Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
Objectives
By the end of this module you will be able to:
Introduction to Module 1
In my comments in this study guide I aim to help you use the two readings for this module to understand the role of the Old Testament in a theology of the church. However, before we turn to consider the first reading I think it will be helpful to consider the question: Is the Old Testament to be considered a source for a theology of the church?
From the specifically Roman Catholic perspective it is not difficult to respond briefly and affirmatively to this question. I will refer to the thinking of the Second Vatican II. In the document entitled "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" we read that the books of the Old Testament preserve a lasting value. The people of Israel experienced the ways of God with people. God chose a people for himself and prepared for the salvation of the whole human race (#14). In the document entitled "Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions" we read that the beginning of the faith of the Church of Christ is to be found in the patriarchs, Moses and the prophets (# 4). In the document devoted specifically to the church we read that "this Church was prepared in marvellous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and in the old alliance" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, # 2).
At the very least then we can say that according to the Christian theological tradition the Old Testament is where a study of the theology of church must begin. I suggest that a consideration of the Old Testament is entirely appropriate in a unit on the theology of Church. In his discussion of the church in the New Testament Raymond E. Brown makes the point that the ethics and theology of the teachers in the first decades of Christianity cannot be considered through using the New Testament alone as a source. He writes that "early Christian teaching would for the most part have been Jewish teaching (a fact often overlooked by those who search out New Testament theology or ethics: the points of unique importance mentioned in the New Testament are like the tip of an iceberg, the bulk of which is the unmentioned, presupposed teaching of Israel)." (Raymond E. Brown, C. Osiek and P. Perkins, "Early Church" in ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland E. Murphy, The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990, p.1341.) Similarly, I suggest, we cannot attempt in our second module to understand the church in the New Testament without some theological consideration of the history of God’s people in the Old Testament. In Jesus’ lifetime, as we shall see, there is no evidence that Jesus ever intended to depart from the Jewish tradition. Ideally the theologian is on pilgrimage between both the Old and the New Testaments, in the quest of the one God of both Testaments.
Introduction to Reading 1.1
"Sarah: Genesis 11-22" in David M. Gunn and Danna Nolan Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 90-100.
This reading focuses on the relationship between God and Abraham. Abraham was called by God to be the ancestor of the people of God. We learn that the vocation of Abraham’s people was also to be a blessing to all the other nations on earth.
The Letter to the Hebrews celebrates Abraham’s faith from the perspective of Christian faith.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old and Sarah herself was barren because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore." (Hebrews 11.8-12)
The image of Abraham that emerges in the study by Gunn and Fewell in the first reading is ambiguous as regards Abraham’s faith. The authors are interested in character study and character interaction. They are not writing from a specifically Christian or a specifically Jewish perspective. Commenting on the problematic aspects of Abraham’s conduct they even dare to suggest that there are grounds for understanding Abraham as a man of "unfaith." However, the interpretation which the authors propose, minimal though it is as regards Abraham’s faith, highlights the sovereign freedom of God as regards the implementation of his plan for a people. Abraham’s apparent self-interest does not thwart God’s design. Through Abraham and Sarah God creates a people who will be a blessing to all the peoples on earth.
Exercise 1.1
1.1.1 One of the expressions used to describe the church today is "people of God." We will meet this expression again in module 4. For the present respond to this question: "People of God" evokes a horizontal dimension (people) and a vertical dimension (God). From your reading of Genesis, where would you place the emphasis, on "God" or on "people"?
Introduction to Reading 1.2
In a specialised study of the church in the Old Testament we would be able to dwell at length on the texts describing the foundation of the people of faith (texts on the Exodus and the covenant), on texts evoking certain conflicts and crises in the people of faith (for example, in the prophetic criticism of the temple) and on texts expressing a yearning for a future of God’s making (texts of prophetic hope). However as we must deal with the Old Testament in this one module we will forego reading these texts of necessity. I have chosen a reading in the style of a comprehensive survey of the entire Old Testament. Christian theologian Walter Brueggemann attempts to gain insights for the church today from models of church in the Old Testament. He explores the dynamic interaction between a people’s faith and the society and political realities amid which the people lives.
Please read Reading 1.2: Walter Brueggemann, "Rethinking Church Models Through Scripture" in ed. Patrick D. Miller, A Social Reading of the Old Testament: Prophetic Approaches to Israel’s Communal Life (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) 263-275.
