9
The preceding foray into Deuteronomy proved to be remarkably generative. Deuteronomy manifests a concern for (second-)language acquisition and thus language survival. Moreover, the occasion of the book, its pedagogical strategies (above all, repetition), the evidence for the book’s practice and performance, its “pastor,” its efficacy, and its conclusion in song all demonstrate the utility of the linguistic analogy I have employed throughout the present book, even as they commended several specific strategies for moving forward. In this final chapter, I build on these gleanings from Deuteronomy to offer several concrete recommendations on how to save the language that is the Old Testament. Although I lift up four for special consideration, the various and specific insights from Deuteronomy retain their utility and should also be kept in mind. To these four positive recommendations, I then add a fifth, which is more cautiously formulated, since it includes an approach that is best avoided if we care to preserve the language that is the Old Testament.
The Most Basic (and Obvious) Recommendation: Regular Use
Whatever problems it may have in terms of test design or execution, the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey (see chap. 2) offered definitive proof that education, especially at formative periods, along with time spent in discussing and practicing religion, correlated positively with greater knowledge about religion. The fact that nonreligious adherents like atheists/agnostics scored best does not disconfirm this finding, because such individuals (only a small percentage of the polled, who for that reason were oversampled) may well have had formative education in religion somewhere in their past (equivalent to language learning). In addition, given the heavily religious climate of the United States, they may have had to work their opinions out via vigorous dialogue and debate (which, in its own way, is a kind of [anti-]language practice).
Yet it remains clear that the Old Testament’s health is imperiled for the very same reason that Anthony Towne wryly offered for God’s untimely death in the 1960s: massive diminishing influence.1 Beyond the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, I investigated three ways the language of Scripture is (or might be) practiced in Christian worship: in sermon, Scripture (reading), and song. In each case the Old Testament was shown to be in decline, suffering from ever-decreasing influence. While the language of the Old Testament could be practiced in these worship contexts, the three tests revealed that in point of fact it was not. As I argued in chapter 2, when these three tests are read in light of the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, it is easy to see how the dea(r)th of the Old Testament in these regular liturgical practices contributes directly to the overall dea(r)th of the Old Testament proper. Put most directly, the Old Testament is no longer “spoken here” in these crucial moments of Christian gathering and Christian formation; the opportunities to practice the language and to be educated in it and about it are thus missed, and missed regularly—week after week after week.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that reversing this situation, redressing these practices, would immediately contribute to the health of the patient. This point was underscored in various ways above (see chaps. 4–8). Putting the pieces together, then, reveals the most basic (and most obvious) recommendation on how the Old Testament can be saved from its steady march toward language extinction. Indeed, in some ways, this first, most basic (and most obvious) recommendation is the only one necessary to prevent the Old Testament’s demise. It is simply this: the Old Testament must be used—extensively and regularly, certainly far more extensively and regularly than has been the case of late—in formative moments of Christian practice and education.
This recommendation leads immediately and directly to some correlates: first, this recommendation means more sermons and lessons preached and taught from the Old Testament. Even if these sermons or lessons are not taken from the Old Testament exclusively (see further below), it must at least be the case that one hears the Old Testament from the pulpit (or lectern) far more frequently and more regularly than has been the case in the “Best Sermons” series for the past century or more. And let it be quickly added: one must hear the Old Testament from the pulpit (or lectern) in the best, most helpful, robust, and meaningful way. To return to the language of chapter 1, it is not just if the Old Testament is present (a question of quantity) but how it is present (a question of quality). In my judgment the best, most helpful, robust, and meaningful way the Old Testament is present and used is when, to echo Ellen F. Davis, it is understood to be an urgent speaking presence that exercises salutary pressure on our lives.2
Regular, extensive use of the Old Testament extends far beyond the pulpit or lectern, however. This recommendation also entails, second, the creation of new and better hymns and songs so that the church can sing its faith based on the full counsel of God, not just the final 22.1 percent (or less!) of it.3 And then, third, there is the need for new lectionaries that do not suppress the Old Testament or its parts and for brave liturgists and worship planners who aren’t afraid to round out abbreviated readings, avoiding well-meaning but unwise and ultimately injurious censorship.4 To come full circle, better lectionaries would also mean better lectionary preachers and teachers who will (to say the very least) incorporate the Old Testament lesson into their sermons and teaching.
It is clear that this first recommendation places much responsibility on those tasked with preaching, teaching, and worship leadership. That is exactly as it should be because, in my judgment, most of the blame lies with the same. If Christian liturgical practices, especially sermon, lectionary, and song, showcase a dying of the Old Testament, who else to blame but those primarily responsible for the education of the congregation and charged with the public proclamation of Holy Scripture?
Let me add quickly that I don’t believe that all “guilty parties” are necessarily malicious neo-Marcionites looking to make good on von Harnack’s suggestion to throw the Old Testament out in our day and age.5 But I also don’t believe that all such persons are entirely innocent; neither are all those in the flock they shepherd always innocent, even if many are simply naive on the issues. But there can be no mistake: Marcion’s heresy is malignant, even if one comes by it innocently (or ignorantly) enough. It must be cut out before the cancer spreads. It is clear, then, that any pastor (or other ecclesiastical leader) who is going to make a difference in these matters and on these points needs to be fluent in the language. Even a pastor who is the “last speaker of Old Testament” in the congregation must nevertheless keep speaking the language and do what is possible to educate the next generation so that, ultimately, this leader proves not to be the last speaker of that language. What one can do, in no small part (and in truth, it is far more than that), is to speak the language to the congregation, help them practice it, and make sure it is being taught to “children,” whatever their age. Hence the leader must employ it constantly and consistently with all language users but especially with those new to the tongue. The leader must do this as the resident language expert and indeed, according to Deuteronomy’s law of the king (Deut. 17:14–20), as primarily that kind of figure, not some other (see chap. 8).
