‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the thirty-fifth of the fifty emails.
Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
John 19:28-30
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Colossians 1:19-20
We anticipate the dawn of a new day in the resurrection, but, for the moment at least, we pause at Good Friday. And pause we must, for the biblical story makes no sense without this. And as we pause, we join with Christians around the globe and through the ages who have confessed the centrality of Christ’s work on the cross, for our faith makes no sense without this.
The cross, of course, is where the gospels – and Jesus – have been heading since the start. As he does so, he takes on the role of the servant spoken of in Isaiah 53, suffering and dying on behalf of others. That it happens at Passover time gives his death an ‘exodus’ flavour, as Jesus brings about a new release for the people of God, inaugurating a new covenant in his body and blood – for the forgiveness of sins.
The predicament of human beings, so apparent in the biblical story – rebellion against God and the judgment it deserves – are dealt with at the cross, interpreted in the early church as a demonstration of God’s love, as a victory over the powers of darkness, as a sacrifice of one in the place of others which makes forgiveness possible, which brings about reconciliation with God and with each other, and more besides.
The work of the cross is applied personally, though not privately, for it is the place where the wisdom and power of God are demonstrated to the world. And Paul makes clear the comprehensive nature of what has been accomplished – not just on our behalf, but on behalf of the whole of creation. Jesus’ death is God’s chosen means of restoring ‘all things’, liberating men and women – and creation itself – from sin and bondage, with the guarantee that one day evil will be removed completely.
So the cross stands not just at the peak of the gospels but at the climax of the entire history of salvation. Everything in the biblical story leads up to and away from this point; everything is understood in the light it casts, a light extending forward to the final victory when all things will be fully restored.
Meanwhile, that light illumines our discipleship and mission as we seek to make sense of the cross and be shaped by it, knowing that we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.
For further reflection and action:
1. All four gospels devote considerable space to the death of Jesus and the events leading up to it. Not for nothing have they been called ‘passion narratives with extended introductions’. Reflect on how far you agree whether or not this is a good description of the gospels.
2. The pattern of the cross and resurrection is one of ‘suffering’ followed by ‘glory’. If Christian discipleship involves a call to follow the way of the cross, think of the moments in your life or the lives of others where this pattern has been evident.
3. How does the cross transform the ‘ordinary’ stuff of life (the ‘all things’ of Colossians 1), and how do we follow the way of the cross in the ‘ordinary’ stuff of life?
Monday, 30 November 2009
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Missional Journal 3, 6 (2009)
I receive the email version of Missional Journal, written by David G. Dunbar of Biblical Seminary.
The latest issue – 3, 6 (November 2009) – helpfully profiles two recent books…
Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, Leadership Network Publications (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
Jim Belcher, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009).
… one of which (Belcher) I’m familiar with, and which has already generated some interest in the blogosphere, the other of which has not caught my eye until now.
The book titles above are linked to the respective publishers’ websites, where pdf excerpts of the books can be downloaded.
The latest issue – 3, 6 (November 2009) – helpfully profiles two recent books…
Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, Leadership Network Publications (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
Jim Belcher, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009).
… one of which (Belcher) I’m familiar with, and which has already generated some interest in the blogosphere, the other of which has not caught my eye until now.
The book titles above are linked to the respective publishers’ websites, where pdf excerpts of the books can be downloaded.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Regent’s Reviews 1, 1 (2009)
It has just come to my attention that Regent’s Park College in Oxford recently relaunched Regent’s Reviews, an online publication of book reviews, birthed by current postgraduate students Andy Goodliff and Matthew Tennant. The book reviews are written ‘with an eye to the needs of those engaged in pastoral practice’.
The first volume (available as a pdf here) carries a special focus on recent books written by Baptists in light of the 400th celebration of Baptist beginnings.
The first volume (available as a pdf here) carries a special focus on recent books written by Baptists in light of the 400th celebration of Baptist beginnings.
Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (34/50) – His Dramatic Actions: Jesus – Dangerous Revolutionary or Maverick Showman?
‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the thirty-fourth of the fifty emails, this one written by Helen Parry.
After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, ‘Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?’… Jesus said to him… ‘so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.’
Matthew 17:24-27
What was Jesus? Dangerous revolutionary or maverick showman? Neither… Or was he both?
Dangerous revolutionaries are defined by the number of their trained followers (Jesus had twelve), their weaponry (the disciples had two swords) and their subversive rhetoric (in spite of all expectations, Jesus never advocated rebellion). Nevertheless, as those twelve became hundreds, they ‘turned the world upside down’. How? Not by violence but by the subversive power of Jesus’ teaching, and his sacrificial love.
