Progressive Revelation (1)

“Now it is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath, but both with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God, and with those who are not with us here today.  Deuteronomy 29:14-15  NASB

Not with us – Does God speak to us today?  Oh, I don’t mean, “Do you have an inner sense of divine witness?”  I mean, “Does God continue to express His divine will in the covenant community such that we have new revelation?”  This is a canon question.  Official religious teaching claims that the canon is closed.  That means God does not continue to reveal new information to us.  All that He had to say is contained in the canonized Scriptures.  We have a record of His will, not a contemporary disclosure.  Of course, for most believers this might seem irrelevant.  Typically we think of God directly communicating with us in prayer.  In some assemblies, we experience “a word from the Lord” or something similar.  But that’s not the same issue.  What we are really asking is this: “Is the canon really closed?  Did God really stop communicating through prophets?  Is the written text of the Bible the last word of God’s revelation to Man?”

Why should we care?  If we can still experience the inner voice, the feeling of the Spirit, does it really matter if the canonized Bible is the final source of God’s will for Man?  Can’t we just rely on the Spirit in the absence of a text?  Abraham didn’t have a “Bible,” why do we need one?  Of course, Abraham had direct experiences with God, so maybe he doesn’t really count here.  Here’s the real nub of the question: If the Bible is still in progress (new revelation), then how do we know that what we have in the written text is the final word?  What if it changes tomorrow?  This, by the way, is the view of the imams in Islam.  The Quran is flexible.

You might think this is just a Christian issue, but you should be aware that there are two streams of thought in Judaism.  One, like orthodox Christianity, views the canon as a closed document, not subject to any future revisions.  The other has a different approach.  Note Sommer’s comment:

Rosenzweig and Heschel emphatically articulate this approach by arguing, in keeping with many Hasidic and kabbalistic sources, that the revelation of the Torah is happening now, whenever there is someone prepared to receive it. According to Heschel, in the third volume of his masterwork Heavenly Torah: As Refracted through the Generations, this opinion has important ramifications. Because all generations were present at Sinai, we can infer that the congregation of Israel in each generation has the right to hear through its own ears, to understand the divine imperative, and to translate it into practical halakhah. If so, it is possible that later authorities sometimes have the right to change the halakhah, to mold and to adapt certain commandments of human origin (Gesetz in Rosenzweig’s terminology) so long as the authority of the divine command (Gebot) is not infringed.[1]

Does the text in Deuteronomy mean that God’s revelation continues for us today, or that the completed text given to Moses is shared with us today?  It depends on how you read it.  But for the moment, let’s assume that the more orthodox interpretation is correct; i.e., the text is closed.  That raises another issue, an important one, that we will look at tomorrow—before we can decide what we think of “canon.”

Topical Index: canon, revelation, Deuteronomy 29:14-15

[1] Benjamin Sommer, “Revelation and Religious Authority in the Sinai Traditions,” in The Believer and the Modern Study of the Bible (Academic Series Press, 2019), p. 331.