A response to M. Welker on the relation between Scripture and theology

In an essay published in a Festschrift for Patrick Miller, Michael Welker, professor of systematic theology at the University of Heidelberg, has shared his thoughts on the relationship between Biblical exegesis and theology. The title of the essay is “Sola Scripture? The Authority of the Bible in Pluralistic Environments.” Here is my response, shaped as it is by Childs’ “canonical approach.”

Welker shares a basic starting point with Brevard Childs. In a very pregnant paragraph on p. 383 he claims that behind the diversity within the canon (if “behind” is the right metaphor for his approach) there is a single subject matter: God, and not just any god but a particular God. This God is a living reality and not just a theological postulate and as such he has left his imprint, in some undefined sense, on the traditions contained within the Bible (they “reflect his weight”). There is thus at work within the tradition-history behind the text a divine agency, something secular scholarship, by virtue of its own “confessional” stance, has no access to. Not only is there a “divine reality” at work in the actual composition of the textual witnesses, he also confesses that it is the same reality that is revealed in Jesus Christ. This seems to me to be an ontological statement, one that makes a very significant statement about the actual nature of the now textualized religious traditions of ancient Israel. In this he is still on common ground with Childs.

He adds one further claim, however, to this construal of the nature of the texts which both marks his common ground with Childs and yet also the point of divergence: the texts are to be understood as “witnesses.” As I have often stated on this blog, this category is central to Childs' own approach, yet he interprets in a different manner to Welker (his citation of Brueggemann at this point, fn. 21, confirms this, as this is the biggest sticking point in their two approaches). I hope that I am not misinterpreting Welker, but his claim about the texts' status as “witnesses” seems to be materially distinct from his claim about the texts' nature as a “reflection” of God. Although God exerts his a certain force upon the traditions (“weight”), even leaving an impact upon their formation (“mirror”), Welker understands their character as witnesses to be primarily a matter of a individual/communal “search for truth” (p. 392). It is a human “contribution.” In this he stands with the majority of contemporary Old Testament scholarship.

For Childs, however, the very force of the divine referent upon the witness is part of the definition of “witness” in the first place. The function of the Biblical witness, according to Childs, is not to search for truth but to point to a truth that has already impacted the witnesses. In other words, his affirmation of the divine impact on tradition has hermeneutical implications, as what the text is trying to do—even in its very historical particularity—is not wrestle with the theological question of God but to point to a divine reality that has broken into the witnesses' reality and perhaps even left him rather confused as a result. Von Rad spoke of a “lebendigen Wort Jahwes, das an Israel ergangen ist.” For Childs, of course, this “divine impact” was part of the literary shaping process of the traditions themselves, such that the final form sets the agenda for relating the parts. In relation to the issue of diversity within the canon, the canonical-shape functions either to guide our own interpretation of the meaning of the tradition, either by subordinating one view to another or allowing them to relate dialectically. The significant point here, however, is that the canon as witness calls us to resolve this dialectic at the level of the divine referent. The diversity in the canon is a consequence of the nature of the referent and not an accident of history or a function of human particularity.

This leads Childs (as I understand him) to a different answer to the question of how to relate the “canonical traditions” to “contemporary life” (p. 391). Rather than correlating canonical diversity with contemporary diversity, the canon compels us to seek unity within that diversity—a unity at the level of the divine reality itself—and then to reinterpret our current situation in light of that divine reality. As part of the hermeneutical spiral however, we not only interpret the unity of the present in light of the unity of the canonical referent, we also seek to comprehend the unity of the canon in light of the unity of its divine referent. Hence Childs’ dialectical approach. Whereas Welker seems to argue for a relatively unilinear mode of theological exegesis—the task of systematic theology in Biblical exegesis is to test the “Tragbarkeit” of exegetical, theological claims in the present (p. 388)— Childs argues that dogmatics ought, at a certain point in the hermeneutical circle, to contribute to exegetical claims about the actual meaning of the text itself. In my own work, this leads me to the strong (and unusual, given the current climate) claim that Robert Jenson's interpretation the “metaphysics of Heaven” (which is a Trinitarian concept) not only seems to supply Psalm 24 with its ultimate referent (when read historically, cult-critically, poetically and canonically), but it also helps us to understand the actual logic of the Psalm itself better. 

