Hermeneutics of Trust

Reading through the Pope's new book on Jesus, and I found a most helpful discussion on what Richard Hays terms the hermeneutics of trust (See his article: Salvation by Trust? Reading the Bible Faithfully available from Religion Online).

The common practice today is to measure the Bible against the so-called modern worldview, whose fundamental dogma is that God cannot act in history – that everything to do with God is to be relegated to the domain of subjectivity. And so the Bible no longer speaks of God, the living God; no, now we alone speak and decide what God can do and what we will and should do. And the Antichrist, with an air of scholarly excellence, tells us that any exegesis that reads the Bible from the perspective of faith in the living God, in order to listen to what God has to say, is fundamentalism; he wants to convince us that only his kind of exegesis, the supposedly pure scientific kind, in which God says nothing and has nothing to say, is able to keep abreast the times.

The theological debate between Jesus and the devil is a dispute over the correct interpretation of Scripture, and it is relevant to every period of history. The hermeneutical question lying at the basis of proper scriptural exegesis is this: What picture of God are we working with? The dispute about interpretation is ultimately a dispute about who God is. Yet in practice, the struggle over the image of God, which underlies the debate about valid biblical interpretation, is decided by the picture we form of Christ: Is he, who remained without worldly power, really the Son of the Living God?[1]

Thus, the question over starting assumptions and how worldviews affect interpretation are always to be at the front of the researchers mind. How does my faith (presupposition), affect the way I read, understand and interpret? Does it prohibit me from accessing the truth? Or does it allow me to penetrate further into the mystery of what actually happened, because I am not constrained by the beast of doubt?

[1] Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday, 2007) pg. 35-36

G'day Kiwi's

Funny story, apparently one of our Kiwi readers had the most unusual encounter with my little sister last week.

A reader of this blog from Auckland, New Zealand, went to the Salon to have her hair done and they started talking about this blog. Apparently she mentioned this blog and my sister curiously started asking various questions which led to the unveiling of my identity as her brother!

So, to whoever you are, glad you enjoy the blog!

News

Well, blogging has been slow due to work and some different reading. I'm thoroughly enjoying John Goldingay at the moment. The newly released commentary on Psalm 1-41 is outstanding, the translation in it fresh and helpful. Israel's Gospel, volume 1 of a projected three volumes (Volume 2, Israel's Faith has just arrived here), is one of the best books on the Hebrew narrative I have ever read. It is a solid, and exceptionally insightful book - with a few links to the New Testament as well.

Around the blogosphere there is some exciting stuff happening. Mark Goodacre alerts us to The Faraday Institute of Science and Religion, which has amazing audio, vision lectures, with notes and pdf files and even some powerpoint presentations - from scholars like McGrath, Polkinghorne (My favourite) to Simon Conway-Morris and my former lecturer at Auckland, Graeme Finlay. If this tickles your fance, check it out...

Michael Pahl begins an exciting series on "The Gospel" which is helpful. Mike Bird swims against the tide by questioning "Q" and then the so-called rupture between Peter and Paul, with links to Mark's gospel. My own view on Q scholarship is ably described by John Meier:

I cannot help thinking that biblical scholarship would be greatly advanced if every morning all exegetes would repeat as a mantra: 'Q is a hypothetical document whose exact extension, wording, originating community, strata, and stages of redaction cannot be known.' This daily devotion might save us flights of fancy that are destined, in my view, to end in skepticism.

A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol 2, p. 178.

In other spheres, Chris Tilling is hosting a review and interview with Chris VanLandingham about his new book: Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul. Be sure to check them both out. Ben Witherington remarks that he is,

reminded of the intellectual responsibility of Christians to discourse with our culture at a level that can reach even the brightest of the potential converts. It's time to stop dumbing down the Gospel. It's time to boil up the people, tease their minds into active thought. For the mind is a gift from God, and is not only a terrible thing to waste, its an unethical and unChristian thing to waste.

