Class notes session 5

21-26

21. Definition and presuppositions for the theology of the Old Testament
22-26. History of OT Theology (1-5)

Unit 21
Definition and presuppositions for the theology of the Old Testament

History of salvation
Redemption history

Kaiser – Canonical theological center of OT.
- Acorn to oak tree
- Unfolding of road map

Reluctance to adopt a center.
- Steering between the Charibdis of a chronological and the Scylla of a topical scheme.
- Wright & Von Rad & Hasel – no center to the OT.

Kaiser Chapter 16

Old and New Testament – epangelia – promise
Receiving a word of promise VS climatic fulfilment
New Testament writers builds on OT
Marcion’s view on OT
DL Baker 3 solutions to OT-NT problem:
OT Solution (Von Ruler, Miskotte) in which OT was the real Bible, and NT its sequel or glossary.
NT Solution (Bultmann, Baumgartel) Church essential Bible and OT was regarded as non-Christian Presupposition.
Biblical solutions: Vischer – Christological, typological approach, and salvation-historical approach (Vriezen, Rowley, Dodd, Bright, Childs.

THE BETTER COVENANT
Exo 25:9, Heb. 9:23.

- Paul and Gentile believers, grafted into the tree.

Vos.
Theology as the science concerning GOD.

We need disclosure from God.
4 departments, being,
Exegetical Theology
Historical Theology
Systematic Theology
Practical Theology.

Exegetical Theology: Study of the content of the Holy Scripture
Inquiry into the origin of Biblical Writings.
Putting the question of how these writings came into being
The study of the self-disclosures of God in time and space, being Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology:
Divine self-revelation
committal to writing of the revelation-product
Gathering of several writings thus produced into the unity of a collection
The production and guidance of the study of the content of Biblical writings.

Definition of Biblical Theology:
The historic progressiveness of the revelation process.
The actual embodiment of revelation in history
The organic nature of the historic process observable in Revelation
Practical adaptability of revelation.

History:
Gabler – historical principle of treatment.
Difference between past beliefs, and what was provable by reason.

Guiding principles:
The recognition of the infallible character of revelation.
Biblical Theology must recognise the objectivity of the groundwork on Revelation
Biblical Theology is deeply concerned with the question of Revelation.

3 OBJECTIONS TOWARDS BIBLICAL THEOLOGY:
1. Far too wide
2. Represents only a certain method employed?
3. Ill-adjusted to the rest of the theological nomenclature.

Relations to:
Sacred history
Biblical introduction
Systematic Theology.

KRUGER.

Definition:
The study that focuses on the Old Testament as a whole and traces patterns, lines and trends in this collection of books.

Scope and order of Old Testament Books
Nature of the Old Testament
Divine revelation
Human Reflection
Testimony of God’s Revelation.
Testimony of God’s revelation

Relationship to New Testament
No Connection
No Difference
Old and New


HISTORY OF OT THEOLOGY

Overview of History:
Jewish tradition
Early Christian Church
Middle ages
Reformation

RATIONALISM
Aufklarung
Theological-historical School – Bultman, Vischer, Barth.

EICHRODT
Works with the covenant.

Von Rad
Prisoner in World war.
Works with no specific scheme
Deuteronomy as base – Revelation history

BRUEGGEMANN
Authority of the Bible important
Works with rhetorical genre
6 Facets of Biblical interpretation:

Inherency
Interpretation
Ideology
Inspiration
Imagination
Urgency

Class notes for session 6

Class notes for 12 November 2008.

Study unit 27 – METHODS


The Method of OT Theology: Kaiser.

Four types of theologies:
1. Structural type (takes themes from dogmatics, such as covenant)
2. Diachronic type (takes periods in time as departure point)
3. Lexographic type (takes certain figures, like Elohist in focus)
4. Biblical themes type (Takes themes like Kingdom of God, etc. as departure.)

Distinguish between systematic methods vs. History-of-religion.

p. 11 Rather than selecting theological data that will satisfy our needs the text will already have set up priorities and preferences of its own.

Introduction: The nature of Biblical Theology: VOS

Principle of periodicity – Covenant makings.

Criteria for discovering nodal points of OT.
1. Critical placement of interpretive statements in textual sequence,
2. The frequency of repetition of ideas
3. The recurrence of phrases of terms that began to take on a technical status
4. The resumption of a theme where a forerunner has stopped.
5. The use of categories of assertions previously used,
6. The organising standard by which people, places, and ideas were marked for approval, contrast, inclusion, and future and present significance.