Maverick showmen are characterised by unpredictability and an eye to their audience. Jesus constantly broke the mould of convention, wrong-footing not only his critics but sometimes also his disciples. Healing and casting out demons might have been expected from someone who was gradually revealing himself as ‘more than a prophet’. But turning water into wine? Feeding 5,000 people from five barley loaves and two fishes? Planting a four-drachma coin in the mouth of a fish?
Each of these three miracles demonstrates Jesus’ authority over the material world, his unorthodox way of paying his tax showing that he is lord even of money. The water into wine miracle is described as a sign, through which Jesus revealed his glory (John 2:11). There is thus a sense in which Jesus might be called a showman. Although seemingly impromptu, his miracles point to his identity as the Son of God.
Others of his dramatic actions, however, had nothing miraculous about them. Outraged by the antics of the money changers in the temple courts he overthrew their tables, scattering money and animals. Whether this happened on two separate occasions or on one, it was a provocative public display of his authority.
At the other end of the spectrum, we sit as flies on the wall while Jesus, their ‘Lord and Master’ stripped off and washed his disciples’ feet. And then, in the privacy of that upper room, he took bread and wine and passed them round, as lasting symbols of his body and blood.
Always one step ahead of us – this is our Lord.
Helen Parry
For further reflection and action:
1. In spite of his unpredictability, there is a coherence and consistency in Jesus’ actions. What does my behaviour reveal about me, and about the Lord I claim to follow?
2. Jesus was a colourful character – certainly not simply ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’. How is this an encouragement to us creatively to express our personalities, rather than conforming to an imagined norm of what a Christian ought to look like?
3. Looking at the contexts in which Jesus performed these actions, we see his sensitiveness to human need, and his understanding of his culture and of the human heart. Pray that you, and members of your church, may have a similar awareness of the world, and the people, around us.
After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, ‘Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?’… Jesus said to him… ‘so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.’
Matthew 17:24-27
What was Jesus? Dangerous revolutionary or maverick showman? Neither… Or was he both?
Dangerous revolutionaries are defined by the number of their trained followers (Jesus had twelve), their weaponry (the disciples had two swords) and their subversive rhetoric (in spite of all expectations, Jesus never advocated rebellion). Nevertheless, as those twelve became hundreds, they ‘turned the world upside down’. How? Not by violence but by the subversive power of Jesus’ teaching, and his sacrificial love.
Maverick showmen are characterised by unpredictability and an eye to their audience. Jesus constantly broke the mould of convention, wrong-footing not only his critics but sometimes also his disciples. Healing and casting out demons might have been expected from someone who was gradually revealing himself as ‘more than a prophet’. But turning water into wine? Feeding 5,000 people from five barley loaves and two fishes? Planting a four-drachma coin in the mouth of a fish?
Each of these three miracles demonstrates Jesus’ authority over the material world, his unorthodox way of paying his tax showing that he is lord even of money. The water into wine miracle is described as a sign, through which Jesus revealed his glory (John 2:11). There is thus a sense in which Jesus might be called a showman. Although seemingly impromptu, his miracles point to his identity as the Son of God.
Others of his dramatic actions, however, had nothing miraculous about them. Outraged by the antics of the money changers in the temple courts he overthrew their tables, scattering money and animals. Whether this happened on two separate occasions or on one, it was a provocative public display of his authority.
At the other end of the spectrum, we sit as flies on the wall while Jesus, their ‘Lord and Master’ stripped off and washed his disciples’ feet. And then, in the privacy of that upper room, he took bread and wine and passed them round, as lasting symbols of his body and blood.
Always one step ahead of us – this is our Lord.
Helen Parry
For further reflection and action:
1. In spite of his unpredictability, there is a coherence and consistency in Jesus’ actions. What does my behaviour reveal about me, and about the Lord I claim to follow?
2. Jesus was a colourful character – certainly not simply ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’. How is this an encouragement to us creatively to express our personalities, rather than conforming to an imagined norm of what a Christian ought to look like?
3. Looking at the contexts in which Jesus performed these actions, we see his sensitiveness to human need, and his understanding of his culture and of the human heart. Pray that you, and members of your church, may have a similar awareness of the world, and the people, around us.
Aspects of Theological Interpretation 8
[This is the eighth of twelve posts outlining a number of streams in the current interest in theological interpretation, paying particular attention to recent treatments. For earlier introductions to theological interpretation, see here, here, and here.]
