Scriptural Dissonance: Incarnation

I wasn't certain that I wanted to tackle this one next, but I've been reading something that's prodding my thoughts in a particular direction, and having begun to ponder it I think it works out to be a nice logical progression in any case. The tension of which I'm speaking is, of course, the humanity and divinity of Christ. I've chosen the word "incarnation" for my title, however, because that particular term encapsulates something of the essence of the struggle. In this one term we have the holding together of two ideas that seem contradictory and become in their joining scandalous, an offense, something bold and subversive and perhaps rather nonsensical if it weren't for the fact that it is true.

The book in question is Frost's Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. I have a confession to make, and I hope this doesn't mean that I can't sit with the cool kids at lunch anymore - I'm about fifty pages in and, so far, I'm not really into it. I like the points that he's making, but I find myself in serious disagreement with how he gets there. My biggest complaint thus far has been his take on the creeds:

Sadly, the early church was quick to move beyond the very earthy, actional description of Jesus in the Gospels to a much more ontological one in the creeds...The later Nicene Creed, composed in the early fourth century, while containing many of the same elements found in the Old Roman Creed, reads more like a philosophical formula than a summary of a story. Jesus Christ is "...light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father." The later Athanasian Creed is an even more striking example of the move toward doctrinally oriented conceptions of the faith. When the earliest witnesses to the Christ event sought to describe what they saw, they rarely took such a philosophical stance. They speak in very practical, plain language about what Jesus did and said. And this affects the way that they saw mission. If the gospel is about a real man, eating, drinking, teaching, crucified, buried, resurrected, it locates the message in action. When we see Jesus as light from light, true God from true God, it dramatically changes our spirituality. Jesus becomes one to be worshipped, examined, reflected upon. The earlier creeds, however, present a lifestyle to be followed. (p. 30)

Now, let it first be said that I really want to like this book - I've had such high hopes for it after Shaping. But this discussion is wrong on so many levels that I'm not sure where to begin. Well, I suppose what immediately leaps out at me is that this is just a sloppy argument. For one thing, Frost hasn't given any credence to the thought that perhaps the creeds are an excellent example of contextual theology, framed in a way that is completely appropriate to the fourth century world in which they were constructed. To take a swipe at them for not being narratival seems, well, petty. But that's besides the point. The big concern is that Frost is in fact dealing with the substance of a heresy which the early church knew all too well. In fact, by the time Nicea rolled around, it was old hat - it was called Docetism, and it was confronted by the likes of John, Ignatius, and Polycarp. It was, put succinctly, the belief that Jesus only appeared to be human, but was not so in fact. 1 John begins with a text that begins to sound rather philosophical as it goes along (contra Frost's dictum): That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. The early church had, by the time of Nicea, already rejected an approach that would suggest that Jesus was less than fully human.

However, we would do well to pay attention to the conflict that generated the Nicene Creed. It is, in some sense, docetism's opposite; it's known as Arianism, and it was one of the most significant struggles that the church faced in its first five hundred years. To put it succinctly, Arianism taught that Jesus was something less than fully God, that he was created by God and that there was a time before he existed. While this on the surface seems a small thing, in reality it has the potential to radically reorient the way in which we read the Story. If Jesus was not "true God of true God", as the Creed states (and as the Arians denied), then what of the incarnation? What of the subversive, scandalous text that is the Gospel? What of the God who humbles himself, takes on the form of a servant, and becomes the "ordinary human" that Frost champions?

Please don't misread me - I'm not suggesting in any way that Frost is espousing Arianism or that he's denying the incarnation. However, I do want to suggest that we need to think somewhat more carefully on the importance of the Creeds and treasure them for what they are - the church's reflection of how the Story is to be read, not as a substitute for the Story itself. And in this instance, I think, the Church has gotten it right, even if those of us who are a part of her tend to teeter from one side to another: belief in the tension between humanity and divinity in the person of Christ is what makes us Christian. Tension, that is, in how we understand the incarnation, not in the person of Christ himself - let me be clear! I agree with Frost in that the Church has often drifted towards a functional docetism while denying its substance - we have acted as though Jesus' earthy, human life was of less importance than the meaning of his death and resurrection. But let us not make the corresponding mistake of not reflecting deeply, thoroughly, and, yes, worshipfully on what it means that God himself has walked among us, and we have seen his glory.

Technorati Tags: Frost, incarnation, scripture, Exiles

Scriptural Dissonance: Power and Freedom

I've been reading through The Silmarillion again of late; actually, I try to read each of Tolkien's major works at least once a year, and of them, I think this one is my favorite. It's certainly the most challenging - I confess that I tried to get through it three times before I was finally successful. But it rewards the careful reader, and I've found that its complexity is what creates its beauty and depth.

Tolkien is a fascinating author, not least because he deals with significant themes but does so indirectly. If you're familiar with Lord of the Rings, for example, think of the way in which the One Ring is described. What is most interesting is that Tolkien never comes out and states what it is that the Ring does. It's powerful, so much so that if the Enemy were to retrieve it his victory would be assured - but it also corrupts the wielder, so that any who attempt to use its power for good would result in themselves being twisted and tainted. But what does it do, exactly?

Tolkien gives us hints and suggestions, ones that the careful reader can note. And I think that evil, in Tolkien's world, is embodied by power used in domination. This is vaguely what the Ring does - it grants power according to one's stature, according to Gandalf, and the wielder must train his or her will in the domination of others. In the Silmarillion, Morgoth's evil was of similar character, only greater - and this is to be expected, for Morgoth was the one whom Sauron served.

