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Reading the Bible Historically

Moving from Caesar to Blair

God may speak to us through Russian communism, through a flute concerto, through a blossoming shrub or through a dead dog. We shall do well to listen to him if he really does so. ... God may speak to us through a pagan or an atheist, and in that way give us to understand that the boundary between the Church and the profane world, still and repeatedly, takes a course quite different from that which we hitherto thought we saw Karl Barth Church Dogmatics, I.1, 60

Observer

Object

--simply looking at an objective reality

--tested by empirical observations

--if it doesn’t work its nonsense

Naive Realism

This poster was put up around Britain in 1942.

What was the purpose of this poster?

What does it mean?

Pupils look at the evidence.

Pupils have direct access to the past. They simply say what they see.

Pupils as ‘Naïve Realists’

You are luke warm... I am

going to vomit you out of my mouth!

Rev 3:16

• The poster is set within the particular historical context of WW2, hence the uniforms.

• The cigarettes and alcohol suggest that the characters are in an informal setting.

• The slogan requires a prior knowledge of 1940s slang and the double meaning of certain words.

Critical Realism

Hypothesis/Verification

Modernist Historiography

• Realism

• Empiricism

• Objectivity“If Newton could hold a mirror up to nature and explain its workings, then historians ought to be able to do the same for the past. To be scientific, consequently, history needed something like a laboratory and something like physical evidence. The seminar rooms and archives where university scholars taught and did research became the laboratories of history; historians sought there evidence amid the dust of actual documents and other traces left from the past.”[1]

“When professional historians wrote according to the scientific model, they employed the distant voice of the omniscient narrator,

familiar from the realist novels of the nineteenth century and modelled on the voice of the scientists in their laboratory reports.

The omniscient narrator stood above the superstition and prejudice to survey calmly and dispassionately the scenes of the past and tell a truth that would be acceptable to any other researcher who had seen

the same evidence and applied the same rules.”[1]

[1] Appleby, Hunt, Jacob, Telling the Truth About History, (Norton and Company, 1994), pg. 73

“History dealt with concrete persons and concrete cultures in time. But the historians shared the optimism of the professionalized sciences generally that methodologically controlled research makes objective knowledge possible. For them as for other scientists truth consisted in the correspondence of knowledge to an objective reality that, for the historian, constituted the past as it had actually occurred.”

Postmodern Historiography

• Anti-Realism

“The inherent capacity for concept and symbol formation is recognized as a fundamental and necessary element in the human understanding, anticipation, and creation of reality. The mind is not the passive reflector of an external world and its intrinsic order, but is active and creative in the process of perception and cognition. Reality is in some sense constructed by the mind, not simple perceived by it, and many such constructions are possible, none necessarily sovereign.”


• Anti-Realism

• Anti-Empiricism

“However, I do not believe that there are ‘stories’ out there in archives or monuments of the past, waiting to be resurrected and told. Neither human activity nor the existing records of such activity take the form of narrative, which is the complex cultural forms and deep-seated linguistic conventions deriving from choices that have traditionally been called rhetorical; there is no ‘straight’ way to invent a history, regardless of the honesty and professionalism of the historian.”


• Anti-Realism

• Anti-Empiricism

• Anti-Objectivity

“One thing is clear: the paradigms that have governed historical and literacy study since the nineteenth century no longer hold unquestioned sway. The confident, humanist belief that a rational ‘objective’ investigation of the past permits us to recover ‘authentic meanings’ in historical texts has come under severe attack in postmodernist critical debate.”

Historian

REAL

PAST

Sources.

Artefacts

Texts

ConstructedHistory

A real past exists (large blue rectangle) which leaves traces of its existence in the form of evidence, texts and Artefacts (white box)..

Historians can only observe reality from within their own worldview (represented by green). They have no direct access to the

past but by the use of critical thinking are able to offer a construction (represented by small blue box) from the evidence of

what they perceive the past to be. It is to be noted that the construct of the historian can bear resemblance to the real past but can never

fully represent it in its totality.

