Journal of Theological Interpretation 5.2 (2011) 145-158
Truth and Method in Biblical Studies Raymond C. Van Leeuwen Eastern University
Abstract — This article sets the problem ot historical study of the biblical
world in the context of the post-Enlightenment ideological development of scientism and historicism, viewed as basic, contradictory cultural ide
als. Employing the literary analyses of Meier Sternberg and aspects ot Gadamer's hermeneutics, I argue that the normative "truth claims" that Scripture makes on its readers reside in the text, not in the "facts" behind
the text, even when Scripture is explicitly referring to the real world and
describing historical events. Key Words — history, historic ism, scientism, Gadamer, Meier Sternberg, facts
Ideological Background: Scientism and Historicism
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The Quest for the Historical Leviathan:
In 18th-century Germany, the Tanak of the synagogue and the OT of
the church came to have a competitor in the academic Bible of the new, state-supported universities. As Michael Legaspi has shown, this academic Bible was created by Christian scholars such as Michaelis of Gottingen to function as a classic similar to the much larger corpus of Greco-Roman classics already well established in the academy.1 Intellectual leaders of Germany wished to establish German Bildung on the basis of Greek paideia, and Michaelis, the greatest Semiticist of his day, wished biblical studies and the ANE to play a similar role. To assume its role as cultural classic, the academic Bible had to be separated from its traditional religious uses, especially because the variety of confessional readings had fractured the presumed univocity of Scripture and, with it, the unity of Christian
Europe. Michaelis, in keeping with his anti-Judaism, radically separated Authors note: This paper was originally presented at the session on History, Historicisms, and
Theological Interpretation at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Theological Hermeneutics of Christian Scripture Group.
1. On the concept of the "classical," see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (rev. ed.; New York: Continuum, 2003), 285-90.