The Bible and Contemporary Culture -- A Review






Gerd Theissen, The Bible and Contemporary Culture. Translated by David E. Green. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007. xx + 163 pp.





"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty unjust; unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filiacidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin, 2006, p. 31).

That’s Richard Dawkins’ summation of the biblical God ). Dawkins is correct, you will find something like this in the Bible, but you will also find its opposite, and not just in the New Testament. That the Bible offers such diverse views not just of divinity of humanity makes reading it carefully and critically very important.

Gerd Theissen’s book is an intriguing and intellectual demanding proposal for learning the language and stories of Scripture in the context of a diverse and even pluralistic environment. In many ways this book is quite different from Stephen Prothero’s Religious Literacy, a book that also argues for biblical literacy. Like Prothero, Theissen laments that biblical literacy is “increasingly rare even among those who describe themselves as devoutly religious” (p. XI). Prothero’s concerns, however, are different. He is concerned with the civic value of religious literacy, whereas Theissen has a bigger agenda, the development of a language that allows for dialogue with the secular world and with other religions, as well as within the Christian community.

Theissen is a German biblical scholar. His perspective is that of a liberal European Protestant who desires to develop an open reading of Scripture. It is a reading that is informed by our post-modern situation, one that is open to new ways of looking at the world and at Scripture.

Again similarly to Prothero, Theissen argues for the importance to the formation of an educated person of knowing the Bible. Why? Because it is the study of the Bible that motivated the study of science, sought answers as to human worth, and even contributes to the social sciences and humanities. Study of this text is a path to self-understanding, for in its stories we see ourselves. Because we live in a pluralistic world we must have an ability to understand each other. We need a language that will allow us to communicate across cultural and religious divides, and knowing the biblical motifs, stories, and language (not necessarily Greek and Hebrew), allows us to understand other religious world views. Study of Scripture also provides a foundation for ethics and for learning how to trust.

To do this, to become educated, one must know and understand the biblical essentials. If we’re to come to the table to talk with person of other faith traditions, we must do so with a sense of integrity. To know the core essentials we must find a port of entry. He discusses possible choices – Bultmann’s existentialism and Cullman’s “salvation-history” model, but he finds the most useful model to be the “theory of religions,” and more directly the idea that religions are “historical-symbol systems.” That is they are “structures made up of symbols constructed by human beings in order to worship God.” They are in a sense a grammar that is learned in “the context of religious socialization” (p. 28). And the central symbol, at least for Christians, is God. If one understands the basic themes and forms of Scripture one is prepared to enter dialogue with the secular world, other religions, and other Christian traditions.

Two basic beliefs form Christianity – monotheism and belief in a redeemer. It is from Judaism that this monotheism is taken, and it is modified by belief in a redeemer. In fact the doctrine of the Trinity serves to resolve a central problem with strict monotheism – God’s distance from a suffering world. With these in mind, Theissen lays out fourteen themes that range from creation to conversion to alienation to status reversal. These themes are found throughout Scripture and transcend the boundaries of the two testaments. Ultimately, reading Scripture from a Christian perspective all fourteen motifs relate to Jesus and form the “spirit of the Bible.” By learning these motifs we’re able to understand individual biblical texts and evaluate whether the “spirit of the Bible” is present in the text. To illustrate this he looks at Genesis 1-3, where he finds present at least five motifs.
The author isn’t interested in just knowing and understanding the bible for its own sake. It is not just so that one might know the God of the Bible. He wishes to use this knowledge as the basis of a conversation with the secular world and with other religions. He believes and demonstrates that most of these motifs can be found in other traditions. And to give impetus to our dialogue, he points out that there already significant examples of such conversation in the Bible itself – in the Patriarchal narratives, in the story of the Midianites who are also worshippers of Yahweh, the interpretation of Cyrus as deliverer and the person of Job. And the language that makes the dialogue possible is learned in Scripture.

As Theissen takes us through the steps of dialogue we learn where the similarities and the differences between religions lie and where the same is true with the secular realm. This conversation overcomes our temptation toward absolutism and enables a conversation of equals. Theissen tries to be fair to all parties, showing where for instance he might think that Buddhism is superior to Christianity at one point but where Christianity is superior at another point. At several points he suggests that Christianity is a bridge religion. For instance, he suggests that Judaism is a religion of reconciliation and Buddhism is one of redemption. That is Judaism seeks reconciliation within this world, whereas Buddhism offers a way of redemption from its sufferings. One has an external focus and the other an inward one. But Christianity has aspects of both. In fact, in Jesus we have more the Jewish understanding of reconciliation, but in John we find a redemption motif.
This is an intriguing book because it lays out a model for dialogue that allows for comparison of texts and themes. It is written in many ways as an encouragement to Christians to reengage their Bible and then as they do so engage other traditions. Learn, for instance, how the Quran sees Jesus, noting points of convergence and divergence.

If there is one theme in the book that could be confusing is the author’s occasional choice of the word “anti-Darwinist.” I’m assuming that in Germany the meaning is different from here. “Anti-Darwinism” in the United States would be synonymous with efforts to replace or supplement the teaching of evolution with Intelligent Design or Creationism itself. That doesn’t seem to be his point, for he suggest that Buddhism also is “anti-Darwinist,” by which he appears to mean that our religious traditions overrule the basic principle of natural selection, that the strong survive, for religion stands in the gap and lifts up the weak and the marginalized, and in so doing offers resistance to nature’s path.
Reading this book will prove rewarding, though it will also prove challenging. It is brief in compass but packed with details. It is addressed to Christians, but it pushes for a reading of the Bible that is open to others. And the impact of knowing Scripture’s themes and motifs will be seen in how we live it out. Scripture is “a great story, a tale whose end has not yet been written” (150). The story begins in the text but it continues in our own lives. And thus an ethical dimension runs through this conversation. Realizing the potential found in the text will depend on our ability to read it self-critically and in dialogue with others. And so, back to Richard Dawkins, if we’re to read it wholly we must admit that there are dark parts, but if we follow Dawkins we will also miss much that is in that text.

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