weight of the text does not consist in the fact that it is now placed before the giving of the Law. It still has a degree of independence over against its larger narrative context. The main point is "pericope immanent": gospel and law cannot be separated.

---

[1]     Childs, Exodus, 291.

[2]     Childs, Exodus, 291-292.

"Ontological thirst": my new favourite phrase

While perusing the fascinating collection of essays contained in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, I came across what has now become one of my favourite phrases: "ontological thirst." We all have it, though I wonder how many theories of "theological hermeneutics" are constructed in denial of that fact?

The context of the quote is the relation between science and theology, rather than theological hermeneutics, thought I do think that Welker's essay has hermeneutical implications (for the relationship between "history" and "ontology" go here and here).

Here's the context for the phrase:

Only knowledge of reality constitutes truth, and only truth can quench the thirst that leads to research. ... The point of departure [for scientists and theologians] is difficult. We recognize ... that we find ourselves in a worldwide cultural communication but with multiple rationalities. .. Within this pluralism of rationalities, however, science and theology share something in common. Both are driven by ontological thirst, by the thirst to know reality as it is. Both shun delusion. Both are pursued by truth-seeking communities." (Resurrection, p. xiii).

Critical thoughts on the Oxford Psalms Conference

I've just returned from the Oxford Psalms conference, of which Bob MacDonald has provided an overview in a series of posts (along with some photos and a youtube video of the reconstructed Temple Psalmody we heard in the chapel). The experience was enriching, eye-opening, and in particular motivating as far as my own particular strand of work is concerned (Childs' approach to the Bible). Despite a technical hiccup with the publication of my abstract, I had two amazing conversations with two of the Psalms' greatest contemporary students: Erhard Gerstenberger and Frank-Lothar Hossfeld. The beauty of these two separate dialogues is that Hossfeld and Gerstenberger are in fact Gegenspieler as far as methodology is concerned: Gerstenberger representing the "older" form critical approach (an approach whose presuppositions are rightly still foundational for much contemporary interpretation) and Hossfeld representing the "newer" synchronic approach (Sitz im Buch rather than Sitz im Leben). Part of my thesis is that there is, in fact, a bridge over the apparent chasm that separates these two approaches (one that allows for two-way traffic), and that Childs, properly understood, is the man who has brought that reality most clearly to view.

And therein lies the problem I have with an otherwise excellent conference: the complete silence  (beyond a few minor footnotes) concerning Childs' own contribution to the field that, I would claim, he helped shape into its present form. I find this problematic for a minor and for a major reason. Of minor significance is simply the irony that it is ultimately the work of Brevard Childs that has made the peculiar scope of this particular conference possible in the first place. Am I exaggerating? Perhaps - I'm not an expert on the history of scholarship. But before Childs' ground-breaking work, did not "Wirkungsgeschichte" belong in the church/Jewish history department? And wasn't "Jewish/Christian" dialogue a concern of systematic theology? And why should the Psalm's liturgical actualization within a community of faith now migrate from the department of liturgy to that of Biblical exegesis? Aside from the obvious (though seemingly forgotten) fact that it was Childs who put both the Psalm superscriptions and the shape of the Psalter on the interpretive agenda, was he not also the first to insist that the full scope of research questions displayed at this conference was in fact an integral and necessary part of the exegesis of the text itself?

My primary concern here is not, however, about apportioning recognition where it is due. My major concern is with the coherence of the conference itself and, along with that, the discipline of Biblical studies. One impression that accompanied me throughout the conference was the disjointed manner by which the various fields of research were brought into relation. A historical critical reading of a Psalm was simply one possibility alongside an analysis of the history of its interpretation. The musical renditions of the Psalms in the chapel were aesthetic (perhaps spiritual), but not connected in any academically accountable way with the actual meaning of the texts themselves. Even talk of the "convergence" of Jewish and Christian interpretation in the modern period seemed disconnected from actual faith claims made by these communities (can Christian exegesis be non-Christological?) as well the constructive interpretive proposals made by Biblical exegetes, whose primary task is to look at the meaning of the text itself.

