Hist. of Biblical Interp.: Childs
1/17/96: Lecture
Introduction:
The cultural shaping effects the response to the text, and yet that the text is the same throughout (the Bible) provides for family resemblances. Enlightenment and Post view: that views before were not as good as those later. Childs: be wary of trashing past views. Realize that we are making our own interpretation. This raises the question of criteria for excellence. What are they? Also, no one comes to the Bible fresh; we all rest on someone else's shoulders.
Childs stresses the heurmaneutical issue. A tension between a search for literalness (the Enlightenment provided a needed check on previous presumptins) and that which one brings to the table. A tension between church tradition and the witness of the text itself. We are in the height of the historical method; the cost is that interpretations have been devoid of theology. We are in a change of paradigms in which theology is re-emerging. We are realizing the limitations of the Enlightenment. One was no longer able to read the Bible as narrative. Also, the liberal-fundamentalist fight over literalness was not helpful. How is it that the insights of one generation are lost or distorted by a later one? Yet each generation needs to reformulate such insights to its own situation. There is not a linear trajectory through the successive generations of interpreters.
1/24/96
Luther and Calvin:
Frei:
Student Presentation: He takes these reformers as taking the Bible literally and with a historical reference with Christ as its meaning. The reformers see Christ in both Testaments. Individual narratives to be taken literally are related figuratively in narrative succession. It is a spiritual act in relating them figuratively. For Frei, the literal and historical must be identical for this. Frei claims that typology has collapsed. Can the Bible be unified without typology? Spinoza finds unity in that it depicts a common faith. Coccius is less certain that there is a unity.
Childs: Frei's thesis is that it is the assumption of the coherence of the literal and historical that was taken for granted in the pre-critical period. Why is the coherence so crucial? On what level of the text is Frei referring to? He takes it in the literal level. Why? Because it is easily accessable and is self-interpreting and is of the world of ordinary experience. For the reformers and those before, the Bible had become rather technical, being of the real world. But doesn't the Bible bring up its own world-view. A different world. The reformers were not after this. Rather, the literal sense was thought to be closest to reality. We view the Bible's reality as coming out of ours. For the reformers, the Bible rendered their reality. The literal is the real. This was before Kant's dualism. Frei is influenced primarily by the literal. How does the figurative work to him?
Traditionally, the Western Fathers saw four senses of interpretation: literal, typological( something as the figure of something else that is similar), allegorical (something is something else that is not similar) and the anagogical(the end of something--the telos). The Hebrews had emphasized the literal. The Christians were thus distinct from them in having four and using them. The reformers went back to the literal. Unlike the earlier Christian Fathers, they did not want to use the allegorical and anagogical, even though they in fact used the allegorical. But there is still a problem in Frei including figuration (suggesting another reality) with his emphasis on the literal. The literal sense includes metaphor. Figural is more than working out a figuration in the text itself. If the figurative is included, then was the assumption of coherence of the literal and the historic really necessary for the reformers? How could the reformers keep the literal and yet include the figurative? Frei sees the figurative as a larger view, rather than one on top of the literal. The problem with allegory was that it was an arbitrary reading. This too could be the case with figuration, but Frei does not seem to agree.
How did the reformers view the spirit vis a vis the letter. To Calvin, the spirit inspires the letter and is in our reading of the letter. Luther, the letter and the spirit are mutually exclusive. The coherence begins to come apart if the spirt is included, according to Frei.
Luther and Calvin:
Student Presentation:For Luther, the contrast between law and Gospel dominated. Also, he relied only on Scripture, rather than tradition too. The Catholic Church had been too worldly with its emphasis on human tradition and too much of the letter in its emphasis on keeping to laws. So, Luther saw justification to be by faith alone. He distinguished the law of Moses from the spirit of Christ. Moses is of no bearing on Christians. Luther dismissed certain N.T. books which contradicted his view. Calvin had a broader definition of 'law'--it is the whole system of religion which is of obligation. Calvin saw Christian meanings in the O.T. from the point of the Fall. The idea of salvation is the same in both Testaments. It is also the same God. So, Calvin emphasized the unity of the Bible; the N.T. being in and continuing the O.T. The same salvation was never intended to come through the law permanently. This is not to say that the two Testaments are contradictory in some respects. So he agreed with Luther in his distinction between the law of Moses and the salvation in Christ. But unlike Luther, Calvin emphasized the unity above this distinction. Calvin considered the substance of both to be by the Spirit, and thus he could use figures to relate the two. So, conveying the mind of the writer is to convey the Spirit; in contrast, the Medievals looked for a transcendent meaning (e.g. allegory and anagogical views were included). Calvin wanted to be faithful to the text. The spiritual act is not in interpreting but in comprehension. The Spirit is the rendering of God in the text.
Childs: Luther stressed the grammatical sense, but was disillusioned by Eusebiu's grammatical translation. The text itself was thought to not be dead. There is a family resemblance between Calvin and Luther, and yet they were such different men. The O.T. had been associated with the Law whereas the N.T. had been associated with Gospel; Luther changed this by seeing Law and Gospel as transcending this distinction (between Testament). Luther puts forward another criteria for determining what is Law and what is Gospel. Luther saw the Gospel throughout the Bible. Luther was a dialectical theologian: the tension between the Law and the Gospel was to be held. The Gospel refers to that which teaches Christ. This was radical. It transcended the prior dichotomy. Luther was influenced by nominalism; truth does come through one source.
Spinoza did not want to see Scripture as rendering reality. Luther had a content Christology which was used in his interpretation. Frei does not consider the emphasis of this content on the literal coherence with the historical. Luther distinguished the O.T. from the N.T. as per Mose's Law, but Luther used faith to argue that the fulfillment pattern makes the O.T. normative. Luther wanted to influence the legalism of Judaism and the Roman Church by stressing the freedom in the Gospel. This encouraged the freedom of pietism to interpret Scripture as it wanted. Luther resisted this.
Calvin and Luther rennesance people, going back to the classics,religious as well as secular. This is an example of using intellectual insight in defence of the faith; they saw the Roman Church as having gone away from the classics to become secular. On their reformation, consider also the rise of nationalism. But, one can't explain the reformation from cultural factors only. Consider the transformative force of the Bible on people such as Luther and Calvin.