This leads me to something on which I've been reflecting for some time. I've been wrestling with how to approach this topic; I believe again that here are two themes which stand in tension in the biblical text, but this particular dichotomy is easily the most controversial. I've titled this post Power and Freedom, but I'm not certain that captures the heart of the matter. Still, it serves as a beginning, perhaps. In short, the question that I have is this: does God always get what He wants?

The Christian tradition has always held to the view that God is sovereign, that He is all-powerful and that He rules the cosmos as its heavenly King. He is the creator, the One who gave the universe its beginning; He is the sustainer, the One that continues to give the universe its life; and He is the redeemer, the One who will eventually restore all things to their intended purpose and being. Isaiah, speaking in God's stead, has this to say: "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." God has the power to accomplish what He chooses to accomplish - this, it would seem, settles the matter.

Or does it? Another theme, I think, winds its way through the narrative, one that perhaps brings an, "And yet..." to the telling. God, at the very beginning of the story, chooses to delegate his authority to humans, who use that authority in ways that seem at odds with God's own purposes. The authority graciously given is quickly turned to domination of others. The challenge that this presents is obvious: did God intend this use of His delegated authority? Does He get His way in this, or not?

On the one hand, we have the picture of a God who has the ability to see that His every whim is done. On the other, we see a God who does not act as though He is happy with what transpires. We see a God who grieves, a God who weeps, One who cries out for those He loves to be faithful and to stop chasing after others. We see a God who certainly acts as though something has gone awry. And most of all we see God revealed in the person of Christ - a King who loves His enemies, who rejects military might as His way, who welcomes all and sundry, who stands silently before His accusers and who suffers rejection and betrayal and torture and murder at the hands of an apostate religious aristocracy and a brutal dictator interested only in maintaining his own position and power.

Power is, after all, the problem here. Power God has - power enough to see His will accomplished. But His use of power is puzzling. Instead of keeping it, He seems to be most interested in giving it away. We see power wielded not in domination of others, but in selfless service and sacrifice. We see the greatest of all becoming the servant of all. We see power revealed, not in strength, but in weakness.

We dare not - dare not - resolve this tension. To waver towards a God who is all-powerful and uses that power to always get what He wants is to miss the self-giving One revealed in the person of Christ. It is to instead establish a deity who is little more than a cosmic overlord, who cannot be moved by compassion or by love. On the other hand, to resolve in favor of a God who abdicates that power reveals a God who is no longer God at all, who cannot redeem and who cannot establish justice and mercy and peace as He has promised to do. To live in that tension is to open, perhaps, a new way of thinking about power, about how we in turn should wield it who are formed in His image and carry still His delegated authority. That power remains His, and we shall one day have to give account for how we have served as its stewards.

Technorati Tags: power, scripture, freedom, theology

Scriptural Dissonance: Image and Curse

I think there is a fine argument to be made that the problem of the human condition is the problem that occupies the central place in the narrative of scripture. N.T. Wright has this to say in his book Evil and the Justice of God:

In fact - and this is crucial, I think, for understanding the Old Testament as a whole - what the Bible gives us is both much less and much more than a "progressive revelation," a steady unfolding of who God is. The Old Testament isn't written in order simply to "tell us about God" in the abstract. It isn't designed primarily to provide information, to satisfy the inquiring mind. It's written to tell the story of what God has done, is doing, and will do about evil...we must grasp at the outset that the underlying narrative logic of the whole Old Testament assumes that this is what it's about. (p. 45-46)

I think there is something to be said for reading scripture through the logic of narrative. In other words, I think that while a lot of folks would agree with that statement in principle, we still read the text like it's either the New York Times or Aesop's Fables, depending on one's particular theological bent. Narrative - I make much of narrative in my thoughts here, primarily because I believe it's critical to understand narrative in order to understand scripture. Narrative is driven by conflict. Without conflict, there is no narrative, no story. And, similarly, unless one understands what, exactly, the conflict is all about, one will miss the point of the narrative. And the conflict in scripture is framed in terms of image and curse - miss this, and I think you miss the point of the whole tale.

Scripture is, after all, more than just the story of God - it's specifically the story of God and people. It's about how we were created with the purpose of representing God's authority but squandered that vocation, receiving instead the curse. Believe what you will about whether the Genesis account is mythic or historical or something else entirely - the bottom line is that without this particular underpinning, this conflict that sits at the heart of everything that comes after, nothing else in the book will make sense in quite the right way. You might be able to make sense of it, but it will be the wrong kind of sense, and will ultimately hinder your efforts to understand what it is that the text is really saying.

The conflict is this: human beings are created in the image of God, established as his representatives, gifted with his authority and tasked with completing his creative project of filling and ordering the earth that began in the very first chapter of the book. We, each of us, have dignity, honor, a creative calling, and a divine vocation to fulfill - we are, in short, Good. Human beings are also laboring under the curse, cast out of the garden, our divine vocation frustrated, our relationships fractured, and we are unable to do anything about it. We, each of us, are also Evil. As Wright states so eloquently, the line between good and evil runs through the center of each of us - it isn't that this one is good, while that one over there is evil; it is that we all, each of us, live in the tension between image and curse - a tension that cannot be resolved in this present age.