The sad fact of the matter, however, is that most pastors seem less and less fluent in the language. This is no doubt due to a host of reasons that cannot be fully engaged or analyzed here. Here it suffices to make the point that, if religious leaders speak only a pidgin and pass only a pidgin along to their flock, it is not hard to extrapolate from such a scenario to the predicament we face presently. On the one hand, many Christians don’t seem to have the foggiest idea of what’s in their Bibles in the first place and are therefore completely incapacitated when it comes to responding to substantive critiques from the New Atheism (or elsewhere). On the other hand, many other Christians, like the happiologists of whatever stripe, are the entirely predictable result of the pidginization-to-creolization process: persons who speak an entirely new language, a creole that has emerged from a pidginized predecessor (see chap. 6). It is crucial, then—or rather, absolutely imperative—that the preacher know the full language of Scripture and communicate it effectively to the next generation of speakers. This language acquisition and the communication that leads to future acquisition are predicated fundamentally, ultimately, and perhaps solely on just this: regular practice—for both the language teacher and for the language students.
The Need for Adequate Linguistic Training
But, once again, the language of Scripture is a capacious, complex, and ancient one, especially since, as noted in chapter 1, the linguistic analogy applies equally well to both Testaments, New as well as Old, and yet more broadly still to how the entirety of the Christian Bible fits with and contributes to the language of faith. This fact, combined with the preceding remarks, leads to a second specific recommendation for those in the “pastoral” office.6 If pastors are to be fluent in the language in order to keep it alive, then they must have adequate linguistic training. Formal education helps, of course (the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey strikes again), but even a yearlong introduction to the Old Testament matched by a yearlong introduction to the New Testament in a master of divinity curriculum simply isn’t enough. If the Old Testament is to survive, and if pastors are key loci for language dissemination, then seminaries will need to rethink their curricula, and pastors along with their ecclesiastical judicatories will need to reconsider what a seminary degree means.7 Simply put, a diploma or certification, of whatever sort, is not proof of fluency.
To be sure, there is more to theological education than the Old Testament (alas!). There is a lot to cover, even in the traditional three-year master of divinity program, and an extra elective or two on the Old Testament will also not guarantee fluency. Quite to the contrary, in fact, because fluency is a lifelong project, precisely because speaking a language is a lifelong practice.8 So, while education can help set pastors on the right path, it is up to them to keep walking it—and not just through continuing-education units (though those don’t hurt), but by constant immersion and practice.9 Happily, one of the best ways to learn and practice a language is by teaching it to others, so pastors needn’t worry if they haven’t yet mastered every nook and cranny—or, analogically, every irregular verb form—found in the Old Testament. With continued study and continued teaching, the pastor will become ever more adept. The same is true for all those who care to learn and practice the language and who do not shy away from the high task of teaching—despite the sobering words of Matt. 18:6–7 and James 3:1.
Intentionality in Language Practice and Language Learning
This leads directly to a third suggestion: the language teacher (and language community) must be intentional about communicating the language. This includes being intentional about how the language is communicated, to be sure. The goal is full fluency, after all, and so one might again think of total saturation along the lines of language immersion programs. But still more basic is the point that the language is being communicated, appropriately and regularly, to learners. How can it be communicated appropriately and regularly? The three instruments assessed in chapter 2—homilies, hymnody, and the public reading of Scripture (preferably large swaths of it, not snippets)—are an excellent place to start, if only because they are already in place and constitute part and parcel of the expected rhythm of most Christian experience.10 Immediate (and more extensive) attention to the Old Testament in sermon, song, and Scripture reading can build off these preexisting practices and would help stop the bleeding, but there are many more arenas to consider: religious education curricula for children and for adults spring immediately to mind, making sure that they are adequately and extensively engaged with the language that is the Old Testament.
Even in the best-case scenario involving a fully fluent pastor intent on teaching the full language to eager learners, the teacher will need to vary the instruction for the sake of the pupils. Not all of them will be equally far along in mastering the language. Some will be learning the alphabet (“Where’s Zephaniah again? Is there a book of Hezekiah?”). Others will be capable of only a few short sentences, akin to reading a basic primer. A few will be quite adept indeed, with still others unfortunately manifesting poor linguistic habits due to inadequate prior education (whether on the part of a former teacher or the pupils themselves matters little). It is likely, then, that a pastor may find at least three different sets of students:
• some will need initial formation in the language;
• some will need re-formation to correct previous malformation;
• some will need further information to deepen skills and knowledge already in place.
It goes without saying that all three types will need continued practice in the language, because practicing is precisely how one learns and uses a language.
This is a challenging “classroom,” to say the least. But pastors and other Christian leaders should take heart: language teachers face this sort of thing every day! It is far from impossible to bring students at different levels along together so that they all become more expert and adept in the study of a language. In addition to the strategies derived from best practices in language teaching,11 a clue on how to do this effectively comes from Augustine.12
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a hugely popular preacher, preaching most days of the week to packed churches, with standing room only. The crowds were highly diverse, including catechumens training in the faith, pagans who wandered in off the street to hear him, and everything in between. His gifts as a rhetor and preacher are well known, and both are on display in how he often filleted his sermons to address the different constituents present in his congregation. At times he would stop and address the babes in Christ; at other times he would address those who were spiritually mature; at still other times he would address the “pagans.”
What is Augustine doing in this setting? For one thing, he is not dumbing everything down to the least common denominator, for whatever reason. No doubt being sensitive to “seekers” or those new to the faith means well, but when it comes to the language of Scripture (and faith), we are dealing with a complex language that cannot be transmitted or appropriated simplistically—at least not fully and certainly not always. If things are forever and thoroughly “dumbed down,” then we no longer have the full language on our lips but at best a pidgin, or worse. Another thing Augustine is doing—or rather, not doing—is giving up on the language, choosing to favor some other, whether a derivative creole or something else altogether. Instead, he is teaching the language, and in a savvy way that recognizes that the people listening to him are at different stages.
Augustine’s practice of addressing his multiple constituents directly, even in the midst of the same sermon, is a helpful model for a pastor or teacher who must address a “congregation” or “class” comprised of users at many different levels of language learning.13 For some of these users, “children” as it were, the pastor must speak motherese, a kind of pidgin designed for initial language learners. That’s perfectly fine, so long as pastors remember that they are operating in the role of parents, fluent adult speakers of the language who are tasked with bringing their kids to similar fluency. Mothers speak motherese, but they do so only for a limited period of time (infancy through early stages of childhood) and for a specific purpose (to teach a child how to talk). Speaking motherese, however, is not the same thing as being a mother, and being a mother will eventually involve not speaking motherese to a child. A young child’s language can be cute and endearing, so much so that we hate to see our real children outgrow some of their early speech habits or (mis)pronunciations. But eventually, children must put childish things behind them (see the testimonia from 1 Cor. 13:11; Eph. 4:13a–14). Baby talk won’t do in the now young adult’s first job interview. Neither will Bible pidgins do in the real world. If nothing else, the signs of morbidity (cf. chaps. 4–6) suffice to make that abundantly clear. So pastors need to be intentional about bringing their “children” to “adult” levels of fluency. That won’t happen if ministers speak only a pidginized motherese all the time, even though they will have to use a baby-talk pidgin some of the time to their most basic learners. Advanced learners, however, will need in-depth language training and, as advanced learners, are fully capable of the same. It goes without saying, but should be reiterated, that none of the learners, whether early or advanced, need instruction in a creole, since creoles are, by definition, different languages. The only exception would be the necessary re-formation needed by those who have been overly influenced or malformed by a creole.
