The Old Testament and Christian Spirituality - International Voices in ...

Exegesis and Spirituality *
ABSTRACT
Many of the problems underlying the tension between faith and scholarship,
church and academia, piety and Bible scholarship concern the way exegesis
and spirituality have either been combined or separated. Often, the ways in
which exegesis and spirituality are either combined or separated create
more problems than solutions. In this paper, reasoned from within the
emerging discipline of Biblical Spirituality, these problems are argued, and
some proposals made.
1. Hear Ye, Hear Ye?
Scholars of religion in general and of the Bible in particular are all
too aware of the reality that the relationship between the Scriptures
and faith is not an easy one; 1 nor has it ever been—contrary to
recurring calls that we “return” to the “biblical” faith. 2 Whereas
popular ideas in society on this topic hold to a simplistic
relationship, namely that Christianity draws its faith rather directly
from the Bible—a view that is to a significant extent also fed by
church catechisms, which tend to keep to unhistorical
approaches—scholars know that the concepts of “faith” or
“Scripture” are not simple; nor, certainly, is the relationship
*
Some ideas in this essay were, after our initial cooperation, presented as a
discussion paper by my doctoral student, Daniel Nae, at the Research Sharing
Conference, Adventist Theological Institute, Cernica, Romania, in May 2007
(see bibliography). This essay was then developed from those initial impulses,
and was presented by me at the fiftieth congress of the Old Testament Society of
South Africa in August 2007 at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
1
Cf. e.g. G. le Marquand, “Siblings or Antagonists? The Ethos of Biblical
Scholarship from the North Atlantic and African Worlds,” in Biblical
Interpretation in African Perspective (ed. D. Adamo; Lanham, Md.: University
Press of America, 2006), 62–63.
2
Cf. P. Zimmerling, Evangelische Spiritualität. Wurzeln und Zugänge
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 32.
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