Biblical Studies – Between Academy and Church

The Bible has become Christianity’s most acute problem. In some parts of the Christian Church the text of scripture rivals or even exceeds in importance the very reality of the God to whom the scripture points. This is a remarkable irony. The heirs to the movement that smashed countless icons, paintings, statues, and stained-glass windows on the grounds of one of the Ten Commandments… have installed an idol that exceeds them all. ¹

It is not the case that biblical criticism has destroyed the facts and left everything uncertain. It has indeed brought what was once thought to be facts into doubt; for example, the so-called ‘life of Jesus’; the historicity of Acts; the authorship of the various books; but it has brought into clearer light another set of facts: that believers believed in the Lord in this way, and proclaimed and worshipped him thus. ²

The gulf that exists between the results of the critical study of the Bible in the Academy and the interpretation of the Bible in the Church is obvious to anyone with some knowledge of these institutions. This gulf may be more damaging to the life of the Church than is often admitted. Long ago, whether or not his instinct was right, his conscience in this matter led in 1882 to Julius Wellhausen resigning his chair in theology at Greifswald in the belief that despite all caution on his part his teaching left his students unfit for service in the Church. ³ A year earlier in Scotland, at the end of May, 1881, William Robertson Smith, who had already survived a heresy trial (1877-1880), was dismissed from his chair at the Free Church College of Aberdeen following an Assembly debate on his then recently published Encyclopaedia Britannica article, “Hebrew Language and Literature.” ⁴ While the constraints under which these men worked would soon ease and the historical critical method would become widely accepted in British and German universities, their experience was perhaps indicative of the gulf that would continue to exist between Academy and Church with respect to the use that is made of the Bible in their respective spheres.

The fact of that gulf leads to some uneasiness and suspicion, not least in the Church where, despite broad recognition that candidates for ordination require at least a rudimentary introduction to the academic study of the Bible and some of its results, scripture is often used and expounded in such a way that the majority of its members are hardly at all exposed to the fruit of that study. Again, it is not unknown for some following ordination at a practical level to reject much of what they had learned at University or to regard it as completely irrelevant to their ministry. As a consequence, many Church members remain ignorant of the academic study of the Bible and how its results might become integrated with their faith. I suspect that this has damaging consequences and is not unrelated to the drift away from the Church of many members so far as they have inherited a form of the faith that sits uncomfortably with the modern mind-set. Worse still, their clergy have provided little opportunity for them to progress to a form of faith that better understands the nature of the Bible and how faith might relate to the Bible so understood. ⁵

Suspicion does not lie entirely on the side of the Church. In the Academy there are some who argue that confessional and non-confessional approaches to the biblical texts employ ‘reading strategies’ that are ‘so fundamentally different as to require and imply separate disciplines.’ ⁶ Yet this is no more valid an argument than that the Church should pay little heed to the conclusions of the academic study of the Bible. No doubt there are areas of study and related questions that more distinctively belong to the Academy or to the Church, but that does not imply that either side might neglect such questions completely. If the Church does handle the Bible differently, that handling should be a legitimate subject for academic discourse.

For the Church’s part, if academic study of the Bible has revealed information about its origins, development, history, meaning and much else besides, it must not ignore that. ⁷ It is no use arguing that the findings of the historical critical method are not fixed or that source critical theory of the Pentateuch is in disarray or any such thing. While some of that may be true, Pandora’s box was opened long ago and there can be no return to such matters as the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the use of proof-texts, or any other pre-critical assumption or strategy. Although the introduction of other methods has meant that historical criticism is no longer as dominant, that method has in many respects been supplemented rather than replaced. It is not possible to read the Bible today as if critical method had not happened or somehow had become irrelevant; it remains a useful and productive scholarly method. It is my strong contention that the Church must learn to listen closely to the Academy.

In 1973-74 I first encountered biblical criticism in undergraduate courses of Old and New Testament Introduction. Coming from a conservative tradition, it was a shock to learn just how many discrepancies and contradictions were in the Bible and of the existence of such reading strategies as text, source, form, and redaction criticism. Although initially the going was tough, in Robert Davidson and William Barclay I had teachers who were sensitive to the religious background of many of their students and seemed always to be able to end their lectures on a positive note. Of the two, Davidson was much the more effective teacher. He listened to questions, gave answers that were to the point, and maintained a great and infectious enthusiasm for his subject. Although passionate about his subject, Barclay’s teaching style was less effective. Since it was possible to graduate and be ordained without completing further courses in biblical studies, he sought to cover as much of the New Testament as possible in that first year and lectured at a relentless pace with much of his material lifted directly from his Daily Study Bible.

