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A NORMATIVE CRITIQUE OF
"DESCRIPTIVE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY"
Ben C. Ollenburger
61.
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II
Beforelaunching my own critique of Stendahl's propo-
sals I would like to make note of an objection often raised
against Stendahl, or against the kind of formal requirement
that holds biblical theology accountable for the strictly
descriptive character of its work - an objection more fre-
quently heard in discussion
than read in print.
It is often pointed out that one of the Enlightenment's
requirements for validly scientific work was objectivity.
Objectivity was held by the Enlightenment to be not only
possible but indeed a conditio sine quo non for science. Any
historian whose work was to be judged scientific would have
to be governed by objectivity. More recently, however, and .
in partial dependence on work in hermeneutics, it has been
objected against this Enlightenment claim that all work,
including that of science, is done from the perspective or
under the influence of certain presuppositions. Sometimes
the name of Thomas Kuhn is invoked to urge that these pre-
suppositions are unavoidable, sometimes the name of Hans-
Georg Gadamer is invoked to urge that they are necessary
and beneficial ingredients for the work of interpretation.4
Since biblical theology is concerned with interpretation and
meaning, presuppositions of the kind that render objectivity
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Descriptive and Normative
In 1959, P. F. Strawson published a book on Meta-
physics, entitled Individuals.h 2 It is an analytical work that
deals with individuals in only a very special sense, and has
such chapter titles as "The Introduction of Particulars into
Propositions" and "Subject and Predicate: Two Criteria."
The book engages in argument with various other philoso-
phers and proposes a number of theories, and the work, while
acknowledged as important within the discipline, is still the
subject of philosophical debate. I mention the book here
because it carries the subtitle, "An Essay in Descriptive Meta-
physics." After reading Stendahl's article it should strike us
as odd that a book on metaphysics should be called descrip-
tive. It is not at all historical; rather, it offers some innova-
tive new theories. It does not treat past attempts at meta-
physics, but offers a fresh account. I do not believe that
Strawson anywhere invokes a notion of authority, other
than that of clear thinking and analysis, but there is every
indication that he wants his account to have some kind of
normative value, in that subsequent thinkers should be
guided by it. It is an account of what we ought to think, or
rather, how we ought to think about certain things. In what
sense, then, is this book descriptive? Fortunately, Strawson
tells us what he means by descriptive, and interestingly, the
contrast is not between descriptive and normative, but be-
tween descriptive and revisionary.
"Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the
actual structure of our thought aboutthe world, revisionary
metaphysics is concerned to produce a better structure"
(p. xiii). Strawson readily acknowledges that no absolute
distinction can be drawn between descriptive and revisionary
metaphysics, and that the most noteworthy philosophers of
the past incorporated elements of both. However, he is will-
ing to characterize Descartes, Leibniz and Berkeley as
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field of biblical
theology? I suspect that one reason is that
we (biblical scholars) have a generally shared sense of what
constitutes a (normative) description. Such a description
will normally be an account of the phenomena (texts, or,
according to Stendahl, events) that is constrained by a given
set of tacitly accepted rules and will hence constrain us to
assent to the account. By "assent to the account" I do not
mean that we will have no potential disagreement with it,
but that we will assent to the account as one that follows
the relevant procedural rules (method). If universal agree-
ment were a requirement, then no account would be norma-
tive in any useful or interesting sense. An account is also a
(normative) description if it successfully explains a phenome-
non - and "successfully explains" is again a relative (but not
subjective) category.17 As it happens, the procedural rules
that we are generally (or tacitly) agreed upon are those we
normally lump under the rubric of "historical-critical
method," and which yield a particular kind of understand-
ing of the phenomena (texts or events) under consideration. 8
What Stendahl suggests is that we call accounts that are con-
strained by these rules "descriptive," and those which are not
in the same way constrained "normative."
This distinction seems to me unhelpful for reasons I
have already outlined. We do in fact accept historical-
critically governed descriptions as normative, in the sense
that we accept such descriptions as normative for our under-
standing of the texts, just in case these descriptions do not
violate the constraints of historical-critical description.
