Reflection for the Week - MArch 21

Historical research into the biblical text is considered by some to be the hallmark for proving (conservatives) or disproving (liberals) its credibility. Others argue that history can’t play any role at all because this would force outside criteria onto the biblical text and therefore undermine the text itself. It seems to me that the viewpoints of the some and of the others are unhelpful polarizations. While the biblical text is not a categorically straight forward historical document, it does have an historical impulse. This means using the text to prove or disprove something or someone misses the mark because it’s not that kind of text, yet to abandon a limit testimony to what once was cuts it off from its cultural, social, political, and theological repertoire, which is part and parcel of its textuality.