#1 – Its uneasy relationship with historical criticism
#2 – Its disputed overlap with biblical theology
#3 – Its natural affinity with precritical interpretation
#4 – Its noteworthy exemplar in Karl Barth
#5 – Its relative comfort with multiple interpretations
#6 – Its significant emphasis on the role of the community of faith
#7 – Its contested dependence on ‘general’ hermeneutics
#8. Its careful attention to the role of the canon and typology
Although there are important historical issues related to the formation of the canon, the hermeneutical concerns are here foregrounded. As Cummins notes:
‘On the overall question of the canon, there is a general recognition that trying to trace its emergence and delineate its contours can be an instructive (if inexact) enterprise, but that in the end this is a secondary endeavour. What is of the utmost importance is that the church has received as providentially provided a sufficiently stable and cohesive body of texts which in its final form constitutes the rule or norm of Christian faith, practice and worship.’
[S.A. Cummins, ‘The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recent Contributions by Stephen E. Fowl, Christopher R. Seitz and Francis Watson’, Currents in Biblical Research 2, 2 (2004), 179-96, at 187-88. In addition, see: J.G. McConville, ‘Biblical Theology: Canon and Plain Sense’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 19, 2 (2001), 134-57; Robert W. Wall, ‘Canonical Context and Canonical Conversations’, in Joel B. Green and Max Turner (eds.), Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 165-82; David S. Yeago, ‘The Bible: The Spirit, the Church, and the Scriptures: Biblical Inspiration and Interpretation Revisited’, in James J. Buckley and David S. Yeago (eds.), Knowing the Triune God: The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 49-93, at 70-85.]
Where historical-critical approaches have generally been able to set aside confessional issues, those interested in theological interpretation acknowledge and seek to study the ways in which Scripture functions as ‘canon’ in and for faith communities.
[For a polemical exploration of canon as an ecclesiastical straitjacket exercising imperialistic control and enforcing particular ideological views, see George Aichele, The Control of Biblical Meaning: Canon as Semiotic Mechanism (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001). Aichele’s thesis that the canon ‘prevents readers from freely reading the texts of the Bible’ (12) doesn’t sit well with theological readings. Once Scriptures are said to constitute a canon, the Bible becomes a single message, where the texts refer to themselves, commenting on each other, controlling their meaning, filtering out other meanings that might conflict with the larger whole. Loveday Alexander, ‘God’s Frozen Word: Canonicity and the Dilemmas of Biblical Studies Today’, Expository Times 117, 6 (2006), 237-42 notes that the concept of canon carries authoritarian dogmatic overtones, and biblical studies has lost the skill of inhabiting the canonical text in a liberating and creative manner. More positively, note the thesis of William J. Abraham, Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), that ‘canon’ is not an epistemological criterion so much as an ecclesial means of grace. Scripture belongs to the realm of soteriology rather than epistemology, with the important entailment that readers of Scripture are to know God rather than know how to know God. Although it remains a moot point as to whether epistemology and soteriology should be played off against one another in this fashion, Abraham’s call to recover the use of Scripture for spiritual formation, as that which shapes the believing community, is consonant with the broader concerns here explored.]
Regularly associated with such approaches is a focus on the final form of the text recognised as canonical.
[See Christopher R. Seitz, ‘The Canonical Approach and Theological Interpretation’, in Craig Bartholomew, Scott Hahn, Robin Parry, Christopher Seitz, Al Wolters (eds.), Canon and Biblical Interpretation, Scripture & Hermeneutics Series Vol. 7 (Bletchley: Paternoster, 2006), 58-110, esp. 65-68, 73-76, 84-89. See also his Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets, Studies in Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), where the final form of the book of the Twelve is taken seriously as a whole work, demonstrating its capacity to build a bridge ‘from the past to the future and, in so doing, to provide generous hermeneutical guidelines on how that prophetic word encloses our times as well’ (24).]
For Christian interpreters, the status and role of the Old Testament is particularly important.
[Joel B. Green, Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 34-41; Rolf P. Knierim, ‘On the Interpretation of the Old Testament by the Church’, Ex Auditu 16 (2000), 55-76.]
Moberly thus notes:
‘Whatever the importance of attending to the scriptures of Israel in their own right, it is fundamental for the Christian faith that the God of Israel is known as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our starting-point must in some way be the contextualization of Israel’s scriptures within Christian faith.’