Given the linguistic analogy I am using here, the image of the minister as language teacher means that the language learners are acquiring (at least) a second language. The language of faith, of Scripture, of the Old Testament, is not their mother tongue, even for those who learn it at tender ages. This means that even the most fluent speaker of the language that is the Old Testament will be (at least) bilingual, and this raises the issue of code-switching (see chap. 7). This, then, is my fourth recommendation: Not only must a second language be taught and acquired; one must then learn to switch between the languages—knowing how to do it, when to do it, and why one should do it. If it is difficult to teach a language effectively, let alone to learn a language competently, it seems safe to say that teaching and learning (appropriate) code-switching is an even taller order.
Two brief clarifications are in order so as to prevent misunderstanding of the preceding discussion, especially since it is so heavily analogical. Once again a reminder: I do not intend to suggest that the only language expert in a community of faith is the ordained clergy or official ecclesiastical leader. Some of the “saints”—the ones who have been around the church barn a few times, who know their Bibles reasonably well, and so on and so forth—know the language much better than those “in charge,” and this is especially true for those leaders who are not yet fully formed in the language themselves. The true saints—as in the Apostles’ Creed’s sanctorum communionem—certainly speak the language with a fluency that surpasses us lesser lights. In any event, church leaders need all the help they can get. They should learn from other skilled linguists in their flocks and should put those dexterous speakers to good use in training others. Those speakers will in turn learn still more in the process.
Second, I want to avoid the impression that what I am advocating is simply, purely, or merely a matter of cognitive content. The linguistic facility I am after cares little for people knowing, say, whether King Jehoiachin or King Jehoiakim came first. Fluency in the Old Testament is not worth having just to win some strange game of Bible trivia. Languages are not simply mental operations; they are embodied, practiced things. The tongue is involved, as is the voice and all that makes up the speech apparatus (vocal cords, palate, teeth, lungs, diaphragm). And this does not yet mention gestures, facial expressions, body posture—the entire range of nonverbal communicative elements that are operative in almost every instance of face-to-face human communication, not just in American Sign Language (ASL). Language learning, therefore, is not simply a matter of mastering a system of content, but learning a way of life, especially since languages are dense and complex cultural repositories (see chap. 3). Keeping this always and everywhere in mind helps avoid some of the critiques rightly leveled at George Lindbeck’s notion of theology as a cultural-linguistic system, even as it draws from sources that Lindbeck himself also drew upon to make this very point (see chap. 1). The point in question can be nicely illustrated by James 1:27: “True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us” (CEB). That is a statement about religious devotion (θρησκεία/thrēskeia) that is practiced and embodied in both negative, ascetic actions (remaining uncontaminated) and in positive, proactive ones (care for orphans and widows). It is also a definition of practiced, embodied religion that depends directly and extensively on the language of Scripture, which, for James, was the Old Testament.14
While learning how, when, and why to code-switch will be a process that is likely as lengthy as acquiring a language, one distinction seems crucial to make for those acquiring the (new) language of Scripture. It is simply this: that their new L2 is not identical or coterminous with their original L1, whatever that L1 might be. Stressing this difference will help prevent language interference from L1 that would otherwise complicate L2 acquisition; at the very least it will also help L2 learners realize such interference is possible and that not all aspects of L1 are beneficial. This is absolutely essential because “language is the main instrument of [hu]man[ity]’s refusal to accept the world as it is.”15 Without an L2 in place, L1 cannot be resisted or refused, especially at those points when it is in dire need of correction, particularly by the “strange new world within the Bible.”16 The formula L1 ≠ L2 is not only useful for resisting or critiquing L1; it is equally important for recognizing what is right and good about L1—or to put it in more explicitly theological language: not only to resist “the world” (so Steiner and the Epistle of James) but also to recognize where the Spirit might be at work in the world. In this way, L2 acquisition enables one to participate and further such work. Still further, L2 provides one with the ability to redescribe the world of L1,17 which might well include alternative or even simultaneous resistance and recognition, but regardless, assessment by means of the primary lens provided by L2. It is rarely the case, after all, that multilingual speakers are equally proficient in the various languages they speak. One is almost always dominant over the others. In this light, because L1 ≠ L2, one must not only learn to code-switch between the languages but also acquire sufficient fluency so that L2 becomes the dominant tongue.
I come at last to my fifth recommendation, which begins with discussing a strategy that I do not believe will help prevent the death of the Old Testament; if anything, I think it will just accelerate the disease. I refer here to the many attempts to justify the Old Testament or warrant it somehow, primarily or exclusively, by reference to the New Testament. Although there are various iterations of how this has been or might be done, one of the primary options could be titled “The Use of the Old Testament in the New.” The argument runs something like this: “Jesus and Paul used the Old Testament, so, therefore, as a result (etc.), it must be really important.”18 The first part is true enough. Jesus and Paul did use the Old Testament, and such dependence demonstrates that they loved the Old Testament and treated it as Scripture, as did all the New Testament authors.19 It is well known that the word Scripture (γραφή/graphē) in the New Testament means, without exception, the Old Testament, not the New Testament, which of course wasn’t yet formed (2 Pet. 3:16 notwithstanding). Jesus, Paul, and the other New Testament writers thus show themselves to be language adepts, fluent speakers of “Old Testament.” But is it enough to say that because Paul quoted from the Old Testament, then we should too? Perhaps it is, or at least should be, but the data presented in chapters 2 and 4–6 show that in much Christian practice and habit, it clearly hasn’t been enough, even when the “quoter” in question is Jesus, not Paul. Strategies to save the Old Testament that are primarily or solely about the New Testament will thus not do; they seem, instead, to have exacerbated the problem.20
I suspect this is the case because many (though not, perhaps, all) iterations of this “New Testament” kind of approach seem predicated on some fundamental difference or distinction between the Testaments that is ultimately counterproductive for full fluency in the whole Bible. To be precise: too often the difference identified is an Old Testament deficiency, something the New Testament sets right, definitively improves upon, supersedes. Too much contrast leads, in the worst-case scenario, to (neo-)Marcionism and its inevitable problems; but even less strident forms of this approach can suggest a kind of Testamental bilingualism: one might sometimes, perhaps, but probably only rarely (!) speak “Old Testament,” but one should speak “New Testament” as often as possible, and never the twain shall meet because the two are treated as discrete and distinct languages. Or at least it is very hard for “the twain” to meet for the selfsame reason, too hard for many people, at any rate, largely because they have lost fluency in the Old Testament. And so it is that we have New Testament–only Bibles, New Testament Biblical Theologies, New Testament Christians, and New Testament churches for the twenty-first century.
