Postmodern Preaching

                                                                                   Exploring How to Preach Christ to Postmodern People

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Incarnational Preaching

The Biblical Metanarrative

Spiritual Formation and Preaching

Preaching the Atonement to Postmoderns

Going Deeper

Postmodern Philosophy

Postmodern Study of the Bible

Worldview Thinking

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Creation and Cosmology

The Providence of God

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The Study of the Bible in Postmodern Times

How is the Bible being studied in the postmodern era? To answer that question adequately, we should first trace how the Bible has been studied through all history.

Simply speaking, the Bible has been studied in two major ways. First, it has been studied subjectively, by which the reader seeks to encounter the Voice of God in the text. Secondly, it has been studied analytically, by which the reader seeks to understand the text as an object of consideration.   

The essay begins by exploring how these two approaches first developed. Then, we will trace the two approaches through history until we can see how they affect the study of the Bible in our present, postmodern period.

The Origin of the Subjective Approach

In the beginning, the experience of language was very personal as words were spoken between people.

A spoken word is an encounter. As you talk with another person, you experience that person. You learn what that person is thinking and wishes to do. You become affected by what is said. A conversation is a subjective experience in which two people interact with each other. To hear a spoken word is to experience an event.

The Hebrews recognized this. In Hebrew, the word for ‘word’ is dabar. It represents far more than a unit of language that carries a meaning. A dabar conveys the idea of a power released, through words said. So, when God spoke a dabar, it accomplished something. "My word (dabar) ... shall not return to me empty," said the Lord (Isaiah 55:11).

In the beginning, then, spoken words were experienced subjectively.

The Origin of the Analytical Approach

The invention of writing altered how people experienced words.

Writing enabled words to be seen. The first written words were given the shape of simple pictographs. Afterwards, cuneiform writing with its wedges arose. Then, around 1500 B.C., an obscure Canaanite invented the alphabet, an event that made the writing of words compact and efficient and easily transferable.

Written words lost their sense of a personal, present encounter. Now, words were able to speak from the past, even many years after they were written. Noble thoughts that caused nations to suffer, words about terrible wars and destroyed cities, could be squeezed into wedge-shaped marks on a clay tablet or strokes on a papyrus or chips on a stone monument.

Before, listeners could only hear words. Now, they could see them. Before, words would come to them from any direction, all directions, all at the same time. There was no escaping a spoken word. A shouted word could pierce through your door and find you in your bed.

Now, words were quite stoppable since they came only from the direction your eyes were looking. To stop a word, all you had to do was avert your glance. Before, you felt subject to words. Now, words became subject to you.

Before, the spoken word always had been closely associated with people and the present reality. Now, words began to be abstract. It was the invention of writing that directly led to the development of theory and logic and analysis . 

The Greek "Seeing Culture"

The Greeks, and especially their philosophers, were among the first to understand the new power of the written word. Plato did not just hear words; he saw them. He knew words as ideas, detached from life and taking on a life of their own. Our word idea comes ultimately from the Greek word “to see.” Our word theory comes from the Greek word theoria, meaning ‘a sight’ (of something seen). An idea is a concept you can see in your mind. A theory is envisioned words. Because the Greeks were able to see words, not just hear them, they were among the first of the early peoples to create an analytical culture.

So enamored were the Greek philosophers about theoria that certain Greek researchers did not even bother with the dirty methods of trial and error in their research. They just relied upon pure reason to bring them to the truth. Reason appeared god-like to them — a realm of perfection where ideas exist and where new ideas can be discovered. (The next time that reason would later appear god-like would be during the Enlightenment.)

Aiding the Greek intelligentsia in the development of their analytical culture was the structure of the Greek language itself. Greek is an Indo-European language, based on the idea of substantives and verbs, actors and actions. This rhythm of subject and object, cause and effect, found in Indo-European grammar gives those languages their basic sense of logic. Other languages can and do have a different grammar and a different sense of logic. But with the Greeks, the written word and Indo-European logic combined to spark the early development of their analytical thinking.[1]

The Hebrew "Hearing Culture"

On an opposite shore of the Mediterranean lay another venerable civilization which also used writing — the Hebrews. Unlike the Greeks, however, the Hebrews did not develop analytical thinking. Israel was a nation of prophets, not philosophers. Prophets listen to God. Philosophers envision. For the Greek philosopher, intellectual understanding came through the eye. For the Hebrew prophet, it came through the ear. The eye sees and dissects. The ear, on the other hand, hears and obeys.

