THE BOOK OF PSALMS AS THE BOOK OF CHRIST:

                          A CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO

                                       THE BOOK OF PSALMS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                          by

 

                                          Jerry Eugene Shepherd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                               A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

 

                     WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

 

                                     in Partial Fulfillment of the

                                    Requirements for the Degree

                                         Doctor of Philosophy

                                                      1995

 

                       

 

 

                        Faculty Advisor: Tremper Longman III

                        Second Faculty Reader: Peter E. Enns

                        Chairman of the Field Committee: Vern S. Poythress

                        Librarian: D. G. Hart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       To my loving wife Cheryl,

                                  and my three wonderful children,

                                      Jennifer, Joel, and Timothy

 

                        TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

CHAPTER

 

                                 PART ONE

THE HISTORY OF MESSIANIC PSALM INTERPRETATION

            AND CANONICAL INTERPRETATION . . . . . .  1

 

 1.   A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF MESSIANIC OR CHRISTOLOGICAL

       INTERPRETATION OF THE PSALMS . . . . . . . . . . . 2

 

            Apostolic Fathers to ca. AD 200

 

            The Alexandrian and Antiochene Schools

                        to ca. 500

 

                        The Alexandrian School

                        The Antiochene School

 

            Middle Ages to ca. 1500

 

            The Reformation to ca. 1600

 

                        Martin Luther John Calvin

                        Other Reformers

 

            From the Reformation to the Present

 

                        "Conservative" Exegesis to the Twentieth

                        Century

                        "Liberal" Exegesis to the Twentieth Century

                        Twentieth Century Developments

                                    The Early History of Religions School

                                    Form Criticism

                                    The Myth and Ritual School

                                    Sensus Plenior

 

                                    Neo-orthodoxy and the Biblical Theology

                                    Movement

 

2. THE CANONICAL APPROACH OF BREVARD CHILDS  . . . . . 63

 

            A Description of Childs's Approach

 

            Objections to Childs's Approach

 

                        1. The Question of Methodology

                        2. The Question of Definition

                        3. The Question of Focus

                        4. The Question of Intentionality

                        5. The Question of Canonical Plurality

                        6. The Question of Emphasis

                        7. The Question of Tradition

                        8. The Question of the Whole Canon

                        9. The Question of Confessionalism

                        10. The Question of Theology

 

            Conclusion

 

 

 3. THE CANONICAL CRITICISM OF JAMES SANDERS . . . . . . 126

 

            A Description of Sanders's Approach

 

                        The Need for Canonical Criticism

                        The Agenda and Assumptions of Canonical Criticism

                        Reconstruction of the Canonical Process

                        Differences with Childs

                        The Gains of Canonical Criticism

 

            Evaluation of Sanders's Approach

                        Evaluation of Sanders's Reconstruction

                        Evaluation of the Assumptions and Gains of

                        Canonical Criticism

 

                                     iii

 

 

            Conclusion

 

                                      PART TWO

 

           THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH . . . . . .  182

 

4.         THE CANONICAL PROCESS APPROACH OF BRUCE

            WALTKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

 

                        Assessment of Prior Interpretation

                        A New Proposal

                        Dependence on, and Distance from, Childs

                        Similarity to, but Distinction from, Sensus Plenior

                        Four Convictions

                        Four Stages

                        Issues to Be Raised in Regard to Waltke's Canonical

                        Process Approach

                        Conclusion

 

 5.        THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE OLD

            TESTAMENT: CHRIST IS THE CANON ABOVE THE CANON . . . 204

 

                        Thesis Number One:

                        Christ Is Criterion of Canon

 

                        Thesis Number Two:

                        Christ Asserts Himself as Canon by His Spirit

 

                        Thesis Number Three:

                        Christ is Lord over the Whole Canon

 

                        Thesis Number Four:

                        Christ Asserts His Authority in Covenantal Canon

 

                        Thesis Number Five:

                        Christ Has Incarnated Himself in Biblical Canon

 

                        Thesis Number Six:

                        Christ is Lord over Canonical Meaning

 

                        Thesis Number Seven:

                        Christ is Lord over the Canonical Meaning of the Old Testament

                                 iv

            Conclusion

 

6. THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE OLD

            TESTAMENT: CHRIST IS LORD OVER THE INTERPRETER  . . . 277

 

            Thesis Number Eight:

            Christ is Lord over Hermeneutical Methodology

 

            Thesis Number Nine:

            Christ is Lord over the Disclosure of Meaning

 

            Thesis Number Ten:

            Christ's Canon Is Canonical over All

            Scholarly Reconstruction

 

            Thesis Number Eleven:

            Christ's Canon Is for Christ's Church

 

            Thesis Number Twelve:

            Christ's Canon is Paradigmatically Authoritative

 

            Thesis Number Thirteen:

            Christ's Canon Is to Be Interpreted in

            the Light of Its Canonical Unity

 

            Thesis Number Fourteen:

            Christ's Canon Is a "Fuller Sense"

            Conclusion

 

                             PART THREE

        THE APPLICATION OF THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL

          APPROACH TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS. . . . . .  386

 

7. THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE SHAPE OF

   THE BOOK OF PSALMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

            The Psalms Superscriptions

            The Authorship Ascriptions

            The Historical Titles

            Earlier Psalter Collections

            Earlier Forms of the Psalter

            The Elohistic and Yahwistic Psalters

            The Five Books

                            v

            Competing Canonical Psalters?

 

            The Final Shape of the Psalter:

            Theological? Canonical? Christological?

 

                        Is there a Theological Rationale?

                        Is the Psalter's Shape Canonical?

                        Does the Psalter Have a Christological Structure?

