History, Story, And Testimony Locating Truth In A Pentecostal Hermeneutic

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Locating History, Story, and Testimony: Truth in a Pentecostal Hermeneutic Scott A. Ellington Introduction Commitment to the Bible as the inspired Word of God is axiomatic in Pentecostal hermeneutics. ‘ And because the Bible is understood to be God’s Word to God’s people, it has an absolute and foundational authority against which all other truth-claims about life in general and the Christian faith in particular are measured. Pentecostals have, however, never been content merely to affirm the “truthfulness” of biblical accounts of God and God’s faith community, but have maintained from the earliest days of the move- ment that encounter with God within the faith community in ways similar to those recorded in the Bible, is both possible and desirable for every Christian. That is, the truth-claims made by the Bible are not only concep- tual but also experiential in nature. Pentecostals have always placed a par- ticular emphasis on the direct experiencing of God and on application when practicing biblical interpretation. The basic claim that God can be experienced today as in the pages of the Bible has, however, become problematic to say the least. The world- view(s) of the biblical writers is so fundamentally different from our own that any pretense of simply uncritically adopting their worldview into our own modem setting or moving freely and easily between the two is an exer- cise in self-deception. Truth-claims simply do not transfer from a pre-scien- tific to a scientific to a postmodern worldview without substantial interpre- tation. Thus, the task of hermeneutics has become of paramount importance for Pentecostals. Because Pentecostals claim an experience of God and a model of truth that is less at home in a modem and still heavily rationalist world than that claimed by many other Christians, the task of bridging the gap between the ages and worldviews is even more difficult. The purpose of this present study is to consider some different under- standings of biblical truth, evaluating their adequacies and shortcomings when applied to a Pentecostal setting in hermeneutics. Should, for instance, 1 1 share with a number of my colleagues a sense of reservation in speaking of a distinctive and different Pentecostal hermeneutic. I will, therefore, use the term in this paper to refer qualitatively to points of emphasis and special concern that are common in the practice of hermeneutics only among Pentecostals and not to setting up a separate enterprise that can in every be point clearly distinguished from the hermeneutical practices of other Christian traditions. 245 1 the Bible be understood to be a perfectly accurate history, so that questions of inspiration and authority become inseparably tied to our ability to defend and demonstrate that historicity? Or do the fundamental truth-claims of the Bible reside in the story-world that the text presents, so that we are invited to enter into and believe the story without reference to “what really hap- pened” ? That is, is the truth-claim of the Bible on our lives unconnected to historical reference?2 Is the Bible a testimony to truth that cannot be verified through historical and scientific method and that must, therefore, be evalu- ated and accepted or rejected on its internal merit alone? Or does the truth- fulness of that testimony depend in any way on “what happened” and, if it does, how is that different from a claim of historical accuracy? Finally, how can the “truthfulness” of the truth-claims of Scripture best be evaluated in a way that is in harmony with Pentecostal approaches to and understandings of Scripture? In short, where does and where should Pentecostal hermeneu- tics locate biblical truth? The thesis that this present study will pursue is that, for Pentecostals, the truth-claims of the Bible are best understood as testi- monies that, while interested in “what really happened,” are more concerned with how God interacts with people. Furthermore, I intend to draw a model for the offering and evaluating of testimony from the prayers of Israel found in the Psalms. I propose that a prominent feature of the book of Psalms is a process of testing in which the received testimony about God’s words and acts are repeatedly tested against the lived experiences of the community that wrote and prayed the Psalms. But first, I will examine a number of dif- ferent ways in which Christians have located truth within the Scriptures. The Problem of Equating Truth with History The early distrust on the part of many Pentecostals toward education generally and a critical approach to the Bible in particular meant that initial- ly the truth-claims of the Bible were simply asserted without being critical- ly examined. It was naively assumed that meaning was self-evident. This approach, however, has gradually given way to approaches more at home with the modem, rationalist worldview.3 Initially this foray into an histori- cal-critical approach to Scripture sought out aid and companionship from those groups of conservative Christians who shared with Pentecostals the a 2 The parable form, for instance, makes its claim on and calls for a response from the reader, regardless of whether it refers to 4n historical happening or a literary invention. 3 Karkkainen offers an excellent of this movement. Veli-Matti Karkkainen, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the summary Making: On the Way From Fundamentalism to Postmodernism,” Jourrtal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 18 ( 1998), 76- 115. 