Which leads finally to the post by my nemesis Eddie, on the necessity of historical questions in Christian faith. It's a great quote and should make those concerned to advance the Kingdom think, rethink and then deploy their intentions based on sound reasoning and clear thinking.

Back to work for me... The Psalms are calling... ANd my Hebrew is useless...

Importance of Apologetics

For my inaugural post, I thought I would share a quote which rightly captures the importance of the intellect in becoming a follower of Jesus. Although it is (slightly) outside the main focus of this blog (biblical studies), it is nevertheless tightly wed to it. In an atmosphere of sensationalism, conspiracy theories, and bad scholarship surrounding Jesus and the rise of the Christian movment, the area of Christian origins should (in my opinion) be the focal point of our dialogue with our contemporaries. So without further delay:

Commitment to Christ is a matter for the entire person, not for his mind alone; and intellectual conviction (if, indeed, it can be had at all without the whole person being involved) is not the whole business. But the whole business, precisely because it concerns the whole person, can never be achieved in defiance of the intellect. Reason, though not the whole, is a part of the personal response; and the attempt to bring to light the falseness of certain allegedly rational objections is therefore not unimportant.

-C. F. D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Implications of Certain Features of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1967), 2-3

Ezekiel 16

Ezekiel writes to shock and to shake, and reaches his most shocking so far here in his epic portrayal of the harrowing life story of Ms. Jerusalem. If it opens in the beguiling manner of a “rags-to-riches” fairy tale, it soon devastates the audience with the extend to which no one lives happily ever after as its camera moves from abandoned baby to nubile beauty to nymphomaniac whore to brazen adulteress to heartless child killer, a woman no better than her foreign parents and arguably worse than her sisters Samaria and Sodom. It is the prophetic equal to a four-hour movie blockbuster with repeated scenes of sexual violence and violence on children, which no one under 18 is allowed to see. It became another passage in Ezekiel which rabbinic leadership hesitated to have read in worship.

John Goldingay

Theology for ALL

How disastrously the Church must misunderstand itself if it can imagine that theology is the business of a few theoreticians who are specially appointed for the purpose, to whom the rest, as hearty practical men, may sometimes listen with half an ear, though for their own part they boast of living “quite untheologically” for the demands of the day (“love”). As though these practical men were not continually preaching and speaking and writing, and were not genuinely questioned as to the rightness of their activity in this regard! As though there were anything more practical than giving this question its head, which means doing the work of theology and dogmatics! Again, how disastrously the Church must misunderstand itself if it can imagine that theological reflection is a matter for quiet situations and periods that suit and invite contemplation, a kind of peace-time luxury for which we are not only permitted but even commanded to find no time should things become really serious and exciting! As though there could be any more urgent task for a Church under assault from without than that of consolidating itself within, which means doing theological work! As though the venture of proclamation did not mean that the Church permanently finds itself in an emergency! As though theology could be done properly without reference to this constant emergency! Let there be no mistake. Because of these distorted ideas about theology, and dogmatics in particular, there arises and persists in the life of the Church a lasting and growing deficit for which we cannot expect those particularly active in this function to supply the needed balance. The whole Church must seriously want a serious theology if it is to have a serious theology.

—Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/1, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), 76-77.

[HT: David]

Events & Interpretation

Recent events of my sickness have kept me from posting much these days... Lying in bed with the evil flu has even prevented reading my new books. I found some odd sale in a random bookshop only to discover that what they were selling was BRILLIANT! I picked up volume 3.4 and 4.1 of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics (Brand new in soft cover) for 10 pounds. I then discovered a softcover of Barrett's ICC commentary on Acts 1-14 for 4 pounds (Brand new). I think I must have spent about 30pounds and found some BRILLIANT books, all brand new, and have now added them to my library. I can't figure out how or why they are so CHEAP, but I'm not complaining. I even found a copy of Paul and the Law by Thielman, for like 3 pounds. It was ridiculous.

