Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 23:1 (NA 1972)
Article: ‘That You May Know That Yahweh Is God’
Author: John Goldingay

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TynBul 23:1 (1972) p. 58

‘That You May Know That Yahweh Is God’

A Study In The Relationship Between Theology And Historical Truth In The Old Testament

John Goldingay

The Christian church, and within it Christian scholarship, has received the Old Testament from Christ, and recognized in it the voice of God speaking ‘in many and various ways’.1 This divine–human communication has come down to us expressed predominantly in narrative forms, which dominate in the Torah and Prophets, and are prominent in the Writings. Now narrative forms may be used for many purposes—historiography, the novel, the fairy-tale, and so on. Why does the Old Testament use narrative? How far is its narrative intended to be historiographical? How far does its teaching depend on history? And how far, therefore, must our acceptance of the truthfulness of its teaching depend upon our being sure of the historicity of the events it narrates? If we could prove by the historical method that certain of the Jews’ forbears escaped from slavery in Egypt in the thirteenth century BC, and even if we were prepared to see a supernatural agency at work in this such a measure of verification of the narrative in Exodus would not necessarily bring with it the validation of the Old Testament’s theological interpretation of this event2 —such historical verification does not ensure theological validation; but is historical veracity nevertheless a sine qua non of theological validity? Does the Old Testament’s revelation-value hang on its history-value?

Although in many circles it seems axiomatic that history the essential, even the exclusive, medium of revelation,3

TynBul 23:1 (1972) p. 59

elsewhere it is regarded as highly questionable whether the idea of revelation in history is after all peculiar to Israel in the ancient Near East,4 whether it is an adequate formulation of the Old Testament’s attitude to revelation,5 and even whether the idea of revelation is appropriate to Christianity at all!6 We must therefore begin with some reconsideration of the appropriateness of these terms.

The prima facie impression that the Old Testament gives, of a close interest in certain events that happened on the historical plane, is surely neither misleading nor surprising. The Books of Kings, at least (which admittedly offer the clearest example), seek to give precisely...

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