Christians cannot, of course, forget about the New Testament when they take up the Old. In point of fact, most Christians are probably equally deficient in the language that is the New Testament: previous chapters have shown that this is one of the unfortunate results of the death of the Old Testament.21 Even so, it is equally true that the “two-Testamented” canon of Christian Scripture creates unique linguistic difficulties22—one that can suggest, and has created in certain moments of Christian history, a kind of Testamental bilingualism. This is a delicate and potentially dangerous issue (recall Marcion!), and so pastors must communicate clearly and in more than one way (both explicitly and implicitly) that they are speaking and teaching one language, not two. At most, then, we may admit to diglossia in the canon of Christian Scripture—two dialects, that is, but two dialects of the same language (see further below); we are certainly not dealing with two different languages (bilingualism proper) if for no other reason than the fact expressed above: that the New Testament authors all spoke “Old Testament” fluently.23
Once again, this is a very important issue, and it deserves more time and space than can be afforded here. Even so, I must register my concern with certain books that purportedly desire to address the Old Testament, even and especially in preaching, but often fall short in doing so precisely by suggesting a kind of Testamental bilingualism such that the Old Testament somehow needs or requires a New Testament text alongside it, or by suggesting that Christ must always somehow be preached from the Old Testament if the sermon is to be deemed sufficiently “Christian.”24 In contrast to these sorts of practices, well-meaning or otherwise, I think preachers can find a far better model in Walter Brueggemann. As I noted in chapter 2 (see also apps. 5–6), 10.4% of his published sermon corpus is composed of New Testament–only sermons, but even more surprisingly, a much smaller percentage (5.9%) is devoted solely to the Old Testament. The vast majority (83.5%) of Brueggemann’s sermons are taken from both Old and New Testament texts. This is no doubt largely because Brueggemann is a lectionary preacher.25 Despite the fair criticisms that can be leveled at the lectionary (see chap. 2), Brueggemann’s sermonic practice showcases that the lectionary can be a helpful tool in uniting the Testaments in the liturgical practices of, and thus the mind(s) of, a listening congregation.26 Of course, given Brueggemann’s penchant for connecting different passages intertextually—and his excellent mastery of Scripture—one suspects that he didn’t need the lectionary to help him on this point; his remarkable dexterity and fluency in the language of Scripture more than suffice.27 Regardless, this kind of intertexual linkage, whether facilitated by the lectionary or constructed by the fluent preacher, is a key way pastors can help their congregants learn the entire language of Scripture, Old and New Testaments together.28 This togetherness, the integral unity of the Bible, is on display throughout the New Testament,29 is absolutely crucial in the history of Christian theology (witness the counterexample provided by Marcion), and is employed in various ways by the best Old Testament preachers and interpreters.30
For these reasons and others, I argue that the Old Testament cannot be saved by any strategy that focuses exclusively or even overmuch on the New Testament, especially on the way the New Testament treats the Old.31 As I noted in chapter 1 and have repeatedly observed in subsequent chapters, the fates of the two Testaments are intertwined, and the death of one means the death of the other, just as saving one means saving the other. Both Testaments are involved in the present plight, even if the Old Testament is far more imperiled at the moment; and so both must be involved in rectifying it.
Let us view matters from a slightly different perspective. The problems that face the Old Testament, especially in so many “folk” understandings, also face the New. The fact that so many people think that the problems of, say, law, violence and war, the wrath and judgment of God, or even the issue of cursing one’s enemies (see chap. 3) live only in the Old Testament is proof not only of pidginization of their Old Testament knowledge but also of their New Testament language facility, since all these problems are also found in the New Testament, although in somewhat different form(s).32 If “New Testament Christians” don’t know this, it is simply because they don’t know their New Testaments very well. Marcion knew better, which is why his New Testament canon was so thoroughly streamlined (i.e., pidginized), greatly reduced from the form we now have; and so did Christopher Hitchens, who wrote that the New Testament was worse than the Old.33 As I’ve repeatedly stressed throughout this book, only a full knowledge of the full language of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, can appropriately handle these problems, not to mention others, or begin to redress the signs of morbidity that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is clearly manifesting. The problems and the solutions face these two Testaments together. This is largely what I mean by “bothness.” Both Testaments are in this predicament together, both have their fair share of problems (esp. for modern sensibilities), and both have their fair share of solutions to the same. It is certainly not the case that the problems live only in the Old Testament and the solutions live only in the New. Proceeding (or teaching) as if that were the case inevitably leads to a supersession that Marcion would be more than happy to welcome into his pulpit on Sunday morning (or house church on Wednesday night).