It is one thing to present an "array" of approaches to the Psalms, but the very act of arraying presupposes that there is some unity which the diversity of approaches ought, in some sense, to illuminate. Even in a so-called "postmodern" context, a conference such as this one must at least, at rock bottom, assume the presence of a single subject matter: the Psalms themselves. Are they not the ultimate object of research? Ought not the various subject areas thus arrayed function to enlighten our reading of the Psalms themselves rather than something else connected to the psalms? I fear that the very telos of such a conference is threatened when there is no attempt to bring diachronic, synchronic, reception history (etc.) perspectives into dialogue with each other, a dialogue that is about the Psalms themselves.

If the conference was not about the Psalms, what was it about? What was its unifying object of inquiry? If one is to argue - as seems implied - that illustrating the tension between peshat and midrash is interesting in its own right, that questions of the ordering of the Qumran Psalms or Rastafarian reinterpretation or medieval religious usage are all interesting in their own right, then it seems that the only thing uniting these approaches is the phenomenon of human cultural endeavour, as it is engaged in referring to or preserving or creating or inspiring or involving in some manner Israel's psalms. It seems that our Psalms conference was ultimately an exercise in cultural anthropology. If what matters is what humans have done and do then it is perfectly understandable that Rashi is simply juxtaposed with Akhenaten, the Temple archives with Anglo-Saxon Psalters, Qumranic textual variants with postmodern paraphrase. On this view, the proper object of inquiry is not the text itself as a vehicle of some concept or reality but us, humanity in its aspect as cultural being. The consequence is that the intertextual web is expanded indefinitely and Biblical studies migrates to the cultural anthropology department, where it threatens to dissolve upon arrival.

The irony in this is that the conference's explicit agenda was theological, not anthropological. It's title, "Conflict and Convergence," points to a desire to overcome readings by the Jewish and Christian faith communities which are mutually exclusive. The assumption is that the modern university can now, finally, after centuries of conflicting exegesis, provide a context whereby the exegeses of these two religious entities can finally "converge." Yet, can an approach to the Bible which is ultimately anthropological fulfil that task? Though both Jews and Christians confess that God's Word comes in humans words, those human words are also understood to be vehicles of God's Word. This is why Scripture is "holy," it has something to do with God, and not just in phenomenologically sense that they claim this to be so, but in the ontological sense that it really is. Christians and Jews are ultimately not interested in what humans have done or do with the Psalms, they are interested in what they should do because of the Psalms.

I would summarize my issue with the Oxford conference as a question: what constitutes the coherence under-girding the broad (and ever expanding) scope of interests arrayed for our attention? If, as the conference has implied, that coherence is human existence per se, the conference's own theological agenda will be undermined. But is there another way of conceiving the unity of the approaches? Could it be that Old Testament studies' typical Sitz im Leben in the theology rather than anthropology department is not an accidental misjudgement but rather an indication of the true coherence under-girding both the text and community? And if so, what does this kind of coherence mean for Jewish and Christian dialogue? Which is another way of asking, "how do we grasp the meaning of the Psalms?"

It is here that Childs can, once again, provide a pointer for the future (providing he is divested of the distortion that constitutes much of his own reception history). Childs was not only the originator of attempts to appropriate the full breadth of Jewish and Christian exegesis, seen as being intimately connected to the diachronic and synchronic dimensions of the text, he did so for the sake of a single object of inquiry: the Biblical text itself. Which is the same thing as saying: he did it for the sake of the subject matter of the Biblical text. Already in the preface to his ground-breaking 1974 Exodus commentary (although admittedly it took a while for the ground to break) we gain hints at his grasp of the potential organic connection between the history "to" the text and the history "from" the text, a history that, despite its temporal extension in our time, turns to rotate on that central hub that is the Bible's own time, which is God's time.

Childs' own proposals for the coherency of the discipline are bound to remain contentious (even when correctly understood), and this is necessarily so because of their unapologetically confessional rootage. But the challenge he poses still remains open to those who would unknowingly walk in his footsteps without taking a glance at the interconnected coordinates he set to map the way: What is the Bible ultimately about? What is the most adequate context for its study? Wherein lies the coherence under-girding the diversity of fields of research displayed and awkwardly correlated  at the Oxford Psalms conference? In other words, and I think this is the decisive question: what constitutes their unity? Can the answer to this question - regardless of where it falls on the ideological spectrum - be anything other than confessional?

