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Brian Metzger's avatar

Fascinating response. I have not read the book yet and so this comment is based only on your reflection without any knowledge of the source material. I became a follower of Jesus in the context of an evangelical group of churches that takes a very literal approach to the Scripture. Our hermeneutic was the kind of hermeneutic that would read your response in part two and say, "O, Gino is a liberal scholar..." I don't believe that now but there was a time that would have been how I responded to your response. My education was at an institution that would have felt very confident that "Genesis says God created them Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve..." as a sound argument from the Text against same sex relationships. So I wonder if the Hays dynasty isn't meeting a group of us evangelicals where we live with this flat or literal reading of the Text? I agree with all the alternative readings you offer and suggestions you make and holes you poke in this reading but - again, not having read the source - I wonder if they aren't simply using the common hermeneutic of many evangelicals that says, "If the Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it"? I think in that evangelical pool I used to swim in, people would be very supportive of your argument against the Hays-es but as soon as you turned the same argument to, say, a literal reading of the Flood narrative, you'd be their heretic. So I find myself agreeing with your hermeneutic for the Bible while I'm left wondering about your hermeneutic of the Hays-es. I'm looking forward to the next installment.

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Gino Curcuruto's avatar

I appreciate your input on this, Brian. As you suggest, perhaps the Hayses' were intentional in using a more literal hermeneutic to connect with the literalist who would oppose their conclusion. That thought occurred to me. However, and I could be dead wrong here, I sensed that Hays would disagree with my assessment of the literalist take. It isn't mentioned explicitly as his method. I perceived it as if the literal interpretation was the quickest way to "prove" that God changes God's mind in very profound ways. Sincerely, I was flabbergasted by this approach as it seems (like you said) to be a literal interpretation over and against a different literal interpretation. But, as you noticed in my attempt to explain this, I think there are better ways of reading these texts that do not result in God being complicity in evil or God functioning like an indecisive people-pleaser.

I appreciate you noticing that to the more fundamentalist readers my views would be considered heresy. I think that is right. Additionally, I think these same readers would (and are) claiming Hays heretical for denying the immutability of God with their literal take. I was hoping to demonstrate Hays' literal interpretation as mirror against other literal interpretations and offer a way outside those restrictions that lead us to say things about God that don't reflect the God we see in Jesus. Thanks for noticing that!

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