The difference has proven to be fundamental in the history of the Western world.

The Hebrews began their scriptures by saying that God spoke and all came into existence. In this thought, we recognize a logic different from the logic of Indo-European grammar, with its subjects and objects, causes and effects, if's and then's. In the Hebrew faith, God is the subject and we are the object.

The logic of the Hebrew scriptures is the logic of revelation. God is the cause; we are the result. The Lord speaks and his word has effect. In the Indo-European logic of grammar, the most illogical thing is to conclude that something is unrelated to an action. In the logic of revelation, the most illogical thing is to refuse to listen to the Voice of God. To refuse to listen is to refuse to participate in what God is doing. The prophets called it rebellion. We even sometimes call evil irrational.

The Hebrews wrote down what the Voice of God had been telling them, but they never felt they had succeeded in trapping the Word of God onto paper. They confessed the sacred texts to be God-breathed. By this they were acknowledging that the Voice was not their prisoner, and not ultimately subject to them; they were still subject to it. The words written in the Scriptures contain a story, and the voice of a Story-teller. It still breathes with the presence and purpose of the Living Word, who still speaks to those who listen with their hearts.

For many centuries the Hebrews strained to listen to the Word of God through their prophets, but then the Word came even closer to them. The Word became flesh. "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2a, NIV). Humanity was allowed to see the Word, not as a written word, but a living Word. “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it” (1 John 1:1-2, NIV).

The Seeing and Hearing Cultures Intersect

For centuries the Greek "seeing" culture and the Hebrew "hearing" culture, with their different ways of understanding reality, existed side by side in the eastern Mediterranean. One was a nation of philosophers; the other was a nation of prophets. One had developed a culture of analysis; the other lived under the belief that God was telling them a Story.

Eventually these two great cultures met each other. They did so in the persons of businessmen and traders and ordinary citizens, who intermingled in cosmopolitan cities.

One such city was Alexandria. Named after the great Greek conqueror, it was also a home to more Jews than lived in Jerusalem. Philo was one Jew who lived there — a Hellenistic, intellectual Jew he was. Walking around Alexandria he spied Greek and Jew sharing marketplace and street. He conceived a great plan to unite the two majestic cultures together, a plan that would make the philosopher respect the prophet and the prophet understand the philosopher. It would be a grand philosophy of his own making with bridges linking Hebrew and Greek thinking together. He would use allegory as one such bridge. Allegory was a way of understanding that sought deeper meanings behind literal texts. Philo felt that allegory was a way the Greek mind, with its thoughts about an ideal realm of reason and logic, and the Hebrew mind, with its thoughts of heaven, could connect.

The thoughts of Philo were noble, and his intentions good, but he failed to understand that the Greek philosopher was not the Hebrew prophet. That is why the Apostle Paul purposely chose a harsher, more combative stance against Greek culture (cf. 1 Corinthians 1-2, Colossians 2:8). Paul felt that the philosopher was utterly incompatible with the prophet. Greek metaphysical teaching about the meaning, structure and principles behind the world was not only unfounded, but also contrary to the words spoken to the prophets for centuries.

The Storyteller had been saying to the Hebrews that salvation is by mercy. Plato, on the other hand, said that salvation is through contemplation. Plato reasoned that all people possess a divine principle which can be developed through asceticism and the pursuit of the Good and the Beautiful. But Paul recognized such an idea as hostile to all that the Storyteller had been saying to Israel for centuries. Salvation is by grace, the Voice said, not fineness.[2]

The Storyteller had also told Paul that salvation is through Christ. Gnosticism, on the other hand, said that salvation came through the possession of special knowledge. The Gnostics offered that knowledge through an intricate step-ladder of salvation that minimized the role played by Christ. In the book of Colossians, Paul vigorously argues against the Gnosticism that was even then developing and which would later paralyze second century Christianity.[3]

Yet, despite this antipathy between the Greek "seeing" and the Hebrew "hearing" societies, both cultures made their mark on the other. For the first time the Greek world experienced the logic of revelation. The seeds planted by Paul and others proved to be the vanguard of a new society, a Christian realm that would eventually replace the old classical world.

In turn, the Greek "seeing" culture" injected into the church a cadre of people who thought with the logic of Indo-European grammar. They not only harkened to the scriptures as subject, but they also analyzed them as object. This analytical thinking remained a part of the church but did not dominate it until the Enlightenment. Then, analytical thinking was finally allowed to fully develop, and this led to the birth of biblical criticism.

