Tradition and the "New" Hermeneutic

As to how new it is, or what it is, I am not as sure as I ought to be, but still Im taken with a new approach to Scripture. The approach I am getting at is that assumed by those such as N.T. Wright. Here is a shallow account of it:

1. The approach seeks to think about scripture and its content in the thought forms of the Biblical writers. Of course, elevating "authorial intent" as the standard of meaning of scripture is nothing revolutionary. Yet, it seems that much of the typical (conservative evangelical) hermeneutics I have encountered end up methodologically looking for authorial intent via dialectical proof texting, wherein in we discover Paul's intent by some sot of comprehensive harmonization of his texts that pertain to some subject. In addition to this method, we end up construing the authors intent in our own modernistic concepts. However, this approach to Scripture I am considering seeks to drive deep into the author's conceptual springs from which flow his particular images, language and theology. We are looking to think in Paul's terms--be it the "two-aged" eschatology, or "mystery" as the inclusion of the Gentiles, etc.

2. This approach is thus historically/sociologically driven. No longer do we work with the "plain meaning of the text as we read it;" Instead, we seek out the "perhaps lost (partially or substantially) meaning of the text as it was meant." To accomplish this, we avail ourselves of all the modern day resources of history and sociology. Thus, in this hermeneutic, extra-Biblical texts of communities that we think the Biblical authors may have identified with, their Christian distinctives aside, are essential to the interpretive enterprise. The dead sea scrolls, targums, Jewish psuedopigrapha and apocrypha, the Septuagint--whatever can reveal the spirit of the times, these are our guide to getting into the Biblical authors' thought world, where the true meaning of the text/content of their theology lies. Since nearly much of the New testament was written by Jews (and many of the first Christians were Jews), recovering the first century Jewish mind is part of understanding what Jesus meant to these earliest Christians. Another part is understanding the (roman) world into which this theology was thrust. N.t. Wright calls this the derivation and confrontation of Biblical ideas, but that is a matter of too much detail for this post. The basic point is that, for this "new" approach, Historical sociology is the new hermeneutic key.

My trouble with all this, and thus, the reason that I write, is that this approach stands in a tension with tradition. Wright, and the wave of new testament scholars of which he is but a single part, are, in a creative and respectable away, going "back to the Bible," and with great fruitfulness. But, are they leaving their foundation in doing so? Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen in their book "The Drama of Scripture", while arguing that "the vision of God's ultimate purpose" for the world is not one wherein "Christians [are] suddenly transported out of this world to live a spiritual existence in heaven forever, quote N.T. Wright's statement, "Very often people have come to the New testament with the presumption that 'going to heaven when you die' is the implicit point of it all... They acquire that viewpoint from somewhere, but not from the new Testament." Bartholomew and Goheen go on explain just where that 'somewhere" is: "this view of the end is the result of the combination of Biblical teaching with pagan Greek philosophy in the early centuries of the church. It is especially in Augustine's early work, harmonizing Scripture with Neoplatonic philosophy."

Yet, while Wright, Bartholomew and Goheen may claim that God's ultimate purpose is to restore all of creation rather than to provide an escape from it, the seeming subtlety beneath it all is the conviction that church history basically started off on the wrong foot. As Christian became predominantly Roman-Gentile, it drifted from its homegrounds, loosing the context that grounded the intricacies and profundities of its thought. How much of our theology and interpretation is what is is because it was formed in this Greco-roman setting, rather than in its native Jewish contexts?

I think this "new" hermeneutic realizes that its conclusions may differ from those of Christian tradition. But how can this be done so comfortably?! it is as if, in the attempt to fetch fresher water, we are poisoning the well! Is there a way to keep the essentials of our tradition--, creeds, councils, basic orthodoxy, all without which we are completely lost--and yet claim that we, because of 1500 years of improper trajectory, need to significantly adjust our bearing? Can we articular this rigorously, so that we don't stand on our tradition with one foot and kick it out from under ourselves with the other? I hope so. In fact, I'd love to help. But that dang N.T. Wright has probably already stolen the idea and is now turning it into yet another book. How to proceed forward without leaving anything behind: it is a notorious struggle...