246 2 priori assumption that the Bible is the inspired and, therefore, perfect Word of God. The choice of Pentecostals to enter into the modem biblical discus- sion through the doorway of conservative Evangelicalism has not, however, always been harmonious and trouble free. Mark McLean has pointed out the fundamental conflict of views that separates Pentecostal approaches to Scripture from those typical of conser- vative Evangelicalism: . , On the conservative side we have a set of exegetical and hermeneutical principles which, when vigorously followed, a dif- ferent mode of God’s presence in and posit fundamentally among the faithful during the formative period of the canon and today… From the other side of the comes evangelical spectrum the seductive call of a revived neo-ortho- doxy…Essentially,. Gilkey publically admitted to himself and his col- in the Biblical leagues Theology movement, that ed the “liberal insistence on the causal continuum of having already accept- space-time experi- ence,” the use of such biblical language as “God said,” and “God acted” no longer had any real semantic value because the subject of such es had no referent in phras- reality.4 ‘ Early Pentecostal scholarship has either followed the more conservative track of dispensationalism or the more liberal path of rationalism. Both are responses to the same basic difficulties presented by a rationalist worldview, in particular the problematic of a God who acts and speaks in human histo- ry and who may be directly experienced today. Yet, the direct experiencing of God, both internally through experiences of encounter and externally through the manifestation of God’s miraculous speech and action, is foundational to a Pentecostal understanding of the knowledge of God. As McLean puts it: We as Pentecostals assert that we have experienced the divine person directly acting in our lives, not only by internal renewal, but external . experiences such as healings, not merely “religiously sensitive reflec- tions,” but an infilling of the Holy Spirit.5 5 …, McLean maintains correctly that those differences of approach which sepa- rate Pentecostals from Evangelicals have their basis in “an ontologically dif- ferent mode of God’s presence and activity in biblical times as opposed to 4 Mark D. McLean, “Toward a Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Pneuma: The Journal Pentecostal Theology 6:2 of the Society for ( 1984), 39. 5 Ibid., 45. 247 3 the here and now.”6 The difference in epistemological approaches to God has its basis in the fact that Fundamentalism in particular and conservative Evangelicalism more generally are reactions to nineteenth-century liberalism and have elect- ed to operate within the worldview to which they are reacting. Conservative Christian scholarship generally has adopted the basic presuppositions of a scientific worldview and has assumed that, because truth about God is his- torical in nature, it must be possible to establish or at least to defend the full historicity of Scripture. Put another way, if God has chosen to reveal eternal truth in history, the historical integrity of the narrative information contained in Scripture becomes paramount.7 The methodology of historiography places severe restrictions, however, on biblical interpretations. Modem historiography is only possible if an unbroken chain of cause-and-effect can be established and maintained. Thus such things as reports of the miraculous and direct interventions of God in human history, while they may be affirmed as “true” by biblical scholars, must be excluded from any attempt to establish biblical truth through exter- nal, historical means. The result among many Evangelical scholars has been, as Langdon Gilkey correctly perceived, that, As modern men perusing the Scriptures, we have rejected as invalid all the innumerable cases of God’s acting and speaking; but as neo-orthodox men looking for a word from the Bible, we have induced from all these cases the theological generalization that God is he who acts and This speaks. general truth about God we then assert while denying all the partic- ular cases on the basis of which the generalization was first made.8 The pursuit of scholarship and the affirmation of personal faith result for some in a kind of linguistic schizophrenia in which conservative scholars “continue to use the biblical and orthodox theological language of divine activity and speech, but they have dispensed with the wonders and voices that gave univocal meaning, and thus content, to the theological words ‘God 6 Ibid., 47. See also Karkkainen, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics in the Making,” 76-115. 7 As part of the move into a postmodem world, the idea that be and any history-producing enterprise, modem or otherwise, is or even intends to objective flawlessly accurate has been all but abandoned. Two excellent studies on this as it on the of the Old Testament are Leo G. Perdue, The topic impacts study Collapse of History: Reconstructing Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994) and, on a much more provocative note, Philip R. Davies, 8 Langdon B. Gilkey, “Cosmology, Ontology and the Travail of Biblical Language,” Journal of Religion 41 (L961), 203. 248 4 acts’ and ‘God speaks.”‘9 Pentecostal scholars have in many cases been trained in conservative Evangelical institutions, working within a methodology that is, in some ways, fundamentally at odds with a Pentecostal worldview and understand- ing of Scripture. Pentecostals have been educated in settings that emphasize a rationalistic worldview and that often locate biblical truth in questions of historicity. Timothy Cargal has argued that this alliance of Pentecostal and Evangelical scholarship, together with a strong grass-roots anti-intellectual- ism and a general suspicion of higher education among many Pentecostal pastors and lay people, has led to “a growing divergence in the practice of biblical interpretation between Pentecostals primarily working in the parish and those primarily working within the academy.”10 Veli-Matti Karkkainen has argued that the result of this dichotomy has been a moving away from an emphasis on the intent of the biblical writers: Pentecostals within the academy have tended to align themselves with in their move toward adopting the methods of historical criticism while maintaining a commitment to the reliability of the