Theory Of Revelation Research Articles

Varieties of Revelation, Varieties of Truth—A Comparative Ontological Study of Revelation through Music and Sciences

Accounts of revelation and contemporary views of these are based on beliefs and historical citations. These accounts shall not be limited to the understanding and interpreting of historical and other events within writings but must present the possibility of an objective analysis of the nature of revelation as a phenomenon, an object of our sensory and mental conscious experiences. This paper approaches the act or phenomenon of revelation regardless of the revealer and its nature. Can we abstract the revealer and the revealed from revelation and have an ontological account of revelation solely focusing on the occurrence itself? The central part of the discussion is based on the object/property pair as ontological categories through which the means are analyzed. A comparative method is used where Scripture, musical writings, and mathematical/physical formulae (as potential means of revelation) are scrutinized. As a result, without any need to determine the revealer, revelation can be based on and described through pure properties (not tropes) in human experience, intellect, and understanding. The possibility of revelation beyond Scripture and Jesus Christ—following a type of liberal and general theory of revelation—presents itself in arts and sciences. The “true” of a musical work, when found and experienced during musical performances and scientific truths represented by the formulae, which describe the world and a meta domain, can be derived from the chains of signs and symbols as it is through Scripture. Human cognitive faculties present a universal natural limit to our direct experiencing of the transcendent, of the supernatural. A new dualist conception of logos as a metaphysical category marks the domain bridging the non-transcendent with the transcendent.

Rowan Williams’ Theology of Revelation

Abstract In this essay, I explore two main areas of Rowan Williams’ theology of revelation. The former is his reflections on the silence of God – God’s reticence to clarify himself to us amid our theological and spiritual confusion. I argue that he is not denying that God has genuinely revealed himself to us, but rather Williams is grappling with – and exhorting us to grapple with – the limits of that revelation. The second area I explore is his theory of revelation as generative phenomena, and how his theory underwrites his understanding of church tradition and, mainly, scripture. Williams argues that there is a division within scripture between the parts containing true divine revelation and the parts containing humanity’s broken response to that revelation. I argue that this view, while it is very well formulated and has some merits, cannot surmount the epistemological obstacle of how biased and interested humans can adequately differentiate between these parts within scripture.

The Impact of the Islamic Theories of Revelation on Humanist Qurʾanic Hermeneutics

Abstract In the present article, I illustrate the impact that the Islamic theories of revelation have on the construction of different types of Qurʾanic hermeneutics, with a special focus on what I define “humanist hermeneutics”. The article is divided in three parts. In the first part I expose the two main theoretical frameworks exploited here in order to analyze different classical and modern theories of revelation and their corresponding hermeneutics, namely Shahab Ahmed’s understanding of Revelation and my own definition of humanist hermeneutics and its main characteristics. In the second part of the article, I succinctly present some pre-modern theories of revelation, emphasizing a few examples from the large variety of philosophical Peripatetic Muslim and Ṣūfī conceptualizations that are relevant from a humanist hermeneutics perspective. Contemporary, contextualist approaches of revelation will end the article. My general focus is on the acknowledgement of the agency of the prophet Muhammad in the construction of the Qurʾanic text and its expression, and on the interaction between the formulation of the Qurʾanic text and its social context.

The Islamic Humanist Hermeneutics: Definition, Characteristics, and Relevance

ABSTRACT The present article is constructed as an argument for Islamic humanist hermeneutics. In the first part of the article, I propose a more comprehensive, multidimensional definition than has previously been set out of ‘humanist hermeneutics’, i.e. any theory and methodology of interpretation that recognizes and asserts the inherent presence of the human factor and/or limitation of human comprehension on any part of the following levels: the source of the revelation, the process of the revelation, the product of the revelation, and the interpretation of the qur’anic text. In the second part of the article, I explore the nature of humanist hermeneutics, offering a condensed explanation of its main characteristics. The whole article brings into discussion the interdependency that exists between theories of revelation and the epistemologies that determine various types of hermeneutics.

