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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kerygmania: Divine Purpose in the Old Testament
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
What kind of Christian apologetic is it that seeks to defend genocide after the experience of the last and present century? What sort of message of salvation is that to a world ravaged with ethnic conflict? In an attempt to preserve the indefensible notion that the bible is the inerrant word of God, which anyone with two brain cells knows it isn't, we get the kind of contortions in so many of the posts on this thread. It may satisfy Christians in the closet, but it does nothing to engage the faithful with God's world and the people in it. ...
You are right about the dangers of 'cherry-picking', but its contents have to be measured against what we understand about the Word and the Godhead: to be Christologically coherent and in accordance with trinitarianism.
I'll pop this over to the other thread for a response...
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Bulldog, thanks for your latest post. I don't think we are that far apart, though I thought your 'unsease' about genocide could have been more definitely expressed.
My reason for mentioning 'Go Down Moses' was simply to suggest it is better grist to your mill from that genre than the one you suggested.
I agree that from a Christian perspective there are problems with the Exodus story, because from a monotheistic perspective the Egyptians are as equal in God's sight as the Israelites. (I think the author of Jonah would probably agree). This is not an argument to excise from the text but to critically engage with it. A Christian might want to think there are better ways of dealing with similar problems in the contemporary world through, say, reconciliation rather than revenge and despoilation. (One might contrast Mandela with Mugabe). Judges and Samuel raise the issues even more acutely.
Regarding Psalm 137, I would start by recognising the integrity of the author and the intensity of his feelings. Then I would go through each verse exploring the meaning. Having done that, I might want to engage with the poem from a Christian perspective. It would be instructive to discuss it with Christians who find themselves living outside their native land etc.
You ask: 'Do you think we should have a book of psalms that skips over 137 because we don't like to look at that side of our humanity?' No, precisely because it makes us confront responses to aspects of our humanity that are distinctly sub-Christian. The same is the case with Judges and Samuel, which are more representative of the modern world than we care to think, and raise questions as to the danger of Christianity being sucked into partial national and ethnic interests. God on our side is a primitive sentiment alive and strong.
Why do Christians read the OT? They do so because they are trying to deepen their understanding of who Jesus was. From the perspective of faith, that exercise is undertaken with the risen Christ as the measure. He is the key to understanding and interpretation. It was a process begun on the road to Emmaus and continues through the Spirit.
It's not a question of cherry-picking, but it seems to me obvious that the OT is, by definition and necessity, sub-Christian, despite its many sublime insights, and some parts are more sub-Christian than others. In exploring those issue we begin the understand what the New Testament is, and why we are Christians and not Jews.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
Kwesi wrote:
quote:
As for my 21st century morality and PC, perhaps as my accuser you could point at which aspects of 21st century morality and PC cloud my judgement, so I can make the appropriate plea.
Actually, OUR 21st century morality, as we all share the same feelings of resistance to the idea of using human lives to make a point, albeit with varying degrees, and react accordingly. To summarise:
[1] Midrash viewers believe the unpleasant parts are not history but ALL parable
[2] P'shat viewers believe the unpleasant parts can be chucked out
[3] I believe that the unpleasant parts are history but set up such that the innocent are compensated in Abraham's bosom (its like Purgatory, but described as Gehanna).
Bullfrog wrote:
quote:
God allows sin (blindness) to happen, even in a good world, so that the greater glory of Jesus Christ (regained sight) could be revealed to humanity (the blind dude.)
Argh! I think I just had an epiphany!
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
Bullfrog wrote:
quote:
God allows sin (blindness) to happen, even in a good world, so that the greater glory of Jesus Christ (regained sight) could be revealed to humanity (the blind dude.)
Argh! I think I just had an epiphany!
You're welcome? Sorry? Should I hand you a towel? ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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footwasher
Shipmate
# 15599
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
quote:
Originally posted by footwasher:
Bullfrog wrote:
quote:
God allows sin (blindness) to happen, even in a good world, so that the greater glory of Jesus Christ (regained sight) could be revealed to humanity (the blind dude.)
Argh! I think I just had an epiphany!
You're welcome? Sorry? Should I hand you a towel?
"You're welcome" should do. I mean, as your response. And "Thank you". As my response. To your post. You know what I mean. Where's Hugh Grant when you need him?