[R. Walter L. Moberly, ‘The Canon of the Old Testament: Some Historical and Hermeneutical Reflections from a Western Perspective’, in Ivan Z. Dimitrov, James D.G. Dunn, Ulrich Luz, and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr (eds.), Das Alte Testament als christliche Bible in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht, Wissenschaftliche untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 239-57, here 254.]
Luke 24:13-35 is illuminating in this respect (cf. John 5:39, 46-47).
[See, e.g., Karl Paul Donfried, Who Owns the Bible? Toward the Recovery of a Christian Hermeneutic, Companions to the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 2006), 21-31; Richard B. Hays, ‘Can the Gospels Teach us How to Read the Old Testament?’, Pro Ecclesia 11, 4 (2002), 402-18, esp. 415-18; R.W.L. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus, Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 45-70 (‘Christ as the Key to Scripture: The Journey to Emmaus’), revisited more recently in ‘Christ in All the Scriptures? The Challenge of Reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 1, 1 (2007), 79-100; see also D. Brent Laytham, ‘Interpretation on the Way to Emmaus: Jesus Performs His Story’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 1, 1 (2007), 101-15.]
The travellers on the road to Emmaus are not rebuked for not believing Jesus, but for not believing the prophets (24:25); and Jesus does not offer them esoteric revelation, but exposition from the Scriptures (24:27). The story of Jesus ‘needs to be set in a context beyond itself… So, as Jesus cannot be understood apart from Jewish Scripture, Jewish Scripture cannot be understood apart from Jesus; what is needed is an interpretation which relates the two – and it is this that Jesus provides (Moberly, Bible, Theology, and Faith, 51). Israel’s Scriptures ‘provide a context and a content for making sense of Jesus’ (Moberly, ‘Christ in All the Scriptures?’, 80).
Perhaps most significant in Christian reflection on the canon of Scripture is the work of Brevard S. Childs.
[See the essays in Christopher Seitz and Kathryn Greene-McCreight (eds.), Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), a diverse collection reflecting the breadth of Childs’ own engagement with Scripture.]
With the canonical approach associated with Childs comes a focus on the final form of the biblical texts, and a concern to take seriously the role of Scripture in the church and in Christian formation.
[For his interaction with recent English and German scholarship, see Brevard S. Childs, ‘The Canon in Recent Studies: Reflections on an Era’, Pro Ecclesia 14, 1 (2005), 26-45, reprinted in Bartholomew et al. (eds), Canon, 33-57. In ‘Toward Recovering Theological Exegesis’, Pro Ecclesia 6, 1 (1997), 16-26, he argues for a ‘multi-level approach to Scripture’, taking into account ‘the distinct contexts in which the text operates’ (22). See also his ‘Speech-Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation’, Scottish Journal of Theology 58, 4 (2005), 375-92, in which he argues, among other things, that Wolterstorff’s application of speech act theory does not deal adequately ‘with the function of the Christian canon which shaped the church’s traditions in such a way to provide a rule-of-faith for the theological guidance of subsequent generations of readers’ (375).]
Childs holds to the relatively independent but complementary witness of the Old and New testaments to the ‘divine reality’ of the text’s witness (articulated and worked out most fully in his Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible [London: SCM, 1992]). With more than a nod to Childs, Christopher Seitz seeks to reconnect the Testaments where they have become disconnected in Christian theology.
[Christopher R. Seitz, Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), passim. Charles J. Scalise also builds on Childs’ work: Hermeneutics as Theological Prolegomena: A Canonical Approach, Studies in American Biblical Hermeneutics 8 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1994); From Scripture to Theology: A Canonical Journey into Hermeneutics (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996). More recently, also following in Childs’ wake, Rolf Rendtorff, The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament, trans. David E. Orton, Tools for Biblical Study 7 (Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2005) focuses on the received form of the text, offers a ‘retelling’ of the Hebrew Bible (à la von Rad) before looking at its theological themes, arguing that Christians can and must interpret the Hebrew Bible on its own terms.]
It should be noted, however, that even scholars who agree on the need to take the canon into account disagree on whether the Old Testament is to be read on its own terms apart from interpreting it with reference to Christ.
[See especially Christoper R. Seitz, ‘Christological Interpretation of Texts and Trinitarian Claims to Truth: An Engagement with Francis Watson’s Text and Truth’, Scottish Journal of Theology 52, 2 (1999), 209-26, and Francis Watson, ‘The Old Testament as Christian Scripture: A Response to Professor Seitz’, Scottish Journal of Theology 52, 2 (1999), 227-32.]
This is connected with continued debates about how far christological approaches to the Old Testament should be subsumed under, or even give way, to ‘trinitarian’ approaches.
