Walter Brueggemann

AV1611 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 11:03 AM

Anyone read his The Message of the Psalms: A Theological... ? Any thoughts on him as an author?

greenbaggins · #2 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 11:10 AM

Brueggemann has many interesting literary insights into texts. He is an out and out liberal, however, and so he must be read with quite a bit of salt handy.

AV1611 · #3 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

Brueggemann has many interesting literary insights into texts. He is an out and out liberal, however, and so he must be read with quite a bit of salt handy.

Could you give an example of what his being liberal entails?

greenbaggins · #4 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 11:16 AM

Well, Brueggemann does not hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, and leans in an open theist direction, for starters. And this was in his Genesis commentary, which is rather old. My impression (of more recent works of his, I have only read _The Prophetic Imagination_) is that he has not fundamentally changed these positions. He is definitely socially liberal as well.

Craig · #5 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 11:24 AM

If I remember correctly...Brueggemann goes further than Open Theists...I believe he is a Process Theist.

Taken from Monergism

Quote:

Author of some 58 books and professor emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia (PCUSA), Walter Brueggemann is characterized by some as a “post-modern” scholar. Brueggemann himself distinguishes between three perspectives of biblical scholarship and likes to say that all three schools can learn from one another: the modernists, who see no unifying theme in Scripture but believe that every dominant interpretative tradition is a form of social control; the pre-modernists, who affirm a canonical reading of Scripture in light of the church's traditions (though here he is actually referring to post-liberals like Brevard Childs or George Lindbeck [see Lindbeck below]); and the post-modernists, who do not want to privilege any one reading of Scripture but argue that specific texts yield dynamic new meanings when read in new and evolving contexts. Brueggemann's own approach to biblical theology, a dialectical approach that seeks to be sensitive both to the historical forces that shaped the text ("in the fray") as well as to theological meaning of the final canonical form ("above the fray"), reflects aspects of all three perspectives.

This dialectic is worked out through "imaginative remembering." The Old Testament does not give us actual history or "reportage" of history, but a "sustained memory that has been filtered through many generations of the interpretive process, with many interpreters imposing certain theological intentionalities on the memory that continues to be reformulated." Memory is critical because Israel has transmitted its faith to us through story. "Story is not interested in 'deep structures,' in 'abiding truths,' nor in 'exact proofs.' It does not trade in 'eternal realities,'" he writes in the introduction to his Genesis commentary. "Story offers nothing that is absolutely certain, either by historical certification or by universal affirmation. It lives, rather, by the scandal of concreteness, by the freedom of imagination, and by the passion of hearing" (all ital orig.).

Biblical interpreters must therefore not be overly reliant on historical, rational, and dogmatic questions, but should instead yield to the "surprise raids" and "surprise assaults on imagination" of the biblical texts. That said, preaching becomes a dangerous business: "Preaching is a peculiar, freighted, risky act each time we do it: entrusted with an irascible, elusive, polyvalent Subject and flying low under the dominant version with a subversive offer of another version to be embraced by subversives"!

When asked in an interview if Scripture was his authority, Brueggemann replied, "it's the chief authority to me as long as one can qualify that to say that it is the chief authority when imaginatively construed in a certain interpretive trajectory."

So...he's at least a "post liberal"...

greenbaggins · #6 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig

If I remember correctly...Brueggemann goes further than Open Theists...I believe he is a Process Theist.

I believe you're right.

Ivanhoe · #7 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AV1611

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenbaggins

Brueggemann has many interesting literary insights into texts. He is an out and out liberal, however, and so he must be read with quite a bit of salt handy.

Could you give an example of what his being liberal entails?

He makes N.T. Wright look like a bible-thumping Fundamentalist. If you take Christ out of his commentaries, it doesn't really change anything. If you take certain social activists out, it changes everything.

DMcFadden · #8 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 12:18 PM

He is the darling of the theo-left. Since he often contributes to Christian Century, he receives wide hearing among the other mainliners as well as among some of the emergent folk since he lectures for them too. Red Letter Christians know him from his writings in Jim Wallis' Sojourners. They love his handling of the OT. He is UCC, duh. His Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy is probably as good as any summary of his current thinking since it was released in the late 90s. I found his division of the OT canon into the notions of ethos, pathos, and logos to be more clever than helpful.

My advice? Stay away from him. He isn't worth the time.

Sydnorphyn · #9 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AV1611

Anyone read his The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary? Any thoughts on him as an author?

I enjoy most of his writings.
John