There Are No Christian Nationalists!
Larry Hart, D.Min.

Without Subtlety of Speech
Let me as blunt as a rock, as straight forward as 1 + 1, as literal and direct as a manual on how to use a hammer. There are no Christian nationalists! The expression is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. It is like saying someone is falsely true, violently peaceful, or cowardly courageous. I know people like Margorie Taylor Green claim to be Christian Nationalists, she has even proposed renaming the Republican Party the Republican Nationalists. And I see the term used frequently in the media. But for the earliest Christians one was not a Christian among and along with many other things; neither did they attach numerous adjectives to that appellation. One was not a Christian nurse, or husband, or politician, or Catholic, or Protestant. You were simply either a Christian or you weren’t. If you were, that determined everything else.

In The Acts of the Apostles, Saint Luke tells his readers without any drama that the disciples, meaning those who accepted the teachings of Jesus and were attempting to spread Christ’s message as taught by the Apostle’s, were called “Christians” for the very first time by the people of Antioch Syria (Acts 11:26). Before that they were known as the people of “the Way” –– meaning, not a doctrine or philosophy, but simply that they were seriously attempting to pattern their manner of life after that of Jesus.

The English word “Christian” is a transliteration rather than translation of the Greek word Χριστιανός (Christianos), meaning “follower of Christ,” which comes from Χριστός (Christos), with the added ending (iana) Placing this ending, which was borrowed from Latin, at the end of a name, identified someone as a loyal follower, a devoted adherent, or as belonging to something or someone, including, in the sense of a servant or slave. This profound commitment could be, as already suggested, to a philosophical school of thought, a religion, what we would think of as a denomination within a religion, a group sharing the same political interests like the Herodians or Zealots of the New Testament. It was frequently used of those whose primary loyalty was to a general or military commander under whom they served.

Ultimate Concern and Pseudo-gods
My argument that there are no Christian nationalists is a simple one. If being Christian means by definition following Christ–– adhering to the teachings of Jesus and having the same mind and Spirit within ourselves that was in Christ Jesus –– then it is impossible to also be a nationalist as historically understood or as currently advocated by many politicians and religious leaders. Consider the following line of Jesus’s thought and teaching:

Jesus said, “You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and money both” (Matthew 6:24 MSG). It is a simple question of what holds the place of ultimacy in our hearts and minds, what the expatriate German theologian Paul Tillich referred to as our “ultimate concern.” For good or ill it is our ultimate concern, what is more important to us than anything else (whether it is truly ultimate or not) that determines the texture of our lives. “Don’t you know,” asked Paul rhetorically, “that when you offer yourselves to someone in obedience, you become the servant of the one you obey” (Romans 6:16)? In his Dynamics of Faith, Tillich noted we human beings are concerned about many things, but faith is the state of being concerned about what is Ultimate. He wrote:

Faith, for the people of the Old Testament, meant a total surrender to the subject of ultimate concern. God is the ultimate concern of every pious Jew and Christian, and therefore in God’s name the great commandment is given: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22: 37-38).

My first reason, then, for arguing that there is no such thing as a Christian nationalist, is that to add “nationalist” to or to place it equally alongside “Christian” is idolatrous. It is the worship of a pseudo-god –– of what is less than Ultimate.

But Republican Congresswoman Margorie Taylor Green, conspiracy theorists and proponent of nationalism, belligerently argues to the contrary:

We should be Christian nationalists.” Nationalism is not a bad word. It’s actually a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with leading with your faith. . . If we do not live our lives and vote like we are nationalists—caring about our country, and putting our country first and wanting that to be the focus of our federal government—if we do not lead that way, then we will not be able to fix it.

Notice how Margie seems to begin with Christian faith, but ends with the state, not Christ at the center. If you go back and listen to what was being said by nearly all Christians in Germany as Hitler rose to and consolidated his power and control, the similarity with so-called Christian nationalism today is, although it should not be, astonishing.

Under his Nazification process, Hitler attempted to create a unified Protestant Reich Church, and a totally synchronized German culture. “Deutschland über alles!” (“Germany Above All”) was the watch cry, which, of course, really meant Der Führer über alles. Either way the slogan is, to Jews and Christians, blasphemous. The German greeting or salute, “Heil Hitler,” was, in fact, a symbol of absolute obedience to Hitler. However, the man who said in the 2016 election: “If Jesus Christ came down from heaven and told me something different than what Trump said, I would still believe Trump,” was no less idolatrous. If someone chooses to be a pagan that is certainly their right, and far be it from me to interfere with their practice. One can be, theologically or philosophically, whatever one chooses unless two choices are mutually exclusive. So I am simply arguing that one cannot be both a pagan and a Christian, a nationalist and Christian, at the same time, any more than one can be anxiously relaxed.

With Hitler’s help Nazi sympathizers in the German Church known as the “German Christians” gained control of the protestant church in Germany. Bishops and pastors who did not support the government were dismissed and, if they did not go quietly were jailed. Many dissenting clergy were tortured or disappeared by the Gestapo. Among the so called “reforms” instituted by these German nationalists was the removal of the Old Testament, which they saw as an exclusively Jewish book, from the Bible. They rewrote the great confessions as well as the New Testament to reflect a more aggressive and militant Jesus –– a figure more in line with Nietzsche who saw Jesus’s kindness, compassion, and humility as weakness. The Ten Commandments were substituted with twelve new ones, which now began with, “Honor your Fuhrer.”  All German pastors were ordered to swear a loyalty oat to Hitler on his 49nth birthday. Martin Niemöller, Karl Bath, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were perhaps the best known among the scholars and pastors, both in Germany and internationally, to urge Christians to keep the faith, to be courageous, and to peacefully resist, but the absolutely overwhelming majority of Christians in Germany, both Protestant and Catholic, acquiesced to Hitlers demands. My argument is that in doing so they ceased to be Christian –– became the followers of Hitler and demonic forces rather than Jesus of Nazareth. Became Nazis rather than Christians. There were a few, very few, known as the “Confessing Church “who told Hitler “NO!” Some even said it to Hitler’s face. Among them was Martin Niemöller, who was held in prison by the Gestapo for eight years until liberated by the Allies; Karl Barth escaped with his life to Switzerland, and Bonhoeffer was hanged. But in this their fate was no different than others of the Confessing Church who adopted Acts 5:29 as their motto: “We must obey God rather than men.”

