BOOKS, FAITH, WORLD & MORE

THE BIBLE STORY–OUR STORY

Daniel Hertzler

Telling Our Stories: Personal Accounts of Engagement with Scripture, edited by Ray Gingerich and Earl Zimmerman. Cascadia, 2006.

The Art of Reading Scripture, edited by Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays. Eerdmans, 2003.

Each of these books grows out of a similar concern: how to make the Bible relevant to the twenty-first century. But they use contrasting methods. The first is based on a weekend colloquy of two dozen Mennonites. For the second, an ecumenical group of pastors and biblical scholars met periodically over four years. The Mennonite strategy is notable: get a group together representing a common tradition and listen to what they will say.

Did the Mennonites accomplish in a weekend what took the ecumenical group four years? Almost, they did. But since we have both books we may consider them together and draw insights from each one.

Persons were invited to the colloquy with the understanding that they should be free to express their convictions without being criticized. The fact that the Bible has been foundational for the Anabaptist tradition yet the source of endless disagreements among us was no doubt in back of the strategy. The reader will find some contrasting opinions expressed. Yet evidently a good time was had by all.

Among the more interesting accounts is that of Jo-Ann Brant, who grew up in the United Church of Canada but joined a Mennonite congregation after they put her on a committee. She now teaches at Goshen College in Indiana.

Brandt confesses that "when I began to read the text for and with my students, my preoccupation with the questions of historical criticism gave way to a growing awareness of the habits of the heart that the stories instilled in me. I began to replace notions of faith as an epistemological position with faith as trust, and I began to find affirmation of core Anabaptist convictions about nonviolence, justice, simplicity, mutual aid, and communal accountability" (55).

Contrasting perspectives are stated by G. Craig Maven and J. Denny Weaver. Maven recounts his background study in conservative Reformed theology and affirms that "I am still comfortable with the concepts of infallibility and inerrancy. But I recognize that these are faith statements. These are choices I have made which cannot be reasoned to nor reasoned out of" (180).

On the other hand, J. Denny Weaver says, "I assume that the Bible is true—not infallible nor inerrant—but true." He continues, "Second, the Bible’s interpretation will generally make sense in terms of the world in which we live."

One exception he makes, however, is "the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus does not fit into the categories of knowing and testing in our modern world, but the Bible speaks about resurrection, and it is the basis of our faith. I believe in the resurrection" (243).

Earl Zimmerman’s story is long and involved. He grew up in an Old Order Mennonite community in Pennsylvania, was thrust out of it through an experience in alternative service during the Vietnam War. He found his way toward a satisfactory personal faith through the writings of Guy F. Hershberger, John Howard Yoder, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer which "convinced me that Jesus’ way of peace was central to the gospel." But he also remembers with appreciation "Grandpa Sensenig’s insistence that we begin our study of the Bible with the Sermon on the Mount" (225).

His pilgrimage led him eventually to doctoral study at Catholic University and teaching at Eastern Mennonite University. He holds that "if we truly honor the authority of Scripture, we will not see it as a one-way conversation. Indeed, we can and must talk back to Scripture" (229). How many Mennonites have been free to say this publicly, except perhaps in a Sunday school class, as in "Jesus didn’t mean that"?

Nevertheless, in a brief "Conclusion" chapter the book warns against a too easygoing view of the storytelling experience. "What makes biblical storytelling normative is if, after testing in the community of faith, it corresponds with our Lord’s story, with the story of Jesus."

It goes on to say, "The issues of militarization and homosexuality, which served as catalysts for the experiment in telling our stories, remain with us. To follow Jesus, to be a social embodiment of Christ, is in the final analysis, always political and frequently painful" (257). But the editors hope telling stories can be a beginning and they commend the book—of course—to others who may wish to undertake a similar process. And we should.

If all of this and more can be accomplished in a weekend, what can be done over four years? The authors of essays in The Art of Reading Scripture provide comprehensive generalizations not likely to grow out of a weekend’s consultation. The four-year process was identified as "The Scripture Project." It brought together a group of scholars with a variety of scholarly specialties "seeking to explore, to exemplify, and to nurture habits of reading Scripture theologically," hoping "to recover the church’s rich heritage of biblical interpretation in a dramatically changed cultural environment."

The group came to believe "that reading Scripture is an art—a creative discipline that requires engagement and imagination, in contrast to the Enlightenment’s ideal of detached objectivity." If indeed the interpretation of Scripture is an art more than a science, several things follow. For one, it is difficult. For another, it "has the potential for creating something beautiful." In addition "we learn the practice of an art through apprenticeship to those who have become masters" (xv-xvi).

The book begins with "nine theses on the interpretation of Scripture." These, we are told, are based upon the essays which follow rather than the other way around. But in reading the book we begin with the theses. The first of these is that "Scripture truthfully tells the story of God’s action of creating, judging, and saving the world" (1). This is a bold statement coming from a group of scholars. It is followed by others that clarify and illustrate this assumption.