 

 

 8. THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE PSALMS

    IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE CANON . . . . . . . . . . 453

 

            Three Lines of Evidence

 

                        Royal Interpretation of the Psalms

                        Canonical Process

                        The Intertestamental Period

 

            The Use of the Psalms in the Old Testament

           

            The "Flash Point":

            The Use of the Psalms in the New Testament

 

                        The Use of Psalm 22 in Hebrews 2:11-13

 

                                    Suggested Explanations

                                    Septuagint Influence

                                    Philonic Influence

                                    Qumran Influence

                                    Rabbinic Midrash

                                    The "Testimony Book" Hypothesis

                                    Sensus Plenior

                                    The "Redeemer" Myth

                                    Hierophany

 

            Towards a Solution

 

                        The Use of Psalm 22 in the New Testament

 

                                       vi

 

 

                        The Context of Psalm 22:23

                        New Testament Use of the Context of Isa 8:17-18

                        Linked Contexts

 

            Other Passages in Which Christ is the Psalmist

 

                        Matthew 13:35 (Psalm 78:2)

                        Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34 (Psalm 22:2)

                        Luke 23:46 (Psalm 31:6)

                        John 2:17 (Psalm 69:10)

                        John 13:18 (Psalm 41:10)

                        John 15:25 (Psalm 35:19; 69:5)

                        John 19:24 (Psalm 22:19)

                        Acts 2:25-28 (Psalm 16:8-11)

                        Romans 15:3 (Psalm 69:10)

                        Romans 15:9 (Psalm 18:50 [2 Samuel 22:50])

                        Romans 15:11 (Psalm 117:1)

                        Hebrews 10:5-7 (Psalm 40:7-9)

 

            Conclusions

 

 

 9. THREE MESSIANIC PSALMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

 

            Psalm 8

 

                        Matthew 21:16

                        Hebrews 2:6-9

 

            Psalm 41

 

                        Psalm 41 in the Context of the Book of Psalms

                           and the Old Testament

 

 

                                        vii

 

 

 

 

                        bĕliyya al

                        Intra-Psalter Connections

                        The Use of Psalm 41 in John 13

 

            Psalm 129

 

                        Psalm 129 in its Old Testament Context

                        Psalm 129 in its New Testament Context

 

            Conclusion

 

10. IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH

    FOR INTERPRETING THE BOOK OF PSALMS . . . . . . . 590

 

            The Psalms Are to Be Interpreted According

                        to the New Testament Paradigm

 

            The Psalms Are a Messianic Reservoir

 

            The Psalms Are the Skandalon of the Old Testament

 

            The Psalms Are to Be Prayed

 

            Conclusion

 

 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                          vii

                 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED

 

AB                   Anchor Bible

ALGHJ           Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des

                        hellenistischen Judentums

ANF                The Anti-Nicene Fathers

ANQ               Andover Newton Quarterly

AOAT             Alter Orient und Altes Testament

ARG                Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte

ASTI                Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute

ATR                Anglican Theological Review

AusBR            Australian Biblical Review

AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies

BA                   Biblical Archaeologist

BASOR           Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental

                        Research

BETL             Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum

                        lovaniensium

Bib                  Biblica

BibOr             Biblica et orientalia

BibRev            Bible Review

BibS(N)          Biblische Studien (Neukirchen, 1951-)

BJRL             Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of

                        Manchester

BJS                 Brown Judaic Studies

BSac               Bibliotheca Sacra

BT                   The Bible Translator

BTB                Biblical Theology Bulletin

 

                             ix

 

 

BZAW            Beihefte zur ZAW

CBC                Cambridge Bible Commentary

CBQ                Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBQMS          Catholic Biblical Quarterly--Monograph Series

CH                  Church History

CJT                 Canadian Journal of Theology

ConBNT         Coniectanea biblica, New Testament

ConBOT         Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament

CQR                Church Quarterly Review

CR                   Critical Review of Books in Religion

CRINT            Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad novum testamentum

CTM               Concordia Theological Monthly

CurTM            Currents in Theology and Mission

DJD                Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

ETL                 Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses

EvQ                 Evangelical Quarterly

ExpTim           Expository Times

FB                   Forschung zur Bibel

FBBS              Facet Books, Biblical Series

HAR                Hebrew Annual Review

HBT                Horizons in Biblical Theology

HeyJ               Heythrop Journal

HNTC             Harper's New Testament Commentaries

HTR                Harvard Theological Review

HTS                 Harvard Theological Studies

HUCA             Hebrew Union College Annual

 

                                     x

IBC                 Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and

                        Preaching

IEJ                   Israel Exploration Journal

IBS                  Irish Biblical Studies

ICC                 International Critical Commentary

IDBSup           Supplementary volume to Interpreter's Dictionary of

                        the Bible

Int                    Interpretation

JAAR              Journal of the American Academy of Religion

JBC                 Jerome Biblical Commentary

JBL                 Journal of Biblical Literature

JCS                 Journal of Cuneiform Studies

JETS               Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JHNES            John Hopkins Near Eastern Studies

JJS                  Journal of Jewish Studies

JNES               Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JQR                 Jewish Quarterly Review

JSNT               Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSOT               Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

JSOTSup         Journal for the Study of the Old Testament-

                        Supplement Series

JSS                  Journal of Semitic Studies

JTS                  Journal of Theological Studies

MNTC            Moffat New Testament Commentary

NCB                New Century Bible

Neot                Neotestamentica

NICNT            New International Commentary on the New Testament

NICOT            New International Commentary on the Old Testament

 

                                         xi

NIGTC                        The New International Greek Testament Commentary

NovT                           Novum Testamentum

NovTSup                     Novum Testamentum, Supplements

NPNF                         Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

NTS                             New Testament Studies

OBO                           Orbis biblicus et orientalis

Or                                Orientalia

OTL                            Old Testament Library

OTS                             Oudtestamentische Studiën

PTMS                         Pittsburgh (Princeton) Theological Monograph Series

PSTJ                           Perkins (School of Theology) Journal

RelS                            Religious Studies

RelSRev                     Religious Studies Review

ResQ                           Restoration Quarterly

RevExp                       Review and Expositor

RevQ                           Revue de Qumran

SBLDS                       Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SBLMS                       Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

SBLSP                        Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers

SBLSS                        Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies

SBT                             Studies in Biblical Theology

SJT                              Scottish Journal of Theology

SNTSMS                    Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

ST                                Studia Theologica

STDJ                           Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah

TBT                             The Bible Today

 

                                                  xii

TD                               Theology Digest

TDNT              Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

TDOT              Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament

TS                                Theological Studies

TToday                        Theology Today

TU                               Texte und Untersuchungen

TynBul                        Tyndale Bulletin

TZ                               Theologische Zeitschrift

USQR                         Union Seminary Quarterly Review

VC                               Vigiliae Christianae

VT                               Vetus Testamentum

VTSup                         Vetus Testamentum, Supplements

WBC                           Word Biblical Commentary

WTJ                            Westminster Theological Journal

WUNT                        Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

WW                            Word and World

ZAW                           Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZNW                           Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                             xiii

                                 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

 

            There are many to whom I must express my sincerest

appreciation for the help and support I have received during the

work on this dissertation. I wish first of all, to thank my

advisor, Dr. Tremper Longman III, for his constant

encouragement, his invaluable advice, and his friendship. My

gratitude also goes to my second reader, Dr. Peter E. Enns, for

his careful reading of the manuscript and his valuable

suggestions as to how the work could be improved. I owe a

great debt to my external reader, Dr. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., of

Princeton Theological Seminary, both for his encouragement

and for his constructive criticisms which have only helped to

make this a better work.