In fact, to resolve this tension is to destroy the story. It is to twist it and rearrange it until it is no longer recognizable. To resolve the tension in favor of curse over image - to say that the curse has utterly destroyed the imago dei or that there is no vestige of good left in humanity - is to leave one without a theology that can recognize human dignity. It is an understanding that is unable to explain any act of good on the part of those outside of one's theological tradition - in fact, such an approach is forced to call any act of generosity, of heroism, of selfless courage, of justice, of mercy, or of reconciliation that is done outside of that tradition an evil act done by evil people. I'd go so far as to suggest that it removes the element of tragedy from the story almost entirely. On the other hand, to resolve the tension in favor of image over curse - to deny the fallen condition in which we find ourselves - is to leave one without a theology that can explain human evil. It cannot, I think, explain such things as genocide or war or poverty or injustice or abuse or exploitation or any of a thousand ways that we routinely violate the sanctity and dignity of human life. I'd go so far as to suggest that it leaves the story, ultimately, without a point or a resolution.

This, then, is the first theme that I would like to suggest that plays in dissonance throughout the scriptures. In fact, this dissonance lies at the heart of the melody and is central to the score. And perhaps I telegraph a bit too much of my direction here, but let me share one last thought: the purpose of dissonance in music is to create the desire for and expectation of resolution. Perhaps something of what it means to live in this tension is to allow it to fuel such desire and expectation in us as well.

Technorati Tags: image of God, imago dei, narrative, scripture

Scriptural Dissonance

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that theological diversity plays a key role in how scripture functions; in other words, there are many themes about which different authors say different things. I've spent the better part of two weeks defending that assertion in the comments (at times better than others!) and I think I've reached the point where I need to start unpacking those thoughts in a different direction, because it's becoming obvious that what I wanted to say is getting lost in the examples that I chose in that post.

Let me say it a different way - and I continue to press for this, because I think it that significant - when one looks at the broad sweep of scripture, certain central themes emerge which are in tension with each other. These themes exist at the very heart of the narrative, and stubbornly refuse to resolve, no matter how one approaches the problems. In fact, in some instances the attempt to resolve these tensions has led to some of the significant heretical movements in our history, so there is at the least a sense for me that what is at stake in this discussion is quite significant. By themes, I'm thinking of those Big Picture ideas that make the Christian story what it is - things like God's sovereignty and human agency, like image and curse, like the humanity and deity of Christ, like the present and future nature of the Kingdom. Part of what it means to be a Christian is that we live in the space between these themes, as though we are experiencing a dissonant chord in a piece of music and are anxiously awaiting its resolution to harmony.

One of the books currently on my shelf is N.T. Wright's new work Evil and the Justice of God. Already I can tell that this is going to be one of the best books I'll read this year - I'm nearly halfway through it and I'm just amazed at the wisdom that's contained in this little book. To the point of this post, however, Wright picks up on this theme of unresolved tension in his discussion of the problem of evil:

In particular, there is a noble Christian tradition which takes evil so seriously that it warns against the temptation to "solve" it in any obvious way. If you offer an analysis of evil which leaves us saying, "Well, that's all right then, we now see how it happens and what to do about it," you have belittled the problem...We cannot and must not soften the blow; we cannot and must not pretend that evil isn't that bad after all...No, for the Christian, the problem is how to understand and celebrate the goodness and God-givenness of creation and, at the same time, understand and face up to the reality and seriousness of evil. It is easy to "solve" the problem by watering down one side or the other, saying either that the world isn't really God's good creation or that evil isn't really that bad after all. (p. 40-41)

If we are to do justice to the grand tradition to which we are heirs, I think it critical that we learn to recognize such tensions in the very heart of our Story and to attempt to live within them rather than "solve" them, as Wright says. Over the next few posts I want to work on unpacking some of those tensions and begin to think on how it is that we might allow ourselves to be shaped by them instead of attempting to shape them into a more manageable form.

Technorati Tags: hermeneutics, theology

Contextuality and Hermeneutic (p. 2)

One of the more challenging issues that is raised by viewing scripture through contextual lenses is the realization that we aren't dealing with just one context. Part of what makes scripture amazing and beautiful is that it was written over a period of roughly one thousand years by dozens of authors in different contexts with different perspectives. On the other hand, part of what makes it complicated and messy is that it was written over a period of roughly one thousand years by dozens of authors in different contexts with different perspectives.

That there is theological diversity in scripture is difficult (although not impossible) to ignore. What that diversity means, however, is another matter entirely. Is it possible to believe in an authoritative text that at times seems to disagree with itself? The short answer for many people of various theological persuasions seems to be that it isn't - and much blood and ink have been spilled in an effort to prove that the Bible does/doesn't "contradict" itself. The assumption seems to be that if the text says one thing here and another thing there that the whole book is rendered worthless and any belief in divine agency in its origin is made laughable.

I posted a few thoughts a while back on Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation - it's a fantastic book that tackles some of these kinds of questions in a wonderfully accessible way. In it, Enns makes the point that many assumptions that we make about scripture are based on preconceived notions of what it is that a sacred text must look like - in other words, we define our belief on the nature of scripture based not on how it is but on how we would like it to be. So, for instance, if we think that a document that says different things about the same subject can't be divinely inspired, then we'll expend enormous energy attempting to prove that the Bible always agrees with itself, no matter what is actually in the text. I think that he's exactly right on this point, and I think it's unfortunate - we've allowed other priorities to set the agenda for our interaction with our own sacred text, instead of doing so on our own terms.

