READING IN THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST T&T Clark New Studies in Bonhoeffer’s Theology and Ethics Series editors Jennifer McBride Michael Mawson Philip G. Ziegler READING IN THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST A Study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Bibliology and Exegesis Joel Banman T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Joel Banman, 2021 Joel Banman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Terry Woodley Cover image © bpk / Rotraut Forberg All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-9859-9 ePDF: 978-0-5676-9860-5 eBook: 978-0-5676-9862-9 Series: T&T Clark New Studies in Bonhoeffer’s Theology and Ethics Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. For Rebekah vi CONTENTS Acknowledgements x Abbreviations xi Chapter 1 BONHOEFFER AS A SCRIPTURAL THEOLOGIAN 1 Bonhoeffer and the Bible 3 On bibliology 5 Summary of chapters 8 Part I BIBLIOLOGY Chapter 2 THEOLOGIAN OF GOD’S WORD 15 The Barthian challenge to liberal theology 16 Bonhoeffer and the dialectical movement 20 Bonhoeffer’s early bibliology 26 Conclusion 31 Chapter 3 REVELATION AS CHRISTUS PRAESENS 33 Revelation as the ground of ecclesiology 33 Ecclesiology as the ground of epistemology 38 The Bible in Bonhoeffer’s academic theology 45 An occasionalist bibliology 48 Chapter 4 THE PRESENT LOGOS 53 Bonhoeffer’s Christological revision 55 The transcendent Christ 56 The present Christ 58 The whole Christ 60 Bonhoeffer’s theology of the word 63 Intelligibility 64 Embodiment 65 Spirit 67 Conclusion 69 viii Contents Chapter 5 THE WORD’S COMING TO WORD 71 The present Christ as the word of proclamation 71 The present Christ as the word of Scripture 76 Scripture as witness and word 83 The exegetical ‘who’ question 86 Part II EXEGESIS Chapter 6 PRAYING THE PSALMS 93 Whose prayers are they anyway? 94 Psalm 42 as the prayer of the church 100 Praying Psalm 90 with the saints 102 Psalm 58 as the prayer of Christ 106 Conclusion 108 Chapter 7 MEDITATING ON THE WORD 111 Praying Psalm 119 112 The ‘way’ of God’s word 112 Learning to love God’s law 113 Praying with the psalmist 115 Meditation vs exegesis 117 Silence and speech 118 Solitude and community 119 Stillness and action 121 The transforming presence of Christ 123 Conclusion 126 Chapter 8 READING IN THE PRESENT TENSE 127 The reconstruction of Jerusalem 128 Baumgärtel’s critique 132 The present-tense character of revelation 135 Reading out of context 139 Conclusion 145 Chapter 9 THE CALL OF THE PRESENT LORD 149 Discipleship and revelation 150 The Sermon on the Mount 154 The cruciform shape of discipleship 157 The church and discipleship 161 Conclusion 163 Contents ix Chapter 10 DOING THE TRUTH 165 Revelation, reality and good 166 The path according to Scripture 172 The place of Scripture in Ethics 176 ‘God’s Love and the Disintegration of the World’ 177 ‘Natural Life’ 181 Conclusion 183 Chapter 11 THE WORD FOR OTHERS 185 Revelation in a religionless age 185 Bonhoeffer and the Bible in prison 190 Polyphonic exegesis 196 Chapter 12 CONCLUSION 201 Reading in the presence of Christ 201 What is Scripture? 203 What does God do with Scripture? 204 What should we do with Scripture? 205 Reading Scripture with Bonhoeffer 208 A sacramental reading of Scripture 208 A creedal reading of Scripture 209 A narrative reading of Scripture 212 Conclusion 215 Bibliography 217 Index 225