[Alan G. Padgett, ‘The Canonical Sense of Scripture: Trinitarian or Christocentric?’, Dialog 45, 1 (2006), 36-43; Brent A. Strawn, ‘And These Three Are One: A Trinitarian Critique of Christological Approaches to the Old Testament’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 31, 2 (2004), 191-210.]
Seitz follows Childs’ lead here, holding that Christian theologians should listen to the distinct voice of the Old Testament rather than begin with the New Testament and then wonder how ‘politely to work around’ the Old (‘Christological Interpretation’, 226). The church understands Jesus against the larger horizon of Old Testament expectation; the Old Testament does not simply provide background for the gospel; it is part of the fabric of the gospel itself. The Scriptures witness to God in Israel and in Christ, such that what holds the canon together is not a theological abstraction, but the God who made a covenant with Israel and who raised Jesus from the dead (Seitz, Word Without End, 8, and see 13-27, 251-62; Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001], 131-44, 177-90).
Francis Watson remains unconvinced, fearing that Seitz does not give sufficient attention to the dialectic between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The identification of the God of Israel in the Old Testament as the God of Jesus Christ in the New Testament ‘will only be apparent if, without losing their distinctiveness, the Old and New Testaments are seen to be constituted as old and new only in relation to the other and to the definitive disclosure in Jesus of the triune God that both separates them and unites them. As there is no New Testament without the Old, so there is no Old Testament without the New’ (‘Old Testament’, 228).
Finally, in relation to canon, we should note briefly the increased interest in typology and figural interpretation.
[Stephen E. Fowl, ‘Theological and Ideological Strategies of Biblical Interpretation’, in Michael J. Gorman (ed.), Scripture: An Ecumenical Introduction to the Bible and Its Interpretation (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2005), 163-75, at 171-73; Stanley D. Walters (ed.), Go Figure! Figuration in Biblical Interpretation, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2008).]
Seitz notes that ‘the term figural entails a literary dimension’ in the way that materials are related to one another, with an undergirding ‘theological conviction… that God is acting consistently and comprehensibly across time’ (Prophecy and Hermeneutics, 8). Moreover, figural reading involves a commitment to a ‘distinctive understanding of time and providence, based upon the canonical coherence of Christian Scripture’ (Prophecy and Hermeneutics, 16, worked out more fully in various essays gathered together in Figured Out).
#1 – Its uneasy relationship with historical criticism
#2 – Its disputed overlap with biblical theology
#3 – Its natural affinity with precritical interpretation
#4 – Its noteworthy exemplar in Karl Barth
#5 – Its relative comfort with multiple interpretations
#6 – Its significant emphasis on the role of the community of faith
#7 – Its contested dependence on ‘general’ hermeneutics
#8. Its careful attention to the role of the canon and typology
Although there are important historical issues related to the formation of the canon, the hermeneutical concerns are here foregrounded. As Cummins notes:
‘On the overall question of the canon, there is a general recognition that trying to trace its emergence and delineate its contours can be an instructive (if inexact) enterprise, but that in the end this is a secondary endeavour. What is of the utmost importance is that the church has received as providentially provided a sufficiently stable and cohesive body of texts which in its final form constitutes the rule or norm of Christian faith, practice and worship.’
[S.A. Cummins, ‘The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recent Contributions by Stephen E. Fowl, Christopher R. Seitz and Francis Watson’, Currents in Biblical Research 2, 2 (2004), 179-96, at 187-88. In addition, see: J.G. McConville, ‘Biblical Theology: Canon and Plain Sense’, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 19, 2 (2001), 134-57; Robert W. Wall, ‘Canonical Context and Canonical Conversations’, in Joel B. Green and Max Turner (eds.), Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 165-82; David S. Yeago, ‘The Bible: The Spirit, the Church, and the Scriptures: Biblical Inspiration and Interpretation Revisited’, in James J. Buckley and David S. Yeago (eds.), Knowing the Triune God: The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 49-93, at 70-85.]
Where historical-critical approaches have generally been able to set aside confessional issues, those interested in theological interpretation acknowledge and seek to study the ways in which Scripture functions as ‘canon’ in and for faith communities.