Barth, Ps 24, and the unity of the Testaments

Christians believe that the Old Testament witnesses to  God-in-Jesus. Jesus himself made this clear to his disciples as he walked with them on the road to Emmaus, opening their eyes to the way the Law and the Prophets spoke of his suffering and resurrection. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, if you enjoy thinking about this kind of thing), he didn’t leave behind a divinely inspired hermeneutical key which can infallibly illuminate the manner in which the Old Testament goes about doing this. We are left with a frustrating inner conviction but the impossibility of proving this conviction to the unbeliever. This reminds me of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ demand for a sign, when he simply states that what he says is true because he is the one who says it. I can imagine how frustrating that must have been! Somehow the truth is “self-affirming.”

For my part, I do believe that the Old Testament witnesses to God-in-Jesus, and the church has consistently confessed the same (cf. the abundant allegorical interpretation for the vast majority of the church’s history, including throughout the Reformation). However, like many in the church, I also struggle to back up this claim with a philosophical or theological account of how this happens. To draw another analogy with responses to the historical Jesus, I find myself in the similar position of Jesus’ neighbours in Nazareth, who , when confronted with his claim that he is the initiator of the kingdom of God, responded with the question: “isn’t that Joseph’s son… ?” (note the title of a recent book whose contents would seem to affirm this surface recognition as the last word on the matter). The analogous Christian version that I hear again and again is: “is that the God of the New Testament?” The answer is “yes,” and if you can’t figure out why or how than you better take stock of the adequacy your own grasp of the gospel. I experience this challenge regularly.

This is not to say that there are not a host of helpful theses that each in their own way shed light on the phenomenon, allowing Christians to both deepen their own faith as well as present it to others. The recognition of mystery ought to function as an invitation to enter it, rather than as an excuse to just give up wrestling with the issue in the first place (cf. A. Louth, Discerning the Mystery).

One thesis that touches on this issue was made by Karl Barth, which I will now share in massively reduced form (primarily because I have only read this thesis in a paper about something else, namely  the influence of Barth on Miskotte). It’s about the continuity  and discontinuity between the Testaments:

Similarity	Disimilarity
Both Testaments see God as one who freely initiates relationship with human kind.	The OT has a variety of covenants and only an implicit Messianic hope. The NT has only one covenant and the Messiah is identified as Jesus of Nazareth.
Both Testaments recognize the mysterious hiddenness of God.	The OT sees this hiddenness in God’s judgement of the nations, including Israel. The NT sees this in God’s judgement of his Son. God’s judgement in the NT is, in some sense, final.
Both Testaments have an “already-not yet” eschatology (my phrase), as God is both one who is already experienced but also one who is coming.	The NT not only see’s Jesus as the One who is coming, it is waiting for the one who has already come [though I have to admit, I don’t see how this is any different from the OT perspective, for there God also already came … ].

The framework for these similarities/differences is Barth’s concept of the relationship between Divine Revelation and time. There are three “times,” the time of the expectation of revelation (Old Testmaent), the time of the fulfilment of revelation (Jesus’ history), and the age of remembering the fulfilment of revelation (New Testament). It’s important to note that the NT is not the fulfilment of the OT (contra Louth, cited above), Jesus is. The NT and OT both function to point to a single referent that stands outside of themselves. They do this in their own idiom and from their own perspective (hence the differences), but their referential object is the same (hence the similar structure and content).

As you may have noticed from my comments in square brackets, it seems to me as if Barth is not doing full justice to the OT (though feel free to correct me here). In short, he seems to overemphasises the NT’s “already” element in contrast to the OT’s “not yet.” Isn’t it the case that the OT already witnesses to a past fulfilment that provides the “ontological” ground for the possibility of the history that ensues? The example I’m thinking of is the opening strophe of Ps 24: “The earth is the LORD’s … for he has founded it upon the seas … .” Isn’t this past act as decisive in its grounding of God’s history with his people as Jesus’ resurrection from the dead? E. Otto talks of God’s acts here as  creating the “Möglichkeit” (possibility) for the obedience found in vv. 3-6: There can be such a thing as a righteous, obedient Jacob (v. 6), because God’s stabilization of the earth in the face of chaos guarantees the validity of such obedience. In a similar way, the New Testament talks of resurrection life in the Spirit creating a heart of flesh and the capacity to be obedient to the Torah.

