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

On the Slopes of Sinai - Some Hermeneutical Questions

Christ is the central and essential point of departure into the deeper understanding of Christian existence.97 Though this statement sounds self evident, the philosophical problems of the term “historical” are really perplexing. Since the time the historicity of the texts became problematic, the historical questioning preoccupied the scholarly interest. Today, when the nature of history and historiography stands in the crossfire of debates, we are even further from a consensus concerning the historical nature of the sacred texts.98 In addition, the mystical reading that has more than a thousand years of tradition but was suppressed from the Enlightenment onwards, appears to be impacting the field of theology in new ways in recent years.99 Its ambiguous influence, however, shows that the question how we can theologically reconcile the historical perspective with the mystical and narrative to regain the “monumental” character of tradition is still an open question.

97 Among others, this is the assumption of Peter Stuhlmacher, who defines himself as a mediator between the radical historical and radical fundamentalist circles. For his definition on both currents and his own position, cf. Stuhlmacher, Peter: Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation: Toward a Hermenetutics of Consent, Translated with and introduction by R. A. Harrisville, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1977.

98 Hasel, Gerhard F.: Old Testament Theology, Basic Issues in the Current Debate, Grand Rapids, Eerdmanns, 19914,38. See also for the recent debate around the narrative character of historiography and for the epistemological implications the introductory chapter in White Hayden: Metahistory, The Historical Imagination in Ninetheenth-Century Europe, Baltimore/London, The John Hopkins University Press, 1973,1-42.

99 A representative example could be Allen, Diogenes: Spiritual Theology-The Theology of Yesterday for Spiritual Help Today, Cowley Publications, Plymouth, UK, 1997.

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