bibli- Evangelicals cal narrative. As a result, Pentecostal biblical scholars have emphasized their focus on the intent of the the historical contexts of biblical narratives and reduced increasingly ‘inspired’ authors. These and other devel- opments have, of course, meant either denying or downplaying the ear- lier emphasis on the immediacy of the text, its multiple meanings and relevance ‘here and now’. This has led to a growing divergence in the practice of biblical interpretation between Pentecostals in the parish and in the academy, I I Because the divergence between Pentecostals and other conservative Christians is often an epistemological one, involving a difference in the ways in which we know and receive revelation from God, Pentecostals often fail to adequately appreciate how their adopted methodologies directly oppose or hinder the results of their hermeneutics and the very reasons for entering into the hermeneutical process in the first place, namely, to know God , ‘ relationally. 12 2 ‘ 9 Ibid., 199. 10 Timothy B. the Fundamental-Modernist Controversy: Pentecostals and Hermeneutics in a Cargal. Postmodern “Beyond Age,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 15:2 ( 1993), 170. 11 Karkkainen, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” 81-82. 12 For a discussion of the ways in which the adoption of an Evangelical hermeneutic has affect- ed many Pentecostals’ understanding of the nature and authority of Scripture, see Scott 249 . 5 The problem with locating truth in history in doing biblical hermeneu- tics is two fold. First, time, distance, and a scarcity of corroborating source materials outside of the Bible have made confirmation and/or reconstruction of the elements of biblical history difficult and, at times, impossible. Second, and more fundamentally, any direct participation by God in the biblical accounts falls outside of the range of modem historical methodology. God’s speaking, acting, and revealing are not so much unscientific as they are asci- entific, that is, such events are hardly accessible to examination using con- ventional historical methods. So, for example, while it might be possible to demonstrate that the walls of Jericho fell at approximately the time period assigned to the Exodus,13 it is not possible to establish that God was, in fact, the causative agent who knocked down the walls. Finally, the historical claims to the supernatural in Scripture rest on the testimony of witnesses. By definition such events are improbable, so that the question becomes whether the weight of not-disinterested eyewitness testi- mony can ever be sufficiently strong to offset the weight of probability. When it is considered that many of the miracles, theophanies, and revela- tions of God are attested to only by highly biased witnesses, without exter- nal corroborating evidence, either archaeological or archival, modem his- torical method is obliged to classify such claims as at best unprovable and at worst false The inaccessibility of much of the biblical record to historical and sci- entific examination has led some scholars to fight an increasingly elaborate and, I believe, unsuccessful rear-guard action in which the shortcomings of the historical method are shorn up in an effort to “make all the pieces fit.” 15 Another approach has been to hold on to the rationalist worldview, still iden- A. Ellington, “Pentecostalism and the Authority of Scripture,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 9 ( 1996), 16-38. 13 Although archaeological evidence is, at best, divided on this point. See, e.g., Kathleen M. Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho (New York: Frederick A Praeger, 1957). 14 For a discussion of the limits of testimony in addressing questions of probability see George W. Ramsey, The Quesi for the Historical Israel: Reconstructing Israel’s Early History (London: SCM Press, 1981), 107-115. 15 So, for example, LaSor et al. adopt E. R. Thiele’s and highly speculative explana- tion that attempts to harmonize the dates of the Northern and Southern complex Kingdom monarchies as in the books of Kings and Chronicles. William S. LaSor, David A. Hubbard, and Frederic W. Bush, Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and they appear MI: Wm. B. Background of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1991 ), 292-297. My point is not that Thiele is, of necessity, wrong, but that he is operating from within a worldview and using a method- ology that force him into an increasingly speculative defense that is based on a notion of truth- as-history that is proving increasingly inadequate. 250 6 tifying truth with history, while abandoning attempts to establish that truth. So, for example, French Arrington writes that: While biblical infallibility is an assumption on which Pentecostals build their hermeneutic, they recognize that they have neither the ability nor the responsibility to demonstrate this infallibility. Because the Bible is inspired by an infallible God, it is infallible. No further demonstration of its infallibility is either necessary or possible.16 Such an approach correctly recognizes the limitations of historical method in addressing truth questions in Scripture, and Arrington goes on to note that Pentecostals have adopted an epistemologically different approach. “Pentecostals,” says Arrington, “see knowledge not as a cognitive recogni- tion of a set of precepts but as a relationship with the One who has estab- lished the precepts by which we live.” ‘ Thus, the epistemological approach of rationalism, while a valuable foundation for Pentecostal hermeneutics, is finally limited by its methodology. Truth-as-history does not adequately articulate a Pentecostal understanding of biblical truth. Stepping into a Postmodern World Cargal has argued persuasively that closer attention should be paid to emerging postmodern approaches to Scripture because postmodernism rejects the limitation of truth to that which is historically true. From the post- modern perspective, truth is located in the functioning of the text.1 Cargal does not advocate an abandoning of the gains of the historical-critical approach to the text, but rather asserts that truth is not located exclusively (or even primarily?) in historical truth. The application of the historical-crit- ical method to the pages of Scripture has led many scholars to conclude that much of what is recorded therein is not a flawless, objective, detached account of “what actually happened,” any more than any modem historical undertaking is interested in simply reporting “what happened.” “Postmodernism,” says Cargal, “distinguishes itself from modernism at the 16 French L. Arrington, “Hermeneutics, Historical Perspectives on Pentecostal and Charismatic,” in Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, eds. Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 382. 17 Ibid. 18 Cargal, “Beyond the Fundamental-Modernist Controversy,” 185. See also Kenneth J. Archer, “Pentecostal Babbling: The Narrative Hermeneutic of the to the 27th Annual Conference of the Marginalized” (paper present Society for Pentecostal Theology, 1997). 251 7 most fundamental level by its critique and rejection of the notion that ‘only what is historical and objectively true is meaningful’; meaning is not limted by positivistic constraints.” 19 Thus, for Cargal, “it is still possible to assert that there is truth and meaning within scriptural texts which one may have to concede are not ‘historically true’ according to the canons of critical his- toriography.”20 He does not, however, explain the relationship between his- torical truth and postmodem truth(s) in his brief article. While Cargal is quick to indicate the points of contact between Pentecostal and postmodem approaches to Scripture, he does not address another more basic assumption of postmodemity, namely, the rejection of any privileged place granted to metanarratives that would set limits on pos- sible interpretations of the text and that might exclude some interpretations as false readings. To quote Jean-Frangois Lyotard’s oft-cited statement, “Simplifying in the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.”21 And yet, Pentecostals have maintained a view of bibli- cal inspiration that insists on a privileged place for the biblical account of reality. Nor has Cargal explored a primary exegetical approach of postmod- ernism, namely, deconstruction, which begins from the stance of skepticism toward claims made within the text by the author, seeing such claims as ide- . ologically driven and, therefore, as coercive. So, in addressing the question “How does truth function in the text?”, the voice of the author of that text is accounted no privileged place in answering that question and indeed his or her understanding may be adjudged “guilty unless and until proven inno- cent.” Robert Menzies has critiqued Cargal as advocating a loosing of “the meaning of a text from its historical moorings.” It is far from clear, howev- er, that this is what Cargal has advocated. While acknowledging the neces- sity of moving away from a “history-as-truth” epistemology, Menzies cari- catures postmodernity as completely ahistorical and advocates a repair and refitting of the Evangelical hermeneutic rather than its abandonment.” But if Evangelicalism remains committed to a truth-as-history epistemology and postmodemity advocates the abandonment of any authority that changes or 19 Ibid., 171. 20 Ibid., 178. 21 Jean-Franqois Lyotard, The Postmodem Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), xxiv. 22 Robert P. Menzies, “Jumping Off the Postmodem Bandwagon,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Theology 16:1 ( 1994), 1 I S-120. 252 8 even seriously challenges the local and immediate interpretation, Pentecostals seem to be forced into a choice between a commitment to truth- as-history and an abandonment of the notion of a universally authoritative metanarrative. The question, then, is to what extent Pentecostalism can articulate its understanding of Scripture from a worldview and using exegetical methods so at odds with its own? Given their substantial differences, it is better to conclude with Karkkainen that “between Postmodernism(s) and Pentecostalism there is such a wide gap in terms of presuppositions that one is wise not to exaggerate apparent similarities.”23 ‘ Scripture as Story A promising middle ground has been proposed by the narrative theolo- gy that treats Scripture as story, that invites the reader into a story-world and that, from within the worldview of that story-world, makes claims upon the reader’s perception of reality. David Gunn has defined narrative criticism as: ‘ the existing text (in its “tinal form”) in terms of its own Interpreting primarily the text by attempting to reconstruct its sources and editorial story world, seen as replete with meaning, rather than understand- its ing history, original setting and audience, and its author’s or editor’s intention in writing. 24 Thus, narrative criticism lays aside completely the question of history and focuses on truth-claims of the text that are only visible (and meaningful?) from within the world of the story. In its extreme form, narrative criticism completely disconnects the meaning of the text from questions of history. Dale Patrick, for example, understands God to be simply a literary device of the biblical writers: . The authors of Scripture employed artistic means to represent a human world in which God is an active participant. It is a sign of their success that the reader is able to enter this world imaginatively to such an extent that it seems utterly natural. Only when we step out of that world and to question the possibility of miracles and other divine interven- tions does the “constructedness” of the biblical world become apparent. begin If we can surmount our critical skepticism and arrive at a “post-critical naivete,” we can enter this world again but in full awareness that it is an 23 1 Karkkainen. “Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” 97. 