While the general Divinity Degree must include other areas of study and candidates for ordination should also be introduced at least to Systematic Theology, Ecclesiastical History and Pastoral Theology, it is difficult to believe that a single year of Old and New Testament Introduction could sufficiently enable the student as a reader of these ancient texts to sustain many years of preaching from the Bible. Although the structure of the Degree must permit specialisation, it should also provide for an appropriate balance among its core subjects and include a greater exposure to the critical study of the Bible than is possible in a single year or even two years, especially when those years are shared with other theological disciplines.

The past forty or so years have seen a rapid increase in the number and variety of scholarly approaches to the biblical texts. Forty years ago liberation, sociological and anthropological approaches had already made some impact, while literary criticism and structuralism were beginning to be used. If briefly it appeared that structuralist method was being found useful over a range of disciplines, not least in the study of myth, folk-tales, and anthropology, it did not make the impact that might have been expected on biblical studies. ⁸ Its arrival was at times greeted with suspicion and a sharply critical response, ⁹ although more broadly based literary studies tended to meet with a more favourable reception, with several newly established journals and their supplementary series providing a ready publishing outlet. These publications also hosted studies influenced by other new approaches including feminism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, reader-response criticism, social scientific approaches, post-colonialism and the new historicism, several of which have nestled under the umbrella of the postmodern.

When account is taken of the new approaches and developments that have arisen in biblical studies as well as the growth areas in the more traditional forms of historical critical research, the question whether the biblical studies component of the general theological degree is sufficient to sustain ministry over a number of years becomes more urgent. There is too much ground to cover in too little time with perhaps the result that too little of what has to be learned is retained and its usefulness for ministry is not fully appreciated. There may also be insufficient opportunity for the student to gain a proper understanding of how such study might integrate with the other theological disciplines. Since it may not be viable to extend the general theology degree over another year, it could be worth exploring a partnership between Church and University that permits a minimum of two or three weeks of further study in each of the first five years of ministry so that the value of the critical study of the Bible for the practice of ministry can be reinforced and its relationship to the other theological disciplines developed in the context of a growing experience of ministry. Financial constraints in Church and Academy may well conspire against such an approach to ministerial development, yet without something of the sort the relevance of the Bible may be lost to the detriment of the Church.

Courses in Old and New Testament Introduction appear still to be designed with the intention of providing students with at least a rudimentary grasp of historical method, although there may be more emphasis on the literary appreciation of the biblical texts than formerly. Yet many of the new approaches and methods that have featured in the scholarly literature have made little if any impact on the nature and content of such courses. While there may be exceptions, ¹⁰ and the drift away from the concentration on documentary theory that was once typical of such courses may have been greater in some places than in others, there should be a balance between the historical critical approach and the wide range of new and alternative approaches that have entered the field – sometimes only fleetingly. Discussion of the compositional history of the biblical texts, the history of ancient Israel/Palestine, and the development of Israelite religion has not sprung de novo to the written page of the text books and monographs recently published in these subject areas. An awareness of past scholarship, especially that which is in major respects foundational to the discipline, must surely assist the student to set more recent theory within a dynamic context, one that suggests that in what is being taught we have not arrived at final and definitive conclusions but are open to further developments. Moreover, in finding out something about the reasons why and in what respects critical biblical scholarship has moved on from its foundational theories and ‘results,’ the student will develop a fuller appreciation of the subject as well as the advances that have been made and will continue to be made in biblical studies. At the same time, students should be exposed to at least some of the newer methods that have entered the field, not least so that they can develop some kind of mental grid in which to situate different insights into the texts. That grid should at the very least permit the student to differentiate between those methods that use the biblical texts to provide evidence about the life and religion of the ancient Hebrews, emergent Judaism, the life of Jesus and the birth of the Church and those methods that invest deeply in the coherence of the canon and generate meaning out of the internal relationships of narrative and poetry, law, wisdom and worship, gospel, epistle and apocalypse, the genres that comprise the variety of its parts. ¹¹