I think part of the contextual, situated nature of the biblical text as revelation is that it contains diverse opinions. Exodus, for example, lays out an elaborate system of sacrifice and ritual; the prophets denounce that same system. Samuel/Kings portrays David in his unvarnished, sinful brokenness; Chronicles cleans him up significantly. Paul states that we are justified by faith; James suggests that we are also justified by works. It's as though, for any significant theme in the biblical text, we can find one voice that portrays it in a particular way, but if we'll continue reading, we'll find another that says, "Yes, but..." And what I think is unfortunate is that we, by and large, have not allowed that reality to inform how we think about what it means that we claim this text, this narrative, this story as scripture, as the true account of God's way-of-acting in the world, of the people that he's called together to demonstrate that way-of-acting to the rest of humanity.

Is it possible to live in the tension between diverse viewpoints on matters of theology, without attempting to resolve that tension? I suggest that, not only should it be possible, but that it is part of what it means to be followers of a God who has chosen to reveal himself through a text that contains such diverse viewpoints. I'd like to spend a few posts unpacking what such an approach might look like and suggest a few thoughts for further reflection.

Technorati Tags: contextual theology, hermeneutics

Contextuality and Hermeneutic

Anyone who's been reading along for any length of time knows that I can't seem to get through a month without posting about contextual theology. I discovered this discipline in seminary, although if you've been exposed to some of the defining concerns of the emerging church or the missional movement then you'll probably have at least an instinctive sense for what contextual theology is all about. In the words of Clemens Sedmak from his excellent book Doing Local Theology:

Theology that tries to do justice to its place in culture and history is contextual. Contextualization literally means "weaving together" and is "thus an interweaving of the gospel with every particular situation"...The process of contextualization includes the reflection on one's own place as a person within a wider horizon. (p. 95)

I threw out a thought late last week on the contextual nature of the gospel on which I'd been musing and received some positive comments. Nobody, though, picked up on what was at the heart of my thought - not that I was that specific, but I was a bit curious to see if anyone would head in the same direction. In truth, I was less reflecting on doing theology in our own context and more thinking of reading scripture as itself an exercise in contextual theology.

Here's what I mean: when I say that all articulations of the gospel are "contextual reflections on a hypercontextual reality", I'm actually talking about hermeneutics. In other words, I'm suggesting that what we read in scripture are local expressions of people in specific settings reflecting on what the gospel is and what it means to live in keeping with the reality towards which it points. I'm suggesting that, even in the New Testament, we do not encounter a "pure gospel" - we read instead of particular people who wrestle with the gospel's breaking into their world and messing up their lives. More importantly, we read over their shoulders as they wrestle together with the gospel and try to discern how to live in its aftermath.

Consider this: the word for gospel, euangelion, is a political term that was used in and around the first century to refer to the good news of Caesar and the celebration of his birth. (See this excellent article by Wright for reference.) Caesar was hailed as Lord, portrayed as the bringer of peace and justice. The people were encouraged (to state it mildly) to trust him - have "faith" in him - for salvation. Paul was nothing if not a masterful contextual theologian. That we miss his cultural resonances is only to our detriment - speaking personally, as I begin to understand more and more of his context, the text continues to come alive, and I begin to see depth and subtlety that I had before missed. Put simply, we can't even trade in the coin of gospel language without picking up some contextual theology in the deal.

So, what does this mean from a practical standpoint? For one, I find myself doing more work to understand the New Testament context. More and more of my reading is in New Testament theology - and it's not the systematic stuff either, but good historical, cultural studies that attempt to bring those insights to bear on the scriptures. It's begun to shape my understanding of what it means to read and understand the text. I mean this on more than just a surface level. I think that we do ourselves a disservice when we assume that anyone can pick up the scriptures and come to a clear understanding of their meaning. While I agree with this in principle - I certainly don't believe for a minute that only the "qualified" should read and interpret the text - I stumble with the realization that, frankly, there are a lot of folks who aren't interested in doing the work that's needed to understand the context. We approach the scriptures too often like we do any other book. We assume that the meaning should be plain and that the authors and their readers inhabited the same symbolic world that we do, when in fact we are separated by nearly two millennia, different languages, different methods of communication, different cultural narratives, etc, etc, etc. This is hard work, and I'm skeptical of those who glibly refer to the "clear teaching of scripture", because it seems to nearly always indicate that someone hasn't done his or her homework.

On the other hand, lest anyone think that I'm attempting to pat myself on the back in some self-congratulatory way and hold up my own reading as a better standard, I've also become more and more aware of my own deficiencies as a student of scripture. If nothing else, having so many of my cherished preconceptions shattered by my own ignorance of the first-century world has (hopefully) led to a bit more humility in how I hold my interpretation. I've begun to try to think more charitably of those with whom I disagree and to give their readings a more sympathetic review. This of course doesn't mean that I succeed at that task - I probably fail at being charitable more than I succeed - but at the least it's something on which I'm trying to improve.

In short - contextual theology, when seen as a means of interpreting scripture, can not only help us to better understand the text, but it can also help us to wrestle with it in a more charitable way.