The proffered descriptive-normative distinction would have
us reserve the label "normative" to those descriptions that
are constrained by rules other than those usually employed
in critical historical investigation. This would be as if archi-
tects reserved the label "normative" to those (imagined)
descriptions of the Leaning Tower of Pisa offered by astrolo-
gers.
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IV
What It Meant and What It Means
As we have already noted, Stendahl offers a relatively
unproblematic account of "what it meant" in terms of how
a text was interpreted in the history of its use in Christian
interpretation. In this sense "what it meant" is equivalent to
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v
The goal of Stendahl's argument seems to be that of
making room for the work of historical-critical description
in biblical theology, and of making biblical theology account-
able to that kind of description. With that goal no one
should find fault. Indeed, any use made of any text must
be, in some way, accountable to historical-critical descrip-
tions, assuming for now that there is a discreet class of
descriptions that may be assigned that label. With respect
to the biblical texts, even systematic-theological uses of them
are accountable, in some way, to historical-critical descrip-
tions. Any discipline, including biblical theology, is free to
hold that historical-critical descriptions are not exhaustive
of its interests in the texts, but disciplines are not free simply
to transgress such descriptions in principle.
For example, a literary-critical reading of Genesis, of
the kind undertaken by Robert Alter, may be interested in
different kinds of descriptions from those offered by tradi-
tional historical critics. But it is not free simply to trans-
gress them. Such a literary critic may be interested in
describing the dramatic narrative character of Genesis 22,
rather than the history of its redaction and transmission.
But he is not at liberty to claim that it has no such history -
just because his work can be done without taking it into
account. If such a claim is made, it must be supported by
the kinds of evidence, and by the kinds of warrants, com-
monly accepted by the intellectual community of biblical
scholarship.30
Similarly, one may suppose, biblical theologians are
free to determine, on the basis of their particular set of
interests, what sorts of descriptions or accounts of the
biblical texts are most compatible with those (presumably
theological) interests.31 This would not relieve them, how-
ever, of a fundamental accountability to historical descrip-
tions or accounts of the texts with which they work. A
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theologically interested
account of the book of Isaiah, for
example, (whatever such an account may look like)32 may
pay more or less attention to the historical diversity of the
material in that
book, but it is not free to claim, without
proper argument, that such diversity does not exist.33
Had Stendahl claimed this much, and not more, there
would be nothing controversial about his argument. But
Stendahl goes on to make the much stronger claim, without
sufficient argument, that historical-critical descriptions
exhaust the work of biblical
theology. Stendahl's claim rests
ultimately on his assumptions that with respect to the Bible,
i.e., the canonical text of a religious community, there is
only historical criticism and "theology per se," with nothing
in between - and that theology operates by using the meta-
physical tools of hermeneutics to do normative work on
biblical texts.
A critique of Stendahl's notion of what theology, "per
se" or otherwise, actually does is a topic for someone else to
address.34 This essay has tried merely to show that the
categories by which Stendahl attempts to articulate the
distinctive tasks of biblical theology are unhelpful, simply
because of the logical problems involved in an understand-
ing of these categories as he uses them. It is true, of course,
that we understand a biblical text differently today from
when it was written.My argument is not that this (seemingly
self-evident) proposition is false. But the point is that all
of us understand such a text differently today from when
it was written, whether we are philologists, literary critics
or systematic theologians. There is enormous utility for
all present readers of the texts, in the work of historical-
critics (philologists, historians), who make as clear as possible
the differences between our "horizons of expectations"35
and those of the ancients. However, this claim is far differ-
ent from the set of claims embedded in Stendahl's argu-
ment, and the manner in which it is carried out.
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- NOTES -
2- This is not to say, of course, that his claims have not been con-
tested. See already Brevard Childs, "The Theological Responsibility of
an Old Testament Commentary," Interp 18 (1964) 432-49. Stendahl
comments on Childs's critique in "Methodology in the Study of Biblical
Theology," The Bible in Modern Scholarship (ed. J. P. Hyatt; Nash-
ville : Abingdon, 1965) 203 n. 13. From the standpoint of theology,
Langdon Gilkey critiques Stendahl's distinctions in "The Roles of the
'Descriptive' or 'Historical' and of the 'Normative' in Our Work,"
Criterion 20 (1981) 10-17. While I am in agreement with Gilkey's
critique, my own argument is different from and independent of his.