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Ship's crimp
Posts: 927 | From: pearl o' the orient | Registered: Apr 2010
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Rather than starting with the text itself, I start with an idea of God as pure and infinite love, desiring to draw every person as close as possible, and giving us divine truth as way to communicate with us and lead us to him. I see that truth as taking the form of a many-layered parable, with the final, outermost layer being the literal text found in the Bible (both OT and NT). The actual words of the literal text are very much targeted to a particular audience at a particular time in a particular culture, but the layers of meaning held within are for all people and for all time.
Communication in the bible as an onion - many layers. Nice idea!
Thinking about this, I suspect my approach to the onion figure would be to see the individual literal texts as the innermost layer. It would also be a correspondence, one where one is “speaking spiritually while speaking naturally” though perhaps inverted to say that the authors of the bible spoke naturally when they spoke spiritually.
I work my way towards this by considering one of the suggestions used for defining how divine authorship might work: that of a 'fuller sense' (a sensus plenior) in the Bible. This usually means something along the lines of the 'more than the sum of the parts' phenomenon that I mentioned earlier, where there is a meaning that an be apprehended only when the whole is in view. Sensus plenior, though, implies that the individual human authors may not – indeed most probably were not – aware of this additional meaning when they wrote their individual texts. The Catholic theologian Raymond Brown examined this idea and its history in some detail during the 1950s and he sparked off some debate about the topic across Christianity.
I have some reservations about the concept, especially if it is being used to apply to the Bible and divine intention with the same sense that it can be used to describe a human being as somehow more than the mere aggregation of all the particles that go to make him or her up. Is that a 'fuller sense?' Can particles be said to be intentional in their own right or is it a case of particles just getting on with their own thing, not really aware of the impact they have on a wider community?
The implication is that God has a communication for his people that can be understood only when the whole of the canon is considered. Although I do certainly agree that something indeed goes on when one considers the forest rather than just the trees, I wonder what the 'something' actually is and what its impact is on the way we view the trees.
What, for instance, happens to the trees when one considers the forest? Do the individual trees suddenly lose their individual integrity and become nothing more than an amorphous porridge? I sense here one of the failings of political extremism, when the individual has to lose his or her individual integrity / personality for the sake of the common good. If the common good becomes the touchstone for living, then the individual can be brushed aside or sacrificed. Indeed, for example, if a nation's police force acts in accordance with a “to protect the public” mantra, then each individual member of the public can be pushed off the pavement in the mistaken belief that the individual matters less than “the public” as a whole. This is the risk that applies to the Bible when considering divine communication solely at a 'fuller sense' level. Individual passages (and therefore authors) can be sacrificed for the better systematic whole. The personality in each individual text loses out to the impersonality of the canon.
There also arises the question of just how God's People got on before the canon. As the individual trees were growing at different times, was there even a forest to consider?
Another risk arises when a 'statistically valid' approach is taken to the Bible. In other words, when the interpreter takes what he or she considers to be a sufficient collection of texts to analyse in the belief that this set can be taken to apply to the whole. This set then is allowed to speak for the rest as being God's message. The risk of this approach is that it can given rise to a fair number of sects that end up with bizarre outcomes.
I get the impression that sensus plenior works to excuse biblical texts, rather than work with them. It fails to do justice to each individual author. This is seen most in the way some use the concept to find the NT in the OT.
So is there a way to see a divine communication in each and every specific instance of a text in the Bible? For me I take seriously the understandings of the authors themselves and how they saw things. Some themes:
* They saw communication as dynamic – out to achieve a purpose – rather than static.
* They held in tension the individual and the corporate.
* They sought to explain all of creation (the sum total of everything) in relation to God.
To me this speaks of the need to find a model that allows for the human authors' awareness of the fact they were contributing to the community's understanding of God and were therefore aware that their contribution was a tree in a forest. They were already aware of the forest. They were also aware that there would be no forest were it not for the individual trees.
Perhaps this could be seen in terms of seeds and trees. God sowed the seed that would take hold in the human heart of specific authors, who then brought about a maturity of understanding in their work. This led in turn to and reinforced a community of understanding, something that had been in a way predetermined by the very seeds that were sown. The framework for the forest lay in the seeds of faith. The parable of the sower comes to mind – as does that of the mustard seed.
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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