VIEWS PROMISE AND BLESSING AS CENTRAL THEME OF OT.
6 Practical uses of Biblical theology:

1. It exhibits the organic growth of the truths of special revelation
2. It supplies us with a useful antidote against the teachings of rationalistic criticism
3. It imparts new life and freshness to the truth by showing it to us in its original setting
4. It can counteract the anti-doctrinal tendency in the present time
5. It relieves the unfortunate situation that even the fundamental doctrines of the faith should seem to depend mainly on the testimony of isolated proof-texts
6. It gives us new insights on the Glory and might of the Lord.

7 METHODS BY HASEL P. 66-67 IN STUDY GUIDE.

Study Unit 28 – The search for a central theme.

KAISER – Problems with a central theme.
HELBERG – Kingdom of God
WALTON - Covenant

Other themes:
GOD, Jesus Christ, Kingdom of God, Covenant, Promise and fulfilment, Salvation/redemption, Human existence, Fellowship/communion, Law and justice, Cult, God’s plan, Theophany

STUDY UNIT 29+30 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OT AND NT

Kruger:
1. No connection
2. No difference
3. Old and new
a. Historical,
b. Covenantal
c. Typological

Greidanus
Chapter 2 The necessity of Preaching Christ from the OT

A. The lack of Preaching Christ from the OT
B. The unique character of the OT
C. The relation of the OT to the New.
D. THE OLD TESTAMENT’S WHITNESS TO CHRIST
E. BENEFITS FROM PREACHING CHRIST FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

CHAPTER 5
NEW TESTAMENT PRINCIPLES FOR PREACHING CHRIST FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

1. Christ centered preaching is to be God-centered
2. Interpret the OT from the reality of Christ
3. Many roads lead from the OT to Christ

KAISER – The Old Testament and the New Testament

1. The Old Testament catchword for the New Testament
2. The Unity of the Old and New Testaments3. The Better Covenant.

Class notes on session 4

Class notes for session 4.


Study Unit 16: Israelite prophets and prophecy

Prophetic Identity and prophetic literature.
4 dividing principles, namely Precomposition, Composition, Transmission, Application.

1. Precomposition.
a. Who were the prophets, and where did they fit in?
b. With whom do the prophets compare from their own time Period and Geographical region? – Old Babilonian & neo – Assyrian texts, Aramaic Balaam document.
c. With whom do the Prophets compare from More recent times and More geographically distant regions? – Socio scientific, comparative anthropology.
d. Where do they fit in their historical and Geographical Time and place? Look into Archaeological evidence, JDEP sources.
2. Composition.
a. How did the prophets speak? Aristotle, structural criticism.
b. What kinds of messages did the prophets gave? – Form Critisism
3. Transmission.
a. How did the prophets use scripture, and what were the subsequent use of the Prophet’s original messages? Redaction criticism.
4. Application.
a. What use are the prophets to us today? – Liberation theology, feminism.

Study unit 17: Wisdom literature

1. Definition of Wisdom Literature: - a-historical character, distinctive inspiration, observation and reflection.
2. Proverbs
a. Origin and background
b. International background – The teaching of Amenope
c. Linguistic evidence
d. Setting – Royal setting, folk setting (preliterate society), law, home-school.
e. Poetics and structure
i. Denial of structure
ii. Proverb-Performance Context
f. Theology – “fear of the Lord”.
3. Ecclesiastes
a. Author and date.
Qohelet or “gatherer of people”, Solomon, royal fictional autobiography.
b. Unity
c. Teaching
4. Job
a. Textual and philological research
b. Study of past interpretations
c. Literary approaches to the book Job.
i. Prose frame and poetic core
ii. Narrative and poetic modes
iii. Literary genre
iv. Irony, satire, parody

Study Unit 18 – Recent trends in Psalms study
- Psalms being read as a whole – Literary approach.
1. Past overviews
a. Historical Critical
b. Gunkel – Sitze im Leben
c. Mowinckel – cultic background to the Psalms
d. Holistic analysis of the whole Psalter (canonical – Hymn book?)
2. Composition and message
a. Storyline in the Psalter – Macro&microstructure, narrative critisism
b. Five “books” within Psalms
i. 1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106, 107-145 crescendo of praise psalms
c. Message of the Psalms
i. Mitchell – Eschatology, Davidic Kingship.
ii. Millard – Tora
iii. deClaisse-Walford
1. Source book for ceremonies
2. Repository of Israel’s story.
3. Hebrew Poetry
a. Linguistic Approaches
b. Literary Approaches – Systems for reading poetry
c. Structural approaches
4. Hermeneutics
a. Reader-oriented approaches
b. Sociological & Liberationist approaches
c. Rhetorical criticism
d. Postcolonial readings
5. Form Critisism
a. Sitz im Leben
b. Prayer, Kinship, Identity in Psalms.
6. Psalms in the Context of Near East
a. Mesopotamic hymns
b. Ugaritic Psalms
7. Conclusion
a. Paradigm shift in interpretation of Psalms
b. Paradigm shift in reading Hebrew Poetry
c. Exponential growth in types of approaches.