In his internet article (n. 10 above), David Clines makes a useful distinction between the ‘truth and the value’ of theories, which he links with the assertion that in different periods scholars might value more highly completely different questions and cites ‘the ideology of the biblical texts,’ ‘their theological value,’ and ‘their literary character’ as examples. He also comments on the constraints laid on the scholarly community by the ‘explanatory power and… comprehensiveness’ of ‘the Wellhausenian theory’ and predicts that ‘in some parts of the world at least’ other interests will come to the forefront of scholarship while ‘interest in questions of origins’ will recede and the Documentary Hypothesis, although marginalised ‘will persist, as a minority interest.’ Yet although other interests have attained some prominence in biblical scholarship, questions relating to the origins and development of the biblical documents and of ancient Israel/Palestine remain more than a minority interest. Publications show that such questions still exercise the scholarly community with remarkable tenacity.

So, what is to be made of the number and variety of new approaches to biblical studies that have been adopted over the past forty or so years? ¹² Although well represented in scholarly publications, they appear to have made little impact on the content of courses in biblical introduction being taught to students preparing for ordination, except in one important respect. Feminist, postcolonial, womanist, and other such broadly liberationist strategies for reading texts have helped to emphasize the context out of which texts are interpreted and this is much to be welcomed. An appropriate awareness of context must help the interpreter to appreciate better not only the considerable differences that exist between the situation in which the texts are interpreted and that out of which they arose, but also that other interpreters in other places may come to the texts with very different backgrounds and expectations and so read them differently. Although a fuller introduction to the greater diversity of interests and approaches that has been characteristic of academic publications over recent decades would be ideal, the relatively little time that is available for teaching these subjects within the context of a general theology degree tends to inhibit such an approach.

That is surely regrettable. It helps to maintain the impression that the methods and results of academic biblical study are at best of marginal importance for theology and the life of the Church. Despite two centuries and more of the critical enterprise, Coogan has recently observed that

The intellectual revolution that can be summed up in the phrase “the historical-critical method” has had virtually no impact; most people today view the Bible not very differently from the way scholars and laity alike viewed it before the Enlightenment – naively and precritically. ¹³

Coogan attributes the Church’s resistance to historical criticism to its perception of the challenge to its authority that resides in the method; he also discerns a ‘selective approach’ in the Church’s use of biblical texts. However, he thinks that the fault may not be entirely on the side of the Church and draws attention to some of the ways in which ‘(m)any translations do not convey exactly what the original biblical languages… say’ with some inconsistencies suppressed and some content bowdlerized.

Whether or not this last observation is to the point is open to question. Where those who translate have a commitment to Church as well as Academy, it may be that an overriding commitment to the Church has led to the suppression of inconsistencies and bowdlerizing to which Coogan refers. Whatever the affiliation of the translators may be, both Church and Academy ought to require of them the same degree of integrity so that the biblical languages are adequately conveyed, inconsistencies are not suppressed and content is not bowdlerized. ¹⁴

Coogan is no doubt correct when he attributes the small impact historical critical method has made on the Church to its perception of the challenge to its authority that resides in the method. Yet if the integrity of the discipline is important and if truth matters, the rigour with which critical method is applied should be no less whether biblical studies are pursued within the context of a theology or religious studies or general arts degree or as a specialization in their own right and whether or not they are pursued from a ‘confessional’ or ‘non-confessional’ standpoint. The Church can only ignore at its peril the results of the academic study of the Bible. It may wrestle with them, particularly in light of its cherished beliefs and commitments, but where the results are verifiable or even probable intellectual integrity demands that they are taken seriously.

Recent decades have seen significant changes with respect to questions relating to Old and New Testament history, both in relation to the history of ancient Israel/Palestine and the historical Jesus. The mid 1970s saw the challenge to the historicity of the patriarchs that arose out of the devastating critique of the Albright school in the work of Thompson and Van Seters. ¹⁵ It also saw a significant move towards a later dating of the Yahwist in consequence of their work as well as the studies of Rendtorff and Schmid that appeared soon afterwards. ¹⁶ Since then in quick succession the historicity of the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest of Canaan and the united monarchy have come under stringent scrutiny in a process, the outcome of which has been characterized by Philip Davies:

For decades there have been arguments about biblical historicity: the historicity of the flood and the tower of Babel, then the patriarchs, then the conquest under Joshua, then the ‘amphictyony’ as reflected in the book of Judges. These battles were not without their heat either, and they still generate some warmth here and there. But the majority of professional historians of the period do not now regard the history of Israel as beginning before the creation of a society in Palestine in the Iron Age, and the process of interrogating the biblical story has come to focus on the United Monarchy. ¹⁷

Elsewhere, Davies has summarized his understanding of the current position of critical biblical scholarship with respect to several questions relating to the history of ancient Israel:

The history of Israel as recorded in the first six books of the Bible does not correspond to our present historical knowledge.