Critique of Postmodern Historiography

Critical Realism

Hypothesis/Verification

Verification of the hypothesis, according to N.T. Wright, can take place under the following conditions.

1)The hypothesis must include “all the data. The bits and pieces of evidence must be incorporated without being squeezed out of shape any more than is inevitable.” [1]

1)The hypothesis, or construct, must be coherent and “basically simple” [2]

1)The proposed hypothesis must also “prove fruitful in other related areas” and it “must help to explain other problems.” [3]

[1] New Testament and the People of God NT&POG 103[2] NT&POG 100[3] NT&POG 103

N.T. Wright’s Method of Hypothesis and Verification

Jesus

TertiusPaul

Peter

Who wrote the book of Romans?

1,000,000

70,000700,000

35,000

What was the population of Rome?

50s

90s70s

40s

When was it written?

Vesalius

ThatcherNero

Claudius

Who was the Emperor at the time?

Acts 18:2 There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to depart from Rome.

Suetonius Claudius 25.4

‘[Claudius] expelled Jews from Rome because of their constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus’

Jews

GentilesCalvinists

Who were in the majority in the Church at Rome?

Charismatics

From Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. This gospel

he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son who was a

descendant of David with reference to the flesh, who was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power according to

the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we have

received grace and our apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name. You also are among them, called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all those loved by God in . Rome, called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God

our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! (Rom 1:1-7 NET.)

GOSPEL

GOSPELGospel Rally

ABC of the Gospel

GoodNews

Justification by faith

The four Gospels

Gospel Choir

Gospel TruthGOSPEL?

“The word ‘gospel’ and the phrase ‘the gospel’ have come to denote, especially in certain circles within the church, something that in older theology would be called an ordo salutis, an order of salvation. ‘The gospel’ is supposed to be a description of how people get saved; of the theological mechanism whereby, in some people’s language, Jesus becomes my personal saviour; in other languages again, I admit my sin, believe that he dies for me, and commit my life to him. In many Church circles, if you here something like that, ‘the gospel’ has been preached. Conversely, if you hear a sermon in which the claims of Jesus Christ are related to political or ecological questions of the day, some people will say that, well, perhaps the subject was interesting, but ‘the gospel’ wasn’t preached.”

N.T. Wright

Questions and

Answers

JUDAISM

Stories

Praxis Symbols

Questions and

Answers

ROMANS

Stories

Praxis Symbols

GOSPEL

Questions and

Answers

JUDAISM

Stories

Praxis Symbols

Creation Fall Creation/Election/Covenant

Fall/Exile

Maccabaen Revolt: Return from Exile??

LIVING IN EXILE

Judaism: The Story so Far“During the period when Fadus was procurator of Judea, a certain impostor named Theudas persuaded the majority of the masses to take up their possessions and to follow him to the Jordan River. He stated that he was a prophet and that at his command the river would be parted and would provide them an easy passage. With this talk he deceived many. Fadus, however, did not permit them to reap the fruits of their folly, but sent against them a squadron of cavalry. These fell upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them and took many prisoners. Theudas himself was captured, whereupon they cut off his head and brought it to Jerusalem.”

Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 20.5.1

“Most Jews of this period, it seems, would have answered the question “where are we?” in language which, reduced to its simplest form, meant: we are still in exile. They believed that, in all the senses which mattered, Israel’s exile was still in progress. Although she had come back from Babylon, the glorious message of the prophets remained unfulfilled. Israel still remained in thrall to foreigners; worse, Israel’s god had not returned to Zion.”

N.T. Wright NTPG 268-69

Questions and

Answers

JUDAISM

Stories

Praxis Symbols

How delightful it is to see coming over the mountains the feet of a messenger who announces peace, a messenger who brings good news, who announces deliverance, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns!" Listen, your watchmen

shout; in unison they shout for joy, for they see with their very own eyes the Lord's return to Zion. In unison give a joyful shout, O ruins of Jerusalem! For

the Lord consoles his people; he protects Jerusalem. The Lord reveals his royal power in the sight of all the nations; the entire earth sees our God

deliver. (Isa 52:7-10 NET.)