This point duly made, it remains true that (1) most Christians (think they) know their New Testaments better than their Old and (2) (presumably) would never countenance the death of the New, even if they are less concerned about the health of the Old, and so one way to ensure that the Old Testament survives is by consistent linkage to the New. I repeat that such linkage must not be supersessionistic, implying that every Old Testament text must be “balanced” or “fixed” by a New Testament text, or that every Old Testament sermon must be “walked by the cross” for it to count as Christian. Instead, the Testaments can be united in, for example, their consistent witness to God’s brutal judgment on those guilty of injustice (see, e.g., Exod. 22:21–24; Matt. 25:31–46) or in their stunning affirmation that it is okay for God’s people to beg for vengeance—which is to say that both Testaments show the saints praying for divine payback (see, e.g., Ps. 137; Rev. 6:9–11). In the case of the former example, what difference is there, really, between God’s killing sword or God’s unending fire of eternal punishment (Exod. 22:24; Matt. 25:41, 46)? Both Exod. 22 and Matt. 25 show how serious God is about justice being done to “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine” (Matt. 25:40, 45 CEB). In the case of the latter example, what the psalmist prays for in Ps. 137 is no worse than what the martyrs under God’s altar in heaven (!) cry out for in Rev. 6. Both ask God to set the record straight and act on their behalf, even if for the time being they must “wait a little longer” (Rev. 6:11 NIV). Both examples illustrate the point made nicely by Fleming Rutledge: “We must read the New Testament in light of the Old,” not just vice versa.34 As further examples one might think of texts like 1 Tim. 2:11–15 and 1 John 3:12 and the need to read them vis-à-vis the fine details of Gen. 3 and 4, respectively; or of a text like Rom. 13:1–7, which must be discussed in concert with, say, Exod. 1–3 or the political theologies found in the book of Daniel.35
“Bothness” signifies, then, the inextricably intertwined relationship of the Testaments and that both must proceed together, equally yoked, as it were.36 In John Donne’s apt phrasing, “the two Testaments grow one Bible.”37 The old clichéd and tired ways of relating the Testaments will have to go since they have proven ineffective for preserving the language that is the Old Testament. Thus promise-fulfillment schemas, while not entirely inaccurate, are also only so helpful and are far from foolproof. If one continues to speak of “promise-fulfillment,” one must be clear that such a schema works only with some texts, certainly not all, and that not all of the fulfillment is found in the New Testament; some is already realized in the Old Testament. More in concert with my point about “bothness,” however, would be to stress that what ultimately matters in promise-fulfillment scenarios is not simply or only the fulfillment but rather the faithfulness of God, which permeates and undergirds both the promise and its realization.38
Other old saws will also have to go. So, per Rutledge: “It is true that we can’t understand the New Testament without the Old, but that is an inadequate account of its importance.”39 Or then there is the plethora of language about “development” in and between the Testaments that somehow comes to a covenantal “climax” in the New Testament and in the New Testament alone.40 Such sequencing is, first and foremost, an imposition on the biblical text, which, considered as a whole, is not a narrative at all and certainly far from evincing any simplistic, unilinear, plot-driven “story.” At its worst, such narrative impositions result (invariably, it seems) in the Old Testament being only so much “building action,” “background information,” or—perhaps worse—“ancient history,” mere preface to where the real action is (the New Testament). The Old Testament might well be present in such constructions, even if only to some minor degree, but how it is present is exactly the problem (cf. chap. 1 above).41 These sorts of approaches consistently privilege the New Testament at the expense of the Old, and as such they simply will not contribute to the long-term health and survival of the language that is the Old Testament. Quite to the contrary, in the process they will (inadvertently) end up contributing directly to the demise of the New Testament as well, since if the Old Testament dies, the New is not far behind. Though space precludes a full discussion, I think the same judgment holds true for those approaches to the Bible that are overly Christocentric, which is to say, Christomonic. Orthodox Christianity, after all, is robustly trinitarian.42 Or, to cite that thoroughly Christocentric theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once more: “In my opinion it is not Christian to want to take our thoughts and feelings too quickly and too directly from the New Testament.”43
And yet, even with these important cautions registered, it remains true that many Christians know (or think they know) their New Testaments better than their Old Testaments. This can be a useful starting point from which to build a robust full-canon fluency, if that strategy is intentionally adopted. If it is, those tasked with the language instruction of a community of faith will want to repeatedly hold the two Testaments together, consistently cross-reference them one with the other, constantly show how the New relies on the Old, and so on and so forth, as a way to expand a greatly reduced biblical vocabulary to a far more fulsome and ultimately fluent one. There is, after all, always hope for a pidgin, even a New Testament one, as long as language teachers know the full language and are intent on getting their students there.
By “bothness” I intend at least one further meaning: the full language of Scripture will not tolerate reductionism of whatever sort, especially along the lines found in (re)pidginization and (de)creolization. As I mentioned in chapter 5, if “Dick and Jane ran” is an utterly simplistic sentence, so also is “God is love” or “God is good,” especially when adding “all the time.”44 Such pithy reductions may at times be necessary to communicate certain truths, particularly at certain stages in basic language instruction, but they are not sufficient and certainly not for long. If they were, we would have a small collection of three-word sentences rather than the thick, complicated, often horrifically opaque two-Testamented (!) canon of Holy Scripture.45
The best interpreters (language users) of Scripture are able to capture such dense “bothness”—the full range of, say, God’s presentation in Scripture in both wrath and mercy (not privileging one over the other).46 But this kind of “bothness” can be captured effectively even for young children or within the compass of a very short song. As an example of the former, David Helm’s Big Picture Story Bible speaks of the “hard and happy history” of Israel.47 That is exactly right, and the child may go on to learn later that “hard and happy” in that construction is actually a hendiadys. As an example of the latter, consider the following lyrics from the contemporary Christian song “You Are,” by Andrew Thomas (featuring Kawan Moore):
God is not a Muslim, nor is he a Christian
He’s bigger than an atheist, bigger than a religion.
He is world-changing, earth-shaking, hard not to hear of him,
but God is not a white man, nor is he American,
God is not a Baptist, a Methodist, a Catholic,
he’s bigger than denominations, that’s not even half of it.
Love, he is bigger than
Hate, he is bigger than . . .48
These lines, while brief, are a poetic presentation of a capacious, nonreductionist understanding of God’s “bothness.” If the lyrics make some readers uncomfortable, that may be precisely because they actively resist several kinds of pidginized reductionisms that mar and mark so much of contemporary North American Christianity, especially when it comes to the full language of the Old Testament and Christian Scripture.
