Remind me again. What’s the point of this class?
At the last class, we examined the “Following Rock” issue of 1 Cor 10.4. (Here is the Following Rock presentation used in class.)
At the end of our work, I presented the following observations:
- The water rock incidents are mentioned in Exodus 17.6 and Numbers 20.7-11 and another incident in Numbers 21.16-20. >> How many water rocks can there be?!?
- The LXX of Ps 78 (LXX 77).15f. could be taken as understanding that there was only one rock. The Targums of Num 21.19 also envision the rock/well “springing” up and accompanying Israel as well as PsPhilo 10.7.
- There are traditions which clearly envision two separate rocks/incidents: Ps 114/3.8 and WisSol 11.4.
- Philo seems embarrassed by the incidents and minimizes or allegorizes. Leg.2.86: “… the sharp rock is the σοφια / wisdom of God”
- The early Xn Fathers (eg, Tertullian, Baptism 9.1) affirm the Pauline reading and beginning combining with other OT/NT
Great… but so what? Was this a purely academic exercise with no bearing on faith, life, and practice in ministry? Please provide a comment (one sentence is fine) indicating how or why this kind of work is important for persons looking ahead to serving in the Church.
Hermeneutical Growth?
Dr. VH, would you post your slick hermeneutical one-liner from class last week for us to see? Something about communities paying close attention to the text…. This is my interpretation – see if I’m on the right track:
Scripture is inspired by God and therefore living, speaking to people of faith at different times and in different places in different ways.
This is how things are meshing in my head. The historical-critical approach is very, very helpful, but I’m beginning to see its limitations. Perhaps Scripture should speak for itself – or perhaps we should allow God to speak through it… The authors of the NT believed that Scripture (what we call the “Old Testament”) was divinely inspired, and that if there was something the reader didn’t understand, the problem was not with the text but with the reader. And perhaps, if Scripture speaks, it can speak through the historical-critical method but not only the historical-critical method. Perhaps Scripture can interpret Scripture, but without “proof-texting.” Perhaps, as one wise and learned scholar and person of faith once put it, “we need to loosen our grip on the text.”
In this way, we can acknowledge that what we call the Old Testament spoke to the authors of the New Testament differently than it spoke to its original authors, both of which are different than the way it speaks to us…
I think this might also be helpful for preaching, in that we are not limited to only one text or any time limit or too narrow a hermeneutical lens (though I remind you all of the promise that we’ll make at our ordinations…).
A question: Are there now parts that no longer speak? How do we determine which parts speak and which parts do not?
This is a hermeneutic in progress – I think I’m growing from this process, and perhaps you will, too… please join the conversation! Lectio Divina also helps…
