Old Testament Theology according to Walter Brueggemann Part 2

Testimony

            After the two retrospects Brueggemann gets into the heart of the book: the testimony about YHWH. The first major section (Part I) is Israel’s core testimony. He sets up this section in a rather unusual way, ordering his summary along grammatical lines: verbs, adjectives, and nouns. He does not use dogmatic categories for God, since he says that they do not fit the descriptions of God in the OT (117). The first chapter presents an introduction to the trial metaphor and to his methodology. He is not interested in “what actually happened” or the “earliest” testimony, but in all the testimony about God. This first part is the characteristic testimony about God, the testimony which is most prevalent.

            In verbal sentences God is the one who creates, makes promises, delivers, commands, and leads. He thinks that Israel moved from verbs (specific instances) to adjectives (general statements). The noun is the next step in the progression: an even more general statement. The nouns are metaphors and include metaphors of governance (judge, king, warrior, father) and sustenance (artist, healer, gardener-vinedresser, mother, shepherd). He sees strong tension between these two categories of metaphors: sovereignty and solidarity. “This disjunction, moreover, is the engine that drives Israel’s testimony; it is the splendor of Israel’s odd faith and the source of the deep vexation that marks Israel’s life” (268). Yahweh is not a God who is put into a box, and even the second “safer” category of metaphors can turn deadly. For example, God is “the potter who will work attentively or smash” (282).       

Part II of the book deals with Israel’s Countertestimony. This is the rogue testimony, the testimony about YHWH that goes against the core testimony. Brueggemann lists three areas of countertestimony: hiddenness, ambiguity, and negativity. The context of countertestimony is midrash (where extensive countertestimony was found), psychoanalytic practice (surface versus actual reality), the Holocaust (how can YHWH be sovereign?), and deconstructionism. The hiddenness of YHWH refers to times when YHWH does not seem to be active (as in the wisdom literature). Ambiguity refers to times when YHWH abuses (Jeremiah 20:7; 1 Kings 22:20-22), contradicts himself (texts when God “changes his mind”, exclusion and inclusion of foreign nations), and is unreliable (the rejection of Saul and the acceptance of David after their sin, although he does not seem to notice the drastically different responses to the confrontation about their sin). YHWH’s negativity is seen in the psalms of negativity, his capacity for violence, and in Job and Ecclesiastes.

The third part deals with Israel’s unsolicited testimony, or testimony about topics other than YHWH: Israel, human person, nations, and creation. Israel is loved into existence, commanded to obedience, scattered in exile, recipients of God’s mercy (after they hoped beyond what YHWH had even intended), and gathered together again. He looks at humans from a relational viewpoint and not from an essentialist stance: the human person is YHWH’s partner, based in the text on Israel: as Israel, so humans. Humans are to trust as well as to state their grievances on occasion: Abraham, the man of faith, challenged God, while disputatious Job trusted God (490). The nations are under the sovereignty of YHWH as well as Israel. God gives each of the superpowers a mandate, each of them rebel, are dismantled, and then they are promised rehabilitation in the future (519).  Creation was “formed in generosity, relinquished to chaos, and restored to blessing” (555).

The common theme among all these categories (Israel, human person, nations, and creation) is that each is starts at a high point, rebels, and is then restored by YHWH. Brueggemann’s purpose in writing about these partners of YHWH is actually to tell about YHWH, since he is always YHWH-in-relation (556). Hence, the pattern has more to do with YHWH than with the patterns. He is generous in giving, but he is jealous as far as giving pure autonomy and punishes those who transgress the limits. But he always comes when least expected and brings the partner back from beyond the limits (death, exile, extinction, curse, etc.). While Brueggemann is hesitant about metanarratives, he feels the text drives him to present one in spite of his feelings. The root of reality is not an ideology of scarcity, but a limitless generosity, which affirms generosity and abundance (the more you give, the more you have). At the center of reality is a fissure, opposed to an Enlightenment denial that if only there were enough resources and education, then brokenness can be avoided. The culmination of reality is a profound hope in the promise-maker and promise-keeper. “The drama of brokenness and restoration, which has Yahweh as its key agent, features generosity, candor in brokenness, and resilient hope, the markings of a viable life. The primary alternative now available to us features scarcity, denial, and despair, surely the ingredients of nihilism” (562). Christianity also affirms these three key ideas, but it leans toward closure and away from a real relationship with God (563).

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