Nielsen’s Nook

Dr. Peter Enns, former all-star professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, was interviewed at 10:00 am (Central) today by Public Radio WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane.

Dr. Enns’ now infamous and scholarly (and dare I say it … pastoral) book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament seeks to approach difficulties in the Old Testament (e.g., two drastically different Hebrew Manuscripts of Jeremiah) and in terms of the Incarnation. Ultimately, Dr. Enns seeks to uphold the mystery of the divine and human union of Scripture as the basis for its trustworthiness in faith and practice.

Dr. Enns blogs at a time to tear down | A Time to Build Up.
Listen to the interview with WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane:

[Download]

Addendum:

About 41 minutes in, an atheist caller named Jim calls and makes the statement that if he would have had the paradigm of scripture that is presented in Inspiration and Incarnation, he wonders if that would not have saved his faith. Pete does a very pastoral job of encouraging Jim toward the God revealed in the Bible.

In exploring trans-tradition hermeneutics, trying to get at where interpretive authority lies in a span of traditions, I did a little reading on the Roman Catholic Church from their own Vatican II documents. So what follows is a concise summary of what I understand the Roman Church to be saying about interpretive authority in their context.

Apostolic Succession through Bishops

The Roman Church has and asserts an unbroken apostolic succession in which “the apostles left bishops as their successors” to whom they gave “‘their own position of teaching authority.’” As such, this tradition of apostolic succession is said to function as a mirror in which the church contemplates God. [1]

A Single Composite Sacred Deposit

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) precedes the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum). This subtle logical priority is worked out practically in Dei Verbum as the tensions represented in the hermeneutical continuum are worked out. “Tradition and scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the word of God, which is entrusted to the church,” appears to capture the practical effect succinctly.[2]

Correlatively, as Roman Christians adhere to this single deposit united to the pastors of the church they are said to continue in the trajectory of the “teaching of the apostles” (τῇ διδαχῇ), the “communion of life” (τῇ κοινωνίᾳ), the “breaking of bread” (τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου) and the “prayers” (ταῖς προσευχαῖς) established in Acts 2:42. Consequently, in maintaining such trajectory, a “unique interplay” exists between bishops and the faithful.[3]

Magisterial Interpretation

“Authentic interpretation” of this single sacred deposit has been “entrusted to the living teaching office of the church alone.”[4] Dei Verbum goes on to explain:

This magisterium is not superior to the word of God, but is rather its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it [ostensibly from the apostles and prophets]. … It is clear, therefore, that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred tradition, sacred scripture, and the magisterium of the church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others.[5]

Summary

In short, the “single sacred deposit” of the word of God is composed of two component parts: scripture and tradition. This deposit requires interpretation and it is the magisterium alone, composed of bishops, serving the church and the single sacred deposit that gives “authentic interpretation.” In other words, if the reader of scripture wants to know if her interpretation of it is correct she must only see how the Magisterium has interpreted it.

[1] Austin Flannery, “Dei Verbum,” in Vatican II the Basic Sixteen Documents : Constitutions Decrees Declarations (Northport, NY: Costello Pub., 1996), II.7.

[2]Ibid., II.10.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

I know the translation of Hebrews has been slow out of the gate. I am not abandoning it; however, I have a paper due on May 1. The thesis of the paper is to underscore how, generally speaking, the historic/traditional Anglican hermeneutic provides a via media between the hermeneutical (and epistemological) problems of private interpretation in Protestantism and unresolvable parity given to Tradition and Scripture in the Roman Church.

If you have any good articles you might suggest that are engaged with contemporary primary sources ¹ please leave a comment and let me know about them. I appreciate the help.

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¹ For example, articles dealing with how Roman Catholics, Protestants or Anglicans deal with Tradition and Scripture today would be helpful. However, articles about Tridentine formulations and polemics are a bit removed for much relevant discussion.

Commentary

[1] κατʼ ἀρχάς is not a direct quote of the Creation account in Genesis 1:1 LXX (Ἐν ἀρχῇ); however, this is clearly what is in view conceptually.