[For a polemical exploration of canon as an ecclesiastical straitjacket exercising imperialistic control and enforcing particular ideological views, see George Aichele, The Control of Biblical Meaning: Canon as Semiotic Mechanism (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001). Aichele’s thesis that the canon ‘prevents readers from freely reading the texts of the Bible’ (12) doesn’t sit well with theological readings. Once Scriptures are said to constitute a canon, the Bible becomes a single message, where the texts refer to themselves, commenting on each other, controlling their meaning, filtering out other meanings that might conflict with the larger whole. Loveday Alexander, ‘God’s Frozen Word: Canonicity and the Dilemmas of Biblical Studies Today’, Expository Times 117, 6 (2006), 237-42 notes that the concept of canon carries authoritarian dogmatic overtones, and biblical studies has lost the skill of inhabiting the canonical text in a liberating and creative manner. More positively, note the thesis of William J. Abraham, Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), that ‘canon’ is not an epistemological criterion so much as an ecclesial means of grace. Scripture belongs to the realm of soteriology rather than epistemology, with the important entailment that readers of Scripture are to know God rather than know how to know God. Although it remains a moot point as to whether epistemology and soteriology should be played off against one another in this fashion, Abraham’s call to recover the use of Scripture for spiritual formation, as that which shapes the believing community, is consonant with the broader concerns here explored.]
Regularly associated with such approaches is a focus on the final form of the text recognised as canonical.
[See Christopher R. Seitz, ‘The Canonical Approach and Theological Interpretation’, in Craig Bartholomew, Scott Hahn, Robin Parry, Christopher Seitz, Al Wolters (eds.), Canon and Biblical Interpretation, Scripture & Hermeneutics Series Vol. 7 (Bletchley: Paternoster, 2006), 58-110, esp. 65-68, 73-76, 84-89. See also his Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets, Studies in Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), where the final form of the book of the Twelve is taken seriously as a whole work, demonstrating its capacity to build a bridge ‘from the past to the future and, in so doing, to provide generous hermeneutical guidelines on how that prophetic word encloses our times as well’ (24).]
For Christian interpreters, the status and role of the Old Testament is particularly important.
[Joel B. Green, Seized by Truth: Reading the Bible as Scripture (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 34-41; Rolf P. Knierim, ‘On the Interpretation of the Old Testament by the Church’, Ex Auditu 16 (2000), 55-76.]
Moberly thus notes:
‘Whatever the importance of attending to the scriptures of Israel in their own right, it is fundamental for the Christian faith that the God of Israel is known as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our starting-point must in some way be the contextualization of Israel’s scriptures within Christian faith.’
[R. Walter L. Moberly, ‘The Canon of the Old Testament: Some Historical and Hermeneutical Reflections from a Western Perspective’, in Ivan Z. Dimitrov, James D.G. Dunn, Ulrich Luz, and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr (eds.), Das Alte Testament als christliche Bible in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht, Wissenschaftliche untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 239-57, here 254.]
Luke 24:13-35 is illuminating in this respect (cf. John 5:39, 46-47).
[See, e.g., Karl Paul Donfried, Who Owns the Bible? Toward the Recovery of a Christian Hermeneutic, Companions to the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 2006), 21-31; Richard B. Hays, ‘Can the Gospels Teach us How to Read the Old Testament?’, Pro Ecclesia 11, 4 (2002), 402-18, esp. 415-18; R.W.L. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus, Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 45-70 (‘Christ as the Key to Scripture: The Journey to Emmaus’), revisited more recently in ‘Christ in All the Scriptures? The Challenge of Reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 1, 1 (2007), 79-100; see also D. Brent Laytham, ‘Interpretation on the Way to Emmaus: Jesus Performs His Story’, Journal of Theological Interpretation 1, 1 (2007), 101-15.]
The travellers on the road to Emmaus are not rebuked for not believing Jesus, but for not believing the prophets (24:25); and Jesus does not offer them esoteric revelation, but exposition from the Scriptures (24:27). The story of Jesus ‘needs to be set in a context beyond itself… So, as Jesus cannot be understood apart from Jewish Scripture, Jewish Scripture cannot be understood apart from Jesus; what is needed is an interpretation which relates the two – and it is this that Jesus provides (Moberly, Bible, Theology, and Faith, 51). Israel’s Scriptures ‘provide a context and a content for making sense of Jesus’ (Moberly, ‘Christ in All the Scriptures?’, 80).
Perhaps most significant in Christian reflection on the canon of Scripture is the work of Brevard S. Childs.
[See the essays in Christopher Seitz and Kathryn Greene-McCreight (eds.), Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), a diverse collection reflecting the breadth of Childs’ own engagement with Scripture.]
With the canonical approach associated with Childs comes a focus on the final form of the biblical texts, and a concern to take seriously the role of Scripture in the church and in Christian formation.
