In search of solid ground : understanding the epistemology, hermeneutics, and theology in Walter Brueggemann’s Theology of the Old Testament, testimony, dispute, advocacy

Abstract

Every theological expression of the Old Testament stands in a search for an epistemology and hermeneutical approach that can match the feature of the Old Testament. In this study, Walter Brueggemann’s epistemology, hermeneutics, and theological conclusions are analyzed with specific attention paid to his Theology of the Old Testament, Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, published in 1997. The title of this study, In Search of Solid Ground, came as a conclusion of this study. Walter Brueggemann, since the beginning of his academical career, has been in search for a new solid ground after the collapse of history and ontology. The hymn that was sang at his inauguration as professor of the Old Testament, “The Church’s one Foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord…” reflects that for a Christian professor the foundation is in Christ alone.1 Nevertheless, Brueggemann challenged the academical guild and the pastoral society when he presented a concept of the God of the Old Testament that involves a tension. The rhetorical tension in the text, according to him, also has a theological correspondence, so that God in the Old Testament, YHWH, cannot easily be described in classical dogmatic terms.2 In light of his position as a role model for the discipline of the Old Testament, his approach merits specific interest. Brueggemann’s theology as described in Theology of the Old Testament concerns the way in which the backbone in his theology – i.e. his epistemology and hermeneutics – paves the way for his theology. In this study I describe his epistemology as testimonial foundationalism which means that I argue that he has a weak foundational standpoint. His hermeneutics, based on the metaphor of the testimony, imagination and the Jewish traditions, is best described as simultaneously non-referential and extra-referential. His theology is based on the fact that there is no convergences between the various testimonies within the Old Testament. In the end, Brueggemann concludes that the rhetorical tension also becomes a theological tension. Prior to Theology of the Old Testament Brueggemann presented a theological distinction between God above the fray and God in the fray where above stands for transcendence and in stands for immanence. In Theology of the Old Testament there is an obvious shift towards stressing YHWH as distinctively in the fray. This study argues that Brueggemann’s tension between Soverginity and passion within YHWH could rather be formulated as God above the fray and Israel in the fray. This means that the God of Israel, YHWH, is immanent, in the fray through his chosen people. This theological conclusion emerges from encounters with the obvious counter-testimonies in the Old Testament, as formulated by Brueggemann, and the presupposition that the Rule of Faith comes prior to the encounter with the biblical text.