RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES . VOLUME TWENTY-SIX 1 THE ELUSIVE PRESENCE B Toward a New Biblical Theology SAMUEL TERRIEN q 1817 Published in San Francisco by HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS New York, Hager&own, San Francisco, Lmdon - RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES Planned and Edited by RUTH NANDA ANSHEN 8 BOARD OF EDITORS Mircea Elia& Muhammad Zafrullah Khan Gopi Krishna John Macquarrie Karl Rahner William Richardson Paul Ricoeur Gershom Scholem Yoshinori Takevchi Michael Yanase THE ELUSIVE PRESENCE: Toward a New Biblical Theology. Copyright @ 1978 by Samuel Terrien. Religious Perspectives: Its Meaning and Purpose. Copyright @ 1978 by Ruth Nanda Anshen. Ail rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. Published simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Toron- to. FIRST EDITION Designed by Paul Quin Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Terrien, Samuel L., 191 l- The elusive presence. (Religious perspectives; v. 26) Includes index. 1. Bible-Theology. I. Title. II. Series. BS543.T37 230 78-7927 ISBN o-06-068232-9 78 79 80 81 82 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES Volumes Already Published I. The Historic Reality of Christian Culture by Christopher Dawson II. International Conflict in the Twentieth Century by Herbert Butterfield III. The Limits of Reason by George Boas IV. Nihilism by Helmut Thielicke V. The Way of Israel by James Muilenburg VI. No Absent God by Martin C. D’Arcy, S.J. VII. Islam: Its Meaning for Modern Man by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan VIII. Matter and Spirit by R. C. Zaehner IX. Morality and Beyond by Paul Tillich X. God Here and Now by Karl Barth XI. The Unity of Mankind by Augustin Cardinal Bea XII. The Heart of Man by Erich Fromm XIII. Heroes and Gods by Moses Hadas and Morton Smith XIV. The Christian Intellectual by Jaroslav Pelikan xv. Symbols and Values in Zoroastrianism by Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin XVI. Liturgy and Art by H. A. Reinhold XVII. The Symbolism of Evil by Paul Ricoeur XVIII. Philosophical Faith and Revelation by Karl Jaspers XIX. Vatican Council Zl The New Direction by Oscar Cullmann xx. In the End God by John A. T. Robinson XXI. What Is Called Thinking? by Martin Heidegger XXII. The Biological Basis of Religion and Genius by Gopi Krishna XXIII. The Secret of Yoga by Gopi Krishna XXIV. Little Prayers and Finite Experience by Paul Goodman xxv. Twentieth Century Faith by Margaret Mead XXVI. The Elusive Presence by Samuel Terrien Contents Religious Perspectives Its Meaning and Purpose by RUTH NANDA ANSHEN xiii Preface xxvii Introduction 1 1. Cultus and Faith in Biblical Research 9 Three Revolutions in Biblical Science 9 Literary Criticism 10 Form-critical Analysis 11 Traditio-historical Method 12 The Myth-and-Ritual School 14 The Story-of-Salvation School 18 Modern Techniques of New Testament Interpretation 2 1 Covenant and Presence in Biblical History 22 The Quest for a Biblical Theology 31 2. Epiphanic Visitations to the Patriarchs 63 The Patriarchal Traditions 66 Theophany and Epiphanic Visitations 68 The Call of Abraham 72 The Covenant with Abraham 76 The Strangers by the Oaks of Mamre 79 vii . VI11 CONTENTS The Test of Abraham’s Faith 81 Jacob’s Dream of the Heavenly Stairway 84 Jacob’s Fight at the Jabbok 85 3. The Sinai Theophanies 106 The Disclosure of the Name 109 The Setting 109 The Mission 112 The Meaning 113 The Covenant Theophany 119 The Elohist Proclamation of the Name 121 The Southern Vision of the Glory 131 The Name and Not the Glory 138 4. The Presence in the Temple 161 The Ark of Yahweh 162 The Ark in Mosaic Times 163 The Ark During the Conquest 165 The Ark in Jerusalem 167 The Ark and the Glory 17 1 The Tent of Meeting 175 The Tent in the Wilderness 175 The Tent in Canaan 184 The Temple of Solomon 186 The Sacrality of Zion 187 The Building of th Temple 191 The Consecration of the Temple 193 The Name or tke Glory? 