The Contemporary Use of Narrative Theology: Comparison of the Prolegomena of Brueggemann, Waltke and Goldingay
Steven PahlMA BTS Student: Ambrose SeminaryTH 704 Research PaperNovember 28, 2011
Narrative Theology has travelled a long road from its
earliest days. In 1941, when H. Richard Niebuhr published The
Meaning of Revelation, there was little or no discussion of concepts
such as intertextuality, or poetics, or narrative mode. The bible
was generally recognized as a ‘story,’ yet in the bible colleges
and churches of North America, theological categories and linear,
systematic thought dominated the landscape. And, in the world of
higher education, the deconstruction of the biblical text, begun
in the source critical work of scholars such as Graf and
Wellhausen, reached the full measure of its influence. Into this
context, Niebuhr wrote the following words.
We must read the law with the mind of the prophets, and the prophets with the eyes of Jesus; we must immerse ourselves with Paul in the story of the crucifixion, and read Paul with the aid of the spirit in the church if we would find revelation in the Scriptures. A history that was recorded forward, as it
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were, must be read backward through our history if it is to be understood as revelation.1
That sphere is internal history, the story of what happened to us, the living memory of the community.2
In Niebuhr’s work, we can trace the crude beginnings of Narrative
Theology. In the preceding quotations, we can discern the first
hints of concepts such as intertextuality and the ‘sacred text’
of the community. We can also discern a hint of the tension that
would develop between imagination and historicity.
Seventy years later, concepts such as poetics and narrative
mode are routinely discussed at the higher levels of education,
and fleshed out in a practical way through the story-based
preaching common in the modern pulpit. The changing theological
landscape opened the door for a new kind of theological
presentation: theology as narrative. The major works of Old
Testament Theology written over the last fifteen years all
contain a prolegomena about narrative, and all of these works use
narrative as the first part, or the only part, of their approach
to the Old Testament text. In these major works, I include Walter
1 H. Richard Niebuhr, “The Story of Our Life,” in Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997), 25.2 Ibid., 44.
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Bruggemann (1997)3, John Goldingay (2003)4, Rolf Rentdorff (2005)5
and Bruce Waltke (2007)6. My goal for this paper is to analyze
the prolegomena of three of these works; the works of
Brueggemann, Goldingay and Waltke. Specifically, I will focus on
how these three theologians describe the role of imagination and
historicity, and how they apply the concepts of intertextuality
and the ‘sacred text’ of the community.
The role of imagination in narrative theology is a
critical and somewhat divisive issue. The question that commonly
arises is; how much freedom of expression did the biblical
writers use when they completed the final form of the text?
Imagination is divisive because it seems to live on a spectrum
opposite to historicity. We might assume that if the writer
creatively imagined three quarters of a text, then only one
quarter of the text is based on historic events. From this
assumption, we might conclude that imagination is a threat to
3 Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 61–89.4 John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2003), 15–41.5 Rolf Rendtorff, The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament (Leiden, the Netherlands: Deo Publishing, 2005), 717–56.6 Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach, 1sted. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 93–142.
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historicity. This is not necessarily true. As we will see, the
relationship between imagination and historicity is far more
nuanced.
In his Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy,
Walter Brueggemann is primarily concerned with the interpretation
of the text in the new pluralistic and postmodern situation.7 In
a postmodern world, Brueggemann argues, the common, universal
assumptions which once governed our reading of the text have
disappeared and, in their place, rival readings exist which
inevitably conflict with one another. He writes, “we now
recognize that there is no interest-free interpretation, no
interpretation that is not in the service of some interest and in
some sense advocacy.”8 And, what is more, these rival readings
exist in a postmodern world because they also exist within the
text itself. Yahweh is “pulled this way and that by the
adjudicating rhetoric of Israel.”9 And so, the dispute and
advocacy within the text precedes the dispute and advocacy in our
postmodern situation.
7 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 61.8 Ibid., 63.9 Ibid., 64.
