Confession is good for the soul.
I confess, here just between you and me, that I am a theological interpreter of the Bible.
This is why I named my blog “Storied Theology,” in fact–because I believe deeply that theology is important (there’s the “theology” part).
But also because I am convinced that there are better ways to conceive of the theological task than traditional systematic, confessional, and dogmatic theology. There is a theology that trades in the diachronic and polyvalent nature of scripture itself, and that continues to embrace such inevitable change and diversity as the church itself continues to speak over time.
I am, at times, critical of things that are going on in the “Theological Interpretation” circles of the biblical studies academy. Why? What are those criticisms?
Two issues stand out:
First, there is a tendency among some of the theologians involved in the movement, especially, to use theological readings of scripture as a way to bypass critical issues. I am all for theological interpretation being post-critical (where historical criticism in its modernistic forms does not get the last word), but it cannot go back to being pre-critical.
Thus, for example, we cannot simply say, “God is the author of scripture, so Isa 7 was speaking of a coming, virgin-born Messiah all along,” without also acknowledging that for Isaiah and any audience before the first century that this coming virgin-born Messiah was manifestly not in view.
There is a critical issue that can’t be gotten around, even if we then go on to give a second reading that embraces the Christological telos of the biblical narrative.
Second, I am at times grumpy about “the Rule of Faith.”
From the above, you can see that this does not mean that I am against Christian readings of scripture; and I am not even against a Christian hermeneutic for reading pre-Christ material (in fact, I think that this is necessary).
What makes me nervous, and where I think Christian reading of the Bible has not been helpful in its pre-critical manifestations, is where the Rule of Faith, embodied in the Creeds and Confessions of the church, become the hermeneutic by which our Christian readings are done.
Thus, a Rule of Faith “hermeneutic” might always be approaching Jesus in the New Testament as fully God and fully human, wrestling with how this God-man helps us make sense of the story of Mark. Jesus as God-man might become a way to understand how Jesus can forgive sins, walk on water, or feed 5,000 in the desert.
The idea that we use the rule as a hermeneutical lens has a rich history. But in a post-critical, post-modern environment it cannot be the whole story and often, we must acknowledge now, keeps us from recognizing a better one.
A first reading of Mark should recognize that its Christology is not John’s logos Christology. It may very well be that Jesus here is not depicted as pre-existent at all. We have to wrestle with the fact that neither “Christ” nor “Lord” means “divine” in an early Jewish context, whatever their subsequent connotations in Christian theology.
But such a claim that Mark develops a theology of a human messiah also does not contradict the faith of the church, which always maintains against Gnostic tendencies that Jesus is truly human. It falls within the trajectories set by the church’s Faith without using that Faith as a hermeneutic to transform the meaning of the story or Jesus’ identity within it.
The theology I am for is a theology that takes the Bible seriously–and that Bible as we know it is, in part, the Bible as critical scholarship has opened our eyes to it. And what it means for me to be a Christian is to continue to build theology for the church trusting that this Bible we actually have is, in fact, the Bible that God wants us to have.
While resisting the pre-critical moves that I do not think we can make anymore because we are more aware of issues of theological diversity and the like, I continue to affirm that the God who created the world is the God who has acted in the death and resurrection of Jesus and through the Spirit in the church. I continue to affirm that we know all this only through the Bible which is the record of and witness to, the revelation of God to humanity.
Because the story keeps pointing in these directions, I can continue to say with the church of all times, “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son…”
I do theological interpretation because I am convinced that the Bible, a theological construct in its own right, continues to tell us what the church’s story is.
*Gasp!*
I like what you have to say here Daniel. We do need to take Scripture seriously. And we need to know our place in history and read the Bible from that place. Great thoughts.
Thanks for standing by me, Brian. I need all the friends I can get after pulling a stunt like this…
Cannot tell you how helpful this post is! I’ve been diving into the world of Theological Interpretation lately (Green came to Fuller just after I finished in 2007) and trying to get my hands around its promise and potential pitfalls, and I had wondered how you framed up the whole thing. Again, very helpful. Thanks much. If you continue to get inklings to address this topic directly, don’t ignore them!!