Biblical criticism would be useful whenever it helped the church to understand the literal meaning of a text. However, when it dissected a text until there was nothing left, it would prove to rob the church of the Voice of God.

The Patristic Era

From 100- 400 A.D., the heart of the patristic era, the seeing and hearing cultures both existed within the church. Those who thought with the logic of revelation sought to hear God's Voice in the text, but those who thought with the logic of Indo-European grammar tried to analyze the text as well. The "hearing" culture predominated over the "seeing" culture.

The people of the time were still shaped by the older, oral culture that still considered a word to be an encounter. When the people read the Bible, they sensed there had to be something more than just words on paper. They expected to experience the Living God in the text.

A difference began to arise in their minds between a “spiritual” and a “literal” reading of a text. Today, we use the word literal to refer to the original historical and linguistic meaning. In the patristic era, however, the word literal meant the “dead-letter” of the text. It referred to reading of the written words without having an experience of the Person of God. The general feeling was that the spiritual reading of the Bible — i.e., reading the Bible in such a way as to listen to and experience the presence of God — was superior to a lifeless, literal reading.

The spiritual reading of the Bible, which could also be called “spiritual hermeneutics,” was widespread in the patristic era, but it was not always balanced. In Alexandria Origen and his followers played freely with allegory, because of Philo’s precedent. Allegorical excesses came to plague biblical studies for centuries. Fanciful equivalents were made that amuse critical scholars today. Still, we should recognize that allegory was only an attempt, albeit crude, to hear God’s Voice in the text. Critical scholarship can easily dismiss allegory, but it should not so easily dismiss the intent of allegory.

Attempts were made at historical criticism but, even then, the spiritual power of the written Word was generally respected. The exegetes of ancient Antioch, long considered the champions of a historical-grammatical approach in the ancient world, now are known to have been very interested in the spiritual reading of the text as well.[4]

Notable exegetes of the time included Origen of Alexandria, the great allegorist (c. 185-254). In the eastern Mediterranean there was Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350-428) and John Chrysostom (c. 345-407). In the West: Ambrose (c. 340-397), Jerome (c. 340-420), Augustine (354-430) and Gregory the Great (c. 540-604). Their writings display a frequent concern for spiritual reading and, outside of Alexandria, often a real concern for the historical meaning of the text as well.

So, although the patristic church began to open itself to analytical thinking and the critical study of the scriptures, it can be said that it soundly resisted the emerging analytical culture in its midst. All during the patristic era the church maintained its suspicion of Greek metaphysical philosophy, which so separated reason from reality. It remembered Paul's warning about "philosophy" and it also recalled how Gnosticism had been a major threat to the survival of the church in the second century. Tertullian's suspicion, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”, summed up the feeling of many.

As result of this continuing caution, biblical criticism never developed much as a scientific field of study in the patristic era. This would not happen until the church became more open to the possibilities of philosophy, after the beginning of the Enlightenment.

Of course, it should be said that although the church remained suspicious of philosophy, this is not to suggest that it lacked great minds — individuals like Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome were all great intellectual leaders. Even Tertullian was neither ignorant, nor did he argue for ignorance. Brilliant and educated himself, he was just ruthlessly opposed to Greek metaphysics.[5]

These leaders all shared the belief that the logic of grammar is not the same as the logic of revelation. Their attitude toward reason, therefore, was one of faith seeking understanding. One could not understand the logic of revelation short of leaping into it. This perspective meant that although the patristic leaders participated in a "seeing" culture, they still remained cautiously and firmly rooted in a "hearing" culture.

The Medieval Period

The patristic era was a time of scholarship and scholars, but all this came to an abrupt end with the fall of Rome in 410 A.D. Western civilization almost totally disintegrated under waves of invaders that relentlessly assaulted Western Europe. The church entered into a long, lackluster era of intellectual demise. It seemed that everything good was lost: scholarship, Bible reading, informed spirituality, civilization.

The collapse of Rome and the ensuing chaos created a widespread ignorance of the Bible in the West. This dire situation would last until greater stability began to take root in Western Europe in the 11th century. Only then did wealth, learning and the availability of Bibles gradually begin to increase. (In the East, meanwhile, the development of the creeds and the liturgy, as well as the poor quality of the preaching, relegated the Bible to a secondary status that lasted the whole medieval period).

In the late medieval period the greater availability of the Bible in the West birthed a series of spiritual reform movements. God again spoke from the Bible and people again responded. Spiritual reformers such as the Waldensians arose in the 12th century A.D.; Saint Francis in the 13th; Johannes Eckhart, Johannes Tauler and Heinrich Suso in the 14th, and John Wycliffe and John Huss in the 14th-15th centuries.