[2] The use of metaphor (foundations) and anthropomorphism (preincarnate hands) underscore the incarnational nature of scripture in which God demonstrates with iterative mercy his love for us in condescending to us. He is not beyond even mythic language to reveal himself to the world. In other words, we don’t believe that God took out a divine trowel, after pouring cosmic concrete, and smoothed out the bottom layer of a flat earth. Scripture is not teaching that. What scripture is teaching is that 1) the Triune God made all  that is, and 2) as such, He (specifically here - the Son) has ultimate authority, lordship, over all things. For an engaging discussion of the nature of God’s loving condescension to us in scripture see, Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation.

Commentary

[1] Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως is an interesting pair, perhaps hinting at Semitic authorship of the book with its parallelism. Πολυμερῶς speaks of the many parts (μέρος), while πολυτρόπως expands the scope of the parallelism to the manner (τρόπος) in which God spoke. In other words, formerly God spoke by means of his prophets in many episodes, using a variety of media.

[2] ἔθηκεν (τίθημι) When used with a double accusative as is the case here, τίθημι conveys the idea of making something of someone (BAGD, 816). Consider Psalm 109:1 (LXX) Εἶπεν ὁ κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου Κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου, ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου. The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand while I make your enemies a footstool for your feet” (author’s translation).

[3] διʼ οὗ καὶ ἐποίησεν τοὺς αἰῶνας First, there is a word order variation from this phrase in the NA27 and διʼ οὗ καὶ τοὺςN αἰῶνας ἐποίησεν, appearing in the Byzantine text and Textus Receptus.

Second, αἰῶνας is one of those Greek words that does not translate well into English. The ESV has “world” as a sort of generic plural, where the KJV opts for the plural “worlds” as does the NRSV. The NIV attempts to be more concrete rendering “universe” for αἰῶνας. While I believe these are conceptually true and sound translations (Jesus is in fact the creator and sustainer of the world, worlds and universe), I think the context directs us to an even more specific understanding for τοὺς αἰῶνας.

I believe that what may be in view might be paraphrased like this. All the episodes and ways and times and situations in which God spoke to us through his prophets - all of that - was made by the One through Whom God now speaks to us, namely, His Son, Jesus the Christ. In other words, while it is true that Christ Jesus is Lord and Maker of the universe, this opening sentence is a statement about His lordship over revelation and the sitz im leben (historico-cultural situation) in which revelation came to us previous to the Incarnation.

I have been exceedingly busy with programming work, such that the cyber-contemplative side of my life (also known as Nielsen’s Nook) has been largely neglected this March.

So I’ll be moving on from the desert into this oasis of God’s Word. One of the most paradigmatic books of the entire Bible is the book of Hebrews. It provides for us a living example of the Reformed idea of scriptura ex scriptura explicanda est (Scripture is interpreted by Scripture). ¹ Namely, in the Epistle to the Hebrews we see the way the Old Testament story finds its completion, perfection and climax in the person of Jesus, who is the Christ.

To that end, much like the series on the Martyrdom of Polycarp, I’ll be plugging away at the book of Hebrews in bite-sized chunks that are aimed at my edification and yours. As always comments are welcomed; interaction is treasured.

For those interested in the technical side, my base text will be the NA27; however, I will also be working with the UBS4, the 2005 Byzantine Text Form and the 1550 Textus Receptus (Stephanus).

¹ It should be noted that the idea of Scripture interpreting Scripture is not for the magisterial reformers (or for me) a practice that is divorced from the witness and tradition handed down to us from the Apostles and prophets; but is rather assumed.

The Church Liturgy is divided into two parts: 1) the Word Spoken and 2) the Word Broken. In the first part one will experience the reading and preaching of the Word of God. There is in our church an Old Testament reading, the singing of a Psalm, the Epistle reading and then the reading from the Gospel. There is a processional from the altar to the middle of the sanctuary, in the midst of the people, where a formation occurs and the reading of the Holy Gospel occurs. The formation looks something like this:

The crucifer (i.e., the person carrying the crucifix) stands at the head of the formation. The torch bearers stand to either side and forward, shining light upon the Gospel Book held by the Lay Reader in between them. And at the foot of this cruciform formation stands the priest who reads the Gospel. Something is profoundly and purposefully communicated to both clergy and laity, that is to everyone, at this point. Whatever the Gospel is, we come to it at the foot of the Cross. It is a visible lesson on hermeneutics, that we must always seek to understand Jesus at the foot of the Cross. We cannot read His book on any other terms than the terms that were given at the foot of the Cross. Thus, it is that St. Paul has told us that he decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Want to learn more about Christian Liturgy? Check out Thomas Howard’s Liturgy Explained.