What are the problems with the reformers' interpretation method? The assumption of coherence would break down when the literal was seen as separate from the historical. Frei: the reformers stressed that the subject matter of the Bible was the same in the various levels of interpretation. But when the author's intension was brought in, and distinguished from the text, there is a problem that 'same subject matter' does not solve, as it is outside the text whereas the levels of interpretations refer to the text itself. The reformers tied the literal sense of the text to the rule of faith(the subject matter). A tension when the literal sense is taken to be outside of orthodoxy. To Calvin, Scripture has one clear voice--the literal. But the enlightment: the meaning is in the author's intension. This is an attack on the church's fourfold levels of meaning. The enlightenment added meanings below the text (historical anticedents), whereas the Church had had four meanings above the text. Critical study provided a meaning that is not readily accessible to a congregation; you and it are reading different text. To Frei, the coherence between the literal and the historical had kept the reformers from these problems. Childs: But there are aspects in Luther and Calvin not in this. Frei's agenda: he wants a history-like narrative interpretation.
Frei was the father of narrative criticism.
1/31/96
The King James Bible, Introduction:
The literal and grammatical meaning is central to interpretation, so translation into the vernacular is not problemmatic. And yet the Hebrew and Greek original languages are to be valued. There is a recognition that any translation from the original languages will involve ambiguity. This is seen as positive, as God working to strengthen our faith, by giving greater liberty to individuals to interpret. Childs: they did not use the same English word in each usage of a Hebrew or Greek word. This was a wise choice.
W. Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants.
The Protestant position: God has not named any one human judge, so each person is to be his own judge and interpreter. Civil law is contrasted with Scripture; the former is external and inhibitive whereas the latter is internal and facilitative. Childs: Chillingworth is a response to a debate in the early seventeenth century. What are the enduring questions apart from the polemic? So often in controversy, one takes on the face of one's adversary. The protestants, in using the Bible for specific normative and confessional standards, used the Bible as 'law' as they criticized the Romans as doing.
In the historical background is the religious wars as well as the appeal to reason from the Renessance. The role of economics (the printing press), the politicization (Henry VIII) of these religious polemics, and the shattering of Christendom. These things have to be assumed as we focus on the history of the Bible. How did the disputations effect the religious communities?
Consider the relation between the verbal of a text and its meaning. Is not a vernacular translation for some people God's word. The Hebrews did not consider translation as continuing the Word of God, so translations of their scripture were not regarded as authoritative. Christainity thus differed in this regard. In fact, the Christians used the Greek translation of the O.T. even though that translation is not as good as the O.T. in Hebrew.
Is there a plain reading of salvation? The rule of faith came about in the early church in debating the Gnostics. The church had lost many debates. So, the Catholic church, namely Ireneaus, claimed that the faith of tradition was the rule of faith. For Origen, the oral and written were not in conflict but formed the rule of faith. In the seventeenth century, they had been separated: only the written were seen by the Protestants while the Catholics emphasized the oral, but neither side saw them as complemary. In what sense can one talk about cananical scripture if one limits oneself to the written word? How is the authority actualized and transmitted and how are these related to the Spirit?
The tragedy of the Reformation is the strife that ensued in the disagreement. The usual rule is that we can get unity by pluralism. Childs: this is not the way to go, but there is the danger of confessional unity is that it gets too narrow. Tension in the freedom and constraints of the Bible. To broaden the Church by including everyone's cultural manifestation was the project of the Reformation. Both sides in the Post-Reformation thought of the Bible in propositional terms. Where was the narrative view? The view of the early Christians? The liturgical view? Childs: look at how the polemic narrowed the view of the Bible in propositional terms. The Post-Reformation was heard by their future generations as an admonition that the Bible ought to be interpreted alone, without any tradition, by each individual. Childs sees a danger in each individual being his or her own basis of interpretation. The Reformers rejected the propositional take on the Bible that the Roman Church had had; they wanted a return to the simplicity and freshness of the Bible. Unfortunately, Calvin and Luther had reincorporated the Aristotilian propositions into their approach to the Bible. Childs: The views of Scripture had remained narrow, especially relative to what the Enlightenment opened up by way of the use of reason. The Reformation assumed that the average person could read Scripture in their own language and get the word of God. Somehow the Enlightenment built on the weaknesses of the Post-Reformation debate. Locke, for instance, used reason and propositions against the Reformers who had used reason and propositions against the Romans whose tradition was so propositional.
If the meaning of Scripture is made by a Church, then there is a restraint on the community of members in their interpretations. But the church was seen as creating the word. A circle. This is now finally being recognized: that the word, or spirit, and tradition need not be distinguished.
2/7/96
On the Deists, see John Leland, A View of the Principal Deists. 1836
On Engand view of the 1700's: M. Pattison, Tendencies of.., in Essays and Review, 1860.
See also Locke, On Religion.
Childs:
The Enlightenment encompassed Western Europe. Our focus is on England because it was there that Deism that so dominated the century was there. 1688-1750: the period of the English Deism. The religious wars had ended. The first part of the period was on the question of whether revelation is possible. A shift to external proofs--that biblical revelation could be established by evidences. Apologetics dominated. At the universities, the non-conformists were evident. Germany was thus not the source of historical criticism. 1600-1750 was the period in Germany of protestant orthodoxy. Kant, for instance, was 'awakened' in Germany from reading Hume.
Presentations and discussion:
The literal sense was separated from the history. thus a distinction between the stories and the realities which they present. Spinoza: God adapted revelation to the opinions and ignorance of the prophets. So, the prophets could disagree. The prophet is working from his imagination. For Spinoza--using reason as the criterion, revelation is not of supernatural nature(so, no supernatural gift given to the prophet and God does not supernaturally intervene in human history--thus the election of Israel was not given by God in history), but of a moral meaning (including the values thereof) which is separated from truth. Revelation is affected by disposition and the context of the prophet. So, natural and spiritual phenomena are distinct from truth which is for him reason: a clear and distinct idea. So, don't go to the prophets for knowledge of natural or spiritual meaning of the text; rather, go to them for revelation through the text. For meaning, read the text historically and psychologically; for truth, read the text using one's reason. The meaning of the text is not to be taken for reality or truth. A sharp distinction between meaning and truth. This was a shock--that the Bible is filtered through humans, and thus its revelation being distinct from truth. Spinoza: read the text literally, but what if this conflicts with how God intends us to read it by faith?
