Tuesday, January 06, 2009

A long train of witnesses

“Believing that we are addressed by God in Scripture means that we perceive ourselves to be part of the same people of God addressed by the prophets and the apostles many years ago. In other words, we acknowledge the similarities as well as the differences between their ancient situations and our own. (In fact, some contemporary theological interpreters of Scripture have suggested that modern interpretation of the Bible has overemphasized the differences.) The notion of “two horizons” is built on the theory of interpretation that holds that we cannot truly read, interpret, or understand a text until we engage it, until we somehow fuse its “horizon” with our own.”—The Elements of Biblical Exegesis, page 160

<idle musing>
God is still speaking, we just need to listen—and I mean listen in the sense of the Hebrew שמע (Shema`), which has the implication of obedience, not just passive hearing.
</idle musing>

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