JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA

THE USE OF SCRIPTURE IN THEOLOGY

TOWARDS A CONTEXTUAL HERMENEIHIC1
CHARLES VILLA-VICENCIO Man is unable to know God apart from His self-revelation in the per son of Christ and through Christ in creation.2 Knowledge of this God brings those who partake of it under a claim which is God's gift to man that is both total and un limited.3 More conscious than most
1 Karl Berth's interpretation of Scripture in his flomerbrie/ (Epistle to the flomansj continues to be an incentive to many theologians to use Scripture in a creative manner Barth once noted of this commentary that it is better under stood by non-theologians than by theologians This together with other similarities to presentday contextual theology partly explams the heavy Barthian nature of the introductory com ments in this article

2 The Barthian status of this presupposition is substantiated m the following representative quotations "Theology must begin with Jesus Christ, and not with general principles, however better, or, at any rate, more relevant and illuminating, they may appear to be as though He were a continu ation of the knowledge and Word of God and not its root and origin, not indeed the very Word of God itself Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh & Clark) II, 2, 5 (Hereafter quoted as CD) " H e unveils Himself as the One He is by veiling Himself m a form which He himself is not ' CD II, 1, 52 3 Barth noted that it was on this claim that the "Third Reich" of Adolf Hitler was shipwrecked "Let this sentence be uttered in such a way that it is heard and grasped, and at once 450 pro phets of Ball a r e always in fear of their lives " CD II, 1, 444

that all theology is tentative and a mere approximation o the truth, Barth stresses that it is impossible for man to be silent about God.4 Theology may thus be described as fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking after understanding), and never irrational mysticism, it is an attempt by each generation to reflect and repeat that which is initiated and controlled by God's selfrevelation. It is theologla viatorum (a pilgrim theology). The primary source of this revelation in Jesus Christ is the Scriptural record recognised by the Christian tradition to always be higher than the church and a corrective to all philosophy, theology, ethics or speculation.5 From this mainstream protestant formulation on the nature of theology several contexlual consequences can be drawn. Theology arises out of a community's experience and practice of faith. As such faith is always related to a given situation and theology gives expression to this experience of faith within a particular culture and life experience. Note can well be taken of the position of the
4 5 CD, II, 1, 201 CD I, 2, 583 ff

Charles Villa-Vicencio is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Theology at the University of South Africa

SCRIPTURE IN THEOLOGY

Roman Catholic Church in this regard as it comes to expression in the encyclicals of Benedict XV, Maximum iJJud and that of Pius XI; ferum EccJesiae. It is here stated that the church desires that "the indigenous soul be penetrated, and the presentation of dogma and moral teaching be adapted to the understanding of the indigenous soul".6 Theology can thus he defined as an articulation of the experience of God within a given situation understood in relation to the tradition of the Christian faith in general and specifically as recorded in Scripture. Yet clearly not all theology is as explicitly concerned to affirm the contextual nature of its thought as might be assumed from the above paragraphs. This point will be further developed in the course of this paper as attention is given to the use of Scripture in theology. 1. SOLA SCRDPTURA AS A . HERMENEUTICAL PROBLEM To appeal to the authority of Scripture as the basis of theology is an ambiguous and confusing exercise. This is made explicit by David H. Kelsey in his article, "Appeals to Scripture in Theology" in which it is shown by making use of Stephen Toulmin's analysis of the structure of arguments that Scripture can be used either as data, warrant or hacking in a theological argument.7 When one multiplies these three basic logical options with the numerous traditional
6 Jabulani A Nxumalo, "Christ and Ancestors in the African World a pastoral consideration ', Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (Vol 32 September, 1980, 4 (Hereafter quoted as JTSA) 7 David Kelsey 'Appeals to Scripture in Theology" Journal of Religion Vol 48, 1, 1968

uses of Scripture in theology which range from liturgical to critical exegetical models one realizes that the authority of Scripture can have several different meanings for the ology. To this other factors need to be added: Different types of logical arguments can be used to justify the hacking or warrants of arguments. The use of Scripture as data is influenced by the results of different methods of Biblical and literary criticism, and "authority" can be defined in numerous differ ent ways. Ultimately one realizes that the reformed principle of sola Scriptum is not a simple and defini tive court of appeal for theologians in a moment of confusion and un certainty, but rather a complex hermeneutical principle. This is not to suggest, however, that theologians need not regard Scripture as a primary and correc tive source of their work as tempting as this may seem to some proponents of the discipline. Nume rous are the problems involved in ascertaining a viable hermeneuti cal bridge between theology and Scripture, but one cannot avoid venturing across a bridge of some kind without denying a basic Chris tian presupposition that Scripture is the primary record of God's selfrevelation to man and of the unique origin of the church. Barth is deci sive at this point. "If it (the church) would see Jesus Christ, it is di rected and bound to Holy Scrip ture." 8 But here we find ourselves back with the hermeneutical di lemma already discussed in rela tion to David Kelsey's article. In what sense is Scripture authorita tive for Christian theology? This question entails numerous further
8 CD 1, 2, 583

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questions to which we need to give some attention.

1.1 IN WHAT SENSE IS SCRIP TURE INSPIRED?

Fundamentalistic doctrines of in spiration which endow the words of Scripture with total inerrancy is a consequence of Greek (Aristote lian) logic (of cause and effect) rather than Biblical teaching (the concept "Biblical" is used here conscious that the Bible consists of a melody and at times a cacophony of different teachings). Mainstream protestant theology has tradi tionally made a clear distinction between the words of Scripture
and the Word of God.
9

The Word of God is thus not derived from some remote point in the past, the record of which is retained to a greater or lesser degree of accuracy in the Scrip tural record. It is an ever present, existential address to us, heard and encountered in the Scripture. The somewhat tattered definition of Scripture being inspired because it inspires us is, apart from the maladies of subjectivism, therefore not a vastly inaccurate definition.
1.2 WHAT IS MEANT BY THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE?