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At the center of the process of dispute and advocacy within
the text is the concept of imagination. For Brueggemann, “speech
constitutes reality, and who God turns out to be in Israel
depends on the utterance of the Israelites.”10 The narrative
generates a ‘story world’ in which “Yahweh is featured as actor
and agent.”11 And, the biblical writers have “the freedom to
plot, shape, construct and construe.”12 Over the course of
Israel’s history, conflicting imaginations of Yahweh emerged and
tension arose within Israel over which view would survive and
dominate. Had Yahweh created Israel to be a nation of priests or
had Yahweh appointed one tribe to be priests for all? Had Yahweh
announced one covenant with Israel through Moses in which each
tribe was able to lead itself or had Yahweh announced a covenant
to David in which a king would lead all of the tribes? In the
‘story world’ of Israel, such competing views would eventually
coalesce as creative writers merged the story of Israel into one
story, again exhibiting the freedom to plot and shape the story
in a fresh way.
10 Ibid., 65.11 Ibid., 67.12 Ibid.
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Yahweh exists, for Brueggemann, at the center of the
imagination of Israel. The biblical writers “employed a rich
strategy in order to find speech to match the continuing
Character whom it rendered at the center of its life.”13 This
imagination focuses on what Brueggemann calls “Yahweh’s
impossibilities.”14 Yahweh’s nature and characteristics are
difficult to describe and the biblical writers predominantly used
metaphor to illustrate them. One example Brueggemann gives is the
concept of Yahweh as a shepherd. The power of metaphor is the
fact that the noun is and is not equal to the metaphor. In other
words, Yahweh is a shepherd, yet at the same time, Yahweh is not a
shepherd. The use of metaphor allowed Israel to elevate Yahweh in
its language without reducing him to the level of his created
works.
The end result, after all of Israel’s writers have imagined
Yahweh, and after the process of dispute and advocacy is
completed, is that,
Yahweh is to be understood in Israel's text as a rhetorical articulation. No doubt this rhetoric is proposed as realistic, is intended to be taken as
13 Ibid., 71.14 Ibid., 69.
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real, and is indeed so taken characteristically in Israel. But such realism is of an innocent, precritical kind that entertains no dualism; the rhetoric is taken at face value, not at all with the denial of the ontological, but with no felt necessity to claim it.15
When Brueggemann uses the phrase ‘rhetorical articulation’ to
describe Yahweh, it appears as if Yahweh is simply a product of
Israel’s imagination. It appears that Brueggemann is assigning to
imagination a role that allows it to supersede historicity and
that Yahweh does not exist outside of the text. Yet this may not
be the case. Later, Brueggemann describes the process by which
history intersects with Israel’s imagination. He believes that
the final form of the Torah was completed during, or out of
response to, the exile. He believes that Israel “used materials
that had been treasured in earlier times”16 in order to construct
its canon. And that this reuse of materials respected the essence
of the previous story. Thus there is continuity between the older
materials and the final form they obtained in exile. Yet in the
second creation of the exilic period, the writer(s) imagined a
‘new work’ that was a confluence of the process of dispute and
15 Ibid.16 Ibid., 75.
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advocacy from Israel’s previous history. By the end of this
period of second creation, Yahweh became, not what one competing
version of Israel’s history thought him to be, but a
conglomeration of what all of the competing views thought him to
be. Thus, the text’s image of Yahweh is a multidimensional image
or a collective image. To use Stephen Crites’ ideas17, what we
see in the final text of the Torah is a mature reflection on Israel’s
collective embedded memory of Yahweh, not a false image, but a
composite of many images.
Because “the entire past and memory of the textual community
is kept available and present in concrete and detailed ways,”18
Brueggemann encourages a dialogical reading of the text rather
than a diachronic reading of the text. A diachronic reading is
primarily focussed on events, experiences or circumstances in
Israel’s history. It is this reading of the text which creates
dispute in the postmodern environment. Rather, Brueggemann
encourages us to pursue an intertextual reading. An intertextual 17 Stephen Crites, “The Narrative Quality of Experience,” in Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997), 76. In referring to embedded memory,Crites says, “I have many insights into this chronicle that I could have had at the time its events occurred. Yet the sophisticated new story I might tell about it would be superimposed on the image-stream of the original chronicle.”18 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 79.