Good word Daniel. What I’m interested in lately is how/if the Spirit uses a text to minister to particular needs. If we can move beyond authorial intent to authorial/editorial achievement (something like canonical approaches), what can the Spirit do afterwards?
With you all the way. If that offers any succour. A great piece.
Touche Daniel. I’m with you. This was a good piece!
Thanks for this. The issue of theological exegesis is one that I’ve gone back and forth on for a few years now, mostly because of the two issues you’ve mentioned.
I have considerable discomfort with any approach that would attempt to just do away with historical method…from my reading of the material concerning theological exegesis, those who would say that the historical questions are unimportant are (luckily) in the minority.
The question of the rule of faith is interesting. On the one hand, I feel that the creed as a hermeneutical lens may serve simply to define one’s presuppositions. Whereas a strict historicist exegesis would follow the precepts of say, Troeltsch, a theological exegesis would enter the process with different precepts of what may and may not be possible (e.g. divine intervention or revelation). On the other hand, the “length” of the rule seems to be quite flexible, depending on whose rule it is. That is, which precepts of faith may govern one’s exegesis will differ depending on one’s tradition. As a Methodist, for example, my “rule” may perhaps be shorter than my Catholic colleagues at Marquette.
I’m writing a paper right now (using the theology of Avery Dulles) that I hope will provide some clarity to the issue. We will see!
“…among some of the theologians involved in the movement…”
Curious, but which TIS authors are you referring to here?
I didn’t want to name names, but see my response to Justin below.
Great post, Daniel. I agree with your sensibilities here, and I’ve felt the same tensions. What I’m questioning for myself right now, though, is whether any sort of theological interpretation is viable without an ecclesiology that offers a more authoritative and continuous apostolic and liturgical Tradition — i.e., Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Anglicanism. “Theological interpretation” for low church evangelicals and contemporary “middle” church Reformed types just seems like an odd duck.
To paraphrase Alisdair McIntyre, “Whose Theology? Which Interpretation?” The common appeal among paleo-orthodox evangelicals to the Vincentian Canon, IMHO, doesn’t really cut it — there just isn’t much of importance that was really believed everywhere, always and by everyone, unless one excludes widespread belief in doctrines that were condemned by the various Councils before (and often long after) they were so condemned. So ultimately appeal is made to the Councils themselves, at least to the first four or five ecumenical councils, but without an integrated structure of apostolic succession, Papal primacy, and Church-state relations, there’s little reason to give such high place to any particular council. And all of this “formal” conciliar theology can’t be properly understood outside the context of the worshipping Church and its liturgies and sacraments — and so again, paleo-orthodox evangelicals seem to wrench a handful of creedal and conciliar statements out of the context of participation in Church life.
I suppose some strongly confessional Reformed folks manage this by referring to the significant post-Reformation confession, e.g. the Westminster, as appropriately purified norms. But these obviously aren’t ecumenical norms, and one is left to choose between the Reformed confessions and Trent on some other basis.
Well, I am solidly in the “theological interpretation” camp and yet I don’t belong to any of the three branches of the Church that claims apostolic succession, so I don’t claim to have this sorted out — it is one of those inconsistencies that awaits further development, I think.
I’m not following the issue. In fact, it seems to me that having a Protestant posture toward scripture and tradition is the only way to subordinate tradition to scripture as I’m doing here, to refuse to allow tradition to dictate the findings of exegesis. Where Protestants go wrong, it seems to me, is when our own traditions step into our Bible reading in such a way as to force us toward readings that the passages can’t uphold on their own.
I don’t get what you’re after here? Such an elevation of the tradition seems to me to undo the whole project.
Just one more thought — your last line is vintage Barthian. I want to agree, and I really appreciate how Barth takes the logic of the Reformers seriously insofar as he deconstructs all presumptive sources of authority other than revelation and in doing that holds high the semper reformanda principle.
