Critique | Historical questions
My
understanding is that as I write, John is soon to publish an ‘extended remix’
of Hearing Her Voice, where he goes
into more detail on some areas of his thinking.
No doubt that will require further response.
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| Source: iStockphoto.com |
For now, there’s at least two other issues
that should be discussed. The first is brief, the second longer:
i)
the role of history in exegesis
I hesitate
to get into the history issue, since it’s one that John is an expert in, and I
know how much I’ve still got to learn.
(Or maybe I don’t know how much I’ve still got to learn!) John is obviously aware that some get nervous
about using historical background to interpret the Scriptures.[1] On his own terms, I think he would say he’s
simply trying to engage in historically informed exegesis. It seems to me, though, that it has slipped
into historically determined exegesis.
In other
words, he has determined the meaning of Paul’s teach by the historical situation that existed at the time. As I have tried to show in a previous post,
though, there are some places that the word teach
is used, and clues in the particular context force us to have a more focussed
understanding of what Paul meant by the word, such as Col 3:16 or 2 Tim
2:2. And there are lots of others, such
as Rom 12:7, or I would say 1 Tim 2:12, where the word teach is used, and there are no clues in the particular context
that force us to have a more focussed understanding of what Paul meant by the
word. But even in these situations,
John’s understanding of the historical situation is the determinative factor in
his understanding of what Paul meant by the word teach.
ii)
the relationship between John’s description of the role of
teachers and the written New Testament
John’s
argument is that teaching consistently
means preserving and laying down the
traditions of and about Jesus as handed on by the apostles. He says that whilst this ministry was
critically important for the early church – given the absence of books and the
low levels of literacy, it is now fulfilled for us, and has been for Christians
throughout most of the last two thousand years, by the written New
Testament. In other words, it is the
written New Testament that now preserves and lays down the fixed apostolic
traditions of and about Jesus.
Once we stop
and think about it, however, I don’t think this argument works as well as it
seems to at first. Just think through
the various New Testament epistles for a moment. How much content could naturally be
considered as the fixed-traditions-about-Jesus that the teachers were once responsible
for preserving and laying down by word of mouth?
What would
you include, for example, from Romans?
What parts of Romans could easily be regarded as the written-down-version
of the fixed-traditions-of-and-about-Jesus that the teachers had previously
preserved and laid down orally? I
realise this is all very subjective, but here are the bits that occur to me. 1:2-4.
5:6-8. Possibly some verses in
5:12-19, although to mimic John’s own words with regard to Philip and the
Ethiopian eunuch,[2] this may just be Paul using a
theological understanding of Adam as a launching pad for presenting a
theological understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection. 6:1-14.
8:2-4, 10-17, 22-27. Perhaps elements
of 10:6-13. 12:9-21-13:14 are full of
echoes from Jesus’ own teaching. Parts
of 14:1-15:13. Once you leave out the
ethical teaching of chs12-15, though, it’s not a lot is it?
What about
another book? Say, Galatians. What parts of Galatians could easily be
regarded as the written-down-version of the fixed-traditions-of-and-about-Jesus
that the teachers had previously preserved and laid down orally? 1:4.
Parts of 2:15-21. 3:1-5,
13-14. 4:4-7. 5:14 definitely. 5:19-26.
6:2, 6-10. It’s a fair bit. But there’s still lots that doesn’t really
fit the requirement.
What about
one of the Pastorals? Say, 2 Timothy. What parts of 2 Timothy could easily be
regarded as the written-down-version of the fixed-traditions-of-and-about-Jesus
that the teachers had previously preserved and laid down orally? The promise of life in 1:1. 1:7-10.
2:3-6, 8, 11-13. 3:1-4,
12-13. 4:1, 8.
Of course, some may question which passages I’ve left in and which passages I’ve
left out. But putting that to one side
for a minute, it’s a very strange game that we’ve ended up playing isn’t
it? It’s like the old historical
critical methods that try to identify what parts of the epistles go back to
Jesus and what parts don’t. I'm not saying John has begun playing this game. It's just where his model leads me once I start trying to test his idea that the New Testament now does in written form what the teachers once did by word of mouth - preserve and lay down the fixed apostolic traditions of and about Jesus.
Also, it’s
striking that apart from the parts of these three letters that give ethical
instruction, the other passages I’ve identified are often a reflection of the
very basic facts concerning Jesus’ death and resurrection. There’s certainly not a lot that would tell
you what Jesus did in this situation or that situation, or what he taught about
this situation or that situation.
John’s
overall model says that the New Testament now functions to do in written form
what the teachers used to do in oral form.[3] That is, it preserves and lays down the fixed
apostolic traditions of and about Jesus. I don’t think it does do this,
though. Or to be more precise, I don’t
think it does do this only, or even mainly.
I think this
is the reason that there is so little common material between the letters of
the New Testament, but rather, an incredible diversity. Because these are occasional letters –
written to specific people, specific churches, specific situations, specific
problems. John’s argument works with the
example of finding out what Jesus had said about divorce.[4] And there are other examples where we could easily make the model fit. But there are many
more where you can't.
To say that
the written New Testament now fulfils the function of teaching that Paul talks about, in the sense of preserving and
laying down the traditions of and about Jesus as given by the apostles, is a
very neat solution. But it’s too simple
by far. The reality is more
complex.
I suspect John’s
response might be to say the gospels are the primary place where the oral
traditions are now recorded, and the epistles are simply the apostolic
application of these traditions for the contemporary situations they wrote
into. And that sounds like a good
answer, until you remember John’s sustained emphasis on the fixed nature of the oral traditions that
teachers were charged with passing on.
Because if teaching is about passing on the fixed traditions even to the
point of memorisation,[5] it can’t also be about
pastorally applying those traditions into new situations, which is what the
epistles do. They don’t simply preserve
and lay down the fixed apostolic traditions of and about Jesus. They don’t even do this mainly.
And so all
of a sudden, very quickly, we’ve pulled a fair way back from saying that the New Testament now fulfils in written
form what the teachers previously did by word of mouth. Perhaps we could put the gospels into such a
category. But you certainly can’t really
include the epistles in such a description unless you change your whole definition
of teaching. And you can’t do that, of course, or else the
whole argument begins to fall apart.
The overall model that John proposes seems to work well. But only at first.
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