Page 1 - Pemahaman teks Hakim-hakim 6-8

THE CHARACTER OF GOD IN JUDGES 6-8:
THE GIDEON NARRATIVE AS THEOLOGICAL AND
MORAL RESOURCE

L. JULIANA M. CLAASSENS
Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542

In recent years, there has been a growing realization of the value of
narratives in shaping moral behavior. In reference to this situation, Bruce
Birch and Larry Rasmussen critique the fact that only portions of Scripture
that address ethical concerns directly, such as the Decalogue or law codes,
have been used in ethical reflection. Birch and Rasmussen are of the opin-
ion that a wide variety of biblical material witnesses, including narratives,
have the potential to serve as moral resources.2 However, in ethical treat-
ments of biblical narratives, the notion of a "canon in a canon" is all too
true. Accordingly, the Judges narratives are not always thought of as being
theological or ethical resources. A good example of this is Birch's com-
ment in his book on Old Testament ethics, Let Justice Roll Down:
'
The book of Judges gives us stories of crisis and heroes, interpreted
for us by a historian's framework of apostasy and deliverance-a
way of understanding the difficult period of triumphs and tragedies.
Space considerations do not allow a detailed treatment of all these
narratives and their diverse themes.3 3

'Stanley Hauerwas, in particular, has done much in raising an awareness of the role
narratives play in moral formation. Cf. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian
Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983); A Community of Character:
Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1981).
2Bruce C. Birch and Larry Rasmussen, Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), 161.
3Bruce C. Birch, Let Justice Roll Down: The Old Testament, Ethics and Christian
Life (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1991), 183. In-depth treatments of the Judges
narratives by Klein and Webb do justice to the literary poetics of the narrative, but neither
systematically handle the theology nor the ethics of these narratives (Lillian R. Klein, The
Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges [Sheffield: The Almond Press, 1988]; Barry
Webb, The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading [JSOTSup 46; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1987]). Neither do the theological implications of Judg 6-8 feature in the

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