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{"id":18152,"date":"2016-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2943"},"modified":"2016-06-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T00:00:00","slug":"biblical-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/06\/biblical-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Biblical Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

D<\/span>ru Johnson\u2019s Knowledge By Ritual<\/em><\/a> defends the thesis that we come to know\u2014to recognize and to discern, to see rightly\u2014through ritualized action. In the course of defending this thesis, Johnson devotes a few pages to explaining the biblical notion of truth.<\/p>\n

He points out that truth can apply to actions, such as treatment of a servant, anointing, or walking; to statements; and to things like tent pegs, roads, and seeds (73). A concept that covers so much diverges from our normal understandings of truth. Yet they aren\u2019t wholly different. He cites Yoram Hazony\u2019s Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture<\/em><\/a>, who argues that \u201cwe could say that emet<\/em> and truth are simply two different things. What prevents us from reaching this conclusion is not only the traditional translation of emet<\/em> as truth . . . it is also the fact that emet<\/em> is the only term available to describe the truth of speech in the Bible. Thus if we were to dispense with the term emet<\/em> as referring to the truth of speech, we would be left without any way in which biblical Hebrew could express the idea that something that someone said or thought was true\u201d (quoted, 73).<\/p>\n

For the Hebrew Bible, though, truth is primarily \u201creliability\u201d: \u201cA true cut (or maintaining a true course in a ship) is one that reliably \u2018is what it ought to be.\u2019\u201d Quoting Hazony again, he adds that \u201cIn the Hebrew Bible, that which is true is that which proves, in the face of time and circumstance, to be what it ought; whereas that which is false is that which fails . . . to be what it ought\u201d (74).<\/p>\n

This is quite a striking definition, highlighting, Johnson says, \u201cdiachronic proofing and interpretation.\u201d Truth is evident only over time, as true things prove themselves against the ravages of circumstance. Thus \u201ctruth, by its very nature, cannot be determined in a singular instance. Truth can only be interpreted through a process of attending to something\u2019s veracity\u2014its reliability.\u201d A tent peg is true because it\u2019s reliable over time, just as a statement is true. But interpretation is equally important: \u201cFaithfulness of the peg to do what it ought to do\u2014to hold down the tent in sun and storm\u2014is the hallmark of its emet<\/em>. So it does with speech; its veracity, fidelity, or faithfulness to interpret that to which it speaks is its truth, like the carpenter\u2019s true cut or the ship\u2019s true course\u201d (75). Statements are always interpretations, but the true statement is on that \u201cinterprets best\u201d (75).<\/p>\n

As Hazony puts it: \u201cOn the biblical conception . . . it would seem that the truth of falsity of the spoken word . . . cannot be known until it has proved itself reliable in the course of investigation, which is to say, in the course of time\u201d (76).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"