I totally forgot that the prodigal son faced a famine (Lk 15:14).
The best part of this book IMO is Kuhn’s point (extracted from the work of Mark Powell) that Russian readers of the parable tend to notice the famine more and thus explain the parable as God’s gift of salvation to ppl in their time of need (as opposed to God’s mercy graciously bestowed on un-filial assholes who hate their parents and prefer them dead to get inheritance $$).
Some Tanzanian seminary students (for whom hospitality is a major virtue), however, focused on the fact that nobody gave the fella anything to eat (vs 16)!
That was cool. The whole polyvalence thinggy, the fact that diff ppl from diff cultures will notice and prioritize diff things in the Bible.
Kuhn’s thesis is that we need to move away from what he calls the monological approach (dogmatic, only-one-answer, God does only speaking, etc.) to theology towards more dialogical vibes (conversation, back-and-forth, God listens, etc).
Kuhn says the Bible isn’t just about God ‘dictating’ dogmas to ppl; it’s also about everyone discussing, conversing, even arguing with each other and God about what’s right, what’s wise, the way forward, etc.
Key examples given include:
1 — the anti-jewish spouses and kids bias in Ezra and Nehemiah which was countered(?) in Ruth, Malachi, Isaiah and even maybe Jonah.
2 — the Jerusalem conference in Acts where the early Christians were debating about whether non-Jewish Christians needed to follow all the Jewish laws
3 — the fact of changing and evolving OT laws between Exodus and Deuteronomy, not to mention Jesus himself ‘upgrading’ (or shall we say ‘correcting’? gasp!) the OT
Kuhn notes too that the OT presents God as changing His mind (yes he’s pro open theism, yay) so maybe we imperfect humans should show some flexibility too; even God adjusts His thinking and approaches based on circumstances and how people behave/react (which is what relationships are all about mah, right?) so let’s not be hard-asses ourselves too?
Kuhn also highlights the thorny issues of homosexuality, women leaders in church, and slavery to argue that dialogue is necessary given some irreducible ambiguities. We don’t do nobody any favours by being hard-asses on certain sensitive topics.
We need to be open to how others read the Scriptures without, of course, abandoning some core truths or narratives.