            I also wish to express my gratitude to the other faculty

in the Biblical Department at Westminster Theological

Seminary for all they have done to shape my thinking in the

area of hermeneutics and biblical interpretation: Dr. Richard B.

Gaffin, Jr., Dr. Moisés Silva, Dr. Vern S. Poythress, Dr. Dan

G. McCartney, and Prof. J. Alan Groves. My thanks go out as

well to Dr. Bruce K. Waltke, my initial advisor, now at Regent

College, for the original motivation to write on the Psalms

from a canonical perspective. With sadness, and yet with

 

 

 

 

                                               xiv

gratefulness, I remember the teaching, encouragement and

friendship of the late Dr. Raymond B. Dillard.

            I say thank you to Ms. Donna Conley, Registrar, for her

assistance in the final stages of the dissertation. Thank you also

to various members of the Library staff, Dr. Darryl G. Hart,

Ms. Grace Mullen, and Ms. Jane Patete for all their valuable

assistance.

            With special gratitude I acknowledge the congregations

of three churches: Peace Baptist Church in Germanton, North

Carolina; Maple Glen Bible Fellowship Church in Maple Glen,

Pennsylvania; and West Meadows Baptist Church in

Edmonton, Alberta. Without their gracious support, this

dissertation would never have been completed.

            I wish also to thank the administration, faculty, and staff

of Edmonton Baptist Seminary (and North American Baptist

College) for all they have done to enable me to complete this

dissertation while serving on their faculty. It is an honor to

work alongside these colleagues.

            My greatest debt of gratitude and love is to my dear

wife, Cheryl, for her undying love and for believing in me. She

has earned this degree as much as I have. Thank you for being

my wife and for being there when I needed you. My wonderful

children, Jennifer, Joel, and Timothy, have had to live with

"Dad's dissertation" longer than they should have. Thank you

for the constant joy you bring into my life.

 

 

                                               xv

            Finally, praise to the Lord who has revealed himself to

in canon and in his Christ.  May he be pleased to use this

work for his glory and the god of his Church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                              xvi

                                                 PREFACE

 

 

            This dissertation is an investigation into the proper

interpretation of the messianic psalms, with special reference

as to whether the current emphases on canonical analysis can

assist in that process.

            Part One investigates the history of messianic psalm

interpretation and the relatively brief history of canonical

analysis and criticism. Chapter 1 is a look at the history of the

messianic exegesis of the Psalms from after the time of the

New Testament to the present. Chapter 2 focuses entirely on

the canonical analysis of Brevard Childs, while chapter 3

examines the canonical criticism of James Sanders.

            Part Two deals with the what I have called the

Christocanonical approach to distinguish it from some

approaches that are called canonical, but, which, I will argue,

should not be considered so. Chapter 4 deals with the canonical

process approach of Bruce Waltke, who provided the original

stimulus for the topic of this dissertation. Chapter 5, then,

outlines the theses and assumptions of the Christo-canonical

approach with respect to the nature of canon. Chapter 6

outlines the theses and assumptions of the Christo-canonical

approach with respect to the nature of the interpretive

canonical task.

            Part Three applies the approach to the book of Psalms.

Chapter 7 deals with the shape of the Psalter. Chapter 8

 

                                              xvii

investigates the function of the Psalms in their canonical

context. Chapter 9 applies the findings of the two previous

chapters to three test cases, Psalms 8, 41, and 129. Finally,

chapter 10 briefly outlines some of the implications of the

Christo-canonical approach for reading and understanding the

book of Psalms.

            Throughout the dissertation the Hebrew verse

enumeration is used for the Masoretic Text of the book of

Psalms. When reference is made to the Greek text of the

Psalter, the Septuagint enumeration is used. Except for those

places where I felt it was necessary to give a more literal

translation, the New International Version (copyright 1973,

1978, 1984, International Bible Society and Zondervan Bible

Publishers), has been used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                xviii

 

 

 

 

                                        PART ONE

 

THE HISTORY OF MESSIANIC PSALM  INTERPRETATION AND

                        CANONICAL INTERPRETATION

 

 

 

 

 

                                        CHAPTER 1

 

A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF MESSIANIC OR CHRISTOLOGICAL           

                       INTERPRETATION OF THE PSALMS

 

            This survey could begin with the very writing of the

Psalms themselves, for, as I will try to show, there was a

messianic intention present from the very start. This intention

becomes increasingly clearer as the canon grows and becomes

fully developed with the revelation of Jesus Christ and the

completion of the canon of the Old and New Testaments. Also,

this survey could start with the New Testament, for it is

certainly true that the early Church Fathers saw their exegesis

as being of a piece with the apostles (though not canonical, of

course).¹ However, since that is part of the thesis I am trying to

prove, this survey will begin post-canon, that is, from the time

when the canon is complete, though not necessarily well-

defined and recognized. The survey will cover the following

broad areas: Apostolic Fathers to ca. AD 200, the Alexandrian

and Antiochene schools to ca. 500, Middle Ages to ca. 1500,

the Reformation to ca. 1600, and from the Reformation to the

present.

____________________

            ¹Glenn W. Olsen, "Allegory, Typology and Symbol: The

Sensus Spiritalis. Part Two: Early Church through Origen,"

Communio 4 (1977): 366, 371.

