“ In the opening lecture, I asked you to set aside certain presuppositions about the biblical text. One of them is that it is a uniform, or unified, text with a single doctrine or theology. I asked you to remember that the Bible isn’t a book, it’s a library. It’s a library of works that originate in vastly different historical periods, vastly different historical situations. It responds to a variety of shifting needs and events, and reflects a range of perceptions about God and his relation to creation and to Israel. It isn’t a book of theology-that is to say rational argumentation in support of certain doctrines about God-and it most certainly doesn’t speak with a single voice on points of theology, or matters that are of traditional concern to the discipline of theology. Doctrine isn’t its concern. Understanding and making sense of the historical odyssey of the nation of Israel in covenant with God, that is its concern; and so we’re going to find many different interpretations of the meaning of that history and the nature of that God and the meaning of that covenant; and certainly there are some basic points of agreement, but even the most basic points of agreement do not pass without some contestation…the Bible’s authority doesn’t derive from some supposed consistency or univocality. That’s a modern notion, and it’s based on Hellenistic ideals of truth as singular, western culture influenced by Greek philosophical traditions defines truth in monistic terms: Only that which contains no contradiction is true, and that which is true is authoritative. Those notions are somewhat alien to the ancient non-Hellenized world. The Bible doesn’t strive to present philosophical truth. It presents the best effort of sages, and prophets, and scribes, and visionaries to respond to and explain the crises of the nation over a period of centuries, and its authority derives from its explanatory power of its insights into and understanding of God’s governance for the world and his plans for Israel. So those insights and those understandings may shift and even stand in contradiction with one another, but they’re not mutually exclusive… Lecture 19. LiteraryProphecy: Perspectives on the Exile (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and 2nd Isaiah) with Christine Hayes https://youtube/watch?v=u85pHixyoOI
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 09:20:59 +0000
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