The Challenge of Future Change
The recommendations offered above for saving the Old Testament can basically be boiled down to the first suggestion, which is why it headed the list and why I indicated that it was so basic and fundamental, if not also so self-evident and obvious. The key insight for saving the language that is the Old Testament, and maybe the only hope for its continued existence, is regular and repeated use of the Old Testament. This should involve not only practice in the language but also cultivation of language practices, which includes the fact that the language must be performed and enacted. It is clear that the survival of the Old Testament depends on the presence of fluent speakers, who are expert in the full language in all its complexity, irregularity, and nuance. It is equally clear that the survival of the Old Testament depends on such speakers’ incessant teaching of this language to the next generation, whatever their biological age. Each of these points was on display in a remarkable way in Deuteronomy (chap. 8) along with another crucial factor that must not be neglected: real languages change through the course of time and repeated use (see also chaps. 1 and 3). It is necessary to return to the subject of language change at the end of my recommendations since it, too, is a rather important matter that deserves careful consideration. Three points must be stressed.
First and foremost, one must always remember that real, living, vibrant languages do in fact change. Living languages are languages that are spoken and practiced, which means they are spoken and practiced diachronically, and the passage of time involves linguistic change by necessity and as a matter of course. Old English is not the same as Middle English, which is not the same as modern English, let alone the various idiomatic vernaculars, peppered with slang, loanwords, dialectical differences and the like, running from New Jersey to Southern California.49 The language that is the Old Testament (or Christian Scripture) is no different on this point.50 That is why, already in chapter 1, I warned against any simplistic notion of a “pure” Old Testament language that could be easily (re)acquired and/or (re)appropriated. The oddity of enacting the language of the Bible as if it hasn’t changed in two thousand years, give or take a millennium, is what lends books like The Year of Living Biblically their humor and what fuels the disdain of the New Atheists and other critics of all things biblical. But again, real languages do change. This is why, in the Christian canon, we have not only the Old Testament but also the New and why Christian theology has not only Holy Scripture but also creeds and councils and so forth—up to and including present-day performances of Scripture.51 Such things are signs of linguistic life, signs that the language is being practiced and so is not only living but also developing and changing. Languages that do not change are, by definition, dead.52 So linguistic change is automatic, something that is entirely natural and to be expected, and can be celebrated as a vibrant sign of linguistic health and life.53
Second, a very quick qualifier should be entered, however, and that is that not all linguistic change is good—not if one wants to keep speaking the same language. Here we enter into murky waters: Quite apart from more obvious instances of linguistic change caused by language contact (pidginization) and/or subsequent developments thereafter (creolization), how far can two dialects drift before they are no longer dialects of the same original tongue? There is often no clear or obvious dividing line between stages in a language’s diachronic and dialectical development, but I suggested earlier that one way to think about this issue is along the lines of speciation. When two animals can no longer interbreed and produce offspring, they are no longer considered the same species. Analogically, then, we might say that when two speakers can no longer understand each other, they no longer speak two dialects of the same language but two different languages since they now require a translator or some other sort of mediation. Old English, for example, is, for all intents and purposes (in this functional definition), a very different language than the one spoken today. Middle English is closer but still in need of translation. Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English is probably still understandable to most contemporary English speakers, but it takes some getting used to, and in more than a few cases clarifying annotations are necessary.
This means, then, that while the language that is the Old Testament (and Christian Scripture) in the course of its practice and use will and must change, caution and care must be exercised about such change lest the language suffer overmuch in the process and get lost, in one way or another, via one linguistic process or another (or several!), with the end result being the effective death of the original. In modern times, the existence of an organization like the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Israel offers this kind of service, tasked as it is with making decisions about the Modern Hebrew language that are binding on all governmental agencies.54 As seen in the section on Deuteronomy as a model of SLA (chap. 8), the nature and function of Deuteronomic repetition is another example of how a language can change but nevertheless remain in continuity with what has gone before. Moses “amends the constitution,” as it were—and indeed, must do so, for the changed circumstances of life in the land (see Deut. 12:1)—but this amendment is in recognizable continuity with what has come before, despite an unavoidable (and healthy) degree of variance.55 Or, as noted in the case of Joshua or Josiah, their versions of Deuteronomy aren’t exactly the same as Moses’s or as each other’s, but one can see, nevertheless, that what they are updating and transmitting is, despite diachronic development, still recognizable as “dialects” of Deuteronomy. Change can, will, and must happen, then, to a language that is living and in order for a language to survive, but great care must be taken to make sure the language somehow remains itself: too much is at stake if things prove otherwise (see chaps. 4–8).56 To put the matter in an idiom familiar from the New Testament, Jesus’s comment about not putting new wine into old wineskins is well known (Matt. 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37–38), but he never said anything against putting old wine into new wineskins! Luke’s version of this “parable” culminates with an intriguing but less well-known remark by Jesus that is equally instructive: “No one who drinks a well-aged wine wants new wine, but says, ‘The well-aged wine is better’” (5:39 CEB).57
Music, Memory, Poetry . . . and Children (Again)
Putting well-aged wine into new wineskins isn’t a bad description of linguistic repetition, which always traffics in repeating what is prior, earlier, or old with something different or new—a new change or addition, for example, or at the very least, a new circumstance or time frame that differs from the initial iteration. This repetition-with-updating, this old wine in new wineskins, is on display in many places in Scripture but was on display in many ways in Deuteronomy as a model of SLA (chap. 8)—a point that has proved to be very generative for the linguistic analogy I have developed here.58 As a way of concluding my discussion of recommended treatment to save the language that is the Old Testament, I’d like to return to the way Deuteronomy ends in song (see chap. 8 above). I believe this may be one of the most significant strategies of all, if only because—as Deuteronomy itself knows (and from God no less!)—music is so eminently memorable and because so much hangs on the “children” remembering.
We may begin with Deut. 31:21: “Then, when all kinds of bad things and misfortunes happen to them, this poem will witness against them, giving its testimony, because it won’t be lost from the mouths of their descendants” (CEB). The CEB’s translation of the Hebrew word שׁיר/šîr as “poem” (cf. NRSV “song”) is both reasonable and evocative. Much of the Bible’s best poetry, at least in terms of musical memory, is now forgotten in the way contemporary hymnody and the Revised Common Lectionary select and interpret, if not also excise and censor, so much of the Psalms in (or rather out of) Christian worship. This is a grave situation, given the power of music and lyric—the poetry that accompanies music and the poetry that is itself musical—to dominate our imagination and brains.59 Lyrics (and melodies) last in no small part due to their memorability, the power of their images and tunes, and the way they have a tendency to worm their way into our brains so that we can recite song lyrics we haven’t thought of for years if only the first few bars of the tune are heard, or conversely, how we can hum a tune if the right lyric is invoked.
