The Community of Faith - The Flowering of Old Testament Theology

Theological Synopsis

The political and cultural upheavals of the 196Os, including perhaps especially the Vietnam War, presented new challenges to the churches and to biblical scholars who wanted to serve them. It was, in some respects, an apocalyptic era, and it may not be accidental that Paul Hanson’s early research on apocalyptic eschatology was done in that era. In his research Hanson discovered in the postexilic prophets of Judah a set of polarities around the question of God’s purposes (1975). On the one hand were those who believed that God’s purposes were fulfilled in the establishment of cultic worship. On the other hand were those who believed God’s purposes lay in a transformed future. Drawing on Karl Mannheim, Hanson called the first set of beliefs ideological, the other he called utopian. Han- son also discovered that these respective beliefs were located in two different social groups, two communities- a priestly majority and a prophetic or apocalyptic minority. Each community drew on earlier biblical tradition to oppose the other; they were competing heirs to a diverse confessional history. These discoveries were significant. They led Hanson to lay stress on both the diversity of the Bible and the responsibility of communities of faith to interpret that diverse tradition as witness to the ongoing, dynamic activity of God- a n d as a guide to their own action in the present. In that respect, Hanson was faithful to his teacher, G. Ernest Wright (see pp. loo-119 above).

In two shorter works, Hanson explicitly took up the conceptual prob- lems surrounding the notion of “act of God” (1978) and the theological problem of the diversity of scripture (1982). Hanson resolves both problems, ultimately, by appealing to the community of faith-both ancient and contemporary. It is in the faith community’s interpretation and ap-

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propriation of its confessional heritage that “act of God” is understood, and that God’s action can be perceived; and it is by attending to the diversity of that heritage, as it developed through history, that the community of faith develops its own dynamic vision of God’s ongoing action. He goes so far as to say that this can be understood only in the community of faith (1986: 525). On Hanson’s view, the authority of the Bible lies not so much in its declaration of the truth, but in its value as a record of those events by which the confessional heritage came to be formed-and continues to be formed. For that reason, historical-critical study of the Bible is of cru- cial importance to Hanson, because it is the only means we have of recon- structing those events that underlie the dynamic tension of its witness to God’s activity.

In many respects, Hanson’s theology is reminiscent of nineteenth- century attempts to harness historical-critical study to the unfolding reve- lation of God. So thorough is his historicism that Hanson can trace God’s action, confessionally understood, right through the Old Testament and into the New; and it does not stop even there! Hanson’s emphasis on the process rather than the content of faith puts him in sharp conflict with another of his former teachers, Brevard Childs. It remains to be seen whether this is a “dynamic tension” within Old Testament theology, or whether it forces an either/or choice.

Paul D. Hanson has taught at Harvard Divinity School his entire career, where he is now Bussey Professor of Divinity and Old Testament. He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard under Frank M. Cross Jr., and he also studied at Gustavus Adolphus College and Yale Divinity School. Hanson has writ- ten extensively on the topic of Old Testament and Jewish apocalyptic lit- erature, and on Israel’s postexilic prophets. A Lutheran, his work reflects a commitment to the church and to the vitality of the Bible and the biblical vision of God within it. Theological issues were incipient in his first book (1975), a revision of his dissertation, and he has continued to elabo- rate those issues in much of his later work (1986).

B.C.O.

Writings by Hanson

1975 1978

1980

The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology. Philadelphia: Fortress.

Dynamic Transcendence: The Correlation of Confessional Heritage and Con- temporaq Experience in a Biblical Model of Divine Activity. Philadelphia:

Fortress.

The Responsibility of Biblical Theology to Communities of Faith. The- ology Today 37:39-50.

348 Paul D. Hanson 1982

1984 1985 1986

The Diversity of Scripture: A Theological Interpretation. Overtures to Bibli- cal Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress.

The Future of Biblical Theology. Horizons in Biblical Theology 6/l: 13- 24.

Theology, Old Testament. Pp. 1057-62 in Ha@r’s Bible Dictiona?.

Edited by Paul J. Achtemeier. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

The People Called: The Growth of Community in the Bible. San Francisco:

Harper & Row.

Paul D. Hanson’s

Approach to Old Testament Theology

Excerpted with permission from Paul D. Hanson, The Peopk Called: The Growth of Community in the Bible (San Francisco:

Harper & Row, 1986), pp. 531-37,540-44,546.