But — it is perhaps a fair criticism that Barth’s doctrine of revelation, at the end of the day, remains overly individualistic and subjective. Has he really gotten past Schleiermacher? Or is the essence of Christian religion, for him, still rooted foundationally in subjective experience? Theological interpretation, in its best manifestations, is appealing because it tries to steer between subjectivism and propositional rationalism.
I have to tell you, Daniel, that I find your take on TIS depressing. Mainly because nothing that I’ve read in TIS corresponds to your critiques. E.g., that we can’t recognize theological diversity in the Gospels, or that we discount historical context, etc. any variety of possible reductionisms.
Nor do I recognize your critique of how the “rule of faith” functioned in the early church or now. The “rule” is about setting a set of communal boundaries for interpretation, not predetermining what Scripture *can* say. That is, we in the Church interpret Scripture in light of who God has revealed Godself to be. Scripture is to be understood within this broader context, as a sacramental witness. To interpret Scripture in a way that contradicts how God has revealed Godself is to respect God, not foist an arbitrary limit on Scripture. (Which of course begs the question of how God has in fact revealed himself . . . which we cannot answer apart from the Church, hence the circle.)
Nor do I find the pre-critical/modern-critical distinction at all helpful. Pre-critical readers were just as aware (if not more!) of the tensions and diversity within Scripture, they just went about reckoning with them in (at times) different ways.
There is nothing inherently superior to how modern historical reading strategies engage Scripture than, say, the noetic exegesis of the Greek fathers. They’re approaching Scripture with two different sets of understandings of what interaction with Scripture is supposed to be.
Anyway . . .
Of course, it’s a bit anachronistic for TIS per se, but Barth falls prey to this all the time.
In more recent work, Kevin Vanhoozer runs roughshod over critical issues, appealing to divine authorship as validation for the procedure. Daniel Trier’s Intro also lists in this direction.
I’m not claiming that modernity is the savior, but modernity has forced us to understand scripture differently, as pervasively contextualized, in a manner that was not front and center, and controlling of Biblical exegesis in the same way before.
To correct my verbiage above: “To interpret Scripture in a way that *corresponds* to how God has revealed Godself to be is to respect God …”
I again demur. The issue of “pervasive contextualization” is different than that of “critical issues.” Reductionism is possible in all interpretive approaches; the difference between modern historical reading strategies and pre-modern ones–at least in the early church (my primary sphere of interaction)–is exactly the different context in which people related to Scripture. “Context” being the set of assumptions about what Scripture referred to, how it referred to it, and why (towards what end) one interacted with Scripture.
So, the move is just from one pervasive contextualization to another. And both contextualizations are valid, and both are *accountable* to what the Church believes about God. As a Christian, historical reading is not some liminal zone where I can say whatever I want about the text (nor is any other reading strategy, and isn’t this the real problem/issue with Modernity?).
Also, in my experience, pre-modern and modern readings can end up at the same point, the only difference being how they got there. E.g., Origen, in his “Commentary on Romans,” ends up at something like the “new perspective on Paul,” while approaching the text in significantly different ways than, say, Wright.
In sum, the conclusion I can’t seem to get away from is that you are trying to maintain a certain superior, privileged status for your approach. Thus, if Vanhoozer et al do not approach the text with your assumptions of what that interaction is supposed to entail then it is inadequate, or supply-the-adjective. But why must that be? What is normative about your set of assumptions? Who says “critical issues” are to determine one’s interaction with the text?
This corresponds with many of my experiences, Justin. Folks in biblical studies feel that those on the theological side of the house are running roughshod over scripture, theologians think that they can’t even open their Bibles and read without getting lambasted by the biblical scholars.
Alas!
As a NT scholar I do have the audacity to think that the way believing NT scholars read the text is better than the way non-professional Bible readers interpret the text, most of the time. The considerations taken under advisement, the willingness to say that the text does not really mean what Christians have always thought it meant–these are parameters that open scripture to better approximations of a “first reader’s” hearing of the text or “ideal author’s” intended use of it.
