Intertextuality and Dialogue

The Bible, both Jewish and Christian, is a dialogical literature. It is a compilation of many different human expressions of and responses to divine revelations over fifteen hundred years from the Bronze Age to the Greco-Roman. The Bible is also very intertextual; it is full of itself. From the earliest literary forms to the latest, earlier traditions and texts, national and international, are interwoven developing new meanings out of old ideas. Critically trained rabbis and pastors in all the major seminaries know these things about the Bible but do not always share them with their parishioners. Intense interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls has brought such critical issues out into the open, even as serious study of the Scrolls has confirmed critical readings of the Bible. How can the Scriptures of Early Judaism give rise to two such distinct religions as Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity? The Bible, one testament or two, in effect mandates dialogue between the two similar but disparate faiths if either is interested in a valid, postmodern search for truth.