Brueggemann approaches the Old Testament as a developing, diverse testimony that, in its complete form, advocates "a Yahweh-version of reality that is strongly in conflict with other versions of reality and other renderings of truth that have been shaped without reference to Yahweh and that determinedly propose a reality and truth that is Yahweh-free." (xvii) That is, the OT is a progressive revelation of God to Israel that is recorded from the perspective of Israel's experience of it in their history. We interpret it under the fulfillment of it in the New Testament and with the traditions (creeds, doctrinal statements etc.) of the church in history as we apply it to the questions of our time.
The presuppositions that govern exegesis, either hidden or acknowledged, arise from the community in which and for which the interpretation is done. Thus in practice the authority of Scripture is intimately linked to the claims of the interpretive community, a reality not easily accepted in Protestantism. This awareness is not far removed from the Tridentine formula of “Scripture and tradition,” if tradition is understood as the lens of interpretation. Such a lens is present in the traditions of the Reformation, for such a lens is undiminished by the slogan of sola scriptura. 4
It is nonetheless the case that Scripture cannot be understood apart from the ongoing role of communal tradition. 4
In chapter 1 Brueggemann reviews the history of Old Testament theology from the Reformation to modern times. His main insight, in the 1st part of the chapter which covers the Reformation and The Critical Enterprise, is that, though the reformers freed the Bible from being read only under the magisterium of Roman Catholic tradition, their ideas quickly hardened into theological systems and dogmas under which the Bible was read. The same became true of the various critical methods. We cannot fully escape our presuppositions and traditions as we formulate our theologies.
The great evangelical insights of the Reformers hardened into a cognitive scheme that kept the form of evangelical faith but was increasingly remote from the substance and emancipatory power of its urging. 7
As we gain perspective on the ways in which cultural climate and context shape scholarship and interpretation, it is important for us to recognize that we, no less than our predecessors, are children of our time and place and must deal with the issues as we find them shaped. 12
The next part of chapter 1 discusses the "rescue of biblical theology" from 19th century historical criticism in the 20th century. Brueggemann credits Barth as being the pioneer of the assumption "that the Bible, on its own terms and without appeal to “natural reason,” is the beginning point of faith" (17). Barth saw that beginning with reason was just as much a faith step as beginning with dogma. The next influential theologian/historians in this development were Alt and Noth. Their great contribution was to show that Israel's religion was not just an evolutionary development from surrounding religious environment but that it was unique and originated from God. Albright followed this with his work on the historicity of the OT. This period ends with the two great works of OT biblical theology by Eichrodt and Von Rad (read by all OT majors when I was in seminary). Eichrodt saw the theme of the OT as "covenant relatedness" and emphasized the "constant" nature of the revelation of the OT. Von Rad emphasized the mighty acts of God in history that forced Israel to reevaluate their traditions and adapt them to a new generation. Both of these themes are present in the text and must be dealt with as we try to do OT theology today.
Barth’s mood and style were not to derive the normative from the landscape, as was the wont of his liberal antecedents. Rather, on the basis of the Word (which he understood variously as Jesus Christ, the scriptural text, and/or the preaching moment), Barth dared to assert the normative claim of the gospel defiantly against the landscape. What is normative is odd and peculiar, distinctive and scandalous, and can never be accommodated to the landscape of cultural ideology. 20
The older critical consensus found Israel’s faith embedded in and arising from its cultural religious environment and continuing to partake of that environment. Now, however, it was proposed that Israel’s faith was de novo, in its very emergence incompatible with and in opposition to its cultural religious environment. 26
(The OT) is material that insists on being taken seriously, and it refuses to be reduced or domesticated into a settled coherence. This refusal may not be simply a literary one but a theological one, pertaining to its central Subject. The restless character of the text that refuses excessive closure, which von Rad understood so well, is reflective of the One who is its main Character, who also refuses tameness or systematization. Thus it is the very God uttered in these texts who lies behind the problems of perspective and method. 42
The rest of chapter 1 discusses developments in Old Testament biblical theology from 1970 to the present. Brueggemann criticizes the tendency in the west to continue to reduce the study of scripture to history only and assume European ideas of historical development and enlightenment dogma. We are now seeing serious biblical theology being done by non-Western scholars who approach the text in new and different ways who need to be listened to. He also discusses the limits/problems and helpful aspects of sociological and rhetorical approaches to scripture. I especially find rhetorical approaches helpful because they do encourage a refocus on the text itself. While we must understand its forms, backgrounds etc. to understand the text, it is the text itself, that we have, that has Divine authority.
It is likely that we have not yet understood with sufficient clarity the epistemological break before which we now stand, which places in acute jeopardy the long-standing privilege of Euro-American interpreters of Scripture. 49
Normativeness is that on which one will stake one’s life. It is precisely in such contexts of risk, I propose, that what we receive as theological data were voiced, heard, valued, and transmitted in the life of this ancient community. Or, stated negatively, normative statements that are not aimed at something dangerous and disputed are not likely to be useful, or interesting, or, in the end, true. 53
It is perhaps a major contribution of theological reflection on the Bible to more “respectable” theological enterprises to witness to the density of the material that precludes excessive certitude. As we are learning that Enlightenment reading of history is now highly doubtful, Enlightened theology in parallel fashion is prone to more certitude than is credible or than is given in the material. 59–60
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