The twelve-tribe system, ethnic uniformity and religious distinctiveness ascribed to ‘Israel’ in much of the Bible did not characterize Israel and Judah in the Iron age.

All the biblical books in their present form and several of them in their origin, date from the 6th century and later.

The authors/editors of the ‘Deuteronomistic history’ and the Chronicler wrote histories that are dominated by obvious theological agendas and combine indiscriminately historical or realistic episodes with miraculous or legendary material. ¹⁸

Although it is not my concern here to discuss the historicity of particular characters and events as these are recorded in the biblical narratives, Davies’ summary is worth noting. Yet it tells only part of the story. Although his list may be broadly representative of the views of many University based scholars in Europe and the United States, it may not be equally representative of those who teach in Seminaries and faculties where funding is underwritten by churches. ¹⁹ The heated and at times acrimonious debate between so-called ‘minimalists’ and ‘maximalists,’ carried out in the pages of popular magazines such as Biblical Review and Biblical Archaeology Review and on the Internet as well as in academic publications, ²⁰ provides some indication of the distance that separates those positions. It also provides some reflection on how great the gulf between Academy and Church can be, but to focus entirely on that debate and the commentary upon it and to take sides is to miss the point that Church as much as Academy ought to be in the business of seeking truth and that the search for truth also includes assessing without prejudice the methods and results of the academic study of the Bible. For example, Davies has argued that the ‘minimalist’ approach is ‘fairly mainstream;’ that it does no more than accelerate and rationalize the course upon which the critical study of the Bible has been set for a long time. That claim ought to be scrutinized carefully like any other and not simply ruled out of court. Certainly it is difficult to gainsay his contention that many historians in writing about ancient Israel when they have assessed evidence that runs counter to the biblical narratives have been prepared to depart from the biblical version where the evidence is strong enough. In every case the comprehensiveness of the evidence presented as well as its interpretation should be carefully assessed together with any counter arguments against evidence selection and interpretation.

Among the most important factors that are open to scrutiny in the history debate are the weight given to archaeological evidence on the one hand and the later dating that is now with some regularity attributed to the biblical texts on the other. With respect to the second of these factors, one might note that the dating of biblical texts to the late Persian and even Hellenistic periods, ²¹ although possibly more extreme, is nonetheless part of a more general trend towards a later dating of the texts than formerly. With respect to the first, it must be remembered that archaeological evidence is also open to interpretation. Unsurprisingly, experts do not always agree over the interpretation of sites that have been excavated or the importance that can be placed on artefacts that have been discovered at these sites; even less do they agree about the interpretation of artefacts that lack specific provenance. While patterns emerge that assist interpretation, there remains the possibility that further finds might lead to new evidence and to different values being placed on existing evidence. Despite that potential for change, Ze’ev Herzog’s 1999 summary of the effect of archaeological research on what we know about the origins of ancient Israel may be noted:

Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs’ acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. ²²

It may be significant that Herzog’s summary of conclusions resulting from archaeological research should match so closely Philip Davies summary (note 17 above), which is based largely on an historical critical study of the texts. Although new archaeological discoveries may narrow or broaden the gap that has arisen between the archaeological and biblical accounts of the origin of ancient Israel and her religion, the gap that is indicated by Herzog and based on significant archaeological discovery and research cannot at present be denied. I will return below to comment briefly on the serious problem this raises for the interpretation of the Bible in the Church.

Turning from the Old Testament to the New, a brief survey of the directions taken in historical Jesus research over the past four decades would be sufficient to suggest that scholarship in this area has become more sceptical. Those scholars who have written what might loosely be described as ‘lives’ of Jesus and so have sought to identify the nature and setting of his ministry have arrived at very varied conclusions that have depended in large measure upon those aspects of the Jesus ‘remembered’ in the New Testament documents they understand to be valid, important and dominant.