[For his interaction with recent English and German scholarship, see Brevard S. Childs, ‘The Canon in Recent Studies: Reflections on an Era’, Pro Ecclesia 14, 1 (2005), 26-45, reprinted in Bartholomew et al. (eds), Canon, 33-57. In ‘Toward Recovering Theological Exegesis’, Pro Ecclesia 6, 1 (1997), 16-26, he argues for a ‘multi-level approach to Scripture’, taking into account ‘the distinct contexts in which the text operates’ (22). See also his ‘Speech-Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation’, Scottish Journal of Theology 58, 4 (2005), 375-92, in which he argues, among other things, that Wolterstorff’s application of speech act theory does not deal adequately ‘with the function of the Christian canon which shaped the church’s traditions in such a way to provide a rule-of-faith for the theological guidance of subsequent generations of readers’ (375).]
Childs holds to the relatively independent but complementary witness of the Old and New testaments to the ‘divine reality’ of the text’s witness (articulated and worked out most fully in his Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible [London: SCM, 1992]). With more than a nod to Childs, Christopher Seitz seeks to reconnect the Testaments where they have become disconnected in Christian theology.
[Christopher R. Seitz, Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), passim. Charles J. Scalise also builds on Childs’ work: Hermeneutics as Theological Prolegomena: A Canonical Approach, Studies in American Biblical Hermeneutics 8 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1994); From Scripture to Theology: A Canonical Journey into Hermeneutics (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996). More recently, also following in Childs’ wake, Rolf Rendtorff, The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament, trans. David E. Orton, Tools for Biblical Study 7 (Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2005) focuses on the received form of the text, offers a ‘retelling’ of the Hebrew Bible (à la von Rad) before looking at its theological themes, arguing that Christians can and must interpret the Hebrew Bible on its own terms.]
It should be noted, however, that even scholars who agree on the need to take the canon into account disagree on whether the Old Testament is to be read on its own terms apart from interpreting it with reference to Christ.
[See especially Christoper R. Seitz, ‘Christological Interpretation of Texts and Trinitarian Claims to Truth: An Engagement with Francis Watson’s Text and Truth’, Scottish Journal of Theology 52, 2 (1999), 209-26, and Francis Watson, ‘The Old Testament as Christian Scripture: A Response to Professor Seitz’, Scottish Journal of Theology 52, 2 (1999), 227-32.]
This is connected with continued debates about how far christological approaches to the Old Testament should be subsumed under, or even give way, to ‘trinitarian’ approaches.
[Alan G. Padgett, ‘The Canonical Sense of Scripture: Trinitarian or Christocentric?’, Dialog 45, 1 (2006), 36-43; Brent A. Strawn, ‘And These Three Are One: A Trinitarian Critique of Christological Approaches to the Old Testament’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 31, 2 (2004), 191-210.]
Seitz follows Childs’ lead here, holding that Christian theologians should listen to the distinct voice of the Old Testament rather than begin with the New Testament and then wonder how ‘politely to work around’ the Old (‘Christological Interpretation’, 226). The church understands Jesus against the larger horizon of Old Testament expectation; the Old Testament does not simply provide background for the gospel; it is part of the fabric of the gospel itself. The Scriptures witness to God in Israel and in Christ, such that what holds the canon together is not a theological abstraction, but the God who made a covenant with Israel and who raised Jesus from the dead (Seitz, Word Without End, 8, and see 13-27, 251-62; Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001], 131-44, 177-90).
Francis Watson remains unconvinced, fearing that Seitz does not give sufficient attention to the dialectic between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The identification of the God of Israel in the Old Testament as the God of Jesus Christ in the New Testament ‘will only be apparent if, without losing their distinctiveness, the Old and New Testaments are seen to be constituted as old and new only in relation to the other and to the definitive disclosure in Jesus of the triune God that both separates them and unites them. As there is no New Testament without the Old, so there is no Old Testament without the New’ (‘Old Testament’, 228).
Finally, in relation to canon, we should note briefly the increased interest in typology and figural interpretation.
[Stephen E. Fowl, ‘Theological and Ideological Strategies of Biblical Interpretation’, in Michael J. Gorman (ed.), Scripture: An Ecumenical Introduction to the Bible and Its Interpretation (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2005), 163-75, at 171-73; Stanley D. Walters (ed.), Go Figure! Figuration in Biblical Interpretation, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2008).]