This is not the end of the story, of course–especially not for Christians. I will say more about critical scholarship in a day or two.
I certainly feel the tensions that we’ve been handed in terms of the division of “duties.” But I think there’s little value in that too.
I’m a biblical studies person, focusing on the OT, doing a dissertation on the Book of Proverbs, interacting with NT use thereof and early church interpretations. Proverbs is a worst-case scenario because it defies most of the historical reading strategies of the 20th century. So I’m turning to early church readings as non-reductionistic correctives.
So, I’m at the point where I’m just a Christian reading Scripture with the Church. (I’m certainly not a systematic theologian as such.) That’s my self-understanding. I’m open to any reading that sheds light on the text and its possible uses (towards Christian ends, e.g., communion with God, love of neighbor, etc.).
To think out loud a bit more, what seems to be at issue here is the application of historical criticism to Church belief/teaching. A la going behind Church teaching and hearing the text apart from it, provisionally. I have no problem with that in itself. Although it seems to feed into one of the “stories” Modernists tell themselves–that early church Christology and Trinitarian theology was somehow the eisegesis of Greek philosophy onto the NT (and OT). Rather, the use of Greek philosophical categories was an attempt to quantify/describe the relational patterns inherent in the text itself (in reaction to heretical teachings!). Thus the controvery about “homoousios” because it was not in fact a biblical term…
In other words, I affirm Michael’s comment below, that TIS is not about imposition of a theological system. It wasn’t about that in the 4th century either. So, while we may temporarily suspend the categories of historic orthodoxy, the text just ends up reasserting the same questions and issues that those before us had to address. How do we go about “answering” them in an “orthodox way” if we don’t in some sense assume orthodoxy from the beginning?
And moreover, orthodox Christological and Trinitarian definitions are crafted in such a way as to preserve, rather than abolish, the internal tensions of Scripture (e.g., viz. the Son’s deity and humanity). So, responding to the quasi-docetism of much (modernist) evangelicalism is not at all to respond to the orthodox teachings of the Church as they were crafted and understood when they were formulated. (Historical criticism of Church teaching indeed!)
I guess my question is, who doesn’t relate to Scripture assuming these tensions? Of course those who don’t know those tensions exist (because they haven’t been taught) do, and they need to be taught. But not in a way that asserts our superiority over previous generations to which we are indebted/accountable–that is, in a way that valorizes poking “tradition” in the eye just to feel “free” for a little while. And of course there are those who resent those tensions because they resent reality. I don’t know what to do about that.
Most works on TIS I’ve read affirm from the start that TIS is not about an imposition of a theological system onto the text. This seems to be your chief criticism.
TIS participants are a little tired of being servants to critical methods which sometimes operate antithetically to the virtues of Christian literature, i.e. the Holy Scriptures (since you prefer Karl Barth). Rather, no longer seen as master, these methods are now servants and rightfully so, and are to be used for drawing out the theology of the text. That’s TIS IMO.
Somewhat related, this week I read Dale Allison’s the Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus. Dale seems to have similar concerns in historical Jesus studies. The same method, he explains, used in different circles of historical Jesus studies can deliver dramatically different results — some with a Christ properly identified by Orthodoxy; others with a Jesus who knows nothing of his own vocation, God’s kingdom, or Daniel’s Son of Man.
“affirming from the start” and making good on that affirmation to the liking of a Biblical Studies prof are not always equal!
But I meant what I said: I do and am supportive of theological interpretation. I don’t want to sound like I’m down on the whole thing. If there are shared goals and hopes, then we can move toward sharpening each other’s work. If what I’ve outlined as problems aren’t what people are seeing in the actual work of other scholars then we should be making good progress together, and I should get less cautious about taking this label.
