Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Bible as art and imagination?


"The Bible is essentially an open, artistic, imaginative narrative of God's staggering care for the world, a narrative that will feed, nurture and build community precisely by for the liberty of the Christian man or woman...

...The real issues of Biblical authority and interpretation are not likely to be settled by erudite cognitive formulation or appeal to classic settlement, but live beneath such contention in often unrecognised and uncriticized ways that are deeply powerful, especially if rooted (as they may be for most of us) amidst hurt, anger, or anxiety...

...real decisions about Biblical meanings are mostly not decided on the spot, but are long-term growth of habit and conviction that emerge, function, and shape, often long before recognised. And if that is so, then the disputes require not frontal arguments that are mostly exercises in self-entertainment, but long pastoral attentiveness to each other in good faith".
Walter Brueggemann

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