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THE OLD TESTAMENT in Quick Review PDF Print E-mail

Last Sunday at Café 9:15, Fr. Fred asked:  Why bother with what is known as Exegesis (an intense look at scripture from historical, literary, thematic, and word study perspectives)? As example, he referenced Fr. John’s sermon that elaborated on the distinctive and varying translations of the Greek words meaning “love” and how such translations can affect one’s understanding of scripture. 

Likewise Fr. Fred suggested that a historical perspective affects understanding.  Since scripture evolved from oral to written tradition, it is clear that the Hebrews transmitted the details of their life—that is, their history—in story.  Story is important, but is the story TRUE?  And does it matter?  Those questions continue to be relevant. 

What matters, Fr. Fred suggested, is what the story represents, not the factual details in historical terms.  (Details, nonetheless, are important because they represent the history.)  If we try to literalize the story, we miss the point of what the scripture is saying about God and how God reveals God’s self to the people and their/our response.  Scriptural chronology and facts of historicity are less important than understanding how The Bible came to be written and organized, who wrote each book and from what perspective (historical, literary, thematic) each book was written.  The Old Testament is a library, not a chronological telling of the story. 

For me the Café 9:15 study was an interesting preamble to our Sunday Evening Nourishment program with Fr. Bill McVey (Calvary Church, Sedalia) and my experience at Village Presbyterian Church with Luke Timothy Johnson, visiting scholar from Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

Fr. Bill McVey, in discussing post-modernism, suggested that to the post-modernist, truth is irrelevant and relative.  What matters IS—and that is existentialism.

Luke Timothy Johnson (LTJ) addressed the same issues in terms of the New Testament.  The question remained:  what is the truth?  He addressed this question in the context of the ongoing dialogue between the “Jesus Seminar” and others like himself.  LTJ does not subscribe to a literalist approach.  He also takes issue with the Jesus Seminar folks who demand the academic exercise of historical reconstruction (taking apart the gospels to “prove history and reconstruct the historical Jesus”). 

LTJ proposes that Jesus should be examined as the human Jesus in terms of faith and the practice of the church, that Jesus should be engaged experientially as a real person with specific characteristics.  While God in Christ is communicated by stories that go beyond historical fact, those stories are NOT fantasy; they are attached to a real person.  Therefore:  the more we learn about the first century and its history, the better the readers of the gospel we can be.  Historical review isn’t simply looking at the past; we are looking at what was written about the past, which is, indeed, a reconstruction of the past.  History is therefore under constant revision, according to the perspective of the writer, and is, accordingly dependent on the sources (about which we talked at Café 915), albeit sources that are fragmentary and partial.

LTJ’s conclusion:  examining the human Jesus leads us to discover the LIVING Jesus!  By carefully looking at the Jesus of the literary text, we discover the historic Jesus who shaped Christianity and our understanding of discipleship.  The truth of Jesus comes from a story that includes imaginative, poetic, metaphoric, and existential elements as well as a historical basis.  But that story cannot be tested by history.  Proof is found in experienced transformation. 

QUESTION:  Based on the discussion of our historical sources (Fr. Fred), on the existential “no truth” factor (Fr. McVey) and the “living Jesus” (Luke Timothy Johnson), what is your perspective in discovering the truth in scripture—be it Old and/or New Testament?

QUESTION:  Can something be real but not historical?  Can something be true but not be factual?  And how does that affect your understanding of The Resurrection?

 

-- Mtr. Anne Hutcherson
Last Updated on Thursday, 22 April 2010 16:32
 
The Times Drive the Storytelling PDF Print E-mail

(Note:  This is the first post of a blog reflecting on adult learning opportunities at St. Andrew’s.  Each week, a post will appear after Sunday’s class, and you’re invited to respond to it below.  The idea is to keep the conversation going even after “class time” is over.)

Yesterday, we kicked off a new series in Café 9:15 – “How to Read and Interpret the Bible.”  The first session dealt with what the Bible is and how it got here. 

Even though we know this isn’t the case, we sometimes approach Scripture as if it had been handed down from God all at once in its current form (in English, of course), like that famous scene from The 10 Commandments writ large.  Instead, the books of the Old Testament began as stories told by the Hebrew people, passed down through oral tradition, to illustrate both where they came from and how they related to the one God.  Their monotheism set them apart from the peoples around them, so their foundational stories fleshed out this radical notion that one God could both command all creation yet also embrace a particular people as a missionary presence to the others.  Over time, for specific reasons along the way, these oral-tradition stories were recorded, first becoming foundational documents for the newly unified nation of Israel and later becoming the texts that would remind a dispersed and exiled people of their national and religious identity.  The story of our relationship with God always responds to the needs of the time in which it’s told.

Similarly, the New Testament also began in oral tradition.  Of course, Jesus was the central figure, but we have no indication that he ever wrote anything about his teachings.  The earliest reflections on him came from St. Paul beginning in the 50s CE, and the writers of the gospels followed in the last third of the first century.  That might seem strange: Why didn’t anybody in the disciple community think to write down the teachings of the Son of God, and why didn’t they record the details of the resurrection and ascension as soon as these miracles happened?  Again, the needs of the time drove the storytelling.  For one thing, Jesus’ followers were doubly persecuted, by both Roman and Jewish authorities; and circulating documents about the “true king” would have been a good way to attract lethal attention.  But more important: Jesus’ followers saw no reason to record all this because everyone was going to know it soon enough when Jesus returned, ushering in God’s kingdom on earth in its fullness.  If the end is near, why bother to write the history of what’s just begun?  Eventually, as the next generations of Christians realized the timeline wasn’t what they’d expected, they saw the need to capture the stories and teachings of Christ, as well as reflect on what his life, death, and resurrection meant for their communities.  From these kinds of writings, the New Testament evolved.  But it wasn’t until the mid-100s that the gospels and Paul’s letters came to be recognized among Christian communities; and it wasn’t until the mid 300s – once there was a legal, official Christian presence in the Roman world – that we find a list of what we now know to be the New Testament.

The canon of the Bible is closed now, but we still need these stories of our relationship with God.  Part of the deep holiness of Scripture is that, through the Holy Spirit, these writings still speak to us, centuries later.  And the way we tell that story of relationship with God says a lot about our needs in the world today.  Who are we, as the people of God in this place and time?  Are we like the Israelites, telling the story of our identity?  Are we like the early Christians, trying to make sense of the “already/not yet” reality of the Kingdom of God?  What’s our story – and what makes us tell it the way we do?

-- Fr. John Spicer
Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 April 2010 19:23
 
AND.... we're off! PDF Print E-mail

This is where the blog began April 12, 2010
Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 April 2010 20:51
 


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