Technorati Tags: contextual theology, hermeneutics

Inspiration and Incarnation: The NT's Use of the OT (p. 4)

Jumping back to Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to briefly summarize Enns's third point of difficulty in understanding the nature of scripture. Enns contends that the NT authors' use of the OT is itself particularly challenging for evangelical hermeneutics, primarily because the NT authors didn't follow what is often portrayed as normative hermeneutical practices in interpreting the OT. This is something that, I think, often escapes contemporary readers - we are, unfortunately, sufficiently far removed from the OT narratives (generally speaking) that we don't catch the subtle oddities in the NT texts. As a result, when we run across something that we do recognize, we assume that the author is doing something that he may not in fact be doing. More on this in a second.

Enns supplies a wealth of information about both the actual uses of the NT by the OT. I simply can't begin to summarize it all - to be honest, I think the discussion of second Temple writings alone is worth the price of the book. An example will have to suffice. In 2 Tim 3:8, we find this statement: "And just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses..." Jannes and Jambres are the names that are assigned to the Egyptian magicians spoken of in Exodus 7. But even a cursory reading of the passage in Exodus will reveal that, not only are these names not mentioned anywhere in the narrative, the number of magicians in question isn't even provided. So where do the names originate? While we can't be certain of their origins, we do know that they also occur in the writings of Qumran, as well as one of the targums. What we see in this instance is that Paul is participating in an established interpretive tradition and incorporating its assumptions and conclusions into a writing that we hold as inspired. Other examples abound, some more troubling - Matthew uses Hosea in ways that, were I to emulate, would have resulted in my failing any number of theology assignments; Paul on a number of occasions quotes an OT passage, but actively alters the passage so that the quotation more adequately presents the perspective he is attempting to communicate; and Jesus himself takes passages out of context in order to prove a point, such as his use of Exodus 3:6 in his argument with the Sadducees in Luke 20.

I'm going to resist attempting to draw conclusions at this point. Instead, I want to quote something that Enns says that I think encapsulates the issue nicely, and summarize my thoughts in my next post.

Furthermore, it will not do to argue that Jesus and the apostles adopted such tainted exegetical techniques simply as an accommodation to the faulty thinking of their contemporaries. There simply is no indication of this anywhere in the New Testament...To argue in such a way reveals more about our own assumptions concerning the supposed universal validity of our own hermeneutical standards than it does about apostolic hermeneutics. But apostolic hermeneutics is not to be explained in such a way as to conform to our expectations, nor should we be embarrassed about it or make excuses for it. It is to be understood. (p. 132, emphasis added)

Technorati Tags: books, Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns, scripture

Inspiration and Incarnation: The OT and Theological Diversity (p. 3)

Continuing my discussion of Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to pick up briefly a subject that I think is particularly challenging to the traditional evangelical perspective on scripture. In particular, Enns discusses the difficulty that the theological diversity of the Old Testament presents to that perspective. I think that it also bears repeating that Enns is approaching this question from firm evangelical commitments himself - his presentation of these issues isn't meant to undermine a high view of scripture, but rather to bring the nature of the written text itself into conversation with that perspective, resulting in a more robust understanding of what it means to claim that scripture is God's self-revelation. In his own words:

One way that critical biblical scholarship takes diversity into account is to say that the Old Testament is full of contradictions and, hence, a quaint record of conflicting human opinions. Such an approach will never be an acceptable option for Christian thinking. An evangelical counterattack, however, is to defend the Bible against accusations of diversity by showing that such diversity is not there, involves only minor issues, or can be resolved in theory at some future time. But this alternative creates tensions of its own, and it runs the risk of avoiding the difficult issues altogether. (p.73)

I'm tempted at this point to delve into some of the texts that Enns highlights. I've decided against doing that. Anyone who has read the Old Testament at any level beyond a surface reading has no doubt begun to encounter the issues that Enns is discussing. If you are unconvinced that such diversity exists, I would humbly suggest a reading to illustrate: compare 2 Sam 11 and 1 Chron 20. Notice the tiny slice of history that the Chronicler omits following 20:1. It's absolutely fascinating the way these two narratives are constructed. I could suggest a number of others; however, the point isn't at all about exegeting specific difficulties. In fact, that may be precisely not the point. Enns goes on to state the following:

What the diversity of the Bible tells us is that there is no superficial unity to the Bible. Portions of the Bible are in tension with each other, as we have seen. That these tensions exist is a matter of simple observation. A better question is why they exist and what this tells us about the nature of the Scriptures and, by extension, the nature of God. (p.108)

Technorati Tags: books, Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns, scripture

Inspiration and Incarnation: The OT and Ancient Literature (p. 2)

The first "problem" that Enns tackles in Inspiration and Incarnation is that of the Old Testament's relationship to other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Enns demonstrates the difficulty in three areas:

• Creation and the Flood: Is Genesis Myth or History?
• Customs, Laws, and Proverbs: Is Revelation Unique?
• Israel and its Kings: Is Good Historiography Objective or Biased?

Tackling each of these areas is far more than I can begin to attempt in the format of a blog post. Instead, I'll post a few excerpts and then offer some thoughts of my own.