The analytical culture within western Europe also strengthened in the late medieval period. The increase of wealth and stability in the eleventh century caused the rebirth of the study of philosophy. At first philosophy was merely the tool of theology. But by the thirteenth century philosophy became the rival of faith, not just its slave. Aristotle’s works had just been translated from the Latin and were now widely available. People swiftly recognized in Aristotle’s writing a competing worldview to Christianity. The ancient conflict between faith and philosophy — the hearing culture and the seeing culture — erupted anew in earnest.

Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) attempted to harmonize the two worldviews. He developed a Christian theology based on the philosophy of Aristotle. After Aquinas, however, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw an increasing skepticism about the possibility of harmonizing theology and philosophy. Thus, by the end of the medieval period the "seeing" culture and the "hearing" culture both had become stronger and began to form themselves into competing worldviews. Faith increasingly began to rely on revelation to justify itself while the philosophers claimed the empirical world for themselves.

The Reformation

When the Reformation arose in 1520, the Reformers firmly rejected Aquinas' mingling of faith and philosophy. Instead, the Reformers based their theology solely on the biblical revelation. In this way the Reformation represents a triumph of the church's "hearing" culture over it's "seeing" culture.

The Reformation, however, was a complex movement. The ever-strengthening analytical culture contributed to the eruption of the Reformation just as much as the "hearing" culture.

We see this contribution of the analytical culture in two notable events: the development of the movable printing press around 1450 A.D., and the rise of humanism in the late 15th century.

First, the invention of the movable printing press caused the power of the written word to be experienced by more people than ever before. The printing press had an enormous effect in weakening Europe's oral culture and in strengthening the emerging literate culture. As this new literate culture grew, so did the power of analysis in Western thinking. It can be argued that the printing press contributed to the Reformation not only by causing the dissemination of literature but also by changing the way people thought — making them more analytical and therefore more willing to rethink tradition.

Secondly, humanism began in the late 15th century when scholars fled from Greece to Italy ahead of invading Turks. The arrival of these scholars in Italy caused a fresh breath of critical and curious thinking to sweep through Europe. The humanists were interested in the literal, historical dimensions of the biblical text. Their presence in western Europe caused the birth of modern-era Greek and Hebrew biblical scholarship, especially with the printing of the Hebrew Bible in 1480 and Erasmus' Greek New Testament in 1516. Also, for the first time in the western universities, biblical exegetical lectures replaced allegorical lectures.

The new humanist study of the historical and linguistic meaning of the literal text fueled the Reformation fires. The Reformers felt that the medieval church had strayed far from the original faith. A close study of the literal meaning of the text, they were certain, would bring the church back to its original, evangelical faith.

Yet, although the Reformers followed the historical methods of the humanists, they also preserved the belief that the Voice of God was speaking to them through the text. Reformation hermeneutics emphasized both historical criticism and the Voice of God in a more or less balanced way. This is why Luther exegeted the scriptures in a humanist way, yet he also called the written Word of God, “the vehicle of the Holy Spirit."[6]  John Calvin, who probed the historical background to the text, also openly asked for divine illumination in such words as: “O Lord, heavenly Father, in whom is the fullness of light and wisdom, enlighten our minds by your Holy Spirit, and give us grace to receive your Word with reverence and humility, without which no one can understand your truth.”

Such thinking represents a balance between the hearing and seeing cultures. The Bible was listened to as a subject, yet also studied as an object. This balance can be seen in the following distillation of Reformation principles about the Bible. In general, the Reformers believed that ...

·        The Bible is a means of grace through which God can speak.

·        The Holy Spirit illumines the text for all Christians, not just for church officials.

·        All Christians should read the Bible to hear God's Voice for their lives.

·        Interpretations should be tested in the church community to guard against subjectivism.

·        The literal meaning of the text should be studied to protect against subjectivism.

·        General education enables people to read the Bible.

·        Catechetical instruction fosters Bible reading by teaching the essentials.

