Seems like a pretty good start.

Steven Duby:

Would you like to respond to this?

In response to your first two questions, the answer is a definite and emphatic “No. ” I would move in exactly the opposite direction from a “rules” or “plain” or “simple” or “obvious” notion when I speak of perspicuity. In fact, such an approach to the perspicuity of Scripture typically only leads to more “constraint” or false sense of “obligation” or downright “slavery” to the letter of the text.

To the rest of your comments I give a hearty “Yes!” in just the way you framed it, “…ultimately accessible, liberation or salvation.” My only qualification would be: “salvation” understood three-dimensionally and not merely the shop-worn sense of justification that we evangelicals so typically obsess about.

Sailhamer IMO simply makes the more complex; more “literary” or “poetic” or selfdeconstructive “cookies” more accessible to those less familiar with hermeneutical terminology, yet he liberally quotes the original Latin and German as he develops his case historically in his well-conceived and thoughtful footnotes, esp. for those who suspect he may be using smoke and mirrors. In this light, your notion of “selfdeconstructive” is especially well handled in the way he conceives the composition of the Pentateuch and the “apparent contradictions” therein.

In response to Steve, if I understand you correctly (Brett), I would therefore hear Brett saying “selfdeconstructive” in this sense: God’s revelation is given “historically” to the people of God in a particular context and time in a way that reflects His character in direct response to their need for deliverance in that context. This particular revelation will need “deconstruction” for subsequent generations of the people of God with progressive revelation when they face an evolving context in “history,” but the composition and compilation of the text (i.e., canonical ordering and placement of literary “seams”) takes into consideration this “adaptation” throughout the history of these people, as the final form of the text takes shape under the guidance of God. I think it is not too presumptuous to call that process “selfdeconstruction” and still see perspicuity.

The “final” form of the Bible I find particularly interesting and liberating. But is it “perspicuous” in the sense of being “plain”; in the sense of being simple? Does the final form, outline a few simple, traditional rules for life?

James Barr and Richard Bauckham both at least once referred to the “literary” or poetically polysemous or metaphorical – or complex – quality of the Bible (“Interpretation,” Ox. Comp. to the Bible, p. 320; also “2 Peter,” p. 586.)

In its “final” form especially (say in the RSV or NIV?), I likewise don’t find the Bible to be particularly “perspicacious” in the sense of being a) “plain” or simple. I instead find b) it to be “perspicuous” in Duby’s sense: of being more complex; more “literary” or “poetic” or selfdeconstructive. But offering through this more complex means, a final, difficult, more complex, but ultimately accessible, liberation or salvation.

Hope your enjoying your holiday!

In that thread with Sparks, we surfaced at least one hermeneutical crux in this regard: the analogy between the Passover/Exodus and the work of Christ (1 Cor 5:7); i.e., if the former never occurred in any historically meaningful way, how was Israel’s faith in God legitimately grounded? I’m convinced that there is a good “answer” to Sparks’ thesis that allows us to place a great deal more confidence in the “final form” of the text of Scripture, and I think Sailhamer has produced a very effective “shot across the bow” in this regard in The Meaning of the Pentateuch, even though that was not his ostensible purpose. It is really well done, IMHO, with a particularly good defense of authorial intent as a manifest “intelligent design” in both composition and compilation of the texts.

Has anyone else read it?

Though I have presented my own position on this, I hope I have tied it systematically and consistently, to the four major, recognized issues in scholarly discussion of the present blog subject: to the problems and strengths, of “Perspecuity.”