 

                                              2

                                                3

 

                       Apostolic Fathers to ca. AD 200

            The Old Testament exegesis of the Church in this time

period must be seen in the light of the Church's struggle with

enemies on several different fronts: the military might of the

Roman Empire, Greek philosophy, the anti-Christian polemic of

the Jews,² and heretical tendencies within the Church itself.

Use and exegesis (not necessarily Christological) of the

Psalms served to combat enemies on all these fronts. In

particular, it helped to combat Marcion's attempt to cut the

Church off from the Old Testament, an attempt which the

Fathers rightly recognized would result in cutting off the

very foundation of the Church's argument that Jesus was the

Christ.³ At the same time, it should be remembered that we

____________________

            ²I believe, however, that William L. Johnson ("Patristic

Use of the Psalms until the Late Third Century" [Ph.D. diss.,

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1982], 3) goes too far

in characterizing the whole of Psalms exegesis in this era as

being "anti-Jewish." The dissertation fails both to define "anti-

Jewish" and to distinguish various levels of opposition to the

Jews and their exegesis. An example of this is as follows (pp.

100-101): "Some anti-Jewish attitudes in the Fathers supported

by the Psalms which have already been referred to and/or

implied can now be noted in summary fashion. The Christian

affirmation of Jesus as the messiah stands as a single but

profound rejection of Judaism's insistence that the messiah was

yet to come. In accounts of his passion, the Fathers habitually

found prophecies in the Psalms which the Jews said were really

references to some Old Testament figure. The Fathers openly

and emphatically pointed out direct participation of the Jews in

the death of Jesus. The Jews were even accused of deleting

parts of the Psalms which made reference to the cross of

Jesus." The problem here is that "Christian affirmation of Jesus

as the messiah" should not be seen as "anti-Jewish" on the

same plane as the other things he mentions.

            ³Peter R. Ackroyd, "The Old Testament in the Christian

Church," Theology 66 (1963): 51. Ralph L. Smith notes that

"early Christians could continue to use the psalms because they

                                             4

 

have no extant Psalms commentaries from this time period, and

that there is no hard evidence that there was a conscious

attempt to find Christ in every psalm.⁴ The Fathers did not

always draw a straight line from a particular psalm to Christ,

nor did they always feel the need to allegorize to "search for

some hidden meaning."⁵ The earliest uses of the Psalms in the

Apostolic Fathers seem to be directed more toward motivation

to good works than for pointing either prophetically or

allegorically to Christ.

            Among the Apostolic Fathers, 1 Clement (ca. AD 95) and

Barnabas (ca. AD 100) are the only works that use the Psalms

to any significant degree.⁶ For the most part their use is

parenetic, but they engage in Christological exegesis as well.

An example from each will demonstrate this. Clement

introduces the words of Ps 34:12-20 by putting them in Christ's

mouth: "Now faith in Christ confirms all these things

____________________

reinterpreted them in the light of Christ" ("The Use and

Influence of the Psalter," Southwestern Journal of Theology 27

[1984]: 6).

            ⁴Raymond E. Brown, "Hermeneutics," JBC, ed. Raymond E.

Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, and Roland E. Murphy

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 611.

            ⁵Contra R. D. Richardson, "The Psalms as Christian Prayers

and Praises," ATR 42 (1960): 343.

            ⁶O. Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms in the Early Church,"

in Studia Patristica 4, ed. F. L. Cross, TU 79 (Berlin:

Akademie-Verlag, 1961), 146. Johnson notes that even the

Didache, which gives elaborate instructions in regard to several

of the liturgical and ritual functions of the early Church, makes

no reference to the Psalms as a part of these services, nor does

it do any prooftexting from the Psalms ("Patristic Use of the

Psalms," 161-63).

                                           5

 

for he himself through the Holy Spirit thus calls us: `Come my

children, listen to me . . ."⁷ Motivation for making Christ the

speaker of this particular psalm could come from the use of v.

21 in John 19:36; yet, interestingly, Clement stops just short of

quoting v. 21 in his rather lengthy citation.

            The author of the Epistle of Barnabas, allegorizes to point to

both baptism and the crucifixion in Psalm 1. He introduces his

quotation of Ps 1:3-6 as the words of "another prophet," and

then, after finishing the quotation, says:

            Notice how he pointed out the water and the cross together. For

            this is what he means: blessed are those who, having set their

            hope on the cross, descended into the water, because he speaks

            of the reward "in its season"; at that time, he means, I will

            repay. But for now what does he say? "The leaves will not

            wither." By this he means that every word that comes forth

            from your mouth in faith and love will bring conversion and

            hope to many.⁸

            Among the apologists there is not much use made of the

Psalms except for Justin Martyr (AD 96-166).⁹ Linton

comments on how Justin followed a well-recognized method in

order to make his Christological interpretations. The method

was (1) to over-literalize the language of a particular passage,  (2)

____________________

            ⁷1 Clem. 22. Cited in J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The

Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations of Their

Writings, 2d ed., rev. and ed. Michael W. Holmes (London:

Macmillan, 1891; 2d rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 55.

            ⁸Barn. 11. Cited in Lightfoot and Harmer, Apostolic

Fathers, 305. See also Frederic W. Farrar's comments on this

passage (History of Interpretation [E. P. Dutton, 1886; repr.,

Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961], 169-70).

            ⁹Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms in the Early Church,"

147.

                                              6

 

to show, based on the over-literalized language, how the

passage in question cannot refer to the "natural subject," (3)

then substitute, or rather, "reintroduce," the correct subject.¹⁰

For example, Justin refers Psalm 22 to Jesus, remarking that

David suffered none of the things mentioned in the psalm.¹¹

Again, in Psalm 24, Justin shows how the gates in vv. 7-10

cannot be the gates of the temple, for they are no longer

existent; they must, therefore, be the doors of heaven. The

King of glory cannot be either Solomon or Hezekiah, for they

were both well-known, and in either case, "it would be absurd

to think, that the guardians of the temple-doors should ask him,

who he was." Nor can the text refer to God, for he has always

been in heaven and has never had an occasion to enter it. "Thus

the text must concern the risen Lord, who enters heaven to sit

on the right hand of God. The scenery is not of earth but is

cosmic. It is the guardians of heaven who do not recognize

Christ in his kenosis."¹²

            Another device that Justin used was that of trying to

distinguish the person or prosopon speaking in the passage.