In

contemporary theology this point is perhaps most clearly articulated in T.F. Torrance's distinction between JaJia (the actual words of Scripture) and logos (the Word of God).10 It is to the lalia that we must direct our historical-critical questions for elucidation. Yet in so doing we must seek for the Jogos "to reach through the JaJia", which is "in and through", "beyond", "above and behind" the JaJia. Inspiration is thus orientated against the Greek theopneustos connotation of direct ness (the Scripture is inspired because the Holy Spirit has filled each letter and word rendering them inerrant and infallable). It tends rather towards the Latin inspirata connotation of in directness (the Scripture is in spired because in reading it we are encountered by the Word of God).
9 Ds Pieter Schoeman, Word and Spirit relevance of Scripture for a doctrine of the Holy Spirit WS Vorster(ed)(Pretoria Umsa, 1980) The Spirit m Biblica] perspective 10 F Torrance TheoJogical Science (London Oxford Univ Press 1969), 151

The question now emerges precisely what is it within the words of Scripture (the JaJia) that is the authoritative Word of God (Jogos)? It seems to me that the ultimate problem with so many doctrines of inspiration is precisely this reluctance to define that concept which is the Word of God within Scripture. This reluctance is to be understood. To fail to define this concept leaves one in abstractness and ambiguity concerning criteria for the authority of Scripture against which to test a theological formulation or ethical principle. Yet the articulation of such a definition could result in the identification of a smaller canon within the canon of Scripture as a whole. This could imply that what remains outside of this definition is not God's Word. Every attempt must therefore be made to define the authority of God's Word within the total canon of Scripture. Yet this commitment to totality must not be allowed to leave one in obscurity concerning the nature of the authority of the Bible. We need to enquire precisely what it is that is the authority or Gospel which

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needs to be proclaimed? It is here that Eberhard Jngel's contribution to the W.G.C, study on the authority of the Bible is of significance to us.11 For Jngel, the authority of the Bible is that which makes the Word of God audible and which leads people to faith and freedom in God. It concerns the claim of the divine upon an individual or community as ultimate authority, which inevitably involves a basic conflict with other competing authorities. This conflict is, according to Jngel, both necessary and justified to the extent that it can be shown that the authority of the Word of God in its functional aspect is essential for human freedom. To speak of the authority of the Bible is therefore to suggest that within the Biblical record of acts, events, speeches, thoughts and conversations, whether historical or mythical, there is a continuity that witnesses to faith and freedom which transcends all other faiths and freedoms. In a word, the authority of Scripture, can thus be discerned in the freedom-giving nature of the Scripture.
1.3 HOW IS GOD'S WORD TO BE HEARD?

Torrance's language, is the logos related to the JaJia? To what extent is God's Word necessarily bound to the words of Scripture? This question is best posed within the contexts of three different ways of doing theology: fleveJation theolosv as represented in Barth and Torrance. The HermeneuticaJ theology of Ebeling, Moltmann Pannenberg and others. Liberation theology as it has emerged primarily in contextual Latin American thought, although clearly this type of theology is flourishing well beyond the confines of that sub continent. There is of course basic agreement between these methods of doing theology: (i) The centre of theology is Jesus Christ made known in the Scriptures, (ii) This centre of theology is a contemporary reality rather than merely a reference to a point in past history. The basic difference between these methods of doing theology concerns, however, the way in which this centre is made known as the Scriptures are read within a particular situation. fleveJation theology, to again resort to Torrance's analysis, sees this happening via a threefold movement of diaJogue, soteriology
and objective revelation.12 For

Having defined the Word of God as the freedom-giving nature of the Scripture, a further legitimate question now emerges: How is this Word to be heard? Clearly there is no specific methodology required to enable one to hear God's Word, but it is theology's task to identify and articulate the manner in which God's Word usually comes to man. In what way, to resort to
11 James Barr "The authority of the Bible A study outline ', Ecumenica] fleview 21, 2, April 1969 Eberhard Jungel's paper on authonty is part of an appendix attached to this article

Torrance, theology as science has God as its object. Yet this object is in fact a self-giving or speaking subject which engages the theologian in dialogue and selfanalysis. It is this encounter and claim that becomes soteriological and gives to man the free gift of salvation. The subjective moment
12 See the discussion on Torrance as an example of revelational theology m H M Vrooin, De Schrift Alleen7 (Kampen Uitgeversmaatschappi) J H Kok, 1978), pp 5 Vroom also discusses the basic differences between revelational and hermeneutical theology in a most useful way

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of theology thus becomes central to revelational thought. Man as the enquiring subject becomes the object of God's love, is drawn into dialogue and involved in a new selfunderstanding as he receives the gift of salvation. The Word of God is, however, more than merely the counterpart to an exercise of selfanalyis. This Word is the person of Jesus Christ. As such the Word is the objective moment in theology and a corrective to all theology and self-understanding. As such the word of God is encountered within the context of the Scripture per se in dialogue, in the moment of salvation, and in encounter with the objective Word. Hermeneutic theology is no less concerned with the nature and meaning of the Scripture within itself, but is more concerned to define the criteria of the Word in contemporary society. That is, the concern is to interpret the meaning of the Word into concrete and secular symbols of present reality. Paul van Buren, for all the limitations of this theology, is a prime example of this approach. He utilizes Wittgenstein's analytical philosophy to determine in secular language what the Word means for contemporary man. Ebeling in turn uses Heidegger to define his Word as an existential life-giving event. Moltmann uses Ernst Bloch to show the Word to be a political action in the present and Pannenberg seeks to identify this Word as it emerges as a consequence of man's cultural response to the Jewish-Christian tradition. In a word, hermeneutical theology is more explicitly concerned than is revelational theology to account for the influence of nonbiblical factors on the Word of

God. Hermeneutical theology is therefore more inclined to identify the contemporary nuances and hues of colour which the acculturalized forms of the Word of God have acquired. While revelational theology regards these influences to be a blemish on the pure Word of God which remains beyond and above all historical manifestations of it, hermeneutical theology is more inclined to rejoice in these acculturalised influences on the Word of God as being the present ligitimate, contextual, form of the Word. It is therefore essentially hermeneutic theology and critical exegesis in the field of biblical scholarship rather than traditional theology generally that finds a measure of common ground with liberation types of theology. As critical exegesis relativizes the absolutes of traditional exegesis so does hermeneutic theology identify the acculturalised manifestations of the Word of God, while liberation theology in turn rejects the formal "givenness" of certain theological and ideological absolutes. The critical exegete of course, indicates that the proposals of liberation theology need to be relativised as much as those of traditional theology. And the liberation theologian responds by indicating that while it is nave to suggest that interpretations of Scripture and theological formulations can even be immune from ideological tendencies, the socio-political crisis of our times demands that theologians quite explicitly commit themselves to share in the ideological struggle for a just and free society. The programme of iiberation theology is articulated no where

