Session 25 Introduction to the Episcopal Church

Session 25  Introduction to the Episcopal Church

 In our consideration of the Hebrew Scriptures I would like to suggest you to a mode of dealing with the body of oral tradition that is archived by a community of editors and then re-presented to the editor’s contemporary readership/audience.  Such writing is done with what I would call an anticipatory tense.  In the anticipatory tense the story of the past is told in a way to give reason for the practices of the community at the time of the writing or editing.  The writer assumed that all past writers and oral stories are left open with a future anterior tense of expectancy, “this will have happened” (future anterior is a verb tense that other languages have).  In some way writers bestow a precise divining prophetic gift to peoples in the past.  This gives the writers and the heroic characters of the past authority and it gives extra validity to what was “predicted” since it has already occurred.  By assuming precise prediction it also assumes a God who is directing very specific outcomes.   This understanding of the past in an anticipatory sense of “predicting” a current event is a valid ancient method of interpreting the Scriptures.  It becomes very important for the writers of the New Testament who are using the Hebrew Scriptures as the template to tell the story of Jesus and the church.  Modern historians use their own methods for looking at the past and their methods differ from the method within a committed confession community of seeing the present as predicted or as a template from the past that anticipates the present.  We still have members of the church using the Bible as a precise predictive template for the present, particularly those who use apocalyptic biblical passage as predictive of current events in Israel as we move toward what they believe is a “great battle.”

What were watershed semi-historical events in the lives of the people of Israel?  The life of King David was foundational in understanding Israel’s identity even though scholars and archaeologists disagree about the accuracy of the biblical accounts( c. 1040–970 BCE ) which were written no earlier than 700 BCE.   We know about a time of reform during King Joash when there was perhaps some literary activity 835 – 796 BC.  We know about the time of the exiles (the forced exiles of large number of Jews from their homeland), the destruction of the first Temple and the return of some Jews to rebuild the Temple.  Many scholars place most of the composition of the Hebrew Scriptures after the Persian exile and the re-building of the Temple.

The Hebrew Scriptures include quite a variety of literary forms.  Many of the forms were known from the practices and writing of neighboring communities and the communities of their exile.  There were various names used for the gods of the people in the land of Canaan.   We know that the God of Israel is proclaimed as a competitor without significant rival in the heavenly courts.

The editors and redactors (editor of editors) integrated the legends and sagas of the ancient story tradition of the entire region to point to the significance of the God of Israel who had a special covenant with the people of Israel.  The One God who made covenant did it with individuals in the pre-historic tales of the patriarchs.  Those legends provide the etiology or origination of a place or the defining life message of a person.  One can read the Hebrew Scriptures and simply translate the names of people and places.  The authors link up the connection between the name of a person and a place and a particular action of a person or circumstance of an event.  So, Bethel means “house of El or House of God.”  And this was a place where the famous Jacob had his dream about the angels on a ladder.  Most of the ancient Hebrew names are definitive of an aspect of the person’s character or an event in a person’s life.  Jacob=trickster and supplanter.  When Jacob wrestled with the angel, he received the new name of Israel (the one who strives with God and prevails)  and so we find an origin story beginning the transition from the stories of the Patriarchs to the formation of the identity of people of Israel.

How did the people of Israel get to their land?  How did they get their name?  When did the people of Israel become a settled people?  Were they nomadic Bedouin like tribes before they settled?   What kind of technology did they have?    Why did their ancestors not have kings?  When and why did Israel get kings?  How successful was the period of kings in Israel?  What is the period of the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel?  Why did the promise in the Davidic covenant end?  Why did God’s people get carried away into captivity?   Why was the Temple important?  What was the proto-model for the Temple?  Who were the Temple ministers or priests and how did they come to be?  What did the priests do?  Were music, singing, dancing, hymns, poems, drum and other instruments used in the worship?  Were there other religious figures besides priests?  Who were the judges?  The Scribes?  The Wisdom teachers?  The prophets?  What is the meaning of the Messiah and the Messianic prophecies?  And what is the type of literature call Apocalyptic is written with very cryptic imagery?

The Hebrews Scriptures were written as a way to inform the community about why things were the way they were.  And it meant theological reflection on the events that had happened.  Why did God’s people get carried away into captivity?  They broke the covenant with God.  (Modern historian might simply say that there were massive armies that came against them).  It was often the task of the scribes and prophets to warn about what would happen in failure to obey God.  There was a belief that God used history to correct God’s people.

The personal covenants to individual pre-historic patriarch eventually became a body of law for a group of people that needed social ordering.  The Holiness Code was a group covenant requirement.  Covenant means that legitimacy is established beyond the merely human within the Divine and a different kind of authority is accorded to the rules of social cohesion if they are understood to have derived from God.  The writers collected body of laws to prescribe personal and social behaviors for most situations in their community life.  When their kingdoms had failed the religious leaders idealized the most memorable King of all, King David.  He became the prime exemplar of the God’s anointed or Messiah, even as it is amazing how honest the writers were about the weaknesses of David and his family troubles.

One of the theological motives of the Hebrew Scriptures is about theodicy.  Theodicy has to do with justifying the reality of God in the face of the problem of sin and evil and innocent suffering.  How could the religious leaders convince their people about God and justice and the covenant when most of the history of the people reveals the experience of very difficult times?  The notion of resurrection arose in the writings of the prophets as a way to convince people that they could believe in justice.  Times may be bad and evil doers may seem to have the upper had but they will have to face a judgment day in the afterlife.  The possibility of an afterlife is more distinct than simply a holding place of the dead known as Sheol and this became a way to promote a belief in justice.  The case for justice created the conditions for the apocalyptic genre of writing in the Hebrew Scriptures and other extra-canonical writings.  Idealized person, a messiah in the mode of David and an idealized Golden utopian age of harmony in nature became a part of the visionary literature of the prophets in the apocalyptic mode.  The way in which we can understand apocalyptic writing is to see it as a kind of visualization pain management.  People in suffering need to be able to have narratives of hope to help them endure in difficult pain, even as a modern cancer patient might undergo visualization therapy for pain management.  Apocalyptic literature is completely true in the intent of comfort of the message for suffering people.

Please remember in reading the Hebrew Scriptures that they were functioning to hold together and forge the identity of a threatened people.  The truth of this function is known in a variety of narratives and literary forms.  Remember to seek the greater truth behind the very reason for the Scriptures themselves and not the particular detail of the specific people whom the writings were originally addressed.  In this way you and I can match up the corresponding truths that we seek in our own formation in our personal faith and faith community.

  

Exercise:

If we are God’s people why do we suffer?  Why do children have to suffer?  How can we believe in God’s love and in justice when there seems to be so much in life that is unfair?  You and I understand these great questions and we live into them today and we try to help each other as we face these questions.  Try to read the Hebrew Scriptures with these great questions in mind. Their faith leaders were trying to keep the faith community together and seeking the “other world” narrative to comfort the community in this world.

Father Phil