The Mark of a Christian
My second reason for rejecting nationalism, is rooted in some of Jesus’s final words spoken that last night just before he was betrayed, brutally beaten, and crucified. With the end fast approaching and little time left to remind his disciples of his most significant and essential instructions Jesus said: “A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). How can we know someone is a follower of Jesus? By their practice of love. How can we know someone has learned and internalized the lessons Jesus taught? By their acts of love. How are we to determine someone is Christian? By the love in them, and through them, and around them. By their loving in the same way Jesus loved; which is to say, that they love as God loves. This is the essential mark signifying one is Christian.

But what does it mean for one person to love another –– or to love God? The two main Hebrew Words for love are “ahab” and “hesed.” The first means a very strong feeling, including things like affection, sexual desire and intense parental concern. It is an inner force which leads to positive action, or even self-sacrifice in order to obtain the happiness of a loved one. It’s what compels a mother to rush back into a burning house to save her child. “Hesed,” depending on the context, can mean devotion, mercy, kindness, compassion, or unswerving commitment. Used as love for God “ahab” and “hesed” mean we have aligned ourselves with the purposes, values, goals, will, and dreams of God for all humanity. The English word “love” in the Greek New Testament, as most people who have listened or slept through very many sermons know, is a translation of “agapē. “The Latin is “caritas” from which our word “charity” is derived. The Greeks actually had four words for love, each with a different emphasis where we must make do with just the one. The simplest and most concise way I can think to define “agapē,”  is to say: Agapē, is acting without preconditions or for personal benefit in the legitimate best interest of another where, and in whatever way, we have the ability to do so. But the following quotation from M. Scott Peck is accurate and perhaps more helpful, and, I think, applies equally well to both love of God and others:

Love is as love does. Love is action. It is conscious striving for the beloved. It is willful thoughtfulness properly planned and executed. Love is what is expressed in acts of love. It is volitional, not emotional. He or she who loves is engaged in works of love. When you love somebody, ask yourself, “What acts of love have I done for them?” When somebody tells you they love you, try to see beyond the words: are there any acts in the foreground – or even in the background? Love is not a feeling that sits; it is a force that acts. Words of love, feelings of love, and fallings in love are not necessarily bad or empty, provided they are followed by relevant action.

We can say then that to be a follower of Christ is to follow the path of caritas in the same way as Jesus –– it is to love as Christ loved. The world cannot judge whether we are Christian by the correctness of our doctrine, theology, or the way we worship. But the watching world has every right to determine the reality of our faith by our practice of love.

Contrasts
Now pretty much everyone, maybe other than Frederick Nietzsche or a true nihilist here and there, claims to be loving. Nationalists even claim to, “own the compassion thing.” It is more than a little difficult to define just what love is, but maybe contrasting the teachings of Jesus with recent assertions of nationalism will help to clarify, not only the  meaning of love, but some of the real differences between following Christ and following Republican Nationalism. With this in mind, then, consider the following:

Jesus said: “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44-45).
Nationalism says: “Smash them in the mouth, carry them out on a stretcher.” Hang them! Shoot them! Lock them up! Pray for the President’s death.”

Jesus said: “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Matthew 5: 38-39).
Nationalism says: “We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing.” Apparently, what is right is whatever gets you what you want.

Jesus taught: The Way is the way of nonviolence, there are things worth dying for but not killing for: “Put your sword back in its place for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:52-53) “I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:17-118). “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it'” Matthew 16:24-26)?
Nationalism says: “Jesus’s problem was that he didn’t have enough AR15s to defend himself” (Eric Trump). “Water boarding is great, but we don’t go far enough” (Donald Trump).

Jesus said: “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5: 42). Jesus taught, citing Leviticus 19:18, that the second great precept to be followed is love of Neighbor, and that the question which follows that precept is not who is our neighbor. but whose neighbor can we be. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19; 22:39; 22:34-40; Mark 12:31;12: 28-31; Luke 10:27;25-37; John 13:34-35).
Nationalism says: “The poor are scammers, thieves, takers, free loaders living high on whatever type of assistance they may receive. The poor are poor because they are lazy. You can’t help children in poverty because parents will then just waste more money on drugs. It is just too difficult to do anything about poverty –– there will always be poor people because they won’t help themselves. Assistance to the poor is stealing from people who have worked hard, and that’s not fair. The poor ought to pay taxes before getting help. When and how much I give to charity should be my personal decision.” As Romney rather infamously said:

All right, there are 47 percent who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s their entitlement. And the government should give it to them. These are people who pay no income tax. . . . My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Jesus said: Predatory lenders and economic vultures: “Love . . . preening in the radiance of public flattery, basking in prominent positions. . . And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. . . But they’ll pay for it in the end” (Luke 20:47-47 MSG).
Republican Nationalists say: “Eliminate restrictions and regulations on how Wall Street does business.” Cut taxes for the wealthy. Deny sustainable wages and health care.

Christianity says: “Love does not insist on getting its own way  –– is willing to forgoe its rights to secure the rights of others”(1 Corinthians 13:5).
Nationalists say: “This is a free country. I don’t have to wear a mask or get a Covid vaccination for the common good. I will kill in defense of that right.”

Jesus said: “If you had any idea what this Scripture meant—‘I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual’—you wouldn’t be nitpicking like this” (Matthew:6b-7MSG). He taught that the wise and good person knowns when and under what circumstances to apply the letter of the law, and when and where mercy must triumph over the law (James 2:13; Mark 3:4; Matthew 12:2; Matthew 12:2b-8).
Nationalism says: There can be no exception to the law regardless the circumstances. If the life of the mother is in danger –– too bad! No abortion. If a ten-year-old has been impregnated by rape she must bear the child. If the baby is dead inside the mother’s womb and there are complications the answer is still: “No!” There are, of course, exceptions that can be made in certain cases; that is, in cases involving the nationalist him or herself. Forgiveness of student loans is unfair, unjust, unethical, immoral, and bad for the economy, but if you want to forgive my multimillion dollar “business loan” it is fair, ethical, moral, and sound financial practice. I am referring, obviously to people like Curt Shilling, who said of Biden’s student loan forgiveness, “This isn’t loan forgiveness. It’s a generation of lazy unaccountable uneducated children being covered by hard working debt paying Americans.” It turns out Shilling once defaulted on a $75,000,000 loan from the state of Rhode Island.

