Ebook: The Persistence of God’s Endangered Promises: The Bible’s Unified Story

There is a strange anomaly about the Bible that is seldom noticed. The Bible has been read in the West for so long by Gentile Christians that most people have forgotten an important point about is origins. Both the Old and New Testaments (its major divisions) almost entirely were written and circulated within circles where the people of Israel were important. The Old Testament presumes that the people of Israel are the people of God. Some of the texts (cf. Isaiah 54:6–10) assert that God has unreservedly said he will never abandon them.
Of course a major transmutation in the narrative of God’s people takes place within the New Testament. A large number within Israel refused to acknowledge that one of their own, the crucified Galilean Jesus, was their divinely anointed king. This division opened up a deep cleavage among the people of God that continues to this day. Those who rejected Jesus do not recognize the writings in the New Testament as scripture. But even among believers in Jesus there remain many unresolved questions about how the Two Testaments can be construed as one book. I offer some proposals to bring clarification on these matters.
On the basis of a certain reading of late twentieth century theology this book seeks to make a proposal as to how the Bible can be read as a unified narrative. Utilizing an understanding of realistic narrative that Hans Frei drew from his study of Karl Barth I argue that the Bible tells a coherent story that centers around the journey of the people of God. The bulk of the book recapitulates the story from this perspective.
No good story can be sustained without conflict. In the course of narrating this story a key feature emerges. Along the way God makes promises to his people to sustain them. Time and time again the fulfillment of these promises are endangered. But especially in these situations the narrative clearly shows that God continues to vindicate his people and, sometimes in dramatic new ways, re-affirms these promises.
The Bible contains many diverse genres of literature. I am maintaining there is one underlying central narrative to all of this where God persistently validates his promises by regularly acting to preserve and sustain his people. To see the true import and dimension of this narrative one must read the Two Testaments as one book. This is the theological basis for the unification of the Two Testaments.
Procedurally the basis for my proposal unfolds in three major sections of the book. First I briefly trace why such a proposal is necessary. I argue that previous proposals to see the Bible as one story failed because, after the Enlightenment, insistence on the necessity of strict historicity to validate the narrative, made these proposals unworkable. Taking a cue from some founders of the Yale Theology I argue that a certain model of realistic narrative utilized by nineteenth century novelists such as Thomas Hardy and Stendhal (the French writer) provided an adequate alternative approach for reading the biblical narrative holistically. With their “realistic-like” descriptions of every-day reality the reader could easily intersect with the flow of the narrative. In addition, while a similar approach to this narrative occurs in the Bible there is something more about its view of reality. It has the capacity to unveil a level of ‘tyrannical’ quality about the story portrayed that promotes the conviction that what is stated is ultimate.
In the second section of the book I supply a condensed narrative reading of the Old Testament story of the people of God. Here God calls a marginal people to be his witness in the world. I argue that his promises to sustain them (viz., the Abraham saga) permeates the entire narrative. This is where I introduce an additional observation. I argue that it is during the moments when God’s promises are most endangered that we see most clearly how he acts to preserve his people and sustain the credibility of his promises.
The third major section is the longest segment of the book. It is an extended reflection on the narrative of the people of God in the New Testament. It is my contention that much of the New Testament emerges out of how God’s people respond to the crisis of sustaining their faith in God’s promises upon the event of the crucifixion of their messiah. All four Gospels are discussed in detail to determine how each one explains why the death of Jesus represents the most extreme time of endangerment for the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people and how faith was reaffirmed.
Since the narrative of the survival of the people of God is at the heart of the narrative I make the case that especially Matthew, Luke and John, each in their own way, are deeply concerned to show how the story of Jesus is essential to make sense of the entire narrative of Israel. This is primarily for the benefit of the average Christian person although I covet a reaction from discerning Jewish readers.
The final section of the book seeks to restate what I consider to be its three major conclusions. I give this section (Chapter 12) the heading: The Master Story of Scripture.
First, I note that following the collapse of the communal story of God’s people after the Enlightenment biblical theology has been unable to find a substitute for it. What is called the Grand Narrative of over a millennium of Christianity in the West failed because of its insistence to equate literary narration and strict historicity. The Enlightenment rendered reliance on strict historicity to validate the biblical narrative as problematic. Instead, I conclude that I have made a case that construing the narrative as the way a careful reader approaches a good realistic novel would serve as a better model for understanding the text.
Furthermore, by being transferred into the story of the people of God the reader quickly comes to appreciate the genius of the entire Bible. It introduces us to a world that goes beyond our own construction. It seeks to introduce the reader through a series of almost ‘tyrannical’ claims to the world of absolute reality.
Second, by stressing that the narrative of the Bible coalesces around presuming the location of the people of God and the Israel of God I believe, at least to some degree, I have consolidated the linkage between the story of Israel and the story of the church. In this way the Two Testaments are indissoluble. In my judgment this is something that is sorely needed to be appreciated by the average Bible reader.
Third, I believe that a feature of my observations about the structure of biblical narrative breaks new ground. I draw attention to a constant motif in the narrative wherein God gives promises to his people that are often mysteriously delayed in their fulfillment. This allows the process of endangerment to fulfillment to arise and promote interest among readers as to how this is addressed. Subsequently the resolution of such situations is also important. I claim that it is in precisely these places in the narrative (Exodus/Golgotha) that the reader sees most clearly divine activity at work. In other words, the Bible is a great narrative.