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more articulately than in Juan Luis Segundo's discussion on the hermeneutical circle.13 His point of contact with the hermeneutic theology becomes clear when he says the liberation theologian is "compelled at every step to combine the disciplines that open up the past with the disciplines that help to explain the present." He continues, "each new reality obliges us to interpret the Word of God afresh, to change reality accordingly, and then to go back and reinterpret the Word of God again, and so on." In this latter sentence the distinctive nature of liberation theology becomes clear. Its priority task is not to interpret society or merely to engage in ideological criticism but to change society, which involves an ideological commitment. This becomes clear in Segundo's articulation of the four decisive factors in his hermeneutical circle: 1. The oppressed persons' experience of reality causes them to be suspicious and critical of the status quo interpretation or ideology of reality. This ideological suspicion is applied to the accepted superstructure of life in general and to theology in particular. This leads to a new way of experiencing theological reality, which in turn leads to exegetical suspicion that the prevailing interpretation of the Bible is unduly influenced by a limited experience of reality and as such it does not take other dimensions of reality into account.

4.

2.

3.

13 J L Segundo Liberation of Theology (Maryknoll Orbis, 1976) pp 7f

This in turn places the onus on the liberation theologian to interpret Scripture and to do theology in terms of these other dimensions of reality. It is this positive alternative theology that is the distinctive mark of liberation theology. This is not to suggest that there is to be a symbiosis or identification of faith with a prevailing ideology of change. It does, however, mean that the theologian is to commit himself to the struggle for political change and in so doing to seek continually to understand what the gospel means in that particular struggle, without prejudging the answer to that question. Segundo contends that faith and ideology cannot be separated in one's experience of reality, but it is important that some form of theoretical distinction be recognised between them. This distinction can best be identified by describing faith as one's basic response to an experience of God's self revelation but this basic response is always in terms of an ideological programme. Segundo uses the concepts of protolearning and deutero-Jearning from communication theory to explain his position. The former refers to simple or initial learning, while the latter refers to second or applied learning or the process ofJearning how to learn. Ideology is thus for him, the almost instinctive process of deutero learning whereby one applies and responds to a proto insight or faith experience. It is in terms of this basic distinction

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that Segundo says that faith without ideology is dead faith and that it is not merely faith per s but ideology, used in this positive sense, that is needed. The focus of this paper is, however on a prior question: How does one hear or how is one encountered by this Word of God in and relevant to a specified situation? Is it as a result of reading the Scriptures and entering into dialogue with them until the Word of God is encountered? Revelational theology has been described as a "ghost theology" referring to the waiting expectation for the "ghost" or Word to suddenly appear from beyond the words of the page enabling man to respond in total commitment with an "aha" as the "penny drops". Or is the Word encountered by carefully listening to and analysing Scripture and then seeking for an analagous and consequential situation within the contemporary world? This is, generally speaking, the approach of hermeneutic theology. Or is the process to be reversed, as in liberation theology, by starting from the opposite end in articulating one's basic experience of reality in terms of the biblical tradition? These three options (of revelation, hermeneutic and liberation theologies) are not mutually exclusive, they represent different answers to the "how" questioa In a word, contextual type theologies allow for the analysis of the social sciences in understanding present reality and raise socio-political and cultural factors to a new level of consciousness in interpreting Scripture. It is essentially within this way of doing theology that my proposal on the use of Scripture in theology is to be found.

1.4 WHY IS SCRIPTURE NECESSARY AT ALL?

Given the focus on the contemporary situation within which authentic reality is to be discovered it may well be asked why it is at all necessary to involve Scripture in theological formulations? Can one not come to this position without Scripture? My response is simply that man is not able to reflect on questions of meaning apart from his tradition. This tradition is a pre-conscious part of man akin to Dilthey's understanding of experience. It is a given part of my reality, a there-/or-me, prior to a conscious investigation of it. 14 One may well choose to reject one's tradition and to find an identity elsewhere but one cannot avoid engagement with one's tradition. For the Christian, part of this given is the Scripture. To explicitly investigate it is in fact to investigate myself and to raise to the level consciousness my own self, my communal existence and my self-understanding. To summarise: The appeal of theology to Scripture is an ambiguous and a problematic exercise. It concerns what we mean by the inspiration and authority of Scripture. It concerns different models of theology, three of which have been referrd to in this paper: The revelation modeJ in the words of Scripture. The hermeneutic modeJ which seeks to define the criteria of the Word in contemporary society. The iiberation modeJ which interprets Scripture in terms of the experience of the poor and oppressed people and
14 Wilhelm Dilthey "Die Entstehung der Hermeneutiek," Gesammelt 3 Schriften (Gttingen Vandenhk & Ruprecht 1954), Vol VII, 139

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uses this interpretation as a basis for changing society. Finally an appeal to Scripture in theology concerns raising our own selfunderstanding to the level of con scious and explicit reflection.
. IDENTIFYING THE GAP BE TWEEN SCRIPTURE AND THEOLOGY

(Section provides a brief history of the hermeneu tics debate and can be omitted by those readers who are not particularly interested in the roots of the current debate.) At various points in history the awareness of the complexity of the problems surrounding the sola Scriptura doctrine has been more keen than at other times. At such times an obvious and explicit gap has emerged between Biblical exe gesis on the one hand and system atic theology and ethics on the other. Exegetes have addressed themselves primarily to exegesis and the related problems of tex tual, literary and historical criti cism tending not to concern themselves explicitly with the con temporary existential meaning of the texts to which they have ad dressed their attention. Theologians have, in turn, endeavoured to con struct pictures of reality and ad dressed existential questions with in the mental-framework of con temporary society while being accused by critical biblical exegetes of exegetical inexacti tudes. To rephrase the problem from a slightly different vantage point: When this gap is identified, critical Biblical scholarship has come under increasing fire in some circles