Perhaps that variety is not so difficult to understand. The redaction of the Gospel tradition by the Evangelists and the distinction between sayings that appear to be original to Jesus and those that appear to derive from the traditions of the early church both contribute to it. In their presentation, no two Evangelists offer precisely the same account of the deeds and words of Jesus or the contexts in which particular words are spoken so that the distinctions that can be made among their presentations contribute to the variety of depictions of the historical Jesus that are a feature of New Testament scholarship. Moreover, in addition to the differing portraits of Jesus that emerge from the work of each Evangelist, there is the Jesus of their sources so far as sources can be determined, while yet another slant on Jesus may be found in the writings of Paul. There is a further complication whenever scholars discover, in the extant non-canonical Gospels, sayings or actions of Jesus that may have some claim to authenticity. With so many sources, all to an extent in competition with each other, and with questions of authenticity to sort out as well as questions relating to the history of tradition and redaction, there is considerable potential for multiple accounts of the Jesus of history.

Although its work may be open to criticism and refinement, if, for the sake of argument, the Jesus Seminar’s assessment of the authenticity of the sayings and deeds of Jesus that are reported in the canonical Gospels and Thomas might be considered to be within the bounds of possibility, what can be said with certainty about the historical Jesus will be very limited. ²³ However, once that is admitted, in some areas at least the outcome of its work is not so different from that of perhaps the majority of critical scholars who have examined individual sayings or groups of sayings and have found some to be authentic and others not. What is different about the work of the Seminar is that it covers the four canonical Gospels and Thomas in their entirety and is a collaborative effort that reports the majority opinion of a substantial group of scholars. That may be why it appears more threatening to some of its critics. When an individual scholar questions the authenticity of a few sayings or even an extensive group of sayings, the stakes are not so high, even in cases where the proposal gains significant agreement within the academic community.

While the conclusions of the Seminar with respect to authenticity are more sceptical than those generally found within New Testament scholarship, it cannot be denied that there is some basic family resemblance, although within the field some scholars would come closer to agreeing these conclusions while some would be considerably further away, with many others occupying intermediate positions. Out of such research, even when limited to an assured minimum, a portrait of Jesus might emerge that permitted one to say something about his vision of the kingdom of God or perhaps some other distinctive aspects of his message. There might even be within that vision something sufficiently inspiring to give meaning to one’s life and work. Yet I have a misgiving about such a construction of Jesus that I cannot evade; no matter how accurate that assured although minimum portrait of Jesus might be it can never be anything other just one more portrait of Jesus, perhaps more historically accurate in some respects, ²⁴ but nonetheless one more portrait to be added to all the others.

That is not to suggest that the search for the historical Jesus is not a legitimate pursuit. Its legitimacy is beyond dispute, but important questions remain with respect to its religious value. ²⁵ Much is made, particularly at a popular level, about Christianity being a historical religion, often as though that somehow distinguishes it from other religions. When that claim is made, it generally appears to imply that faith is dependent on the historicity of the events narrated in the Old and New Testaments. However, at least some of the grounds on which that claim is based are undermined by much recent critical scholarship on the historicity of the Old Testament story on the one hand and the authenticity of the words and deeds of the historical Jesus on the other.

The question that arises from this is not new, even if it now presents itself more acutely when the current direction and results of critical scholarship are acknowledged. In an essay that still bears close study, Christopher Evans addressed the issue with typical care and clarity at the time of the so-called ‘new quest of the historical Jesus,’ ²⁶ Towards the end of his discussion, Evans restates the question with considerable pungency: “If it is essential for Christianity as saving truth to be able to say that the Christ who is also was, is it sufficient to be able simply to say that he was, or must we be able to say of what that ‘wasness’ was made up?” He responds to the question in that form by arguing that although the epistles do not refer to Jesus’ ministry of word and work, as ‘God’s gospel’ they convey ‘a final and ultimate address to and communication with men and this is expressed by terms like Messiah and Lord’ and he locates the importance of the Jesus of history in the particular human circumstances that must have given rise to the proclamation of these terms (p. 62f).

While that may be a cogent argument in relation to a general account of the importance of the historical Jesus, it leaves the problem of just what words and deeds of the Jesus proclaimed in the Gospels would have to be shown to be historical before it could credibly be demonstrated that something concrete and historical had given rise to such confession of Jesus as Messiah and Lord. Although Evans suggests an answer to the problem that may have been satisfying in its time, subsequent critical research has extended the gulf between Jesus as he is represented in the Gospels and the Jesus of history to the extent that it may no longer be so easily bridged.

