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178 The Old Testament and Christian Spirituality
Put differently: if we do seek some kind of sense of belonging
within an unbroken continuity, a sense of firmness, if you will, we
need seek no further than the tradition of which we are but the
newest generation. For this very tradition is the line of interpreters
of the biblical texts beginning with Second Temple Judaism, then,
for Christian exegetes, running through the New Testament and
early church, via the patristic interpreters and their interpreters in
the Middle Ages, and from the Reformation and the Enlightenment
with their rational-existential turns, through modernism up to early
post-modernism, 21 within which we find ourselves at present. 22 As
with all scholarship, we are part of a social group, of a guild, even,
within which certain norms exist. We are not alone, 23 even though
we may feel ourselves at times cast adrift within a veritable sea of
interpretations. As with prayer, the value of biblical scholarship
lies not in the sense of accomplishment or meaningfulness we may
experience, or fail to experience. Rather, again, as with prayer, the
act itself, in this instance of studying the Bible, is a spiritual
exercise, giving personal expression to what the Christian faith
tradition has given us, and it is an act of engagement with our
context—not necessarily because some form of relevance is
demanded of us, but simply because we are children of our time,
21 For selections on biblical interpretation, from Origen’s allegory to modern
pragmatism, see the essays collected in J. M. Court, ed., Biblical Interpretation.
The Meanings of Scripture—Past and Present (London: T&T Clark, 2003).
22 The fear of post-modernism with respect to exegesis, expressed recently by
Hagner (in “The Place of Exegesis in the Postmodern World,” 296–302), is in
my view somewhat overstated. Post-modernism is no more than the current
phase of modernism, though with the harsher edges of the latter now—more
realistically, and more humanely—softened, so that greater space is left for,
among other matters, spirituality; cf. e.g. Zimmerling, Evangelische
Spiritualität, 127–34.
23 With acknowledgement to Van Huyssteen (see J. W. van Huyssteen, Alone in
the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2006).