for having lost itself in minute, lit erary, philological and historical problems of an esoterical nature that are devoid of meaning or rele vance for contemporary theologi cal and ethical problems. Theo logians and ethicists have in turn been criticized for dabbling in the social sciences instead of building their mental constructions on Bibli cal foundations, thus rendering the Bible not immediately relevant to contemporary questions of faith and behaviour. Biblical scholarship has been seen as too often atten ding solely to questions of concern to members of their own fraternity and not relating their findings to contemporary questions of faith. Theologians and ethicists have in turn often found themselves devoid of the scholarly tools to understand and use Biblical material in a man ner that satisfies the critically sen sitive eye of Biblical scholars. The history of this gap, in one form or another, is almost as old as Christianity itself.15 Its roots go back beyond this period to that of the early Greeks who indulged in the intellectual game of inter preting and criticizing Homer and other poets as a favourite passtime. In this milieu Aristotle, the great classifier and dissector of literary works, taught that the whole of a literary product was to be divided
15 See Dilthey* s above article pp 317-338 f o r a dis cussion on this history Also R Bultmann, "Das problem der Hermeneutik", Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche Vol 47, 1950, pp 49-69 Heinz Kimmerle (ed) Hermeneutik (Heidelberg Carl Winter Universitatsverslag, 1969) Hans W Frei, The identity of Jesus Christ The her meneutic of dogmatic theology (Philadelphia Fortress Press, 1975), Hans W Frei, The eclipse of Biblical narrative A study m eighteenth and nmteenth century hermeneutics (New Haven Yale University Press 1974), and R E Palmer, Hermeneutics (Evanston Northwestern Univer sity Press 1969)

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into its parts in order to understand the message. With him the first hermeneutical rules were developed, and he has become, in a sense the proto-type of the critical exegete overagainst the more artistic interpretation of his contemporaries. In time Greek criticism could clearly be divided into philological and allegorical schools. This conflict was to reemerge in a different guise in the conflict between the Antiochian and Alexandrian schools of theologians in the Greek church. The former, best illustrated in the work of Theodoros, looked only to grammatical-historical principles to interpret a text, while the latter, represented by Philo, Clement, Origen and others distinguished between a spiritual and real or literal meaning of texts. These two approaches to the interpretation and use of Scripture would reemerge in various modifications and nuances throughout the history of Christendom. Soon anther faction influenced Biblical exegesis.16 The age of the creeds had dawned and Scripture was interpreted in terms of these basic dogmatic presuppositions, such as the trinity, the two natures of Christ and so on. These doctrines were in turn undergirded by Platonic thought and the Bible tended to be divested of its own life and employed as a verification of church doctrine. Reformation theology sought to break away from church dogma as the norm for Biblical interpretation and stressed the historical meaning of the text. The hermeneutics of the mid sixteenth century is clearly seen in the work of the clavis of
16. Ferdinand Deist, "Bybel interpretasie en ideologiekritiek: 'n Hermeneutiese oefening". Inaugural lecture, Unisa, 1981.

Flacius. Not only did he oppose the exegetical method of restoration Catholicism which taught that it is impossible to obtain an authentic interpretation of Scripture apart from the teaching of the church, but he also opposed the Anabaptists who affirmed the simple, literal clarity of Scripture. FJacius devised certain grammatical and technical rules which he related to contemporary religious experience as key hermeneutical principles, but soon this was again to give way to dogmatic interpretations of Scripture, now devised by Protestant orthodoxy. Soon others Baumgarten among them sought again to free the Scripture from such ecclesiastical control. SemJer reached for a way forward by distinguishing betwen the temporal or historically conditioned dimensions and the eternal dimensions of the Bible. While not adequately showing how one ought to distinguish these two dimensions he contributed toward a less controlled form of exegesis. The eternai truths of Scripture could now be appropriated and interpreted anew in each historical era. Clearly the hermeneutics debate had not yet reached that point with Semler (and clearly such a position is not without its problems) but Semler had taken a slep in that direction. Ernes ti in turn reasserted the verbal importance of the text and slowly the grip of dogmatism was broken. But it took Schleiermacher to recognise that understanding was not grasped at a deep enough level in the hermeneutical rules of the time. For all the limitations of his psychologism, in which he sought to grasp the intention of the author, he heralded a new break-through in hermeneu-

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tics. Wilhelm Dilthey would slowly separate himself from Schleiermacher's psychologism and ground understanding in history. To these emphases we must return. In a word, Schleiermacher sought to liberate hermeneutics from certain confining rules which scarcely addressed the contemporary needs and challenges facing the Christian faith. For the present it is sufficient simply to note the recurring dualistic tendency within the history of hermeneutics tending at times toward a rigid, controlled authoritative interpretation and at times toward a more fluid, creative and contextual interpretation. Perhaps the most obvious modern illustration of the gap between exegesis and theology is that concerning the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule. We pick up the argument with nineteenth-century liberal theology. Scholars of this time had an optimistic and easy interpretation of the Bible in which the Old Testament was seen as a pleasant witness to the evolution of ethical monotheism and the gospels as historical biographies of Jesus as a refined teacher of the golden rule, the Fatherhood of God and the inherent value of the individual. All this came to an abrupt end in Europe at the hands of the radical scholars of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule. An excellent article by Krister Stendahl poignantly describes how the members of this school showed that, " . . . a picture of Jesus or of the Old Testament prophets was totally impossible from a historical point of view and that it told more about the ideals of bourgeois Christianity in the late nineteenth century than about carpenter of Nazareth or the little man from Tekoa." 17 With this insight,

"it soon became", to quote Stendahl again, " a scholarly ideal to creep out of one's western and twentieth-century skin and identify oneself with the feelings and thought patterns of the past." Yet with this new awareness of nineteenth century spectacles through which the Bible had so comfortably and unwittingly been read, a remote historicism, or antiquarian approach, seemed to engulf theology which left the contemporary concerns relatively untouched by the theology of the day. In time and for various reasons it came to the realization of some theologians that this new found historicism w a s not meeting the existential needs of post world w a r I Europe. With this the great names of neo-orthodoxy: Barth, Brunner, Cullmann and others began to emerge. American theology of the thirties in turn gave rise to the brothers Niebuhr and their critique of liberal optimism. 17 The deliberate non-modernized reading of the Bible imposed upon theology by critical scholarship posed the burning question, whether the Bible, so remote from contemporary life, could still be God's direct word to His church. That is, how could the distance between the word of the Bible and the modern world be bridged? Numerous options were proposed. Among the most impressive of these was that of Karl Barth. He captured the mood of the day as he wrote in the second edition of the Epistle to the itomans, commending Calvin's interpretation of scripture: " . . . having first established what stands in the
17 Knsten Stendahl, "Biblical Theology", The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (New York/Nashville Abingdon Press, 1962) pp 418-432

