Like a Language, the OT is Dying

Like a Language, the OT is Dying April 28, 2017

Screen Shot 2017-04-24 at 8.08.51 PMWalter Brueggemann endorsed both Brent Strawn’s new book, The Old Testament is Dying, and Greg Boyd’s Crucifixion of the Warrior God. One, the second, is being accused of of dismissing the Old Testament or having some sub-orthodox theory of Scripture while the other one, the first, seeks to raise the significance of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. What an odd coincidence that these two books land on my desk at about the same time.

Strawn knows many don’t read the OT today; he knows more that people don’t think in OT terms; their worldview (and language) are not shaped by it. Hence, the Old Testament is sadly dying among Christians. It’s language is unknown.

That, in brief, is my claim—or to employ a medical metaphor, my diagnosis: the Old Testament is dying. Much needs to be said about this claim to explain it, let alone establish it, but for now let me gloss it further by stating my firm belief that for many contemporary Christians, at least in North America, the Old Testament has ceased to function in healthy ways in their lives as sacred, authoritative, canonical literature. These individuals—or in some cases, groups of individuals (even entire churches)—do not regard the Old Testament in the same way (or as highly) as the New Testament, do not understand the Old Testament, would prefer to do without the Old Testament, and for all practical purposes do exactly that by means of their neglect and ignorance of it, whether in private devotion or public worship or both. 4-5

Like a language, the OT is dying:

What I mean by this linguistic analogy, then, is that the Old Testament, like any other piece of literature or art—like any other way of figuring the world—is, or at least can be, a way of constructing reality, a way of understanding the world, a way of perceiving all that is, including ourselves. Just as language—preverbal, nonverbal, and verbal—allows us to make sense of the world and ourselves, the Old Testament provides (or can provide) a kind of grammar for constructing, perceiving, and understanding the same.

What percentage of sermons in your church are from the Old Testament? Or I could ask, What percentage of your sermons in your church are from the Old Testament?

Here is a good example of the data: Christians don’t know the Bible, esp the Old Testament.

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Here is Strawn on where to look for the cause of the dying of the Old Testament:

If individual believers’ knowledge is suffering, if they can’t speak the language, then at least part of the blame must be laid at the door of the religious systems (and their leaders) to which they belong and to which they adhere (even if only loosely, which is, of course, part of the problem). To be more direct, the failures in religious knowledge reported in the survey appear to reflect massive failures in the religious system(s) in question, especially the educational arm(s) of said system(s), and the leaders responsible for those systems and that education. For Protestant Christianity, that means not only the failure of the “Sunday school” or “Bible study” phenomena (whether for children or adults), but also the failure of the sermon to be an effective tool in disseminating the language that is the Christian faith, not to mention other failures to provide adequate linguistic instruction in the Bible’s—and, more specifically still, the Old Testament’s—contribution to that faith. 27

His analysis was that about 50% of sermons were from the NT alone and 21% from the OT alone. Highest percentages come from lectionary preachers. But most sermons on the OT come from famous passages in the OT.

Here is his conclusion:

Indeed, the cold hard fact is that, thanks to large swaths of sermons, hymns, and liturgy, Christians are learning precisely how not to speak the language, practice the language, hear the language, or learn the language that is the Old Testament, whatever their age—from smallest tyke to octogenarian and everything between and beyond. The Old Testament is dying, and it seems that the Christian practices of sermon, song, and lectionary are at least partly to blame. 57


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