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116 The Old Testament and Christian Spirituality
Therefore, the impression the book as a whole gives, is of a
work intended for use in catechesis of a certain kind. Nothing
about the Bible is presented as problematical; neither are
hermeneutics and history ever problems. Issues are not argued
from different sides, but Bible verses are stacked together in order
to present cogent pictures on, for instance, the nature of God or
human purification. Here, a certain view of Christian truth
supersedes all historical conditioning.
4. Craghan’s Old Testament Spirituality
Another Catholic writer’s Old Testament Spirituality, though of a
wholly different order than that of De la Croix’s, is the 1983
volume by Craghan. 12 Craghan’s approach to writing a Spirituality
of the Old Testament seems at first dialectical: its title suggests
that within “love” and “thunder,” and also between “love” and
“thunder,” God can be found. However, this creative tension is left
largely unexplored in the book. The most important way in which
creative tension is explored by Craghan, is by what may be called a
mix of times: “Spirituality thus becomes a present reflection of a
past record in view of future needs.” 13 For this, hermeneutics is
considered to be an indispensable mediator:
These musty, dusty accounts from the ancient Near East are not
simply our heirlooms. They are our identity papers. … Our
concern 14 is not to determine the intention of the original
author for the purposes of historical analysis, although such a
quest is invaluable. Instead, our quest is hermeneutical—we are
12
See J. F. Craghan, Love and Thunder. A Spirituality of the Old Testament
(Collegeville, Minn.: The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., 1983).
13
Craghan, Love and Thunder, 2. The reference of the “past record” here is to
the biblical text.
14
With “concern” and “quest” here is denoted the ultimate purpose of biblical
exegesis.