____________________

            ¹⁰Ibid., 144-47.

            ¹¹Justin, 1 Apol. 35.6. Quoted in Linton, "Interpretation of the

Psalms," 147.

            ¹²Linton ("Interpretation of the Psalms," 147-48) paraphrasing

Justin (Apol. 51; Dialog. 36, 85). Linton notes that this is not

far removed from the argumentation used by Peter in Acts 2

regarding Psalm 16. On other early Christian usage of Psalm

24, see Allen Cabaniss, "The Harrowing of Hell, Psalm 24, and

Pliny the Younger: A Note," VC 7 (1953): 65-74; and Alan M.

Cooper, "Ps 24:7-10: Mythology and Exegesis," JBL 102

(1983): 37-60.

                                          7

 

That is, it is important to determine whether the prophet is

speaking from himself or "out of person" (apo prosopou).

When it is according to the latter, the psalmists are speaking

"by the divine word which moves them."¹³ We will see this

again in Clement of Alexandria.

            Justin also argued with the Jews over textual matters.

Evidently, a Christian interpolation in Psalm 96:10 had added

the words "from the tree [or "cross"]" after the declaration "The

Lord reigns." Several of the Latin Fathers quote the passage

with the interpolation, even though there is only a single extant

Septuagint manuscript that has the addition. Rather than

recognize the addition as an obvious interpolation, Justin

argues with Trypho that the Jews were, in fact, the ones who

had left out the phrase."¹⁴

            Irenaeus (AD 135-202), as the father of biblical theology,

stressed the essential unity of the Old Testament and New

Testament and the normativity of New Testament exegesis of

the Old.¹⁵ The Psalms became for him a source of details

regarding Christ's earthly life. He found the virgin birth

prophesied in Ps 85:13 and the memorialization of the virgin

Mary in Ps 45:18 ("I will perpetuate your memory

 

____________________

            ¹³Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 147.

            ¹⁴Noted by Johnson ("Patristic Use of the Psalms," 39-40).

Johnson notes that Tertullian also supports the authenticity of

the phrase and ridicules the Jews for not being able to recognize

the obvious reference of the psalm to Christ.

            ¹⁵Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 149.

                                           8

 

through all generations"; cf. Luke 1:48, "From now on all

generations will call me blessed").¹⁶

            Two scholars closely related in their exegesis are Tertullian

(AD 160-220) and his great admirer Cyprian (AD 195228).

Tertullian, like others before him, found details of Christ's life

in the Psalms. Using Ps 22:10 he showed how it had been

prophesied that the Messiah would come forth from the womb

and nurse at his mother's breasts.¹⁷ Everywhere in the Psalms

he could find references to the Lord's passion, and in at least

two different places found in the Psalms conversations between

Jesus and his Father.¹⁸ Cyprian followed his master Tertullian

closely in his exegesis. Indeed, it has been suggested that the

Psalms were as important as the Gospels in forming his

Christology.¹⁹

            Three things should be noted at this point. First, as

Donald Juel notes, there is no one method of Scripture

interpretation here that takes precedence over another in

____________________

            ¹⁶Johnson, "Patristic Use of the Psalms," 32-33.

            ¹⁷Ibid., 33.

            ¹⁸Ibid., 14. Interestingly, Max Wilcox ("The Aramaic Targum

to the Psalms," in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of

Jewish Studies, ed. David Asaaf [Jerusalem: World Union of

Jewish Studies, 1986], 147) has shown how in one of his

messianic interpretations, Tertullian agrees with the Targum to

the Psalms against both the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text.

            ¹⁹Lars Olav Eriksson, "Come, Children, Listen to Me!": Psalm

34 in the Hebrew Bible and in Early Christian Writings,

ConBOT 32 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1991), 132 n. 244.

                                         9

 

seeing Christ in the Psalms.²⁰ In other words, we are not yet

talking about schools of interpretation. Second, I think it is

important to note that, while these interpretations may seem

allegorical to us, most of the Fathers we have looked at (except

perhaps for the Epistle of Barnabas) were being, at least in

their own eyes, fairly literal in their exegesis. They talked in

terms of prophecy or promise and fulfillment, rather than in

terms of some arbitrary allegorism. I am not denying that they

were allegorical, but rather, that they did not perceive

themselves to be so. And in this, they somewhat unconsciously

practiced and anticipated the exegesis that Faber Stapulensis

(Lefevre D'etaples) consciously articulated in the fifteenth

century.²¹ Third, though it may seem like the opposite may be

the case, it is impossible, as noted before, to prove that these

early Church Fathers tried to find Christ in all the psalms.

Indeed, Justin's attempt to determine the prosopon of the

Psalms seems to show that there was no all-pervasive attempt

to find Christ in "every nook and cranny." But this would

change.

 

                The Alexandrian and Antiochene Schools

                                         to ca. 500

            The contrast between Alexandrian and Antiochene exegesis

has been exaggerated. It is true, however, that the contrast

____________________

            ²⁰Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological

Interpretation in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress,

1988), 139.

            ²¹See the discussion on Faber later in this chapter.

                                        10

 

shows up most sharply in their respective exegeses of the Old

Testament and, most particularly, in the Psalms.

 

                        The Alexandrian School

 

            In opposition to the previously named Church Fathers, the

Alexandrians openly embraced Greek philosophy, thought of it

as being of divine origin, and brought its allegorizing technique

into their exegesis.²² The first prominent scholar of this school

was Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215). While his overall

approach to Old Testament exegesis was allegorical, he did not

always use it indiscriminately. For example, he used the

prosopon argument that we saw earlier in Justin Martyr to

show that Christ must be the speaker in Psalm

16. However, anticipating the concept which was later called

"corporate personality," he regards Christ as speaking not for

himself, but as the representative of the whole people of God

of all time, both Jew and Gentile.²³

            Of course, the most prominent scholar of the Alexandrian

school and, to our knowledge, the first Christian commentator

on the Psalms, though the commentary is not extant,²⁴ was

Origen (AD 185-254). There is no doubt that he engaged in

____________________

            ²²Farrar, History of Interpretation, 183-84.