Die Aufklärung der Aufklärung: Lessing und die Herausforderung des Christentums by Hannes Kerber

Reviewed by: Die Aufklärung der Aufklärung: Lessing und die Herausforderung des Christentums by Hannes Kerber Joseph A. Haydt Hannes Kerber. Die Aufklärung der Aufklärung: Lessing und die Herausforderung des Christentums. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2021. 286 pp. Hannes Kerber's monograph exploits close readings of largely neglected participants in the so-called fragments controversy to deliver a genuinely original reading of Lessing's authorial strategy during the early years of the controversy. On the strictly philological plane, this study merits attention among Lessing scholars for uncovering a host of sources within the Christian theological tradition that influenced Lessing's late religious thought. Kerber carefully documents Lessing's underappreciated sensitivity not only to the doctrinal debates that animated the formative (pre-Nicene) centuries of Christianity but also to the core theological innovations of the early Reformation. Kerber's book is no mere philological investigation, however, and his exegetical discoveries serve a broader interpretive agenda that bears on Lessing's assessment of Enlightenment philosophy and theology. In Kerber's view, Lessing believed that the religious disputes of his contemporaries systematically neglected the principles that the great theologians of both ancient Christianity and the Reformation had deemed to represent the most profound insights of Christianity. Kerber's Lessing aims to reconfigure such debates by restoring these dormant theological resources. Here, I focus on one example from Kerber's reconstruction of this strategy: Lessing's efforts to restore a Lutheran conception of faith in Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft, composed in 1777 in response to Johann Daniel Schumann's defense of Christianity in Über die Evidenz der Beweise für die Wahrheit der christlichen Religion. In his discussion, Kerber documents in extensive detail the [End Page 195] careful attention that Lessing paid to Schumann's text in crafting his famous response, with the aim of challenging the widely held belief that the essay articulates Lessing's own theory of religious and historical truth. By comparing Lessing's text to Schumann's, Kerber demonstrates that each major junction of Lessing's argument proceeds by invoking a specific passage or claim in Schumann's text. Kerber argues that Lessing does not use Schumann's essay merely as an occasion to elaborate an independent theory of revelation; instead, Lessing's text adopts the terms of Schumann's argument and drives them to their logical conclusion, thereby calling attention to the incongruence between his interlocutor's premises and the conclusions they are meant to support. Kerber convincingly argues that this text does not aim to criticize religion or divine revelation as such but rather seeks to expose a particular form of religious thinking that conceived of religious faith as a species of certainty that could be justified by historical or rational truth. Kerber's Lessing believed that this conception of faith had surreptitiously become paradigmatic for the religious thought of his contemporaries, a development that involved abandoning a category distinction that had been fundamental for the theology of the Reformation: that faith is not an issue of rational certainty, but a matter of trust. In the guise of confessional orthodoxy, Schumann—and those who shared his views about the task of Christian theology—had parted ways with this central tenet of Protestant thought and reduced Christianity to a disguised rationalism. And, Kerber argues, it is just this lost tenet that Lessing wants to restore. Far from developing a critique of orthodoxy based on the philosophical principles of the Enlightenment, Kerber's Lessing is engaged in a process of recovering traditional orthodox beliefs to criticize the innovations of his theologian contemporaries, innovations which had come at the price of forfeiting the deepest theological claim that the Reformation had proposed with respect to divine revelation. (In a subsequent chapter, Kerber turns to Nathan der Weise to elaborate what Lessing takes to be at stake in this Protestant concept, arguing that it is a central concern of the play to portray the ethical, religious, and social force of the Lutheran conception of faith when taken in its complete scope.) Kerber's aim throughout this study is to show that Lessing was equally critical of both contemporary orthodoxy and its Enlightenment critics. While it has frequently...