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reading “generates a realm of discourse, dialogue, and
imagination that provides a world in which to live”19 and leads
the community of the text into a world where “all of reality is
uttered and therefore construed and therefore experienced in a
certain way.”20 He encourages the community of the text not to be
embarrassed about the practise of its own speech, but to hold on
to the ideas found within the text, because “to give up this
practice of its uttered memory is surely to give up its identity
and its life in the world.”21
I believe that Brueggeman’s ideas about narrative and its
application in his theology are heavily influenced by his view of
the postmodern interpretive situation. First, Brueggemann is
concerned with the “many temptations” and “outside pressures”22
faced by the community of the text, and he is urging that
community to continue to rehearse and live out the text amidst
the fluidity of postmodernism. Yet Brueggemann also reminds the
community of the text that there is a “second listening
community.”23 In a postmodern reality, the outside world is 19 Ibid., 78.20 Ibid., 79.21 Ibid.22 Ibid., 80.23 Ibid., 87–88.
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listening to the dialogue happening within the community of the
text. This ‘second listening community’ is also addressed within
the text in ways that can transform individual people and create
a different shape to the world in which they live, although the
text is mainly for the audience of believers.
Like Brueggemann, Bruce Waltke is primarily concerned with
the interpretive situation within the community that is reading
the text. His concern, however, is related to the ways in which
deconstructionist thinking has invaded the community and
jeopardized its interpretation of the text.24 And, one person he
cites as an example of this form of deconstructionist thinking is
Walter Brueggemann. Before we can discuss Waltke’s concerns
further, we must first consider the way in which he understands
narrative.
In An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic
Approach, Waltke describes narrative as a “representational form
of art.”25 Narrative imitates life just like a painting imitates
a real object. A painting of an apple, for example, represents
something real and tangible, but our impression of that reality
24 Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 103.25 Ibid., 93.
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is influenced by the artist who created the painting. Just as the
meaning of the painting is derived from the painter’s point of
view, “the ‘meaning’ of the narrative is determined by how the
narrator tells the story.”26 The world that the narrator creates
stimulates the reader’s imagination, leading him or her into the
exploration of other possible worlds. One example Waltke offers
is Matthew 28:19-20, in which the reader is encouraged to carry
the gospel message into his or her own world, even as Jesus’
disciples were encouraged to take the gospel message into their
world. In the narrator’s world, biographies function as metaphors
or icons27 in which they are an ideal portrait that inspires the
reader to a more ideal construction of their own life.
The narrator speaks from three distinct points of view:
God’s, the human character’s and his own. And, he is presenting
legitimate and real events from the history of Israel. Yet the
narrator is doing far more than just reporting facts, he is also
interpreting these facts for the reader. Although in most cases
the narrator’s point of view is so deeply embedded in the text
that it is difficult to discern, occasionally he speaks by direct
26 Ibid., 94.27 Ibid., 105.
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statement such as in Genesis 25:34, where the he tells the
reader, “So Esau despised his birthright” or in Genesis 16:6,
where he says, “Sarai mistreated Hagar.”28 Yet in most respects,
the narrator’s creative role is largely limited to emplotment.
Waltke differentiates between story and plot. He says that, “a
story consists of what is outside the text: the people, things,
or events,” whereas plot “refers to the contour of its
representation.” 29 It is in the act of weaving together various
aspects of the story that the narrator shares common ground with
the novelist. He is able to lead the reader in “reflection,
exploration, edification, celebration . . ., cathartic cleansing,
and/or sheer delight”30 by the way in which he organizes the
storyline.
Yet the narrator, for Waltke, is more than just a creative
editor. Waltke elevates his status to that of “prophet-
historian”31 and says that the narrator “always speaks truthfully
and authoritatively because he is a prophet, God's inspired
spokesman.”32 He describes the real author as the historical 28 Ibid., 109.29 Ibid., 94.30 Ibid., 99.31 Ibid., 127.32 Ibid., 101.
