God's word in time

• Main Author: Hathaway, Christopher
• Published: University of Manchester 2013
• Subjects: 234
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.686718

Despite the fundamentally historical nature of the Christian faith the history of biblical interpretation has been marked by periods in which the Bible was read through the lens of faith with little regard for history using the principles of allegory (the late classical and medieval Church), or through the lens of history with little regard for faith using the tools of historical criticism. The following is an argument that this conflict is rooted in the failure to give to historical time an authentically Christian theological purpose. History as a means of revelation was rejected by the Greeks and this prejudice set the stage for how a hellenized Church approached it. Generally it was an ambivalent acceptance of it. A concept of history that justifies it as a faithful hermeneutical tool must be rooted in the Incarnation in order to unite it to divine eternity. By this means Scripture can be seen to be both the eternal word of God and the historically written words of men simultaneously. The Incarnation is here seen as the sole means whereby the Creator can unite with and interact with his creation. And it should be used as a template for interpreting all actions of God in the world, especially revelation. The central premise of such a hermeneutic is that the eternal cannot be known to the created unless it comes in created, therefore spacial and temporal form. This argument will begin as a historical study of early biblical interpretation to trace the development of the practice of allegory. From there a study of time in the thoughts of two central theologians of the Latin and Greek Church, Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, followed by an examination of the use of history in modern theologians. A more detailed examination of the subject of time and God's relationship to it will be made with a concluding section tracing out the principles of an incarnational hermeneutic.