Texts under Negotiation: The Bible
and Postmodern Imagination
Walter Brueggemann Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1993
Reviewed by Yahu Vinayaraj
Walter Brueggemann’s postmodern approach to scripture replaces
modern critical methods of biblical interpretation with little little stories
of the Christian community whose complex and ambiguous meaning subvert the culture
of the world. According to Brueggemann, the collapse of the modernity and its
biblical interpretation informed by the historical critical method provides new
freedom for the text of scripture and for our own construal of the word through
what we take to be the living word of God. For Brueggemann, the postmodern
shift means: (1) Our knowing is inherently
contextual; (2) Contexts are quite local;
and (3) Our knowing is inherently pluralistic
(P. 8-9).
Brueggemann conceives Interpretation
as counter imagination (30-39). The point of Scripture is to subvert the
dominant world culture and offer an alternative world. He contends that the
point of scripture study and preaching is to make possible an alternative to
“the world.” “Coming to us through scripture, preaching, and continuing
revelation, the gospel is the good news that we can live differently.” “To be a
Christian is to believe that conversion.” This conversion has mainly three
dimensions: self, community, and world (The origin of self: life as gift of
God, born out of dust-the fragility of life (Ps.139:13-16; 103:13;
131:1-20)-equity in human life (prov.14:31, 17:5; 22:2; 29:13); The origin of
the world; God’s creation-ps:104, 51:11; Isa. 40:22-23; 55:10;40:30); 3. The
origin of the community-Israel is a gift of God (isa.40:1-4; Ezek; 16; 5-15).
According to Brueggemann, the church is the place where the large
dreams are entertained, songs are sung, boundaries are crossed, hurt is
noticed, and the weak are honored (P.37). It is the place of scriptural
negotiations and the personal re-imaginations. Brueggemann highlights three
important tools for postmodern biblical hermeneutics: memory, covenant and
hope. The ‘present’ for Christians is not just a ‘now’ but a moment of
transformation and re-imagination. It is a “readiness to receive life from the
other, from God and neighbor, rather than from self (54). For Christians the ‘now’ is ordered by
Christian memory and hope. We and the world are figured by memory and hope, and
thus, so are our scriptural texts.
Memory in the community as a counter imagination in the
contemporary globalized world is imperative for biblical hermeneutics. Today we live in world of Amnesia. We
aggressively forget everything. Covenant becomes counter imaginative in a
marketed world where the community is deeply enmeshed in commoditization and
materialization. Hope as a hope against hope and the hope in the promised and
possible becomes a counter imagination where the community is trapped in
despair and death (P.55).
Of course, it is an interesting book that helps us to think
the biblical interpretation in terms of the past as memory, the present as
covenantal fidelity, and the future as anticipation; despite the lack of the
discussion of the epistemological trajectories of the postmodern hermeneutics.
Brueggemann's statement that the church is the place where the large dreams are entertained, songs are sung, boundaries are crossed, hurt is noticed, and the weak are honored (P.37);it is the place of scriptural negotiations and the personal re-imaginations needs to be qualified by stating that the Church is not the only entity that makes such claims, in the light of pluralism
ReplyDelete