Deeply appreciative of the book (Truth is Stranger than It Used to Be) and the lectures today. I say deeply appreciative -- both professionally and personally.

The issues raised by postmodernism have been creatively and effectively responded to from a Christian point of view.

My particular interest is with the last part of the book where the Bible is reread in the light of the four worldview questions raised in the first part of the book. The central question relative to the Scriptures is "Do they have the resources to address the postmodern condition, speaking a redemptive work of healing for our time?"

The preliminary response of the preface is "We believe they do, though our reading of the biblical text is not unaffected by post-modernity." In fact the post modern situation can be seen as an opportunity and a stimulant for "a faithful reading of Scripture, pointing us to exciting dimensions of the biblical text of which we were previously unaware." And as part one of the book concludes, this positive note is sounded again." We believe the Christian faith has the resources both to learn from post-modernity and to address our contemporary cultural situation with compassion and power."

But along with these affirming statements the writers concede that not only is the postmodern constructivist epistemology stranger than it used to be" the truth of the Bible itself is stranger than it used to be. Thus the title is a double-entendre -- truth is stranger than it used to be.

The Bible is to be reread -- but such a reading is to be a "faithful" reading -- resulting in exciting dimensions of which we were previously unaware. Reread! Dimensions of which we were previously unaware!

Allow me to cite your vocabulary of interpretation: "faithful imaginativity, improvisations, innovation, creativity, flexibility, reimaging." But you carefully insist on balance: "stability and flexibility, fidelity and creativity, consistency and innovation."

Obviously this takes us into the field of interpretation -- into hermeneutics. I am using the word "hermeneutics" in its narrower sense of seeking the contemporary relevance of an ancient text -- What is the Bible=s meaning here and now?

Interpretation is needed because of the nature of the text. Each biblical document is conditioned by the language, time, and culture in which it was originally written. We call this "historical particularity." The ancient texts can be studied by scholars who see them as historical/cultural artifacts, recognizing them and treating them as reflective of an alien culture, carefully maintaining objectivity and the distance separating the reader from the text.

But the existential concerns of the book will not allow the Scripture to be frozen and locked in the past. They must and do speak in and to our postmodern culture as they have for millennia. As you note:

"It is, our story, no matter who we are, capable of speaking to us even in the midst of a postmodern crisis. In answer to the question What=s wrong? the Scriptures tell of our rebellion against our creator, of our willful bondage to futility and our entrapment in no-exit situations (even the situation of postmodernity)." 

There must be a kind of intimacy with the text but such intimacy moves us into a more subjective realm where we individually and collectively bring our accumulated baggage which determines our questions to the text, which in a sense limits the text -- at least -- confines the text to the issues we raise.

So not only the nature of the text but also the nature of the reader/s necessitate interpretation.

Now my purpose is not to deal with hermeneutics per se but simply to underscore as the authors have admitted, their reading of Scripture is stranger than it used to be. They have "reread" the Scriptures and have developed an intimacy with them in the light of our postmodern times.

The very heading of Part II of the book "The Resources of Scripture" suggests that the Bible is the medium of the message rather than the message itself so that a postmodern reading of the Bible is different than an enlightenment one.

Let me say early on that I agree with your balanced conclusion. You chart us between "a dionysian embrace of chos" on the one hand and on the other hand "a fearful imposition of a prior orientation." In your words we must reject both a "postmodern abandonment and a myopic conservative retrenchment."

And now my observations and questions:

1. The Bible is the "normative, canonical, founding Christian story."

A. Here is no effort to discard the Bible and to write it off as an absolute out-of-touch, and embarrassing piece of literature.

B. Further, I sense no effort either to enlarge or to diminish the canon. I am impressed with your all-encompasing approach to all of Scripture. You stand in the historic confessions of the Christian church. You have no Marcian tendencies to eliminate the Hebrew Bible but have found a way to utilize it.

C. But your engagement of the whole Bible, not simply the Hebrew Bible but the Christian Bible -- in your words "from the Exodus to the cross" -- can be troubling. As a Christian I resonate with this approach but what does it say to our brothers and sisters in Judaism? Or to put it another way, "Does it take both testaments to provide us with a metanarrative?" If so, does this suggest that adherents to Judaism need to move on to the climax of the narrative?

D. As I will note later, you appear to be conditioning the elements of your meta-narrative drawn from the Hebrew Bible with the elements of the New Testament. While a radical sensitivity to suffering and a divine overarching creational intent can be found in the Hebrew Bible, your ultimate deployment of these two, it seems to me, is significantly conditioned by the New Testament. Is there not a danger here of ignoring or destroying the integrity of the Hebrew Bible? Is this a kind of partisan reading of the story, excluding those who do not accept the New Testament? Following Wright you have a drama in 6 Acts each with a multiciplicy of scenes. Act I is creation and Act IV is the story of Jesus and Act VI is the eschaton. Have our Jewish brothers and sisters left the theater too soon?

2. Not only is the Bible the "normative canonical founding Christian Story" but it "ultimately works against totalization" because "it contains two identifiable counterideological dimensions or antitotalization factors." At least initially, without looking at the specifics, is this not a kind of canon within a canon or perhaps a kind of canonical pluralism? While this claim can be an obvious asset -- a check on a self-serving reading of Scripture, are you not vulnerable from two extremes -- those who resist any "counter" position in Scripture on the one hand and on the other hand those who will insist on several if not many ideological dimensions? How can you justify two? Is a dialectic critical?