See also Nicholas Lash, "What Might Martyrdom Mean?" Ex Auditu
1 (1985) [ed. Thomas W. Gillespie and Dikran Y. Hadidian, Allison
Park: Pickwick Publications, 1985, 14-24].
92.
8. He does think, however, that his proposal will lead to the search
for "more original intentions and expressions" that will be "suggestive"
for what Christianity is about (ibid., 207).
16. By this I mean simply that the rules chosen will be those appro-
priate to our interests, and appropriate to the object. If we are archi-
tects we will not choose (or be primarily interested in) other kinds of
descriptions. Similarly, if the object is a text, rather than a tower,
architectural "rules" will not be valid, since they haven't any explana-
tory power relative to a text. On the "interest-relativity" of explana-
tion, see Hilary Putnam, Meaning and the Moral Sciences (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978) 41-45. Putnam's example is of a bank
robber asked by a priest, "Why do you rob banks?" The thief's answer,
"Because that's where the money is," is an "explanation," but not
one commensurate with the priest's interests. He wanted to know why
the thief robbed banks instead of obeying the law, not why he robbed
94.
23. Harper & Row, 1978. The page numbers in the following para-
graphs refer to this work.
25. I do not know quite what Terrien means by this rule. 'f he means
that God's guidance is necessary for adequately understanding any text,
or for understanding just the Bible but not other texts, it is not a rule,
but an article of faith. If he means that identification with that of
which texts speak (God, in our case) is prerequisite to understanding
them, then Christians can understand only Christian religious texts.
That would be an odd rule. If he is talking only about a kind of "Ein-
fuhlen," then this rule would have to be stated in another way, without
reference to God. I suspect that the "rule," as Terrien uses it, has no
function other than to bring about the "behind the back" move that
we are describing.
29. See above, n. 26. Sean McEvenue argues for the strict priority
of "biblical meanings" in biblical theology, equating these with authors'
intentions, e.g. those of the Yahwist or "P," yet he claims that he does
not intend to criticize the work of those who deny that the meaning
of a text is equivalent to an author's intentions ("The Old Testament,
Scripture or Theology?" Interp 35 [1981] 229-42, esp. pp. 237-38
and n. 24, citing Warren and Wellek, Gadamer and Ricoeur). Drawing
on the work of Anthony Campbell (The Ark Narrative [SBLDS 16;
Missoula: Scholars Press, 19975 ), McEvenue says that the meaning of
the Ark Narrative is that "Yahweh is radically free of all human mani-
pulation in making his choices and that Yahweh had chosen to come
to Jerusalem and to bless the Davidic era there" (239-40). If this is
the meaning of the text, and biblical theology (or exegesis) aims at such
meaning statements, one wonders why Campbell had to exert so much
effort in arriving at it. Anyone competent in English could arrive at
this "meaning" through a casual perusal of the RSV. In this case the
"meaning" of the text proves to be the least interesting thing about it.
Campbell, by the way, explicitly rejects McEvenue's equation of mean-
ing and intention (Ark Narrative, 195-96).
97.
35. The term is used by, among others, Robert Jauss ("Literary
History as a Challenge to Literary Theory," New Literary History 2
[1970] 14), who means by it, according to Susan R. Suleiman, "the
set of cultural, ethical, and literary (generic, stylistic, thematic) expec-
tations of a work's readers ..." (Susan R. Suleiman, "Introduction:
Varieties of Audience-Oriented Criticism," The Reader in the Text
98.
37. I would like to thank my colleague, Mark Kline Taylor, for his
careful reading and thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this
essay. Some of the issues addressed here have been carried further in
the area of hermeneutics by Charles M. Wood, by whose work some of
my own arguments have been shaped. See especially Theory and
Understanding (AARDS 12; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975); The
Formation of Christian Understanding (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1981).