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text," he writes, Calvin "sets himself to re-think the whole material and to wrestle with it, till the walls which separate the sixteenth century from the first become transparent, i.e. till Paul speaks there and the man of the sixteenth century hears here, till the conversation between the document and the reader is totally concentrated on the subject-matter, which cannot be a different one in the first and sixteenth century." Barth's hermeneutic has, however, been dismissed as providing further evidence of the gap between Biblical and theological scholarship, as is seen in the criticism of James Barr, who accuses Barth of having distanced himself from Biblical scholarship.18 Yet for Barth, the work of the historical critic is merely prolegomena to the real theological task of exegesis as set out in his Church Dogmatics. The point is, however, that most critical Biblical scholars regard this "exegesis" as something other than legitimate, scientific Biblical scholarship. This breach in understanding seems to be an accurate characteristic of the relationship between Biblical and theological scholarship in the protestant tradition. Biblical scholars address themselves to what may be regarded as material which is prolegomena to questions of faith and existence in the life of the believer. Theologians and ethicists, on the other hand, tend either merely to accept the Scriptures of the church at face value as God's word addressed to
18. James Barr, "Revelation through history in the Old Testament and in modern theology", Princeton Seminary Bulletin, LV1, 1963 a nd Old and New in Interpretation (London: S.C.M. Press, 1966).

His church to be understood and obeyed, or else they tend to ground their thought in systems and disciplines other than Biblical study. Thus is the work of Biblical scholars and that of theologians and ethicists often virtually unrelated. The gap is a yawning one. And Lessing's question on how to cross this gap and to move from the accidental truths of history to the reality of faith and its existential implications remains a burning one. In identifying the gap which exists between exegesis and theology, an attempt has been made to show it to be a perennial and reoccuring one. This is not a "new" problem facing theology and we need to learn from past attempts to resolve it to hopefully the mutual satisfaction of both exegetes and theologians, but necessarily to the benefit of the contextual witness of the church. In the remainder of this paper a contextual model for the use of Scripture in theology is proposed in an attempt to bridge this gap between exegesis and theology and at the same time to address the need for an existential theology which emerges from the contextual needs of the day.
ffl. IN DEFENCE OF THE SCRIPTURAL BASE OF CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY

feveiationaJ theology is often accused of exegetical inexactitudes in the employment of Scripture in theology. Certain forms of hermenutica! theology have helped create the gap identified above by concentrating on conceptual structures content per s. Liberation theology is, in turn, often dismissed by criti-

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cal exegetes for allegedly using Scripture non-critically and ideo logically (used pejoratively). Clear ly all these methods of theology concentrate on the present existen tial meaning of Biblical texts rather than on what they possibly once meant in a different historical set ting. The question is whether this concern to interpret a text in terms of its present meaning is a legiti mate hermeneutical exercise? This question bristles with further ques tions: Can one legitimately separate different meanings in a text? Is it useful to distinguish between the meaning (original public meaning) and significance (present meaning for a particular community)? Can one legitimately speak of the original meaning of a text? Does a text take on a meaning of its own, apart from either the author's in tention or the reader's interpreta tion? Is it possible to know this meaning? These are questions not addressed in this article.My inten tion is simply to suggest that the use of Scripture by some theolo gians and more specifically socalled contextual theologians is in fact a legitimate hermeneutical exercise. This, I suggest, could be so even when critical exegetes do not regard it to be a legitimate interpretation of a text. .1 WHAT IS THE TASK OF THE EXEGETE IN RELATION TO THE SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGIAN? The task of the exegete in the broader theological framework is to ensure that the Bible is not used by the systematic theologian, the ethicist or the preacher as a kind of pandora's box out of which the ob ject of the reader's desire can be extracted at will.

Given the nature of the Bible as already discussed, in relation to God's unique self-revelation in Christ and the unique origin of the Church, theology must flow from the telling power of this record. In order for this to happen the Bible is to be used responsibly in the sense of theology flowing from what indeed can be found in the Bible and not what can symbolical ly read into the Scripture hap hazardly. Yet clearly it is a legiti mate exercise to weigh and measure an aspect of modern society, say apartheid or a particu lar contemporary economic sys tem, against the teaching of the Bible even though clearly the Bible does not discuss either apartheid, capitalism or socialism in a speci fic manner. Certain Biblical teach ings concerning human relations and the use of wealth do, however, contain teaching significance for these contemporary issues. The task of the exegete is essen tially to define the nature of the Biblical literature under considera tion. It is an illigitimate theological exercise, for example, for the theo logian to use Genenis 10-11 as though it were history, as a basis for the justification of separate development in the South African situation. 1 9 The nature of the litera ture, in this instance myth or pre history, determines the rules of in terpretation. This is surely the most important function the exegete can render: to identify the nature of the literature, the circumstances un der which it was written and its context within the larger unit of Scripture within which it stands.
19 Willem Vorster, "In gesprek met die Landmankommissie oor Sknfgebruik", Ekumene onder die Suiderkruis (ed) A C Viljoen, (Pretoria University of South Africa), 201

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This enables an adequate under standing of the text as a contextual comment relevant to its own day. Dennis Nineham makes this point clearly: The reader of the Bible must re member that the meaning of words is always relative to the situation and experience of the person who wrote them and of his contemporaries. In trying to discover these he will need a wide and detailed range of knowledge. Here, for example and here alone, I should say lies the importance of discover ing as far as possible who was the writer of each book and of being scrupuously honest about pseudepigraphy where it seems to be indicated. If the Fourth Gospel, for instance, is located in the wrong context, chronolo gically, theologically or philo sophically, to that extent the exegete's attempt to think the author's thoughts after him will be frustrated. But it is not only a question of the hopes and fears and presuppositions, the limita tions, the outlook on things natural and supernatural which he shared with his fellows. The exegete cannot delve too deeply into all these; for let him remem ber that in order to understand the meaning of what St. Mark wrote, he has in effect to be 20 come St. Mark for a while. We can leave aside Nineham's presuppositions concerning the possibility of thinking another's thoughts and becoming St. Mark for a while. The point is made in favour of the importance of critical Biblical scholarship. It is the kind
20 Denis Nineham, The use and abuse of the Bible (London Macmillan Press Ltd , 1976) 207

of careful background and exegetical scholarship identified here that is of fundamental importance for good and thorough contextual theo logy provided it is not left there. Theology is to flow from the Bibli cal record of the self-revelation of God in relation to the milieu in which it was recorded but to be spoken in relation to contemporary contextual problems. Simply be cause it is impossible to divest one self of one's contextual location and presuppositions in one's theo logy it is necessary to make these explicitly and consciously visible in one's theologizing. This at once makes visible both the difference as well as the continuity between Biblical teaching and contemporary theology. This is the most important task facing the theologian: How to change, and therefore be contextually relevant, while remaining the same, and therefore continuing to be within the Christian tradition. Theology is more than antiquarian captivity in an age long past, yet more than uncontrolled free thought oblivious of the tradition which makes it Christian.
m.2 THE LIMITATION OF HER MENEUTICAL METHODS