My hope is that one day Childs will indeed get the credit he deserves. I do not hope this for his sake, however, but for the sake of Biblical interpretation, which is for the sake of the interpretive community, whether Jewish, Christian, or secular.

Third Isaiah, intertextutality, and history

In my post The Biblical canon and Biblical referentiality, I stated that, as far as Childs is concerned, the final form of the canon of Scripture is not a totally hermeneutically sealed unit, such that one can make sense of the parts without reference to extra-textual realities. He certainly credits the final form of the text with far more integrity than many of his colleagues, but nevertheless the meaning of this final form is contoured to a large degree by the particular manner in which it came to existence. This calls for a subtle form of exegesis, one which takes into account the different "levels of consciousness" present within the "final form."
"First, Third Isaiah remains a prophetic collection, both in form and content, which means there is an encounter with actual historical realities, albeit seen in the light of the divine. This dimension dare not be flattened simply into a type of learned scribal activity dealing exclusively with literary texts. Second, not every occurrence of a parallel [with Second or First Isaiah] can be assigned to an intentional reuse. A critical assessment must be made that reckons with the theological substance at stake beyond merely identifying formal parallelism discovered by the perusal of a concordance.1"

Childs' reference to the "theological substance" of the text here highlights another dimension of his concern to respect the historical nature of the text. Christianity claims that the Old Testament is a witness to a divine reality that was ultimately revealed in Christ. This was the concern of allegorical exegesis. Historical Criticism rightly retains this sense of extra-textual referentiality. Rejecting the constraints of the historical dimension and treating the text as a space for free-floating signifiers risks dampening its ability to point beyond itself the the reality that undergirds both past, present, and future.

1Childs, Isaiah, 462. S

The historical Isaiah and the canonical process

In my last few posts dealing with Childs' approach to exegesis, I have tried to illustrate that the question of authorship is important to Childs, despite what his critics claim. Admittedly, the author and his intentions are of relative importance to the meaning of the canonical (i.e. editorially enriched) form of the text. The final form has acquired an integrity of its own over against its prior stages. Nevertheless, it is of paramount importance to the validity of Childs' canonical approach that the final form of the text stands in some kind of theological continuity with what went before. It is a theological Fortschreibung, not an ideological Umschreibung. You can see his concern for this kind of continuity in his treatment of the relation between the historical Isaiah and the book that bears his name (though see also my thread Retrospective Reading of Old Testament Prophets):

Thus, there was a historical Isaiah whose preaching has been preserved in the document bearing his name. Childs references the work of H. G. M. Williamson, who claims that nearly all the parts of chapter 1 are derived from a prior written form of the words of Isaiah himself.¹ Though he finds the theory speculative, Childs judges that it is helpful in showing the high level of continuity of chapter 1 with the preaching of Isaiah.² Again, the historical prophet preached in oracles of various genres, such as accusation, invective, torah instruction, trial summons, dirge, and promise.³ These oral proclamations were collected into literary compilations which developed as the oracles were added. Within the larger narrative framework of the prophet's proclamation, clear components emerged, namely God's plan for Israel's judgement, signs of a promised faithful remnant, and the ultimate judgement of Assyria. These components were repeated and reinforced throughout chapters 1—12 within a constantly recurring pattern, even when the relationship remained often fragmentary. Again, these elements existed at the primary level of the tradition, though they appeared in strikingly different ways in the collection (cf. the exegesis of, e.g., chapters 1, 6, 7). Their development, then, was a matter of dialectic. On the one hand, faithful editors responded to the oracles, which were a major force in determining the shape of the larger composition.⁴ On the other hand, these expansions and additional commentary emerged within the context of interpreting new communal experiences, a process called Fortschreibung (editorial expansion). This process of expansion and enrichment had an end point with the establishment of a stabilized form.⁵

Isaiah 33 reflects a similar case. This chapter consists of very different liturgical forms which have been shaped into a unified presentation of Isaiah's vision of the future after the threat from the great enemy has been overcome. Childs is no longer as confident as he was in his Exodus commentary about our ability to reconstruct the Sitz im Leben of these forms. In his opinion, Gunkel's cultic theories are at best a brilliant piece of speculation.⁶ He is more confident, however, about our ability to perceive the work of the editors who have reshaped these forms into a literary composition. In short, the classic Isaianic pattern outlined above has been represented by an intertextual reuse of prior prophetic and psalmnic tradition. These traditions have been joined into a holistic interpretation with events taken from Israel's continuing experience with God. In the context of the narrative sequence of chapters 28-32, earlier Isaianic oracles are reused to reinterpret the events leading up to the attack on Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah.⁷ Childs concludes from this that the context for interpretation should be the text's synchronic setting within the book,⁸ though this conclusion is a derivative of the intentionality of the editors and the new genre of the text (Spiegeltext)⁹ rather than an appeal to postmodern epistemology.

