Jewish and Christian appropriation of the Law of Moses

A friend wrote me an e-mail today with a question on the differences between Jewish and Christian appropriations of the Law of Moses. As anyone mildly acquainted with this blog will know, I can't do anything other than think in Childsian categories, so I post the spontaneous answer I wrote with the hope that if I'm wrong some kind soul on the Internet will point this out:

This is a complex area, Jewish and Christian hermeneutics. I think B.S. Childs had the best insights, but his views are hard to understand and not particularly systematically worked out in one place (they presume a knowledge of other works, such as Barth and Hägglund, which I'm still trying to get through). His point is that regardless of the hermeneutic we use to interpret the Bible, it is always undergirded by a specific theology. Christianity inherited the Old Testament as Holy Scripture, just like the Jews, but how it functioned within the community was different. This is seen in the fact that for Jews midrash was the primary mode for appropriating Scripture, whereas for Christians it was allegory. For the Jews, with their focus on Torah as the centre of Scripture, there was a strong emphasis on making the various parts fit into an interconnected whole which could then be put into practice. The boundaries of the canon, the order of the books, the language of the text, where all firmly fixed so that the text could be "applied" as strictly as possible. The church however, confessed that the centre of Scripture is Christ. The text was seen to point beyond itself to another reality, which was not necessarily to be identified with the literal meaning of the text but which as the same time could only be accessed via it. Hence the development of "allegory" as a means of moving beyond the literal and on to the spiritual sense.

This has implications for how the church appropriates the law. Along with the rest of Scripture, it can't be taken literally - read "legalistically," - as to do so runs the danger of missing the real point. The law is connected with God's eschatological will for His people and makes ultimate sense within that framework. Reading it in the light of Christ, then, provides the church with the angle of reading that can open up what the text "is really all about," what its true kerygmatic function is within the overall economy of God.

This doesn't give you a concrete answer, but I think it shows a starting point. I think the hermeneutical implication is that for the Christian the narrative framework relativizes the legal content by placing it within its utlimate eschatological framework (e.g. Genesis 12.1-3). I don't know how a Jew relates law and narrative in this sense. A great way of seeing these two different theological hermeneutics at work is to look at the history of interpretation. Childs' 1974 commentary on Exodus does this helpfully. I strongly recommend you get hold of it and read the section on the Ten Commandments. He outlines the history of thought and looks for general trends, differences and similarities between the two traditions.

Why Brian Welch left Korn

The fate of Israeli Hebrew ...

The New York Times has published an interesting article looking at the development of modern Hebrew. It seems that some are concerned about the future of the language. Here are some excerpts:

The revival of Hebrew "is often hailed as one of the greatest feats of the Zionist enterprise; today Hebrew is the first language of millions of Israelis, a loquacious and literary nation that is said to publish an average of 5,500 books a year.

But in a country where self-doubt and insecurity run deep, even a linguistic triumph can be a cause for concern. After such a meteoric comeback, some worry that the common language may already be in decline, popularized to the point where many Israelis can no longer cope with the rich complexities of traditional Hebrew prose.

...

There is the creeping foreign influence, as urban sophisticates pepper their Hebrew speech with accented English affectations like “please,” “sorry” and “whatever,” along with a noticeable loss of nuance and relative paucity of vocabulary in regular use.

But he [Rosenthal, a popular Hebrew guru] and other Hebrew watchers point to a potentially more disturbing trend: living Hebrew has moved at a fast pace, and in the process, it has become increasingly estranged from its loftier ancient form.

“We used to understand the biblical language better, and our language was closer to it,” said Ronit Gadish, academic secretary of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, the state’s supreme guardian of the national tongue. “Now, what can we do to keep up the continuity?”

After reviewing the historical development of the language, the author's conclusion is particularly interesting:

Mr. Birnbaum, like most of the experts, views what is apparently the deterioration of Hebrew as a natural process, if it can be considered degeneration at all. The reality, they say, is not as bad as it sounds. Rather, the anxiety may stem less from the state of Hebrew and more from the Israeli state of mind.

“It comes from a lack of security,” said Mr. Rosenthal, who was born in 1948 and explained the linguistic qualms as part of the collective summing up of the past 60 years. “The state of Israel has no confidence in its continued existence.”

The language may have moved on since the days of the prophets, but perhaps the sense of doom has not.

Back from Italy

Well, I'm back after a rather full dash through the mountains, lakes, cities and beaches of northern Italy (see here for the intinarary) and can say that I'm glad to be back in the peace of my own home here in Bonn. Driving 2,200 km along mountain lakes, over the Alpine passes, through Renaissance cities and onto an island riddled lagoon gives one a sense of perspective on one's own place of domicile. Oddly enough, I don't envy those who live in the villas or mountain huts we met along the way. Bonn isn't hounded by tourists and mosquitoes, it's clean and well-run and the restaurant prices reflect the quality of the food (which, despite my culinary expectations, is not the case in the majority of the places we ate in Italy). I certainly don't intend to spend the rest of my life here. I haven't lived in the same place for more than three years since I was 11, so being a nomad is almost a requirement for me. But for now, with my church, friends, and responsibilities, I have to say I'm content and deeply grateful for the grace of God in all his provision for us.
The photo is of Ingrid and I on our last night (when it hailed hail stones bigger than marbles!) on the beach at Lido, Venice. The rest will appear on Facebook, for those who are interested.