Underlying Presuppositions and Method Levels of Discernment: Vision of Divine Purpose

U531] For its part, the field of biblical theology can contribute another type of formulation of this vision, namely a description of the purposeful movement that it discerns unfolding through the writings of Scripture and that it regards as an essential source of our knowledge of God’s will and of the perspective from which we can understand the events of this world and the role of the community of faith in relation to those events. The fresh new metaphors of liberation movements and the more conceptual descriptions arising from biblical scholarship should be allowed to enrich one another as complementary aspects of one united effort. In this ongoing process, it is the responsibility of biblical theology to resist all attempts to reduce the vision to narrow, self-serving formulations. This is one reason among many why the interdenominational character of biblical scholarship should be fostered. Unfortunately, in pursuit of the central meaning of Scripture, and no doubt in response to the partial perspectives of the specific theological traditions of which they are a part, biblical theologians have often contributed to parochialism and oversimplification. For example, Gerhard von Rad [532] selected as normative for his biblical theology the history of salvation tradition, to the virtual neglect of other important streams within the Hebrew Bible. Such oversimplification threatens the biblical principle that God’s presence cannot be captured in the univalent formulation or the immutable image. Believers can hope to communicate to posterity a faithful vision of that presence only by preserving its rich confessional diversity as a witness to its encounter with God in the whole range of life settings and experiences.

As one struggles with the question of how to foster a vision of God’s ongoing universal purpose without losing a sense of the rich diversity that resists verbal idolatry, it seems necessary to visualize the transcendent dynamic of Scripture as one that unfolds precisely within the tensions and polarities represented by divergent biblical traditions. One must be able to appreciate how the lofty visions of seers and the pragmatic policies of

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350 Paul D. Hanson The Community ofFaith 351 priests both contribute to our vision of divine purpose. One must be able

to recognize the contribution that kingship made to social form and sta- bility, and at the same time see that life under kings was quickly debased when left unscrutinized by prophets with their vision of a heavenly order of reality and their dedication to the reform of every structure that grants privilege to some and excludes others. One must even be able to visualize the importance of the tension between the cosmic dimension of reality portrayed by mythical, sapiental, and hymnic traditions in the Bible and the theological dimension described by the history of salvation tradition.’

Obviously the picture of the community of faith emerging from this dynamic and often tension-filled vision of divine purpose is dynamic and often tension-filled as well. What comes into view in this study therefore is something very different from a timeless blueprint for contemporary faith communities. It is rather a verbal portrait of an emerging community, one constantly growing in response to divine initiative. What will be held be- fore the contemporary community of faith therefore is the model of a community with a vision of God’s presence in the events of its world, and with the courage to allow itself to be drawn toward that presence as a servant of the broken, the oppressed, and the despised.

But why locate the significance of the Bible for the contemporary community of faith in this model and the vision of divine purpose to which it is related rather than in a simpler structural model; for example, the polity of the pastoral epistles? The answer is rooted in the presuppositions underlying this study that were described earlier, and can be stated thus: the transcendent dynamic discernible in Scripture in response to which a community becomes a people of God does not stop abruptly at the end of the biblical era. If the biblical vision of a God [5330 acting true to a plan of universal peace and justice is trustworthy, that activity does not end with the last event recorded in the Bible, for up to the final stages of the forma- tion of Scripture the fulfillment of God’s plan is still awaited in the future.

According to this model, a contemporary community of faith is thus not primarily an archive where members can study records about ancient hap- penings, or an institution committed to perpetuating structures of a by- gone age, but rather a community called by God to participate in an ongoing drama. This necessitates the same interpretive process that was an essential characteristic of most communities of biblical times, namely, one drawing from the paradigms of its confessional heritage and from its vision of divine purpose a perspective from which to understand the religious and moral issues raised by contemporary realities, and then responding in

1. See further, P. D. Hanson, 77~ l~iuprsity OJ Scripm (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,

1982), pp. 14-82.

‘i/’

keeping with this understanding in confession and action. The magnitude of this challenge must not be minimized; identifying where God is present (for example, on what side of a conflict) is perhaps the most risky of all human enterprises, and description of contemporary events in terms of their relation to a universal plan of justice is not something a community dares to engage in lightly, especially when one calls to mind the mixed record of communities that have been guided by transcendent visions in the past. If a contemporary faith community is to make sense out of a complex world by bearing witness to a unifying vision and at the same time is to avoid the snares of triumphalism and self-aggrandizement, it must take seriously the biblical motif of the servant people, a people responding with fear and I trembling to God’s initiatives and mindful of its solidarity with the entire 1’ human family. From this perspective, the diversity that characterizes bibli-

cal traditions is interpreted not merely as an indication of divisiveness 1 within the religious communities of biblical times. On a deeper level, it can be seen to reflect deference vis-a-vis the mystery of divine presence, a ten- tativeness that did not deem inappropriate the coexistence of responses that on the surface appear self-contradictory-for example, the fulfillment was now (realized eschatology) and not yet (futuristic eschatology);

God’s reign would come down from heaven (spatial metaphor), or it would come at the end of time (temporal metaphor). On the model of the biblical community, contemporary faith communities can hear openly the often diverse testimonies of their own seers and prophets, whose differing angles of vision contribute to the modesty befitting those living in the presence of God, and to the self-criticism that is an essential component of any genuinely humane community. I-Iere the existentialist perspective can enrich the eschatological; the black liberation position can contribute to the feminist; the Marxist critique can be taken seriously by more traditional religious groups. Although this model guarantees debate and tension, it is totally in keeping with the spirit of a community that derives its sense of di- rection from a very long confessional history [534] and its sense of voca- tion from the desire to participate in the unfolding of an order of peace and justice intended by God for all people, and subject to the parochial claims of none.

