Tuesday, 14 July 2015

Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy,
Walter Bruegemann, Fortress Press, 1997, page 95

Walter Bruegemann's style is not to everyone's liking - some of his writing is extremely opaque - but in his magisterial 'Theology of the Old Testament' he interacts with Jon D. Leveson in an extremely positive way:

His comments on the Jewish tradition of interpretation can instruct Christian reading, both to enhance awareness the in face of our great ignorance of that tradition and to coorect our misreadings that are often committed in ignorance.

Not surprisingly, I'm with Breugemann there. He takes another important step:

My own that is, Bruegemann's anticipation is that if the supercessionism of Christian historical criticism could ever be overcome, the positive benefit of doing self-consciously Christian reading in the presence of Jewish exposition could be enormously enriched. But the process of redress will be long, difficult and costly for Chistians.

Well said, that man! From his mouth to G-d's ears.