1H.G.M. Williamson, “Relocating Isaiah 1:2-9,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah (ed. C.C. Broyles and C. Evans; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), 263-277.

2Childs, Isaiah, 16.

3In contrast to the majority of interpreters, Childs believes that promise oracles were part of the original message. Cf. Childs, Isaiah, 215: “There is no compelling evidence to suggest that only the message of judgement was primary and that the element of promise was always secondary from a later redaction.”

4Childs, Isaiah, 215.

5Childs, Isaiah, 216.

6H. Gunkel, “Jesaia 33, eine prophetische Liturgie,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 42 (1924), 177-208.

7Childs, Isaiah, 245.

8Childs, Isaiah, 246.

9The phrase is Beuken's, in “Jesaja 33 als Spiegeltext im Jesajabuch,” Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses 67 (1991), 5-35. Childs claims that Beuken's theory rivals Gunkel's in its significance.

The tradition history of the office of Moses: Childs' take

In my current series of posts (summarized here), I'm working through examples of Brevard Childs' exegesis, as found in his two commentaries: Exodus and Isaiah. We are currently interested in Childs' understanding of the particular profile of the various tradents of Israel's sacred traditions. In my last two posts (first here, then here), this was expressed in primarily source-critical categories (with a bit of editing thrown in). We concluded that these tradents were motivated by theological concerns. But this theological agenda pervades more than literary documents and their later redaction. According to Childs, a theological concern - often understood in cultic categories - was operative at all levels of the tradition, including the oral stage. Here is my summary of his complex treatment of the tradition history of the office of Moses [I should add that as Childs' career unfolded, he became increasingly sceptical about our ability to make these kinds of hypotheses. Nevertheless, as we shall see, he retained his commitment to the idea that the canonical process was inherently theological]:

Israel's witnesses did not only take the form of literary interpreters of tradition. If one digs back even further, Childs believes, there is evidence of cultic rituals and sacred offices (Childs often gives precedence to the oral stage as being of more significance for the current shape of the text than the interweaving of various sources¹). His most complex theory concerns the existence of two forms of the Mosaic office rooted within ancient Israel's cultic institutions, the traditions of which were later combined at an oral stage of development before the prophetic authors of the source documents provided their own additional literary stamp.² These two religious institutions are deduced from two conflicting narrative sequences. In the first, the people are terrified by the theophany of God at Sinai and request Moses to serve as mediator (20:18-20). God accepts the proposal and mediates the law through him. Then on the basis of the divine commands Moses leads the people in a ceremony in which the covenant is ratified (24:3-8). The ritual consists in a rehearsal of the law, a commitment by the people, and a rite involving blood manipulation which seals the pact.

On the other hand, there is a conflicting story in which God himself legitimates Moses, a decision planned from the outset by God (19:9). Later, Moses alone is given the commandments and on the basis of these laws God makes a covenant with Moses on behalf of Israel (34:27). In this tradition the people do not participate in a covenant ceremony of ratification but are simply informed by Moses of the covenant (34:32). Central to this pattern is that God's direct revelation—face to face—adheres to Moses alone and not to the people.

The stereotyped nature of these stories leads Childs (along with Mowinckel and von Rad) to the conclusion that they do not simply describe a historical event. Rather, they have a cultic stamp and function as aetiologies for the establishment of an ongoing office within an institution. Though both offices share prophetic and priestly characteristics, they differ in their institutional locations.³ In short, the first form of the Sinai tradition “had its setting in the covenant renewal festival in which Moses functioned as the prototype of covenant mediator between God and the people.”⁴ The second sequence also represents an office (see the frequentative tense in 34:34), though this time anchored in the institution of the tent of meeting (ch. 33), which parallels Sinai in its function as the site of divine theophanies. In this office, Moses speaks to God “face to face” and is represented as a "continual vehicle of the will of God,” a “continuous medium of revelation,”⁵ as well as an intercessor (34:7, 9; ) and recipient of the divine spirit (Deut 31).