24 David M. Gunn, “Narrative Criticism,” in To Each Its Own Meaning: All Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Applications, ed. Steven L. McKenzie and Stephen R. Haynes (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993). 253 9 artistic and intellectual achievement.25 The selection of God as the central character in a biblical narrative and the arrangement of events of that narrative seem, for Patrick, essentially arbi- trary. A more moderate approach is offered by George Stroup, who argues that the biblical narrative “is ‘history’ in that it attempts to interpret the past and to explain what is done in the present and expected in the future in light of the claims made about the past.”26 Stroup claims that the historicity of biblical narrative is located not in the accuracy of its accounts of what hap- pened, but in the faithfulness with which it provides the believing commu- nity with its sense of identity. Christian narrative is unabashedly historical. It makes claims about the and its judgments about the present (moral, political, and social) and hopes for the future are finally dependent on this past, of those events in the past. Christian narrative is “historical” interpretation for two rea- sons. On the one hand, its claims about reality are based on and to certain events in the communal of Israel and the appeal his- of of Nazareth. history Jesus But personal tory secondly, Christian narrative is not recit- ed in order to amuse or entertain. There is an explicit kerygmatic under- tow to Christian narrative. It is told for a reason, to make a which of course is that the and salvation of point, redemption personal and communal histories is to be found in this Christian story. Persons and communities cannot be redeemed without their histories, for their identity is insepara- ble from them.27 . ‘ Christian communities do not so much recite histories as selectively remem- ber. That is, such communities are not merely interested in what happened, but in the ways in which what is remembered creates, impacts on, shapes, and recreates community identity. “It would not do to suggest that a com- munity is constituted merely by a common past. It is more accurate to say that a community is constituted by a common memory in which the past is 25 pale Patrick, The Rendering of God in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981 ), 63. 26 George W. Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology: Recovering the Gospel in the Church (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 198I ), 92. Stroup’s work provides an excellent introduction into the epistemological perspective and, to a lesser extent, the methodology of the narrative to 27 approach Scripture. Ibid., 94-95. 254 10 remembered and interpreted.”28 What, though, is the relationship between what is remembered and “what really happened”? Surely the way in which a story is understood will affect its interpretation and subsequently its appropriation. As Menzies puts it, “It mattered to Paul whether the resurrection actually happened ( Cor. 15:12-19). How can it be different for us?”29 Or to place the affirmation in a more localized context for a Pentecostal, when someone, in response to his or her reading of the biblical narratives, stands up to lay hands on and pray for the sick, it matters whether or not stories of Jesus healing the sick “real- ly happened.” The narrative approach is, I would argue, a fruitful one that would reward further exploration. Nevertheless, it remains for Pentecostal scholars to articulate more carefully the relationship between the truth- claims of the story and “what really happened.” It is my contention that the biblical writers neither understood nor were they interested in writing history in the modern sense of that term. Neither, however, were they simply about writing creative stories without any refer- ence to “real events.” Where, then, is truth to be located in the biblical nar- rative, and how is it to be accessed and appropriated for Pentecostals? Testimony as a Model for Appropriating Biblical Truth The principal hermeneutical suggestion I wish to make in this discus- sion is that one model for locating truth is through the recalling of memory and the offering of testimony. Such a model, which is presented in the Old Testament, is useful for addressing the question, “Where do Pentecostals locate truth in their understanding and interpretation of Scripture?” I will propose building on a model of truth-as-testimony articulated most clearly by Walter Brueggemann in his recently published Old Testament theology. 2B Ibid., 135. Van A. Harvey has outlined a somewhat similar process of selective remember creteness and a wider meaning. The more fundamental the meaning, the more the event ing and identity formation in his definition of myth: A paradigmatic event is one that fuses con- becomes capable of being transformed into where “myth” does not mean a false story but a highly selective story that is used to structure and myth, convey the basic self-understanding of a or a person community. A pattern is abstracted from the event and becomes the formalized ble that is used to para- The Morality interpret larger tracts of and Historical history and Christian experience. The Historia/1 and the Believer: of (London: SCM Press, 257. The Knowledge Belief 1966), distinction, it seems to me, lies in the specificity of that which is remembered as it relates to application and response. The claim of the for instance, rests on certain foundational events such as the crucifixion and resurrection gospel, and must be appropriated in indi- vidual and very 29 specific ways. Menzies, “Jumping Off,” I17. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Disptste, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 1 l8. Ibid., 206. 