This, the Reformation theology of spiritual hermeneutics, reached its height of development under the Puritans, whose sermons became known for their spiritual impact. John Owen, the Puritan theologian, wrote a comprehensive treatise on the subject of spiritual hermeneutics in 1678 that is without parallel, either before or since.[7]

Besides the Puritans, the Pietists also were concerned for spiritual hermeneutics, as we see in the writings of Philipp Spener (1635-1705) and August Francke (1663-1727). In 1693 Francke wrote A Guide to the Reading and Study of the Holy Scripture. It is divided into two parts. The first stresses the literal and historical meaning of the text. The second consists of methods for detecting the deeper meaning.[8]

In summary, the Reformers achieved a balance between listening to God’s Voice in the text (illumination), and an objective study of the literal meaning of the text (critical scholarship). Their sensitivity to the Voice of God influenced Puritanism and Pietism.

From the Enlightenment to the Modern Era

Although a balance between the literal and spiritual readings of the biblical text was maintained for a time among the Reformed churches, this balance was quickly lost in many circles. On the Continent, Lutheran scholarship degenerated into a dull Protestant scholasticism that was preoccupied with attacking Catholics. Church dogma controlled biblical exegesis. Meanwhile the horrific Thirty Year's War (1618-1648), fought between Catholic and Protestant armies, succeeded in scarring European lands and minds. The English Civil War, fanned into flames by religious zealots, also had its effect upon people. By the end of the Reformation century, a time filled with warfare over dogma, people craved a gentler, more reasonable faith.

The mood of Europe turned toward rationalism. The Enlightenment began. Rationalists such as Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) and John Locke (1632-1704) argued for a moral and rational religion. In the mood of the time it was easy for the Deists to conclude that supernaturalism was not rational at all. They rejected the Reformers and erected in turn a rival religion based entirely on natural reason alone. And so, a Deist like Anthony Collins (1676-1729) taught that the prophecies could not possibly be literal prophecies, and that miracles were absurd.

It is interesting to note that Deism existed at the same time as Pietism in Europe, illustrating how the old "seeing" and "hearing" cultures continued. William Baird writes: "Viewed side by side, the Deists and the Pietists represent two ways of interpreting the Bible which have influenced New Testament criticism ever since: an objective, rational reading; and a subjective, experiential reading."[9]

Yet, the "seeing" culture was now stronger than the "hearing" culture. The Enlightenment represents the triumph of the analytical culture over the oral culture. Scholars now began to analyze and critique the words of the Bible rather than to listen for God through them. The scientific method was applied to the study of the Bible and modern biblical criticism was born.

The phrase "biblical criticism" often sounds negative to many people. Properly speaking, biblical criticism is the application of the disciplines of philosophy, literature, history and science to the critical study of the Bible. Some of these critical approaches have proven to be extremely helpful in understanding the literal meaning of the text. Text criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism and genre criticism are examples of several types of biblical criticism that have made important contributions in our biblical scholarship.

Whenever we ask questions about the writing, transmission, background or literary nature of a text, we are asking critical questions. F. F. Bruce wrote in the 1970's, "The value of these critical methods of Bible study lies in their enabling the reader to interpret the writings as accurately as possible."[10]

All scholars today use the critical method. They differ, however, to the degree they allow the critical method to affect the religious authority of the text. The distinction between conservative, liberal and radical scholars, as Otto Piper once said, has "nothing to do with scholarship or attainments ... but rather indicates the degree to which the results of scholarship are held to have a bearing upon the religious authority of the Bible."[11]

When scholars adopt historical presuppositions that deny the possibility of revelation, their conclusions will weaken biblical authority. This is exactly what happened among radical biblical critics after the 18th century. They treated the Bible as an object for study without regard for the authority of the text.

When this radical biblical criticism first developed, there were a number of reactions to it. Many individuals simply ignored it. Certainly in the United States radical biblical criticism did not enter into the seminaries to any major degree until after the heresy trial of Charles Briggs in 1892. In the 19th century, many scholars decided to adopt a more moderate approach — people such as Ellicott, Alford, Westcott, Plummer, Swete and Rawlinson. They used biblical criticism while still seeking to be sensitive to biblical authority.

None of these individuals, however, talked much about spiritual hermeneutics. After the Enlightenment, this was largely forgotten by scholars who were so focused on reconstructing the literal, historical meaning.

On the Continent, the first real shift back to hearing the Bible, not just analyzing it, came in the person of Karl Barth (1886-1968). He affirmed that the Living Word of God is able to speak through the text even if the written word was found to be flawed with human weakness. Barth's position, known as neo-Orthodoxy, followed on the heels of more than a century of arid, radical biblical criticism. It allowed the Bible to be a means of grace once again. The neo-orthodox theologians felt they had returned to the Reformation.