That is precisely the kind of memory that God seeks in Deut. 31–32. The poem/song of Torah must be learned because once it is learned well, it will never be forgotten (Deut. 31:21). It will be like the tongue that returns to a sore, only in this specific case the return does not elicit pain but redemption. Even the most dread and deadly circumstances of punishment and exile—indeed, especially those moments!—can remind Israel of the song/poem of Torah, at which point that lyric kicks in and does its work, eventuating in a restored, redeemed, and praiseful people of God (see chap. 8).
Mariano Magrassi puts the matter perfectly for people of the Book today:
A proverb says, “The tongue ever turns to the aching tooth.” This is what happens in the case of popular songs, is it not? Could not the psalms, which Christians sing over and over in the assembly, rise from the lips of farmers, artisans and laborers during their work? Would this not be normal, at least for consecrated religious [people]? The texts return spontaneously to the lips of those who carry them in their heart and strive each day to fix them ever deeper. As they come to mind during the day, they are expressed in ejaculations, sometimes purely mental, sometimes formed by the lips in the language of the Bible. Often some unexpected illumination sheds new light on those words, and their meaning is seen more clearly than ever before. It is not the monotonous repetition of trite texts but the joyful discovery of a Word ever fresh and new. What solidity and vigor it brings to our whole spiritual life!60
Way back when, in Deut. 32, it was precisely this sort of enacted memory that permitted Israel to move from its insertion for judgment (“It was you who got fat, thick, stubborn!” v. 15 CEB) to its reinsertion for hope (“Their rock is not like our Rock,” v. 31 NRSV). Something new, “some unexpected illumination,” shed “new light on those words” in that transition from v. 15 to v. 31, and the same holds true, even more true, for the mother and children of 2 and 4 Maccabees. In each case, it was not “monotonous repetition of trite texts but the joyful discovery of a Word ever fresh and new.”
It is, then, a grave situation if—or rather that—so much of our biblical “lyric” is now lost from Scripture reading, sermon, and song. Equally grave is the engraving on our imaginations and brains (what Deuteronomy calls our “hearts”) of so many lyrics that are not biblical at all,61 as well as those that are only partially so: “pidgin-songs,” as it were, or “creole-tunes.”62 But if the climactic finale of Torah found in Deut. 31–32 is any clue, the Old Testament needs to be sung if it is to survive. Only lyrics that work their way deep into our memories, those that are thoroughly internalized and “written on our hearts”—keeping us up at night because we can’t get them out of our heads (cf. Deut. 6:4–9; Pss. 1:2; 42:8; 63:6; 92:2; 119:55, 148)—only this kind of language will be remembered, will come to mind when we need it most, when the chips are down.63 And it will be this kind of language that springs to our lips, that we can speak accurately, maybe automatically, even if we hear only a few bars of the instrumental accompaniment.
We need, then, new and excellent songs of Torah, songs of the Old Testament, songs about the Old Testament, songs of Scripture and about Scripture that will introduce and encapsulate, teach and remind singers of the full language of faith. And we need them as soon as possible, especially for use with children—real, chronologically young children—whose brains are plastic enough to learn a language thoroughly and deeply and who are ready, able, and willing to do so.64 So much depends upon the children!65
If the specific recommendations for saving the Old Testament boiled down to “the great commandment” of regular and repeated use, the current point adds a “second which is like it”: make such use memorable. On these two commandments hang (the survival of) all the Law and the Prophets . . . as well as the Psalms, and the Gospels and Epistles to boot. And lyric, poetry, and song are the most memorable of artistic-literary types. Memorable use need not be restricted to song, of course; the point is simply that this sort of effective use is not only recommended but required lest we lose people, especially young people, when their language facility is at its peak.66 Poor language instruction and training, practice, and use—especially at formative moments or periods (ages)—can have profoundly negative and destructive consequences.67
Let me stress once more that the survival of this language, its use and retention, is not a matter of simple information but one of formation. Learning and singing life-transforming lyrics is not just an example of practicing the language; it is an instance of formative language practice. Shannon Craigo-Snell presents an apt formulation:
We teach our children to sing “Jesus Loves Me” not as an affirmation of something they [already] know, but as a way for them to know it. We bow our heads, bend our knees, lift our arms and raise our voices, not merely to express an understanding previously gained, but in order to comprehend more fully the reality and meaning of the Word of God.68
Singing the Old Testament is thus a way for us to know it—not just to learn it but to learn from it—and a way for us to “comprehend more fully the reality and meaning of the Word of God.” In biblical language, such comprehension—such knowledge—is never solely cognitive but practiced and real, a point already underscored by the biblical language of word, which connotes both “message” and “address.”
Of course no one song, given its brevity, could possibly do justice to the whole language of Scripture.69 Then again, in some ways, that is what Deut. 32 seems to be wanting to do vis-à-vis the Torah by means of its repetition and recitation, when all these words “find” the Israelites (see Deut. 4:30; cf. 31:17, 21). But even if so, the genre of lyric poetry knows that it cannot say everything. What it says is enough, however, and what is said it says well enough. Lyric says it well because the language that it uses is beautiful, artful, and memorable. The best poetry is high art: dense and rich in imagery and nuance, as far from pidginization as one could possibly imagine. Lyric says enough because by its very terseness and economy, the poem/song requires continued speaking/singing and reflection.70 One must always come back to such an artful and evocative composition, each time finding more to sing about, think upon, and offer praise for. If these kinds of songs are learned early and deeply by children of whatever age (including novices in the language), then these lyrics will be at the ready, forming people who can speak, sing, and enact the language at exactly the right times. They will be scribes trained for the kingdom of heaven, with their scriptural thesauruses at the ready (Matt. 13:52). No language with practitioners like that would ever die out. The creation, transmission, and repetition of life-giving, life-forming, and life-transforming biblical lyrics are thus absolutely imperative.
Of course only the most gifted in the arts of the word will be able to write the poetry we must have to live our lives and die our deaths. Thankfully, it is not a matter of creating such poetry from scratch, because the language of Scripture already contains this high art if only we have tongues to learn it, ways to re-perform it, and the will to do both.