HUMAN IDENTITY AND SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE

This issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science contains two thematic sections that together provide a rich picture of the human being, focusing on their identity and on their spiritual intelligence. The section on human identity is the result of last year's Science and Religion Forum and its six articles have been collated by Finley Lawson. The section on spiritual intelligence derives from a project funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation and contains four articles written by Harris Wiseman. For an overview of the articles in both sections, I direct the reader to their respective introductions. The “Articles” section contains four articles. In the first article, Mark Harris investigates the early contributions made to science and religion since the mid-nineteenth century by holders of Edinburgh's “Chair in Natural Science”; in this adaption of his inaugural lecture, he uses the lens of that chair as an entry point to highlight nuances in very early instantiations of the creation-evolution debate. In the second article, Luca Valera and Gabriel Vidal attempt to clarify whether Spinoza was a pantheist, panentheist, or neither of these; they show that this is of relevance in assessing whether his philosophy can serve as a proper foundation for environmental philosophy. In the third article, Megan Loumagne Ulishney reflects on the importance of play as a theologically relevant insight from sexual selection; she emphasize that play is not just the product of “culture,” but is a thoroughly natural phenomenon that provides resources for human cultural elaboration. Finally, in the fourth article, Atle Søvik offers a philosophical explication of why God's revelation is so vague; he finds argumentative resources in a multiverse theory of revelation and divine hiddenness. The issue ends with two book reviews. Ananya Pattnaik reviews Banu Subramaniam's Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism, and Jonathan Chappell reviews John Cottingham's In Search of the Soul: A Philosophical Essay. I am very pleased to be able to report that the charitable corporation behind Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science has found a way to “flip” the journal to diamond open access. From January 1, 2024, all Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science articles—past, present, and future—will be freely accessible to all (with no cost to the authors)! More detailed announcements will follow over the course of next year.

Abdolkarim Soroush’s Theory of Revelation: From Expansion and Contraction of Religious Knowledge to Prophetic Dreams

ABSTRACT The Iranian scholar Abdolkarim Soroush has recently developed an account of revelation referred to as the theory of Prophetic Dreams. This article seeks to analyse this theory and its relation to two earlier theories developed by him (that of the Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge and that of the Expansion of Prophetic Experience). In addition, it explores whether the theory of Prophetic Dreams has any roots in classical Islamic literature and the ideas of Muslim theologians, mystics and philosophers in the pre-modern era. Finally, it discusses the implications of Soroush’s theory of Prophetic Dreams for issues related to exegesis and theology, suggesting that it has an important bearing on Islamic theological discourses. The article aims to contribute to scholarly understanding of the development of Soroush’s thought by investigating aspects of his project that have not hitherto been explored.

The Cosmopolitan World of the Quran and Late Antique Humanism

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how two distinct but deeply related literary genres, which had become especially prominent in the 7th century Nile-to-Oxus region, have left an enduring impression on the form and contents of the Quran. By saying this, it is not intended to suggest that the Quran was “influenced” by this or that extraneous or extra-textual phenomenon. Rather, it is suggested that, along the lines of the Quran’s own theory of revelation, it speaks through Muḥammad, “the language of his people” (Q14:4). Stated another away, the Quran employs themes and structures from both epic and apocalypse that would have been familiar to its audience in order to reveal and make clear its most cherished sacred truths, among which are: the Oneness of God, the Oneness of Religion and the Oneness of Humanity. Epic and apocalypse, then, emerge as features of the cultural and imaginative language of the intended audience of the Quran, just as Arabic is its “linguistic” language.

