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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Since his 1972 study of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew scriptures, provocatively entitled In Man We Trust, Walter Brueggemann has challenged the settled verities of Christian communities of faith and the orthodoxies of biblical scholarship. In over two dozen books and numerous popular and academic articles on the texts and themes of the Hebrew scriptures, Brueggemann has explored and articulated his growing thesis that the Bible is a powerful, critical, and energizing resource for human and social transformation in our times. Concentrating on the prophetic corpus since his programmatic 1978 book, The Prophetic Imagination, as well as giving significant attention to the historical books and the psalter, Brueggemann himself has become an important prophetic voice, calling the contemporary church to fidelity to Yahweh's uncompromising claims as these are articulated in the Mosaic, covenantal, and prophetic traditions of the Hebrew scriptures.
1 Brueggemann, Walter, In Man We Trust: The Neglected Side of Biblical Faith (Atlanta: John Knox, 1972).Google Scholar
2 Brueggemann, Walter, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978)Google Scholar; other representative texts on prophecy by Brueggemann include Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986)Google Scholar; To Pluck Up, to Tear Down: A Commentary on the Book of Jeremiah 1–25 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans and Edinburgh: Handsel, 1988)Google Scholar; and To Build, to Plant: A Commentary on Jeremiah 26–52 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans and Edinburgh: Handsel, 1991)Google Scholar; as well as his earlier work Tradition for Crisis: A Study in Hosea (Richmond: John Knox, 1968)Google Scholar. On the historical books see his David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985)Google Scholar; and First and Second Samuel (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1990)Google Scholar. On the psalter see The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984)Google Scholar; and Israel's Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988)Google Scholar. Brueggemann has attempted to address the entire range of the Hebrew scriptures in The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).Google Scholar
3 Brueggemann's literary sensitivities have no doubt been influenced by Samuel Terrien and James Muilenburg, two of his teachers at Union Theological Seminary in New York, who are both known for their nuanced literary approach to scripture. Examples of Terrien's work on the Bible include Job: Poet of Existence (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1957Google Scholar) and The Elusive Presence: The Heart of Biblical Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978)Google Scholar. Besides Muilenburg's The Way of Israel: Biblical Faith and Ethics (New York: Harper & Row, 1961)Google Scholar, see his Society of Biblical Literature presidential address, “Form Criticism and Beyond,” JBL 88 (1969) 1–18Google Scholar, which influenced a whole generation of scholars in literary analysis of the Bible.
4 Although Brueggemann cites numerous texts by Mendenhall and Gottwald throughout his writings, he has drawn particularly upon two of these: Mendenhall, George, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and Gottwald, Norman, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250–1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1979)Google Scholar. Brueggemann, however, has not drawn uncritically on Mendenhall and Gottwald and is aware of the differences between them; see his discussion in “Israel's Social Criticism and Yahweh's Sexuality,” JAARSup 45 (1977) 739–72Google Scholar; and “The Tribes of Yahweh: An Essay Review,” JAAR 48 (1980) 441–51.Google Scholar
5 Brueggemann typically hints at such suggestions rather than explicitly articulating them. See, for example, Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 41; idem, The Message of the Psalms, 151–52; idem, Israel's Praise, xi, 49. Brueggemann draws the parallels more explicitly (and is therefore “at some risk” because he may be wrong) in his Interpretation and Obedience: From Faithful Reading to Faithful Living ([Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991] 111–14).Google Scholar
6 Brueggemann, Walter, “Trajectories in Old Testament Literature and the Sociology of Ancient Israel,” JBL 98 (1979) 161–85Google Scholar; idem, “A Shape for Old Testament Theology, I: Structure Legitimation,” CBQ 47 (1985) 28–46; and idem, “A Shape for Old Testament Theology, II: Embrace of Pain,” CBQ 47 (1985) 395–415. The last two articles are reprinted in idem, Old Testament Theology: Essays on Structure, Theme, and Text (ed. Patrick D. Miller; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) chaps. 1 and 2.
