Wright asks:
‘I would ask that the missional framework I propose in this volume be exaluated for its heuristic fruitfulness. Does it in fact do justice to the overall thrust of the biblical canon? Does it illuminate and clarify? Does it offer a way of articulating the coherence of the Bible’s overarching message?'
Help me here: isn't this last sentence a tautology? I mean isn't he saying 'does it offer a way of articularting the coherence of the Bible's coherence?'?
Is it the coherence that needs articulating? Or is it the message itself?
3 comments:
Well, I think he is working from the assumption that there is indeed some sort of coherence within the canon. I think this is a fairly safe assumption within the Christian community.
That issue was settled all the way back in the days of Marcion, when the Fathers decided that the Hebrew Scriptures were as much the Word of God as the NT writings.
But perhaps I am not understanding your question...
No, I think you are right. Trouble is, do we have to discover some kind of conceptual coherence in addition to the fact of the canon in order to understand it? Won't the conceptual tool used reduce the meaning and complexity of the whole?
I suppose everything depends on what we mean by conceptual 'coherence'.
Some theologians take the fact of canon as the base-line but then see certain aspects of the canon trumping others (gospel over law; mercy of Christ event over OT - or even eschatological - judgment). I would think we need somesort of conceptual coherence to prevent these kind of readings?
And doesn't the fact of a text being in the canon itself necessitate some inherent conceptual coherence i.e why did text a) make it in with those others but text b) did not? Is it not because texts of type a) 'cohere' in some way?
Post a Comment