I find it inconveniently necessary at this point to do something I find dreadfully dull - say a few words about "method". In Langdon Gilkey's Reaping the Whirlwind, he stops the flow of discussion on the topic at hand to offer an over-long chapter on "method". I kept thinking to myself as I read it, "You know, I could figure this stuff out on my own, but now I have to read all about it." Except, that's not very fair. Gilkey was offering an honest assessment of his own position, giving the reader a chance to understand his own position, and how it had changed since his earlier writings.
So, as I was thinking of how to move forward, I realized that I hadn't really set out, except in some vague general ways, any "method". Instead, I just kind of started writing this. So, in the interest of transparency and intellectual honesty, I guess I should say a thing or two, not so much about method as such, but just generally stake out my own position.
As one could gather reading the first "Reading" post, the Bible is central to my own understanding of the Christian faith. Nothing shocking or surprising there, I suppose (well, maybe to some people). Yet, beyond some vague discussion that the Bible is the starting point, I failed to move forward and say how I read it. Recognizing the diversity of literary styles, the vast time spans covered by a consideration of discrete authorship and specific audiences, it would seem that any attempt at a coherent "reading" of the Bible is, as many scholars have indeed concluded, pretty much a non-starter. There was, for a long time, a vigorous "Biblical Theology" movement (it still exists; WTS's recently retired academic Dean, Bruce Birch, wrote one a couple decades ago). Yet, as Biblical scholarship has continued to move on, the old "New Testament/Old Testament Theology" writing has not only ground to a halt (mostly), it looks kind of quaint. Gerhard von Rad's work, while important, has been superseded. Rudolf Bultmann's Theology of the New Testament, while an important historical document, really doesn't satisfy much anymore.
Recognizing the splintering of any attempt to paste a coherent narrative on the whole of the canon, however, leaves the question still begged - how do you read the Bible, then? I think it is important to say that any attempt to do a cohesive reading of the Bible runs up against the simple fact of diversity of authorship, diversity of literary styles, and the sheer weight of two thousand years of commentaries. For example, I do not subscribe to the typical Christian belief that all sorts of Old Testament passages are actually predictive of, or refer in some way to the Christ event. Part of honoring the reality of the Bible is reading, say, Isaiah, chapters 40-55, as what it is - the celebration of the release of those held in exile in Babylon after the Babylonian Empire was destroyed by the Persians (the Emperor Cyrus is actually referred to with the Hebrew word "meshach" - the same word applied to David, "anointed by God", roughly transliterated as "Messiah"). Too often read during Advent as referring to the birth of Jesus and all that entails theologically, I think we miss the deeper meaning of these texts if we set aside the reality that these poems are songs of joy from a people who have been dreaming, and upon awakening discover their dream is coming true. Shifting the focus of these texts to a Christian context - "they're all about Jesus!" - strips them of meaning, and power.
As always, there is a "but" here. One can, I think, make a general comment about how to read the Bible without impinging on the textual integrity of various passages in and of themselves. I think it isn't a stretch to say that, even those Biblical passages referred to by one scholar as "texts of terror" are part and parcel of the on-going project of people wrestling with their own understanding that they have encountered something Other, an Other that has claimed them in some way. This Other is not some vague "idea" of "Divinity"; it isn't (as I read far too often by people who think they're being oh-so-radical but are really kind of stupid) "the sky fairy". This Other, this very specific, concrete experienced Other has been given the title "God", and a name was offered by this God. The specificity of this name, the specificity of the events in question and how they relate to these people's understanding of who this God is (as opposed, as always, to the very real claims made upon these people by other gods), should, if one is paying attention when one is reading, make clear that, from the stories of the creation of the Universe in the first two chapters of Genesis through the concluding "Amen" when St. John of Patmos declares his vision of the final consummation of this same God's plan for creation at a close that this God can be known. Fleshing out "this God can be known" is going to be the content of the rest of these related posts.
UPDATE: As serendipity would have it, I was pointed to this post, which covers, in a general way, issues that are central to the question of Scriptural centrality in our understanding of the faith. Just go and read it, if you would.
