Ellen F. Davis - Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament

Getting Involved With God

Rediscovering the Old Testament

ELLEN F. DAVIS

A COWLEY PUBLICATIONS BOOK

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America

by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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United Kingdom

Copyright 2001 by Ellen F. Davis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

An earlier version of Desirable Discipline appeared in The Living Pulpit (Summer 2000). Serving in the Shadows was first published in the Yale Divinity School publication Reflections (Winter/Spring 1994).

Scripture quotations other than the authors translation are taken from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.

Cover design by Vicki Black and Peggy Parker; author photograph by Alexander Dorr Cover art: Noah and the Dove (1976), Exodus from Egypt (1976), A Psalm of David (1980), and Joseph (1974) by Kopel Gurwin (19231990).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Davis, Ellen F.

Getting involved with God : rediscovering the Old Testament / Ellen F. Davis.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-56101-197-1

1. Bible. O. T.Introductions. 2. Bible. O. T.Theology. I. Title

BS1140.3 .D38 2001

221.6'1dc21

2001042308

Printed in the United States of America.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Morley, Nico, Nicolaas, Paiter, Isaac, and Ezra
our new generations of faith

THIS BOOK DRAWS UPON lectures and sermons delivered over a period of fourteen years. Looking back to the beginning of that period, I wish to thank the people of St. James Episcopal Church, Manhattan for showing me that ordinary churchgoers are eager to engage the biggest and most difficult questions of biblical theology; thus they fostered the style of teaching represented here.

This is a book which owes its existence to an editor. Cynthia Shattuck conceived the idea for it, and she made the considerable effort to discover its outlines hidden in a stack of lecture notes. Through many years of friendship, she has gently pressed me toward a writing style that is less dense. Through the several years during which this book fitfully took form, she both waited patiently for me to move and guided my movements when they were awkward. I thank her and the staff of Cowley Publications for their excellent work and their graciousness.

The Virginia Theological Seminary granted me a sabbatical leave to complete the writing. I am grateful to the staff of the Bishop Payne Library, and to Shawn McDermott especially, for efficient and cheerful help; to my students and also my Dean, Martha Home, for their genuine interest. It is a privilege to enjoy the strong supports of home along with the freedom of a sabbatical.

As always, greatest thanks are due to Dwayne Huebner for his consistent generosity toward a wife for whom writing is both painstaking labor and essential recreation. This book is dedicated to our children and grandchildren.

All translations of the biblical text (unless otherwise noted) are the authors. Her references to verse numbers follow the enumeration in the Hebrew Bible, which may differ (minus one) from English translations. Where references alone are cited in the text, verse numbers refer to those given in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

THIS IS A BOOK about getting, and staying, involved with Godwhat it takes, what it costs, what it looks and feels like, why anyone would want to do it anyway. It is at the same time a book about reading the Old Testament as a source of Good News and guidance for our life with God. The key piece of Good News that the Old Testament communicates over and over again is that God is involved with us, deeply and irrevocably so. We hear that message affirmed in many different voices and in shifting moods: in the voices of the psalmists crying out to God across the full range of human emotions, from grief to joy, from uncontained rage to dumbfounded gratitude; and also in the voice of God, spoken through poets, storytellers, prophets, and teachers. As it turns out, Gods life is as complex as our ownand it is so, precisely because Gods life is bound up inextricably with ours.

This book commends a style of spiritually engaged reading that is, I think, largely unfamiliar to Christians. I offer it as an alternative to two more common ways of approaching the Old Testament. The first, common among conservative Christians, is to read it chiefly as prophesying the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In many cases, those who take this approach also find moral teachings useful for Christians in some parts of the Old Testament (the Ten Commandments, Proverbs, and a few psalms) and a straightforward account of history in other parts (Genesis, for example); the rest is largely ignored. A second option, more common among liberal Christians, is to assume that wherever the Old Testament is not boring (which is most places), it is morally deficient. That is, it represents a distinctly inferior moral sensibility. Those who take this view are not inclined to read the Old Testament at allnor, if they are clergy, to preach from it. It is assumed that everything necessary for salvation appears in the New Testament, in a conveniently abbreviated form.

My approach differs from both. I am convinced that the Old Testament is necessary for Christians. But what I am exploring here is not its prophetic function or even its moral teachingsif by that we mean a set of inflexible rules about what we should or should not do. Rather, I am looking for what the Old Testament tells us about intimate life with God. Ever since the second century the church has maintained that the New Testament does not by itself tell us everything we need to know about that.

The five sections of this book constitute an unsystematic introduction to the Old Testament for those who want to get involved with God. If there is a secret to getting involved with God through the pages of scripture, then perhaps it is this: turn the pages slowly. One of my students in an introductory Old Testament course once said, When I started this course, I thought that my problem was that I read too slowly. Now I realize that I read too fast. Our reading style reflects our cultures general admiration for speed. Modern novels have taught recreational readers to skim for plot. Many of us have to read for our jobs, and we pride ourselves on how rapidly we can move through vast quantities of print. But the Bible discourages us from making mileage a measure of success. In many cases, its riches are perceptible only to those who move slowly, like mushroom hunters, peering closely where at first there appears to be nothing at all to see. Almost always it is useful to linger over a word or a phrase that seems strangely chosen. So the essays and sermons here frequently pose the question, Why does the Bible say it this way, instead of the way we might have expected? For it is by means of words that the Bible performs its revelatory function. An unexpected word can jar us into contemplating new possibilities about how things really are. An ambiguous word jogs our minds onto a completely different track. Often when reading one portion of scripture, we run across words that echo another passage. Thus the biblical writers lead us subtly to make connectionsbetween events in the text and likewise between events in our livesthat we had never previously imagined.