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Being an Old Testament scholar and a minister who is preaching from Old Testament texts on a regular basis is something of a challenge. It means that as a scholar, you are constantly aware that the Hebrew bible is not just a collection of documents from the first millennium BCE, but Scripture, authoritative both for Jews and Christians. It also means that as a preacher, you are aware of a variety of problems with regard to the transmission of these texts and their meaning through the centuries between then and now, problems you often can’t simply skip to arrive at a simple, acceptable meaning for the church community of today.
Between then and now, between a scholarly and a pious reading of the bible, between the individual texts and Scripture as a whole, that is where my work has its place. The discipline, called biblical theology, is a controversial one because its hypothesis (or belief, if you want) is, that the Hebrew bible has, notwithstanding the obvious diversity, a central meaning and message. To discover this message, going to and fro between biblical research and preaching, is the task to which I am dedicated.
Between then and now, between a scholarly and a pious reading of the bible, between the individual texts and Scripture as a whole, that is where my work has its place. The discipline, called biblical theology, is a controversial one because its hypothesis (or belief, if you want) is, that the Hebrew bible has, notwithstanding the obvious diversity, a central meaning and message. To discover this message, going to and fro between biblical research and preaching, is the task to which I am dedicated.
