Sárospataki Füzetek 20. (2016)
2016 / 2. szám - ARTICLES / STUDIEN - György Kustár: Ont he Slopes of Sinai - Some Hermeneutical Questions in Light of the Kabbalistic and Historical Critical Exegesis
György Kustár cautiously. However convincing synchronic theories might be,95 it remains true that the historical paradigm that pervades every aspect of our perception even when many claim that we are a part of a “post-“age, makes impossible any answers that try to evade historical concerns. The problem can be posed as this: as Christians, we do believe that the Scripture is an inspired text, but other than this dogmatic and confessional affirmation we don’t have further support. Moreover, we are compelled to give an account of the development of the canonic Scripture and explain it in terms of revelation. It is always to be feared that we incautiously make a leap to a paradigm that is already obsolete, and fall prey to an ahistorical or fundamentalist approach that uncritically tries to dissolve into the realm of the text. We cannot simply ignore the problems that shaped theology through the last two centuries. Thus, if we apprehend the divine inspiration as a technical-genetic concept that would be concerned with the conception of the text or with its content, we are forced to think diachronically. This means that the self-confidence of religious apologetics cannot be regained by anti-historical answers. In other words, naive conception of the unity of textual reality and of holistic understanding that was a characteristic of pre-critical interpretation cannot be resuscitated by casting out every problem as evil spirits in God’s name. Rather, besides being aware of the historical character of the textual reality, we should let the Scripture be what it was intended to be. As “sacred text” it not only preserves traces of the incessant but ever changing relation between God and man but as a medium constantly invites into this relationship. By embarrassing, subverting, and perplexing our self-understanding can Scripture open us up for the dynamic force of a new perception — for a “new life” in God. 4. Conclusions Both the classical historical-critical method and the Kabbalsist interpretation proved to be aggressive hermeneutical processes that approach the texts from their given presupposition. The classic historical reading expounds the text from a scientific epistemological background, and narrative-mystical methods approach the text from an esthetic background. If we accept them as alternative reading methods, we are still faced with the problem of their relationship. For Jewish mind, the special character of history as persistent remembrance in the act of recitation of the founding stories through generations96 renders the nature of this processing inheritance as basically “monumential”. As the monument stands for an event, the stories passed down are standing for YHWH’s saving acts. Without this character, the tradition loses its validity. It has to be historical and narrative to be meaningful. This historicity cannot be replaced by the “historicity of sources” and the historicity of traditions. From the Christian standpoint, the historicity of Jesus 95 Here we can refer to Auerbach's Mimesis, Frei's Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative, even Gerhard Ebeling's Word and Faith or George Lindbeck's narrative approach in The Nature of Doctrine. 96 Yerusalmi, Yoseph Hajim: Zachor, Budapest, Osiris, 1995. 50 Sárospataki Füzetek 20. évfolyam 2016-2