Jesus says: “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit (Matthew 5:33). Purity of heart, the desire to be a good person, humility, courage, common moral decency, honesty, mercy, and integrity all matter –– character matters (Matthew 5:2-48; 7:15-20; 12:33-37).
Nationalists say: “A leader’s character does not matter. What is important is that he or she follows certain policies.” When Clinton had sex with a young emotionally needy girl, a lowly intern, they thought character did matter. When Clinton cruelly bombed Iraq to distract from his destructive sexual misconduct, they though character mattered. And they were right. Clinton would have been a far better president were he not a sex addict. But in justifying rape, predatory sexuality, congenital lying, fraud, violence, and the cruelty of Trump as matters of indifference they are wrong!

Jesus said: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35). In the Bible the “stranger” (Exodus 22:21; Leviticus 19:34) is a refugee, an exile, immigrant, or foreigner. The word has no reference to legal or illegal status since the idea of countries with borders to keep people out is only of fairly recent origin. In ancient Israel, and with Jesus, the stranger is to be shown hospitality and has the same legal rights as everyone else.
Nationalism says: When immigrants show up at the border take away their babies, give their children away, crowd them in hellish quarters, starve them, give them no water to drink, make them sleep standing up. Make them suffer so much they will quit coming. How many people should be allowed into the country is a matter of legitimate debate, how they should be treated when they come to the door begging to be let in is not.

Conclusion
Well that should be sufficient to make the point. If I go any further I might as well quote all four Gospels in full. In concluding I will simply reiterate: There is no such thing as Christian Nationalism –– there is certainly a Republican Nationalism, but no Christian Nationalism. As a Christian I am obviously opposed to nationalism; however, my argument here has not been to show that it is wrong, but that it is un-Christian –– anti-Christian. But maybe nationalism is the very thing you want and desire. It’s just that if you have consecrated your heart to the Jesus Way you should make no mistake about it, nationalism is merely a crude attempt to hijack a religion centered in the love and grace of God, in concern for one’s neighbors, in compassion for the neediest and most vulnerable among us, and then to use it as a means of imposing am ugly political ideology that is both irrational and heartless. But as I say, the choice is certainly yours to make.

Larry Hart

“Birds On A Wire”

Several friends, as they drank Negronis and ate roasted chickpeas with Moroccan spices, were discussing the photographs Ansel Adams took at the Manzanar Relocation Center during World War II. One of them was saying their favorite was “Birds On A Wire” –– a stark, sharp, beautiful, black, and white photograph of Black Birds, sitting on a wire, a telephone pole just off to the left, the distant Sierra Nevada mountains in the background, and a cloudy winter sky with the late evening sun partially shining through. “You know,” another interrupted, “anyone could have snapped that photograph.” “Yes,” replied their hostess, “but it was Ansel Adams who saw it.” What Adams apparently saw and shared that Manzanar evening he focused his camera and clicked its shutter, was the simple beauty of the scene along with its powerful symbolism. “Birds On A Wire” as a metaphor for the unsettled condition not only of those unjustly incarcerated Japanese Americans, but of humanity. And just off to the left, the telephone pole as a cruciform image. It is beautiful both photographically and contemplatively. But not everyone now looking at “Birds On A Wire” sees what Ansel Adams saw.

Three Ways of Seeing

To make my point obvious, there is a difference between knowing and knowing about a person or a thing––a difference, between theoretical and experiential knowledge, between looking and seeing. In fact, the koine Greek of the New Testament has three words for the verb “see:”

(1) BLEPO refers to the physical sense of sight. It is just seeing what is there without attempting to derive any meaning or understanding from what is seen. I turn my head and glace out the patio door. I see a profusion of green succulents in front of a high fence, and beyond the fence the tops of green trees.

(2) THEOREO describes seeing as observing or making sense out of visual clues. I look up into the night sky and I wonder: Is that bright light I see a star? It is so bright maybe it is just a satellite. It could be a passenger jet, and so I watch to see if it is moving or if there are any colored lights attached. That’s seeing as theoreo.

(3) HORAO is seeing that becomes knowledge. It is looking at something, observing something, thinking about something, seeing something in such a way as to grasp its reality and significance.

A crucial question for me in my spiritual quest has therefore been, “What is this book called the Bible?’ “When the ancient sages, mystics, and saints spoke of being guided by the wisdom of the Scriptures what did they mean?” “Can I see what they saw?”

It is, of course, helpful, and necessary to see the Bible in all three ways just described.

The Writings

There is nothing inherently special about the word “Bible.” It is simply a transliteration of the Greek term biblia––originally meaning the ancient paper like writing material made of papyrus reeds, and then by extension a book––although, until around 300 any book was more likely to be in the form of a scroll than a codex––sheets of papyrus or parchment sewn together with writing on both sides of the page. By around 225 there seems to have been a growing association of the words Ta Biblia, literally, “The Books,” with those writings important to Christians––namely, the 39 books of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible beginning with Genesis and ending with Malachi, and the 27 books of the New Testament beginning with The Gospel of Matthew and ending with Revelation. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches include seven of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament as Scripture (giving them 46 Old Testament books). While the Anglican communion also includes these apocryphal books it does not regard them as canonical. The Bible, then, in its most basic and simplest sense, is a compilation, an anthology, of ancient books related to the Christian religion and its origins, along with those earlier books concerning Israelite practices, history, poetry, wisdom, teachings, and prophecy which are necessary for understanding the emergence of Christianity. The dictionary definition of the Bible is simply: “The Christian scriptures consisting of the Old and New Testaments.”

Scripture and Bible are not synonymous, although many people speak as if they were. “Scripture” comes from the Middle English term scriptum, which was derived from the Latin scrīptūra, which was translated from the Greek graphe and simply means “writing.” Technically the term “scriptures” refers to the writings, or what we would call the books in the Bible.