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person who composed the initial narrative, while the implied
author is the narrator who plotted the format of the current text
and wove the various parts together into a whole unit. It seems
that for Waltke, this implied author, or narrator of the text, is
almost like the guardian of the final form of the text, and the
guardian of interpretation for the believing community. The
effect of Waltke’s conclusion reaches deep and wide into his
theological interpretation.
By elevating the narrator to the role of prophet-historian,
he presents an idea that is both brilliant and dangerous at the
same time. It is brilliant because it helps to resolve some of
the tensions over the authority and trustworthiness of the final
form of the text. If the prophet-historian is seen as equal to
the original prophet/writer of the material, then he has the
authority to plot the final form of the text. He has the God-
given authority to leave some material out and ensure that what
is left behind is indeed true and valuable information. The text
that is left behind for the believing community is therefore
authoritative for that community and can be seen as a word from
God, indeed, it can be seen as the word of God. Yet Waltke also
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uses his concept to effectively silence the voice of historical
criticism. He quotes Powell saying that “the implied author's
point of view can be determined without considering anything
extrinsic to the narrative.”33 In other words, the answers to
exegesis of the text do not lie in the historical Sitz im Leben, but
within the text itself.34 And this is where Waltke’s idea becomes
dangerous. For sure, in Waltke’s estimation the narrator did not
tamper with the original author’s text, yet there is a sense in
which Waltke’s prophet-historian becomes greater than the
original prophet/writer himself. At one point, Waltke says that
“the narrator's perspective always has priority in our
interpretation.”35 Where Brueggemann encouraged the reader to
practise a “dual reading” of the text, a reading which takes into
account both the historical situation of the original writer(s)
and the situation of the later writer(s) in exile36, Waltke seems
to encourages the reader to practise a single reading of the
text, through the interpretive eye of the nascent narrator.
33 Ibid., 100.34 Ibid., 101.35 Ibid., 104.36 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 75.
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Grasping Waltke’s concept of real author and implied author
is crucial to understanding his view of narrative, and his
contention with Brueggemann. Waltke views any interpretation that
does not take the narrator at face value as a “deconstructionist
reading.”37 In his view, there is a difference between the real
audience and the implied audience. The real audience is the first
audience to whom the original author wrote. The implied audience
is the community of the text, “the believing community”38 and it
is this audience to whom the prophet-historian speaks. As the
implied audience, if the narrator has informed the believing
community of his opinion on a matter, then to search for any
other reading is to deconstruct the text and make it say
something that the narrator did not intend it to say. Brueggemann
frequently dissects the text in a way that Waltke views as
dangerous. For example, at one point in his work, Brueggemann
discusses the possibility that David was an upstart adventurer
who shrewdly utilized Saul for his own benefit. While the
narrator is skewed toward a pro-David stance, Brueggemann writes,
“this skewedness in the direction of David can produce, as a
37 Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 103.38 Ibid.
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downside, the sense of the tragic in the story of Saul, who never
really had a chance in Israel's imagination.”39 Waltke responds
in his volume by saying that, “such approaches, which are not
faithful to the text, are excluded from the accredited
hermeneutics of this book.”40 In truth, there is likely a healthy
balance point somewhere between these two theologians. We have
much to learn from the various forms of criticism, but we also
have a text with a final form that needs to be respected.
Waltke concludes his prolegomena on narrative with a
wonderful chapter on intertextuality and poetics. Time will not
permit me to elaborate too much on Waltke’s work in these areas,
but I will pause to give an example or two. Waltke sees
intertextuality as a tool that can help us to discern the
development of doctrinal ideas throughout scripture.41 He cites
the example of Genesis 1 and Isaiah, where Genesis leaves some
questions in the mind of the reader that Isaiah answers later
on.42 In Genesis 1, the text leaves us with two questions. First,
what is the ‘heavenly court’ that verse 26-28 seem to refer to?
39 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 367.40 Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, 103.41 Ibid.42 Ibid., 127–8.