To give a hint of where this discussion is going, it is worth asking what standards we can reasonably expect of the Bible, seeing that it is an ancient Near Eastern document and not a modern one. Are the early stories in the Old Testament to be judged on the basis of standards of modern historical inquiry and scientific precision, things that ancient peoples were not at all aware of? Is it not likely that God would have allowed his word to come to the ancient Israelites according to standards they understood, or are modern standards of truth and error so universal that we should expect premodern cultures to have understood them?(p. 41)

I question how much value there is in posing the choice of Genesis as either myth or history. This distinction seems to be a modern invention. It presupposes - without stating explicitly - that what is historical, in a modern sense of the word, is more real, of more value, more like something God would do, than myth.(p. 49)

I could go on - there is a wealth of information in this section. For anyone who has done any amount of reading in ANE literature, there isn't a lot of surprising information - I was familiar with most of the texts that he was referencing just from my seminary training alone. He draws on examples that are fairly common knowledge, such as Enuma Elish, Gilgamesh, and the code of Hammurabi. But the point that he makes is profound. Enns is proposing that evangelicals, by and large, have entered into the text with an assumption about what scripture is and does, and that our doctrine of scripture is shaped far more by those assumptions than it is by the text itself. This is most telling in his discussion of the ancient approach to historiography, and in particular the contrasts between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. Enns uses the example of the differences in Nathan's challenge to David; I can just as easily see the same dynamic in the telling of the census of the fighting men. Evangelical exegesis has often bent over backwards to reconcile these passages. But the simple fact, on first reading, is that they contradict each other - the texts present different factual summaries of the same events. And this has caused no end of difficulty for evangelical interpretation - but the reason for this difficulty is found, not in the text itself, but in the approach to scripture that makes contradiction a problem! Put succinctly - the fact that the accounts in these books differ is only a problem because we make it a problem. We assume that God has the same epistemology as we do, and that his conception of truth is the same as ours. So, for example, when Samuel-Kings and Chronicles give different facts about the same events, the assumption is that both cannot be true as written - it must be explained as to how these accounts can both be true while saying different things.

But what if, for example, "true" historiography in the ancient sense isn't historiography that is factually accurate in the way that we would think of accuracy? What if "true" historiography is the telling of the tale that presents the desired perspective most compellingly? What if the interpretation of the event is more important than the event itself? And what if all of these things mean that two accounts can tell different facts about the same event and yet still both be "true"? The point that Enns is making is that the Bible isn't the word of God because it is completely different from its context. In fact, it speaks very compellingly in contextual forms, including the approach to history and interpretation of events. And evangelicals have not wrestled with the implications of that contextuality for a robust doctrine of scripture - in fact, by obscuring the difficulties, we have participated instead in a sort of docetic bibliolatry, a belief in a scripture that is so far removed from the human author that it only appears human but, in fact, is nothing of the sort.

Technorati Tags: books, Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns, scripture

Inspiration and Incarnation (p. 1)

I mentioned last week that I wanted to spend a bit of time blogging through Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation. This is a fantastic book that addresses in a very honest, direct, and respectful way the difficulties that evangelical doctrines of scripture create for exegesis. In his words:

My concern is that, at least on a popular level, a defensive approach to the evidence tends to dominate the evangelical conversation...I want to contribute to a growing opinion that what is needed is to move beyond both sides [of the liberal-conservative debate] by thinking of better ways to account for some of the data, while at the same time having a vibrant, positive view of Scripture as God's word. By focusing on three problems raised by the modern study of the Old Testament, my hope is to suggest ways in which our conversation can be shifted somewhat, so that what are often perceived as problems with the Old Testament are put into a different perspective. (p. 14-15)

Enns's basic premise is that evangelical approaches to scripture, by failing to deal with the issues that he will raise in an intellectually honest way, actually contribute to a devaluing of scripture and a failure to submit to its authority by attempting to make it into something other than what it is. The issues that he raises fall into three categories:

• The Old Testament and other ancient literature: Why does the OT so closely resemble other ancient near-eastern (ANE) literature? Does that mean that the OT isn't unique? "If the Bible is the word of God, why does it fit so nicely in the ancient world?" (p. 16)
• Theological diversity in the OT: Why does the OT appear to have different perspectives and, at times, "say different things about the same thing"? (p. 16)
• The way in which the NT authors use the OT: Is the NT's use of the Old really fair? It appears odd at best, arbitrary at other times, and simply distorting at others.

The rest of the book is an attempt to place these questions in the context of other ANE literature. In some sense, it may be fair to say that what are issues for us were not issues for the ancient readers of the text - it's rather a failure to understand why the authors said and did what they said and did. More to come!

Technorati Tags: books, Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns, scripture

Scripture and Theological Diversity

Recently I began an absolutely fascinating book by Peter Enns called Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Pete Enns primarily teaches at Westminster, but he also teaches occasional courses at Biblical. I had the privilege of taking a course with him that dealt specifically with the New Testament authors' use of the Old Testament. It was absolutely fascinating - it put a lot of pieces together for me in terms of odd things about the NT, while simultaneously opening a whole different can of worms. More on that to come - I plan on sharing more from this book. It's one that I think everyone who's serious about theology, biblical studies, contextualization, and scripture should read.

One thing in particular that I've been pondering, though, is the nature of scripture. Enns makes the point, and I think rightly so, that although evangelicals claim to take scripture seriously, we often don't. In particular, we fail to do so when we don't allow scripture to speak for itself, but instead force it to conform to a predetermined standard of what we believe scripture should be. Generally speaking, evangelicals don't do well with the diversity of theological opinion that is present in the text. Often, these various perspectives that are obviously present in the text itself are smoothed over and made to say the same thing, not in the interest of hearing what it is that the text actually says, but in an attempt to protect it from contradiction. However, the idea that scripture cannot contain divergent opinions and remain scripture is an assumption, nothing more. Forcing the text to conform to this predefined standard, rather than protecting its integrity, may instead actually prevent us from hearing what it is that the text is actually trying to say.