Also, each of the nine is followed by proposed discussion questions. The final question, following the ninth thesis, is "To what standards of accountability are we called to keep our readings faithful to the God of Jesus Christ?" (5). Excerpts from some of the essays will illustrate what the group was able to propose over four years.

In "Teaching the Bible Confessionally in the Church," Ellen F. Davis acknowledges her debt to historical study of the Bible but indicates her intention to do more than "study the Bible as if its aim were to give us insight into ancient ideologies and events." She proposes that the aim of a "confessional reading of the Bible" is "first of all, to tell us about the nature of and will of God, to instruct us in the manifold and often hidden ways in which God is present and active in the world; and second, to give us a new awareness of ourselves and our actions, to show us that in everything we have to do with God" (11). If some of us thought these things were obvious, it is of interest to see them coming from a scholar.

Richard Bauckham takes up the postmodern objection to a metanarrative, the effort to devise a "comprehensive explanation" for all reality. He draws on the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard, who holds that "Metanarratives are necessarily authoritarian and oppressive, since they can subsume difference only by suppressing it" and holds that "order is always false and so oppressive."

Bauckham grants a certain credulity to Lyotard’s critique of modernism, but observes that it offers no effective answer to the oppression of "consumerist individualism and free-market globalization. . . . It enriches the rich while leaving the poor poor, and it destroys the environment" (47).

In response Bauckham offers the story of the Bible as a metanarrative. His presentation includes eight points, the first of which is that "what justifies the term metanarrative is that the biblical story is a story about the meaning of the whole of reality. . . . The particularity of the claim is offensive to the modern metanarrative of universal reason; the universality, even more offensive to postmodern relativism" (48).

His second point is that "the biblical story accounts for history in terms of the freedom and purpose of God and human freedom to obey or to resist God" (48). He notes the threat posed by totalitarianism against which he holds that relativism is not an effective response. "The challenge to the church in the postmodern context is to reclaim the biblical story in a way that expresses its noncoercive claim to truth without imposing premature eschatological closure" (53).

Davis comes again with "Critical Traditioning: Seeking an Inner Biblical Hermeneutic." She is concerned with difficult texts. "What can we do in the church with difficult texts which do not seem to accord with a well considered understanding of the Christian faith?" (163). She proposes that "A living tradition is a potentially courageous form of shared consciousness, because a tradition, in contrast to an ideology, preserves (in some form) our mistakes and atrocities as well as our insights and moral victories. It also preserves side-by-side the disagreements that are still unresolved in the process" (169).

As an example, she mentions the account of the Israelite conquest of Canaan and suggests that the bad Canaanite stereotype which we typically assume is not clear from the accounts. For example, the spies entered Canaan through a Canaanite brothel and Rahab, the madam, is found reciting the Israelite perspective in Joshua 2:9-11. Her name, incidentally, as reported by Davis, is not one you would give to your daughter.

The more familiar example of Traditioning is Jesus’ interpretation of the Levitical commandment to love one’s neighbor with the parable of the good Samaritan. This is old material to us, but was no doubt shocking when Jesus first gave it.

Richard B. Hays has a chapter "Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection." In it he takes issue with Spong, Bultmann, and Funk—who are inclined to psychologize the resurrection of Jesus.

In response he asks, "But what if God really did raise Jesus from the dead?" He expounds texts from the Gospels of John, Mark, and Luke which "connect the resurrection with a reading of Scripture" (220, 221). Hays holds that "the resurrection of Jesus will remain a mute, uninterpretable puzzle unless it is placed firmly within the Old Testament story of Israel. . . . The good news of Luke 24, however, is that the story does not end in incomprehension and hermeneutical failure, because the one who rose from the dead teaches us anew how to listen to Moses and the prophets" (232).

Hays responds to the tendency for New Testament scholars to seek to be objective about the faith and asks, "What would biblical criticism look like if we sought to develop a consistent critical approach from within the community that knows itself to be given life by the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth?" He proposes that such an approach would be as disturbing to New Testament scholars as Jesus upsetting the money changers in the temple or his put down of the Sadducees regarding the resurrection (238).

As I reflect on these two books, I find Telling Our Stories more readily accessible. A Sunday school class could use it. But The Art of Reading Scripture in its own deliberate fashion provides useful background. If indeed the reading of Scripture is a difficult art which needs to be learned, we are in danger of taking it too lightly.

In my Sunday school, Bibles are given to fourth grade children. This is a sign that we consider the Bible an important resource for them. Indeed we do. Even though some of the stories in it would not be appropriate for prime time television, we are free to affirm that the Bible is our story and we want them know it. Having read it ourselves as children, we conclude that it will not harm them.

Yet we are well aware that the Bible can be abused freely. When we reflect on the issues raised by these two books, we can only ask who is sufficient for the task of biblical interpretation. We know in our hearts that we must do it. Should we be approaching this task with fear and trembling?

—Daniel Hertzler, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, a longtime editor and writer, contributes a monthly column to the Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pa.).