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Über Zinzendorfs Umgang mit der Bibel

Abstract

Zinzendorf ’s remarkably free approach to the Bible can be understood as a response to the biblical criticism of the Enlightenment on the one hand and to the biblicism of Protestant orthodoxy on the other. For him, it is the human shape of the Bible, that is, the fact that it is conditioned by history and full of contradictions, that proves its divinity. This means that using the Bible is like having constant dealings with the Saviour (“ständiger Umgang mit dem Heiland”). The criterion here is not one’s own judgment about the text, but the experience of the heart being addressed. In this respect, Zinzendorf achieved insights that are also shared by modern hermeneutics (reader response). This understanding of Scripture took practical shape in the Daily Texts (Watchwords). It is easy to show that putting the message into the form of individual sayings does not do violence to the text but is in many ways practised in the Bible itself.