Now although I have never done so, I understand it is certainly possible to read, to study, to analyze, and to see the Bible as nothing more than a book––” a purely human product” (as Borg put it). And if my hope were for fulfillment in the joy or notoriety of academic pursuits that might be enough for me. But because my quest is for a firsthand encounter with God nothing but the third sort of seeing discussed above will do.

Seeing Into the Spirit of the Bible

It is not that I am opposed to the mental study of the Scriptures. To speak dismissively of the scholarly study of the Bible would, in fact, be hypercritical of me. In reading and interpreting Scripture I want to make the best and most logical possible use that I can of historical, grammar, vocabulary, archeological, and literary studies. But beyond that, like Karl Barth (perhaps the greatest Protestant Bible scholar and theologian of the Twentieth Century and certainly one of the historical greats, “My whole energy of interpreting has been expended in an endeavor to see through and beyond history (to see through and beyond all scholarly efforts) into the spirit of the Bible, which is the Eternal Spirit.”

Signs of Integrity

There is no way to absolutely prove the basic trustworthiness of Scripture. I use the word “basic” because I do not believe the Bible has to be read like a bank statement in which absolutely every number and dot has to be correct or the whole thing is false. I do believe there are a number of factors which make it reasonable to trust the essential historicity of the Bible:

1) I believe that the evidence of history, archeology, religious tradition, and reason points to the major formative events claimed to have happened in the narrative of the Hebrew and Christian people as actual, objective, events. Although sometimes told using imaginative language I see the call and journey of Abraham and Sarah, the mystical commissioning of Moses at the Burning Bush, the Exodus and giving of the Ten Commandments and Torah, possessing the land of Canaan, establishment of the Davidic Monarchy, the building of the Temple, the Babylonian Exile and return, the Messianic consciousness of the prophets, a sense of God’s involvement in the puzzling and mysterious circumstances surrounding Jesus’s birth, the extraordinary power, presence, wisdom, hope and love people felt when they were with Jesus; and, the crucifixion, and resurrection,  all as real objective events. None of these are things I can prove in the same way I can prove I have been home all morning with Brenda and Jack, that I checked my glucose level at 6:45 a.m., or that I had granola, fruit, and coffee for breakfast. But for me that each of these events took place after some fashion rests well within the realm of probability.
2) For reasons noted in my podcasts, I find the challenges to the veracity of the Bible presented by non-confessing scholars unconvincing, and frequently as unreasonable and ridiculous as fundamentalists who claim they have found Noah’s Ark in the Caucus Mountains, or the remains of Pharaoh’s army, chariots, and all, at the bottom of the Red Sea; or have the shroud from Jesus’s burial and resurrection.
3) Although written by multiple authors over a period spanning centuries there is a strange continuity to the Bible, an astonishing unity. As the story of the acts of God, what theologians refer to as heilsgeschichte or salvation history, the Bible is one coherent narrative of God’s self-disclosure––the story of how God becomes known to humanity as loving power, presence, help and justice. I find this coherence, this unity, of Scripture significant.
4) I have confidence in the essential trustworthiness of the Bible because of what J.B. Philips famously referred to as its “Ring of Truth.” It is difficult to say exactly what I mean by this since it is more like an impressionistic painting for me than a photograph with sharp detail. But I am thinking about a number of things: I am thinking about how Scripture is written with utter simplicity; yet, paradoxically, is absolutely profound. There is no attempt at any sort of complex systematic philosophy or theology such as people normally like to weave, nor is there any effort to explain everything. Great truths unfold naturally more and more over time in what is a relatively simple narrative––a meaning more easily accessed by someone with an honest and humble heart than a mind crammed with academic information and pretentious concepts. It astounds me over and over and over again in the way it reverses conventional thinking and values. I find it compelling that the “Way” of which the Scriptures speaks is not merely written in the Bible, but in reality itself––and is therefore open to the pragmatic tests of lived experience. Nor does the Bible ever suggest that there is one way that is good for the ordinary person and another for the elite; or one way for humanity and another for God. What’s good for me is good for God. What I am called to be ethically and morally (just and loving) is what God is. Nor do I detect any self-serving tendencies in the Bible. And from beginning to end its characters, even its great heroes, are portrayed with a kind of clear-eyed honesty.
5) Personal experience. This, of course, is of no help to those who have never had the sort of experience of which I am speaking. By this I mean the sort of experience Augustine had in the garden when he read Romans 13: 11-13, or Luther had reading Romans 1:17 in the Black Tower; or the night I heard Mark 8:36-37 read in our little church on the wrong side of the river––an experience in which a text I had long understood with my mind suddenly came alive in my heart and was taken into my soul in a way and at a depth so marvelous that it can never ever be explained. I mean by this what the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur meant when he said, “No one can ever get near the meaning of a text who does not live in its aura.” I take that to include the non-confessing scholar. And I mean what the great Protestant Bible scholar and theologian Karl Barth meant when he wrote in the preface to the first edition of his commentary on The Epistle to the Romans: “The historical-critical method of Biblical investigation has its rightful place: it is concerned with the preparation of the intelligence––and that can never be superfluous. But were I driven to choose between it and the venerable doctrine of Inspiration, I should without hesitation adopt the latter, which has a broader, deeper, and more important justification.”

Experiencing the Bible as Sacred Scripture and Word

There is in this heading an intended implication that there is a difference between reading the Bible as scripture and reading it as Sacred Scripture, reading it as the production of human thought and reading it as the Word of God that comes from beyond human thought. Unhappily reading in this way runs counter to our natural inclinations; and, therefore, requires the discipline of reading for formation rather than for information only.

John Bertram Phillips was the priest of the Church of the Good Shepherd in London during World War II. As the people of London and his church endured the nightly terror, devastation, and death of the German bombings, Phillips decided that one helpful thing he could do, especially for younger people, was to translate the Bible into fresh modern English. Much of his work was done during the long nights spent in the air raid shelter with the bombs falling. He had earned an honors degree in Classics and English at Cambridge, and so it was a work for which he was well equipped. Phillips’ translation became enormously successful after the war, but its greatest impact was on Phillips himself. He later wrote this:

I found that once one gets to grips with the actual stuff of the New Testament its vitality is astonishing. I found myself provoked, challenged, stimulated, comforted, and generally convicted of my previous shallow knowledge of the Scripture. The centuries seemed to melt away, and here I was confronted by eternal truths which my soul however reluctantly felt bound to accept. The further I went with my work of translation the more this conviction of spiritual truth grew within me. . . . Although I did my utmost to maintain an emotional detachment, I found again and again that the material under my hands was strangely alive, it spoke to my condition in the most uncanny way. I say “uncanny” for want of a better word, but it was a very strange experience to sense, not occasionally but almost continually, the living quality of those strangely assorted books. To me it is the more remarkable because I had no fundamentalist upbringing and although as a priest of the Anglican Church I had a great respect for Holy Scripture, this very close contact of several years of translation produced an effect of “inspiration” which I have never experienced even in the remotest degree in any other work.