The description of its vision of divine purpose is therefore an aspect of the hermeneutical task that demands a high degree of graciousness and judiciousness. The record of divine activity in Scripture is not reducible to a simple formula. And as overall patterns of meaning emerge from the paradigms, we must not be tempted into making a community’s task of relating the overall trajectory of its heritage to contemporary events easier by eliminating fundamental polarities. On the other hand, it would only in-. vite despair if biblical theology were to commend to the communities it

352 Paul D. Hanson The Community of Faith 353 served an unordered set of dichotomies that seemed to imply blatant con-

tradictions. On this level, the challenge is to describe the vision of divine purpose running through our confessional heritage in a manner true to the mystery of divine presence and the complexity of mundane reality, and at the same time to delineate the dynamic Reality active through all time and space in the creation and preservation of a righteous habitation-that is, an order wedding justice and peace. Only by fostering such a nuanced description of its transcendent vision combined with vivid descriptions of the fundamental paradigms can biblical theology discharge its responsibility of offering the community of faith a reliable point of reference for defi- ning its proper relation to the overarching reality within which every mundane reality finds its rightful place.

Although useful in the theological task of grasping the contemporary meaning of Scripture, technical terms such as “paradigm” and “vision of divine purpose” must not obscure the inextricable relationship of biblical research to the worship of life of actual communities of faith and their life of engagement in the everyday world. Nor can they be allowed to obscure the communal nature of the mission of the church in both aspects of its engagement-that is, in relating Word and world. There is no denying that Scripture embraces a richness and diversity of testimony to God’s activity that challenges the most discerning and well trained of minds. But it is equally clear that the schoolchild or the illiterate adult is able to grasp and be grasped by the central paradigms of faith in Scripture. This complexity and simplicity corresponds to the world we live in. The questions of how a community living forth into the world from its confessional heritage is to respond to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, to various forms of abortion legislation, and to different monetary theories are difficult to the extreme. Yet, because of their impact on human well-being, they represent a direct challenge to believers possessing specialized training and wisd’om in the fields in question. Yet who can deny the simplicity and purity of love’s mandate in the vast majority of our experiences as human beings?

This polarity of the simple and the complex is another aspect of the [1535] rich diversity that characterizes the life of faith, and here too unity is found as the polarity itself is drawn into the unity of the divine mystery in worship and devotion. This means that a religious community that lo- cates its unity in communion with God will not be tempted into prema- ture dissolution of the polarities of Scripture or the polarities of this world. How often have not a religious group’s “simple” answers been the by-product of its own insecurity, its need to display to the world a superfi- cial (and dishonest) unity because of its failure to ground true unity in worship of and devotion to the one living God! A community grounded in the God of mystery whose presence faithfully guides all worlds to their

final goal is a community capable of treating every opinion honestly and fairly with a freedom rooted in communion with the ultimate Reality, in whom all polarities find their final rest.

Once believers accept their role within such a hermeneutic of engagement, and witness their diversity gathered up in the unity of worship, both competitiveness and envy will give way to a partnership in which God alone is exalted. When understanding is obscured by the scholar’s stam- mering attempts to describe God’s presence through technical formulations, the fresh metaphor born of the struggles of the poor against the oppressor will refocus the community’s vision. When the preacher’s expo- sition fails to correlate the ancient Word with a suffering world, the ten- der courage of the peacemakers in the congregation may keep alive the testimony of Scripture. It is within the vast choir of witnesses to God’s presence in our world that the message is proclaimed that a people is God’s people not when it copies a past polity or perpetuates its own image, but when, guided by its scriptural and confessional heritage, it glimpses God’s presence in the world, and responds faithfully to that presence in confession, worship, and action. For that glimpse and that response have constituted the true community of faith through all ages.

They form the heart of its transcendent vision.

A Hermeneutic of Engagemmt and the ProbLem of Biblical Author@

For some people, the suggestion of openness to God’s new initiative in contemporary social and political events threatens the authority of Scrip- ture. Undoubtedly a static view of authority, a view of the Bible as a collec- tion of immutable laws and infallible truths, poses less problems for leaders of some religious groups. But such a static view and the alliances between religious bodies and repressive political powers that it commonly engenders pose too blatant a contradiction of the biblical view of reality to enjoy the support of biblical theology. From a biblical perspective, world events are viewed as the arena of an ongoing salvation drama, and communities adopting this perspective must be open to the God who is en- gaged in their world to “raise up the poor from the dust.” This openness to the presence of the living God implies for a community of faith the need for constant renewal and reform.

I 85360 The authoritative guide to the communal life dedicated to renewal and reform of self and world is not a static organizational structure, but the living example of a merciful God that moves the responsive community to adopt the role of servant within a suffering world. Although the process of working out an authentic communal form and style is inextrica- bly tied to engagement with the concrete realities of this world, it does not exclude but draws on disciplined study as well. Indeed, it is through careful

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