was not relevant to knowing. It is, however, now clear that what one knows and sees depends upon where one stands or sits . . .
2. It follows that contexts are quite local, and the more one generalizes, the more one loses or fails to notice context. Localism means that it is impossible to voice large truth. All one can do is to voice local truth and propose that it pertains elsewhere. In fact, I should insist that all our knowing is quite local, even when we say it in a loud voice . . .
3. It follows from contextualism and localism that knowledge is inherently pluralistic, a cacophony of claims, each of which rings true to its own advocates. Indeed, pluralism is the only alternative to objectivism once the dominant center is no longer able to impose its view and to silence by force all alternative or dissenting opinion.7
1. Tracy has usefully interpreted this conviction in terms of the Bible as a “classic”; The Analogical Imagination, chapters 3–7.
2. See Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology.
3. Sobrino has shown how “the Enlightenment” as a context of interpretation can be handled in two very different ways, depending on whether one organizes the matter around Kant or Marx; The True Church and the Poor, 10–21. Obviously Kant and Marx were interested in very different notions of what may be enlightened, and the implications for interpretation lead in very different directions. This difference is illustrative of the interpretive options more generally available.
4. Habermas has shown how all knowledge is related to matters of interest, and that any imagined objectivity is likely to be an exercise in self-deception; Knowledge and Human Interests. On such presumed objectivity, see Schüssler Fiorenza, Bread Not Stone; idem, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies.
5. See the helpful statement by Dorr, Spirituality and Justice.
6. On the human person (and derivatively the human community) as a constructor of meanings, see Kegan, The Evolving Self; Schafer, Language and Insight; and Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality.
7. Brueggemann, Texts under Negotiation, 8–9.
Joshua 11
When King Jabin of Hazor heard of this, he sent to King Jobab of Madon, to the king of Shimron, to the king of Achshaph, 2and to the kings who were in the northern hill country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the lowland, and in Naphoth-dor on the west, 3to the Canaanites in the east and the west, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill country, and the Hivites under Hermon in the land of Mizpah. 4They came out, with all their troops, a great army, in number like the sand on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots. 5All these kings joined their forces, and came and camped together at the waters of Merom, to fight with Israel.
6And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will hand over all of them, slain, to Israel; you shall hamstring their horses, and burn their chariots with fire.” 7So Joshua came suddenly upon them with all his fighting force, by the waters of Merom, and fell upon them. 8And the Lord handed them over to Israel, who attacked them and chased them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim, and eastward as far as the valley of Mizpeh. They struck them down, until they had left no one remaining. 9And Joshua did to them as the Lord commanded him; he hamstrung their horses, and burned their chariots with fire.
10Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and struck its king down with the sword. Before that time Hazor was the head of all those kingdoms. 11And they put to the sword all who were in it, utterly destroying them; there was no one left who breathed, and he burned Hazor with fire. 12And all the towns of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua took, and struck them with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded. 13But Israel burned none of the towns that stood on mounds except Hazor, which Joshua did burn. 14All the spoil of these towns, and the livestock, the Israelites took for their booty; but all the people they struck down with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed. 15As the Lord had commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses.
16So Joshua took all that land: the hill country and all the Negeb and all the land of Goshen and the lowland and the Arabah and the hill country of Israel and its lowland, 17from Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir, as far as Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon. He took all their kings, struck them down, and put them to death. 18Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. 19There was not a town that made peace with the Israelites, except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all were taken in battle. 20For it was the Lord’s doing to harden their hearts so that they would come against Israel in battle, in order that they might be utterly destroyed, and might receive no mercy, but be exterminated, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
21At that time Joshua came and wiped out the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debit, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their towns. 22None of the Anakim was left in the land of the Israelites; some remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod. 23So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses; and Johua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribabl allotments. And the land had rest from war.
1 Revelation, Interpretation, and Method
Two methods of Scripture interpretation that emerged in the late twentieth century are important for the relation between revelation and interpretation. I want to consider both of these methods in relation to the revelatory character of the text.
The first of these methods is sociology—or more broadly, social-scientific criticism: this includes especially macrosociology and cultural anthropology.1 It has become apparent that much historical-critical study has focused on the question of facticity to so large an extent that it has bracketed out questions of social process, social interest, and social possibility. A number of studies have made use of tools of social analysis to ask about the social intention and social function of a text in relation to the community and the situation upon which the text impinges.2 Among the more important of these studies are:
• Norman K. Gottwald on the early period,3
• James W. Flanagan on David,4
• Robert R. Wilson and Thomas W. Overholt on the prophets,5
• Paul D. Hanson on the later exilic and post-exilic periods,6
• Jon L. Berquist on the Persian era,7