The quest of the historical Jesus remains a legitimate and interesting intellectual exercise. Even more, it is a necessary exercise that has an abiding importance for preaching so far as it has disclosed with much clarity the nature of the New Testament Gospels and has suggested that they should be apprehended not as historical documents but in their mythological or parabolic force. ²⁷ The Jesus who emerges out of historical critical research is not the Christ proclaimed either in the New Testament Gospels or in the preaching of past generations. Preaching and theology alike must learn to cope with the visible gulf between the biblical and the historical and must do so with great urgency, although how that might be done is not a task I can address here. For now I would urge that if one accepts the validity of the critical approach to the Bible, and since the Church of Scotland continues to send its candidates for ministry to faculties where that approach is taught it is appropriate to assume that it does, ²⁸ the question of the relationship of the biblical texts with the historicity of the events they purport to describe must not be ignored, for it will not go away.

In conclusion I will set out and comment briefly on three theses that arise in relation to a number of the observations made above:

the continued failure to address the gulf that has long existed between Academy and Church in relation to the interpretation of the Bible is destructive of the credibility of the Church

there is an urgent need for a sensitive theological articulation of the relationship between the biblical story and the critically reconstructed story so that the importance of both are fully recognized

the relatively short time that is available for teaching biblical subjects within the context of a general theology degree may not be sufficient to allow candidates for ordination to gain a proper appreciation of the importance and implications of critical method or to integrate its results with theology and the practice of ministry

The gulf between Academy and Church in relation to the interpretation of the Bible represents a great danger to the Church. In my opinion, the apparent reluctance of the Church as a whole to take due account of the methods and results of biblical criticism as well as many of the insights arising out of the application of newer methods has contributed to the drift away of many of its members. The proclamation of the Church must be credible, at least in the sense that matters that can easily be disproved or cast into doubt should not be proclaimed as if they were bullet proof. When we know, for example, that the majority of the Old Testament narrative that once might have been thought to relate past events as they happened were the product of much later times than they purport to describe we should not insist against all reason that persons acted and events happened just as described in the texts.

Persons and events of the past are not recoverable in that sort of way even if annalistic materials embedded in the texts may take us a little closer to a few particular events. As a whole, however, the narrative texts of Old and New Testament contain little that is annalistic in comparison to the great volume of material that is more story-like. Despite that, there is much that is recoverable from the texts of value to the Church. They provide something that might be called a ‘memory’ or an insight or a testimony of how people at a particular time and place believed in God, how they related to God, and how they believed that God related to them. In appropriating the texts in this way, out of at least some examples of how Second Temple Jews and early Christians believed they were being addressed by God, the Church might hear echoes of God’s address appropriate to its present time and place. Much depends not only on a proper recognition of genre, but also on the recognition of how some genres may have operated differently in biblical times. There is no point in investing the foundational texts of the faith with a historiographical quality that was beyond the ken of their authors.

That being the case, it becomes the necessary task of theologians to explore the relationship between the biblical and critically reconstructed stories of Israel, Jesus, and the Early Church. While some aspects of the critically reconstructed story will always be open to fine tuning and further reconstruction, in many important aspects it is fairly stable. Further, although a fairly coherent story emerges from the Bible, it is one that is not without its ambiguities and contradictions, some of which are significant, especially where parallel accounts in different documents conflict with each other. The fact that neither story is completely stable will tend to complicate the theological account of their relationship, although that relationship can sensibly be teased out, at least from the Church’s point of view, provided that when the biblical story is proclaimed the historical realities are not denied but fully recognized.

In order to attend appropriately to the relationship between the biblical and critically constructed stories, the Church must find a way to admit the premises and results of the academic study of the Bible into a broad range of its doctrines, not least of scripture, inspiration, authority and history. That is a task in the first instance for its theologians, but if the fruit of theological reflection is to reach its membership at large, it may be that some reassessment of the theological education required of candidates for ministry is required; not one that departs from historical method and its results but one that seeks to integrate more adequately that method and its results with theology and preaching. At a time when church members and the general public alike may have some awareness of issues relating to the historicity of the Bible, whether as a result of televised documentaries, reading, or exposure to the internet where alongside sites that offer sober scholarship they might find many others seeking to debunk the Bible and the Christian faith, it is important that such issues are addressed. Failure to do that may leave the Church at risk of becoming even more remote from many of the people it seeks to address.

