Biblical Hebrew Forum

[b.gardner AT abdn.ac.uk]

Dear Harold,
            Thank you for your reply. I, too, think that progressive 
redaction 
and complementary revelation are useful, cognate concepts for Christians to 
use.

But it might be better if you were not to answer for Dan Wagner, Harold, as 
his 
approach seems somewhat different from yours, being uncompromisingly unified. 
I 
may be wrong but I had the impression he was not at all in favour of 
redaction.

As for no contradictions, by the way, how much did David pay for the site of 
Araunah? There, one is dealing with apparent fact, yet the two accounts are 
difficult to reconcile smoothly without an ingeniously pious speciousness.

And when that comes in, Christians should realise that they project a smugly 
intimidating and fortified irrationalism rather than the nakedness of Christ.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce.


> Dear Bruce,
> 
> You say:
>                                   
> > It is obvious that the NT makes a habit (e.g., Isa 7:14; 11:1f) of
> >reinterpreting texts in a very Jewish way. But then the Qumranians and the
> >Rabbis both saw themselves as the fulfillers of past hope too. As a
> >result, you find tree stumps growing again outside the Holocaust memorial
> >at Yad Vashem, to commemorate not the Christian Messiah but the miracle of
> >Israel for whom that application of the HB text is (equally
> >self-evidently) about Israel's ethno-religious survival.
> 
> The two ideas of the Messiah and Israel's ethno-religious survival are not
> contradictory but complementary.
> 
> > Also, while I do set aside the J/E debate as too inconclusive, and prefer
> >the D(euteronomistic tradition followed by P(riestly Writer) and then the
> >C(hronicler) I cannot ignore there is growth and development in the HB/OT
> >corrresponding to D, P and C, for to reject that is to reject the evidence
> >in favour of a fiction that the ancient Hebrew scriptures are exactly
> >historical. Only the person who has not actually read the Bible can claim
> >that with confidence. The holding of that opinion in the face of facts as
> >simply 'things not yet understood' can seem a self-deception, and most of
> >all give Christians a bad name as people who think they can afford to be
> >irrational.
> 
> > Consider, for example, two views of a plague on Jerusalem: 2 Samual 24
> >and 1 Chronicles 21. Is there NO sign of development there?  Are there no
> >fresh perspectives to be noted at all?
> 
> I do not think that Dan meant to say that there are no fresh perspectives
> at all. Certainly I would not say that. When about a thousand years passes,
> one expects changes of perspective. I believe in progressive revelation:
> God revealed more and different (but not contradictory) truth as time
> passed.
> 
>                       Yours,
>                       Harold Holmyard
>                       Dallas, TX
> 
> 
> 
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