When this happens, we know the Bible for what it is––”God-breathed writing,” “Inspired Scripture” (2 Timothy 3:16), ” the word of God” (Hebrews 4:12;).

The Greek word for “word” is “logos,” It means speech or word. Because of the association of language with rational thought, it also came to mean something like eternal mind, truth, or principle. When the ancient Greek philosophers asked what it is that gives order to the universe and keeps it from dissolving into chaos, they concluded that just as words give order to our thoughts, so there must be a universal word, truth, or principle that orders and sustains the whole universe.

Word of God

To say that the Bible is the word of God indicates three things in New Testament terminology: First, it is used to designate Christ as the Divine Logos, the Word become flesh and blood (John 1:1 ff). Christ, the New Testament asserts, was among us as the incarnate speech of God; and, as such, communicated life to those who received Christ. Second, “Word of God” is used in reference to the apostles’ teaching and preaching of the salvific presence and power of Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:1-13). It is in this case the shared message both of and about Christ. Third, the phrase “word of God” is used as the name for Scripture–– for that body of literature that now composes the Hebrew and Christian canons (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21; 1 Corinthians 2:10; 14:17).

A Concluding Paradigm

In concluding I offer a Biblical perspective I think makes reasonable and spiritual sense of both the inspiration and transmission of Scripture. The Apostle Paul writes this in his Corinthian correspondence: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). There is a significant spiritual paradigm here, a pattern we see reoccurring throughout Scripture. Repeatedly God does his most awesome work through what is seemingly small, inconsequential, insignificant, flawed, and powerless; indeed, it is in powerlessness, in moments of seeming failure and futility that God’s power is not only seen but shines its brightest (2 Corinthians 12:9). It is both astonishing and at the same time not at all surprising that this good message of light and life (of Christ), this treasure, is entrusted into the care of fallible human beings and their flawed ways of communication.

Larry Harrt

Abstract
This paper is a reflection on the New Testament use of messianic prophecy. Frequently, the New Testament appears to interpret and apply prophetic passages in a way that seems more than a little strange to readers immersed in modern critical thinking. It is posited here that when the hermeneutical methods employed in the New Testament are seen with an appreciation for their discipline and rigor of practice, we may not only come to understand them better, but also begin to recover that sense of the prophetic consciousness which saturated the ancient world of Israel. It is further concluded that in a reflection on messianic prophecy it is possible to discern Paul Ricoeur’s vision of a hermeneutic which possesses both intellectual integrity and spiritual depth. This, Ricoeur thought, involved three stages of faith development: pre-critical, critical, and post-critical leading ultimately to what he described as a second naïveté. It is hoped that this paper might make some contribution to a biblical interpretation and theology that is, to use another of Ricoeur’s favorite terms, ‘restorative.’

Key Words
prophecy, prophetic, messianic, fulfillment, Old Testament, New Testament, interpretation, consciousness, salvation-history, hermeneutic, second naïveté

Turtles All the Way Down
In his novel Turtles All the Way Down, John Green’s main character is an older teenage girl, Aza Holmes, who is trying to live a normal teenage life while suffering the sometimes-debilitating effects of an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. At one point Aza’s best friend Daisey, trying to understand says, ‘I wish I understood it. . . . You just, like, hate yourself. You hate being yourself?’ Aza, who is obsessed with the thought that she is not real, replies that when she looks into herself that it’s more like there is no self to hate. ‘It’s like,’ she says, ‘when I look into myself there is no actual me.’ She feels like a Russian nesting doll which can be opened to reveal a hollow place inside where there is another doll and another and another until you get to one that cannot be opened and is solid through and through. But Aza can never get to her ‘smallest,’ most real and solid self. This reminds Daisey of a ‘wisdom’ story she has heard from her mother. It is a story that can act here in this little essay as a kind of parable––although it may not make complete sense as such until we have progressed a ways. It goes like this:

A scientist is giving a lecture to a huge audience on the history of the earth. He explains how the earth formed billions of years ago from a cloud of cosmic dust. He tells how at first the earth was very hot but over an unimaginable expanse of time cooled and oceans formed. He tells how single-celled life emerged in the oceans, how over billions of years life became more prolific and complex until 250,000 or more years ago humans evolved and started using more sophisticated tools until eventually they could build spaceships and cell phones and everything.

As he approaches the end of his lecture the scientist asks if there are any questions. An old woman in the back raises her hand. ‘This is all very interesting,’ she says when acknowledged, ‘but the truth is the earth is a flat plane resting on the back of a giant turtle.’
Amused, the scientist asks, ‘Well, if that is so what is the giant turtle standing on?’
And the woman replies, ‘It’s standing on the shell of another giant turtle.’
At this point the scientist, who is beginning to become a little annoyed, says, ‘And then what is that turtle standing on?’ And the old woman patiently replies, ‘Sir, you don’t understand. It’s turtles all the way down.’

The conclusion toward which I will be moving in pondering the quandary involved in how the New Testament writers use Old Testament messianic prophecy is, that it’s turtles all the way down.

Prophecy as Heilsgeschichte
Johannes Christian Konrad von Hofmann, the 19th century Biblical historian and theologian at Erlangen, is recognized as the person most responsible for the rise of the salvation-history (heilsgeschichte) school of thought as a formal approach to biblical interpretation. As a principle of interpretation, salvation-history simply asserts that God has made a progressive revelation of the divine nature and will in Scripture. Heilsgeschichte posits among other principles: (1) God’s salvific work begins as God acts in time, and is seen through actual happenings and in human events. (2) God’s salvific act which began in time is brought to completion within the historic processes of human activity. (3) The saving work of God has past, present, and future implications.

