Gunkel über die Religion der Hymnen

Aus dem Vorhergehenden folgt, daß im Hymnus die objektive Seite der Religion hervortritt: Jahve selber, seine Eigenschaften und Taten; zugleich aber dies, was man, um das Einzelne zu verstehen, sich beständig vorhalten muß, daß die Grundstimmung vom Hymnus die Ehrfurcht und der Enthusiasmus ist. Und so kann man auch vom Hymnus sagen: "Ziehe deine Schuhe aus! Das Land, das du betrittst, ist ein heiliges Land!" (Gunkel, Einleitung in die Psalmen, §2.47, p. 71).

For Gunkel, form and content could never be separated (cf. Blum, "Formgeshichte - A Misleading Category?"). The hymns are theocentric, the LORD is their object (note this comment: "Nun hat das Lobsingen Gottes natürlich auch für den Singenden selber einen hohen Wert. Der religiöse Gedanke wird stark ... Aber über diese subjektive Seite der Sache denkt man wenig oder gar nicht nach; man singt den Hymnus für Gott allein," 69-70).

If this is the case, then what would an "objective" interpretation of the hymns look like?

The Spirit, Bonhoeffer and Gunkel

If it's the case, as I argued in my post The Spirit and inspiration in theological exegesis, that the human words of Scripture become a means of revelation by the operation of the Holy Spirit, what does that look like in practice? Childs attempted to answer this question in his fascinating article "Interpreting the Bible Amid Cultural Change," Theology Today 54 (1997), 200-211.

He turns to a major source of personal inspiration: the Germany theology of the Confessing Church during the 1920s and 30s. He notes that theologians of this period underwent a paradigm shift that brought them into fresh and empowering contact with God and his Gospel. Karl Barth, among others, talked of the strange new world of the Bible, a vision which empowered him to resist National Socialism “like an ancient Hebrew prophet.” (203) While he admits that cultural or political factors certainly contributed to this shift, such explanations do not get to the heart of the matter. Those involved in this new vision of the Bible spoke of responding to a powerful voice from Scripture itself, language echoing with older models exemplified by the church Fathers and the Reformers.

“The coercion of the biblical text occurred in different ways, often matching the unique personalities of each interpreter, but theirs was always a stance of reception. ... In every case, the Scriptures were the vehicle for the transformation of perspective.” (204)

In order to demonstrate this, Childs compares Hermann Gunkel’s interpretation of Genesis 1 with that of Bonhoeffer. Gunkel, inspired by German romanticism of the period, sought to instil in his readers an aesthetic appreciation for the creative genius of this ancient, primitive document. Bonhoeffer, on the other hand, saw in Gen. 1:1 an affirmation of the Gospel which plunges the reader into a new dimension of reality. He says the following:

“The Bible begins with God’s free affirmation, ... free revelation of himself. . . . In the beginning, out of freedom, out of nothing, God created the heavens and the earth. This is the comfort with which the Bible addresses us . . . who are anxious before the false void, the beginning without a beginning and the end without an end. It is the gospel, it is the resurrected Christ of whom one is speaking here. God is in the beginning and he will be in the end. . . . The fact that he lets us know this is mercy, grace, forgiveness and comfort.” (Creation and Fall: A Theological Interpretation of Genesis 1-3 (London: SCM, 1959), 11, 16.)

In awe Childs exclaims: “What a different vision from that of Gunkel! Were they even reading the same text?” At the heart of this paradigm shift

“was a new perception of the reality of God and a fresh grappling with the substance of the Bible as providing the true content of the Christian faith.” (206)

I've dealt with this Bonhoeffer quote elsewhere, in relation to the difficult question of whether non-believers can really "understand" the Bible.

"Believing" and "unbelieving Exegesis": an example

In a previous post (and here) I asked whether it is possible for a “non-believer” to ever truly understand the Bible. The responses indicate that people assume I'm working with a subjective definition of faith, i.e. the fact of believing itself somehow enables the believer privileged access to the Bible's meaning, hidden from those with other or no faith. I'd like to point out that is not what I mean! When I talk of “believers,” I'm referring to the dominant categories of the faith community to which they belong, rather than any individual cognitive state. In other words, I'm thinking in terms of a community's formal criteria for meaning and truth, it's regula fidei. The important question for interpretation is which categories are most adequate to its subject matter, the Bible. In my opinion, where contemporary criticism errs is that it claims its categories are somehow not those of a particular faith community, but rather objective and theology-free.

I'd like to illustrate with two examples of exegesis of Genesis 1 [*]. The first is taken from H. Gunkel, a critic standing in the classic Enlightenment tradition, the second from Bonhoeffer, a confessional critic with both feet in the tradition of the church.

Gunkel's commentary on Genesis was held to be a commentary of unmatched brilliance, in which he brought to bear on his interpretation the full range of ancient Near Eastern parallels. For Gunkel, chapter 1 of Genesis was a reworking from a Hebrew perspective of the Babylonian creation myth, a reworking that retained much of the mythology in a broken, vestigal form. Gunkel emphasized Israel's unique tradition, and he sought, in the spirit of German romanticism, to instill an aesthetic appreciation for the creative genius of this ancient, primitive document.

This can be contrasted with the interpretation of a young Privatdozent, not particularly well trained in Old Testament, who begins his lecture on Gensis 1-3, not with JEPD but with Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God ...” Bonhoeffer wrote:

The Bible begins with God's free affirmation, ... free revelation of himself. ... In the beginning, out of freedom, out of nothing, God created the heavens and the earth. This is the comfort with which the Bible addresses us ... who are anxious before the false void, the beginning without a beginning and the end without and end. It is the gospel, it is the resurrected Christ of whom one is speaking here. God is in the beginning and he will be in the end. ... The fact that he lets us know this is mercy, grace, forgiveness and comfort. (Creation and Fall, 11, 16)

I'm not sure how to relate these two radically different interpretations ... What makes the difference? Is one more adequate than the other or are they both independent ways of doing two different things? Which one grapples better with the “subject matter” of Genesis 1? As Childs asks, “what caused Bonhoeffer to plunge into a new dimension of reality?”

It seems to me that the difference is one of interpretative context, rather than refined exegetical skill. One is the ancient Near East, the other is the canonical context of the church. But which context helps us grasp the Bible's substance, res, Sachverhalt best?

[*] Taken from Childs, “Interpreting the Bible Amid Cultural Change,” Theology Today 54 (1994), 200-211.