بین شعراء الجن وربات الفن قراءة مقارنة لفکرة الإلهام فی الأدبین العربی والیونانی

الملخص تأتي هذه الدراسة المقارنة للمعتقد الإغريقي في نظرية الوحي والإلهام بواسطة ربات الفن، والمعتقد العربي لذات النظرية ومعتقدهم في شياطين الشعر، ومعتقد الأدبين الأصيلين في دعم القوى الغيبية لعملية الإبداع. وذلک بدراسة المعتقدين ورصد العديد من أوجه التشابه والاتفاق بين الأدبين الإغريقي واليوناني في معتقديهما في ربات الفن، وشياطين الشعر، ومن أهم هذه الأوجه فکرة ربط المعتقدين بالجنون المقدس أو جنون الربات في الأدب اليوناني، أما العرب فلديهم المعنى الدلالي لکلمة جنة کما يأتي لجماعة الجن يأتي أيضا لمعنى الجنون. وقد جاءت الدراسة في مقدمة وخاتمة بينهما مباحث ثلاثة، اختص أولها بدرس تأصيلي للمعتقد في شياطين الشعر العربي، وجاء ثانيها بذات الدرس للمعتقد في ربات الشعر الإغريقي، وقفيت کلا من المبحثين بدرس تفسيري للمعتقد في الأدبين، أما المبحث الثالث فاختص بالموازنة بين المعتقدين برصد وعرض أوجه التشابه والاتفاق ثم أوجه الخلاف والافتراق. وذلک کله بمنهج موضوعي فني يرى الموازنة فنا له أصوله، وقواعده، وأثره في أدبنا العربي وآداب الآخرين، وکذلک يرى معتقد الإلهام والآثار الأدبية والنقدية المکتوبة فيه مادة وافية وجديرة بالدرس والتحليل، ومنهج بحثي يستوفي عمل الهامش من تعليقات وشروح وخدمات للنصوص. Abstract This comparative study comes of the Greek belief in the theory of revelation and inspiration by the 'Goddesses of Art', the Arab belief in the same theory and their belief in the 'Demons of Poetry', and the belief of the original literature in supporting the unseen forces of the creative process. By studying the two beliefs and observing many similarities and agreement between the Greek and Greek literature in their beliefs in “the goddesses of art” and “the demons of poetry”, and the most important of these aspects is the idea of ​​linking the believers to the sacred madness or “madness of the goddesses” in Greek literature, while the Arabs have the semantic meaning The word 'jannah' as ​​it comes to the group of jinn also comes to the meaning of madness. The study came in an introduction and conclusion between three sections, the first of which was devoted to a rooting lesson of the belief in 'Devils of Arabic Poetry', and the second came with the same lesson of the belief in 'Goddesses of Greek Poetry'. Beliefs by observing and displaying similarities and agreement, then disagreements and differences. This is all with an objective artistic approach that sees balancing as an art that has its origins, rules, and impact on our Arabic literature and the literatures of others, and also sees the belief of inspiration and literary and critical effects written in it as an adequate material worthy of study and analysis, and a research approach that fulfills the margin work of comments, explanations, and services for texts.

How True is the Bible? Ratzinger on Faith, Reason and Scripture

Interpreting the Bible, especially the creation narratives, in light of modern science is often presented as a set of unattractive choices: abandon rational consistency for blind faith or abandon faith for rational consistency. In this article, Joseph Ratzinger's theological method is examined as a means of "tinkering" with theological theories of revelation and a scientific worldview, allowing each to influence each other to find a synthesis that can resolve the disjunction between rational consistency and faith.

Reply to Irving, “One Word, many wordings”

Alex Irving has written a considered and informed response, from the perspective of a systematic theologian, to my own initial article which challenged several British evangelical organisations to specify exactly which books and wordings are the products of divine inspiration. Irving’s response consists of two key arguments. Firstly, he argues that the theory of revelation which I think is held by evangelicals is flawed. However, as I think that my understanding of Evangelicalism’s view of the relationship between the Bible and revelation is correct, it seems to me that Irving is actually critiquing the movement he theoretically represents. Secondly, Irving argues for a ‘personalist’ theory of the relationship between the Bible and revelation. His theory parallels twentieth-century neo-orthodoxy in that it views the Bible as a witness to revelation and a vehicle through which the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus Christ; which stands in contrast to the evangelical belief that the Bible is itself revelation. Thus, whilst his own theory may be very good, it is decidedly not ‘evangelical’ and therefore misses the point of my initial article, i.e., it does not justify how the evangelical doctrine of scripture can be maintained in light of the challenges I raised.