I am not at all sure why academia so often finds it necessary to state the obvious in rather elaborate fashion, but whether we adopt the formal history of religion schema as an important way of understanding the use of Old Testament prophecy by New Testament writers, or simply as a bit of helpful common sense, the historical context of messianic prophecy is of enormous significance. As noted in the basic outline above the implications are not only past, but also possess, for those seeking a faith that has intellectual integrity, ramifications that are present and future as well. What I am suggesting, is that understanding the use of messianic prophecy in the New Testament requires that we examine such usage holistically, and from the perspective of salvation-history.

The Prophetic Quandary
The difficulty encountered as we read of the uses which the New Testament makes of Old Testament messianic prophecy is this ––– There frequently appears to be a discrepancy between what is clearly the intended meaning of an Old Testament author and the interpretation given by a New Testament author. Having grown up with the frequent assurance that numerous and precise messianic prophecies have found clear fulfillment in the life and work of Jesus, young evangelical students have often had their faith severely shaken by the discovery that numerous Old Testament predictions seem to have found fulfillment in events closer to the time and setting in which they were originally made. In fact, some prophecies, in their original setting, do not look like predictions at all. Furthermore, upon a closer reading the interpretation of a New Testament writer may seem inconsistent with what the writer of an Old Testament text intended.

Perhaps one of the best-known examples is Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14 -16 as prophetic evidence that Jesus is the Messiah (Matt.1:21-23). In Isaiah, the Kingdom of Judah is about to be invaded by the combined forces of Israel and Syria. The Prophet tells King Ahaz of Judah there is nothing to fear and to remain calm, focused and firm. Ahaz will know this prediction that all will be well is a true prophecy by this sign Isaiah the Prophet gives him. In the time it takes for a virgin (a young unmarried woman) to marry, conceive, bear a child, and for that child to begin eating ‘cheese curds and honey,’ Ephraim (Israel) and Syria will themselves be devastated. This prophecy of Isaiah was not only fulfilled some seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, but seems to make no messianic reference at all. The closest connection is that in both passages the child is named ‘Immanuel’ (Isa. 7:14) or ‘Jesus’ (Matt. 1:21) which means ‘for God is with or saves his people.’ Indeed, this may be the singularity for Matthew.

Any number of other passages might serve as examples. When Matthew references the return of the Holy Family from their exile in Egypt as a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1, which says ‘And out of Egypt I called my son,’ it is more likely to appear to the postmodern mind as a ‘squeezing’ of the text rather than as prophetic fulfillment. G. K. Beale provides a chart of examples of alleged misinterpretations in the New Testament writers’ use of the Old Testament.
1.) Ad hominem argumentation. The role of angels in revealing the law in Gal. 3:19; the exodus ‘veil’ theme in 2 Cor. 3:13-18; and the ‘seed’ of Gen. 12:7 (KJV) and 22:17-18 in Gal. 3:16
2:) Noncontextual midrashic treatments. The understanding of baptism and the ‘following rock’ in 1 Cor. 10:1-4; Deut. 30:12-14 in Rom. 10:6-8; Gen. 12:7 (KJV) and 22:17-18 in Gal. 3:16; Ps. 68:18 in Eph. 4:8; Hosea 11:1 in Matt. 2:15.
3.) Allegorical interpretations. Deut. 25:4 in 1 Cor.9:9; the use of the OT in Gal. 4:24; and Gen. 14 in Heb. 7 .
4.) Atomistic interpretations, uncontrolled by any kind of interpretative rules. Isa. 40:6-8; 1 Peter 1:24-25.

Beale goes on to note, ‘Thus many would conclude that an inductive study reveals an oft-occurring disconnection of meaning between NT writers’ interpretations of the OT and the original meaning of that OT text.’

Interpretive Methodologies of the Rabbis
In wrestling with this problem, the question is sometime raised as to whether we should follow the same interpretive methods of the Old Testament as those used by Matthew, John, Paul and other writers of the New Testament. The reality is that our way of thinking is so different that it would be impossible to ever fully replicate their manner of exegesis. However, this does not mean that some understanding of how they went about the hermeneutical task may not be helpful. With this in mind it should be noted that their exegetical work was characterized by four basic methods:

Literal: Particularly in regard to the interpretation of Old Testament law, Judaism frequently followed a rather literal hermeneutical methodology. Longenecker notes that even while Philo believed circumcision should be understood allegorically he also thought it should be practiced literally. Stranger still, is that it was seriously argued by some Rabbis, on the basis of a literal reading of Deuteronomy 6:7, that in the morning the schema should be recited standing up but in the evening while lying down. The intent of the early Rabbis, even when using literal methodology, was to make plain the essential meaning of the biblical text. Consequently, it is helpful to keep in mind that to this end they were comfortable in applying a variety of interpretative methodologies––both literal and nonliteral.
Allegorical: Allegorical interpretation looks for a deeper symbolic meaning to the text. It assumes that a more sophisticated interpretation is to be found beneath the obvious meaning. Galatians 4:21-31 is probably the most obvious use of allegory in the New Testament. There Paul uses the figure of Hagar from the Genesis story to symbolize Mount Sinai and the earthly city, and therefore enslavement to the Law of Moses, while Sarah represents the heavenly city of the New Jerusalem and the people of promise.
Typological: Typological interpretation is more of a way of viewing history than it is an exegetical method. An earlier event, person, or institution is seen as somehow foreshadowing a later event, person or institution – the antitype. Typology assumes that God is at work in history, that there are reoccurring patterns that reveal the nature of God, and both predict and fulfill later reoccurrences of the pattern in deeper and larger ways. From the typological perspective history itself is seen as prophetic of God’s ultimate purpose. If we think of Carl Jung’s concept of archetypes, the notion of typology may seem a little more comprehensible in a contemporary context. The Greek arche means ‘first’ and type ‘imprint,’ ‘impress,’ or ‘pattern.’ For Jung an archetype is therefore a basic, primordial, preexisting pattern. Jung believed there were patterns of circumstances, symbols, and thought that reoccur consistently enough to be considered as universal concepts or events. These archetypes represent unseen psychological (psychic) energy at work––the person of traditional faith would say it is the manifestation of spiritual forces. Until the Enlightenment it was thought that human beings had the capacity to receive meaning from the realm of the spiritual and form it into inner images that can then become the object of reflection and reason. The well-known Jungian analyst Robert Johnson makes this significant observation:

The disaster that has overtaken the modern world is the complete splitting of the conscious mind from its roots in the unconscious. All forms of interaction with the unconscious that nourished our ancestors––dreams, vision, ritual, religion experience––are largely lost to us, dismissed by the modern mind as primitive or superstitious.