In the later history of tradition, the institution of the tent of meeting declined, to be absorbed by covenant renewal tradition. This dominant form of the tradition has given the overall structure to the present Sinai narrative in Exodus 19-24. This process was only intensified by the author of Deuteronomy, who has completely overshadowed the tent tradition. Nevertheless, the tent tradition has not been completely eliminated. It still enriches the Deuteronomic concept of the office, as now a major feature of Moses' function is his intercession for the people (Deut 9:13-21;25-29). Finally, in the Priestly theology one can trace another diverging development. The vocabulary of the old tent of meeting tradition has been absorbed into the Jerusalem theology. The tent has now become identified with the tabernacle (מִּשְׁכָּן). The LORD now dwells in the sanctuary and the cloud and glory reflect the permanent divine presence. “Nevertheless, the priestly school retained its sense of continuity with the older tent tradition and continued to afford a channel for preserving traditions of Moses' office which were found in the tent tradition, such as the shining face of Ex.34.29ff.”⁶

The final set of tradents are the redactors, who have attempted to bring these disparate though interrelated traditions-turned-source documents into a unified narrative. Thus, in the sealing of the covenant narrative (24:1-18), Childs identifies the following signs of harmonization:⁷

1. whereas v. 1a speaks of the ascent of the elders in a way which seems to disregard Moses' special role as mediator, vv. 1b-2 have altered the original impact of the verse so that Moses' unique role is not diminished.

2. Originally there were two different accounts of the covenant ceremony. That described above and one involving a covenant meal. In order to harmonize the two, vv. 1-2 and 9-11 have been joined to vv. 3-8, so that the meal now functions as a culmination of a single rite.

3. v. 2 had singled out the special role of Moses. This element is now joined by a literary redactor to vv. 3-8, 12-14 in order to produce the effect of different stages in a series of ascents up the mountain. Verse 2 provides a point from which to make a smooth tradition to the command in v. 12.

1See Childs' handling of sources vs tradition-history on pp. 7-8; 184-186; 274-284; 321-326.

2Childs, Exodus, 344-360.

3Childs, Exodus, 357.

4Childs, Exodus, 355.

5Childs, Exodus, 356.

6Childs, Exodus, 359.

7Childs, Exouds, 502.

Historical criticism and theological reality: a case study

In light of the recent debates on the relation of faith and critical Biblical scholarship (see espeically the long dialogues on John Hobbins' blog here, as well as on mine here), I thought I'd provide an exegetical example for how it is possible to be one - critical (in the sense of "analytical" and not "cynical") - as well as the other - religiously committed (in the sense of subscribing to the basic theological truth claims of the Bible). Whether the result is successful or not I leave for you to judge. I don't want to claim that the relation is easy (contra this simplistic view)[*], but I do claim that with humility and the capacity to "eschatologically" suspend one's judgement ("one day this will come together - at some level, somehow"), the dialectic between reason and revelation can be fruitful.

My case study is Childs' analysis of the plague traditions in Exodus. I've already given a detailed overview of the "kerygmatic" nature of these traditions here. Today I focus on the question of the theological reality lying behind these witnesses (a question systematically ignored in Biblical studies as being, somehow, and yet inconceivably to me, "irrelevant").

Childs holds that the literary sources in Exodus grew out of a response to a prior tradition which was religiously authoritative for them. Exegetically more significant, however, is the question of the nature of this response. Childs holds that they are a theological response to a theological problem present within that ancient tradition.

For example, Childs notes the presence of a “strange atmosphere” of “historical distance” that pervades the combined testimony of the final edited form of the text.¹ His search for the original Sitz im Leben of these traditions has led him through the history of transmission to “a primary, non-derivable stage.” There is, prior to the construals of J, P, and E (etc.), a level of tradition in which Moses is universally seen to be a man “possessed of power to perform miracles.” Yet, despite this power, he was unable to force the king of Egypt to release the Israelites.