Hans-George Gadamer has iden tified the limitation of hermeneuti cal method, in reminding us that method is incapable of revealing new truth; it only renders explicit the kind of truth already implicit in the method.21 Marcus Barth, on a recent visit to South Africa, expres sed himself more pejoratively in saying that hermeneutics is the death of exegesis and methodology the death of theology!
21 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode Grundzuge einer philosophischen HermeneutieJt (Tubingen J C Mohr, 1960)

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Most theologians do not consciously employ a method at all in their use of Scripture, leaving those who would dabble in such matters to discern their implicit method from their actual use of Scripture. Self-conscious contextual and liberation theologians often do not spell-out the methodology on the basis of which they use Scripture as is done in 1.3. Yet clearly the focus is on the contextual significance of texts in relation to the prevailing socio-economic and cultural milieu of the time. My intention is to identify briefly a tentative genre or style for such usage. This will hopefully have two consequences: One, it will contribute toward bringing of contextualliberation theology into dialogue with critical Biblical hermeneutics. Two, it will possibly contribute to the contextual-liberation theology debate by testing such theologies against a tentative genre of Scriptural usage which is designed to identify the contemporary, contextual significance of Scripture. It will also hopefully motivate some contextual theologians to correct this genre, recognising that the identification of genre and method follows usage and does not precede it.

and illusions in a relentless effort at dmystification. My suspicion is that the religiosity that masks and conceals the reality imbedded in the Biblical symbols needs to be destroyed to enable the reality behind the symbol to be freed within the present context so that present reality may to be confronted with the challenge of that which was considered worthy of preservation by the early church in the symbols of the Biblical story. This Biblical reality is in turn to be understood and communicated in terms of the mental and sociopolitical realities of today.
IV.l FEAR OF IDEOLOGY

IV. TOWARD A GENRE OF SCRIPTURAL USAGE IN CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY

The nagging suspicion with which I write this article is one motivated by Paul Ricoeur's identification of two antithetical approaches to hermeneutics. The one deals lovingly with a symbol in an effort to recover the hidden meaning in it; the other seeks to destroy the symbol as the representation of a false reality. It destroys masks

Among White theologians in South African who profess to be critical of the White status quo, one finds an almost inherent fear of ideology which renders them reluctant to allow theology to in anyway become contextually supportive of any particular political or social movement. Given the marriage between church and state that became a major ingredient of the apartheid ideology-cum-theology this reluctance is to be understood. A consequence of this position is however an abstract, academic theology among some of this country's most able theologians and exegetes with a consequent reluctance to address the political realities of the day as they cling instead to a somewhat "removed" critical analysis of the Bible. At best this kind of theology has a destabilizing affect on prevailing White political control and specifically on its theological sub-structure, as the direct "relevancy" of the Scripture to any political situation is questioned and dismissed. At worst it becomes explicitly

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apolitical, non-contextual and irrelevant to the major struggles facing the people of the country. Most Black theologians are less apprehensive about committing their theology to the support of a particular political ideology recognizing the dangers involved but willing to take this chance. Clearly the relationship between Gospel and ideology is a complex one.22 The two are related. Ideology, used in an open or nonpejorative sense, enables the gospel to be a relational, contextually relevant and specific gospel, but if the gospel capitulates to a closed ideology it becomes synonymous to the apartheid-ideology which needs to be rejected. Clearly contextual theology is to be aware of this danger and is compelled to find a way of resisting this option. Contextual theologians would hurriedly state, however, that the solution is clearly not to be found in an abstract academic quest for an apolitical theology recognizing that such a position is tantamount to finding oneself an enclave securely on the side of the status quo.
IV.2 SCRIPTURE AS A MIRROR OF REALITY

this Biblical history. One's own history is thus challenged by the Biblical images. Therefore when a poor Black student in Soweto reads the Bible he "sees" and "hears" something other than a white intellectual does in Waterkloof or Houghton. Perhaps it is the inherent commitment to radical change in the black student that enables him to break-though the religiosity imposed on the Scriptural symbols, and to grasp the reality of the message in its contextual relevance for today. The time-worn symbols of salvation, redemption, new life, hope, commitment and eschatology take on new vital, life-giving political and social meaning. The Bible becomes alive and is directly relevant to the prevailing situation.
IV.3 IN QUEST OF AN UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE

The metaphorical reference to Scripture as a mirror, can be traced back to Noordmans.23 The Bible is seen as a mirror in which one can see reflected the image of a people's history with God. The mirror is an appropriate image because when one reads the Scripture in one's own context, one sees one's own history superimposed on
22 See my discussion on this relationship in "Church and ideology in Africa", Missionalia Vol 8 No 2 1980 pp 70-81 23 Schoeman, pp 20 and 30

What is needed in the hermeneutical debate of the present is a creative thinker of the calibre of a Schleiermacher to enable a deeper insight into Scripture and at the same time to enable theologians to address the cultural despisers of this day. Critical exegetes readily reject the psychologism of Schleiermacher together with any new attempts to identify a "deeper" meaning of Scripture. Yet until his time hermeneutics consisted of no more than a set of rules.24 While employing these rules he identified hermeneutics to be a science, or perhaps more correctly an art of understanding a text. Uniting the merit of philology with philoso24 See footnote No 15 Also Gerhard Spiegler, The eternai covenant (New York Harper and Row, 1967)

