39 - The Responsibility of Biblical Theology to Communities of Faith

The Responsibility of Biblical Theology to Communities of Faith
By Paul D. Hanson

"A posture of openness preserves in creative tension the normative role of the Bible emphasized by the conservative and the contribution of contemporary experience emphasized by the liberal and the pentecostal. It stresses what the ecumenical movement has long proclaimed: we need each other, and we need each other in the uniqueness and richness of each other's perspectives. But we can appreciate that need only if we are open to enrichment through a sharing of visions."

MEDICAL DOCTORS, lawyers, and persons in business are today finding their activities drawn under much closer scrutiny in relation to basic issues of morals and conscience than in the past. Perhaps the time has come to direct more attention toward those professions that may seem to enjoy immunity from such scrutiny because the realm of morals and conscience is so close to the heart of their subject matter, namely, the theological disciplines. From medicine, law, and business, critics are beginning to demand evidence of ethical responsibility and self-criticism of guiding principles.

Ethical responsibility implies a type of engagement in social and human affairs which takes into account questions of honesty and justice. Self-criticism implies a willingness to step back and examine the basic policy guidelines and principles which direct the activities of a professional group and condition the kinds of responses it makes to specific circumstances. Without implying that more than a beginning has been made in bringing such professions to accountability for their activities, I want to ask whether we have even begun to develop responsibility and self-criticism in one specific branch of theology, that

Paul D. Hanson is Professor of Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School. He was educated at Gustavus Adolphus College, the University of Heidelberg, Yale, and Harvard University, and he is the author of several articles, as well as The Dawn of Apocalyptic (1975) and Dynamic Transcendence (1978), both published by Fortress Press.

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covering biblical studies. When I refer to biblical scholars and theologians, I include all clergy, teachers, and church leaders whose professional training and careers involve study of the Bible.

I

The urgency of such a query is driven home by several observations. Popular interest in the Bible has increased enormously over the past decade. Ironically, this has coincided with widespread retreat within the church from issues of social justice. Biblical religion seems to be providing a sanctuary from involvement in a society that has slipped backward in areas of racial justice and economic equality, and which is trying hard to divert its attention from starving masses and a world moving close to economic crisis. It is time to unmask the false assumption that excitement over the Bible inevitably carries with it a genuine deepening of faith and sensitivity to human values. The Islamic fundamentalism currently surging within Iran serves as a dire warning against the misapplication of a scriptural tradition to self-serving needs of any enthusiastic group. The process too easily issues forth in illusions of grandeur and repression of all criticism and dissent.

The area of religious belief is potentially too powerful to be given immunity from critical examination. As the Vatican's declaration against Hans Küng illustrates, religious institutions and spiritual leaders in our troubled times are tempted to impose definitive answers to all questions of faith and morals on a quiescent constituency. Because of its size and universality, the current reactionary trend of the Vatican stands out. Throughout the world, in bodies large and small, similar retrenchment and declaration of immunity to criticism are occurring. More emphatically in the present moment than in any time in the recent past, professors of the Bible and biblically-trained pastors and church leaders are called back to one of their responsibilities that has slipped into neglect. They must subject to ongoing criticism the ways in which Scripture is being used and the sources of the presuppositions guiding both the scholarly and popular use of the Bible, whether they are derived from dogma, cultural fads, national ideologies, or philosophical assumptions. In holding biblical theologians to account, we can measure their activities against the two qualities required of all professions, moral responsibility and self-criticism of guiding principles and presuppositions.

In relation to moral responsibility, there is reason for alarm. It is not as if biblical scholars are using the tools of their profession to implement multinational schemes or to prey on the health of helpless clients. The basis for alarm is the more subtle but equally harmful attitude of detachment. Biblical scholars who understand their vocation within the larger context of a community of faith have reason to be concerned that a large proportion of the younger members of the profession consider the questions of spiritual and moral accountability beneath their scholarly concern. In the late sixties and early seventies, we witnessed in our

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seminaries and divinity schools a wave of students who tried to put distance between themselves and the church and sought their professional identity in secular institutions and private practices. That trend has abated somewhat on the professional level, but doctoral programs in religion continue to attract large numbers of students who seek membership in a "guild" that is answerable only to its own self-generated rules. One need only read the titles of papers at the professional biblical meetings to see to what ends scholars go to avoid any treatment of the theological meaning of a biblical text.