From the rationalism of Spinoza (emph. on the use of reason, including intuition) came English empiricism (knowledge from sensory experience). Hume saw Christianity as superstition and Locke was skeptical on it. Childs: Locke struggled with the miracles, given his empiricism. He felt that reason, rather than faith, is the best criterion in establishing what to believe. Hume took the same method, but closed off the possibility of miracles. His philosophy fell into solipcism because he separated cause and effect. How did Christianity circumvent Hume? Kant moved from Spinoza to say that the mind has within it the categories that render reality.
Anthony Collins on the use by the N.T. of O.T. passages. Everyone agreed that Christianity saw itself as the fullfilment of the O.T. But when the O.T. was read in the literal sense, it did not seem to fit with the N.T. use. The issue was one of 'proper coherence'. Frei: this introduces a historical filter. Some, for instance, claimed that the Jews distorted their own text to discredit Christianity. But, this theory broke down. Text-criticism ruled that out. Collins argued that they are not coherent. Sherlock: the O.T. writers did not write their prophesies with fulfillment in Jesus in mind; rather, the prophesy-fulfillment link came retrospectively. So, Collins, following Locke, judged this according to natural reason. Childs: theologically, the connection between the testaments iis making claims of continuity of a theological order. In reading through faith, one could read the true continuity to the O.T. Don't use reason or history, but the inner logic of faith to read the text, as well as seeing the connections. Collins attacks the coherience using Lockian reason and finds the coherience lacking. But he retains the coherience as through faith looking back.
In general during the Enlightenment, reason was used as the final arbiter of how to interpret Scripture. From the use of reason came the distinction between the historical and literal, which meant a distinction between meaning and truth. Meaning came to be seen as having a human side. Can one reckon with the human side of revelation without usurping the authority of the Bible?
The Enlightenment and Modern view saw religion as ignorance--that there would be a progression advancing from it. It was thought that religion could be made fully intelligable and dismissed. But in the Post-Modern view, religion is valid and salient in society and people's lives. We are then back to the risk of faith.
2/20/96
Hermeneutics at the end of the 1700's:
Ernesti, Semler, and Gabler came out of the creedalists and pietists and gave rise to the mythophiles.
Look not just at the words, but what is behind the words. The mythophile view: the world-view of the authors was so different than ours that we have to get into it to understand. Ernesti, Semler and Gabler had a general biblical hermeneutics, seeing the text as a whole and separated the subject matter (what the text is about) from the text itself. To the Reformers, they cohered.
The Ostensive referentialists: there were real historical events behind the text. Supernaturalists: the miracles were historical events. Naturalists disagreed.
The Allegorists: the text refers to moral truths. Author as allegorist: the authors never meant them to be taken literally. Kant: even if the authors did not have this intension, we should take it as allegory.
The mythophiles: it is the consciousness of the context of the author--and the mythical characterizations of people and things therein that are the meaning of a text.
Ernesti: there are rational general rules of interpretation. He hangs these rules on the assumption that a word has one (literal) sense. A word used in one time a place can only have one meaning. So, we are not at liberty to give a sense to a word other than what is in the text. The fact that each word has a literal sense accounts for certainty of interpretation. Literal as grammatical. There is something that separates the text from its subject matter, the literal interpretation of the words being separate from the interpretation of the subject matter(theological understanding; role of the holy spirit). Preconceived opinions inform the latter, rather than the former. Key: separation of the words themselves from the subject matter.
Childs: Ernesti claims that meaning of a word is not via etomology(a basic root of meaning of a word is in itself) but of custom and usage. This is different. But how can one take the literal meaning and yet admit of custom and usage? He wanted to say that a word has one (grammatical) literal meaning, influenced by the social setting. One meaning in a particular circumstance. Ernesti was defending Lutheran orthodoxy against the pietists. The words are the vehicle of the revelation. So, hermeneutics as well as revelation itself is limited to the grammatical(impacted by the historical context: one meaning in a particular situation), rather than the content, of the words. Today, the historical grammatical school of Ernesti is held by conservatives. The impact of the custom or usage on the grammatical meaning of a word is fixed; a particular 'crystalized' custom or usage formed the now-given grammar of a word. Pre-conceptions import on the subject matter are broader, allowing for current consciousness (unlike the import of custom or usage for the meaning of a word). He assumes that the the author's intension was the same as that of the literal sense of the word. So, usage, custom, and an author's intent form the meaning of a word. That we can know the meaning assumes that either that we share the same social reality or that we can get into another.
Gabler: a text on its own gives the proper herm. rules to use. So, it is part of the obscurity of the text if the rules are not clear. He also distinguishes between religion and theology. Theology is religion with historical contingency. Biblical theology is the content of the intent of the authors. Dogmatic theology is of the historically conditioned, contingent opinions of various theologians. His hermeneutic: collate and classify theological ideas, legitimate interpretation of pertinent passages and compare the ideas with each other vis a vis the passage.
Childs: Gabler did not make the distinction between the historical and hermeneutics that we do. Why is his view so 'eighteenth century'? There is no positive content of history in hermeneutics. He takes history to be the same as contingent truth. Consider that Frei took the Reformers as being concerned with figuration, or story--an extension of the same story, rather than different levels of meaning. With Gabler, however, the historical enterprise is distinguished from dogmatic theology(which he sees as arbitrary and subjective). He separates the dogmatic(contains history) from biblical theology(devoid of the import of history). For Ernesti, the focus starts off with a historical scientific grammatical understanding of a text., but limits history to its import for grammatical meaning of words. In the Enlightenment, homological spiritual interpretation was separated from hermeneutics. Also, history was not yet part of the the hermeneutical project (except very narrowly). Gadamer wants to do biblical theology: of what the authors thought (for the content) rather than of homoletics or dogmatics. He does this historically and grammatically, but universal principles have to be filtered from this by reading the text grammatically by the different voices (like Ernesti) and then filter out the differences due to the voices to get the one content. The substance of the bible is the filtering process itself and the universal ethical principles that all rational folks can understand. Frei: this ignores the narrative of the biblical story. Neither Ernesti nor Gabler has an idea of history. Both of them would say that there is only one meaning: Ernesti--get it by grammatical work. Gabler adds other filtering devises and a normative element, in claiming that there is one true meaning. Early interpretors used four levels of meaning and they could thus say that a verse has no literal meaning. Moving from the past into the present was much more fluid. Even so, they took the literal meaning to be basic; that other senses of meaning come in only when the literal does not make sense in the light of the Holy Spirit. The holy spirit had no such import for Ernesti or Gabler, so they were secular by contrast. The Romantic view brouht in the import of human emotions.
