tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19733180.post337392989902054623..comments2024-03-24T07:56:33.811-05:00Comments on Allan R. Bevere: Letting God Off the Hook: Adam Hamilton on Violence in the Old Testament (Part 2)Allan R. Beverehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07903011101108437513noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19733180.post-2388384445038121402014-08-28T22:56:07.104-05:002014-08-28T22:56:07.104-05:00Thanks for sharing this post. It is very helpful a...Thanks for sharing this post. It is very helpful and informative as I struggle to understand God, both God's action and God's nature. And as someone who tries fervently not to create God in my own image, I find this analysis useful and comfortable. I can live with the ambiguity and be open to the discovery and not feel that I have to choose between turning swords into plowshares, or taking up arms. This leaves me very hopeful.Sandra VandenBrinkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18338393846175507627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19733180.post-35043114280346573492014-08-28T15:56:23.144-05:002014-08-28T15:56:23.144-05:00I believe this approach also means that our storie...<i>I believe this approach also means that our storied life in God, from Genesis to Revelation, informs and shapes our understanding of texts like the OT accounts of violence. It reminds us of where we have been and where we are headed.</i><br /><br />Kevin, an excellent comment. Check out Dan's last post tomorrow morning on this.Allan R. Beverehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07903011101108437513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19733180.post-27954201974189433942014-08-28T12:56:35.419-05:002014-08-28T12:56:35.419-05:00Kevin, your comment on our storied life is well-sa...Kevin, your comment on our storied life is well-said. The dialectical way we approach this topic has its roots in the Deists' challenges of the 18th Century. The Church has been in reaction mode ever since. Wright gets this. I resonate with his work to reclaim an authentic biblical/theological way of thinking. Eric, I agree with you about Lamb's impulse to defend God. He reflects how pervasive the Dialectic is for the way we talk about the God of the Bible. Did you notice that each of his chapters states a dichotomy?Dan Hawknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19733180.post-60917734126984778812014-08-28T11:14:20.971-05:002014-08-28T11:14:20.971-05:00I really appreciate these posts in response to Ada...I really appreciate these posts in response to Adam Hamilton's work. I have been studying some of these same issues in David Lamb's book "God Behaving Badly: Is God Angry, Sexist, and Racist."<br /><br />In some ways he also falls into the trap of defending God (hard not to I suppose) but we must engage these scriptures and not dismiss them or ignore them or we lose something of the nature of God, and or our ability to authentically engage with people who question the source of our faith story.Eric Helmshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03192391202653980730noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19733180.post-52248732540660039962014-08-28T10:05:23.794-05:002014-08-28T10:05:23.794-05:00One more note. Allan, I agree that a Christologica...One more note. Allan, I agree that a Christological reading of scripture reminds us that God is intimately involved in human history in all of its messiness and violence. I believe this approach also means that our storied life in God, from Genesis to Revelation, informs and shapes our understanding of texts like the OT accounts of violence. It reminds us of where we have been and where we are headed. Ultimately that salvation story calls for our obedience to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and cannot be fully understood apart from his life, teachings, death, and resurrection (ie. "you have heard it said ... but I say to you") <br /><br />Again, I find NT Wright helpful:<br /><br />"In reading publicly the story of God the church is praising God for his mighty acts, and is celebrating them, and is celebrating the fact that she is part of that continuous story. That story as we use it in worship reforms our God-view, our world-view—reconstitutes us as the church. The story has to be told as the new covenant story.<br /><br />"This is where my five-act model comes to our help again. The earlier parts of the story are to be told precisely as the earlier parts of the story. We do not read Genesis 1 and 2 as though the world were still like that; we do not read Genesis 3 as though ignorant of Genesis 12, of Exodus, or indeed of the gospels. <br /><br />"Nor do we read the gospels us though we were ignorant of the fact that they are written precisely in order to make the transition from Act 4 (Jesus’ ministry) to Act 5 (the Church), the Act in which we are now living and in which we are to make our own unique, unscripted and yet obedient, improvisation. This is how we are to be the church, for the world. As we do so, we are calling into question the world’s models of authority, as well as the content and direction of that authority."Kevin Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08743238941493309148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19733180.post-8659342588730893852014-08-28T09:45:51.945-05:002014-08-28T09:45:51.945-05:00Thanks for this second post and ongoing discussion...Thanks for this second post and ongoing discussion. What I glean (in part) from this post is an important reminder to not oversimplify or too quickly attempt to resolve challenges and difficulties in the biblical witness. N.T. Wright has written something similar:<br /><br />"If we really engage with the Bible in this serious way we will find, I believe, that we will be set free from what verges on small-scale evangelical paranoia about scripture. We won’t be forced into awkward corners about whether scripture is exactly this or exactly that. Of course the Bible is inspired, and if you’re using it like this there won’t be any question in your mind that the Bible is inspired. But, you will be set free to explore ways of articulating beliefs which do not fall into the old rationalist traps of 18th or 19th or 20th centuries.<br /><br />Further, you will discover that the Bible will not let you down. You will be paying attention to it rather than sitting in judgment over it—not coming to it with preconceived notions of what this or that passage has to mean if it is to be true. You will discover that God is speaking new truth through it. I take it as a method in my biblical studies that if I turn a corner and find myself saying, ‘Well, in that case, that verse is wrong’ that I must have turned a wrong corner somewhere. But that does not mean that I impose what I think is right onto that bit of the Bible, either. It means, instead, that I am forced to live with that text uncomfortably, sometimes literally for years, until suddenly I come round a different corner and discover that the verse makes a lot of sense; sense that I wouldn’t have got if I had insisted on imposing my initial view on it from day one."Kevin Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08743238941493309148noreply@blogger.com