"Howard J. Van Till" wrote:
> >From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
> >
> > Augustine applied what he called "the rule of charity" to the reading of
> > a text. If the literal sense of the text seemed to violate that rule, he
> > asserted that the text was to be read allegorically. I believe his example
> > was God ordering Saul to totally wipe out the Amalekites, every man, woman,
> > child, ox and ass. Augustine said that this and like incidents recorded in
> > Scripture enjoin behavior that is contrary to this rule of charity, and
> > therefore should not be interpreted literally as a guide to Christian life.
> > Rather, they are to be pondered and interpreted allegorically: the truth of
> > these passages for the Christian lay there rather than in the literal.
> >
> > Whatever one thinks of Augustine's hermeneutic on these matters, it is
> > clear that he is wrestling with a real problem, the same problem many of us
> > wrestle with on such passages, and he recognizes that there is some behavior
> > described in the Bible that is not to be taken literally as prescriptions
> > for Christian life.
>
> Another option: "The (Christian) Bible is
> a thoroughly human testimony to the authentic human experience of the
> presence of the Sacred -- specifically, God, as experienced by the ancient
> Hebrews and the early Christian community."
>
> Therefore, some of those human perceptions of God (or humanly constructed
> portraits of God) could have been seriously deficient and, while they were
> authentically representative of historic beliefs (not allegories) they need
> not be taken as normative in our time and culture.
& by the same token any of the perceptions of God that Howard Van Till,
George Murphy, or anyone else finds particularly attractive - "merciful and
gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love" &c - can be dismissed by
someone who has in mind a group of Amalekites to be slain.
There are indeed ways in which the pictures of the Amalekite-slaying God
in scripture can be subordinated to those like the verse I cited from Ps.103 -
especially the character of God revealed in Christ. But that requires some
positive hermeneutic principle, not an approach that, whether one intends it or
not, diminishes the authority of the whole of scripture.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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