This is not to deny the importance of every aspect of biblical study, from the collation of manuscripts to the study of extra-biblical parallels. Nor is it to deny that the detached scholar has contributed and will continue to contribute much of value to biblical studies. Rather, I am concerned with balance in the field. For when detachment becomes the prevailing mood in biblical studies, it not only can contribute to the development of a spiritual vacuum in our communities of faith, but it easily leads to the importation of tacit assumptions removed from criticism by being marketed under the label of "pure scientific objectivity." It is not inappropriate to recall in this connection the popularity which the rein wissenschaftlich enjoyed in biblical circles approved by the Nazis. In contrast, the biblical scholars of the confessing church, while by no means untutored in matters of critical methodology, were emphatically not of the detached, "objective" variety. At the risk of their lives, they were engaged in preaching, teaching, and criticism of and active resistance to the ecclesiastical and political forces sweeping over their country.

Hand in hand with moral responsibility must go a lively sense of self-criticism within the profession and the churches it serves. For scholarly detachment does not pose the only threat to a vital confessional heritage. Uncritical, self-serving enthusiasm has had a sordid history of its own, and movements advancing under the banner of a return to the Bible have often made powerful contributions to social oppression, nationalism, and a host of other personal and communal ills. Within a community of scholars that draws together members from a wide diversity of confessions and theological positions, biblical scholarship exercises its critical function only if from the perspective of its own history, accumulated research, and collective wisdom it subjects all positions to a steady critique.

Of course, the matter is complicated by the lack of a universally recognized standard against which evaluation is to function. Individual scholars inevitably draw upon the presuppositions of their own communities. But open and honest recognition of that relation of dependence is in itself beneficial. A further degree of modesty and integrity is cultivated by the frequent gathering together of biblical scholars of all confessions for serious discussion and open dialogue on issues of the Bible and theology. Such occasions foster understanding and trust even as they encourage an openness both to self-scrutiny and the criticism of

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others. Because the commitment for drawing scholars together for dialogue should transcend the interests of any particular group, suspicions and animosities which have created barriers between biblical scholars in the past can be overcome.

Anyone who has been privileged to benefit from the exchange of ideas between Protestant and Catholic scholars in the period after Vatican II will refuse to recognize the permanence of walls which divide bodies within the biblical community of faith. The era of ecumenicity has provided rich opportunities for such exchange, as biblical associations have opened up their memberships to all confessions, theological schools have drawn themselves into clusters, pastoral conferences and lay schools sponsored by specific denominations have sent out invitations to members of other confessions. In sharp contrast to any reactionary trend of retreat into a narrower, more defensive sectarian self-definition, an outreach to others offers a propitious opportunity for discussion of both the dangers and the opportunities open to communities basing their identity and sense of mission on a confessional tradition within which the Bible plays the central role. Whenever individuals from different confessions discuss the challenges of a biblical heritage within the modern world, growth in understanding and openness to helpful criticism are also encouraged.

II

When biblical scholars exercise their responsibility to the church within a context of openness and dialogue conducive to self-criticism and growth, what kinds of issues can be meaningfully addressed? I will describe one issue by way of illustration, namely, the tacit assumptions which inform biblical interpretation and application in the communities of faith.

Some argue that such assumptions should be left tacit because exposure to direct scrutiny leads to dissension. There is reason to believe, however, that when they are left to exercise their influence apart from criticism and refinement within the context of the community's life, hidden assumptions can degrade the quality of life, narrow vision to self-serving ends, and lead to a sense of malaise that festers because courage is lacking to delve to the heart of the difficulty.

Those entrusted with the teaching of the Bible act responsibly by subjecting the use of Scripture in their communities to a rigorous, disciplined critique, in which underlying presuppositions are identified and brought into the light of community discussion. Only loss of confidence in the self-authenticating authority of Scripture leads to the desire to enshroud the presuppositions of faith in a cloak of ecclesiastical secrecy. Open discussion of presuppositions leads not to disunity or the erosion of faith but to a proper understanding of the nature of faith if it is carried on in a community context characterized by a sense of life derived from divine grace and dedicated to a self-transcending purpose.

Since grace comes from a glorious God whose nature implies mystery

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beyond human ken, diversity of perspectives is not a threat to a unity based on devotion to that gracious, mysterious God, but only an expression of God's being as divine being. Not only is diversity an inevitable aspect of a radical monotheism where every theological effort is acknowledged to participate in idolatry, but diversity can be a highly creative quality, one which biblical scholars can assure anxious believers is deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian heritage and in the Bible itself.