Attention is required in two areas. First, with respect to the curriculum of the general divinity degree, it would be helpful for Church and University to agree a basis that allows, before specialisation and without diminishing academic standards, for a balanced approach that takes all core subjects a significant stage beyond introduction and also provides some understanding of how biblical and theological studies can be integrated and be of relevance to each other. Second, since the general divinity degree may not allow candidates for ordination to sufficiently appreciate the importance of critical method for ministry or to adequately integrate biblical with theological studies and since there are time constraints that may not permit more time to be devoted to them, the Church should give some priority to addressing these areas in its provision for ministerial development. If that cannot be done, the Church’s ministry towards many of its present members as well as its mission to the world may be compromised. For myself, I believe that Wellhausen’s instinct that his teaching left his students unfit for ministry was flawed; the truth is not something that should be hidden. After two centuries and more of biblical criticism it would be folly to continue as if the Bible were something it is not.

If the Church is persuaded that there are deficiencies in ministerial training with respect to how the Bible is understood and used in ministry and that these deficiencies contribute to the drift of members away from the Church as I have suggested, it may be necessary for it to make significant investment in ministerial development in these areas during the early years of ministry with later updates on a more occasional basis. At the same time, I do not want to suggest that the situation might be resolved by any simple strategy. Just as there are those in the Church who may be dissatisfied with any account of the Bible that fails to address the gulf between biblical and critically constructed stories, there are also those who refuse to believe that there can be anything in the Bible that is inaccurate in any way. One might believe that they do so against all reason, but they also have pastoral needs that require to be addressed with some sensitivity. So the question remains, within the broad constituency served by the Church how can a ministry serve one group without alienating the other?

A Liturgical Anthropology to heal Christian Thinkers

James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013. £14.99. pp. xx + 198. ISBN: 978-8010-3578-4).

James K.A. Smith is now one of the leading exponents of philosophical theology in the reformed tradition. His work is varied, but this book reflects a core research interest – Christian education and worship. This genre has become voluminous in recent years but Smith has been and remains incisive and progressive in this area. The present volume is in fact the second of a trilogy on this subject and has been much anticipated by many.

The two key terms in this book’s drive towards a liturgical anthropology are poetics and kinathestics. Smith rejects overly intellectualist anthropologies in order to acknowledge the way our world is shaped in stories: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ (p. 161); a fecund story, and we cannot help seeing it as narrative, but its power is not informational but emotional. This pertains for Smith to worship. We do not accrue information about God but ‘learn’ the story of us and God together. Poetics is Smith’s shorthand for this. Kinathestic is used as a loose technical term to describe the manner in which our storiedness must be embodied; framed in bodily interaction.

These key points are his vehicle for driving forward the thesis he established, and recapitulates here, in the first volume of this series on Cultural Liturgies: 2009’s Desiring the Kingdom. There he critiqued approaches that focus on Christian formation as a thinking enterprise concerned with content and message whilst forgetting that human beings are animals that do and love before they think, the result of which is that power of secular liturgies, like the shopping centre, coffee shop or rock concert, which function on this emotional register goes unnoticed and unencumbered.

Imaging the Kingdom is the philosophical anthropology working out of that thesis, a demonstration through dense but accessible phenomenology that humans are beings that are first moved before they are convinced. That what we love drives us: ‘How does a provincial farm boy become persuaded that he must travel as a solider to another part of the world to kill people he knows nothing about? He is not merely convinced. He does not enlist for an idea, though he certainly signs up for an ideal-but the ideal to which he is devoted (the nation, freedom, a god) is not something he knows; it is something he loves.’(p.16).

This is an enthralling book full of enticing discussion and with dense footnotes which almost are as much of a joy to read as the main text, sending the reader off on new and promising trails. It is a like an amazing library that the reader can comfortably explore for a long time, taking in characters as diverse as Merleau-Ponty, Bourdieu, Calvin, Augustine, Boulton and Keats and brimming with evocative illustrations which draw on a wealth of films and literature.

This is a must read book for anyone interested in Christian education, worship or liturgy and I for one look forward to volume three in the series.

A.D.R. HAYES King’s College, London