추모논문] 김찬국의 구약신학방법과 그 변화

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the theological method with which Chan Kook Gim (1927-2009), an Old Testament professor of Yonsei University, interpreted the Hebrew Bible. To do so, it investigates his Old Testament theology and its transition process in the perspective of Reception Theory. It argues that the transition of his interpretive method for his Old Testament theology reflects his experience of his participation in the democratic movement of South Korea as well as his theological study. It means that his Old Testament theology shows how a biblical theologian in the Third World has struggled to interpret the biblical text under his social context of political and economical injustice.BR Gim’s life as Old Testament theologian can be divided into three periods. The first period extends from his birth to his entrance into Yonsei University as an undergraduate theological student in 1945, when he formed a progressive and practicing Christian faith under the influence of his family, church and school. At that time, he was deeply involved in the biblical literalism and fundamentalism which was prevalent in the Korean church.BR In the second period from 1945 to 1974, he studied the Neo-orthodox theology in Yonsei University and Union Theological Seminary in NY and taught the Old Testament in Yonsei. At that time, he formed a Neo-orthodox Old Testament theology which tried to find out a theological meaning of the biblical text as the Word of God’s revelation, using the methods of the historical criticism and the religion history.BR The third period started with his participation in the democratic movement of South Korea in 1974, when he experienced suffering from the imprisonment and dismissal by the dictatorial government, and tried to interpret the Old Testament in the Third World theological perspective, reflecting the Minjung Theology and the Liberation Theology. Though he did not regard himself as a Minjung Theologian, his writings and social activities show that he was in the same trajectory with them. It means that he pursued the Old Testament Theology in the perspective of the Minjung Theology, participating in the suffering, repression and poverty of Minjung.