7 Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, chap. 1, esp. 16–19.
8 On the monarchy, see ibid., chap. 2, esp. 30–31. On “enlightenment,” see von Rad, Gerhard, Old Testament Theology, vol. 1: The Theology of Israel's Historical Traditions (New York: Harper & Row, 1962) 53Google Scholar. On “paganization,” see Mendenhall, George, “The Monarchy,” Int 29 (1975) 160Google Scholar; and idem, “Samuel's Broken Rib,” in James Flanagan and Anita W. Robinson, eds., No Famine in the Land (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975) 67.
9 On the Exodus, see Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, chap. 1 (pp. 11–27); on the prophetic movement, see chaps. 3 (pp. 44–61) and 4 (pp. 62–79) in the same book.
10 See note 2. Numerous other articles develop Brueggemann's categories more fully; see Brueggemann, Walter, “A Convergence in Recent Old Testament Theologies,” JSOT 18 (1980) 2–18Google Scholar; and idem, “Old Testament Theology as a Particular Conversation: Adjudication of Israel's Sociotheological Alternatives,” TD 32 (1985) 303–325; these articles are reprinted in Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology, chaps. 5 and 7. Both articles, however, reproduce versions of Brueggemann's dyadic schema, whereas Brueggemann adds a distinctive new slant to these categories in The Message of the Psalms.
11 Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, chap. 2 (pp. 25–49). Although Brueggemann does not exegete any royal psalms, his comments indicate he would treat them as psalms of orientation (p. 200 n. 44).
12 Ibid., chap. 3 (pp. 51–121).
13 Ibid., chap. 4 (pp. 123–67).
14 Brueggemann, Israel's Praise, chap. 4 (pp. 89–121).
15 Indeed, in his survey article, “A Convergence in Recent Old Testament Theologies,” Brueggemann has acknowledged a whole range of similar hermeneutical proposals for scholarship in the Hebrew scriptures.
16 Brueggemann's work has certainly revolutionized both my academic work and my preaching. Examples of the fruitfulness of Brueggemann's categories for contemporary cultural analysis may be found in Middleton, J. Richard and Walsh, Brian J., “Theology at the Rim of a Broken Wheel: Bruce Cockburn and Christian Faith in a Postmodern World,” Grail 9 (1993) 15–39Google Scholar; and Middleton, J. Richard and Walsh, Brian S., Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (Downes Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995)Google Scholar. See also the superb analysis by Walsh, Brian J. in Subversive Christianity: Imaging God in a Dangerous Time (1992; reprinted Medina, WA: Alta Vista, 1994)Google Scholar, which is indebted to Brueggemann's approach to scripture.
17 Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 39.