Study unit 19 Religion in Ancient Israel

1. Trends and methodologies of the Past Three decades
a. Koch, Redtorff, Westermann, Vriezen, Ringgren, Fohrer, Schmidt
b. Cross – influence Canaanite, Mark Smith - Ugaritic religion Gods
c. Religious development divided into time frames
2. Development on central issues:
a. Origins of Yahwism – looking at the surrounding religions
b. History of Israelite Monotheism – henotheism, monolatry.
i. Petersen – evolution, revolution, devolution.
c. Kuntillet, Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom Inscriptions
i. Time of different inscriptions may differ
ii. Dealing with Graffiti
iii. Junction of Caravan routes
iv. Other more important evidence ignored
d. Cult of the dead
i. Ancestral worship.
3. Topics and suggestions for the future
a. The Canaanite Continuum
b. Attention to the Near-East sources
c. Clarification of the relationship to Old Testament Theology
i. History of Old testament religion vs. Old Testament Theology.

Study Unit 20 Applying the social sciences to the Old Testament

Opening Windows onto Biblical Worlds
Applying the social sciences to Hebrew Scripture

1. Emergence of the Social Sciences
a. Conflict model
b. Structural-functional approach
c. Materialist perspective vs Idealist orientation
2. Sociology and the Hebrew Bible: A Brief Overview
a. Max Weber – Ancient Judaism.
Household, family, tribe.
3. Towards a sociology of Biblical Israel
a. The origins of Israel and the development of Monarchy
b. Prophecy and the prophetic tradition
c. Gender and Cult in Culture
d. Exile and Identity
e. Economic Perspectives: Subsistence Strategies and Mode of Production
4. Evangelical Scholarship and Social Science Critisism
a. Evangelical scholars have brushed aside social science commentaries due to the following:
i. Theological commitment to the uniqueness of Israel, coupled with a desire to avoid cultural and religious relativism
ii. Hesitation to apply cross-cultural parallels to the biblical world, and an attempt to avoid reading modern worldviews onto ancient Israel;
iii. A concern that social science criticism will take away from the more legitimate aspects of biblical interpretation.
5. The future of Social Science Criticism
a. Discontinuity of primitive societies
b. Four elements to form a cultural overlay
i. Physical grid
ii. Cultural grid
iii. Organizational/political grid
iv. Religious grid

Class notes on session 3

Class notes for Session 3 – Study unit 11-15.

The Text to the Old Testament
Literary approaches to Old Testament Study
Pondering the Pentateuch: The search for a new Paradigm
The historiography of the Old Testament
Early Israel in recent Biblical Scholarship

Study Unit 11: The text to the Old Testament: Wolters.
Major manuscripts:
Septuagint
Targums
Peshitta
Vulgate

The dead sea Scrolls:
Oldest manuscripts
LXX
Samaritan Pentateuch
Proto-Masoretic Text NNB!
Different theories:
1. Albright – Local text
a. LXX – Egypt
b. Samaritan Pentateuch – Palestine
c. Masoretic text – Babylon.

2. Talmon – Textual diversity
a. LXX – Christian
b. Samaritan Pentateuch – Samaritans
c. Masoretic Text – Rabinnical Judaism
3. Tov – Ads Qumran orthography, and unaligned with those above.
4. Ulrich – not textual groups – Different stages in canon development of texts.

Ancient versions and Samaritan Pentateuch:
1. LXX – Greater conformity with MT
2. Minor Greek versions – Theodotion Symmachus, Aquila
3. Targums
4. Peshitta
5. Vulgate
6. Samaritan Pentateuch.
Priviledged status of Proto-Masoretic text.

AIMS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITISISM:
1. Restore the original composition
2. Restore the final text
3. Restore the earliest attested text
4. Restore accepted texts
5. Reconstruct final texts (plural).

3 LARGE SCALE PROJECTS:
Hebrew University Bible Project
Preliminary and Interim report on the Hebrew and Old Testament Text project
UBS – New edition of BH

Theological issues:
- Barthelemy and inspiration.

Study unit 12: Literary approaches to Old Testament Study. LONGMAN III

Rebirth of Literary approach:
- Alter study: Art of Biblical Narrative.
- Focus on text created a joint platform for discussion
Ancient Precusors
- Stephen Prickett, James Kugel.
- Goes back to accusing Jerome, Enlightenment for derailing scholarship.

