Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 01:1 (Fall 1983)
Article: God Will Provide: An Architectural Approach to Genesis 12: 1–8a and 21–23
Author: Roger Bullard

FM 1:1 (Fall 1983) p. 56

God Will Provide:
An Architectural Approach to Genesis 12: 1–8a and 21–23

Roger Bullard

Professor of Religion,
Atlantic Christian College

It is an honor to be asked to contribute to the first issue of this new journal, auspiciously begun in theme and sponsorship; I wish it well. Since this is the beginning of what should be a long and fruitful exploration of the Christian faith and mission, it seems appropriate to investigate a biblical episode that stands at the very beginning of the faith and mission to which God’s people are called. The subject of our study is God’s commissioning of Abraham and his response in faith, and the subsequent denouement of the patriarch’s story. Two passages are selected rather than one, since I feel that there is a literary relation between the two. I propose to approach these passages from a somewhat unconventional angle, and a word of explanation may be in order.

For much of the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth, biblical scholarship has been engaged in the task of analysis. Books of the Bible have been broken down into sources, and sometimes these sources have been found to be compilations from other sources. The history of individual stories has been pursued, and techniques have been developed to enable the scholar to inquire into the oral, pre-written stage of these stories. Philological methods have been employed to subject the syntax and vocabulary of the biblical writers to microscopic investigation. Historians and archaeologists have labored to reconstruct the annals of biblical history, developing methods that might be capable of separating bedrock fact from interpretive retelling.

In recent years a reaction against analysis has set in, with more biblical scholars now being interested in synthesis. We are stepping back from the trees to look at the layout of the forest. This is not to downplay the importance of earlier work, much less to suggest the irrelevance of any of it. After all, one cannot appreciate fully the complex ecological system of the forest without an understanding of the minutiae of cellular structures. But we are now seeing in biblical study an increased concern for explicating the text of the Bible as it stands, as it has been handed down to us as Holy Scripture in canonical form, no matter what its prehistory may have been. Scholars have learned from the critical techniques of those who work with other ancient, as well as modern literatures. Some (perfectly valid) questions can be held in abeyance while new questions are being put to the texts. I propose here to look at these stories of Abraham to see how they function as units within larger structures, to examine them not in detail as microstructures, but as components of a macrostructure.

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