255 11 Brueggemann has suggested that the central truth-claims of Israel in the Old Testament is not a declaration of “historical facts,” but is offered as a testi- mony by witnesses. For Brueggemann, biblical truth is located not in the his- torical events that may or may not lie behind the offered testimony, but in the testimony itself. Note well that in focusing on we tend to bracket out all of We are not speech, questions historicity. asking, “What happened?” but “What was said?” To inquire into the historicity of the text is a but it does I to the work of Old Testament legitimate enterprise, not, In like suggest, belong theology. manner, we bracket out all questions of ontology; which ask about the “really real.,,30 For Brueggemann, we have access only to the testimony itself in making theological constructions from the Old Testament Scriptures and applying them to our own contexts and situations. What happened, so our “verdict” is, is what these witnesses said In hap- complementary fashion, this means that tion does not pened. behind this witness with theological interpreta- of wonder- “what is real.” What is go questions ontology, real, so our “verdict” is, is what these wit- nesses say is real. Nothing more historical or ontological is available. But ing this mode of “knowing” finds such a claim to be adequate.31 1 _ Accordingly, “the authority of the witness is grounded in nothing more and nothing less than the willingness of the text community to credit, believe, trust, and take seriously this testimony.”32 This crediting process goes on in a dialectic, set up and followed within the Old Testament, between the ortho- dox testimonies of who God is and how God characteristically acts and the counter-testimonies that question that orthodox picture of God. The primary mode of appropriation of that truth by the community that reads the Scripture is not an ascension to the historical truthfulness of the information contained in the biblical narratives, but in the text’s “capacity to generate, evoke, and articulate alternative images of reality, images that counter what hegemonic power and knowledge have declared to be impos- 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., 68. 32 For a critique of Brueggemann’s assertion that “all we have is the testimony”, see Scott A. Ellington, Reality, Remembrance, and Response: The Presence and Absence of God in the Psalms of Lament (Ph. D. diss., University of Sheffield, 1999), 174-178. 256 12 sible.”33 Through the biblical text, God creates in our imaginations an alter- native image of reality, a new vision of how the world could be. While Brueggemann maintains that it is impossible to “get behind” the testimony of the biblical witness to what “really happened,” he does allow for a circumstance in which that testimony can be evaluated by external means through experience. . In its deepest vexation, then, Israel makes a distinction between Yahweh and the reality of justice. While we might expect that Yahweh is ultimate and justice penultimate, in some of Israel’s most matters are inverted. Justice is held as desperate utterances, up ultimate, and Yahweh as an agent of justice is critiqued for failure of justice.34 . This “reality of justice” is a concept mentioned in the closing pages of his theological study that Brueggemann does not go on to develop, but is one that, I propose, is a primary model for locating and appropriating biblical truth in the Old Testament. I have argued in my doctoral thesis35 that in the context of the psalms of lament, Israel was engaged in a process of testing and reappropriating the memories of the nation, thus validating and adding to a body of narratives that eventually came to be canonized as Scripture. It is my suggestion in this paper that a process of testing the stories of the text against lived experi- enced is essential to a Pentecostal ‘ community’s appropriation of the truth- claims of Scripture. A Model of Scripture Appropriation and a Pentecostal Hermeneutic Joseph Byrd has argued for an appropriational model of Scripture inter- pretation. He points out that, “while most Pentecostals understand the Bible as historically literal, their preaching generally demonstrates that they believe the biblical narratives have a symbolic nature as well as a historical nature.”36 Appealing to Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical model, Byrd advo- cates the need for the text to be re-experienced by the contemporary hearers in order to reappropriate its meaning. According to Byrd, “The structural analysis includes expressing the interpreter’s experience with the referents 33 Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 68. 34 Ibid., 740. 35 gllington, “Reality, Remembrance, and Response.” 36 Joseph Byrd, “Paul Ricoeur’s Hermeneutical Theory and Pentecostal Proclamation,” Pentecostal Theology 15:2 ( 1993). 210. 257 13 of the symbols in the text and the reflection on that expression.”37 Appropriation is only possible when an interpretation of the text’s meaning is evaluated in light of new experience so that the interpreter’s “wager” as to the meaning of the text can be evaluated and confirmed (or negated). Chris Thomas has suggested a hermeneutical approach in which the early church’s use of Scripture becomes a guide. In his article “Women, Pentecostals and the Bible: An Experiment in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Thomas uses as a model for Spirit-guided hermeneutics the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. Discussion of a new question in the church, namely, the stipulations to be placed on converted Gentiles, begins first of all with a focus on God’s actions and miracles in the church, then moves to a highly selective interpretation of an Old Testament text (Amos 9:11-12), while ignoring many alternative texts that would seem to call for the exclusion of the Gentiles, and finishes with the authoritative decision of the church lead- ership.38 Thomas notes that the council showed a preference for the Septuagint’s rendering of the text over that found in Hebrew versions and did not seem overly concerned with the original context and intent of Amos in delivering his prophecy or with a balanced