The Bible in the Modern World

205 Pages·1973·6.393 MB·English

by  Barr, James

T he B ib le in the
M odern World
,6
iv apxfj *jv o Aoyos
6
rjv 7 Tpostop QeoVy ©€og rjv
,
Aoyos- In the beginning was the and
,
the Word was with doGand the Word was God.
The Logos existed in the very beginning,
the Logos was with God, the Logos was
divine. Before the world was created, the
Word already existed; he was with God,
and he was the same as God. At the be
ginning God expressed himself. That
personal expression, that word, was
with God, and was God, and he existed
with God from the beginning.
THE BIBLE IN THE MODERN WORLD
Also by James Barr
Explorations in Theology
Fundamentalism
James Barr
T H E B IB L E
IN T H E M O D ER N
W O R LD
SCM PRESS LTD
© James Barr 1973
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publisher, SCM Press Ltd.
334 00113 7
First published 1973
by SCM Press Ltd
56 Bloomsbury Street London wcib 3QX
Third impression 1980
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd
Bungay, Suffolk
For Ellen Flesseman-van Leer
CONTENTS
Preface ix
I How we Reached our Present Situation 1
i. The post-war consensus 1
2. Recent questionings 5
II Some Leading Concepts 13
i. Inspiration 13
2. The Word of God 18
3. Authority 23
4. Function 3°
III Cultural Relativism and the New Radicalism 35
IV The Bible as Literature 53
V Event and Interpretation - the Bible as Information 75
VI The Bible in Theology 89
VII A Basis for Construction 112
VIII Theology and Interpretation 133
IX Limitation and Selection 150
1. Formation and limitation of the biblical books 150
2. Selection and ordering within the biblical material 156
X Word and Meaning, Letter and Spirit 168
Abbreviations 183
Bibliography 185
Index 189
PREFACE
This book contains a series of Croall Lectures given in Edinburgh in
November 1970. According to the rules laid down in the Settle­
ment of the late John Croall, under which the lectures are con­
ducted, ‘The Lectures . . . shall be confined to the following
subjects: - (First) The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Reli­
gion . . .’ There then follow under the second and subsequent
heads certain other subjects which might conceivably be attempted;
but for our present purpose these can be ignored, and in undertak­
ing to discuss the status of the Bible we are given confidence by the
fact that that theme lies squarely within the first of the areas defined
by Mr Croall. Whatever may be the position of natural religion,
nothing is more certain than that the Bible has traditionally been
taken as central or even unique among the evidences of revealed
religion. We are therefore assured of the centrality of the subject
within the traditional matter of theological study.
But while the subject itself is thus a somewhat traditional one, I
trust that the argument of this book will not be equally traditional.
The particular form of the title has been chosen because I want to
discuss not the historical or the traditional views of the Bible and
its place within Christianity but the problems which surround its
status at the present day. Certain aspects which are historically
important, such as the use of the Bible by the Reformers, have not
been touched on at all, nor would my competence permit me to
touch upon them.
Doubts about the competence of the author, indeed, may very
justifiably be raised by this book. Professionally, I am a linguist
and biblical scholar, and only a spare-time theologian. Professional
theologians will observe in my argument gaps and amateurisms of
all kinds. Of the total literature of the subject I have (thank God)
read only a small proportion; though I did at one stage of my
researches carry out an extensive study of conservative evangelical
works, on which I then thought of concentrating. Most of all, in
spite of my wish not to write a history, some historical remarks had
X Preface
to be included; and many of them include these vague terms, like
‘in the early church* or ‘up to modern times*, if not even at worst
‘long ago’ or ‘in the past*, which must be the abomination of the
true historian. Most of all I realize my poor knowledge in patristics
and early church history, a field so vital for the formation and
canonization of the Bible; of this I can only say that I aspire to
learn more.
If I ask myself why I have taken up the subject at all, one reason
is that a book needs to be written. Though the subject is a central
one, the existing books on it in English arise from a rather different
situation and some valuable ones are out of print. My aim has not
been to give definitive answers but to provide a survey and dis­
cussion of the question which will be adequate until something
better is written. From time to time I am beset with fears that the
position I set out has something wrong with it which I do not
perceive. I have not however allowed such fears to trouble me too
much. As I see it, in such matters it is not our vocation to be right,
but to say what we think as hard and clear as we can. Others can
then make the replies and the corrections that are needed. While
mentioning other books, I should add that J. Wirsching’s Was ist
schriftgemafi? (1971) had not appeared when the lectures were given
and was available to me only in the last stages of revision for publi­
cation.
The other reason why I have taken up the subject lies in my own
experience and in the encouragement given me by friends. Prob­
lems of the status of the Bible have been with me since I first
became interested in theology; and no one can teach Old Testa­
ment to theological students over a good number of years without
being forced to reflect on the subject. My work on it in recent years
has been within the context of the ecumenical studies on her­
meneutics and later on biblical authority, both in the British group
and in international meetings; these studies have been a stimulus to
continued thinking, in a field where I do no regular teaching.
I had however given lectures and taken part in discussions on the
subject over several years before the giving of the Croall Lectures
in Edinburgh. Elements from the Smyth Lectures, given in Colum­
bia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, in October 1964,
have been re-thought and have contributed to the position here
maintained. I remember with special gratitude the discussions with
colleagues and students in New Zealand and Australia in 1968.
Preface XI
Special mention is due also to two American colloquia which
honoured me with an invitation to take part: the Pittsburgh Festival
on the Gospels in 1970 and the colloquium at Union Theological
Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, in 1971, in which the group of
articles published in Interpretation xxv was taken as a basis for
discussion.
Going further back, I acknowledge the stimulus of two other
American colloquia which particularly studied Catholic-Protestant
relations: that at Harvard in 1963 (reported on in the volume
Ecumenical Dialogue at Harvard: the Roman Catholic-Protestant
Colloquium, Harvard, 1964) and that at Notre Dame in 1964.
Despite all that I owe to these discussions, I have not in this book
tried to develop in any detail the discussion between Roman Catho­
lic and non-Roman Catholic views about scripture, and this I
regret ; but I have not been able to keep up with the literature of the
subject, and my knowledge of recent developments in Roman
Catholic theology is too weak. I rejoice, however, that it was possible
to approach the subject at all in an atmosphere in which the Roman
Catholic/Protestant opposition, so long central to all.discussion,
can at least in part be left on one side. That it is possible to proceed
at all without being burdened with this opposition is a happy
augury.
Protestant conservatism and fundamentalism has been men­
tioned rather more. This is not out of a wish to engage in debate
with that point of view or to provide a full analysis of it, though this
might well be desirable; it is rather because the heritage of this
older biblicism is, at least in our Anglo-Saxon culture, so strong
that it influences almost all talk about the Bible, not least among
those who most seek to depart from its point of view.
The position within Judaism, though seldom explicitly men­
tioned, is also often in my mind; and many problems met by Chris­
tians in their use of the Bible are problems for Jewish readers also.
The sharing of the Hebrew Bible by Jews and Christians alike is
something which is continually in my thoughts. If this book speaks
mainly of ‘Christian’ faith and of ‘Christian’ questions about the
Bible, this is not because I wish to ignore the questions in the form
in which they are met by Jews, but because I do not think it my
business to tell Jewish readers how they should read or what they
should think.
As for the plan of the book, the first six chapters are more or less