Eloquently put. I think your blog does a good job articulating the surprising theological diversity of scripture without at the same time belittling it. You refuse to flatten the text and that’s why we all enjoy reading it
Justin — I think you’re largely correct, and if we keep coming back to the categories settled upon by the early Church, that is almost certainly because those categories really are present in the text, or perhaps better, because they are part of what God reveals through the text.
But — I think there’s a more subtle question about whether those categories control the text and/or the Spirit’s use of the text in any particular historical instantiation of the Church’s reading. I’m not sure it’s so easy to assert that the early Church’s answers must control, because it’s so evident that they are historically conditioned (not just by Greek categories of thought, but also by the politics of the day).
That is why, IMHO, it’s almost impossible to have this conversation in an ecclesiological vacuum. To what extent does the reading of Church tradition serve as a control reading, and if it does, why this Church tradition and not that one?
Yes, this is the kind of question radical revisionists like to ask, and I personally have no truck with radical revisionists. Nevertheless, I think it’s a valid sort of question, not one that can be easily answered without a very high ecclesiology.
Thanks for your thoughts, dopderbeck.
You’re exactly right about the ecclesiological piece. In my personal experience dialoguing with some JW relatives, it has become very clear to me why the “rule” was necessary and how it functioned in the early church. What is at issue in a JW reading of Scripture is primarily ecclesiology, not Scripture at all. Their hermeneutics are the basis of their claim to be the “true church” in contrast to the historic Church (enter their rank anti-Roman Catholic bias).
So, the “rule” is less about determining what Scripture says than it is marking off those who are committed to the historic Church and reading Scripture within that context. Thus, as Augustine discusses in Book II of “On Christian Doctrine,” I can acknowledge that it is *possible* that John 1.1 can be read that the Logos “was with God and was *a* g/God,” but that as a Christian this is ultimately not a *true* reading in terms of the collective judgment of the Church (vis-a-vis Scripture) as to the identity/status of the Son.
So, a la your point, multiply this ecclesiological issue many times over with all the fragmentation and it is indeed a significant problem, as you discussed in your post above. I personally have no desire to be anything but a “catholic Christian,” so I’m suspicious of most adjectives that assert identity-pieces over me that are not based in the early church.
But, I also have no problem with asking critical questions about early church readings, a la adequacy, politics, etc. Just because they are part of the “hermeneutical environment” of the Church doesn’t mean I can’t think about them in themselves. But my reason for thinking about them is not that I’m trying to assert myself over them, or that I resent their being there in principle, etc. I.e., the incarnational principle applies to both Scripture and tradition, thus issues of trascendence and embeddedness abound with both.
I think, though, that what the early church has discerned will ultimately stand up to examination–if it is presented fairly and non-reductionistically–because, again, the motivation behind the creeds was not to determine what Scripture *can* say, but to preclude certain false readings that traffic in exactly the hermeneutical selectivity that exalts one piece of the Christological or Trinitarian picture of Scripture over or to the exclusion of other pieces. Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, so says Scripture. The creeds protect that paradox from those who would want to collapse it in either direction. That’s how they “control” our readings of the text …
Thoughts?
Justin, I agree with just about all you say here. There is a function of and rightness to a rule of faith that is helpful in articulating rightly what scripture as a whole says. And thus, they set trajectories for speech that happens within the church.
Daniel,
As a (fellow!) practitioner of theological interpretation, I find your comments interesting and important. Time does not permit a full response, but two points come immediately to mind:
1. Perhaps a more helpful way to think of what theological interpretation is, is not bypassing historical issues but rather enlarging the contexts for interpretation. If the scriptural text is at the center of a series of concentric circles (contexts), historical-critical approaches only see the most immediate historical and literary circles, while theological interpreters see more circles–most especially the canonical and ecclesial (rule of faith, reception history), both of which imply the theological claim of divine activity. But theological interpretation does not, or at least (in my view) should not, skip over the immediate historical and literary contexts. It is possible that the “guilty parties” you identify are changing the focus/emphasis (to the broader contexts) and privileging the canonical and ecclesial contexts, but that is not inherently inferior, for Christians, to privileging the historical and literary contexts. I would prefer to be hermeneutically comprehensive, but we can’t all do that–and both Vanhoozer and Treier are theologians, not NT scholars.