Childs: until recently, it was agreed that language had fixed rules. How one feels about a passage was not relevant. It was a grammatical enterprise. Ernesti: that is all one needs because we know that the intent of God is in the intent and word of the writer. But when this assumption fell out, meaning was then seen as an activity between a text and its reader rather than the author's intension. Gabler was not convinced that the text rendered reality. The Reformers thought that reading the text renders reality. For Gabler, the meaning of the text is contingent. So, he set out a way to filter a text to one true principle to get its true (one) meaning.
Heine: the earliest forms were at the childhood of mankind. Forms thus have changed, so filtering was seen by Gabler as necessary. He wants to get the true content from the many voices. The substance, for Gabler, is the doctrine of salvation. Salvation as a universal feeling of providence not limited to Israel. It transcends election and Jesus. So, it was of natural, rationalist religion. For instance, inalienable rights.
Childs: the Reformation wanted to narrow attention to the Bible itself. This gave rise to attention to hermeneutical methods. Rather than resulting in greater agreed insight, it resulted in multifarious takes on the text. But the ambiguity was already there with the Reformers, as they admitted to work of the spirit. The pietists went off on this, and went around the text to interpret it. Ernesti wanted to cut this off. The early church used the rule of faith to cut off this work of the spirit. Priests over prophets. The early church had a communal memory/exegesis with which the work of the holy spirit in interpreting text was kept from human fanaticism. But could it not be group hypnosis. Childs: ask if it is genuine. When it is institutionalized, there is something inauthentic about it.
Everyone on the contemporary history of Jesus issue look to evidence, so both take the Enlightenment hermeneutic. Childs: very narrow construal of hermeneutics. For most modern thinkers, the ideal of the eighteenth century hermeneutics (e.g. we want to use our own 'universal ideologies' to interpret the text, and we want to use historical evidence--but the disciples were faith-witnesses!). Can there be an interpretation of the bible without any referentiality? If not, what kind of referant should be used. What referents do Ernesti and Gabler use?
2/28/96
Hermeneutics of Romanticism
Romanticism is diffficult to define. It was an intellectual explosion. See Livingston's book regarding this. Philosophically, it involved a turn to the subject. Rousseau: freeing reason from its isolation from emotion. The role of nature and the guide of experience. Schleiermacher was such a turn from Kant's 'pure reason'.
Presentations:
Wherein lies the unity of the Bible? Ernesti: there is only one ostensive reference(that to which the text really refers in the spacial-temporal realm) to the text. Pietism began in the Enlightenment and initiated the self-positioning of the reader on the text. Pietism began out of the anabaptism in Germany where anabaptism was wearing out and the thirty-years war had ended. Reacting against the decadence and the dogmatism then current. Emphasis on a living faith in practical works of piety. Bengel, for instance. An individual expression of religion was favored. It thus ran against the church establishment (church) in Germany. A puritan ascetic outlook. A long-standing moral movement sought. Exegesis: is totally of the spirit within. Whereas for Ernesti who claimed that the words themselves are spirit-filled, the pietists too the spirit to be in the writers. The reader had to be spirit-filled in order that the text's revelation would be illuminated. Use the bible not as a source of doctrine but as a normative and belief source for living the Christian life. A charity of faith was emphasized. The believer's capacity to experience God in one's self. This is not to say that it was relativistic subjectivism. Experience of repentence and re-birth as well as the priesthood of all believers were emphasized. Spinner and Francke printed out readable versions of the Bible and devotional texts. Did good works too. The internal meaning of the Bible can only be gained by the spirit within. There must be a practical application to how one reads the Bible. Bengel: apply the text totally to yourself. He was a philosopher. Zinendorf was a mystic who stressed the experience of God within. Spinner: the word and the spirit can be separated. Bengel: no.
Childs: the pietists were the first missionaries. The pietists liked Francis and Bernard earlier as well as Terasa of Avalard. Pietism led to diverse veins such as historical criticism and the Romantics.
Presentation: On the Romantic period itself. Understanding of nature as being of divine essence in flux. Piety and nature were mixed together. In Biblical interpretation, there was a switch from looking for what the author is presenting to the reader to what the reader finds in the text. A shift from viewing objects unremittingly in disconnection their being spiritless to viewing and imagining a unity in objects taken that they are not dead.
Childs: Coleridge (1772-1834) took the German Romanticism to England. On Herder: von Rad and Gunkel were influenced by him. Empathy, reading Genesis as an asthetic, was emphasized. Doctrine and historicism was de-emphasized. The pure power of the text itself impacted us. For Hume and Locke, the mind was taken as passive. But it was held to be active for the pietists and Romantics, so the subject and the object became fused. The distinction between God's spirit and the human spirit was no longer distinct. Imagination and speculation gives the role of the individual salience in constructing the content.
Why is Frei both negative and positive on Herder? Frei assumes a unity between the verbal and the ostensive. What was the problem of unity that Ernesti and Gadmer had left unresolved? The story was assumed to be historical to the Reformers. The Germans saw history as Historie(series of events in this world that can be confirmed by rational independent investigation) and geschichte(history-like). Frei does not want to identify the biblical story as historie but he does not want to be too idealistic. Frei does not like the heil. school's finding of unity in the self-positioning of the reader and the text as a witness to(rather than a narrative). How can the history-like element of the biblical story be maintained without going out to fundamentalism or liberalism. For instance, Bultmann takes the history to be existentialistic. Frei sees modern philosophy as cutting us off from being able to read the text as a narrative, and thus having a unity. The trend has been to splinter it into different sources and forms, redacted later. Herder has recovered the story, but a general consciousness lies beyond the text that really is the data of which the Bible is referring to. The content was not limited to the text itself or its story. Herder is ambiguous on the historicity of the story. Was there Romanticism in the mainline protestantism? Coleridge took it that it had been hardened. The Roman church had lost the papal states and the rise of democracies in Europe caused the Enlightenment and Romantic thought emphasizing the self to be seen as a threat to their religious (and political) control over others. Romanticism did not reach the Greek Orthodox.
Has Frei with his categories of realistic narrative as history-like captured a unity of the text? Childs: he was ambigious.