So how do I interpret the relation of Ps 24:1-2 in relation to the NT? Jesus can’t have “fulfilled” it because Ps 24:1-2 is not pointing forward to a moment yet to be fulfilled, it is pointing back to something already established once and for all. As mentioned, the relation  seems to be of a structural nature. In fact, the analogy can be expanded to apply to Jesus’ entire mission, for just as in Ps 24 strophe 1 (vv. 1-2) is the precondition for strophe 2 (vv. 3-6), these two strophes are somehow “consummated” by strophes 3 and 4 (vv. 7-10; on my interpretation of the poetic structure, I should add). Similarly, Jesus was raised from the dead (strophe 1), has cleansed his people (strophe 2) and will return again to consummate his work (i.e. Advent; strophes 3-4). Except that even here our analogy runs into conceptual difficulties, for it is the case that  Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension are all contained in vv. 7-10: his death was a battle with death, his resurrection was his victory and his ascension was its consummation (i.e. Ascension not advent). So are vv. 7-10 about Christ’s return to earth as king or his ascension to heaven to be enthroned? In addition to this, where does this leave strophe 1 if the resurrection in is the final two strophes? The odd thing is that strophe 1 in fact has the same content as strophes 3-4, albeit on a “mythological” rather than “historical” plain! Strophe 1 is also a kind of battle, this time with the seas, and it is also a proclamation of victory, i.e. the establishment of a viable living space. So does Ps 24 taken on its own, regardless of its correlation to an external event in time (not in space: Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem!) contain its own odd witness to “ontological-unity-in-temporal-sequence”? Srophes 3 and 4 “consummate” strophe 1, even as the “recapitulate” its content. The “chronos” is different but not the “chairos.”

 The intermediate conclusion  all this mind bending has for me is that every time I try and relate Psalm 24 to the Gospels my temporal categories are consistently being confirmed (there is a genuine analogy) and subverted. It’s like a lover who tempts me with a kiss and a flash of her eye-lashes but teasingly disappears around the corner, leaving a trail of perfume to beckon me on (Song of Songs was always had a hermeneutical function for church and synagogue!).  I see the analogy, am breathless at the sheer scope of who Jesus is and what he has achieved, and yet still am left to struggle and see how the past and present within an Psalm’s “narrative world” is “fulfilled” by the Gospel’s presentation of past and present, a past and present that can be collapsed into one moment.

I mentioned above that the OT’s inevitable and consistent challenge to the Christian claim about its Christological content ought to primarily be a challenge to Christians, not to prove their faith to the sceptics but to deepen the content of their own faith, which is always far from perfect. I can’t claim to have a concrete answer to my issue with Ps 24 above (though I’m working on it!), but it has forced me to return to my own construal of the “gospel” and to see it with new eyes. Of particular relevance here is the concept of the relation between the “ontological” and “economic” Trinity, God in himself and God for us. McGlasson summarizes the relation as follows:

God’s sending of his Son for our salvation and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit are a replication in time of God’s eternal self-identity. God’s redemptive love for humanity is an expression of God’s free decision to draw us into a relationship with himself, which is based on the relationship of love that he himself is (McGlasson, Invitation, 198).

As Barth implies above, the NT is not the fulfilment of the OT, it points to it’s fulfilment. This means that drawing structural analogies between the OT and the NT can only take us so far. They point us in the right direction, as the content of the NT is the same as the OT. But the reality itself is greater than what is at most the partial testimony of both Testaments (cf. Childs, Biblical Theology). Hence the necessity of higher level dogmatic theology in order to grasp what is really going on in Scripture. The practice of theology, after all, originally consisted in nothing other than meditation upon the mystery of the ontological trinity. I think I ought to learn to do the same.  


[For a post on Moberly's interpretation of the Emmaus story, go here; see also my post Reading in a Revised Frame of Reference].

Is "canonical exegesis" too difficult?

Christopher Hays, in a review of Childs' The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture, has the following to say about the difficulty of doing the kind of exegesis Childs called "canonical":

The intellectual entrance fee for writing good theological exegesis must be very steep. If Childs or his heirs want to claim an elevated status for their project, that ambition should come with an even higher standard of training and preparation than “mere” historical-philological scholarship. Childs certainly met any standard that anyone could set, but not every theological interpreter does. He once called for a “single method” comprising both dimensions of the text, but it is here that his omission of 20th century theologian-exegetes is most lamentable: Younger scholars pursuing a “single method” approach receive no road map from Childs—they cannot learn, in this book, from the successes and errors of their immediate predecessors. (Nor do younger scholars who are less inclined to be sympathetic receive any constructive criticism, unless they are acolytes of Brueggemann.) 