Return from ExileLIVING IN

EXILE

Sound in Zion the signal trumpet of the sanctuary;announce in Jerusalem the voice of one bringing good news,for God has been merciful to Israel in watching over them.Stand on a high place, Jerusalem, and look at your children,from the east and the west assembled together by the Lord.From the north they come in the joy of their God;from far distant islands God has assembled them.He flattened high mountains into level ground for them;the hills fled at their coming.The forests shaded them as they passed by;God made every fragrant tree to grow for them.So that Israel might proceed under the supervision of the glory of their God.Jerusalem, put on the clothes of your glory,prepare the robe of your holiness,for God has spoken well of Israel forevermore.May the Lord do what he has spoken about Israel and Jerusalem;May the Lord lift up Israel in the name of his glory.May the mercy of the Lord be upon Israel forevermore.

Psalms of Solomon

Return from Exile







GOSPEL

"The providence which has ordered the whole of our life, showing concern and zeal, has ordained the most perfect consummation for human life by giving to it Augustus, by filling him with virtue for doing the work of a benefactor among men, and by sending in him, as it were, a saviour for us and those who come after us, to make war to cease, to create order everywhere. . . ; the birthday of the god [Augustus] was the beginning for the world of the glad tidings that have come to men through him. ..."

Questions and

Answers

ROMANS

Stories

Praxis Symbols

CHALLENGE TO Caesar

Acts 17:2-7

(2) Paul went to the Jews in the synagogue, as he customarily did, and on three Sabbath days he addressed them from the scriptures,(3) explaining and demonstrating that the Christ9 had to suffer and to rise from the dead, saying, "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ."(4) Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large group of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.(5) But the Jews became jealous, and gathering together some worthless men from the rabble in the marketplace, they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar.20 They attacked Jason's house, trying to find Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly.(6) When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, screaming, "These people who have stirred up trouble26 throughout the world have come here too,(7) and Jason has welcomed them as guests! They are all acting against Caesar's decrees, saying there is another king named Jesus!"

CHALLENGE TO Caesar







GOSPEL

Questions and

Answers

ROMANS

Stories

Praxis Symbols

Questions and

Answers

JUDAISM

Stories

Praxis Symbols

Return from Exile

CHALLENGE TO Caesar

GOSPEL

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God's power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, "The righteous by

faith will live."

(Rom 1:16-17 NET.)

This is the day of [Peace/Salvation] concerning which [God] spoke [throughIsa]iah the prophet, who said, [How] beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who proclaims peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion: Your ELOHIM [reigns]. Its interpretation; the mountains are the prophets. . . and the messenger is the Anointed one of the spirit, concerning whom Dan[iel] said, [Until an anointed one, a prince. . .] [And he who brings] good [news], who proclaims [salvation]: it is concerning him that it is written. . . [To comfort all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion]. To comfort [those who mourn: its interpretation], to make them understand all the ages of t[ime]. . . in truth. . . will turn away from Satan. . . by the judgment[s] of God, as it is written concerning him, [who says to Zion]; your ELOHIM reigns. Zion is. . . those who uphold the Covenant, who turn from walking [in] the way of the people. And your ELOHIM is [Melchizedek, who will save them from] the hand of Satan. and everlasting joy to those who mourn.[1]

[1] 1QH 18.14-15, cited according to G. Vermes. The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin Books:

Harmondsworth. 3rd edn, 1987 [1962]), p. 200.

[that he might be], according to Thy truth, a messenger [in the season] of Thy goodness;that to the humble he might bringglad tidings of Thy great mercy,[proclaiming salvation]from out of the fountain [of holinessto the contrite] of spirit,and everlasting joy to those who mourn.[1]

[1] 11QMelch., cited from Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 301,

Dead Sea Scrolls

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Spiritual