The shape of biblical theology today.

The current issue of BTB explores a range of approaches that give access routes to contemporary biblical theology. Their very range suggests that the field is not limited to one or another methodology and thus has no single set of conclusions. Perhaps this best represents the present state of scholarship both in religious denominations as well as within the academic field.

The range encompasses what may best be characterized as emic (how insiders understand their religion) and elic (how scholars view religions comprehensively). There is a difference, and the difference is fundamental. Emic studies (the term is derived from phonemics, the sounds within a language) have the purpose of presenting what insiders mean or think in presenting their religious traditions. Eric (the term is derived from phonetics, the sounds in buman speech) employ historical consciousness identifying enculturated assumptions at a higher level of abstraction.

Pope Benedict's recent book, Jesus of Nazareth, may well characterize an emic perspective. 'While scholarly, it is not comparative nor even cognizant of modern categories of contemporary critical methodologies. Geza Vermes well characterizes this kind of exposition:

   The Pope was engaged not in academic research but in a series
   of meditations on tile Gospels for his own and his readers'
   edification. The efficacy of these meditations cannot be judged
   by academic criteria.

This is not to say that Pope Benedict (AKA Joseph Ratzinger) is wrong or even unerudite. His work is simply emic, an insider's assertion of meaning that must be taken for its truth value within in-group discussion. What needs recognition is that this theological exposition does not employ the methodology of contemporary biblical scholarship, notably the scholarship espoused by the Catholic Pontifical Biblical Commission, which has made notable strides in employing critical methods in exploring biblical meanings in historical and cultural contexts since the papal decree Divino afflante spiritu in 1943 opened the doors to modern biblical scholarship.

Biblical theology today spans a variety of forms, including both the emic and the eric. BTB authors typically have espoused the latter, while honoring the former. The current issue explores meanings in the abstract characterization of cultural memory, an eric category whose studies are both comparative and based in modern social science.

What exactly was the source, "Q," which collected the sayings of Jesus, replicated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.) Santiago Guijarro, in "Cultural Memory and Group Identity in Q," explores this question in an eric category, recognizing that group memory is a field that cultural anthropologists examine comparatively and critical biblical scholars today utilize in examining the process inherent within biblical communities. This is a different kind of enterprise from the traditional emic exposition of "truth" and allows for a bridging of communal resources within a variety of religious traditions that emic categories fail to acknowledge because of their internal criteria.

Jerome Neyrey applies a category derived from literary criticism of comparative ancient texts in his enlightening study, "In Conclusion .... John 12 as a Rhetorical Perorario." Recognizing that biblical authors utilized the literary resources of their contemporaries, Neyrey has exposed a form that present-day readers may fail to recognize for lack of familiarity with the author's literary ambiance.

"The Limitations of the Bible" is a necessary challenge to a naive set of assumptions concerning the applicability of biblical "norms" today. Sean P. Kealy cites the critical yet studiously orthodox Catholic biblical Johannine scholar, Raymond Brown:

   A third example from Brown is his honest view of the four weaknesses
   of the Johannine tradition "shaped by polemic and because
   it claimed unchallengeable guidance from the Paraclete."
   "Noting these weaknesses," he remarks, "is particularly important
   for ecumenical discussions today between Protestants and
   Roman Catholics, for the sixteenth-century division was also
   bitterly polemic, involved excommunication and accusations of
   being antichrist, and sought to justify positions through appeals
   to the Spirit and to the common scriptures. If we learn some of
   the problems of the first-century divisions, we may learn some
   of the problems of the sixteenth and of the twentieth."

A present-day emic fundamentalist might regard this historical perspective as undermining faith and group loyalty. An eric scholar would find credibility in the honesty.

Revisiting the influential Swiss Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, Michael T. Dempsey studies "Biblical Hermeneu tics and Spiritual Interpretation: The Revelatory Presence of God in Karl Barth's Theology of Scripture." On a parallel track with Joseph Razinger's emic theology Barth critiques both modern fundamentalist and patristic exegesis alongside modern historical-critical and literary interpretation as secularizing. Dempsey instead sees Barth calling for a spiritual interpretation for contemporary hermeneutics.

Perhaps it is this opposition to perceived modern secularism that both Barth and Ratzinger share in common. Therein lies the challenge within contemporary biblical theology. Can an emic perspective be more authentic than an eric? Or, must theologians find ways to accommodate both?

David M. Bossman

Editor