Tony Stiff at Sets ‘n’ Service put up a Tremper Longman quote that augments well some of the recent posts here on the Nook:

“To read a passage of Scripture in context is simply to read it with a sense of its place in the whole. This is, on the other hand, one of the easiest of our hermeneutical principles and takes the least amount of time. But on the other hand, it takes a lifetime. This is true because the Bible is unfathomably rich. So rich that no one can master the Scripture in a lifetime. There is always something more to know, something more to learn from God’s Word. And it is precisely from our knowledge of the whole that we must read the part.” Tremper Longman III, Making Sense of the Old Testament: Three Crucial Questions, pg. 33.

PS. You’ll also like the photography used to accent the articles on Sets ‘n’ Service.

The third and last section of Osborne’s article, “Special Issues” moves to consider the following elements:

1. Paul’s use of Hellenistic forms of rhetoric
2. Liturgical elements in Paul
3. Virtue and vice lists in Paul
4. The center of Paul’s theology
5. Theological development in Paul
6. Sociological factors in Paul
7. Paul’s relation to the narrative
8. Contextualization of Paul

In order to not get too bogged down in the details here, this writer will interact with some of the themes that runs through out these sections. In the section ‘The Center of Paul’s Theology” Osborne asks this question:

Since the Pauline letters are occasional in nature, and since Paul failed to develop his thought systematically, is it possible to conceive of a Pauline “theology” in the broad sense or of a “center” in the narrow sense?¹

With the controversy that has surrounded the Apostle Paul since his calling by Christ Jesus into the Apostolic office, there is much to be said here. Osborne informs us that most interpreters have sought to seek a balance. Since there is no overwhelming consensus on what that center is, many have sought to articulate a “cluster of themes rather than a single idea or controlling principle.” ² Osborne offers this solution to the dilemma:

The way out of the maze is to utilize the techniques of biblical theology, especially those of the analytical method. A “bottom-up” approach will follow the themes as they develop from one Pauline letter to another, allowing them to decide their own direction. ³

So far so good. However, we suggest one qualification which we will seek to understand via considering more of Osborne’s thoughts in this article.

Personally, “analytic method” is not a term that we would expect to see in apposition to “biblical theology.” Perhaps, because Osborne does not define the nuance he is presenting in the term “analytic method” we may find through other writings that he is concerned with the qualification that we make here. How does one implement biblical theology and have any assurance that the venues one explores in Paul are not rabbit trails but actually the main ideological thoroughfare Paul travels?

If the concept of scriptura ex scriptura explicanda est (roughly, scripture from scripture is explicated) still holds then we are bound to employ both a bottom up, inductive, biblical theological approach to the texts in concert with a top down, systematic, deductive fashion those scriptures outside of Paul, particularly those that can bring perspicuity to some of the unclear statements he has written. So the qualification would be that mere biblical theology will not provide the resolution that some offer as over against a merely systemic approach.

If we would understand scripture that it might be the explanation of scripture, then it would seem employing such circumspect studies of sociology contemporaneous with the texts being studied, understanding Paul’s use of narrative and rhetoric, and his theological development is necessary for understanding Paul on his own terms. Osborne rightly advocates the tempered use of some of these elements directing the reader towards a more balanced reading of Paul.

Out of the brief second section of Osborne’s article on interpreting Paul there are nuggets of insights into Paul’s world. The letters of the Apostle Paul generally follow the traditional bounds of “Hellenistic letters”; however, Paul “felt less bound” to these structures, mixing several forms to accomplish his literary task.¹

Osborne incorporates nine types of Hellenistic letters into his catalog of letters with which Paul was likely familiar: ²

1. Letters of friendship (cf. 2 Cor 1:16; 5:3; Phil 1:7–8)
2. Family letters
3. Letters of praise and blame (1 Cor 11; Rev 2–3)
4. Exhortatory or paraenetic letters (1 Thess 1-5; the Pastorals)
5. Letters of mediation or recommendation (Phil 2:19-30, Philemon)
6. Juridical or forensic letters (1 Cor 9:3-12; 2 Cor 1:8-2:13)
7. Private or documentary letters
8. Official letters
9. Literary letters