Another Name for Liberty: Revelation, ‘Objectivity,’ and Intellectual Freedom in Barth and Marion

Abstract Karl Barth’s and Jean-Luc Marion’s theories of revelation, though prominent and popular, are often criticized by both theologians and philosophers for effacing the human subject’s epistemic integrity. I argue here that, in fact, both Barth and Marion appeal to revelation in an attempt to respond to a tendency within philosophy to coerce thought. Philosophy, when it claims to be able to access a universal, absolute truth within history, degenerates into ideology. By making conceptually possible some ‚evental’ phenomena that always evade a priori epistemic conditions, Barth’s and Marion’s theories of revelation relativize all philosophical knowledge, rendering any ideological claim to absolute truth impossible. The difference between their two theories, then, lies in how they understand the relationship between philosophy and theology. For Barth, philosophy’s attempts to make itself absolute is a produce of sinful human vanity; its corrective is thus an authentic revealed theology, which Barth articulates in Christian, dogmatic terms. Marion, on the other hand, equipped with Heidegger’s critique of ontotheology, highlights one specific kind of philosophizing—metaphysics—as generative of ideology. To counter metaphysics, Marion draws heavily on Barth’s account of revelation but secularizes it, reinterpreting the ‚event’ as the saturated phenomenon. Revelation’s unpredictability is thus preserved within Marion’s philosophy, but is no longer restricted to the appearing of God. Both understandings of revelation achieve the same epistemological result, however. Reality can never be rendered transparent to thought; within history, all truth is provisional. A concept of revelation drawn originally from Christian theology thus, counterintuitively, is what secures philosophy’s right to challenge and critique the pre-given, a hermeneutic freedom I suggest is the meaning of sola scriptura.

Towards a humanistic approach to the Quran: new direction in contemporary Islamic thought

ABSTRACTHistorically, Muslim orthodoxy has regarded the Quran as God’s Word dictated to Muhammad through the mediation of the Angel Gabriel, and has thus maintained the corresponding argument that the Prophet played no role in shaping the content of the Quranic revelations. This paper discusses a project of what I shall refer to as ‘reforming theology’ within contemporary Islamic scholarship which stands in contrast to the dominant orthodox view of revelation and the nature of the Quran. In particular, the paper examines how several contemporary Muslim scholars, namely Fazlur Rahman (from Pakistan), Abdolkarim Soroush and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari (from Iran) and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (from Egypt), challenge the widely accepted idea about the Quran being the literal Word of God. The paper argues that the project of these scholars represents a radically new direction in Islamic theology because of its strong emphasis on the human side of the Quran. It also shows that the implications of these scholars’ re-examination of traditional theories of revelation are not only limited to theological matters, or specifically the communicative relationship between God and His Prophet, but also have a number of consequences for the practice of exegesis.

Откровение в исламе

Revelation (waḥy) plays an important role in the Islam based on the Quran. Muslims maintain that their Holy Book is the Word of God (Allah). The formation of Islamic concept of revelation was considerably influenced by two factors. One of them was the concept of revelation widely accepted in the Near East. Certain verses of the Quran themselves allude to the pre-Islamic Arabia religious tradition of inspiration. Islamic religious and philosophical thought developed various teachings of revelation. Among them were Peripatetic Arab School’s theory of revelation and Ibn Arabi’s Sufi doctrine of “Sainthood”. Muslim philosophers and mystics who philosophized rethought Abrahamic concept of revelation. Muslim Theology, moderate Sufism and Islamic traditionalism, however, generally rejected doctrines of revelation advanced by Peripatetic Arab School and philosophical Sufism.

Самоочевидно ли «откровение»? Размышляя над типологией Эйвери Даллеса

An innovatory typology of the paradigms of understanding Revelation offered by Cardinal Avery Dullles wherein its interpretations as (1) the body of propositions, (2) the sacred history, (3) a specific inner experience, (4) the encounter with the transcendent and (5) a new awareness are juxtaposed and compared in this paper in detail. The author of the paper differs between two approaches to theories of Revelation, those from the points of view of philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. In the first case, already sufficiently mastered, these theories are estimated mostly against the background of the Christian belief system, in the second one, presented by the author of the paper, these theories are examined according to their correspondence to the very semantics of the notion of revelation. The upshot is that the notion under discussion (revelatio) could be more coherent if some of the senses attributed to it would be transferred to adjacent notions, those disclosing along with it different modalities of communication between God and man (communio).