Incidentally, I appreciate your work here. Your counterideological dimensions could be traced to sources but, as you know, merely determining sources resulted in sterility. You have rather focused on the content of the sources rather than on the origin and development of these sources. I believe you are content with Child=s Canonical Criticism.

How do you ultimately determine the position that must be assumed for a canonical perspective? If the New Testament -- perchance the Gospels -- is your point of orientation from which you view the Hebrew Bible, does not this minimize, ignore, or even destroy the integrity of the Hebrew Bible? Is it appropriate to form a value judgment on the basis of the New Testament which is then imposed on the contents of the Hebrew Bible?

While you do not rank the documents of the Hebrew Bible chronologically as Wellhausen did, you do position them in one of the two "counterideological dimensions." If this is correct and I believe it is, then you have isolated an authoritative element in Scripture by means of a value judgment. How can you justify your established norm and avoid the charge of subjectivity? Who determines when we "go not only beyond the biblical text but even against it?"

"We must take seriously the character of Scripture as a narrative. That is, it takes seriously the fact that while the story the Bible tells is guided by God=s overarching purposes, the story is full of dead ends, plot conflict and narrative tension, which are not normative but interrupt plot fulfillment and go against God=s purposes. Faithful improvisation thus does not mean blind submission to every text of Scripture but the enactment of God=s redemptive purposes through discernment of the thrust of the entire metanarrative.

It is of course possible to object to this approach to Scripture as embodying a "canon within the canon," since we obviously discriminate in some way between biblical texts. However, this is not a matter of mere preference, as if we were simply being subjective in the pejorative sense of the term. The fact is that there are difficult, even offensive, texts in Scripture with which many Christians have serious ethical problems. The issue is what we are to do about this if we desire to root our faith in the Scriptures as normative and canonical.

We believe that the notion of narrative has the merit of taking seriously not only these problematic, even offensive, biblical texts (while letting them stand as offensive) but also the divine inspiration and canonical status of Scripture. If our approach is still deemed inadequate, then it is up to the reader to formulate an alternative and more adequate proposal that also takes seriously the narrative character of the text."

 3. You are careful to distinguish between the antitotalizing potential ["These dimensions do not of course guarantee innocence (or justice or compassion for the other) on the part of those who adhere to the narrative."] and reality where the biblical narrative has been used and continues to be used in a narrow partisan way. You carefully call for orthopraxis. "Right reading of the Bible occurs only where the word is embodied" but can you ultimately dismiss and escape the claim that the story of the Bible be judged by the lives of its readers? Is it not somewhat ineffective to distinguish between Christendom and Christianity? Can we avoid the charge that the Bible is known by the company it keeps? Can we argue for a metanarrative in the light of so much partisan reading of the story?

While I emphatically agree with you that the selection of Israel was for service not privilege, it has all to often been read by Jews and in particular by some fundamental Christians to be a call to privilege and a call of exclusion.

You are legitimately much concerned with praxis and I am certain you will agree with me that as Christians we must do a better job here if we want the Bible=s metanarrative to be heard and responded to.

4. Finally, is the purpose of your book to give credibility to the biblical metanarrative in academic discussions or to give it effectiveness in an evangelistic thrust? Perchance your answer will be "both" and so allow me to address them:

A. I guess I am more inclined to agree with Glenn Tinder than George Marsden relative to the penetration of Christian scholars into the university.

Marsden believes that Christian Scholars ought to be functioning in the university (to him participation in the world of secular scholarship is a matter of rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's). "Human perceptions," Marsden writes,"are notoriously limited and, with God excluded from consideration, it is difficult to find a point of reference for establishing any certainty in what we claim to know." Hence, with the spread of postmodern relativism, secular scholars today are "up a creek without an epistematic paddle." Christian scholars have a paddle they could lend to secular scholars; they have transcendental resources for resisting deconstruction and other such corrosive forces.

Marsden seems to believe that Christians can make a case for beliefs they regard as revealed. But as Tinder observes, this can be difficult. When Christians and non-Christians take part together in intellectual inquiry, revelation is almost bound to be there, just under the surface, as a potential source of trouble. And now my question: Is it possible to take the Christian faith and present it as a metanarrative that can be universally known without the conversion of being incorporated within a specific community of people? This, of course, sounds somewhat gnostic, but is it possible to have the biblical story seen universally as a metanarrative apart from conversion? In other words, for whom are you rereading the Scriptures -- for the philosopher or for the believer?

B. I find myself in great agreement with you on evangelism. Your social concerns for the powerless is a much-needed, all-too-often-neglected dimension of evangelism. Allow me to quote you with an attached loud "amen":

"These dreams, this vision of life and this prophetic discernment are not, however for the private consumption of a localized and secluded community of faith. The story of Pentecost does not legitimate Christian tribalism. The drama of the great deeds of God that transformed those first Pentecost believers and that continues to transform us today is not a local tale, the private domain or idiosyncratic convention of this particular band of Jesus-followers. It is nothing less than the metanarrative of God=s redemptive plan for the world. Consequently, those who follow Jesus and are anointed by the Holy Spirit have the audacity to proclaim this story as the light of the world. And that is why the rest of the book of Acts tells of how the early Christian community scatters throughout the Roman empire, not in confusion, as at Babel, but in order to proclaim the metanarrative of world redemption. This particular marginal community thus goes into the world with a message of universal importance."

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