The point is simply that we should not too quickly dismiss typology as a reading into historical events of something that is not there; and, even more importantly, recognize how biblical typology points us to the reality of the prophetic messianic consciousness and its trajectory.
Pesher: Here a text is interpreted within the framework of an event. which is a mystery. The attempt to discover the solution to the mystery of the event, or of a person, in Scripture is ‘pesher.’ For example, in the New Testament, the solution to the strange and puzzling events on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17) is found in Joel 2:28-29.
Midrash: The text rather than the event is the starting point for midrash, which means to seek. Midrash seeks to provide practical instruction in living God’s Word, and shows the relevance of Scripture to daily life. Seven rules, which follow here, helped to make early rabbinical interpretation reasonably straightforward.
Qal wahomer says that what applies in a less important case also applies in a more important case, and what applies in a more important case applies in a less important case.
Gezerah shawa says that where the same words are applied in two separate cases the same considerations apply.
Binyan ab mikathub ‘ehad involves constructing a family of texts from one passage. It states that where texts ae similar, a principle found in one applies to the others as well.
Binyan ab mishene kethubim has to do with constructing a family of texts from two passages, so that a similar principle derived from two texts can be applied to the others.
Kaalal uferat is the principle that a general rule many be applied to a particular situation.
Kayotse bo bemaqom ‘aher establishes that a text may be interpreted by comparison with another text.
Debar halamed m ‘inyano is an explanation established from the context.

Klyne Snodgrass notes that these midrashic techniques are observable in the New Testament. ‘

When Jesus argued that if God cared for the birds, surely he cared much more for humans (Matt. 6:26), he was arguing in good rabbinic fashion from the less important to the more important. Similarly, when Jesus justified his disciples eating grain on the Sabbath by pointing to the eating off the showbread by David and his men, he was arguing on the basis of an equivalent regulation. . . ‘ It may very well be that when Matthew quoted Isaiah 7:14 in reference to the birth and naming of Jesus he too was interpreting the text on the basis of the lesser to the greater principle. That is, Matthew’s interpretation was not nearly as arbitrary as it first sounds two thousand years later. In short, Matthew is reasoning: ‘If this was true then, how much more it is true now.

Testimonial: At times we find the New Testament writers using what appear to be collections of Old Testament texts for evidentiary purposes. Indeed, they sometimes not only use the same combination of Old Testament texts, but even agree in wording that is different from the Septuagint. For instance, the agreement might be noted between 1 Peter 2:6-10, which uses Isaiah 28:16; Psalm 118:22; Isaiah 8:14; parts of several other texts and a fusion of Isaiah 28:16 and 8:14; and, Romans 9:25, 33 which uses Hosea 2:23, other texts from Isaiah and a combining of Isaiah 28:16 and 8:14 in the same non-Septuagint form as 1 Peter 2. This most likely does not represent one writer copying from another as has sometimes been concluded, but more likely is an example of collections of Old Testament passages being used apologetically as testimony. It now appears that authors in the Apostolic Age felt a greater freedom to use various translations, or to offer their own, than what was once thought. Whatever one may make of their use of the texts they quote what remains clear is they possessed a common sense of messianic prophecy and its fulfillment.

What Manner of Person
The great Jewish Biblical scholar and mystic, Abraham Joshua Heschel, in what is certainly one of the best books ever written on the prophets, insisted that it is of crucial importance to ask the question, ‘What manner of person was the prophet?’ Both the question and the answer Heschel provided contain enormous implications for anyone exploring the correspondence between Old Testament prophecy and claims of their fulfillment in the New Testament.

As Heschel noted the Hebrew prophets were not only prophets, but poets, preachers, patriots, statesmen, social critics, and moralists as well. He wrote, ‘The significance of Israel’s prophets lies not only in what they said, but also in what they were. . . The moments that passed in their lives are not now available and cannot become the object of scientific analysis. All we have is the consciousness of those moments as preserved in words.’ The essential task of the prophet was to declare the word of God to the here and now. The prophetic aim was exhortation and not merely prediction. ‘It was to illuminate what is involved in the present; that is, to declare ‘truth as reflected in the mind of God.’
The literalist stressing supernatural revelation denies the role of the prophet’s own self in his utterances, while an emphasis on prophecy as a psychological, or entirely inward, experience ‘disregards the prophet’s awareness of his confrontation with facts not derived from his own mind.’ When Heschel speaks of ‘facts not derived from the prophet’s own mind,’ he means much more than the raw factuality of the literalist, he means the ‘consciousness’ of the prophet. Consequently while the prophet addresses a contemporary situation he ‘is not intoxicated with the here and now,’ but speaks with a vision, or consciousness, of an end.

Aryeh Kaplan, another Jewish scholar and mystic, says in regard to the person of the prophet: Those who sought to prepare themselves for prophetic ministry were known as ‘the sons of the prophets,’ and normally spent years in intense training and rigorous discipline learning to open their consciousness to the mind of God. The difference between the Old Testament prophets and other mystics is that the prophets were more specific and clearer in their messages. ‘The true prophet,’ says Kaplan, ‘is able to channel this spiritual power, focusing it clearly enough to obtain an unambiguous message.’