Even if Childs had explained his “single method,” there are few who can and will ever master all of the necessary skills. It may be that the array of tools one needs to conduct theological biblical criticism is so extensive that canonical criticism is not really a young scholar’s game. How then could theological exegesis be carried out without requiring one person to master both biblical studies and theology?[*] 

I appreciate the final question. I'd say that one must strain to master both. Perhaps the solution to the problem lies in the way that university/seminary curricula are structured and integrated? Can they be adapted so that future students can receive the foundation they need to go on and wrestle with the "substance" of the text?

[*] "Bard Called the Tune," JTI 4.1 (2010), 151.

The significance of B.S. Childs?

Much of this blog has been dedicated to extolling the praises of a man whose work has deeply influenced me, both spiritually and intellectually: Brevard Childs. I rarely come across statements that express something of the depth of my appreciation, though perhaps Seitz's comments come close. Recently, however, I read a eulogy that tops anything I have said on this blog. In fact, the praises are so high I'm left wondering whether I can fully agree with them. Perhaps my lack a full breadth of knowledge of the field disqualifies me from being able to make an informed judgement, but based on my experience to date I do think I can identify with McGlasson's sentiments. The following is taken from the preface to his Invitation to Dogmatic Theology:

The third decisive influence [on my approach] is the biblical work of Brevard S. Childs. I attended Yale Divinty School primarily in order to learn directly from Childs, and my eager expectation was met by an even greater reality. It is now clear that the work of Childs on canon amounts to nothing less than a brilliant new vision of scripture without parallel in the history of the church, though deeply rooted in the church's tradition of reading scripture. Every theologian worthy of the name has turned directly to scripture as the one source for the knowledge of God. Where else does the church learn to know Jesus Christ? However, never before has the church been closer to the shape and subject matter of scripture than in Childs's work on canon. The confession of canon was the first and foundational creedal affirmation of the ancient church; yet not until Childs's work have the full implications of that confession been so crystal clear and inviting for reflection. Once again, a new era has begun. Theology can never again go back behind Childs when it wrestles with scripture, nor can it count as genuine Christian theology unless it sees with precision the full force of the vision he articulates. The future of dogmatic theology lies with realizing the connection of the discipline with the Bible, and that connection depends upon a firm theological grasp of the issue of canon. The confession of canon is an ontological necessity for dogmatic inquiry and the proper beginning of all valid theological reflection (14-15).

So, how do people feel about that?

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.

The Biblical canon and Biblical referentiality

It is often claimed that Childs' canonical approach rests on the presupposition that the Biblical Canon is a hermeneutically sealed, self-referential unit (e.g. Barr and Barton). To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how anyone could come to that conclusion on the basis of Childs' actual exegetical work, but even in theory Childs has explicitly rejected this misunderstanding. For Childs, the unity of the canon does not exist within a neat "narrative world" that has no connection to the complexities of extrinsic reality (rather like a fantasy novel which we can believe in while reading it but which has limited connection to extrinsic reality). In fact, precisely the opposite is the case! The unity of the canon consists precisely in its extra-canonical referent. This referent is God, and as such it is as complex a reality as one can image (if "complex" is the right word; it makes God sound like a puzzle to be solved ... ). Given the nature of this extra-textual reality, it is necessary that the full voice of the canon be brought to bear in trying to apprehend and respond to it (or Him) adequately. Here is Childs in his own words (in response to Barr's critique of his Introduction; the key phrase here is "the fullness of extrinsic reality"):

“I certainly confirm that Israel's faith was grounded in anterior reality. First in oral tradition and subsequently in written form Israel bore testimony to God's redemptive intervention on its behalf. These events of divine deliverance were not simply recorded, but continually re-interpreted throughout history. Israel actively shaped its traditions while at the same time being formed by the very material being transmitted.

Because of the peculiar nature of Israel's tradition which is reflected in the multi-layered testimony of the canonical text to this sacred history, there is no direct access to the fullness of that extrinsic reality on which the faith was grounded apart from Israel's own testimony. One important purpose of establishing a normative canon was to mark the special relationship of the community to these witnesses.

... The central point to be made is that the nature of Israel's testimony to historical events varies greatly and that extrinsic reality can be represented in innumerable ways ... .” (Childs, “Response,” 53, 56).

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.