My View

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It has been said that the Bible is the best known but least understood book in literature. If so in the past, ignorance is no longer excusable. Today, extraordinary resources are available to make the Bible intelligible. During three decades of professional involvement with the Bible I have witnessed revolutionary developments in biblical studies, together with a phenomenal resurgence of interest in Scripture. Ecumenism has played a key role in this rebirth, especially for Roman Catholics, many of whom were biblically illiterate until they met Protestant and Jewish friends. John L. McKenzie’s trail-blazing book, The Two-Edged Sword (1956), also did much to awaken American Roman Catholic interest in the Bible, especially the Old Testament.

Ironically, some Christians still resist the Old Testament, despite the fact that their Canon comprises both Old and New Testament. Lacking the Old Testament, the New is a superstructure without a foundation. Also, the New Testament has fuller meaning when combined with the Old, which is its first and best commentary. For example, is not the text of John 3:14, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,“ far more meaningful to one who is familiar with the story of the bronze serpent in Numbers 21:4–9? There is hardly a page of the New Testament which does not allude to the Old, a fact not recognized by one unfamiliar with the Old Testament.

As in so many cases, Jesus set the good example by constantly quoting the Old Testament. Even the two great commandments which epitomize his teaching are from the Hebrew Scripture: to love God (Deuteronomy 6:5) and to love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18).

The model for Jesus’ messianic mission was the mysterious figure designated “Servant of the Lord” in Isaiah 40–55. Repudiating the pomposity and pageantry of kingship, Jesus, like the servant, came not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45).

As an observant Jew, Jesus was nourished by the Psalms and prayed them often, especially at the critical moments in his life. Not by accident, then, are there 93 references to the Psalms in the New Testament. One great Christian martyr confessed from his prison cell in Berlin: “I am reading the Psalms daily, as I have done for years. I know them and love them more than any other book in the Bible.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words in 1943, two years before he was executed by the Nazis. The rich diversity of the Psalms provides something for everyone, man, woman, and child. Someone said that the Psalms will live as long as people are moved by the impulse to praise and to pray.

If the Psalms are my favorite biblical book, faith is my favorite biblical virtue, especially the way G. Ernest Wright,^a from whom I learned so much, defined it. Biblical faith is far more than intellectual assent to certain abstract propositions. “It is instead that trust in God which leads one to follow him in whatever situation one may find himself, a trust which waits on the Lord even in times when one is fearful for his life” (The Book of the Acts of God [1957]). Abraham is the perfect exemplar of this kind of faith, and Psalm 23, The Lord is My Shepherd, is its perfect expression.

Institutional religion has never been comfortable with prophets, but it cannot live without them. Prophets speak a living word from God, and without it religion will die. In response to Jesus’ question to his disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” they replied, “Some say John the Baptizer, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets” (Matthew 16:13–14). The disciples obviously recognized the similarity between Jesus and the Old Testament prophets, especially Jeremiah. The parallels between Jeremiah and Jesus are striking: Each lived in a period of great tragedy, each grew up in a small town, each loved ordinary people, each indicted the officialdom of his day, and each was rejected. The better one knows Jeremiah, the better one understands Jesus.

As a teacher, I try to make the Bible speak to the contemporary situation. I am concerned not only with what the Bible meant, 005but also with what it means. As a lived experience, the Bible is the history of each of us. In fact, it is more about sinners than saints. To dehumanize or to transfigure the Bible is to rob it of much of its meaning. Because biblical people were not plaster-of-Paris saints, we mortals can identify with them. When we accept in our own time the challenges they accepted in theirs, the Bible is not simply a dead letter, but a living word. We relive the history.

Sometimes students question the violence and hatred they encounter in the Bible. The teacher can reply that violence and hatred are as present today as in biblical times. A more meaningful response, however, is to direct their attention to the Prophets and the Psalmists who did not condone violence and hatred but offered the antidote of the Lord’s steadfast love (hesed) for all people.

As a scholar, I stand at the intersection of the Bible and archaeology, with a special interest in the interplay between the two. Whatever helps to elucidate the biblical text must not be neglected. Despite their own inherent limitations, a dialogue between archaeology and biblical studies has an important contribution to make. For example, when the biblical text is tendentious or ambiguous, the archaeological data may be able to contribute to the dialogue by clarifying or supplementing the text. Archaeology can also help to illuminate the historical setting of the Bible and to reconstruct the life and culture of the biblical period.

To date, historical, literary, philological, and theological analyses of the Bible abound, but archaeological analysis is often neglected. For the most part, traditional commentaries on the Bible lack archaeological discussion. In view of the excavations during the past three decades which have brought to light so much valuable material evidence, much of it impinging on the Bible, this neglect is hard to understand. There is need today for critical, up-to-date, synthetic works bringing archaeological data (realia) to bear on the biblical text. To this particular aspect of biblical studies I plan to dedicate my remaining years.

It has been said that the Bible is the best known but least understood book in literature. If so in the past, ignorance is no longer excusable. Today, extraordinary resources are available to make the Bible intelligible. During three decades of professional involvement with the Bible I have witnessed revolutionary developments in biblical studies, together with a phenomenal resurgence of interest in Scripture. Ecumenism has played a key role in this rebirth, especially for Roman Catholics, many of whom were biblically illiterate until they met Protestant and Jewish friends. John L. McKenzie’s trail-blazing book, The Two-Edged Sword (1956), also […]