3/6/96
The Rise of Historical Criticism:
Reimarus is regarded as a forerunner of the historical criticical method. He was the first to take on much assumed in the tradition. His context: the German Enlightentment before Herder and Kant. Reason and revelation were being debated. Wolfe: use the principle of contradiction to assess the content of reason and revelation (revelation is thus not unique). His critics: reason is above revelation. English influences on Reimarus via Wolfe (of Locke's view). Locke: propositions of reason, of revelation shown by reason, and of revelation above reason. Reimarus would have read the critiques on the miracles as well as on the expectation of a temporal Messiah. Also, on how the early Church distorted the historical Jesus.
Reimarus argued that natural religion is comprible to Christianity. Privately, he held reason above revelation (truth cannot contradict reason). He wanted to show that Jesus did not introduce new articles of faith and that the doctrine of atonement was invented by the apostles because it contradicts the repentance message of Jesus. On baptism, for instance, Jesus used it to concecrate himself rather than establish a new rite. His main point: the apostles altered the story so as to add something new.
Childs: There had been recognized the gospel as simple, but he felt a heavy-handed dogma using a conspiracy theory. On the basis of the apostles' dissapointment, they invented the temporal resurrection. Were the apostles honest? That he did not answer this kept him from being a serious threat. Strauss did answer it (they weren't honest), so his work was a serious threat.
Strauss:
Born fifty years after Reimarus' death. He studied under Schleiermacher but disagreed with him. Christianity is the philosophical unity of the finite and the infinite without any definitive event. It is not dependent on a God-man or on Jesus being one. Historical study for knowing about Jesus; Theology for knowing about Christ. Unlike Reimarus, he did not try to give a natural and rational account of supernatural events; rather, Strauss saw the biblical narratives as myths which come out the mythic consciousness of the time rather than out of a conspiracy by the apostles. That the text came out of a historic mythological consciousness means that whether the events in the story actually happened or were invented by the apostles does not matter.
Childs: why does Switzer claim that Strauss caused the end of the deistic period. Mythic consciousness is linked to history. Recall, the Reformers claimed that the text renders reality, the Deists used strainers to get at it. For the rationalists, the texts as the intentions of their authors. Herder, for instance. Strauss: don't use reason to cut through the supernatural events. Strauss is less concerned with the events themselves, but with the narratives, or stories themselves. So, rationalistic use of evidences was not useful. It was history and the narrative (now linked hermeneutically: Understand the historical reliability of the text narrative by looking at the mythical outlook which the authors shared with their time and culture in the Near East), separated from the Christ of Faith. Unlike Reimerus, Strauss attended to the details in the text.
Why was Strauss viewed as such a threat? He claimed that one need not depend on the historical Jesus to have the Christian faith. Herder saw the asthetic approach as a way for us to share with the world of the historical faith(seeing a filtering between the text and the reality), whereas Strauss sees a discontinuity between the historic mythic consciousness and that of our time. So, Herder uses 'consciousness' as a way to facilitate knowing the faith, whereas Strauss uses it to show how distinct the historical Jesus is from the Christ of Faith. Deism denied a historic Jesus, whereas Strauss claimed that we can't know this, but that this is not a problem because the Christ of faith does not depend on the historical Jesus. Childs: Strauss does not deal with the biblical narrative. But, Strauss opens the question of whether we know anything about Jesus apart from how he has been perceived by the Christian tradition. Is the witness of the apostles objective or only a matter of faith? The radical quality of Strauss cuts out the rationalist project of linking faith and reason. Strauss: they are in tension. The core of the faith is in a past world in history but that history is not objective historical fact but requires a response of faith. This is a positive contribution of Strauss. He raised a dimension far closer to the truth than were the rationalists or the orthodox. Bultmann is in line with Strauss. Strauss used a Hegelian system(the underlying dialectical movement of the human spirit is a revealing of the divine spirit. The history of the growth of the human spirit) whereas Bultmann used an existential system. There is a blurred line since Strauss between the historical and the figurative. Strauss views them as dual realities. Childs: Strauss eclipses the narrative because he sees the narrative as just an expression of an ancient mythical tradition. Herder at least does not destroy the narrative--he wants to give us access to it. The gospels are a particular genre (not a historical report). The gospels were not after historical data but were a genre to give a theology. So use theology rather than the objective/subjective (historical question) to interpret the blurred line between the different (theological) meanings in the gospel.
3/27/96
Jonathon Edwards:
Edwards defined Protestant piety for two-hundred years. He emphasized emotions.
Background on Puritan America: The Puritans wanted to return to the primative church, emphasizing conversion and piety rather than outward ritual. Many were English separatists who tended to view themselves as choosen. A move away from sacramentalism; church membership necessitated an internal, experiential test. They established state churches which were apostolic in worship and church order. The Hebrew scripture was important to them. The Hebrew laws and words of the prophets seen as valid for their own day.
Edwards studied at Yale. From his grandfather, he saw awakenings: dramatic experiences of God and the reality of sin. In Boston, the roots of Unitarianism were taking root. Others too were moving away from a strict Reformed Calvinist theology. Edwards was from this theology, and he incorporated Locke into it. He had a scientific mind. He was coming from a background of experiential religion such as the apostles had.
The Affections(one of his books):
Affections: the will and the emotions. We are not able to judge in another person whether he or she is saved. Love for scripture is not necessarily a sign of being saved. So too with mercy and compassion. The holy will and passion of a person is true religion.
He refuted personal experiences giving one an interpretation; he focused in his own interpretation, reading scripture literally, looking at the common passion and fruits of the spirit of the NT writers. He, like the other Puritans in New England, saw America as the new promised land (so Moses and the prophets were emphasized, typologically interpreted). This presupposed the view of America as a commonwealth. Locke's individualism threatened this, as well as engendered individual interpretation from individual experience. The rise of individualism broke down the idea of communal covenant. Edwards wanted America to be a choosen nation with members thereof attested to by internal experience, but he guarded against interpretation by one's personal experience.
Edwards asks: how does the text engender the reader.
Frei asks: how does the reader engender the text. So he does not include Edwards.
The 1800's in England:
The scientific revolution and the rise of historical science in particular threatened a literal reading of scripture. History was viewed as moving in a progression. The words were seen as tied to their setting, so they could not be understood without understanding the setting.
The conservatives believed that the Bible is innerant: true throughout, as originally written as what God intends to say. If the Bible could not be literally true, there is no truth to hold onto.