theological examination of Old Testament teachings on Gentile participation in God’s blessings. Thus, expe- riences of God’s acting in the present situation dramatically influenced the practice of biblical hermeneutics. Thomas’s suggested model challenges a number of the bedrock assumptions of Evangelical hermeneutics, such as a careful consideration of the author’s context and intent, as well as a balanced consideration of the whole of the biblical teaching on a given subject. John Goldingay points out that one of the features of the scriptural story is that it is told more than once and in more than one context. “The implica- tion is that we need to understand the conversation between story and con- text in Scripture so as to see how story is being related to context there, and how a new context has the capacity to bring out new significance in events.”39 Retelling Israel’s story, argues Goldingay, is functionally moti- vated. In general, the biblical story is designed to enable us to discover who we are. We do that by telling our own story, but by telling it in the context 37 Ibid. 38 John Christopher Thomas, “Women, Pentecostals and the Bible: An Experiment in Pentecostal Hermeneutics,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 5 ( 1994), 41-56. 39 John Goldingay, “Biblical Story and the Way it Shapes Our Story,” Journal for the European Pentecostal Theological Association 17 ( 1997). 7. 258 14 of the Bible story. We find ourselves by setting ourselves in that other story… In fact, we all tell our individual stories in the light of a world- view, a “grand narrative.”40 The truth-claims carried by the biblical stories are, I want to suggest, select- ed, shaped, and presented in such a way as to maximize the individual’s abil- ity to appropriate those stories into their own lives. My own proposal is that, in the context of the psalms of lament, the truth-claims of Israel’s central story are first tested against experiences of God’s silence, hiddenness, and abandonment and are reappropriated and owned afresh by the praying community only after a fresh experience of God allows those praying to affirm that “He has answered us!” I suggest a three-part movement. First, the one praying offers a candid complaint result- ing from a new and unexpected experience of God’s failure to act as expect- ed, according to those expectations that Israel’s stories have created. Second, the present experience of divine absence or hiddenness is con- trasted with memories of God’s presence in the past to save from similar crises. The most striking feature of this second move is that it does not negate the preceding lament. Affirmation of abandonment and confident expression of trust in the memories of the community are held up to God in a tension with the complaint that only a fresh response from God can revolve.41 These remembrances are not an objective and well-balanced presenta- tion of “what happened,” but are highly selective and are shaped by the pres- ent needs of those praying. So, for example, the three “histories” of God’s salvation of Israel recorded in Psalms 105-107 each emphasize and remem- ber different aspects of the grand story in order to motivate very different responses. Psalm 105 emphasizes God’s salvation in order to motivate obe- dience on the part of the people to the divine commands. Psalm 106 under- lines the ceaseless rebelliousness of the people and God’s faithfulness to forgive in order to motivate God to forgive the people yet again in a fresh way. Psalm 107 offers motivation for public praise of God in the assembly 40 Ibid., 8. 41 I have argued elsewhere that, in modern studies of the question of God’s presence and absence, authors almost without exception conclude into an assured but diffuse or a by dissolving the any apparent contradiction presence permanent absence on part of God. Ellington, “Reality, Remembrance, and Response,” 31-41. The one notable exception to this trend is Samuel E. Balentine, The Hidden God: The Hiding of the Face of God in the Old Testament. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). Balentine, like the lament psalmists, manages to maintain a tension between affirmations of God’s presence and complaints of his absence. 259 15 of the people. A third element of the process is often found in those psalms in which God responds with either an assurance of salvation or a saving act. A very common response to such a fresh experience of salvation is public testimo- ny before the great assembly. The psalmist goes before the community and both affirms the truthfulness of the community’s memories and adds his or her own testimony to that story. Testimony, I have argued, is an essential part of the process because it legitimates the community’s stories and allows for their reappropriation. A brief example of this process can be found in Psalm 22. The psalmist claims abandonment in a time of crisis (vv. 1-2), remembers God’s salvation of the ancestors because they trusted in God (vv. 3-5), declares his or her own trust from his or her youth, together with the counter-testimony of those who claim that the psalm writer does not trust in God and is, therefore, God- forsaken (vv. 6-11), and complains of his or her suffering and calls out for deliverance (vv. 12-21 ). Upon receiving that deliverance, the psalm writer begins a process of public testimony that starts with the local assembly and eventually spreads throughout the nations, extending even to future genera- tions and ending with the affirmation “He has done it!” (vv. 22-31 ). This model for evaluating and appropriating Scripture (albeit, Scripture in its formative stages) in light of fresh experience differs from current Pentecostal practice in at least one prominent way. Richard Israel has sug- gested that,” the text points to a world, the interpreter orients himself or her- self toward the claim of the text and that is where appropriation takes place.”42 But I would suggest that something more is needed for the reader to “orient himself or