Thread by @EOrthodoxy

@ByzCat To accuse DBH as not being a Christian on the basis of his response to Leithart is unwarranted. He is not saying anything that historical critics of the Old Testament have not said over the past 150 years. If his response has a weakness it lies in his failure to

@ByzCat clarify how the Old Testament can be Scripture. The answer lies in the patristic hermeneutic which insisted that the difficult passages--those passages that depict YHWH as engaging in ways that would be unworthy of the God of Jesus--are to be read figuratively, typologically,

@ByzCat allegorically. They must be read in and through Christ. Only thus are they truly Scripture. To read and preach the Old Testament only through a critical-historical lens is to read it as historical artifact, not as Scripture.

@ByzCat This does not make DBH a Marcionite, though I concede his blunt words leave him open to that charge. But as John Behr has stated a number of times: if you aren't reading the Bible allegorically, you're not reading it as Scripture.

@ByzCat The key and revealing question: Did the Father of Jesus Christ really order the massacre of the Canaanites? If you say yes, then, yes, you have a hermeneutical problem.

@ByzCat For the same reason, if you believe that the God of Jesus damns the wicked to eternal suffering and torment, you have a hermeneutical problem. The Bible is not rightly read and proclaimed if it contradicts God's self-revelation in Christ as absolute love.

@ByzCat Interestingly, it was the philosopher Richard Swinburne's book 'Revelation' that helped me to understand that the literal sense of the Bible can only be discerned when it is read through Christ. The Song of Songs is the example par excellence.

@ByzCat In his "On Christian Doctrine," St Augustine's states: "We must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life

@ByzCat or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as metaphorical. We must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally,

@ByzCat be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as metaphorical." That is the patristic hermeneutic and we see it worked out again and again in the Fathers. Exegetes who use this hermeneutic may differ on the interpretation of a specific text,

@ByzCat but they are united in their recognition that the Scriptures must not be interpreted in a way that is unworthy of the God made known in the crucified and risen Christ.

@ByzCat So instead of accusing DBH, or the rest of us, as not being Christian, it would be more accurate to say that he is not a Roman Catholic and therefore not obligated to interpret the Bible as Catholics do.

@ByzCat And be careful, for you may also find yourself excommunicating a host of saints.

@ByzCat My last word in this thread: Do check out my upcoming book 'Destined to Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation.' It will hopefully be out at the end of the Summer or early Fall. In it I commend a hermeneutic of Pascha.

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