Seitz notes that ‘the term figural entails a literary dimension’ in the way that materials are related to one another, with an undergirding ‘theological conviction… that God is acting consistently and comprehensibly across time’ (Prophecy and Hermeneutics, 8). Moreover, figural reading involves a commitment to a ‘distinctive understanding of time and providence, based upon the canonical coherence of Christian Scripture’ (Prophecy and Hermeneutics, 16, worked out more fully in various essays gathered together in Figured Out).
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Michael Horton on Christ at the Centre
Mark Galli from Christianity Today interviews Michael Horton (here) about the substance of his two recent books – Christless Christianity and The Gospel-Driven Life – the major concern being that our lives and churches be driven by the gospel.
Here are some of the lines:
‘The question is not whether we have imperatives in Scripture. The question is whether the imperatives are all we are getting, because people assume we already know the gospel – and we don’t.’
‘The gospel isn’t “Follow Jesus’ example” or “Transform your life” or “How to raise good children.” The gospel is: Jesus Christ came to save sinners – even bad parents, even lousy followers of Jesus, which we all are on our best days.’
‘In this culture, religion is all about being good, about the horizontal, about loving God and neighbor. All that is the fruit of the gospel. The gospel has nothing to do with what I do. The gospel is entirely a message about what someone else has done not only for me but also for the renewal of the whole creation.’
‘The gospel is not even my conversion experience. If somebody asks me what the gospel is, I’m not going to talk about me; I’m going to talk about Christ.’
‘The Good News is not that Jesus has made it possible for you to make him Lord and Savior. The Good News is that he has actually saved and liberated you, and that he is your Savior.’
Here are some of the lines:
‘The question is not whether we have imperatives in Scripture. The question is whether the imperatives are all we are getting, because people assume we already know the gospel – and we don’t.’
‘The gospel isn’t “Follow Jesus’ example” or “Transform your life” or “How to raise good children.” The gospel is: Jesus Christ came to save sinners – even bad parents, even lousy followers of Jesus, which we all are on our best days.’
‘In this culture, religion is all about being good, about the horizontal, about loving God and neighbor. All that is the fruit of the gospel. The gospel has nothing to do with what I do. The gospel is entirely a message about what someone else has done not only for me but also for the renewal of the whole creation.’
‘The gospel is not even my conversion experience. If somebody asks me what the gospel is, I’m not going to talk about me; I’m going to talk about Christ.’
‘The Good News is not that Jesus has made it possible for you to make him Lord and Savior. The Good News is that he has actually saved and liberated you, and that he is your Savior.’
Journal of Theological Interpretation 3, 2 (2009)
The latest edition of the Journal of Theological Interpretation arrived this morning, containing the following articles:
R.W.L. Moberly
What Is Theological Interpretation of Scripture?
Michael Allen
Exodus 3 after the Hellenization Thesis
David C. Tollerton
Reading Job as Theological Disruption for a Post-Holocaust World
Bradley C. Gregory
‘The Sennacherib Error’ in Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Commentary on the Twelve Prophets: Light from the History of Interpretation
Kit Barker
Speech Act Theory, Dual Authorship, and Canonical Hermeneutics: Making Sense of Sensus Plenior
Joshua W. Jipp
Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4: Reception History and Biblical Interpretation
Derek Cooper
Reformation Responses to Novatianism: 16th-Century Interpretations of Hebrews 6:4-6
Nathan MacDonald
Israel and the Old Testament Story in Irenaeus’s Presentation of the Rule of Faith
Darren Sarisky
Review Article: Exegesis and Participation
Michael Pasquarello III
Review Article: Back to the Future: The Promise of Recent Theological Commentary
R.W.L. Moberly
What Is Theological Interpretation of Scripture?
Michael Allen
Exodus 3 after the Hellenization Thesis
David C. Tollerton
Reading Job as Theological Disruption for a Post-Holocaust World
Bradley C. Gregory
‘The Sennacherib Error’ in Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Commentary on the Twelve Prophets: Light from the History of Interpretation
Kit Barker
Speech Act Theory, Dual Authorship, and Canonical Hermeneutics: Making Sense of Sensus Plenior
Joshua W. Jipp
Ancient, Modern, and Future Interpretations of Romans 1:3-4: Reception History and Biblical Interpretation
Derek Cooper
Reformation Responses to Novatianism: 16th-Century Interpretations of Hebrews 6:4-6
Nathan MacDonald
Israel and the Old Testament Story in Irenaeus’s Presentation of the Rule of Faith
Darren Sarisky
Review Article: Exegesis and Participation
Michael Pasquarello III
Review Article: Back to the Future: The Promise of Recent Theological Commentary
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