The narrative-historical approach differs from purely
narrative theologies (e.g. Frei) principally in that it emphasizes the historical
groundedness and orientation of the story that is told about Israel
and the early church. Scripture is not merely a “drama of doctrine”
(Vanhoozer)—that is a very modern perspective. It is first and foremost an
account of—and an attempt to make sense of—the historical experience of a
community.
On the other hand, the narrative-historical approach differs
from the historical-critical method in that it is interested primarily in the
relationship between the text and the historical community which produced it,
much less in the relationship between the text and a supposedly objective
historical reality that might be constructed by other means. For example, we
ask why the early Christian community told a story about Jesus calming a storm,
what they understood by it, not whether the event is believable or actually
happened. In this regard, the narrative-historical approach is closer to
canonical or biblical criticism.
Perriman’s disagreement with Vanhoozer is not an argument,
nor is it a disproof. It is a mere statement. This is like one child saying the
Reds are the best team in baseball and the other one retorting that the Red Sox
are the best team in baseball without putting up normative facts by which we
measure a team’s talent. In addition, Perriman’s use of the adjective “merely”
has the effect of polarizing Vanhoozer’s perspective. The problem is that
Perriman does this without telling us why it should rightly be casted with that
adjective in the first place.
Is God’s revelation really an attempt on God’s part to help
us understand the historical experiences of ancient Israel? One is tempted to
ask, “Why do I care?” If that is really what Scripture is, if that is the
summation of it all, why do I care about what happened to the ancient community
of Israel? What is that to me? Perriman seems obsessed with stopping at the
community of Israel. Repeatedly he argues that Scripture revolves around
Israel. Over and over he tells us that Scripture is given to help us understand
the experience of Israel. But is this really the right subject of Scripture? Is
Scripture concerned to teach us all about the experiences of the ancient tribe
of Abraham? Did God give us the text so that we could travel back in time to
experience what the tiny nation of Israel experienced?
It is one thing to say, as the grammatico-historical method
does, that understanding the experience of that community is critical to our
understanding of God, but it is quite another to say that this is that
Scripture is “first and foremost an attempt to make sense out of an ancient
community’s experience. Scripture is given to inform our faith. What faith
seeks is not rich understanding of the experience of an ancient community.
Faith seeks to understand her Author, finisher, and perfecto.
Perriman hammers away at theological interpretation as if it
were possible to purge interpretation from theology altogether. I have pointed
out that such a task is impossible. Surely Perriman can see that the very
suggestion itself stems from a theological perspective. Doctrines are less
propositional statements or static rules than they are life-shaping dramatic
directions.” [Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine] Doctrine provides the melody to
which we dance God’s dance in a life filled with both, light and darkness, joy
and heartache, peace and upheaval, hope and despair.
Perriman admits that his method is close to the canonical
method of Childs. This does seems to emerge in his views. However, part of the
problem with Childs' canonical process is that he locates the canon, not is
Scripture but in the interpretive community. The community reads the text from
a community’s rule of faith. But this begs the question: whose rule of faith?
As I have said repeatedly to Perriman, if we are going to follow the community’s
rule of faith of some “canonical intent,” then whose do we follow? It is not as
though the Jewish community had achieved perfect harmony in her understanding
of Scripture. That Jesus and Paul’s interpretive method was radically different
is plain for any reader to see.
That Childs' approach requires a great deal of theological
perspective is clear. Yet, this is one thing that Perriman seeks desperately to
dissolve. How he can claim to be so close to a method that is unapologetically
theological in so many ways is confusing to say the least. As Vanhoozer rightly
points out, “The gap between biblical studies and theology remains, however,
for it is unclear what the human witness (canonical form) has to do with the
divine disclosure (revelatory content). [Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine]
Contrary to Perriman’s hypothesis, Israel is not the primary
subject of Scripture. Everywhere this tiny tribe or nation appears, YHWH
appears. In other words, at a minimum, two characters are always present in the
text: God and Israel or later, the Church. Moreover, God is present from
Genesis one to Revelation twenty-two. In other words, YHWH is present when
Israel is not. The center of Scripture is YHWH. He is the primary subject of
Scripture. The text is about Him. Every character, including Israel, appears in
the text to reveal something about YHWH. These characters are present but they
all point upward to the God who is revealing and disclosing Himself to men that
are anything but deserving of such a wonderful, magnificent, and often times,
mysterious unveiling of His majesty! The Scripture gives us more reasons than
we need to stand still and behold the wonders of the God who made the heavens
and the earth and all that is in them, the God who sent His unique and only
begotten Son to redeem men from the curse of sin.
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