The liberals believed that a literal interpretation is impossible because of empirical historicism as well as the fact that the writers, rather than their words, were inspired. Authoritative in the religious experience is the experience that the writer had. But is the Bible really concerned with religious experience. They could save the faith without having to admit to a literal interpretation. Devout and sincere people reluctantly moved into this position. Why couldn't they get out of these two options.
Jowett's book in 1860 was everything the Church of England did not want to see. Why was it so significant?
Childs:
Jowett and Smith, then look at Newman's responce. In the early 1800's, the oxford movement was emerging. Newman and others made a conscious return to the early church, fearing that German historical criticism. This move was unsuccessful. The impact of German Criticism was too strong. By the time of the middle of the century, the Anglican was had a high church and the latintudinals (Jowett) who were moderate. Jowett was a leading scholar. He attacked the filtering that the church has done. Just read the text using a common good sense. Recover the original meaning of the words, transferring oneself to another age. He assumes that there are eternal ideas that anyone can get to the original interpretation. The idea of the church's apostolic tradition is rejected.
Robertson Smith, a Scot, was a scholar. He published an article on the Hebrew religion. He was then called before the Scottish Church. He wanted to persuade a conservative Calvinist to go for the literal (unlike the Roman Church) by returning the original. Whereas the Reformers took the literal sense itself, Smith argued that a historical element is necessary to establish the meaning. So, he argues, he is a reformer too as he is against the Roman Church. He had a different sense of history (human history shaped by non-divine forces) than did the Reformers.
What is the effect of Smith's method? What of the effect on scripture in rendering reality? As he limited the 'real' to human history shaped by natural forces, access to the real as well as the meaning of the gospel is filtered by historical criticism. The text (as historically set) is then separated from its referent (the divine in the human realm). The high Anglican Church was less vulnerable because it had the allegorical method--they did not rely on the literal and the rational. The high Church held that the mysterious was in human history, so did not separate the text from its referent.
Newman wrote after Jowett and Smith. He held on to the apostolic witness as a source of revelation. Both the word and the writers of the text were inspired. He maintained that an authoritative interpreter is necessary such that the interpretation is of the revelation. He was not a literalist; he used the allegorical as well. So, some flexibility. The duty of silence: if what you are going to say will wound your brother, stay silent. A corporate dimension here. He valued the communal state of the Church over individual interpretation. He claimed that only the Ten Commandments came directly from God; the rest of scripture came through humans. Whereas the free churches had separated scripture from tradition (rejecting the latter), the liturgical churches saw them as intertwined.
Richardson's overview: He asks how we can adapt our interpretations of the Bible to the knowledge that it was historically constructed. He saw a progression in history, but he had to admit that it was not necessarily so. He does not really give a fair account of the merits of fundamentalism and liberalism. He saw a revelatory progression, but then there is the matter of ebbs and flows as well as final revelation being in Christ. So, Richardson seems ambigious on profound matters.
Childs: the problem is with us today--is there any way to see life that doesn't fall into these two traps (fundamentalism and liberalism); is there an alternative? Me: go beyond the ideas of my own time.
4/3/96
Early American Biblical Criticism:
Consider the factors in New England which allowed Unitarianism to flourish. It was seen as a new Israel; the promised land, on which experiments could be entertained to get back to the pure faith. A sense of mission; of fulfilling God's vision. Then, there was this common purpose--to bring to fruition the Christian telos. Alstrum: this puritan vision held the union together until WWII. View the various approaches vis a vis Frei. Specifically, are his categories useful here. There is a sharp polarity in the 1800's in U.S. Protestantism which are the roots of twentieth-century American Protestantism.
Buckminster died at 28 as a scholar. Norton followed him at Harvard. He would not consider canonicity, historicity, and authorship; only hermeneutics. Evert went to Germany for a Ph.D. He studied under Eichhorn. Eichhorn had a style and approach contrary to those in America. Confronted with Reimarus's work, Evert feared for the loss of his faith (and having to reach conclusions that would have been controversial). He went into politics. Bancroft studied under Hegel and Schleiermacher. But he didn't publish in religion but in U.S. political history.
The difference between American liberals (Unitarians) and conservatives(deists) was on the nature of God (e.g. the trinity).
What is the trajectory into Transcendentialism from early Unitarianism? Norton used the German historical analysis to destroy orthodoxy and constrain Unitarian liberalism. If orthodoxy could be cut off, the purity of the original could be sought. Parker doesn't want any particularities (e.g. Jewishness) to obstruct the transcendent truths. A shift from 'it is true because it is in the narrative' to 'what is true should be found in the narrative'.
Stuart: the pursuit of evidences to show that the Bible was genuinely authenically the writings. He used a referential of truth. He vindicated the Bible's authority by his scholarship. Stuart was torn, being a New England rationalist and yet a Calvinist. He sought to employ rationalism to accomodate it showing it could defend orthodoxy and dogmatism. The absolute unity of scripture was emphasized.
Transcendentalism is a positive thing, rather than fighting Calvinism. Trying to open Christianity to the new things in America (scientific discoveries). Leave the dogma back and incorporate new things. But at the cost that Americans no longer had a common story.
4/10/96
Bib:
Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the principles of Common Sense
Mark Noll, THe Princeton Theology, 1812-1921.
Timothy Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming American Premillenialism, 1875-1982.
Childs:
The late 1800's and early 1900's. American mainline evangelical Christianity. This movement split into liberal and conservative evangelical movements. Consider the social and economic changes in the Union during that time. Briggs was tried for herasy by the Presbyterian church.
Students:
Evangelicals had to consider the relation of science to religion. Religion would no longer be seen as dependent upon historical fact, but was seen as of the heart. American liberal religion: the supernatural is manifest only in the natural; the advancement of the kingdom goes along with advancement of the society. The modern age was dawning in America. Theology was seen as an evolutionary development to be in accord with modern culture. circa 1880-90. Liberal religion stressed morality. Marsden: it was moralistic and scientific. From Deism: God created a natural law, manifest through nature.
In contrast, Moody held a dispensational premillenialism in the 1870's, taking society to be corrupt. The essentially moral and cultural nature of revelation was opposed by him. Moody, like Bacon and Marsden, posited 'facts' as eternally valid entities, thus biblical 'facts' were treated as supernatural revelation. Biblical criticism, such as a historical method. For them, Scripture remained the key to understanding reality, including history; not vice versa. The kingdom of God was not normative by human culture.