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Elohim says, “let us create man in our image.” To whom is God
speaking? And second, verses 1-2 leave us with the impression
that there is a dualism between God and matter. That is, it
appears as if God does not create ex nihilo but that matter already
existed and God merely shaped it into its form. Did God really
create everything, including matter? For Waltke, intertextuality
helps us to answer these questions. The exilic community was
obviously asking similar questions and Deutero-Isaiah provided an
answer. We read in Isaiah 45:7 that God says, “I form the light
and create darkness,” therefore there is no cosmic dualism, but a
gap in the Genesis text that Isaiah helps ‘fill in.’ And, we read
in Isaiah 40:13-14 that God did not consult with anyone at
creation, therefore we must understand the ‘us’ in Genesis 1:26-
28 as a royal declaration, in which God is speaking to himself.
Waltke calls these kinds of texts “transformative texts”43
because they transform and/or deepen the meaning of an earlier
text. As I said, there is much more I would like to say about
this section of Waltke’s work, but I must move on to our final
theologian.
43 Ibid., 126–28.18
In his work, Old Testament Theology: Israel`s Gospel, John Goldingay
exhibits a balanced example of the use of narrative for ‘doing
theology.’ Curiously, Goldingay does not spend much time
theorizing about narrative, but, in the style of true narrative,
he shows us what narrative is. Goldingay shows us the essence of the
story of Israel’s gospel in his prolegomena.
It is of the essence of Israel to be a people with a story. . . The people does not adhere to its religion. It exists before it has a land, and then loses it. It breaks its covenant. It is ambivalent about its monarchy. It welcomes other people into its midst and undermines its kinship base. But irreducibly it is a group that has a common story, and the Old Testament story is the one that identifies Israel as Israel.44
And, what is more, Goldingay says, the story of Israel tells us
who we are in relationship to God as we observe God in
relationship to Israel.
For Goldingay, the story of Israel is a linear narrative.
And that is significant for him because it (the narrative)
believes that “certain events in the past were determinative for
the present” of those who wrote and read the story and the
narrative implies that events in the past are vital for “the
44 Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel, 30.19
present and future of the world itself.”45 Thus it is a story
that was relevant for its original audience and is relevant for
its modern audience as well.
Goldingay first shows us narrative theology by speaking
about God’s role in it. God is the principle character in the
narrative. The narrative does not reveal God through “a
collection of timeless statements such as God is love”46 rather
it reveals God by narrating what God has done. When there are
propositional statements in the text, Goldingay points out that
they come only after they have already been described through
narrative. For example, God’s self-description in Exodus 34:6-7
is a “retrospective systematic theological reflection on the
narrative beginning in Exodus 32.”47 Thus the narrative contains
propositions but they are revealed through a narrative that is
primarily descriptive. This linear narrative consists of a series
of events describing what God has done.
God beganGod started overGod promisedGod delivered
45 Ibid., 31.46 Ibid.47 Ibid., 37.
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God sealedGod gaveGod accommodatedGod wrestledGod preserved.48
God is the primary character in the narrative, but he is not
the only character. Human beings play a vital role, along with
God, in the text. For Goldingay, this means that the story is “in
a broad sense a historical narrative.”49 The events of God,
because they are also the events of humanity, are passed on by
human beings for later generations. Thus, God did in fact bring
Israel out of Egypt and he did seal a relationship with Israel at
Sinai. These are historical events that occurred in real time and
space. Through these events, humanity played its role in
achieving God’s purpose in the world.
God began.Humanity turned its back on God's instructions, and God started over.God promised, and a family grew.Israel cried out, and God delivered.God sealed, and Israel imperilled.God gave, and Israel took.Israel equivocated, and God accommodated.Israel turned away, and God wrestled.God preserved, and Israel turned back.50
48 Ibid., 32.49 Ibid., 34.50 Ibid., 36.
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Using this visual method, Goldingay illustrates the interplay
within the narrative between the two principle characters, God
and humanity.
Having shown us how narrative works in the story, Goldingay
moves on to briefly discuss some concepts of narrative theory
that are familiar to us from the work of Brueggemann and Waltke.
First, for Goldingay, the narrator is omniscient, in that
sometimes he manifests knowledge about God that is out of the
ordinary. And, at times, the narrator makes a value judgment in
the context of a story. When the narrator does this, Goldingay
says coyly, “I assume they know what they are talking about.”51
But, he points out, the narrator actually tells us very little.