18 Brueggemann, “Trajectories,” 171.
19 Brueggemann, “A Shape for Old Testament Theology, I,” 42.
20 Ibid., 41–42.
21 Brueggemann, Israel's Praise, 101.
22 Ibid., 101–121.
23 That creation theology functioned in a conservative fashion, legitimating the royal status quo, is clearest in the case of Sumero-Akkadian cultures. At least five interlocking claims are significant here. The first is that the Sumerian king list claims that kingship is inaugurated by the gods and handed down from heaven at creation. The second is the reference, found in the Tukulti-Ninurta Epic and in various letters of Assyrian court astrologers, to kings as the image of deity, which implies the divine right to rule on behalf of the gods. Third, in writings such as the Eridu Genesis and the Harab Myth, cities, over which kings ruled and in which their reigns were consolidated, were believed to have been founded not by mere humans, but by the gods at creation. Fourth, the prologue to the laws of Hammurapi, who was a king of Babylon in the eighteenth century bce, claims that these laws were given at creation, resulting in their unchangeable and inviolable character. Finally, at least by the sixth century, neo-Babylonian kings regularly assumed the part of Marduk, the head of the Babylonian pantheon, in the annual liturgical reenactment of the Enuma Elish at the Akitu festival, thus identifying Marduk's primordial conquest of chaos with the human king's political conquest of his enemies. On the above points, see Bird, Phyllis A., “‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Gen 1:27b in the Context of the Priestly Account of Creation,” HTR 74 (1981) 129–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, Patrick D. Jr., “Eridu, Dunnu, and Babel: A Study in Comparative Mythology,” Hebrew Annual Review 9 (1985) 227–351Google Scholar; and Ricoeur, Paul, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon, 1969) 182, 192–98.Google Scholar
A possible exception to the conservative function of creation theology in the ancient Near East is the appeal to certain elements of the kingship ideology by the usurper of the Babylonian throne, Nabonidus, in the middle of the sixth century. Nabonidus appeals in his own favor to “the will of the gods” against his predecessor Labaši-Marduk, even though he admits he has no dynastic claim to the throne. On Nabonidus's quest for the legitimacy of his nondynastic kingship as recorded in inscriptions 1, 13, and 15, see Beaulieu, Paul-Alain, The Reign of Nabonidus King of Babylon 556–539 B.C. (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1989) 22Google Scholar, 89–90, 110–114. For this reference and its interpretation I am indebted to an unpublished paper by Al Wolters of Redeemer College, “Labaši-Marduk and the Neobabylonian Succession” (May 1991) esp. 4–5, section 11.
24 The clearest cases are Ps 2:7–12; 45:2–7; 89:25–27, 35–37; and 110:1, 4. Psalm 89 may, however, already testify to a process of transformation, since the psalmist not only looked back to the Davidic ideal (vss. 1–37) from the point of view of God's evident rejection of the king (vss. 38–51), but included an unusual conditional clause in the Davidic covenant (vss. 30–32), and mused on the mortality of all humanity, including the king (vss. 47–48). Despite the existence of psalms such as these and the clear historical portrayal of the abuse of monarchy in the Hebrew scriptures, it is noteworthy that no element of the Sumero-Akkadian kingship ideology is connected with creation theology in the Bible (see previous note). Indeed, some of this ideology is explicitly excluded. The Bible, for example, asserts not only the creation of all humans in God's image—commissioned to rule the earth (Genesis 1, Psalm 8)—but also the historical origin of kingship in the tenth century with Saul, its demise in the sixth century exile, the founding of the first city in ambiguous circumstances by Cain (Genesis 4), and both the historical origin of the Torah at Sinai and the subjection of the king to this Torah (Deuteronomy 17).
25 Brueggemann himself cites (Israel's Praise, 180 n. 21) the subordination of blacks and women as examples of oppression in the name of creation order. On the Reconstructionist movement, see the helpful summary in Clapp, Rodney, The Reconstructionists (2d ed.; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990)Google Scholar. The two central texts for this movement are Rushdoony, Rousas John, Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Craig, 1973)Google Scholar; and Bahnsen, Greg L., Theonomy in Christian Ethics (Nutley, NJ: Craig, 1977).Google Scholar
26 Emil Brunner, “Nature and Grace,” in idem and Karl Barth, Natural Theology (trans. Peter Fränkel; London: Bles, 1946) 51.
27 This is stated most explicitly in Brueggemann, “A Shape for Old Testament Theology, I,” 41; and idem, Israel's Praise, 101. It is adumbrated in idem, Prophetic Imagination, 39; and idem, The Message of the Psalms, 35, 49, 201 n. 64.
28 Regarding creation theology, see “The Affirmation of Ordinary Life,” part 3 of Charles Taylor's philosophical-historical study, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989) esp. 218–27.Google Scholar
29 Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 28; idem, Israel's Praise, 101.