HADIS QUDSI DALAM PERSPEKTIF PSIKOLOGI TRANSPERSONAL

Hadith Qudsi is a Hadith which its meaning and text come from the Prophet Muhammad SAW. The Koran and the Hadith also come from the revelation internally (from deep heart of the Prophet) and nonverbal (not words form). To understand the meaning hadith qudsi, the author uses the revelation theory through transpersonal psychology. The study found explanations that there are three categories of prophet speech: the Koran, hadith Nabawi, and hadith qudsi. These all come from the inspiration of Ilahi (the revelation of God), not in the form words or language. Then, the prophet created human language (texts) and applied them in his daily life.

An Investigation of Blending Inculturation and Liberation approaches towards new evangelization in Contemporary Africa

In the endeavour towards propagating the Good News, there seems to be a dangerous categorization of Inculturation and liberation approaches as if they are dichotomized entitiesthat impacts negatively on Christianity’s Kerygma (proclamation) and Didache (catechesis). The paper assumes that an intrinsic combination of these two main approaches would result in a holistic mode of evangelization that would fruitfully inspire and significantly empower contemporary people in Africa to embrace the Gospel in their entire concrete existence while taking them separately would result in impoverished ministry. One may thus hypothesize that a merger of the two approaches would greatly influence the way agents of the Gospel accomplish Christ’s mandate to effectively propagate Christianity, in corroboration with the Holy Spirit, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the remotest parts of the world (Acts 1:8), including today’s Africa. Such an assertion merits investigation at erudition level since it has been either ignored or handled superficially. Going by the assumption that Inculturation approach and liberation perspective in significant ministering of the Gospel have an indispensable affinity and actually, not just factually, necessarily imply one another (Nyamiti,2005:3-5) the study endeavours to verify that the merger has the potentiality of bringing about a holistic more effective evangelization mode that would bear abundant fruits in Africa in accordance with respective people’s socio-religio-cultural realities and signs of the times. Based on the above, the study will be guided by questions like: What is the perception and engagement of Inculturation approach in evangelizing service? How does the Christian Church understand and utilize liberation approach in the role of evangelization? How does the merger of Inculturation and liberation approaches make evangelization more significant in contemporary Africa? In what manner can the integrated model in Christian ministry be applied by the contemporary agents of evangelization in Africa to maximize the benefit to contemporary recipients in their historical concrete life situations? The paper will thus give a brief historical theological setting on the subject then scrutinize the nature and engagement of Inculturation approach in the evangelization ministry. It will also explore the perception and employment of liberation approach towards evangelization endeavour. This will be followed by a brief discussion on the blending of Inculturation and liberation orientations as a more fruitful mode of evangelization. Inculturation theory together with general and special revelation theory will guide the study.

A Poetics of Parable and the ‘Basileic Reduction’: Ricoeurean Reflections on Kevin Hart’s Kingdoms of God

Reading Kevin Hart’s creative hermeneutic of the ‘basileic’ reduction in his latest book, Kingdoms of God, naturally leads me to consider another eminent linguistic phenomenologist who continually occupies my thoughts. Although I have been reading Hart now for about 25 years, I have been reading Paul Ricoeur for a decade longer than that, and it is his theory of poetic discourse that my mind keeps tenaciously associating with Hart’s perspectives on parable. Granted, Hart never mentions Ricoeur in Kingdoms of God—unless my careful reading is not so careful and I missed it! In Trespass of the Sign, however, he does note Ricoeur’s significance as a hermeneutical philosopher, specifically his emphasis on the distinction between the hermeneutics of faith and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Also, in an article on John Caputo’s postsecular philosophy of ‘religion without religion,’ Hart makes a brief comment on Ricoeur’s apparent Hegelianism with reference to a general theory of revelation as nonreligious and nontheistic. Still, nowhere that I know of does he extensively address Ricoeur’s fascinating discourse theory regarding metaphor, mimesis, narrative, and parable. If great minds think alike, then Hart and Ricoeur are, indeed, great minds, for, truly, Ricoeur’s reflections on parables and the Kingdom offer an intriguing gloss on Hart’s parabolic ‘basileiology.’ Translating Hart into Ricoeur, therefore, is, in my mind, an easy and profitable exercise that may well enhance the provocative character of Hart’s basileic reduction. Such a translation is the central purpose of this essay.

Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition by Benjamin D. Sommer

Reviewed by: Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition by Benjamin D. Sommer Danny Mathews benjamin d. sommer, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015). Pp. xviii + 419. $50. Sommer’s study can be viewed as an extensive fleshing out of the implications of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s claim: “As a report about revelation, the Bible itself is a midrash” (Between God and Man: An Interpretation of Judaism [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959] 77). In short, the Jewish Bible itself is a record of various human voices engaged in dialogue and debate and hence is to be aligned with rabbinic literature under the larger category of Oral Torah. The argument is based on a close analysis of the distinct interpretations of revelation advocated by J, E, and P in the Sinai account in Exodus 19–24 and its counterpart in Deuteronomy. S. adopts the source-critical conclusions of the so-called Neo-Documentary Hypothesis school (Menahem Haran, Baruch J. Schwartz, and especially Joel S. Baden). E is the earliest layer and preserves the most ambiguity about what exactly happened at Sinai in terms of the speaker (Moses? God?), what was spoken (actual words? non-verbal sounds such as thunder?), and the extent of the Decalogue that is actually revealed to the people. E’s main goal is to ensure that one cannot know for certain what exactly happened at Sinai. In contrast, according to P, the revelation at Sinai consists solely of a blueprint of the sanctuary, which in turn will be the true location of the ongoing revelation [End Page 127] of law. While E leans toward a “stenographic” theory of revelation, P advocates a “participatory” theory, according to which all revelation is the result of human mediation and interpretation of a divine communication. J, the most fragmentary source, is characterized by fascinans, that is, a desire for a close encounter with God, as well as providing narrative context for law. Deuteronomy represents the first commentary on the Sinai account and eliminates the ambiguities by portraying the Decalogue as the sole revelation that is distinctly and clearly heard by the entire people without mediation, a view that is later rejected by the scribal addition of Deut 5:5—this feature of including both commentary and revision leads S. to describe Deuteronomy as a rabbinic text (pp. 70–71). While the view of revelation advocated by P and J is “minimal” because it is given only to human mediators, D presents a “maximal” view in which everyone hears the unmediated, clear, and distinct words of God. These sources also differ with regard to the issue of whether the revelation of Sinai was a one-time event or an ongoing process. For E, the revelation occurred once. For P, it is an ongoing process involving a number of human mediators that took place before Sinai, for example, in the Passover instructions in Exodus 12, and during and after Sinai at the tent of meeting. D, however, presents a very sophisticated view of Sinai as a one-time event that is transcendentally accessible to each new generation. Moreover, D inscribes an apparent contradiction between the rhetorical claim of the fixity of law that is revealed only once (Deut 4:2; 13:1) and the actual practice of presenting earlier laws that have been systematically revised and updated. Both claims are implied in Deuteronomy’s frequent use of the term “today.” Although the sources vary with respect to the specific details, all agree on the actual event of the revelation itself and especially the inseparable linking of that revelation to a call for obedience to God’s will for living out the commands. S. adopts Franz Rozenzweig’s distinction between the transcendent command (Gebot) and a specific law (Gesetz) formulated by human interpretation and links this with his understanding of D’s view of law to make a theologically profound and elegant claim that the actual event at Sinai “produces . . . a sense of commandedness, and by observing mitzvoth the Jew reconstructs the experience of revelation and moves from the human to the divine point of view. . . . God communicated for a moment at...

Beyond “two source theory” and “sola scriptura”: ecumenical perspectives on scripture and tradition

A major source of doctrinal dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism over the centuries has revolved around the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. Does Scripture as the source of Revelation stand alone as in sola scriptura or does Scripture need to be interpreted and understood within the tradition from which it emerged and by which it should be understood. The Constitution, Dei Verbum, promulgated by the Second Vatican Council and the two Protestant Conferences held almost contemporaneously at Oberlin and Montreal suggest a possible convergence beyond the impasse. Protestantism needs to acknowledge the importance of tradition in biblical interpretation while Catholicism having effectively abandoned the two source theory of revelation needs criteria to distinguish between authentic tradition closely linked to scripture and an inauthentic tradition.