There are plenty of examples that I could cite to demonstrate what I mean. A classic set of divergent opinions exists between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles, for example. However, I'll leave the examples for later posts. What I'm pondering at the moment is the fact that a diversity of interpretations is not necessarily a bad thing. Scripture itself, rather than being monophonic, contains a chorus of voices that all exist in dialog with each other. Often, different authors can be read as saying, "Yes, but..." to another part of the text. And what is significant is that these tensions are not resolved, but are left to stand in the text itself. This should communicate to us in a significant way that we should be open to alternate readings of the text, alternate interpretations and emphases. To do so is not to devalue scripture - it is to take it seriously enough to allow its form to influence the way we understand it.

More on this to come...

Technorati Tags: books, Inspiration and Incarnation, Peter Enns, scripture

Let Them Stand

I am going to get to Bevans's book. Honest. Jared asked a question that I want to play around with (and not just in the hopes of getting a copy of Wright's The Last Word ;). Jared asks:

Do we treat the scriptures with greater respect by approaching them with an a priori commitment to their infallibility, or by letting them stand or fall on their own... and why?

An interesting question, to say the least - I spent some time thinking on it this weekend, because I'm not honestly convinced by it. What I mean is that I'm not sure infallibility is even a good category in which to think of the scriptures - but then I thought perhaps that's what Jared was getting at in the question, so I'll throw out some thoughts for consideration. (I'm assuming here that "infallibility" and "inerrancy" are basically the same position - at times infallibility is defined as being limited to matters of faith and practice, but I think it's more often used interchangeably with inerrancy, so that's the definition I'm using as well.)

My big problem with the whole category of infallibility is that it places us in the same relationship with the text that I've been talking about - our relation and submission to the text is defined in terms of its factual accuracy. On some level, it's the scripture-as-answer-book syndrome taken to its logical conclusion. The challenge that this presents is that there are many texts that are factually accurate but that I don't consider authoritative. Scot McKnight mentioned some time ago that we expect infallibility from the phone book, but that doesn't place it in authority over us. The premise, though, that underlies the argument of infallibility is, in part, that the text is trustworthy because it is accurate. An accurate text reflects the trustworthiness of God - if the scriptures were found to contain the smallest of errors, then the entire structure of Christian belief would come crashing down like so many jenga blocks.

There is, of course, some sense in which this is true. If, for example, the biblical narrative discussed Atlantis as opposed to Israel, then certainly I think we'd have something of an issue. We do take for granted, many of us at least, that there is an historical referent for the narrative - we believe that Jesus really was a man who really lived and really died and really rose again, or at least those of us who find ourselves interested in questions like infallibility believe along these lines. The problem, I think, lies with the nature of what we mean by "infallible". I'd suggest that "infallible" imparts a twenty-first century understanding of historical reporting and factual retelling that may not be fair to premodern storytellers - in short, the human authors of scripture themselves.

What I'm suggesting is that the narratives we find in scripture are all biased. They tell the story from a particular perspective and with a particular goal, and are unembarrassed by this approach. There is no sense of impartiality or objectivity - the scriptures unabashedly describe the unfolding history from a particular perspective, offering a particular "spin", if you will, on the events themselves. All scripture carries a certain apocalyptic undertone, in which the often hidden activities of God are revealed to the reader in such a way as to present the perspective of God on human history. That the tellers of the tale sometimes play fast and loose with their material - the raw "facts" of the story - should not be considered from the perspective of modern journalism but rather from that of the authors themselves.

A case in point - compare the narratives of David counting the fighting men in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. On the surface, these narratives are simply two retellings of the same events. But the devil is in the details, so to speak, and in this case literally. 2 Samuel 24 tells the story as God inciting David against Israel. But 1 Chronicles 21 recounts it as Satan. 2 Samuel counts 1,300,000 fighting men, 1 Chronicles 1,100,000. 2 Samuel says he paid 50 shekels of silver for the threshing floor, 1 Chronicles 600 shekels of gold.

Now, at this point I need to stop and ask myself a few questions. Is this a "factual" account? In some sense, yes - and a lot of ink has been spilled trying to account for the differences. Just google "David census differences Chronicles Samuel" and you'll see what I mean. But let's pause for a second and realize that, by virtually every estimation that I've ever read, the Chronicler would have had access to Samuel. So the question we should be asking isn't so much about whether the two accounts contradict one another, bringing the tower of jenga blocks tumbling to the ground. Instead, why not ask what the author intended by changing the details in the way that he did? In this case, a focus on "infallibility" may actually prevent us from hearing the voice of God through the scriptures. The gospels, by the way, are full of this sort of rearranging and retelling and have caused folks headaches for years along these lines.

This is an incomplete answer to a complicated question - good thought provoker, Jared! My answer, in short, is to let the scriptures stand on their own merits. Focusing on the minutiae often required by an a priori commitment to infallibility may actually result, at times, in missing the point that the author may be trying to make.

As an aside, I should note that I really haven't said anything here that, as I read it, goes against more nuanced definitions of inerrancy or infallibility. I don't in any way deny the truthfulness or authority of scripture - I just think that there comes a point at which continuing to nuance these definitions is no longer helpful, and perhaps we should start instead by rethinking our categories.

