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Exodus 14: The Mighty Acts of God: An Essay in Theological Criticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Extract

God is known by what He has done.' This sentence sums up one of the leading themes of biblical theology. The biblical writers (it is said) thought of revelation, not in terms of propositions or ideas, but as taking place through historical events in which God disclosed His nature and purpose. Moreover, these events were not the inner spiritual experiences of mystics, but public events involving the destinies of nations as well as individuals. The events had to be interpreted, of course, and the revelation was not complete without the interpretation; but the knowledge of God was always an inference from what had happened, never a matter of general or timeless concepts.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1969

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References

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page 456 note 1 This is more evident in the patriarchal stories, but is also true in some measure of the exodus story; see Wright, Biblical Archaeology, chs. iii and iv.

page 457 note 1 What follows draws largely on Marc Bloch, The Historian's Craft, which was introduced to theological discussion in T. A. Roberts, History and Christian Apologetic.

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page 459 note 9 ibid., pp. 52, 61f, 68.

page 459 note 10 Documents from OT Times, p. 92.

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page 460 note 4 ‘In Jesus Christ we affirm the presence and action of God as well as the effort and achievement of a man’ (Declaration of Faith, Congregational Church in England and Wales, section I, para. 5).

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page 469 note 2 Hom, in Jesu Nave 15.1; Hom, in Num. VII.3, XIX.2.

page 469 note 3 See Homélies sur I'Exode (ed. P. Fortier and H. de Lubac) (Sources Chrétiennes 16), nos. V and VI.

page 469 note 4 The title of an essay by H. Sahlin in A. Fridrichsen, et al., The Root of the Vine, is ‘The New Exodus of Salvation according to St. Paul’.

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page 471 note 1 Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 250.

page 471 note 2 Die christliche Kirche und das Alte Testament, discussed by Stamm and Vriezen in Westermann, ed., Essays in Old Testament Interpretation.

page 471 note 3 op. cit., p. 25f

page 473 note 1 Richardson, Alan, History, Sacred and Profane, p. 222. That the Old Testament is of this character is brought out most clearly by G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology.Google Scholar

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page 476 note 1 Contrast Augustine's division of world history into six epochs, in which the events of Old Testament history are central; see Milburn, R. L. P., Early Christian Interpretations of History, p. 80.Google Scholar

page 476 note 2 cf. Polybius on ‘the process by which almost the whole world fell under the undisputed ascendancy of Rome within a period of less than fifty-three years … one of the most admirable and instructive performances of Fortune’; see Toynbee, A. J., Greek Historical Thought (Mentor), pp. 43, 46.Google Scholar

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page 476 note 4 Faith and History, p. 22.

page 479 note 1 Milburn, op. cit., pp. 81, 84.

page 479 note 2 Niebuhr, op. cit., p. 150.

page 479 note 3 ibid., p. 24.

page 479 note 4 cf. Cassuto, quoted above,; and Kaufman, Gordon D., ‘On the meaning of “Act of God”HTR, lxi (1968), p. 178Google Scholar: ‘It will not do to speak of God as the agent who made it possible for the Israelites to escape from the Egyptians, if one regards it as simply a fortunate coincidence that a strong east wind was blowing at just the right time to dry up the sea of reeds. The biblical writer's view is coherent and compelling precisely because he is able to say that “the Lord drove back the sea by a strong east wind’ (Exod. 14.21), i.e. it was because, and only because, God was Lord over Nature, one who could bind natural events to his will, that he was able to be effective Lord over history.’

page 479 note 5 Kaufman, op. cit., says that particular events have to be seen as ‘simple acts’ not performed for themselves but as steps towards a master end, which in the case of the exodus is God's moving of ‘human history and consciousness toward a fuller awareness of who he is and what his purposes for creation are’ (pp. 190, 197).

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