Conceptual map of Literary approaches:
1. Structuralism and Semiotics – Barr, De Saussure
2. Reader Response approach
3. Deconstruction – David and Goliath - Derrida
4. Contemporary post-structuralist approaches
New Historisism
New Literary Critisism and intertextuality
Bach’s Sotah Female portrayal/betrayal in Gen 12:1-3

Into the future:
1. Scholars continuing to “bracket” historical data.
2. 3 approaches to narrative:
a. Narrative as convergence of textual tradition
b. Narrative as being “undecidable”,- deconstruction
c. Narrative criticism – recover ancient literary conventions.

Session 3 Pondering the Pentateuch – WENHAM
1. Introduction
a. Wellhausen JDEP
b. Alt – Going back to Patriarchal times
c. Von Rad, Noth - Grundlage
d. Albright – parallels with second Millenium laws – dates Pentateuch very early
e. Wybray p 130– Genesis 37-50 as a unit – METHODS STAYED THE SAME, understand repetition differently.
f. Von Seters – Older dating of Patriarchal narratives.
g. Rentorff – Back to form – critical approach – away from JDEP
h. Berge
i. Boorer
j. Knohl
k. Mconville
l. Rendsburg.


Unit 14 Historiography of the Old Testament.

MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS IN HISTORIOGRAPHY:

1. An increase in religious liberalism that was “less dogmatic in its theological orientation, more progressive in its relationship to contemporary culture and thought, and more humanistic in its perspectives than previous generations”;
2. advances in “general historiography,” including the development of “a positivistic approach to history, which not only attempted but also believed it was possible to reconstruct past history ‘as it had actually happened”;
3. the decipherment of the languages of Israel’s ancient Near Eastern neighbors in Egypt and Mesopotamia;
4. a new level of activity and competence in the historical geography of the Near East; and
5. the gradual rise to dominance of the Pentateuchal documentary hypothesis, along with the belief that the “character, content, and date of the individual documents were . . . of great significance in understanding the religious development of Israelite and Judaean life and in evaluating the historical reliability of the documentary materials.”

Each of these nineteenth-century developments has made itself felt in twentieth-century biblical scholarship, but none has escaped challenge or failed to precipitate new debate:
1. nineteenth-century-style liberalism has been challenged by neoorthodoxy and neoevangelicalism: these movements, while not wishing to ignore the concerns of contemporary culture, have stressed the primacy of a theocentric over a merely humanistic perspective on life’s ultimate issues;
2. positivistic history has come under considerable strain through advances in general hermeneutics and a greater awareness of the distinction between “brute facts” of the past, which are of course no longer subject to observation, and “historical facts” as they are perceived in the present by means of probability judgments based on the available evidence;
3. the decipherment of, for example, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Akkadian cuneiform has opened up a whole new world of comparative literary studies and with this advance has raised significant questions as to the proper uses and potential abuses of comparative material in the study of the Bible;
4. the greatly increased archaeological and geographical exploration of the “lands of the Bible” has raised as many questions as it has answered, not least as regards the inten-elatioriship of textual and artifactual evidence in the reconstruction of Israel’s history; and finally,
5. the documentary hypothesis, promoted most effectively in the nineteenth century by J. Wellhausen, has been rigorously challenged in the twentieth, as have other literary theories and, indeed, the whole general approach of Wellhausen and his followers).

Unit 15 Early Israel in Recent Biblical Scholarship.

Summary of the models:
A. Conquest from outside
1. Conquest model – Joshua straightforward campaign, blitzkrieg.
2. Peaceful infiltration model – Israel as nomads, tension with farmers.
B. Conquest from inside
1. Revolt models – Peasant revolt from inside – Mendendall, Gottwald.
2. Other theories of Israel as indigenous.
a. Dever – Proto-Israelites, highlands and lowlands.
b. Finkelstein – Pastoral nomadic model – houses, silos, compounds, ascribes everything to socio-economic change.
c. Lemche – Complete a-historical approach – no such place as “Canaan”.
d. Thompson – Period of drought responsible for nomadic activity.
e. Davies – historic Israel, biblical Israel and ancient Israel.

Factors that influenced the models.
A. Philosophy of history.
B. Archaeology
a. Rural studies
b. Ethnicity
C. Extra-Biblical texts.
a. Merenptah Stela
b. Amarna tablets
D. Tribal organisation
a. Definition of household, tribe.
E. Role of the book Joshua. (p. 201)
a. Joshua and Judges does not correspond in terms of historical accuracy.
1. Based on surface reading of Joshua
2. Based on “strong or hard” objectivism in archaeology.
Suggestions for a more comprehensive model.
1. Recognise the complexity of the picture that Joshua paints.
2. Recognise the complexity of the picture that Archaeology paints.
3. Use comparative literary analysis of Synchronic types to uncover the ways in which the ancient Near Eastern Peoples wrote their accounts.

Cannot ignore Biblical, extra Biblical or Archaeology in interpretation.