Brueggemann is seeking to identify and understand models of church that operated in the history of the Old Testament people of God. The notion of church models is an important one to grasp in the context of our unit. This topic will be taken up in module 5. For the present you will read in footnote no. 1 a reference to Avery Dulles, Models of the Church. To anticipate a later discussion let me attempt to clarify for you how Dulles (and Brueggemann) understands a church model. Dulles writes that a church model, for example, the model of the church as an institution, is a human analogy. By looking at church as human institution we can begin to understand the mystery of the church. A model calls attention to a certain aspect of the church. No model can capture the mystery of the church in its fulness.
Exercise 1.2
1.2.1 How does Brueggemann understand a model of the church and what importance does Brueggemann attach to the use of models in ecclesiology?
Brueggemann’s survey presupposes a good knowledge of the history of the people of Israel. He works with history from the time of Moses until the end of the Old Testament period. He reveals a tension existing between the society that Israel was called to be and the particular social forms and institutions at any one time.
Brueggemann first considers the "royal model" of Israel from 1000 B.C.E. to 587 B.C.E. In this model state and church converge. This is a model for the people of God that has served well the interests of an established, culturally legitimated church.
Brueggemann identifies four features in this model.
1. The temple and its priesthood provided legitimate and stable leadership.
2. The civic leadership (the kings) was committed to the same "theological discernment" as the temple and priesthood.
3. The intelligentsia, represented by the sages of the Book of Proverbs, tended to be in support of state ideology.
4. The prophets also arose during the time of the monarchy.
Brueggemann argues that the model of Israel as a monarchy, with its components of king, temple, sages and prophets corresponds with the pattern of "established Christianity in the West". Just as the present age of the church is one of upheaval, writes Brueggemann, so in ancient Israel the entire "royal mode of Israel" was swept away by the tumultuous events of destruction and exile in 587 B.C.E.
Exercise 1.2
1.2.2 Identify the institutional components of Israelite society under the monarchy. What was the role of prophecy under the kings?
The second model Brueggemann identifies is situated chronologically before the monarchy. This is the period from Moses to David (1250-1000 B. C. E.). In this period the celebration of the Exodus liturgy summoned Israel to disengage from the power structures of the day to be an alternative community. The people of faith believed that the community is shaped by a holy covenant. Israel was liberated by God from the domination of the Pharaohs for new life in the world. During this period Israel was without temple, priests, sages and prophets. The units in the
segmented community of Israel "were communities bound by a common commitment to Israel’s central story and its distinctive social passion" (p.268).
Influential figures were Moses, Joshua and Samuel. In royal and the first temple
period tension existed between temple authority and the vision of Israel voiced by such pre-temple leaders.
Exercise 1.2
1.2.3 How, according to Brueggemann, may pre-monarchical Israel be described in sociological terms? Why does Brueggemann use the expression "new church start" for this model?
Brueggemann finds the third model of church in the post-exilic period, also named the second temple period. The postexilic model is named "the textual community."
In this period Israel (now the tiny state of Judah) was subject to the Persians and then to the Greek successors of Alexander the Great (the Hellenistic period). Towards the end of the Hellenistic period it became difficult to maintain Jewish identity. Brueggemann refers to "the disappearance of the community of faith into a universalizing culture" (p.270). Judah developed strategies for survival. The creation of genealogies aimed "to connect the threatened present generation with the horizon of reference points from the past" (p.271). For the communities of the margins, apocalyptic literature was an expression of hope in the future given by God. The texts that were eventually to be canonical scripture gained in authority in the second Temple period.
Finally Brueggemann argues that the late community (third model) went back to the early community (second model) to find sources that could sustain it. The late community produced texts like Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Genesis 17, Exodus 16 and Exodus 26 to serve needs of self-identification in the second Temple period which was virtually still a period of exile .
In conclusion Brueggemann draws parallels between the models identified in the history of Israel and the contemporary Church. He suggests that the strategies which Israel developed to cope with the loss of temple and kings merit consideration by a church whose dominant models were shaped by a now collapsing modernity.
Exercise 1.2
1.2.4 "The late community must recast what the early community had done for the sake of its own crisis" (p.274). Discuss the use made by post- exilic Judaism of the memories of pre-monarchical Israel.
Concluding reflection: Has your visit to the Old Testament helped you interpret your experience of church?
Introduction Return To Contents Page Module 2