Photo of the Day: A Sea of Steps

This cathedral (Wells), is not too far from where my family lives!

The following is the commentary on the photo taken from Phaidon's The Photo Book. I particularly like the way the commentator interweaves allegorical and literal interpretation, grounding this even in the intention of the photographer!

This picture, of the stairs leading to the Chapter House in Wells Cathedral, was always meant to be understood in terms other than purely architectural ones. The steps themselves ripple and look increasingly like waves building in an ocean as they mount towards the lighted space beyond. The stairs seen rising to the right could be a great wave on the point of breaking, thus representing a danger to the traveller or pilgrim. In the middle is a cut block of stone, symbolizing a steadfast soul put in place by the Divine Architect. The point, though, is not just that the steps look oceanic but that they have been worn that way by generations of use, until their significance had been inscribed into the very fabric of the building. Evan's tendency was always to look for a meaning already present, making him very respectful of appearances as given and thus an early advocate of 'straight' photography (142; emphasis mine).

For details of this photo go here. For other images by Frederick Evans, go here.

My completed threads

I should probably dedicate my last post this morning before I jump into my car and drive off south to the fact that I have a new box on the right of this blog page, under my "about me" box, summarizing all the threads I have completed over the past year (all, that is, apart from the first one on traditional Christian exegesis, which is still under way).

Like I said, feel free to criticize. I'm always up for a good debate.

I'm off to Italy!

I won't be posting for the next few weeks (until August 9th) as my wife and I will be on holiday. After going to a wedding near Stuttgart (Holzgerlingen anyone?) we'll be driving over the Alps, spending a night in a secluded hamlet hanging of the edge of a cliff in Southern Switzerland (called Osco, I discovered it using the terrain function on Google Map), then driving down to lake Como where we'll stay for another three days. This will be followed by two days in Verona, a day in Venice and a 5 days (!!!!!) sitting on the beach in Lido, a tourist resort right next to Venice. The last option is my wife's idea and I do it out of the purist love and Christian self-sacrifice. Really, I can't stand sitting on beaches.

But in case people feel they can't manage that long without me, do not fret! I spent the whole of last Sunday sorting through the posts of the last year and bundling them into completed threads, which you can now access in the window under the "about me" section on the right. These threads contain information that I am more than happy to discuss in intimate depth for hours, so feel free to peruse and push me to justify my position.

The threads that I have complete so far are the following:

-The 6 Features of traditional Christian exegesis

-C. Seitz's "In Accordance with the Scriptures"

-Responses to Walter Brueggemann

-Examples of "canonical" exegesis

-B.S. Childs' "Retrospective Reading of Old Testament Prophets"

-B. Hägglund on the regula fidei

I have no idea why only the first word is highlighted, but I gotta pack and time is short.

Till August!!

A Wordle of the Psalter and my blog

Wordles seem to be the new in thing in the blogosphere at the moment. What is a Wordle? Well, here's what the official website says:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

I first heard about it from Aristotle's Feminist Subject, who got it from Lingamish. Well, תהלים has posted the most interesting Wordle of all: the entire Psalter (click on the image to enlarge). I like the way "shall" and "will" are highlighted along with God and the LORD. I wonder what theological implications that has!



They're easy to make: just copy and paste text here, or even give in URL of your blog, and ta da, a wordle. Here's a wordle of my blog:



I have to say, I'm surprised at how much the word "dogmatic" occurs. I need to post more on the Old Testament!

I tried it in Hebrew for Psalms 1-24 but it didn't really work:



The key word seems to be a mixture of Yahweh and Elohim, which fits to Richard's wordle above.

Andersen-Forbes website (and a short praise of Logos)

Thanks to Exegetica Digita for pointing this out. The website is at andersen-forbes.org/.

I recently purchased Logos Biblical Software (Original Language Library), and though I've had little time to actually use it, the resources it offers are unbelievable. Seeing as I intend to live a rather nomadic lifestyle, having an integrated, searchable digital library is one of the most useful resources I could dream of. Reading on a computer should take a bit of getting used to, but as far as I can see it's just a matter of habit. I use the computer so much these days that it really doesn't represent a break from what I normally do. Perhaps the only major complaint I have so far is that the Biblia Hebraica doesn't come with the critical apparatus, which basically means I have to have the print version at my side when reading the Bible on the computer! You can buy it extra, but only as part of a larger package that includes books already on the Original Library and which costs far more than it's worth for the appartus alone.

Apart from that, I'd like to take this opportunity to praise Logos' outstanding customer service! This had already been given to me as a reason for going for Logos, but I experienced it first hand yesterday as I had had problems with a large order. I had the World Biblical Commentary package sent to me from the States, but had to send it back as German Customs decided to add $103 customs tax! I hadn't ordered the downloadable version as, being the technological numpty that I am, I'd experienced problems in the past. Luckily, a certain Don phoned me at home, linked my computer to his in the States and downloaded the whole thing for me, pointing out what I was doing wrong and giving advice on how to proceed in the future. Amazing technology (it impressed me, anyway) and great service, I thought. Now I have to figure out how to burn a backup copy ...