III

In order to make more specific my illustration of the biblical scholar as detector and critic of presuppositions, I will focus on the assumptions which a community uses to understand the relation between divine activity in biblical times and the present.

Underlying much of the resurgent evangelicalism in this country is what can be called a biblicist position. In many cases, this position is prompting people to reflect on the bearing which the Bible has on their lives, to question modern materialistic values, and to search for a sounder basis for life in a Christian style of sacrificial sharing. But every evangelical and charismatic movement must also be accompanied by the kind of self-criticism to which biblical scholarship can contribute, for such movements are often diverted into a search for absolute norms and spiritual security. They often produce personalistic pietism which confines biblical study to the Procrustean bed of narrow, self-serving sectarianism. Preoccupation with one's personal salvation comes to supplant the freedom, compassion, courage, and social outreach of the life of faith. Open, ecumenical searching and growth is replaced by a legalistic triumphalism which expresses itself in a vitriolic attack on all believers who find different insights in Scripture.

As one concrete example, biblical scholarship carried on in an evangelical context lives true to its responsibility when it refuses to be silenced by Harold Lindsell's doctrinaire definition of evangelical Christianity and his condemnation of historical-critical biblical research.¹ There have been a number of evangelical biblical scholars who have accepted this challenge. They have pointed out many factual errors and arbitrary conclusions in what Lindsell labelled "the biblical position," and they have given a definition of an evangelical interpretation of the Bible which emphasizes the positive thrust of the gospel rather than becoming preoccupied with the categories of inerrancy and infallibility.²

To be sure, Lindsell represents an extreme position. Nevertheless, his basic presupposition that the heart of Scripture is grasped by viewing its writings as inerrant is taking deeper root in many denominations. This

¹ Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1976).
² See, for example, the 1976 issue of Theology, News and Notes (a Fuller Theological
Seminary publication) entitled "The Authority of Scripture."

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trend is abetted by the often desperate search for the absolute amidst the shifting sands of modern change. The danger exists that this and similarly narrow and legalistic presuppositions will go unchallenged by a community which allows itself to be convinced by the claims of certain leaders that their assumptions are identical with God's truth. This suppression of the central questions of interpretation and belief allows some people to focus exclusively on minute and trivial matters. The weightier matters imposed on the believer by the modern world are driven into the subconscious. The resulting petrification of theological inquiry can be dissolved only by a critical challenge from research fully grounded in the biblical documents. Even radical questions which emerge from the Bible itself must be taken seriously by anyone giving more than mouth-service to the principles of sola scriptura and scriptura sui ipsius interpres.

Recent hermeneutical theorists like Heidegger and Gadamer have stressed the importance of the attitude of the interpreter in the interpretation of a text. An openness to be addressed by the text, to be challenged, to be called into question, is essential in all interpretation, and especially when one believes that the texts being interpreted are expressions of the will of God. The church in its many segments will experience lasting growth and spiritual deepening insofar as its stance becomes one of openness to Scripture, and openness to the rich insights from both the diversity of tradition in Scripture and the diversity of interpretation in the church.

Within this climate of openness, where presuppositions are held up for scrutiny and testing, conservative scholars will be urged to ask their liberal colleagues whether they have satisfactorily articulated the norms for faith and morals that grow out of biblical faith. And the questioning will be equally lively in the other direction as the question is poised whether the essential meaning of the Bible is grasped, for example, by a literalistic interpretation of "acts of God" like the parting of the sea or the sun standing still. The latter type of question can be discussed meaningfully among scholars holding differing presuppositions if the meeting place is research fully grounded in the biblical documents, and if an openness to the sincerity of the other is maintained. It is a pity, for example, when the critical observation that confessional-hymnic language is being used in the Bible to interpret the significance of historical events is met by a flat rejoinder, "Do you mean to claim that God is not able to do everything?" Such rhetorical questions are aimed at driving to silence a sincere inquiry which seeks to discern not merely what it is possible for God to do, but what our confessional heritage in its entirety suggests God has chosen to do, how God has chosen to relate to a human family and to be manifested in history and cosmos.