2. You say, “We have to wrestle with the fact that neither ‘Christ’ nor ‘Lord’ means “divine” in an early Jewish context, whatever their subsequent connotations in Christian theology.” I’m not sure you really mean that “Lord” has no divine significance in an early Jewish context. But more importantly, I wonder if there is still a prejudice in some circles against identifying a “high christology” in the NT that is not the result of reading the creed into the NT but of finding evidence that the framers of the creed(s) got it right. I remember years ago being told by a famous Jewish scholar that “kyrios” in Luke and Paul carries no hint of “divinity.” Even then, to say that about Paul was incredulous to me. But now, to say that–without at least acknowledging arguments to the contrary–about Luke or even Mark seems to me exegetically (in the narrow sense of the word) questionable.
I appreciate your raising these important questions!
Michael, the concentric circles model is fine unless the narrative-historical understanding of what lies at the biblical centre has shifted so dramatically that the model is no longer actually concentric. I agree that there is a danger of overstating the differences (your second point), and I think that there will always be a need for various layers of theological rationalization of scripture. But right now the dissonance between traditional theologies and New Testament interpretation seems to me to be growing so intense that theology more or less needs to start over from scratch—that is, if we are going to continue to maintain that scripture is at the centre. I think this really is one of those cliched paradigm shifts, and there is only so far we can go in trying to preserve a semblance of coherence between traditional theology and historically-oriented exegesis.
Mike,
I’m so glad you jumped in here. I think that, with respect to #1, we are on the same page. In my overall hermeneutical program, I advocate multiple readings. I do think that a “historical” first reading is a crucial step to take in exegesis–especially given our own context where what the text “said back then” is an important question to modern readers. But then texts take on new meanings as they are enmeshed in larger stories. Our story is the ultimately the story of the crucified and risen Messiah. Perhaps where I differ from some is that I see that Christ-event moment as holding an interpretive sway over our reading of scripture (esp. the OT) in ways that I don’t see later tradition holding interpretive sway over our readings of scripture (OT or NT).
On #2, I have to say that I’m increasingly convinced that the old critical orthodoxy was right on this point. My next major research project is on the low Christology of the Synoptic Gospels. I am concerned that we as Christian NT scholars are reading too much later Christology back into the Synoptics and Paul. I find the “no hint of divinity” increasingly credible! Early Jewish people such as those at Qumran say lots of things about themselves and their quite-human leaders that we often take, in NT parallel, to indicate divinity.
Andrew,
Thank you. Perhaps one small word in what I wrote may have led to some confusion (or perhaps not). When I said “the” scriptural text I really meant “a” text, as in a specific text that is being interpreted.
As for a paradigm shift, I hope you will say more. Steve Fowl and others would argue that the most significant paradigm shift occurred with the Enlightenment. For some people, including Fowl, a more recent paradigm shift (the “[re-]turn to theological interpretation”–Joel Green’s phrase) has actually begun to bring historical readings and theological readings closer together. Of course, in certain professional circles there can be a great rift, so I would agree that a great rift is possible, but perhaps not necessary.
Agreed about the significance of the Enlightenment shift, though within some theological circles, or within certain popular theological circles, there has been a considerable lag in implementation. I read recently that some people in Waco believe that the moon is not a reflector of light but a “lesser light” in its own right.
You will know more about the convergence of historical and theological readings than I do. I notice, however, that Stephen Fowl has this to say in his Theological Interpretation of Scripture: “Making the communicative intention of Scripture’s human authors the primary goal of theological interpretation will unnecessarily and unfortunately truncate Christians’ abilities to read Scripture in several important respects.” He then argues that theology has to be allowed to assert beliefs that are at odds with the historical interpretation of scripture. If Daniel doesn’t mind me linking, I wrote about this here: http://www.postost.net/2010/05/putting-theological-cart-biblical-horse. That rather puts the defence of developed church doctrine at the centre rather than the interpretation of scripture.
