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Iconic Presence: A Marion Reading of Contesting Biblical Theophanies

Iconic Presence: A Marion Reading of Contesting Biblical Theophanies Introduction When God appears in biblical scenes, there is an attendant risk for the biblical theologian of privileging the divine characteristics on display as constitutive of who God can be said to be. What is manifestly present in narrative can be viewed as integral to who God is, to the neglect of divine Hiddenness and the elusive nature of God's freedom from human language, be they the narrator's or the biblical theologian's. There is, then, paradoxically the risk that theophany, the appearance of God, be mistaken for God, which is to say, that there is in biblical portrayals a risk of idolatry, of constraining God to human concepts. Yet, divine presence, as Samuel Terrien argued over thirty years ago, remains elusive in the Bible. In more recent years, postmodern theology has embarked on critiques of the category of presence for the divine and the limits of metaphysical language in describing it. The literature is vast and beyond the scope of the present essay. What is instructive for our purposes is the renewed analysis of divine Hiddenness as a site of revelation – not of absence, but of something more than presence. This is especially true in the writings http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Heythrop Journal Wiley

Iconic Presence: A Marion Reading of Contesting Biblical Theophanies

Walsh, Carey
The Heythrop Journal , Volume 56 (1) – Jan 1, 2015
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References (18)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2015 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered
ISSN
0018-1196
eISSN
1468-2265
DOI
10.1111/heyj.12021
Publisher site
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Abstract

Introduction When God appears in biblical scenes, there is an attendant risk for the biblical theologian of privileging the divine characteristics on display as constitutive of who God can be said to be. What is manifestly present in narrative can be viewed as integral to who God is, to the neglect of divine Hiddenness and the elusive nature of God's freedom from human language, be they the narrator's or the biblical theologian's. There is, then, paradoxically the risk that theophany, the appearance of God, be mistaken for God, which is to say, that there is in biblical portrayals a risk of idolatry, of constraining God to human concepts. Yet, divine presence, as Samuel Terrien argued over thirty years ago, remains elusive in the Bible. In more recent years, postmodern theology has embarked on critiques of the category of presence for the divine and the limits of metaphysical language in describing it. The literature is vast and beyond the scope of the present essay. What is instructive for our purposes is the renewed analysis of divine Hiddenness as a site of revelation – not of absence, but of something more than presence. This is especially true in the writings

Journal

The Heythrop Journal – Wiley

Published: Jan 1, 2015

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