"Blasise Pascal, a famous French writer of the seventeenth century, once observed that the God of the Bible is "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," not the God of the philosophers and the sages. This is true in the sense that biblical faith, to the bewilderment of many philosophers, is fundamentally historical in character. It is concerned with events and historical relationships, not abstract values and ideas existing in a timeless realm. The God of of Israel is known in history-a particular history-through his relations with Abraham Isaac, and Jacob. The attempt to reason away the essential historical content of biblical faith, is like paraphrasing poetry. Something called an "idea content" remains, but everything that gave power and significance to the original is gone..." (Understanding the Old Test. by Bernhard Anderson professor of Old T. at Yale.) |