Fundamentalists were disenfranchized with mainstream Protestantism. It took the forms of1. Dispensational Premillenialism (Darby, Scofiend, and Finney); 2. Hodge and Warfield gave the Princeton Theology--the five fundamentals of the Christian faith.: bodily resurrection, verbal plenary inspiration of scripture, the virgin birth, Jesus' miracles, and the atonement (vicarious satisfaction). A defense of orthodox doctrine using scholarship.
Inspiration according to Hodge and Warfield. God's providence extends to nature (the workings of the universe) and the inspiration of scripture (no error of the facts and doctrines). So, the whole life of the writer is pre-determined according to God's providence. Inspiration is of the last of the whole process of God's providence in the genesis of Scripture. Inspiration: that portion thereof inwhich it is written down. Revelation is distinguished from inspiration. The latter becomes a technical term on how Scripture was rendered. Inspiration in the original autograph. They did not have access to that--only copies, redacted. This position allowed for textual criticism as well as the inerrancy of (the original) Scripture.
This stance that inspiration is not fundamental is in contrast to the Princeton theology. Inspiration of Scripture is not fundamental to the Christian religion.
Plenary means 'full and complete'. Brigg: to what extent are we to extent fullness? Briggs: inspiration is not only verbal, but is in the lives of the writers. We don't have infallible manuscripts; the O.T. was written without vowels until the seventh century before Christ. How could God have given an infallible verbal inspiration without vowels? Warfield: Scripture without error as it was originally written. No factual errors. A rendering of reality. The facts can be empirically examined and do not depend upon faith. Problem: chronological inconsistencies. He harmonized inconsistencies. But what does this do to the narratives? Two complete narratives make different points; don't take them apart to get an errorless Bible. How precisely Mt. fits with Lk. is a question which eclipses the narratives. Warfield created in effect a fifth Gospel/narrative. Four different forms of the truth of Christ; not one rationalistic form. Briggs: Warfield is pushing it one step rationally beyond what the Church had set.
The point of a canon is to give us an area in which the word of God can be found. Not everything, but not a unitary formulation either. One Gospel, four apostolic witnesses to it. To rationalize the four witnesses is to drain the life out of the narratives of the witnesses. Frei: bear witness to the truth, rather than try to rationalize it(especially by tearing up the narratives). Frei: the revelation of God in Jesus can not be verified apart from faith. The truth of a biblical witness is not so to be collaborated by empirical investigation.
Briggs argues for biblical criticism. He distinguishes believing biblical crit. from unbelieving biblical crit. Does this work? Childs: no. Frei is more comprehensive.
Warfield: concepts imply specific language. So, the language of the original autograph is inerrant.
Child: can you talk about scripture as text without a doctrine of the church? Both Warfield and Briggs have a weak understanding of the church. They both emphasized the individual. The early fathers saw revelation as in community. Augustine was a verbal inspirationist: that the spirit would inspire the listeners that they would hear the word of God. Warfield: verbal inspiration is limited to the writting down of the original autograph. This is self-evident (that the concept is in the specific language).
Princeton inherited the enlightenment common-sense view; that by empirical work, the facts can be shown to be the same as in Scripture. Then, Evolution. Science was no longer an easy fit with faith. To lead the Church to believe that the Bible is infallible, even to the unbeliever (i.e. empirically verifiability), was itself problematic. Evolution showed this. Behind this was Warfield and Hodge's belief that the inerrancy of Scripture included facts known apart from faith. Childs: but even in the Gospel, unbelievers saw Jesus only as a carpenter. Also, Jesus brushed aside philosophical questions. So, why look beyond the witnesses of the faith and the believers to verify the facts--that the facts in Scripture can't be corrected by unbelievers because they are true for them too.
American society was progressing in late 1800's, partly due to the scientific method and the romantic notion that there is a quality of life goes beyond being rationalized. Warfield and Briggs took off on these aspects, respectively. Both ran into problems.
Fundamentalists ran to a radical apocalyptic vision, forgetting the social aspect. Liberals ran to the social gospel, forgetting the content of the faith. No middle ground.
Why does dispensationalism lead to sectarianism? The present church is by definition apostate in the time of already-not yet. The visible church is by definition apostate. The task of a dispensational minister is to split off from his denomination.
Transcendentalism got more abstract; fundamentalism got more literal.
Today, the churches are floundering on the authority (and basis thereof) of Scripture.
4/17/96
Liberal Christianity in Nineteenth-Century America:
Is historical criticism organic to natural theology? Liberal theology maintains God is creator. God meant for human morality to be salient in the early church. The progressive American society was thought to match up with this project--society was perceived as developing morally. So, the social gospel was salient. The evangelical mid-nineteenth-century movement also had a social-gospel aspect in practice, but not in its theology.
Wm James: he values the once-born person. Francis's person in tune with nature. But he claims that the twice-born person is superior. Childs: this was taken by Freud in a psychological way. Along this vein, pre-suppositions were too salient.
Case: What are his positions? He rejects the apostles' religion about Jesus. Jesus did not call himself the messiah. Moreover, does his life give a picture of a down-to-earth person or an eschatological figure? Liberalism discovered a difference between how Jesus is treated in the text and how his apostles treated him as a figure. The apostles applied the term 'son of man' on Jesus' lips. Daniel 7: an eschatological vision of the son of man. Jesus didn't mean this. Case: what kind of self-consciousness did Jesus have? Does the Bible get at this? Childs: Case has a bunch of problems that had been discovered by Biblical criticism and put them together by liberal theology. Can one have an orthodox theology and take historical critical study of the Bible seriously. One can use historical criticism to challenge some of the historical claims made by Case on how the apostles used 'the hero figure' with regard to Jesus. Also, an orthodox Christian could point to portions of scripture that point to Jesus' self-understanding and conscious that contradicts how Case took these to be. Childs: Case raised a question to do justice to a hundred years of biblical criticism. Some of these problems are still with us? Childs: during Case's period, there was the greatest fit between liberal theology and the historical method. The claims made therefrom made sense to many. In contrast, with Bultman the critical method begins to pull away from the liberal theology at that time. Also, von Rad was a historical critic as a theologian, but he would preach as a Lutheran.