Jesus’s Use of Old Testament Predictions
The writers of the four Gospels portray Jesus as acutely aware of his words, his actions, and his presence as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He is critical of the two despondent travelers on the road to Emmaus for their inability to grasp the meaning of his life among them in light of the Old Testament. ‘Beginning with Moses and with all the prophets he explained the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures’ (Luke 24:27). Jesus’s consciousness of who he was, as N.T. Wright points out, arose out of his sense of vocation; that is, his belief that he was called to accomplish only what God can undertake and complete. His predictions primarily looked forward to the day of Yahweh that had been prophesied in the Old Testament, the decisive act of God in which the present age would be brought to an end and a new order of peace, justice, and well-being initiated. Jesus uses Psalm 110:1 twice to accept the prophetic designation of messiah; however, in doing so he reinterprets what that means. With Jesus messianism has nothing to do with earthly dominance, worldly status, or military conquest, but with humility, with sacrificial suffering and with priestly and spiritual power conferred by God rather than gained through political manipulation. What this points to once again is the existence of a profound prophetic consciousness among the people of Israel in the Second Temple era.

The Prophetic Consciousness
Ultimately what Kaplan and Heschel are talking about is a way of thinking, a way of life, a way of being––the prophetic consciousness. ‘The prophet,’ said Heschel, ‘is human, yet employs notes one octave too high for our ears.’ What I am suggesting is that in order to understand messianic prophecy we must be capable of not only engaging in literary and historical analysis, but of going beyond such analysis so as to experience, as best we can, the prophetic consciousness ourselves. We know that this spiritual consciousness, this messianic hope, this attunement to what Saint Paul called ‘the mystery of the ages which is the hope of Christ in you’ (Colossians 1:26), was acute among the heirs of the Hebrew prophets early in first century Palestine. Among the saying of the prophets that made messianic expectations burn in them we may count this short list:

• The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:11-17).
• He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via Solomon (1Chronicles 22:8-10, 2 Chronicles 7:18).
• The spirit of the Lord will be upon him (Isaiah 11:2).
• Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4).
• Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:0).
• He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10).
• Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8).
• There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8).
• All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19).
• The people of God will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11).
• He will be a messenger of peace for the whole world (Isaiah 52:7).
• Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39:9).
• The people of Israel will have direct access to the Torah through their minds and Torah study will become the study of the wisdom of the heart (Jeremiah 31:33).

How ancient Hebrew scholars may have interpreted any particular prophetic passage, or even how much they agreed as to the definitive list of messianic prophecies, is not the issue here. The point here is that among the Jewish people of first century Palestine, an intense messianic consciousness, derived from the Hebrew prophets of old, was not only manifest, but had reached that kairotic moment of which the Apostle Paul speaks in Galatians 4:4-7.

This prophetic consciousness is expressed in ancient Israel’s eschatology. R. T. France, Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford therefore writes:

From Amos to the Exile, and beyond, we find frequent explicit predictions of ‘the day of Yahweh.’ Expressions such as ‘in the day’ and ‘the days are coming’ give further evidence of a continuing expectation of the day of Yahweh, a decisive time of judgment (on the nations, and on Israel herself) and restoration. While similar phrases sometimes refer to definite acts of judgment in the near future, this cannot be said of expressions like ‘in the end of days,’ nor of the pictures of the coming golden age such as occur in Isaiah 11:1-9 or Zephaniah 3:11-20; the universal character of the work of God so described demands an eschatological future frame of reference. It may not be easy, or even desirable to separate the historical from the eschatological; the immediate and distant future are generally tantalizingly telescoped in a single perspective.

France argues that there can, therefore, be no doubt of a Jewish eschatology which saw a future decisive act of God resulting in a final end to the present order and a new beginning. Although he sees messianic expectations, in terms of references to a specific agent, as forming only a small part of this eschatological hope, it is, nevertheless, entirely reasonable to understand this eschatology as yet another angle from which to view what is here referred to as the prophetic consciousness of the people of Second Temple Israel. To anyone who thinks consciousness unreal it might be pointed out that many quantum physicists believe consciousness is the only real reality.

Conclusion
Michael Langford in his Unblind Faith: A New Approach for the Twenty-First Century, writes simply of the complex process of coming to an intelligent Christian faith:

I have argued that the reflective Christian comes to the New Testament stories in several stages; first, an awareness of the extraordinary nature of Jesus of Nazareth– relying on perfectly plausible accounts of his life and character and teaching; second, a reasonably grounded belief in a personal God who genuinely conveyed a message through the prophets; third, a decision that this Jesus is the Messiah to whom the prophetic tradition looked forward; and then, fourth, a rereading of the gospel stories in the light of these steps that have been taken. In this context, without any gullibility a reflective person may be unwilling to dismiss outright the historical reality of some actual events of an extraordinary and, perhaps unique nature, even though they remain extremely puzzled about exactly what happened.

This paper has been written with Langford’s four-stage process of becoming Christian in sight, in particular, and with some single mindedness, it has been an exploration of that stage which involves the belief that God genuinely conveyed through the prophets the message of the coming Messiah. However, it has attempted to do so in a dynamic rather than wooden fashion.

Those familiar with Paul Ricoeur’s notion of a hermeneutic that travels from a pre-critcal naïveté in its understanding, through the desert of the critical stage, and finally arrives at the springs of the post-critical, will recognize this as the journey taken here. The person of Christian faith may at first read the messianic prophecies utilized by the New Testament writers as Nostradamus like predictions; or what they imagine Nostradamus’ predictions to be like. This Ricoeur referred to as the first naiveté. However, once problems are recognized in a text, for example the intent of the original author seems different than the way an author uses it in the New Testament, or multiple texts appear to have been combined in order to produce one prophecy, or the Hebrew text does not look like a prophecy at all, then one may become lost and wander aimlessly in a wilderness of hyper criticism. They may become expert at debunking the biblical narrative, and far too sophisticated to discover that reality inherent and discernable only in a condition of complete simplicity. But, if they are able to appreciate not only the exegetical methodology employed and its rigor, but also the magnitude and actual existence of what has been referred to here as the prophetic consciousness, there is the possibility they may enter that third stage––the post critical phase in which they recognize the sorts of problems sons and daughters of the Age of Reason cannot ignore; Simultaneously, they may see in them a reality that is transcendent and beautiful, and a truth that is more than merely emblematic.
So what might be our final reply to those whose laborious analysis dismisses the possibility of Old Testament prophecy as a part of that maturing of history and spiritual consciousness which leads to that kairotic moment, to that ‘fullness of time,’ into which the Messiah is sent (Gal. 4:4)? Perhaps we should simply reiterate: ‘You don’t understand. It’s turtles, the mystery of prophetic messianic consciousness, all the way down.’

Bibliography
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