            ²³Clement, Strom. 6.6, sec. 49,2-50,1. Cited in Linton,

"Interpretation of the Psalms," 150.

            24 Karen Jo Torjesen, Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological

Method in Origen's Exegesis, Patristische Texte und Studien 28

(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), 19.

                                          11

 

very fanciful and highly arbitrary allegorical exegesis.²⁵ That

he did so, however, exclusive of the historical and grammatical

sense is simply not the case. Though he did tend to relegate the

literal meaning of a passage to a place of value only for the

more simple believer, he made it clear that he thought the

literal sense was important. For example, his exegesis of Psalm

37 is very literal with no real trace of allegory.²⁶ Nor did he

necessarily try to find Christ in every psalm. In one place he

criticizes the Devil for his exegetical blunder in trying to apply

Ps 91:11-12 to Christ. Satan should have known that the

phrase, "He will command his angels concerning you, to guard

you in all your ways," could not be applicable to Christ, for

certainly Christ has no need of protection from angels.²⁷ It

must be admitted, as Linton has pointed out, that this is

certainly not part of any program on Origen's part to delimit

the Christological interpretation of the Psalms.²⁸ We should,

however, notice two things in this example. First, here is at least one

place in the Psalms where Christ is not to be found. Second, he is not

____________________

            ²⁵For a study of Origen's allegorical exegesis, see R. P. C.

Hanson, Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and

Significance of Origen's Interpretation of Scripture (London:

SCM, 1959).

            ²⁶Torjeson, Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological Method

in Origen's Exegesis, 23.

            ²⁷Origen, Homily on Luke, 31. Cited in Linton, "Interpretation

of the Psalms," 150-51.

            ²⁸Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 150-51.

                                             12

 

to be found there because, for Origen, the literal meaning

would not allow it. In fact, Origen seems to be using the

method we saw earlier in Justin Martyr's exaggeration of the

literal meaning, demonstration of how the literal meaning

cannot apply to the assumed subject (Christ), and substitution

(or "reintroduction") of the proper subject, in this case, any

righteous and faithful person in general.²⁹

            Eusebius of Caesarea (AD 260-340), while not necessarily a

full-blown Alexandrian in his exegesis, engaged in allegorizing

of the Origenistic type. In commenting on Ps

110:7 ("He will drink from a brook beside the way; therefore

he will lift up his head."), he combined Ps 123:4; Matt 26:4;

Phil 2:8; and Eph 1:20, and argued that the brook referred to

the Lord's temptations and cross (the "cup" he drank being the

brook) and his subsequent exaltation from the Father ("lifting

up his head").³⁰

            Yet, Eusebius did not find Christ in all the psalms either or

think that the ego of the psalms always had to be Christ. Part of

his reasoning was that there are confessions of sin in many of

the psalms, and these confessions cannot be seen as Christ's,

but are rather to be seen as the confessions

____________________

            ²⁹Origen also used the prosopon argument we saw in both

Justin and Clement; see R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and Event, 197-

98.

            ³⁰Moisés Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible?: The

History of Interpretation in the Light of Current Issues,

Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation 1 (Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, Academie), 69, citing D. S. Wallace-Hadrill,

Eusebius of Caesarea (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1960), 93.

                                      13

 

of the pious who become convicted of their sins. Eusebius is

not always consistent with this line, however. For example, Ps

41:5 has a confession of sin, but v. 10 was cited by Christ in

reference to Judas in John 13:18. In this instance, Eusebius

makes Christ a confessor of sins on our account, on the

principle that the "I" of any psalm must be the same

throughout. The "I" of the psalms is not the same in every

psalm, but once it is established who the "I" is (in this case,

Christ), that person must be the "I" throughout the whole.³¹

            The effects of Alexandrian exegesis can be seen in many

others in the next three centuries, whether they should actually be

thought of as being in the Alexandrian "school" or not, but still

with varying views as to the pervasiveness of Christ's presence

in the Psalter. In the fourth century, Hilary of Poitiers (d. AD

368) argues that Christ is the key to the true knowledge of the

book of Psalms, suggesting that this is what is meant in Rev

3:7 when Christ says that he holds the key of David (David here

being not the person, but the Psalter which he was considered as

having authored).³² Ambrose (AD 339-97), who had such a profound

effect on Augustine, said that "the Psalter is the voice of the

____________________

            ³¹Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 151-52, citing

Eusebius, Demonstration evangelica 10.1, 18, 23.

            ³²A. K. Squire, "Adam's Song in a Commentary of Hilary of

Poitiers," in Studia Patristica 17/1, ed. Elizabeth Livingstone

(Oxford: Pergamon, 1982), 339.

                                          14

 

Church."³³ Jerome, before turning away from Origenistic

allegory, would try to distinguish from the psalm

superscriptions whether Christ or some other was the speaker,

and would even within individual psalms assign one verse to

David, the next to Christ, the next to another, the next to the

individual Christian, the next to the whole Church, and back

and forth.³⁴ Commentators would take care to investigate

whether individual psalms were spoken vox Christi (by Christ),

vox ad Christum (to or about Christ), or both.³⁵ The Songs of

Ascents were turned into songs about Christians ascending to

the heavenly city.³⁶ Jerusalem, Mt. Zion, and the Temple all

became symbols for the Church; in particular, Jerusalem

represented the Church triumphant, and Zion, the Church

militant.³⁷

____________________

            ³³Henry de Candole, The Christian Use of the Psalms

(London: A. R. Mowbray, 1958), 39.

            ³⁴Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 154-55; W. F.

Ewbank, "The Spiritual Interpretation of the Psalter," CQR 165

(1964): 429-36; G. W. H. Lampe, "To Gregory the Great,"

Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West from the

Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1969), 177.

            ³⁵Klaus Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, trans. R. Graeme

Dunphy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990), 220. Massey H.

Shepherd, Jr. notes that these distinctions also became part of

the Church's liturgy (The Psalms in Israel's Worship

[Collegeville , MN: Liturgical, 1976], 35).

            ³⁶F. Hockey, "Cantica Graduum: The Gradual Psalms in

Patristic Tradition," in Studia Patristica 10, ed. F. L. Cross, TU

107 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970), 356.

