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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
The question arises, because Christian tradition has always assumed that these chapters are as historical as any of the historical books of the bible. For most of its course tradition has assumed this in a rather naive, quasi-fundamentalist way. The naivety of fundamentalism or literalism, is no longer intellectually possible in the light of modem historical, archaeological, palaeontological and literary criticism. But does this formidable array of criticism compel us to abandon the traditional assumption altogether?
I think not. Theologically we are still committed, not merely by the decisions of the Roman Biblical Commission, of which the latest (that I know of) and most genial is the letter to Cardinal Suhard of Paris, 16th Jan. 1948, but by the whole weight of theological tradition and the most up-to-date biblical hermeneutics (e.g. that of von Rad), to maintaining that these chapters are historical in some way or another: but it will be in a very peculiar way which the modern professional historian will not easily recognise as historical.
Rahner makes a distinction between historical in form and historical in content. It is a useful distinction to start from. To illustrate: a narrative which is historical in content but not in form would be Nathan’s parable to David, 2 Sam. 12. Its content in fact describes what David had done, but in form it was a kind of parable. It was history disguised as fiction. A narrative that is historical in form but not in content would be something like a historical novel—fiction disguised as history.
1 ‘Monogenism and the Scriptures’, Theological Investigations I, p. 23, n. 1.
2 A prose epic about the great Zulu king, written in Sesotho about 1900. It was translated into English about 1925. It could be compared, I suppose, to Beowulf, or the Arthurian legend, at least in the kind of relation it bears to history.
This article reproduces some notes I gave to theology students at St Augustine's Seminary in Lesotho.
3 Ancient Near Eastern Texts, ed. J. B. Pritchard, p. 265. It is worth noting that Pritchard classifies the text as historical.
4 ibid: p. 60f.
5 I do not pretend to be accurately reproducing the Archbishop's chronological conclusion. I am only interested in it as a type, and so I am already beginning to submit it to the legend or saga treatment.
6 The assumption of faith in the inspiration of scripture.
7 Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 93ff.
8 Tales from the Basotho, by Minnie Postma; tr, from the Africaans by S. McDermid; University of Texas Press, Austin and London: p. 146ff.
The story of these two brothers is more like Hans Andersen's story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus than that of Romulus and Remus or Cain and Abel—except that the elder brother Masilo does kill the younger, Masilonyane.
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