Mostly, he shows rather than tells. Most often, the narrator
seems to tell the story “without implying a judgment” and this
drives us “to do our own reflection on [the] story.”52 Second,
Goldingay points out his belief that narrative is the best method
for discussing complicated theological issues. Issues such as the
interplay between the sovereignty of God and human free will, are
51 Ibid., 38.52 Ibid.
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best described and understood through narrative. In fact,
narrative is the most attractive way to discuss these issues in
the current postmodern situation. For Goldingay, postmodernism is
not a threat but as an opportunity. In the postmodern age, people
do not need to have all of the answers established in a logical
form. Rather, people recognize that “reality is complex, and the
fact that Scripture is divine revelation does not make it less
so.”53 For Goldingay, this seems to be the blessing of the
postmodern situation because the text itself is complex and
conflated and requires the willingness to embrace a certain
amount of uncertainty, mixed together with faith.
I mentioned earlier that both Brueggemann and Waltke are
primarily concerned with the community of the text. Brueggemann
is concerned that in the postmodern situation the community of
faith will feel pressured from the outside to stop telling its
story and reading its text. Waltke is concerned that the text of
the community is being deconstructed from within its own
community, and sees this deconstruction as negative. Since
Goldingay is not afraid of postmodernism, his primary concern is
53 Ibid., 40.23
not related to it. He believes that “the Old Testament has a
capacity to speak with illumination and power to the lives of
communities and individuals.”54 (A statement which I assume both
Breggemann and Waltke would affirm!) Goldingay’s primary concern
is with “the church's incomplete conversion toward the God of
Israel.”55 And his aim is “to help people watch the first
episodes of the Scriptures.”56 He believes that too many
Christians do not understand, or even respect, the First
Testament, and therefore, they cannot truly understand the New
Testament. His concern is that the church’s understanding of its
own theology is incomplete because it does not understand the
theology of the First Testament scriptures. So his goal is, in
narrative form, to trace the narrated message of Israel’s gospel
so that the church can fully understand it and incorporate that
understanding into its New Testament theology.57
It appears that there is some common ground between
Brueggemann, Waltke and Goldingay. Like Niebuhr, who paved the
way for narrative theology, these three theologians are concerned
54 Ibid., 18.55 Ibid., 22.56 Ibid., 23.57 Ibid., 25.
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about the sphere of “internal history, the story of what happened
to us, the living memory of the community.58 Yet their concern
for the living memory of the community carries their narrative
theology in three different directions. For Brueggemann, the
living memory of the community is a fluid memory in which the
author(s) of the text creatively imagined the story of Yahweh
based on communal memory. The process of imagination led to a
series of disputes over which conception of Yahweh would have the
final say. The end product is a confluence of Israel’s multiple
experiences with Yahweh and represents a final text based around
Israel’s mature reflection on its communal memories. In this
text, the modern community can see and understand pieces of its
own reflections upon God. For Waltke, the living memory of the
community is ancient memory reflected through the eyes of
prophet-historian(s) who emplotted the final form of the text. In
this text, the modern reader can trace the hand of God’s unique
message, a message that is intended for the implied audience, the
community of believers living in any age. For Goldingay, the
living memory of the community is a misunderstood or forgotten
58 Niebuhr, “The Story of Our Life,” 44.25
memory. If brought to life again, this memory could transform and
deepen the community of the text, and perhaps lead to a full
conversion to the God of Israel. In truth, I believe that the
community of the text would be richer if it embraced all three of
these theologians and heeded their passionate pleas.
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Bibliography
Brueggemann, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.
Crites, Stephen. “The Narrative Quality of Experience.” In Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, edited by Stanley Hauerwasand L. Gregory Jones, 65-88. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997.
Goldingay, John. Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Gospel. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2003.
Niebuhr, H. Richard. “The Story of Our Life.” In Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, edited by Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones, 21-44. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997.
Rendtorff, Rolf. The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament. Leiden, the Netherlands: Deo Publishing, 2005.
Waltke, Bruce. An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and ThematicApproach. 1st ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007.
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