Technorati Tags: scripture, hermeneutics, inerrancy, infallibility

The Question of Suffering

I started class again tonight; it's a promising course called Spirit and Church. We're hitting a number of topics based on the epistles. Tonight, we started off with the topic of suffering. It is, of course, a weighty subject; I still feel somewhat subdued as I think over the various threads of conversation. One thing in particular, though, struck me as significant, particularly in light of my previous post. We were reading and discussing an article by Chuck Colson in which he was reflecting on the lack of resources that the evangelical tradition offers when dealing with issues of suffering. (He turned, interestingly enough, to the mystics such as Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. I was somewhat surprised - I never thought of him as having a mystical bent.) What struck me forcefully, though, was the realization of the nature of suffering as opposed to the typical approach to scripture-as-answer-book I discussed previously.

It's sort of obvious, isn't it? The reason that the evangelical tradition offers virtually nothing in terms of a meaningful theology of suffering is that suffering, by its very nature, resists answers. Our prof read an excerpt from Nicholas Wolterstorff's Lament for a Son that is stunningly beautiful yet simultaneously tragic. Wolterstorff writes:

What is suffering? When something prized or loved is ripped away or never granted - work, someone loved, recognition of one's dignity, life without physical pain - that is suffering.

Or rather, that's when suffering happens. What it is, I do not know...I understand nothing of it. Of pain, yes: cut fingers, broken bones. Of suffering, nothing at all. Suffering is a mystery as deep as any in our existence.

I've written previously about some of my marker stones, so to speak, on my spiritual journey. Most of them are captured under this thread about hope. I think that all of us have defining moments, experiences in our lives that form us and shape us so deeply that, once experienced, change us forever. Some of these are joyful experiences; often, they are not.

What do we do when we are confronted with the wildness of God? I don't pretend to understand it. I have questions but no answers. I find myself in the position of Wolterstorff, confronted and confounded by mystery that I cannot grasp, and holding nothing but a theology that claims to have "all the answers," nicely packaged and bound in new leather and red letters. But when I turn the pages, I am not confronted by answers. I am faced with questions, pages upon pages of questions that remain unanswered. "Why do the wicked prosper?" "Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

But it's in the questions that I find comfort. Particularly the last, one uttered by Christ himself as he faced greater suffering than any of us have ever known. Christ who suffered, Christ who questioned, the Word himself unanswered, pouring himself out in lament.

I read these words and know that I find myself in the best of company.

Technorati Tags: hope, suffering, Wolterstorff, questions

Scripture, Answers, and Alex Trebek

A few days ago I read this post over at Dan Kimball's blog, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I thought it was profoundly disturbing, particularly when I read the part about "some issues are just black and white". It's disturbing particularly because it's an approach to scripture that's so common among Christians today - God's Answer Book, or some such. But is that really what this is all about? I have to be honest with you - I can't make it work for me. Saying, "The Bible has all the answers," defines a rather odd relationship between a person and scripture. Besides the fact that reducing the Story of God to an encyclopedia of historic facts and theological statements, it clearly begs the question. Nobody who utters such a statement ever intends for it to be taken literally. There are any number of questions on which the Bible is completely and unabashedly silent. "How do I change the oil in my car?" "What kind of wine goes well with beef?" "How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?"

The difficulty with approaching scripture from this vantage is that it can't help but turn into something ugly. The reason that I say this is because one can only look for answers once we've defined the questions - and defining the questions is a matter of power and control. There are some questions that are approved: What does the Bible say about justification by faith? Ahhh, they say, and nod their heads. The Bible has the answers. Turn with me to Galatians. There are other questions, though, that are clearly not allowed: Where, exactly, does scripture call itself "inerrant"? How do we deal with the Old Testament picture of God, which seems so different from Jesus? What, exactly, is the gospel anyway? I'm not saying that scripture has no answers to these questions. I am, however, suggesting that merely providing answers may not be the point exactly. What if scripture is at least as much about the questions as it is about the answers? What if the point of much of the stuff that we struggle with is to get us to ask the questions in the first place?

If the Bible is an answer book, then it must, absolutely must, say the same thing all the time about a given subject - hence the focus on things like inerrancy and refuting contradictions and whatnot. But if scripture is a question book, then something changes. Ross wrote something a while back on hermeneutics, about how we need to be able to hold the "It is written," with the "It is also written." Here is a case in point: Deuteronomy, God's authoritative Word, defines the relationship that Israel was to have with Ammon and Moab: "No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation." It's quite clear, right? No ambiguity there - it is written. But there's a slight problem. Fast forward to Ruth. Ruth, the Moabitess, is granted a place among the people of Israel. The irony isn't lost on the author of Ruth, because this is how the book ends:

This, then, is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

Back up a second in case you missed it. The point of Ruth isn't that Ruth was a phenomenal woman (although she absolutely was). The point isn't even that God will make an exception if you're really nice to His people. The point of Ruth is that David is a Moabite. David, King of Israel, man after God's own heart, according to Torah should never have been allowed to enter the assembly of Israel. I don't suppose I need to remind you, then, of a certain other descendant of Ruth through the line of David... It is also written.

I suggest that the whole book, the whole collection of writings that we call scripture, is like this. Scripture isn't a song sung in unison. It's a chorus of voices all singing at times in harmony and at times in dissonance - but always beautifully. Does it provide answers? Most certainly. But often, for some strange reason, those answers might be in the form of a question.

Technorati Tags: scripture, hermeneutics, Ruth, questions

Some Thoughts on the Kingdom...

are up at via media.