In fact, this fundamental failure of the miracles to subdue Pharaoh accounts for the variety of reflections which sought an explanation. Pharaoh's heart was hardened; Pharaoh continued to renege on his promise; the magicians used magic to copy Moses. Only in the plague stories was a tradition retained in which such great miracles, constantly repeated, continued to fail. The fact that ultimately plague X did not accomplish its end, did not remove the difficulty of the earlier one, nor explain the failure.²

Childs concludes:

the sense of the mystery of Pharaoh's resistance lies at the root of the tradition. Now it is apparent that the essential problem with which we began is not ultimately form-critical in nature, but profoundly theological. The interpreter is still faced with the task of penetrating the mystery of God's power before human pride.³

Indeed, within the body of the commentary itself (i.e. interpretation of the final form rather than the prolegomena of form and literary criticism), Childs notes that despite the presence of different sources, in the final form there is no real tension.

Rather, they contribute to the richness of the narrative and vary the pattern of the series to prevent the threat of monotony in recounting the long series. Because the concessions reach an impasse, in the final analysis there is no real conflict in terms of content between the ... approaches to Pharaoh's resistance.⁴

What Childs has done here isn't in itself full-blown theological exegesis (which, given that the Bible is theological, is the most legitimate form of exegesis). That comes when one starts to think about the nature of the historical experience, and the nature of the responses to that experience. As I showed in my last post, a significant element of that response was the canonical shaping of Scripture itself. We thus move from "diachronic" to "synchronic" yet all the while with an eye to that one reality that (who) evoked the tradition, the source, the redaction, the interpretation in the first place.

What is the content of the Bible and how can we perceive it? Does a commitment to a dichotomy between faith and reason, the latter being compartmented to the sphere of private piety, really help us to understand the Bible itself? I think Hendel's claims will result in a methodological and thus exegetical catastrophe of the first order.

[*] "Der Konflikt von persönlichem Glauben und kritischer Bibelwissenschaft ist nichts Ungewöhnliches. Er tritt meist schon im Studium und bevorzugt bei Studenten mit pietistischem Hintergrund auf, die allerdings bald ergreifen, dass nicht die Geschichte den Glauben, sondern der Glaube Geschichte macht." (p. 45). [for translation see comments]Wie bitte? Is this supposed self-evident? The fact that it contradicts 2000 years of Jewish and Christian theology and the very substance of the Bible itself would imply that this is at best a personal decision on the part of the author. And as far as conservative students are concerned, I don't have the statistics but I can tell you that a large number don't simply "get" this "fact," they lose their faith altogether and leave the church (or stay in the church but abandon the creed to become sociologists of religion, cultural analysts, or social workers).

1Childs, Exodus, 142.

2Childs, Exodus, 149.

3Childs, Exodus, 149.

4Childs, Exodus, 155. Emphasis mine.

Theology, science, and Hendel

A lengthy discussion has ensued from my post responding to Hendel's recent critique of SBL. To put it starkly: I'm claiming that Hendel wishes to impose a particular theological dogma as a norm for determining who may legitimately read the Bible. This is a faith decision. There's nothing wrong with this per se - confessional schools do it as a matter of course, including, ironically, those institutions which gave birth to and still nourish critical Biblical study: the German theological faculties (see this fascinating article on the legal status of Gerd Lüdemann).

I'm grateful to Michael and Kyle, two valuable interlocuters who sit on opposite sides of the fence on this issue. Kyle has shared a link to an interesting article that might put Hendel's comments into perspective: "What Has Theology Ever Done for Science?" According to the author, the answer is "quite a lot." Of particular interest to me is the way that the actual content of our theology can effect the scientific enterprise, for better or worse.

I'd like to emphasize once again that I affirm the existence of an empirically reality that can be comprehended by reason and which can constrain our interpretations in a limited number of directions. Contrary to the author of the article above, however, I do no think that this necessarily contradicts "postmodernism" - though it does depend whose postmodernism we are talking about (for my interaction with an inadequate variety, see my posts on Walter Brueggemann). A very helpful take on this is James K.A. Smiths' The Fall of Interpretation . I quoted this book precisely on the issue of subjectivity and objective reality in my post Postmodernists believe in objective reality too! (Smith, by the way, also happens to author an excellent blog).