Many of the great texts of Christian faith are precisely these types of great “poems”—terse compositions that open up, yielding more the more we reflect on them, the more we recite them, the more we “sing” them. One thinks of the Ten Commandments or the Lord’s Prayer or the creeds. Nicholas Lash’s motto about the Apostles’ Creed is apropos at this point: “short words, endless learning.”71 By this he means that the words of the Apostles’ Creed are few in number (only seventy-seven in the standard Latin text) such that they can be easily memorized by any four- or five- or six-year-old, but it will take a lifetime to learn what they mean and how to live them out with any measure of faithfulness.
If “short words, endless learning” is true of the creed, “long words, even longer learning” would be a better motto when it comes to the language that is the Old Testament and Scripture as a whole. Even thorough acquaintance with something like Deuteronomy, which is always somehow there in the Old Testament, will not suffice as a replacement for the whole. As dominant as Deuteronomy is, it is ultimately just one bit—a piece of the grammar, a verbal paradigm or nominal declension, as it were—of the full language that is Scripture. And Deut. 32, as summative and important as it is, won’t suffice either. As 2 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Revelation demonstrate, the Song of Moses keeps expanding outward to encompass other texts, even as it is embodied and practiced amid different, even deadly circumstances. Such reuse with expansion is a sign that those who sing Moses’s song are fluent in the full language of Scripture, not just a chapter or two—nor even a book therein—even as it shows that they are real language users: they are not merely students of a dead language, but practitioners of a living one, even unto death.
Long words, even longer learning. But this comes as no surprise: everyone knows that acquiring a language, even one’s own native tongue, takes a long time and hard work, and it involves making countless mistakes along the way. When we are talking about a second language (L2), and that L2 is an ancient one, something like the Old Testament or Scripture as a whole, it is abundantly clear that acquisition is not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take more than reading the Bible once or twice, even if you blog about it at the same time,72 and it’s going to take more than memorizing a few verses here or there. It’s going to take a lot more, though (re)reading and memorization are essential parts of language acquisition. Formal and formative instruction, too, will be required—learning, that is, and long learning at that, which means time to soak and steep in the language and to practice it with others who are also doing their best to acquire it so as to speak it fluently.
When it comes to the language that is the Old Testament, for many people it will simply be too late. They may not have the capacity, the time, or the desire to master a new (but very old) L2. Similarly, in many Christian communities—“New Testament Churches,” for example, full of “New Testament Christians”—the Old Testament may well be dead already, too far gone to recover, almost impossible to bring back to life. And these dire situations do not yet include mention of the need to correct so much (re)pidginization or (de)creolization of the Old Testament, if such can be corrected (see chap. 7).
All of that sounds like very long and very hard work. Indeed, when we are talking about the fullness and richness of Scripture and the faith it engenders, we might well wonder if anyone but God could hope for full fluency. But the length and difficulty of the task doesn’t mean we are released from it. To reapply words from Rabbi Tarphon found in the Mishnah, “It’s not your job to finish the work, but neither are you free to walk away from it” (m. ʾAbot 2.16). Or to borrow from another rabbi, the great Hillel, one shouldn’t say, “‘When I have time, I shall study,’ for you may never have time” (m. ʾAbot 2.4).73 In other words, hard work like the acquisition of the language of Scripture shouldn’t be put off until later; one may not have such time later, let alone the proper brain plasticity.
In the specific case of the language that is the Old Testament, the task is made yet more difficult because of the specific content of this language.74 I have tried not to gloss over the very real difficulties presented by (and in) the Old Testament. These are real and must somehow be accounted for, not by ignoring them or simply pointing to the easy parts, thinking they somehow cancel out the others or at least balance them out somewhat. I hope that some of what I’ve said in previous chapters gestures toward ways that the hard parts of the whole Bible (since they live in both Testaments) might be understood, especially when seen within the language analogy. Space has prevented me from saying more, though I reiterate that the most difficult parts of the language of the Old Testament prove its complexity and antiquity if only because the most difficult and most ancient languages are the hardest to learn and have the most irregularities.75 I add that only the most dexterous language users, such as our best poets, are able to traffic in all the nooks and crannies of a language, gleaning and using what is there, at the right time and for the right purposes, in just the right, artful, and poetic ways—ways that cannot be reduced to formal logic or flat prose.76 Such poetry recalls the “tried-and-true worker” of 2 Tim. 2:15, “who doesn’t need to be ashamed” (due to ignorance in the language or lack of linguistic skill?) but “who interprets the message of truth correctly” (CEB; KJV: “rightly dividing the word of truth”) and sounds a lot like those scribes trained for the kingdom in Matt. 13.77 And that is the kind of linguistic skill needed to handle the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the zeniths and nadirs of the language that is the Old Testament, specifically, and the entirety of Christian Scripture more generally. Whenever such work is done, it is evidence of the best language use in practice.
In this book, however, I have been concerned, not with the specific difficulties offered at various points in the Old Testament, so much as with the difficulties of acquiring it as a (second) language and all that hangs on such acquisition (or its lack). I end by underlining once more how hard this work is and will be. By all accounts language learning is strenuous. First, we have to learn the alphabet and phonics so as to proceed to reading short sentences, then long ones, then paragraphs, and eventually whole books. Unfortunately, language learning doesn’t stop at accurate pronunciation or reading comprehension. Learning how to carry on a conversation will be every bit as difficult: how to use a word correctly and, subsequently, how to generate new sentences, thoughts, discourse, even how to compose poetry by using the language we have acquired. It will be very difficult work. Frustrating work. But rewarding work that will come, slowly, with time.
And, one day, we might even dream in the language of Scripture.
Listen, my people, to my teaching;
tilt your ears toward the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth with a proverb.
I’ll declare riddles from days long gone—
ones that we’ve heard and learned about,
ones that our ancestors told us.
We won’t hide them from their descendants;
we’ll tell the next generation
all about the praise due the LORD and his strength—
the wondrous works God has done.
He established a law for Jacob
and set up Instruction for Israel,
ordering our ancestors
to teach them to their children.
This is so that the next generation
and children not yet born will know these things,
and so they can rise up and tell their children
never forgetting God’s deeds,
but keeping God’s commandments—
and so that they won’t become like their ancestors:
a rebellious, stubborn generation,
a generation whose heart wasn’t set firm
and whose spirit wasn’t faithful to God.
(Ps. 78:1–8 CEB, italics added)