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phical and theological insight he reached beyond the literary signs to identify the author's intention and spirit. In an anticipation of Gadamar he recognized that the reader's individuality had to be en larged by that of the text. For the first time hermeneutics was de fined as the study of understanding hearing, grasping and compre hending a message embedded in a literary form. Without getting into Schleiermacher's thought system, we need to recall that his emphasis on psychology in isolation from language belongs essentially to the later period of his life. Literary understanding as such, for Schleiermacher, emerges from a dialogical relationship in which there is a speaker, who constructs a sentence to express his meaning, and a hearer who reads the sen tence. The hearer receives a series of words, which the rules of philo logy and historial-criticism enable him to analyse and grasp. Then suddenly (almost miraculously) he is able to understand what is being communicated. Understanding be comes a Nachbildung or a repro duction for the reader of what the author intended to communicate. Suffice it for our purposes not to offer a critique of Schleirmacher's hermeneutics but simply to identify his intention. This was artistically to recreate from a sentence, with the tools of literary critique, the spirit and message of the speaker. Wilhelm Dilthey was able to liber ate this aspect of hermeneutics from the later Schleiermacher's psychologism via a threefold analysis of communication into: experience (Erlebnis) or livedexperience, the expression fAusdruckj of it in say a literary form and an understanding fVerstehenJ

of it. 2 5 This latter phase of Dilthey, as for Schleiermacher, was always more than rational. It involves is a rediscovery of oneself in the other and since man is an historical being he needs to discover himself in history. For a person to discover himself he is required to journey back into his past (into his tradition cf. 1.4) and to engage in dialogue with those who have lived before him, with whom he shares a basic common understanding on the basis of a shared historical humanity. Dilthey thus seeks for understanding in history as op posed to the later Schleiermacher's experience of divination or psycho logism. R.G. Colling wood is the English counter-part of Dilthey. One recalls his view of history as the process of thinking the thoughts of a predecessor after him. Through historical detail, he tells us, he sought to think the thoughts of Nelson as he stood on the deck of the Victory at the battle of Trafal gar until he not only thought about Nelson but was Nelson.26 This basic grasp or understand ing of the essence of a text's mes sage has fascinated hermeneuticians throughout the years. In this regard it is useful to recall the his toriography of the nineteenth-cen tury Swiss historian Jacob Burck hardt, severally described as a poet, an artist and a psychologist of history in his response to the scientific microscopic history of his day. In correspondence with a certain Karl Frensenius, he de scribes himself as one who does not apply himself to abstract thought for a single minute in a whole year. "I cling by nature to the concrete,
25 Ibid Especially Dilthey and Palmer pp 106-118 26 R G Collingwood Autobiography (London Penguin Books 1944) 77 ci Nineham 207

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to the visible nature and to history", he writes. "But as a result of drawing ceaseless analogies between facts I have succeeded in abstracting much thct is universal." "My surrogate", he writes, "is contemplation" (Anschauung). Alexander Dru, the editor of Burckhardt's published correspondence, has defined Anschauung as "looking, seeing, vision, insight, intuition, contemplation, . . . neither rationalistic nor irrationalistic." "Listen to the secret of things", Burckhardt would tell his students, "the contemplative mood!"27 The theologian can well learn from Burckhardt's methodology. He is to cling to the "concrete" literary data but to seek within the context of the total tradition to discern "the secret" of the text in relation to the present. Yet this contemplation is never undertaken directly from this age to that (the sitz im Leben) of the text. It rather takes place through the entire process of tradition. Any pursuit of this option must therefore be seen in relation to this tradition. This means that one's interpretation of a text is invariably influenced by the past and the present. The hermeneutics of Rolf Rendtorff, Wolfhart Pannenberg and others have employed the concept of the history of the transmission of tradition (berlieferungsgeschichte) to show that one cannot reach beyond the history of the interpretation of an event to the event itself. We only know that event via the tradition surrounding it and they go even further to suggest the various interpretations
27 Alexander Dru (ed ), The letters of Jacob Burckhardt (New York Pantheon Books, 1955)

of an event are all part of the "inexhaustible meaning of the event" and as such part of God's self revelation through the event.28 This past history of a text therefore instinctively influences our perception of the text. Yet clearly our present experience alsc influences our perception of the text and in terms of the history of the transmission of tradition debate this too is part of the inexhaustible meaning of the text. Biblical criticism has taught us that there are signs of this kind of continuing revision and reinterpretation of texts already in the Old Testament. As changing events and circumstances influence peoples' lives and their perception of reality they tend to read their religious documents with a different understanding and to change, revise and develop them accordingly. In his inaugural lecture already referred to Ferdinand Deist writes as follows: "Every new situation, every new context, brought with it a new text; to be sure on the basis of the old, but nevertheless a new text. With each revision (lit: verwerking = recasting) of an old text the superficial reader lost the earlier text forever. Yet once a text obtained canonical status, the revision process came to an end." But as Deist shows, this did not put a stop to the continuing revision process. For while the authors of Chronicles, for example, did ultimately not produce a revised edi28 Carl E Braaten New Directions m Theology Today Vol II, History and Hermeneutics (Philadelphia Westminster Press, 1966), 115 Wolfhart Pannenberg Basic Questions m Theology Vol I (Philadelphia Fortress Press, 1970), 91 Rolf Rendtorff "Geschichte und berlieferung", Studien zur Theology der alttestestamenthchen berlieferungen eds Rolf Rendtorff and Klaus Koch (Nieukirchen Verlag der Buchhandlung des Erziehungsvereins, 1961), pp 89 f

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tion of the Books of Kings they did write a new book on the same period of history. Gerhard Von Rad, in turn, illustrates this revision process in his discussion of the story concerning Jacob's wrestling at Jabbok in Genesis 32:23f.29 He shows how a preYahwistic Canaanite story concerning a "river demon" is appropriated by Yahwism, and how later the prophet Hosea reads into this story Jacob's deceit and importunity, which was not ascribed to it by the Yahwist. We clearly see how a pre-Israelite story is reinterpreted on at least two occasions to make different points. Clearly the scientific Biblical scholar can interestingly point out the origins and development of this story. He may further challenge the Christian who may yet again reinterpret the story in the light of Jesus Christ and show how this interpretation is historically and literally "incorrect" but it is difficult to deny the spiritual and theological value of such modifications to the literal meaning, and impossible to deny that he is indulging in an exercise which is no more questionable than that undertaken by Biblical writers before him. And indeed when we come to the New Testament it is abundantly clear that the writer's fundamental purpose was to proclaim the risen Lord and the Old Testament was employed almost indiscriminately, whether allegorically, typologically or literally to involve it (at times against its own character) in this purpose. Here the purpose is not the exposition of a historical docu29 Gerhard Von Rad Old Testament Theology Vol II (New York Harper and Row, 1962), (New York Harper and Row 1962) pp 325-6

ment but the proclamation of Christ.