But there were weaknesses to neo-Orthodoxy. Although the neo-Orthodox movement succeeded in helping mainstream Protestants to listen to the text more, it failed to provide an adequate answer to the problems raised by radical historical criticism. Because of this weakness, Barth did not return the church to the Reformation.

The Reformers, Luther and Calvin, both believed that a historical study of the text helps the reader to avoid subjectivism. Barth, on the other hand, downplayed the historical reading of the text. He said that the Bible was not the Word of God; it merely contained the Word of God.[12] 

It was inevitable that some would go one step further after Barth and conclude that a historical faith was not needed at all. This is precisely what the existentialist, Rudolph Bultmann, did. He taught that our existential experience of the text is our "faith." The text is just one big metaphor.

Late Modern to Postmodern

Today, many theological liberals, influenced by Bultmann, will say that they interpret the Bible metaphorically. "We take the Bible seriously but not literally," is a phrase often heard. The problem with this approach is that the reader defines the metaphor, thereby reading meaning into the text. This is nothing more than a subjective existentialism, which differs from the biblical doctrine of illumination. 

To be certain, there have been new analytical approaches developed in recent decades. Sociological interpretation seeks to understand the sociological backgrounds to a text. Redaction criticism considers how the biblical writers as literary authors shaped their source material according to their particular purposes. Genre criticism treats texts according to the literary genre to which they belong. Narrative criticism seeks to restore the sense of story within the Bible.

But a great deal of scholarly attention also has been given to the reader’s literary, subjective experience of the text. New literary criticism ponders the "world of the text." It derives meaning solely from the literary impressions given by the text itself, devoid of any historical background. Reader response criticism is similar to narrative criticism but enters into the world of the reader as listener to the story of the text.

In postmodern times, for us to have a balanced study of the Bible involving both subjective and analytical approaches, two things must happen.

First, we must find a way to subjectively experience the Voice of God in the Bible without falling into an existential subjectivism. This topic is explored in the article on this website, “Spiritual Formation and Preaching."

Secondly, we must find a way to analytically study the Bible without resorting to the radical historical criticism of the past. This new approach would respect the historical basis of the faith without making biblical authority dependent upon historical criticism. We examine this, just below.

A Way Forward for Postmodern Times

N. T. Wright is a leading Anglican scholar who has laid the foundation for an analytical study of the biblical text without resorting to radical historical criticism. His approach is based on critical realism. (13)

Critical realism is a theory of knowledge which seeks to take the best from modernism while avoiding the excesses of postmodernism. Critical realism believes there is an objective reality, even while it acknowledges the limits of our ability to understand that reality. When we apply this approach to the study of a biblical text, critical realism allows us to study the text analytically, but it also reminds us that we will never be able to completely understand the original meaning. 

If we admit that we cannot completely know the original meaning of a text - only an approximate meaning - does this undermine the authority of the Bible? Wright says, "no." The authority of the Bible is not dependent on the caprice of historical criticism. Rather, the sense of authority arises from the Story of God's self-revelation told by the Bible — in other words, from the meta-narrative.

He is not calling us to return to a pre-critical, pre-modernism in which the Bible is used as a holy source of proof texts. Neither does he make the authority of the Bible dependent on the caprice of historical criticism. Rather, he is directing us to the total Story being told by the Bible.

As Wright puts it: the Story is God's "story with the world, seen as focused on the story of Israel and thence on the story of Jesus, as told and retold in the Old and New Testaments, and as still requiring completion." In other words,  biblical authority ultimately rests on the personhood of God. 

Does a Story really exist? Yes, if we believe in the self-revelation of God to the world. But we should recognize that the Story comes to us as stories, stories about people. Through the Exodus deliverance, the Israelites learned that Yahweh had a merciful character. Through their Exile, they learned that Yahweh was also holy. Through the Restoration, they learned about hope. Through Christ, they saw fulfillment.

All these stories must be allowed to speak on their own, as they should, but they should not be allowed to speak alone. They are meant to be understood together.

Thus, it seems that an alternative to the radical historical criticism of the past may be possible. The new historical method will read the text in terms of the whole worldview of the text. The Story emerges from the stories as we understand them to a reasonable degree of historical probability. If we believe that God has been making a self-revelation to the world through a chosen people, then this yields a Story — a meta-narrative. The meta-narrative reminds us of the person of God working in history, the ultimate basis of biblical authority in the postmodern era.

A critical realism approach to studying the Bible, along with a proper understanding of the biblical doctrine of illumination, provide us with a good step toward returning to a healthy balance of studying the Bible analytically and also hearing the Voice of God in the text.

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