30 Of the possible extrabiblical examples that could be given, I shall mention one important cluster. If the Nazi appeal to blood and soil cited creation theology in order to justify oppression, we also should remember the Dutch Christians who resisted Nazi occupation of Holland, harboured Jewish fugitives, and endured the suffering of concentration camps, sustained all the while by perhaps the most articulate theology of creation to be found anywhere in Christendom. This creation theology, which can be traced back to the neo-Calvinian tradition of Abraham Kuyper and Groen van Prinsterer, brought a tremendous challenge to the status quo of nineteenth-century Holland, resulting in a flurry of social activism that was understood as an alternative to both the French Revolution and British capitalism. The explicit, undergirding theological motif of this activism was that God's redemption is for the sake of creation, implying the mandate to transform human sociocultural life. See Langley, McKendree R., The Practice of Political Spirituality: Episodes from the Public Career of Abraham Kuyper (Jordan Station, ON: Paideia, 1984) 167–68Google Scholar; and van Dijk, A. J., Groen van Prinsterer's Lectures on Unbelief and Revolution (Jordan Station, ON: Wedge, 1989) 232Google Scholar. I am indebted to Al Wolters of Redeemer College for these references.
Examples of contemporary social criticism that are rooted broadly in the neo-Calvinian creation tradition include Wolterstorff, Nicholas, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983)Google Scholar; Goudzwaard, Bob, Capitalism and Progress: A Diagnosis of Western Society (Toronto: Wedge and Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979)Google Scholar; Van Leeuwen, Mary Stewart, Gender and Grace: Love, Work and Parenting in a Changing World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990)Google Scholar; Walsh and Middleton, The Transforming Vision; and idem. Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be.
31 Fretheim, Terence E., Exodus (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1991) 13.Google Scholar
32 Fretheim, Terence E., “The Plagues as Ecological Signs of Historical Disaster,” JBL 110 (1991) 392Google Scholar; idem, Exodus, 13.
33 Fretheim, Terence E., “The Reclamation of Creation: Redemption and Law in Exodus,” Int 45 (1991) 363.Google Scholar
34 Fretheim, Exodus, 13–14, 170; idem, “Reclamation of Creation,” 358–59, 363–64.
35 Fretheim, “Reclamation of Creation,” 359; italicized in the original.
36 Fretheim, Exodus, 13–14; idem, “Plagues as Ecological Signs,” 392. It is significant that von Rad misread precisely this point in his choice of the Hexateuch rather than the Pentateuch as the basic canonical unit of the Hebrew scriptures. Whereas Israel does not possess the land at the end of the Pentateuch, the Hexateuch ends with the conquest and settlement. For von Rad, Israel's definitive confessional story starts with creation (Genesis) and ends with the land (Joshua). This led him to characterize the function of creation in the Hexateuch as the theological justification or legitimation of Israel's election and possession of the land: “Presumptuous as it may sound, Creation is part of the aetiology of Israel!” (von Rad, The Theology of Israel's Historical Traditions, 138.) If we follow Fretheim, however, it would be more accurate to say that Israel is part of the salvation history of creation.
37 Fretheim's reading of creation theology in Exodus has, of course, been disputed (and probably will continue to be disputed). It may therefore be helpful to introduce a distinction suggested by Wright, N. T. in his “Romans and the Theology of Paul” (in Lovering, Eugene H. Jr., ed., Society of Biblical Literature 1992 Seminar Papers [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992] 185, 211Google Scholar). Not only does Wright read Romans, as Fretheim reads Exodus, as appealing to a creation theology, but he helpfully distinguishes the explicit rhetorical argument of the book, its “poetic sequence,” from the wider—although implicit—world view and system of belief upon which Paul draws, the “narrative sequence.” The third point I have cited from Fretheim—that the purpose of the Exodus is cosmic in scope—can be found in the text itself (“Indeed the whole earth is mine”; Exod 19:5b). With regard to the first two points, however, creation theology constitutes part of the implicit narrative sequence of Exodus. This is suggested by Fretheim's emphasis on the placement of the Genesis creation account at the start of Israel's canonical story and the theological implications of this placement for reading Exodus (Fretheim, “Reclamation of Creation,” 354–56).