IV.4 CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY

When we consider the contextual theology debate as seen, for example, in Latin American thought, it becomes clear that liberation hermeneutics operates essentially in accordance with this Biblical way of interpreting texts. This is most clear in the hermeneutics of J. Severino Croatto.30 He unabashedly suggests that "exegesis is eisegesis, and anybody who claims to be doing only the former is, wittingly or unwittingly, engaged in ideological subterfuge. Not even the physical sciences are exempt from this principle". His point is simply that the reader can do no other than read the text in terms of his own experience of reality and in so doing he necessarily reads into the text. For Croatto, "a hermeneutical reading of the biblical message occurs only when the reading supersedes the first contextual meaning (not only that of the author but also that of the first readers). This happens through the unfolding of a surplus-of-meaning disclosed by a new question addressed to the text." In this sentence the point of the transmission of tradition becomes most clear. He further talks of the "reservoir-of-meaning" in events such as the exodus and in so doing employs language similar to Braaten's "inexhaustible meaning of the text". While Croatto's hermeneutical discussion fo cusses on the exodus, creation, the prophets of Israel, Christ as liberator and Paul's paschal liberation, it suffices to illustrate it in terms of his discussion on the exodus:
30 J Severino Croatto, Exodus A hermeneutics of freedom (Maryknoll Orbis Books 1981)

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He shows that the word, say on the salvific nature of the exodus, occurs only after the event. As the significance of the event becomes realized it is interpreted by those directly affected by it. Then as those so affected, namely the Hebrews, are exposed to new experiences and events so they reinterpret the event in terms of these experiences. The event has now become message with an unfolding reservoir of meaning and more than that it becomes promise to each succeeding generation. This becomes the basis of a liberation hermeneutic articulated under five headings: (i) The situation of the Hebrews in Egypt which is used as a parallel for contemporary exploitative situations, (ii) The word response to this event as the word of promise and conscientisation. (hi) The event of liberation and the significance of this for an oppressed people today, (iv) The hermeneutical account of the event which supersedes the event and addresses the present situation, (v) The basic message of the event concerning liberation as contextual theology reality. The point is simply that Croatto seeks quite explicitly to interpret a text for a contemporary oppressive perspective, allowing the continuing reinterpretation of the text to happen. A more explicitly methodological essay on hermeneutics is the one by Deist to which reference has already been made. His point of departure is Lessing's agonising question concerning how eternal truth can be derived from a historical document such as the Bible. He rejects both Semler's too easy differentiation between the eternal and temporal material in the Bible

as well as fundamentalism's dismissal of Lessing's challenge by declaring the Bible to be a suprahistorical, (eternal) truth and to see all truth as historically conditioned". He shows that absolute, objective truth is meaningless simply because while it is unknown it is without meaning and the moment it becomes known it is subjective. In acknowledging this, the subjective and historical nature of all knowledge is acknowledged. (It is here that Schleiermacher who saw the subjective dimension of truth and Dilthey who stressed the historical nature of knowledge are important.) But clearly it was Karl Mannheim's and more especially the Frankfurt school's realisation that all knowledge is perspective knowledge and relative to a certain position that is decisive for hermeneutics. For Deist the Bible is historical (and therefore relative) in a double sense. It was written under historical conditions and interpreted in terms of historical circumstances. The rubric under which his lecture was given (namely "Biblical interpretation and ideological critique") becomes clear when Biblical hermeneutics is thus understood, as he contends that both the text and the interpretation of the text must be subjected to ideological critique. For him theology is therefore essentially an experimental exercise and one might add a critical analytical exercise. Clearly there is a point of contact and of difference between Croatto and Deist. Both are Old Testament scholars, but while Croatto stands within the liberaton theology movement, Deist would regard himself as a "non-aligned" critical exegete. Both regard the subjective and his-

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torical or relational dimension to be both an inevitable and a legitimate dimension of Biblical hermeneutics. Croatto affirms the need for a reading of the text which "supersedes the first contextual meaning" and Deist in turn writes, "the course of history ensures that the Bible remains alive and that the Biblical text helps people in all periods of time to formulate their problems and the solution of these problems". Deist's critical approach causes him to suggest that all interpretation must be subjected to ideological critique and it is here that the point of difference between him and Croatto emerges. While Croatto is clearly mindful of the need for liberation theology to be self-critical he is more inclined to take the chance of ideological captivity, mindful that any such capitulation would be corrected by subsequent generations of oppressed people. Clearly liberation type theologies have fallen victim to the ravages of such captivity before today but perhaps it is at this point that the fundamental difference between Deist together with many other critical theologians and liberation theologians such as Segundo, Croatto and so many other black and third world theologians becomes explicit. The difference is, to resort to Segundo's statement, that the liberation theologian is one who is unequivocally committed to the struggle for political change whereas other theologians while possibly critical of the status quo have not yet made that fundamental decision. The difference is therefore an ideological one rather than a hermeneutical one per s. Some theologians may be severely critical of the political and theological status quo as

they continue to seek for a third option to the ideological struggle or else simply wait for the walls of the edifice to collapse. Liberation theologians reject the idea of a third option and deliberately elect to be on the ideological side of the oppressed albeit in a supportive critical role. While the radical critic of both ideological and traditional theology on the one hand and the liberation theologian on the other differ at the point of ideological commitment, there is probably more hermenutica] common ground between them than is really conceded by either of them. Liberation theology is an irreversible trend in theological discourse and ideological critique a valuable handmaiden to all struggles for human dignity. It is at the point of contact between these disciplines that one feels the future of the hermeneutical debate is to be shaped.
V. POSTSCRIPT

Helmut Gollwitzer has described Barth's Rmerbrief as having been written in a "lively expressionistic style". One hopes he did so with a great expressionist like Vincent Van Gogh in mind, who rebelled against impressionism as not allowing the artist enough freedom to express his innerfeelings. Barth in what was at times an extremely academic manner and now contextualists use the Bible as a mirror of their reality. From the above discussion one realizes that a genre is emerging in the contemporary hermeneutical debate which places an explicit and necessary emphasis on the present in biblical interpretation. This, of course, has interesting consequences for traditional hermeneutics.

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