Open AccessReliving the past
Author(s) -
Jurie le Roux
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
hts teologiese studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2072-8050
pISSN - 0259-9422
DOI - 10.4102/hts.v71i1.3058
Subject(s) - exposition (narrative) , scholarship , narrative , literature , old testament , resistance (ecology) , hebrew , history , focus (optics) , philosophy , art , political science , law , ecology , physics , optics , biology
The awareness of the historical nature of our human existence had a profound influence on Old Testament scholarship. The historical nature of the Hebrew Bible was also realised and historical criticism was the result, but in the 20th century there was resistance against this method. This article is an attempt to emphasise the importance of historical understanding as a means of reliving the experiences of others in the present. To illustrate this we focus on the work of Eckart Otto and his exposition of the golden calf narrative in Deuteronomy 9:9–21; 10:1–5*. The importance of his work for us lies in his blending of synchrony and diachrony in the study of the book of Deuteronomy.