Words that testify of God: The Theology of the Old Testament

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2001 by Robert K. Gnuse

Abstract

Walter Brueggemann crafts a First Testament theology around the organizing principle of Israel's speech about God. He discusses the themes of First Testament thought in four categories: Israel's Core Testimony, Israel's Countertestimony, Israel's Unsolicited Testimony, and Embodied Narrative. He attempts to generate a dynamic theology that captures the rhetorical power of the biblical text. With his own classic style he theologizes excellently on the text in a mode designed to address the needs of theologians, teachers, and preachers, more so than critical scholars. He eschews the Historical Critical Method in favor of post-modern criticism, which this reviewer feels is a mistake.

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Walter Brueggemann seeks to craft a biblical theology in a new and distinct mode; it is a theology which builds upon the "speech" or "testimonies" of the First Testament. He boldly declares, "What we have in the Old Testament is speech, nothing else" (p. 713), by which he means to emphasize that the written words of the biblical text, which lie before us, once were dynamic spoken words in the life of a people. If we truly wish to capture the spirit of the biblical text and generate a theology from it, we must focus upon what that text once was: words of testimony about Yahweh spoken in faith. We must organize and reflect upon those spoken testimonies to feel the power of the biblical text and to properly apply it to our modern situation. This dynamic approach to the task of biblical theology is for Brueggemann a way out of the impasse created by biblical theologies of the past, which failed to capture the spirit of the bible.

As he sets forth on this ambitious undertaking, Brueggemann organizes the language in the biblical text into four categories of discourse:

* "Israel's Core Testimony," wherein the biblical authors praise and confess the actions of Yahweh on behalf of Israel and individuals in the community in diverse ways.

* "Israel's Countertestimony," wherein Israelites and Jews lament the pain and tragedy in their lives, or members of the intelligentsia reflect upon the ambiguous nature of Yahweh who can be the source of evil.

* "Israel's Unsolicited Testimony," which includes indirect testimonies about the nature of Yahweh suggested by discourse on Israel's relationship to the deity in covenant and other forms of partnership.

* "Embodied Narrative," which focuses upon those forms of mediation (Law, King, Prophet, Cult, and Sage) which enable people to experience Yahweh in diverse intellectual and cultural manifestations.

Overall, Brueggemann's approach is clever and refreshing; it is a very different way by which to arrange the concepts and texts of the First Testament into an organized format. One senses that he favors the approach of Walter Eichrodt's attempt to systematically organize ideas of the text rather than Gerhard von Rad's attempt to trace their ideational development in Israel's history. Placed alongside other First Testament theologies, this volume provides a wonderful complement, and for many readers it will be seen as a refreshing change from the direction taken in many other theological expositions. Brueggemann's style of homiletical discussion also will appeal to many who find traditional theologies difficult to digest.

In his exposition Brueggemann relies upon the use of many biblical texts, some of which he quotes at length. As he approaches a topic or a theme, his discussion is replete with biblical quotes to illustrate a type of oral discourse or a perception of Yahweh's nature. He heavily favors the Psalms and the prophets, especially Isaiah. For he is attracted to those texts which demonstrate a deep existential encounter with the divine, often of pain or the joy of restoration. His previous work on the Psalms is most evident in this volume. As he quotes texts (often at length) he does not go into detailed exegetical analysis or delve deeply into the theological issues which might be raised by a specific text. (Only heaven knows how long the volume might have become had he done that! His text is 750 pages in length.) What he seeks is a moving theological exposition of the various texts that avoids becoming bogged down in critical scholarly details. Hence, by comparison he does not consider some texts in the depth that Eichrodt did in his two-volume theology. One is reminded of the theological approach evident in the commentaries of the Interpretation series, to which Brueggemann also has contributed.

This is the style at which Brueggemann excels, for as he moves from text to text with his flowing rhetoric, one senses that his theological exposition is akin to preaching. The reader will discover that the classic rhetoric of Brueggemann flourishes as he moves through the volume and addresses the many issues that have drawn his attention over the years. Critical scholars may be somewhat frustrated by Brueggemann's approach, because he does not discuss critical issues in sufficient detail, nor does he organize texts and concepts in the ways that scholars usually do in their scholarly discourse. Critical scholars may find it difficult to cite much of Brueggemann's text on particular topics or biblical texts they might be analyzing for their own critical articles or monographs. (I myself find reading the volume a little frustrating in that regard, because I like critical, exegetical, and historical analyses.) I surmise that Brueggemann would not care. I believe he envisions his audience to be theologians, preachers, teachers, and perhaps above all, his seminary students (some of whom I have known over the years). The volume attempts to step back and to give a focus to the various themes and the image of God in the biblical text. This focus is meant to provide a religious intellectual with a sensitive feeling for what is being said in the First Testament in existential terms rather than exegetical or historical categories. Such a volume is meant to enable seminarians to have a deeper understanding of the text, which will affect their preaching and pastoral ministry.