herself to the claim of the text.” In Pentecostal Bible reading, serious and sustained complaint to God is all but absent. It is my contention that both complaint and testimony are necessary elements for appropriating the truth-claims of the biblical story in the community.43 When faced with an experience that challenges the a priori beliefs arising from the community’s story, those facing that experience first articulate their experience of God’s failure to respond as expected, then retell the story of God’s past actions, and finally, if a new experience of God is forthcoming, testify in an act of fresh traditioning. According to this model, all three ele- 4Z Richard D. Israel, Daniel E. Albrecht, and Randal G. McNally, “Pentecostals and Hermeneutics: Texts, Rituals, Rituals and Pneuma: The Journcal Pentecostal Theology 15:2 143. Community,” of the Society for (1993), 43 See Scott A. Ellington, “The Costly Loss of Testimony,” Journal of Pentecostal 16 Theology (2000), 48-59. 260 16 ments are necessary in order to appropnate the truth-claims ot the biblical text. This suggests to Pentecostal readers of the text that, at least for the lament psalmists, placing the story seriously at risk of negation was an inte- gral part of its reappropriation in the community. If the answer to prayer is never in doubt, but always guaranteed, then lament is merely a prelude to praise and the testimony’s outcome is assured. As Balentine puts it: To strip the lament of this element of anxiety is not only to change its whole character, but it is also to miss out one of the , into how the sense of the hiddenness of significant insights God was dealt with in the Old Testament…Without the struggle the . would be questions directed toward God meaningless, and to interpret all questions as merely prelimi- nary to confessions of confidence is to be indifferent to the agony of the struggle out of which they were born.44 , . Such triumphalist assurances of salvation that deny the possibility of hid- denness on God’s part, I suggest, both deny life-experience and weaken tes- timony, thus hindering the appropriation of the gospel in the faith commu- nity. Conchision The purpose of this paper has been to examine the ways in which truth is located in a variety of Christian hermeneutical approaches and to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of each approach when speaking of a Pentecostal reading of Scripture. I have not sought to propose an overall hermeneutic for Pentecostals, or even to provide a standardized pattern for Scripture reading from a Pentecostal perspective, but simply to offer one model for Scripture appropriation used by some biblical writers in order to draw attention to some of the issues that must be considered in order to find a way ahead in a hermeneutical approach that emphasizes both the authority and inspiration of the Bible and experiences of God. Having made this brief study, it is now possible to make a number of observations: I ) The historical-critical approach, while providing an indispensa- ble foundation for biblical interpretation, cannot fully articulate Pentecostal approaches to hermeneutics because of its foundation in and restriction to a rationalist worldview. 2) Postmodem hermeneutics, while offering many fresh insights 44 Balentine, The Hidden God, 124. ‘ 261 17 into the text that are of use to Pentecostal readers, operates out of a world- view in which all truth-claims are local and relative and in which the bibli- cal writers are viewed with a high degree of suspicion. Therefore, postmod- ern approaches are also limited in their applicability to the practice of hermeneutics by Pentecostals. 3) Understanding the Bible as story rather than “pure” history frees the reader from the need to defend a model of historical truth that seems alien to the biblical writers themselves. Narrative approaches to Scripture are useful in Pentecostal hermeneutics, however, only to the extent that they be grounded in the concern, common to both the biblical writers and Pentecostal readers, for “what happened.” That connection, as Stroup has suggested, is to be found in the text’s ability to provide the individual and the community with its sense of identity and to create expectations for future encounters with God. 4) Truth-as-testimony offers a promising way in which to under- stand the Bible’s truth-claims. Testimony involves selective remembering and includes the beliefs of the one testifying, along with references to the events that are believed to be true. Furthermore, it is at times possible to evaluate testimony about God through the continuing process of bringing together that testimony and fresh experiences of God’s presence and absence. The common thread that allows the bringing together of the world- view(s) of the biblical writers and the worldview(s) of Pentecostals is a com- monly held belief that God remains an active agent (indeed, the primary active agent) in the biblical stories. 5) One element frequently lacking in Pentecostal testimony is a serious presentation of complaint, resulting from the contradiction at times set up between the testimony of Scripture and the life-experiences of the believer. An evaluation of life-experiences that denies the possibility of put- ting the biblical story seriously at risk also lacks the power to bring about profound reappropriation of that story. 6) Future work in articulating Pentecostal hermeneutical practices will need to explore further the ways in which the experiences of the faith community interact with the reading of the text and will also need to attend to other models drawn from the biblical text that illustrate how Israel and the Christian church appropriated the biblical narratives. I have suggested that “reality testing” of testimony in a dialectical model, rather than a triumphal- 262 18 istic denial of counter-testimonies that call the biblical stories into question, ! is one essential element in helping the believing community transform “the story” into “our story.” 263 19