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so much in it is dark and incomplete, and since the reader knows that
God is a hidden God, his effort to interpret it constantly finds some–
thing new to feed upon. Doctrine and the search for enlightenment
are inextricably connected with the physical side of the narrative,
the latter being more than simple "reality"- indeed they are in con–
stant danger of losing their own reality, as very soon happened
when interpretation reached such proportions that the real vanished.
If
the text of the biblical narrative, then, is so greatly in need
of interpretation on the basis of its own content, its claim to absolute
authority forces it still further in the same direction. Far from seeking,
like Homer, merely to make us forget our own reality for a few
hours, it seeks to overcome our reality: we are to fit our own life
into its world, feel ourselves to be elements in its structure of universal
history. This becomes increasingly difficult the farther our historical
environment is removed from that of the biblical books; and if these
nevertheless maintain their claim to absolute authority, it is un–
avoidable that they must themselves be adapted through interpretative
transformation. This was for a long time comparatively easy; as late
as the European Middle Ages it was possible to represent biblical
events as ordinary phenomena of contemporary life, the methods of
interpretation themselves forming the basis for such a treatment.
But when, through too great a change in environment and through
the awakening of a critical consciousness, this becomes impossible, the
biblical claim to absolute authority is jeopardized; the method of in–
terpretation is scorned and rejected, the biblical stories become
ancient legends, and the doctrine they had contained, now cut loose
from them, becomes a disembodied image.
As a result of this claim to absolute authority, the method of
interpretation spread to other traditions than the J ewish. The
Homeric poems present a definite complex of events whose bound–
aries in space and time are clearly delimited; before it, beside it, and
after it, other complexes of events, which do not depend upon it, can
be conceived without conflict and without difficulty. The Old
Testament, on the other hand, presents universal history: it begins with
the beginning of time, with the creation of the world, and will end
with the Last Days, the fulfilment of the covenant, with which the
world will come to an end. Everything else that happens in the
world can only be conceived as an element in this complex; every-
