Dissecting the recipe instead of feeding the family

From a footnote in Dale Ralph Davis' No Falling Words, page 167. 

Simplicity is, in my book, a plus; the more complicated an explanatory critical theory becomes, the less probability it holds of being correct, since every additional element inserts new (frequently uncheckable) variables into the problem. Multiplying the variables in a theory multiplies the uncertainty of their (all) describing the true course of events. Whether for a book or a chapter, the customary critical proposals inspire less confidence than a naive one. For chapter 22 [of Joshua], someone will hold we have a Gilgal tradition and a Shiloh tradition - these may have been in conflict originally. Of course, a Deuteronomic editor contributes his material, and a Priestly hand adds his touches - nor must we forget another post-exilic redactor (cf. the commentaries by Gray and Soggin on Joshua 22), Someone else will speculate differently. There are no controls; it is sheer guesswork. What's more, it seldom makes any difference (except to place question marks after the reliability of Scripture).

The real problem with such bloodless speculation is that, after having done it, its practitioners strangely enough do not bother to tell us what their literary monstrosity has to say to the flock of God. The problem with most commentaries of such genre is that they can in no way nourish the church in godliness. Do they provide technical help - linguistic, archaeological? Yes. But to them the Scripture is not warm. It is an artifact from the past, not an oracle from God. Nor should they wonder if the church finds all their furrow-browed, pin-the-tail-on-the-tradition-centre activity next to useless.

No Falling Words

Dale Ralph Davis in the Preface to his commentary on Joshua, No Falling Words.

My purpose has been to provide a model of what a pastor can do in biblical study if he will sweat over the Hebrew text and assume that the text as we have it was meant to be bread from God for his people. My conviction is that if one is willing to keep his Hebrew Bible before his eyes, a congregation of God’s people next to his heart, and the struggle of hermeneutics (i.e., what does this writer intend to proclaim to God’s people in his time, and how do I faithfully hold to that intention and helpfully apply that text to God’s contemporary flock?) in his mind, he will have manna to set before God’s hungering people.

Clearly, I think commentaries should be written from this conviction and after this pattern. I never felt I could expect my college or seminary students to warm to the Old Testament unless they sensed it nurturing them as they heard it taught. (Why should not the Spirit be at work in our classrooms?) But if once they felt the fire of the Old Testament text ˗ well, then, the Old Testament becomes a new book to them! Certainly, all the technical matters (linguistic, archaeological, critical) are in order; but we must bring the fragments together in an expository treatment that is not ashamed to stoop to the level of application.

 In recent years, evangelicals have made much of the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture. Rightly so. But three “i’s” is not enough. We must push the “instruct-ability” of Scripture. The apostle was surely completely sober when he wrote that the Old Testament is “profitable” (2 Tim.3:16). We must demonstrate that. If the church is to recover the Old Testament, our expositions of it must show that, without torturing or twisting, it speaks for the comfort and correction of the saints.

 I trust No Falling Words approximates such standards. The title comes from Joshua 21:43-45, the sheet anchor of the book (precisely, from v.45; see also 23:14). There were no falling words among the ancient Genesis promises; no falling words means no failing words. I trust readers will find the same ˗ that God’s promise contains no falling words, only standing ones, upon which we, too, can stand.