Closed dogmatic positions and hostility to the openness which is an essential part of hermeneutical honesty is surely not the exclusive property of conservative scholars. The dogmatism of the liberal, often predicated on the "modern analogy principle," is equally destructive to

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dialogue among biblical scholars. "Such an event could not have occurred. It contradicts modern experience." Not only is openness to the insight of another devastated by this dogmatic posture, but it belies the basic insight of historians like Collingwood, who insisted that of all areas of human inquiry, history must preserve the category of the uniqueness of the historical event.

IV

The critical needs for moral responsibility, self-criticism of presuppositions, and openness to one's hermeneutical stance suggest a basic framework of interpretation within which mutual enrichment between differing perspectives can occur. It recognizes two poles in the interpretive process, the biblical text and the contemporary life of the community of faith. In the biblical text is rooted the community's vision of divine activity and what that activity implies for God's people. In the contemporary life of faith, believers experience the activity of God in their lives and in the world as a whole. This experience in turn they take with them as they interpret further God's word in Scripture. In their approach to the biblical text, they are open to further change, healing, and enlarging of their vision. In this dialectical movement, modern experience does not function as a dogmatic "analogy principle" defining narrowly the possible. "Immersion" in the text through careful study and meditation enlarges the vision of what it is to be human as a partner in divine purposes.

In this interpretive circle, modern experience does play a significant role. It furnishes the immediate experience of God's presence which enhances one's sense of expectancy and openness to God's Word in Scripture. The Christian is therefore a traveller, underway, open to further growth along the way, engaged in a pilgrimage between two important worlds. Both make unique contributions to a single unfolding vision--one setting the direction, the other refining the manner of travel. The two poles are no threat to each other; certainly they are not mutually exclusive. Both belong to God and thus are ultimately parts of one reality, links in one continuous creative, redemptive chain. Lingering first in one and then the other, moving from exegesis of text to exegesis of world, constantly relating the two through engagement in life conceived as divine service, the believer finds biblical interpretation at the heart of a life that is fully involved. Eschewed is every temptation to use faith as escape from or abdication of responsibility.

While this rough sketch of a basic framework for interpretation does not begin to address many important theological questions, it does suggest a posture of openness which preserves in creative tension the normative role of the Bible emphasized by the conservative and the contribution of contemporary experience emphasized by the liberal and the pentecostal. It stresses what the ecumenical movement has long proclaimed: we need each other, and we need each other in the uniqueness and richness of each other's perspectives. But we can

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appreciate that need only if we are open to enrichment through a sharing of visions.

Perhaps the most profound insight which comes from the posture of openness is the discovery that in accepting the significance of the insights of others, we come to accept the validity of sides which were at war within ourselves. We are biblical. Our spiritual roots run deep. But we are also modern, and our experiences are important to us. A threatening, schizophrenia is transformed into a creative symbiosis as important connections are recognized between biblical events and divine activity in our world. Overcome is the essentially mythical view that God acted in a way in the Bible which is utterly different from the way in which God is experienced today. Rediscovered is a biblical basis for dealing with the anguishing questions of modern believers, like that of the visitor to the Auschwitz gas ovens or the monuments of atomic devastation in Hiroshima: "If God's manner of relating to this world is the manner of supernatural intervention, why of all places did God not intervene in Auschwitz or Hiroshima?" Reestablished is a sense of human responsibility and partnership within the covenantal relationship, in place of the complacency which rests on the facile assumption, "God will not permit human beings to go to the point of self-annihilation through nuclear holocaust or ruin of the environment; God will intervene before things get that far."

V

The separation of biblical events and modern experience bears bitter fruit also for those who take their historical and theological methodology exclusively from the modern side of the dichotomy. The ontological and epistemological cleavage created by a biblicist position between biblical events and contemporary happenings has led thoughtful modern individuals to react harshly against any biblical basis for belief. Their reaction has gained support from a large number of biblical scholars, who unfortunately have the effect of encouraging the destruction of the old presuppositions without pointing to the possibilities for more satisfactory foundations for belief. A profession dedicated to moral responsibility and self-criticism of presuppositions therefore must be willing to subject modernist positions to just as close scrutiny as fundamentalistic or biblicist positions.