38 Crenshaw, James, “The Human Dilemma and Literature of Dissent,” in Knight, Douglas A., ed., Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 235.Google Scholar
39 See Hasel's, Gerhard analysis of this dissent in “The Significance of the Cosmology in Genesis 1 in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Parallels,” AUSS 10 (1972) 1–20Google Scholar; and idem, “The Polemic Nature of the Genesis Cosmology,” EvQ 46 (1974) 81–102. Other works in which Genesis 1 is read as polemical include Sanders, James A., The Old Testament in the Cross (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961) chap. 2Google Scholar; Heidel, Alexander, The Babylonian Genesis: The Story of Creation (2d ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951) chap. 3Google Scholar; Kapelrud, Arvid S., “The Mythological Features in Genesis Chapter 1 and the Author's Intentions,” VT 24 (1974) 176–86Google Scholar; and Heyers, Conrad, The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science (Atlanta: John Knox, 1984) chaps. 2 and 3.Google Scholar
40 See Middleton, J. Richard, “The Liberating Image? Interpreting the Imago Dei in Context,” Christian Scholar's Review 24 (1994) 6–23Google Scholar. Brueggemann himself has characterized (Old Testament Theology, chap. 7) the royal and prophetic traditions as “iconic” and “aniconic.” I argue that the creation of humans in God's image in Genesis 1 is the positive counterpart to the prohibition against images in the decalogue. Both protest the iconic tradition that attempts to control and guarantee the divine presence as legitimation of the status quo.
41 Brueggemann, Walter, Genesis (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982) 31–39Google Scholar; idem, “The Kerygma of the Priestly Writers,” ZAW 84 (1972) 401, 408–413; see also idem, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 144–46. Note that Brueggemann claims (Genesis, 27–28; The Land, 146) not only a liberating and revolutionary function, but also a positive orienting and conservative function for Genesis 1 in his comments about the gift-like character of God's gracious ordering of reality.
42 Brueggemann, Genesis, 33. It is paradoxical that after making this statement in a 1982 book, Brueggemann could claim in a 1985 article (“Old Testament Theology as a Particular Conversation,” in idem. Old Testament Theology, 139) that the decisive canonical priority of the Torah or Pentateuch, with its commitment to liberation and transformation, is “somewhat mitigated by the presence of creation theology.”
43 I am not necessarily assuming that this was a one-time transformation. The texts are too complex for us to make definitive judgments here.
44 This does not mean, however, that only the socially marginalized are able to call the status quo into question: witness the radical internal critique of the royal court mounted by Isaiah of Jerusalem. Brueggemann himself acknowledges (The Creative Word, 138 n. 32) that Isaiah is an exception to his royal-prophetic schema. Note Weber's, Hans-Rudi reticence (Power: Focus for a Biblical Theology [Geneva: WCC, 1989] 23Google Scholar) to characterize the prophetic as a distinct biblical trajectory, since it was the vocation of prophets to take up critically and reinterpret a whole series of differing traditions, including the Exodus-Mosaic and royal-Davidic traditions. It should also be noted that I am not claiming that all Israelites in exile were socially marginalized. This is patently false. Nevertheless, Babylonian exile signaled the ending of a cultural-political era and symbolic world, an ending that shook Israel to the core and generated a reinterpretation of the tradition.
45 von Rad, Gerhard, “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” in Anderson, Bernhard W., ed., Creation in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 55–61Google Scholar; von Rad, The Theology of Israel's Historical Traditions, 137–39.
46 Anderson, Bernhard W., Creation versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible (1967; reprinted Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 49–55.Google Scholar
47 Von Rad, “Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” 61–62.
48 The distinction between these two world views is helpfully explored by Westphal, Merold in God, Guilt and Death: An Existential Phenomenology of Religion ([Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984] chaps. 10 and 11)Google Scholar; he names them “mimetic” and “covenantal.” Paul Ricoeur's important analysis of the Babylonian world view as embedded in the Enuma Elish highlights its fundamental divergence from Israel's historical faith (Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, part 2, chap. 1). Eliade, Mircea described (The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954] chap. 4Google Scholar) the “cyclical” world view of archaic peoples, including Sumero-Akkadian cultures, as being in “terror of history.” The issue at stake is not the old one of whether the gods participate in history or nature (adequately addressed in Albrektson, Bertil, History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel [Lund: Gleerup, 1976])Google Scholar, but whether humans are granted the freedom of making history.