Charles Mathews: Christianity is not a body of truth but as a social movement. He sought to translate the Bible and theological beliefs into moral teachings. In this humanist social dimension, Mathews was unlike Case. Mathews saw a human group as making the kingdom of God via distributive justice. Whereas Case would say that the kingdom of God is internal, Mathews (of the empirical Chicago school) claimed that it is external, of humanity as a group reaching out for God by doing distributive justice. Eschatology had been replaced with the moral imperative. No sense of an elect--that members of the church believe the same theological beliefs. But, a sense of acorporate aspect of the church remained. Childs: there were claims from liberalism that were prophetic. It is not clear that the liberal theologians led us down the wrong path. Evengelicals were being eroded as well--manipulated by political and economic interests--so we can't blame the problems in the twentieth-century on the liberal theology.
4/24/96
New Directions in Europe:
Kaehier, The So-called Historical Jesus: Is the real Jesus for us a common person or a deity? The Jesus of faith is not the Jesus of historicity. The divinity of Jesus is unique. So, one can't use a historical or psychological (human) method to find the Jesus of faith. Switzer did not mention Kaehier. Why? Bultmann and Tillich were two students of Kaehier. Childs: how his Kaehier's view of Jesus and method different from the pre-enlightenment view in which Jesus Christ was held above human methods?
Barth: The otherness of the world in the bible. He asks: is this world that of man or God? It is the world of God to him. What is talked about in the Bible is not history, morality, or even religion; rather, it talks about the Other--God. So, read the bible in faith. Faith is necessary for one to enter into the world of the Bible (God's world is new and different to us because God is Other). Childs: This was a boomshell. It cut left and right. How? What was the newness of Barth's approach? Harnack was his teacher and was offended. He is fighting against pietism (morality to perfection). He calls this as anthrocentric. Seeing God as essentially an actor in history (the earthly Jesus) or as a moral character-builder is to ignore the otherness of God. But how can you talk of God without using religious language? He has a different understanding of the role of scripture.
Bultman: What does the myth of the New Testament mean for modern man. This view contradicts the view of science, and yet to translate the Bible into terms compatible with science eliminates the real content of the Bible which is behind the mythical picture (ie.g. the kerygma). Bultman interprets rather than eliminates the mythology. To do so is to demythologize--to find the real intention and the world-view behind the myth presented in the Bible. Existentially, the purpose of the Bible is not to describe an objective world picture but to explain human existence. What is true is not the mythical world-picture but the explanation of human existence behind it. Childs: Bultman agreed with Barth until late in his career. Demythologizing is not to remove the mythological elements (such would be the rationalist view); rather, influenced by Kierkegaard and Heideggar, he claimed that myth must be retranslated into modern terms so the truths of human existence is shown. For instance, John used hellonistic philosophy to show the truth of the Jewish stories to the Greeks. In keeping the mythological aspects, he stays with Barth against the classical liberal stance that the myth ought to be removed from the text. Kaehler had distinguished between geshehka (history seen by faith) and historie(the empirical history). So, Kaehler wasn't interest in the historical Jesus. He was accused of being a docetic. But he believed in the earthly Jesus. Bultmann defines the geshahst in terms of one's self-understanding (existential) rather than as seeing history as of a faith-perspective.
What was the concensus which came undone? That all were against the turn to the subject (e.g. Kant); that the only access to the divine is through the human. That the Bible is not an infallible book, but that it is like a witness to the reality of God. The pointer. Also, a christological foundation; to see how the divine and human come together, you must see it in its one occurance: the incarnation. They had given up an attempt for an ontological solution to the relation between the human and divine. Some of this was coming apart with Bultman.
The Catholic position: In Trent, scripture and tradition are of equal authority, the church being the only interpreter. The concern was that with the lack of literacy in the population, various interpretations would come out. The Vulgate was thought to be reliable because it was old. In 1587, an edition of the Septuigent was allowed. The Vulgate was ready ten years later. The Jesuit order began in that period. They emphasized reading scripture. Commentaries were produced to 'guide' the interpretations by clerics. Scholars advocating textual criticism and authorial intention were condemned by the church. The Jansenists advocated that laity read scripture. The church reacted with concern about possible heresy. Catholic liberalism in the modern period: In Europe, a movement to reinterpret the text so it will be seen as in line with the scientific world-view. Literary criticism, for instance. Different types in scripture. In 1870, papal infallibility was declared in reaction to this liberalism. This decree was at Vatican I. Then, a period of moderation until 1907. In the 1940's, modern biblical scholarship was accepted by the church. In the 1960's, the church recognized several levels of meaning in the text. Childs: in the 1500's, the major scholarship in the West was Catholic. The Catholic trajectory: what were the factors that blunted the critical work? The Catholic energy moved into apologetics. It wasn't just the Church dragging its feet; rather, issues such as the church as the repository of God's truth and what the liberal interpretation was or would do to the avergage church-goer. If the Church had capitulated to its modernizing tendency, would it have been a domination of the secular view? But it happened anyway. From the 1700's, Catholic scholarship lost its edge and became too defensive. The Catholics have had a different conflict with modernity, but Catholic biblical scholarship is now so protestantized that the specifically Catholic issues and polemics have been losted. In the Enlightment, a greater threat to Christianity, Catholic and Protestant scholars still fought each other. Is this true today? Are the denominations fighting eachother when there is a greater threat to Christianity from outside? On the positive side, Catholic and protestant scholars have intermingled. But at what cost? The issues borne out of the particular traditions have been relativized. Critical study has broken the oppressive side of doctrine on the Catholic side. Through modern historical crit. tools, something good for the church has happened. But at the cost of the issues that were uniquely Catholic.
In the 1920's and 30's in Europe, there was a recovery in the Church. Why are we in a different period if the Barthian questions have returned? Gilkey, for instance. He returns to the 1800's solution: the Bible has to be filtered through
history of religion filters. Barth thought he had resolved this problem of how to deal with the historical aspect of the revelation--how relate the historical Jesus to the Jesus of faith. Barth thought he had done it, but Gilkey later tried again (implying that Barth's solution did not suffice). The problem exists today: the Historical Jesus Seminar and Biblical Theology are not related. Why, in this history, are there periods of intellectual work and yet not directly related are new interpretation takes? The history of Biblical interpretation is not a straignt line; rather, it is filled with ups and downs. How do we factor in the turning arounds in biblical interpretation? For instance, how did the historical events of the world wars in the 1900's effect such a changed world-view out of which a change in biblical interpretation resulted. Solutions reached at diferent ages don't work in others.