More to the point of this post though: Michael Pahl has a little gem Event and Interpretation, which is well worth pondering. My Nemesis Eddie will love it...

I'm still trying to crack Gal 3:20, as well as the whole of 10-14, but I'll post more on that later. I think Richard Hays is one of the best commentators on Galatians, but I haven't read Martyn yet and Hays seems to be building on Martyn's shoulders.

On the other side of the field, before I got sick I was thoroughly enjoying Goldingay's Israel's Gospel, which I think is excellent. Not sure about Israel's Faith, because it's far more systematic, whereas I'm enjoying the Narrative approach. His section on Creation is superbly written, so that even my wife was enjoying it!

Anyway, back to bed... Hope to post soon. Take care...

Gal 3:20 - any clues?

Galatians 3:20 Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one.

I'm presenting a paper on Galatians 3-4 soon and I'm stumped. The most honest confession about this passage I can find is by F. F. Bruce.

The two statements in v 20 are completely intelligible if each is taken by itself. It goes without saying that a mediator requires at least two parties between which he is to mediate; he cannot mediate on behalf of one party only. That God is one is the theological basis of Judaism and Christianity alike… It is the relation between the two clauses that constitute the interpretive problem. In what way does the affirmation that God is one form an antithesis to what is said about the mediator? The number of solutions offered to the problem as been reckoned to exceed 300 – one might wonder, indeed , if this is Robert Browning’s ‘great text in Galatians’ with its ‘twenty-nine distinct damnations’ for the unwary exegete.

[Bruce, Commentary on Galatians, pg. 178]

Any other ideas? ANyone have a clue as to how this relates to the argument of Gal 3? Recommeded articles? Looking through Burton, Bruce, Hays, Longenecker, Witherinton and they don't seem to have much clue either... Desperation haunts this wary exegete...

Gal 3:2 - Translating

The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by performing the works of the Torah or by trusting what you heard?

Richard Hays notes the difficulty in translating this verse and offers the various possibilities.[1]

The Meaning of ex akoēs pisteōs

If akoē means “hearing”: a) pistis = “believing”: “By hearing with faith”

b) pistis = “the faith”: “by hearing the faith (i.e., “by hearing the gospel)

If akoē means “message”: c) pistis = “believing”: “from the message that elicits faith”

d) pistis = “the faith”: “from the message of the faith” (i.e., “from the gospel message”)

Hays goes on to note that:

The noun akoē can sometimes mean “hearing,” but Paul’s use of it in a similar context in Rom 10:16-17 suggests that he understands it to mean “what is heard” – in other words, the proclaimed message… Here the interpreter of the letter is faced with a crucial fork in the road. Does Paul attribute the receiving of the Spirit to a human action (“hearing with faith”) or to divine initiative (“the message that elicits faith”)?[2]

I have translated this as “trusting what you heard” since ajkoh commonly referred to “the content of what is heard.”[3] I'm not convinced Hays has succeeded in demonstrating that the possible interpretations are mutually exclusive. If the Galatians trusted Paul’s message, it does not therefore negate the power of the message to provoke or elicit trust. It merely notes that by trusting what was spoken by Paul, and not by performing the various Jewish commandments, the Spirit descended upon them. Thus, I would still want to argue that this leaves open the question of divine initiative and human action.

[1] This table is found in Hays, “Galatians”, pg. 252 and further discussed in R. B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ (Scholars Press, 1983) pgs. 143-149

[2] Hays, “Galatians”, pg. 252

[3] Longenecker, Galatians, pg. 103

Laconic Sages

The pressure is to much, so I'll quickly advertise this once, and never again. Some friends and I have started another blog: LACONIC SAGES to discuss church, discipleship and anything else that effects being a follower of Jesus in our post-modern world. There are no limits to what we will or won't discuss, so it's going to be interesting.

If you're interested or that way inclined, check it out...

ciao, sean D.