Date of Award
10-1981
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Theology
First Advisor
Matthew L. Lamb
Abstract
Contemporary methods of biblical exegesis often explore a text's pre- and post-history--its literary and cultural antecedents and descendants, its generic and geographic relatives. Such methods focus on the text's internal data, their consistency with and their verification in external sources; and Scripture's ultimate referent, God, seems generally ignored. The rigorous application of literary and historical criticism to biblical texts may tell us much about these texts, but it no longer tells us anything about God. Rather, "God" has been discarded as an appropriate regulating concept for exegesis. Although Scripture proclaims itself to be a literary-historical disclosure of divinity, and although tradition affirms the texts' fundamental and normative revelatory significance for the Christian communities, "divine mystery" has no conceptual pertinence or validity in exegetical activity. "Mystery" is simply not accessible to exegetical understanding.
...