But my comments about a paradigm shift really had in view church-level rather than academic theology. It seems to me that there is a huge rift between standard Reformed and evangelical theologies, which purport to be faithful, accurate, and coherent readings of scripture, and the sort of narrative-historical understanding scripture that Daniel and others advocate. For churches generally to adjust their practical everyday theologies to the contours of the New Perspective, for example, would require a major paradigm shift—at least, it would where I currently hang out.
Justin — what you said!
Daniel — that little phrase “within the Church” is an interesting one. So outside the Church, e.g. in the academy, perhaps there is a more prominent role for “scientific” / critical exegesis? But then we’re sort of back to square one epistemologically — are both the academy’s and the Church’s conflicting claims about what the text “means” equally valid knowledge claims?
That’s not really what I was after. More that the critical exegesis that falls within the trajectories set by an early creed would show itself to fall within what is ok within the church. This was more of a thought about what a theological interpretation might be, with respect to something like a rule of faith, without allowing that rule to function as a hermeneutical grid. In an ideal world, what a text “means” for a first reading should fall within a range of possibilities that both academy and church can agree on. And, the church should be able to continue speaking where the academy must stop–giving a more theologically colored discussion that fills in a text with good theology.
Thus, I don’t think we should read Mark, at first, as telling us about the God-Man. But once we’ve read Mark for his description of Jesus the King-Messiah of Israel, which both church and academy should be able to generally agree on–this all falls within the church’s confession of Jesus as very man, we can return to fill in what we’ve said about this man with our convictions about this man being very God as well.
But, Daniel, as you yourself have posted on, the royal “ideology” of the OT already assumes that the king is in some (real) sense a divine figure, as well as an (ideal) representative of humankind.
So, on the basis of a perfectly legitimate historical reading (with ANE analogies), for the Gospels to present Jesus as “Messiah, king of Israel” is to present Jesus as a divine-human figure (assuming that the NT authors understood the OT, and I can make a pretty good case they did; cf. Hebrews 1).
I agree that the *point* of the Gospel narratives is not for us to go through their respective pericopes attempting to classify how a given action, or what-have-you, is indicative of (either) Jesus’ “divinity” or “humanity.” But I don’t know anyone who does that anyway.
This is the frustrating point about your analysis–that you assume the very dichotomy you are reacting to. What Mark (et al) is saying is more subtle than “God” and/or “man” as compartments. So, “Messiah, king of Israel” does not simply mean “human” or even “ideal human.” Mark is, in subtle but definite ways, identifying Yahweh and Jesus. This is not a matter of “theological interpretation;” it is a matter of reading Mark’s intentionality in its historical context (Second-Temple Judaism, early Christianity), with special attention to intertextuality (OT/NT) and conceptual/narrative paradigms. All of this is public domain stuff; no fideism or obscurantism.
Mark was not a modernist. Why would we foist dichotomies upon him that he himself doesn’t claim? I.e., can you show me on a narrative level where Mark tries to steer his readers away from seeing God’s power and person at work in Jesus? Where does Mark signal to us that we are to see Jesus as “just a human,” or “just Israel’s messiah” (without any transcendent content assumed)?
I agree with divine identity, but I am wary of using it just now because of how Bauckham has defined it. I agree that there is a connection with divinity in the OT–which is precisely why the idea that this connection entails anything like a Christian “high Christology” is off base. If we can say it about David then it’s not what the church means when it talks about Jesus being son of God in the sense of “very God’ or divine. It is a high, human Christology–but that’s not what’s meant in the “divine identity” the creeds embody (or Bauckham argues for) with respect to Jesus.