197 5. The Prophetic Vision 227 From Theophany to Vision 230 Elijah’s Flight and Despair 230 The Entrance of the Cave 231 The Point of No Return 234 The Visions of the Call 236 Amos of Teqoa 237 Hosea of Benjamin 241 CONTENTS ix Isaiah of Jerusalem 246 Jeremiah of Anathoth 253 Ezekiel of Tel-Aviv 257 From Vision to Faith 262 PresmEe in Judgment 262 Epistemological Communion 263 Divine Self-Abasement 265 6. The Psalmody of Presence 278 Royal Communion 280 Presence as “The Rock” 283 Presence as “The Crown” 29 1 Presence as “The Scepter” 297 Mystical Quest 304 Guests of the Sanctuary 305 The Superfluity of Zion 3 12 Beyond Death 3 15 Presence in Absence 320 The Hidden God 321 The Haunting God 326 The Sufficient God 332 7. The Play of Wisdom 350 Daughter of God-Lover of Men 350 Wisdom Personifud 351 Elusive Wisdom 352 Wisdom’s Delight 355 The Embrace of Wisdom 358 A Masque of Revolt 361 Presence Beyond Grasp 362 Presence Beyond Time 365 Presence Beyond Honor 368 “Modest Doubt” 373 The Threat of the Unknown 374 The Theocentrtity of Lqe 375 A Modus Credendi 378 X CONTENTS 8. The Final Epiphany 390 The Day of the Sabbath 391 The Day of the Atonement 394 The Day of the Lord 401 9. Presence as the Word 410 Annunciation 411 The Angel of the Presence 4 11 The Cloud of the Presence 4 14 The Tent of the Presence 417 Transfiguration 422 The Radiance and the Light 423 Elijah with Moses 424 The Cloud and the Voice 425 Resurrection 428 The Commission of the Eleven 429 On the Way to Emmaus 431 The Road to Damascus 434 10. The Name and the Glory 448 The New Temple 449 The Temple of the Spirit 451 The Shelter and the Guard 452 The Reflection of the Glory 455 The Name and the Glory 459 The Temple of His Body 464 The Breaking of the Bread 464 The Proclamation of the Death 465 The Bread of L$e 467 Deus Absconditus atque Praesens 470 Toward a Biblical Theology 471 The Servant of the Oikoumene 475 The Elusive Presence 476 CONTENTS xi Principal Abbreviations 484 Index of Biblical References 487 Index of Authors 497 Index of Subjects 509 Other Books by Samuel Terrien The Psalms and Their Meaning for Today Job: Poet of Existence Lands of the Bible The Bible and the Church Job: Commentaire The Power to Bring Forth A religion which does not affirm that God is hidden is not true. Fere tu es Deus absconditus! BLAISE PASCAL Preface The reality of the presence of God stands at the center of biblical faith. This presence, however, is always elusive. “Verily, verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself!” The Deity of the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures escapes man’s grasp and manipu- lation, but man is aware of the presence of that Deity in such a powerful way that he finds through it a purpose in the universe; he confers upon his own existence a historical meaning; and he attunes his selfhood to an ultimate destiny. In order to examine the Hebraic theology of presence and its direct influence upon the birth of Christianity, one has to ana- lyze those biblical traditions and poems which describe the encounter of God with men. Such a study will reveal the dynam- ics of interaction between biblical cultus and biblical faith. The patriarchal legends of epiphanic visitations; the Mosaic saga of the Sinai theophany; the psalms of the cultic presence in Zion; the confessions of the prophets on their visions; the poem of Job, together with the proclamation ofJesus as Lord; the “gos- pel” of Stephen in Acts; Paul’s theology of eucharistic commu- nion; the Johannine evocation of the “encamped” Logos; the triple typology of Jesus as priest, offering, and shrine in the xxvii . xxv111 THE ELUSIVE PRESENCE epistle to the Hebrews-in brief, the literature of the Bible as a whole presupposes a faith which transcends ritual without ever dispensing with cultic celebration. The ancient Hebrews anticipated the Day of Yahweh. The early Christians celebrated the Day of the Lord. Both of them inter- preted their historical existence in the light of a theology of presence which reveals at once their affinities and their differ- ences. Moreover, the peculiarity of the biblical theology of pres- ence distinguishes the faith of both Hebrews and Christians from the cults of Near Eastern and classical antiquity. It is the distinctiveness of the Hebraic theology of presence rather than the ideology of the covenant which provides a key to under- standing the Bible. This thesis does not fully contradict recent trends in Old and New Testament scholarship, but it seeks to correct their excesses and to go beyond their apparently spent momentum. One of the consequences of such a study might be to show that Judaism and Christianity fulfill their respective functions only to the extent that they inform the aesthetics of the mystical eye with the demands of the ethical ear. One cannot be divorced from the other. The mystical eye discerns the presence of God through the theological symbol of “glory.” The ethical ear re- sponds to the same presence through the theological symbol of “name.” When the eye and the ear are separated, the former tends to foment an ethnic, esoteric, sectarian, and even racial exclusivism which promotes a static religion and a “closed” morality.