49 Von Rad, “Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” 54.
50 von Rad, Gerhard, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972).Google Scholar
51 Breuggemann, In Man We Trust, 8. Although Brueggemann does not specify whether he was indebted to the early or later von Rad, the substance of the book makes this clear.
52 See Brueggemann, In Man We Trust, 7–9, 23–27, 119.
53 This is not, however, a simple return, but what might be termed a sociological reappropriation of von Rad. See Brueggemann's assessment (“The Tribes of Yahweh: An Essay Review,” 445) that Gottwald's proposal in The Tribes of Yahweh allows for a new articulation of the mighty acts of God in history that is not subject to the criticisms of confusing history (the facticity of events) with faith (theological claims about the events).
54 Breuggemann, In Man We Trust, 125.
55 Yet in The Land, published one year before The Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann was still critical of the biblical theology movement for unnecessarily polarizing history and nature and for assuming that religious meaning is found only in “intrusive, disruptive discontinuities” (Brueggemann, The Land, 3, 51). Exploring the rich ambiguity of a broad range of biblical traditions about land, he spoke of a necessary dialectic of gift and demand, a dialectic of the Davidic and Mosaic traditions (p. 52). By the time he wrote The Prophetic Imagination, he had chosen decisively for one side of the dialectic.
56 On the manner in which modern secular ideals are historically dependent on a biblical view of creation, see Walsh and Middleton, The Transforming Vision, 117–29.
57 See Brueggemann, In Man We Trust, 71–73, regarding what he calls “Our Western Danger.”
58 To be sure, Brueggemann does concede (“A Shape for Old Testament Theology, I,” 46) that even the cross, the paradigmatic Christian symbol of the embrace of pain and the source of radical newness, is often “used to justify a theology of imperial exploitation.” This admission, however, is atypical.
59 Trigo, Pedro, Creation and History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991) part 2, 69–108.Google Scholar
60 Ibid., 86–87.
61 It is significant that the explicit articulation of creation out of nothing in 2 Mace 7:28 is arguably polemical against the Platonic version of the chaos-cosmos scheme.
62 Trigo, Creation and History, 87.
63 Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, 15–16.
64 Ibid., 21.
65 Trigo, Creation and History, 79–80, 86.
66 Brueggemann himself has recently admitted that his royal-prophetic schema may need revision. Since studies by Gottwald and others in the 1980s revealed that the discontinuity between early Israelite retribalization and the subsequent monarchy is not quite as radical as Brueggemann had portrayed it, Brueggemann has acknowledged (Interpretation and Obedience, ix–x) that this “might in time to come lead to a less absolute contrast in the articulation of my argument.”
67 See Westermann, Claus, Praise and Lament in the Psalms (trans. Crim, Keith R. and Soulen, Richard N.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1981) esp. 36–42.Google Scholar
68 Brueggemann, Walter, “Psalms and the Life of Faith: A Suggested Typology of Function,” JSOT 17 (1980) 3–32Google Scholar; Goldingay, John, “The Dynamic Cycle of Praise and Prayer in the Psalms,” JSOT 20 (1981) 85–90.Google Scholar
69 Brueggemann, Walter, “Response to John Goldingay's ‘The Dynamic Cycle of Praise and Prayer,’” JSOT 22 (1982) 141–42Google Scholar; and idem, The Message of the Psalms, 125, 179 n. 13, 197 n. 8, 201 n. 62.