            ³⁷John M. Neale and Richard F. Littledale, A Commentary on

the Psalms from Primitive and Medieval Writers, 4th ed.

(London: Joseph Masters, n.d.; repr., New York: AMS, 1976), 1.449-50.

                                         15

 

            Though he is not strictly an Origenist, this is the best place

to discuss the Psalms exegesis of Augustine (AD 354-430), whose

exegesis, though not necessarily his theology, dominated the

hermeneutical course of the Middle Ages. A stumbling-block

preventing Augustine's conversion to Christianity was his

literal approach to the Old Testament which he had adopted

from the Manicheans. But Ambrose taught him to read the Old

Testament spiritually or allegorically, thus lifting the veil from

his eyes and bringing about his conversion. Augustine, using

this allegorical method in his commentary on the Psalms, gave

them the most thoroughly Christological interpretation to that

time.³⁸ As Neale and Littledale remark, "No commentator ever

surpassed S. Augustine in seeing Christ everywhere; `Him

first, Him last, Him midst and without end.'"³⁹ For example,

Augustine saw the sun in Ps 19:5-6, "which is like a

bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion," as a reference to

the virgin birth of Christ: "That is, as a bridegroom when the

Word was made flesh, He found a bridal chamber in the

Virgin's womb."⁴⁰ For Augustine, Ps 3:6, "I lie down

and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me,"

becomes a prophecy of the Lord's death, burial, and

____________________

            ³⁸Bruce K. Waltke, "A Canonical Process Approach to the

Psalms," in Tradition and Testament: Essays in Honor of Charles

Lee Feinberg, ed. John S. Feinberg and Paul D. Feinberg

(Chicago: Moody, 1981), 4.

            ³⁹Neale and Littledale, Commentary, 1.77.

            ⁴⁰Augustine, Expositions on the Book of Psalms, trans. anon.

(Oxford: John Henry Parker; F. and J. Rivington, 1847), 1.135.

                                             16

 

resurrection.⁴¹ Sometimes, even Augustine himself seems to

recognize how hard it may be for the reader to recognize Christ

in the Psalm, as he says concerning Psalm 31:

            Here then Christ speaketh in the Prophet: I venture to say,

            Christ speaketh. The Psalmist will say some things in this

            Psalm, which may seem as if they could not apply to Christ, to

            that excellency of our Head, and especially to That Word

            Which was in the beginning God with God: nor perhaps will

            some things here seem to apply to Him in the form a servant,

            which form of a servant He took from the Virgin; and yet

            Christ speaketh . . .⁴²

            It is important to note, however, that Augustine's exegesis was

not just the logical extension of the allegorical method; it was

also combined with the rules of Tyconius⁴³ (late 4th cent.) to

give a new element to Christological interpretation. Up to

Augustine's time, the question had been whose voice was

speaking in any given psalm: was it a voice speaking about

Christ, a voice speaking to Christ, or was it the voice of Christ

himself speaking to the Father? Augustine combined

allegorical exegesis with Tyconius's first rule (concerning the

mystical union Christ and his body) to give a "whole Christ"

interpretation to the Psalter. As Miller says:

            It was left to the ingenious hand of Augustine later to

            combine all these aspects into one: "The psalm is the

____________________

            ⁴¹Ibid., 1.11-12.

            ⁴²Ibid., 1.239. On this passage, see Marvin E. Tate, "The

Interpretation of the Psalms," RevExp 81 (1984): 366.

            ⁴³ See Pamela Bright, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its

Inner Purpose and Logic, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity

2  (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), esp. pp.

61-62; also, Karlfried Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the

Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 104.

                                     17

 

            voice of the whole Christ, Head and body": Psalmus vox

            toitus Christ, capitis et corporis.⁴⁴

Linton's judgment on this significant exegetical advance is

worth quoting here, because it explains, in part, why

Augustine's exegesis (and not that of the Antiochenes to be

discussed below) had such hold over interpretation in the

Middle Ages:

            Although it cannot be maintained, that the solution of

            Augustine, as to the subject of the Psalms is in any respect

            exegetically convincing, it can nevertheless be reasonably said,

            that the central problem of the Psalms has reached a definite

            stage. For with Augustine's conception of Christus totus the

            christological and the parainetical, the dogmatical and the

            devotional use of the Psalms--both essential to the Church--are

            brought into harmony.⁴⁵

            However, there were those who opposed this allegorizing,⁴⁶

for they saw that heretics could use the method too. For

example, the Manicheans used Ps 19:5 (cf. the use by

Augustine mentioned above) as proof that Christ laid aside his

human nature in the sun.⁴⁷ The opponents of allegorical

interpretation were those of the school of Antioch.

____________________

            ⁴⁴Athanasius Miller, "The Psalms from a Christian

Viewpoint," Worship 31 (1957): 340.

            ⁴⁵Linton, "Interpretation of the Psalms," 156.

            ⁴⁶Even among those who generally followed an allegorical

method, there were those, such as Athanasius, who may have turned

somewhat away from it for various reasons; see G. C. Stead, "St.

Athanasius on the Psalms," VC 39 (1985): 76.

            ⁴⁷Farrar, History of Interpretation, 208 n. 6.

                                        18  

 

                       The Antiochene School

            Diodore of Tarsus (d. AD 394) is usually regarded as the

founder of the Antiochene school. We have no extant work of

his, though Froehlich is of the opinion that portions of his

commentary on the Psalms may be preserved in an

"eleventhcentury manuscript under the name of Anastasius of

Nicaea."⁴⁸ In his prologue Diodore somewhat anticipates

modern scholarship in his discussion of the order and

arrangement of the Psalms, and the non-authenticity of the

superscriptions.⁴⁹ As regards the interpretation of the Psalms,

Diodore says nothing about type or antitype, but only about

how a psalm may be adapted for many different uses.

Commenting on Psalm 118, he says that it must first be

understood according to its historical context, but that it may

then be understood as fitting the circumstances of those who

come after. He is careful to note, however, that the latter is not

a case of allegory, but simply an adaptation to "many situations

according to the grace of him who gives it power."⁵⁰

            The foremost representative of the Antiochene school was

Theodore of Mopsuestia (AD 350-428). Though his commentary

on the Psalms is not extant, we are able to piece together from

both his followers and opponents his exegesis of the Psalter.

