NT520%20New%20Testament%20Introduction%20Sessions%203-4

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NT520New Testament IntroductionSessions 3-4

• Approaches to Understanding
• the New Testament
• Models and Methods

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Contours of the Current Discussion

• Modernism and the Scientific Method
• The historical basis of all knowing
• Troeltsch
• Principle of Skepticism
• Principle of Analogy
• Principle of Causation
• Historical Distance

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The Location of Meaning

• In History? (Behind the Text?)
• On the Page? (In the Text?)
• In the Reader or Reading Community? (In Front of
  the Text?)
• In the Narrative of Gods Project?

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Word of God - In History

• Particularity of Biblical Materials
• 1 Cor 111 It has been reported to me by people
  from Chloe
• 1 Cor 71 Now concerning the matters about
  which you wrote

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The Bible as Process
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly
account of the events that have been fulfilled
among us, just as they were handed on to us by
those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses
and servants of the word, I too decided, after
investigating everything carefully from the very
first, to write an orderly account for you, most
excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the
truth concerning the things about which you have
been instructed. (Luke 11-4, NRSV)
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The Bible as Process
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of
his disciples, which are not written in this
book. But these are written so that you may come
to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of
God, and that through believing you may have life
in his name. (John 2030-31, NRSV)
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The Bible as Process
But there are also many other things that Jesus
did if every one of them were written down, I
suppose that the world itself could not contain
the books that would be written. (John 2125,
NRSV)
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The Nature of Inspiration?

• Were the writers robots?
• Were the writers inspired?
• Was the church inspired?
• Is the reader inspired?
• Does the Bible become the Word of God?

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Inspiration?

• Affirm the Ongoing Activity of the Spirit
• The Performative Word
• divine origin certainty
• divine origin ongoing relevance

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Communication Theory and Biblical Interpretation
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Models forBiblical Interpretation
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The Traditional Model
Biblical Message
Contemporary Message
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The Dogmatic Model
System
Biblical Message
Contemporary Message
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The Scientific Model
Biblical Message
Contemporary Message
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The Contextual Model
Contemporary Message
Biblical Message
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The Discursive Model

• Discursive is for Discourse
• Coming Clean on Our Interests
• Rom 167
• jIouniva, a?
• jIouniva?
• Consequences

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The Discursive Model
Contemporary Message
Biblical Message
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More on the Discursive Model

• Communities of Faith, the Holy Spirit, and
  Reading the Bible
• Self-Criticism and Community
• (With)Whom do you study?
• Hermeneutics of Analogy
• The Place of the Spirit

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The Discursive Model
Contemporary Message
Biblical Message
Biblical Context
Contemporary Context
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Questions to AskinBiblical Interpretation
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What is it? (1)

• Textual Criticism
• The Original Text
• Acts 837 2028
• Mark 169-20
• Probability
• Internal and External Evidence
• Metzger, A Textual Commentary

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What is it? (2)

• Which Translation?
• Literal word-for-word
• Dynamic Equivalence thought for thought
• Free

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Which Translation?
More Literal
NAS NIV Message KJV NAB CEV
TEV Williams RSV NEB/REB Phillips
NRSV NJB NCV NLT
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What is it? (3)

• Genre Recognition
• A recognizable form of literature
• A contract
• NT Biography, Historiography, Letters,
  Apocalypse
• Sub-Genres

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What is it? (4)

• What is the thought unit?
• A Pericope
• For example Eph 521ff.
• The problem with chapters and verses
• Strategies and Arguments

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What is the appropriate unit of text for purposes
of study?

• More than a verse, less than a chapter...usually!
• A stretch of text that
• has a unity
• has adequate size for interpretation of its parts
• has a sense of completeness
• text that is set off from the material around it
  by genre-specific textual markers

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Some Textual Markers

• Narrative
• change of geography or topography
• change of characters
• change of time
• change of literary form (?)
• Letter
• connectives--e.g., therefore or above all
• direct address
• change of literary form
• Apocalyptic (see narrative)
• change of vision Then I saw....

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What is the Co-Text?

• Reading from Left to Right
• prospective development
• retrospective clarification

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What is the Co-Text?

• Word Studies Use and Abuse
• Can, Father
• NOT THE DICTIONARY!!!!
• Historical Virtual
• Co-Textual Actual
• Words and Domains

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What is the Context?
Text
Redaction
Source
Form
Tradition
Historical
Events
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What is the Context?

• Socio-Historical Perspectives
• Near (vs. Distant) Experience

• Historical
• Did it happen this way?
• In what setting is this message communicated?

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Political Readings...

• Liberationist Hermeneutics Reading the Bible
  from the underside
• Reading the Bible from this place

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Political ReadingsA Test Case

• Feminist Exegesis
• Document the case against women
• Identify prophetic/liberating aspects
• Retrieve the critique of patriarchy
• Reconstruct biblical history

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Between Reader and Text

• Inactive Reading
• Reactive Reading
• Hyperactive Reading
• Interactive Reading
• Reading at the intersection of textual and
  readerly interests

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The Right Technique?

• A Meaning-Making Machine?
• Cultivating Sensibilities
• Good Readings? Or Good People Reading?

The Importance of Theological and Spiritual
Formation.