70 Goldingay, “Dynamic Cycle of Praise,” 89; Brueggemann, “Response to John Goldingay,” 141; idem, The Message of the Psalms, 125. H. Richard Niebuhr makes a similar point about the impact of the sociological context of the reader on biblical interpretation in “The Story of Our Life” (in Hauerwas, Stanley and Jones, L. Gregory, eds., Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989] 25)Google Scholar. The fact that texts are always affected by readers means that Brueggemann's rhetorical question regarding whether a radical alternative to the imperial consciousness exists—an alternative that would “avoid domestication”—must be answered in the negative (Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 14). No position is immune from ideological distortion or oppressive uses. Anything may become an idol. I have, however, addressed the question of a possible anti-ideological dynamic built into the biblical canon (Middleton, J. Richard and Walsh, Brian J., “Facing the Postmodern Scalpel: Can the Christian Faith Withstand Deconstruction?” in Okholm, Dennis and Phillips, Timothy, eds., Christian Apologetics in a Postmodern World (Downes Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995)Google Scholar. See also Middleton and Walsh, Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be, esp. chaps. 5 and 8.
71 See, for example, Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination, 25, 138 n. 34; idem, To Pluck Up, To Tear Down, 14 n. 22; idem, Hope within History (Atlanta: John Knox, 1987) 73, 124 n. 5, 126 n. 26.
72 Although Brueggemann cites Ricoeur in The Message of the Psalms (p. 180 n. 17; see also pp. 192 n. 87 and 195 n. 124), his dependence on Ricoeur in “Psalms and the Life of Faith” is evident on nearly every page and is helpfully summarized (pp. 19–20 and 23 n. 19).
73 Brueggemann, “Psalms and the Life of Faith,” 25 n. 35, where he cites Ricoeur, Paul, Conflict of Interpretations (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974) 63–73Google Scholar. The footnote occurs in the context of discussing the multiple interpretations possible for terms such as “the pit” and “the enemy” in lament psalms (Brueggemann, “Psalms and the Life of Faith,” 8).
74 Awareness of the reworking of tradition within scripture pervades even Brueggemann's 1968 book Tradition for Crisis: A Study in Hosea.
75 An example of overly subjectivistic interpretation may be found in Ricoeur's own reading of the imago dei in Gen 1:26–27 in terms of Greek Orthodox divinization and modern evolutionary categories. See Paul Ricoeur, “The Image of God and the Epic of Man,” in idem, History and Truth (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1965) 110–28.
76 Brueggemann himself did not come to this conclusion in The Message of the Psalms. Indeed, he stated (The Message of the Psalms, 26, 158) both that all psalms of orientation are at bottom expressions of creation faith and that, in general, the more a psalm focuses on creation, the more likely it is to be a song of old orientation. That there may well have been a shift in emphasis even between “Psalms and the Life of Faith” (published in 1980) and the 1984 book, The Message of the Psalms, is indicated by the systematic replacement of the earlier term “reorientation” with the later “new orientation”; this may testify to Brueggemann's growing sense of the radical discontinuity between mere return to an old orientation and genuine newness.
77 Let me emphasize that my criticisms occur in the context of deep appreciation for Brueggemann's work. I believe Emil Brunner's comments (Natural Theology, 59) about Karl Barth are, with appropriate changes, applicable here: “I do not wish to blame [Walter Brueggemann] for neglecting and discrediting creation theology. God uses the genius of one-sidedness…. It may be [Brueggemann's] special mission to serve at this point as a counter-weight to dangerous abberations…. But the Church must not be thrown from one extreme to the other. In the long run the Church can bear the rejection of creation theology as little as its misuse. It is the task of our theological generation to find the way back to a true [creation theology].” I have replaced Brunner's references to “natural theology” or “theologia naturalis” with “creation theology,” which is what he actually meant, as is widely recognized.
78 A significant move towards this articulation may be found in Brueggemann's more recent book, Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)Google Scholar; see chap. 2, esp. 29–39, for his positive construal of creation as gift.