At what point can I accuse an academic of paganism? Seriously. I know this sounds ultra-fundamental, but Barth got away with it. TIS, through conversation with the text, uses the theology of the text as it interprets the text. The Christian ultimately espouses illumination, a work of the Holy Spirit, and will see and identify truth that the pagan cannot. The Westminster Confession proposes that Scripture is to be believed (chiefly) because of the inward conviction of the Holy Spirit, not because of bulletproof truth claims. At some point, while we may not all like Tertullian’s famous remark about Athens and Jerusalem, they are, at the end of the day, two very different cities. One is the people of God, the other is the hopeless pagan who suppresses the truth in unrighteousness.
Michael — yeah, but then the charge of obscurantism and fideism is hard to beat. I would take the notion of scripture’s self-attestation by the Spirit, which is a notion I as a Christian accept, in the broadest sense of the conviction that the scriptures are truly and uniquely the scriptures, i.e. God’s revelation and not merely just another set of texts. But this inward conviction doesn’t settle for us what the scriptures mean as God’s revelation, and it also doesn’t elide the humanity of the texts. It’s too easy to take a lazy road here, and to use this affirmation to support all sorts of nonsense that supposedly has to be believed because “self-attesting scripture says so” (many six-day creationists like to trot this one out, for example).
I’d agree with you, though, that the assumption that the text cannot carry a true meaning and disclose real knowledge as revelation — a foundational assumption of “scientific” exegesis — reflects a “pagan” philosophy. But this doesn’t permit us to sidestep “critical” scholarship — it just knocks the significance of such scholarship down a few pegs with respect to the “meaning” of the text.
Yes, what dopderbeck said.
And now, I’ll go have some coffee.
It seems folks are moving toward revisiting a question that has been discussed here before, and which I think gets at the root of some of the disagreement: that is the question of the appropriate role of the academy in relation to the church.
What is the function of academic biblical studies (and theological interpretation as a type of that)? Should its relation to the church be more “pastoral” (supporting and affirming the tradition broadly speaking) or more “prophetic” (calling for reassement, reenvisoning, and where necessary change from current practices and modes of thought)?
I think most would want to say “both” in principle, but the proportion of each mode–or at least the way they are engaged in–is what is at issue.
Perhaps folks see a (necessary) division within the academic community where some bible scholars and theological interpreters operate self-consciously within the church in a more pastoral mode while others operate more prophetically from the margins of the church though not necessarily outside of it.
I mean my remarks only in the context of theological exegesis. If the pagan does not do theological exegesis for whatever reason, perhaps because he does not posit the necessary axiom of such a method, i.e. God, then he is, well, pagan. Far from supporting the abuses of the fundamentalist, TIS is simply positing the chief axiom for theological exegesis, i.e. God, and its scholarship will remain markedly different from the pagan as a consequence. It will also remain markedly different from the fundamentalist, since fundamentalism does not converse with paganism. I’m not suggesting a fundamentalist retreat, and I’m sorry if some of God’s people have difficulty understanding scholarly criticisms, but this is a reflection on us as teachers in the Church. It is our responsibility to help the Church here. The pagan academic should know the difference between fundamentalism and evangelicalism when he sees it, if he is honest. If he chooses to take pot-shots at all because of the immaturity of the few that is his prerogative. Evangelicals could of course do the same. But we must do our part to bring about the needed maturity, while also reminding the pagan that we posit theological axioms, and that this is the only means of understanding Christian literature. We do not need a unified dogmatic-theological front in order to maintain credibility. Not as a Church or as an academy. But there are certain propositions, those properly safeguarded by the Rule of Faith, that, if lost, all is truly lost. Does the academic have a unified front? Are all theological critics unified in their criticisms against theological exegesis?
Part of the point for me, Michael (and here I find Barth helpful) is that non-Christians (or non-Jews) will say many things about the text that, for them, are theologically irrelevant but for a Christian might be of greatest significance. The “descriptive” or “comparative” or “religionist” task might be even self-consciously hostile to Christian faith but provide a profound reading of the text or elucidation of an idea. That’s where I that those of us who do love theology, and God, in the academy have a responsibility to build on the academy’s work for the church, to take the best of what the academy has to offer and give it to the church for its own good.