In large segments of the biblical field, secular modernity has formed a partnership with historical-critical method to encourage what is basically an atheological "history of religions" approach to Scripture. This method, warmed over from the nineteenth century, has made, and likely will continue to make, contributions to the biblical field. But exclusive attention to its guidelines lead to such a narrowing of the field of questioning that theological meaning disappears from the discussion, and even understanding of religion is inhibited. In the case of the Bible, Hebrew or Christian Scripture is studied as the product of an ancient religion among many others. When compared with religious beliefs

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today, the comparison is no different than a detatched, "objective" study of two distinct modern religions. By definition, this method does not allow the possibility of entering into Hebrew experience to achieve spiritual nurture or insight, for according to its presupposition, such experiences are part of an age and worldview in which the divine was encountered in miracles, theophanies, auditions, and visions all of which are deemed to be outside of the range of our experience. Hence, we can stand only on the outside and describe an ancient cult.

Though this position is often couched in a scholarly sophistication making it appear less vulnerable to criticism than the biblicist position, it too rests on presuppositions that bilibcal theologians must examine. Has a modern technological worldview been adopted uncritically and then imposed on interpretation of the Bible? Does this approach unnecessarily widen the gulf between ancient and modern experience? If this gulf were not affixed, might we not discover, for example, that early Yahwists, in viewing life holistically and in centering all aspects of experience on a transcendent vision, participated in a worldview in many ways more profound than our own? Is not the narrow scientific filter through which we screen biblical data an instrument of tyranny as culpable as the idolatrous biblicism which we are so prone to ridicule?

VI

The breakdown of historical connections between biblical and modern experience which has resulted from a "scientific" approach relying heavily on the principle of modern analogy has spawned two responses, one basically humanistic in orientation, the other commonly associated with the label "existentialist." Since the former seems to be the more natural inference from this method, it can be considered first.

It is hard not to feel a great deal of respect for the honesty and courage of a writer like Van Harvey as he describes the historian and the believer.³ Certainly there is a high degree of integrity in a response to the scientific approach which confesses that modern humans must henceforth reconstruct their lives without recourse to a biblical God. On the basis of our common experiences, we must identify humane qualities which enhance life and dedicate ourselves to them, for if we do not construct a world of justice and peace, no god is going to transform a foundering world into a Heavenly Kingdom.

Since I am only illustrating how biblical scholarship must be aware of its responsibilities to communities of faith and subject presuppositions to careful scrutiny, I will not engage in a full critique of radical theology. But identification and criticism of the underlying presuppositions is called for here as well. Radical theologians must be asked whether any reduction of our religious heritage to modern experience can do justice to a tradition accumulating centuries of insight into the human condition and into the relation of the human to ultimate reality.

³ Van A. Harvey, The Historian and the Believer (New York: Macmillan, 1966).

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The Bible raises serious questions concerning the fate of people who address social and political questions apart from a transcendent point of reference. The Bible contains vivid examples of the persistence of perversity and sin, so resistant to even the best of human intentions and efforts. The Bible bears witness to a central theme which must at least be taken into account, namely, the lostness of humanity apart from divine grace. Insights from a perspective enriched by three and a half millennia must prompt biblical scholars to raise questions about programs for change based strictly on modern humanistic principles. Measured against the much broader vision of reality in our confessional heritage, do they not lack both historical depth and basis for a future vision? Do they not lend themselves too easily to the changing moods of naive optimism or cynical despair?

The other response to the breakdown of historical connections between biblical and modern experience involves importation of a new theological content to replace the old literal meaning which modern scientific methods have undermined. Here all objective validity of text or underlying historical event is denied. In its place is put the search for the intentionality behind the text. It is no surprise that one is discovered, for it is supplied by a contemporary philosophical system which the interpreter is convinced represents a definitive modern description of reality. The "primitive" Hebrew worldview is dismissed in favor of the worldview of Heidegger (in other cases by some other modern philosopher, for example, Whitehead).

In relation to such forceful hermeneutical techniques, it is the responsibility of biblical scholarship to subject the existentialistic interpretation which emerges from Bultmann's program of demythologization-even though it is commended by zealous disciples as the biblical theology of modernity-to rigorous critique against the background of the entire biblical heritage. When this is done, it appears to me that one biblical item, the summons to decide to which world one is committed, has received such exclusive attention as to exclude other themes. On the presuppositional level, one is able to detect the basis for reduction of a richly diverse biblical heritage to a rather brittle asocial and ahistorical personalism. One can even question whether this is any improvement over earlier varieties of continental pietism.

VII

I have illustrated one area where the exercise of moral responsibility and self-criticism is urgently needed, namely, in the area of tacit assumptions which inform biblical interpretation and application, and I have focused first on the biblicist and then on the modernist side of the dichotomy. (It would, of course, be equally possible and beneficial to subject my presuppositions in this article to similar criticism!) Honest critique and open discussion can have the salutary effect of opening the eyes of former antagonists to, the awareness that they can, after all, learn from each other, or beyond this, to the discovery that the different

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perspectives actually need each other in the name of a more adequate grasp of truth disclosed by grace, not captured by aggressive warriors. A posture of humble openness can lead to disarmament before the "Battle for the Bible" goes so far as to accomplish what all the devils in the world have been unable to achieve, the creation of an image of the church as too trivial and torn in its acrimonious infighting to be taken seriously.

Perfectly rational programs can be perverted toward devious ends if motivated by impure intentions, and therefore any discussion of the responsibility of biblical theology to the communities of faith cannot avoid the problem of motivation, especially in a process which has so much to do with criticism and even a certain degree of iconoclasm. There are too many examples of the newly-trained biblical scholar or minister moving in on a class or congregation to expose the childhood illusions of the simple-minded.

There is only one proper context for the sensitive type of critique and dialogue we have been describing, and that is the context of the community of faith itself. There will never be a lack of critics sniping at the church from the outside. To have a lasting, constructive impact on communities of faith, the criticism biblical theologians direct toward assumptions and presuppositions must be accompanied by genuine, deep commitment to an actual community of faith and carefully reflected affirmation of the contemporary meaning of our biblical heritage. There is no denying the fact that tensions will arise when an individual criticizes existing structures or practices from the perspective of biblical scholarship. Indeed, no church body can remain honest to its own constituency or the world outside without an ongoing debate between advocates of order and reform. But to be effective, the dialectic must be a natural and ultimately non-threatening aspect of the inner vitality of a church body.

To belong to a community of worship, reflection, and service involves a commitment of time and energy, and is thus a test of one's priorities. But the enrichment that enters not only one's personal, but also one's scholarly life when one's reference point is a living community of faith can spell the difference between study in the abstract, and study sensitive both to the ancient materials and to the contemporary world. The scholar who takes "pot shots" at the assumptions of a religious group without entering into the life of that group is both arrogant and lacking in an essential methodological tool, engagement in a living communal experience. When a community of faith becomes acquainted with the biblical scholar in worship, prayer, and social outreach, a climate of trust is cultivated which is usually very open to criticism, challenge, and growth.

VIII

The most exciting of all challenges to biblical theology in its responsibility to communities of faith is the possibility of facilitating fresh new

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formulations of the dynamic center of our biblical heritage which, in a modern, emergent world, will invite growth of faith rather than its destruction. In a recent book,⁴ I have suggested one way in which such reformulation can take place, namely, through model-building. As biblical scholars, we have a unique opportunity. Many people who live within a stifling theologoumenon have been taught to believe, on the basis of poor biblical theology, that a rigid, closed legalism is the only true biblical religion. Such people take the Bible seriously, and if we can demonstrate from within the biblical confessions themselves that a more open, affirming faith lies at the heart of Scripture, we can nurture people in a process of growth toward deeper understanding. If one takes the model-building approach, we present our ideas not as a new monolith but as suggestions open to revision and growth. We can draw diverse perspectives into a mutual search for more adequate means of conceiving and embodying the meaning of our biblical heritage.

Let me add a final argument in favor of a biblical theology that sees in involvement an essential aspect of its responsibility. If it is correct that events in biblical times become revelatory within the dialectic between historical happenings and the confessional responses of the community of faith, then biblical theologians function fittingly as the interpreters of the confessional heritage only if they live within a community of faith that construes its mission in terms of a corresponding dialectical relating of heritage and event. This thesis implies that one aspect of the training of the biblical theologian is participation in a contemporary confessional community as an extension of the biblical community of faith. For only through participation in a community that centers its life on the mysterium divinum and from that Center seeks to relate the central dynamic of the confessional heritage to the realities of this world, does the scholar find adequate analogy for understanding the inner dynamism and the theological meaning of the ancient writings that constitute our Bible.

⁴ Paul D. Hanson, Dynamic Transcendence: The Correlation of Confessional Heritage and Contemporary Experience in a Biblical Model of Divine Activity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978).