____________________

            ⁴⁸Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church,

21-22.

            ⁴⁹Ibid., 85.

            ⁵⁰Ibid., 93.

                                             19

 

It is well known that Theodore regarded only four psalms as

messianic (2, 8, 45, and 110). But it must be understood that by

messianic Theodore meant psalms that were actually prophetic

of Christ. He still regarded all the psalms to be Davidic and

believed that they were oracles given to David rather than a

collection of religious devotional poetry or a compilation of

cultically oriented hymns.⁵¹ For Theodore, just as much as for

earlier exegetes, David was a prophet; the difference was that

Theodore considered the period of fulfillment of the prophecy

to extend all the way from the time of David's son Solomon

down to the time of the Maccabees, considering only those four

psalms mentioned above as extending into New Testament

times.⁵² Aside from these four psalms, the New Testament

writers' usage of psalmic passages to refer to Christ was not

because they were predictive of Christ, but because the psalms'

"phraseology and the rich meaning and symbolism contained in

them supported analogous spiritual conditions in Christian

revelation."⁵³ Theodore allowed only a typological

relationship between the literal meaning of Psalm 22

and Christ. He pointed out that the psalm could not in any

way be literally about Christ, for even the second half

of the verse which Christ quoted on the cross

____________________

            ⁵¹Dimitri Z. Zaharopoulos, Theodore of Mopsuestia on the

Bible: A Study of His Old Testament Exegesis, Theological

Inquiries (New York: Paulist, 1989), 82-83.

            ⁵²Ibid., 84.

            ⁵³Ibid., 144-45.

                                        20

 

("Why are you so far from helping [saving] me") could only be

uttered by a sinner, and Christ could never speak of his sins.54

His opponents replied that the psalm had to be messianic

because the title of the psalm said that it was "for the end" (eis

to telos, the Septuagint's rendering of lamnassēah, commonly

rendered in most translations today as "for the choir director").

Theodore's reply was that the titles were not always

authentic.⁵⁵

            As for the psalms he did consider to be messianic, his

argumentation with respect to Psalm 45 will be sufficient to

show his reasoning. Throughout the commentary he seeks to

establish the "argument" of each psalm.⁵⁶ This argument

consists of establishing what prosopon is to be assigned to

David in each of the psalms. David, being a prophet, wrote the

Psalms with divine guidance and assumed in each one the

prosopon of a future historical figure. In Psalm 45, argues

Theodore, David has adopted the prosopon of Christ and thus

prophesies of the time of his incarnation.⁵⁷ But how does

Theodore know that David is speaking in the person of the

____________________

            ⁵⁴Ibid., 145-46.

            ⁵⁵Robert M. Grant with David Tracy, A Short History of the

Interpretation of the Bible, 2d ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 66.

            ⁵⁶Lampe, "To Gregory the Great," 178.

            ⁵⁷James L. Kugel and Rowan W. Greer, Early Biblical

Interpretation, Library of Early Christianity 3 (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1986), 188; Joseph W. Trigg, Biblical

Interpretation, Message of the Fathers of the Church 9

(Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988), 33.

                                              21

 

Messiah here? Zaharopoulos's summary of Theodore's

argument explains that

            contrary to the current Jewish interpretation which read Psalm

            45 as a nuptial song written by David to be sung at Solomon's

            wedding, we, the Christian commentators, must maintain that

            the imagery is altogether too exalted, and the thought too

            peculiar to suit a royal epithalamium song. David, who was

            one of the greatest personalities of the Old Testament, could

            not have written such a secular song celebrating the marriage

            of an earthly king. A literal interpretation of this psalm will

            make it look like a joke or mockery. The only way out of this

            predicament is to "spiritualize" the whole content of the psalm,

            and then interpret it as a prophetic metaphor. The psalm is more than

            a love canticle celebrating the sumptuous nuptials of an ancient Israelitic

            king; it is written in the prophetic style and spirit. According to Theodore,

            it is a prophecy of Christ and his church. Consequently, we need not

            bewilder ourselves with fruitless attempts to identify the "king" with

            an earthly monarch (Solomon or Hezekiah), and the "queen" with a

            mortal princess, but we may at once see our Savior wedded to

            his bride, the church, in these adoring words of the psalm.

            Prophecy is here clothed with "spiritual metaphor."⁵⁸

Noting Theodore's inconsistency here in allowing a messianic

interpretation for the psalm, Zaharopoulos notes that

            the Mopsuestian is neither the first nor the last biblical scholar

            who has been forced to compromise his guiding methodology

            and basic presuppositions. The esteem in which he held David would

            not allow him to accept his hallowed hero as a rhapsodist and entertainer

            composing wedding songs. With his emphasis on grammar and literalism,

            the secularism of the psalm forced Theodore to sacrifice irrationally his

            method of interpretation on the altar of allegory.⁵⁹

 

            This leads me to two final observations about the

Antiochene exegesis. First, as many have pointed out

recently, the difference between the Alexandrian allegoria and

____________________

            ⁵⁸Zaharopoulos, Theodore of Mopsuestia, 150.

            ⁵⁹Ibid., 150-51.

                                              22

 

the Antiochene theoria has been exaggerated. The

Alexandrians did give attention to the literal interpretation, and

the Antiochenes, their protests notwithstanding, did engage in

allegorical interpretation.⁶⁰ Their theoria was, "for all practical

purposes a close equivalent of Alexandrian allegoria."⁶¹ As

Froehlich says,

            At close inspection both allegory and theoria, speak about the

            same analogical dynamic Origen so eloquently described: the

            biblical text leads the reader upward into spiritual truths that

            are not immediately obvious and that provide a fuller

            understanding of God's economy of salvation.⁶²

            Second, it must be observed here that, no less for the

Antiochenes than for the Alexandrians, allegory was used, not

by choice but by necessity. And the necessity was caused by

the need for relevance. For some, the need was to find

meaning in what seemed to be so many obscure details in

various portions of the Scriptures. For the Alexandrians,

though it is simplistic to say so and does not account for

their entire motivation, the need was to integrate their

scriptural faith with philosophical allegorism. For Theodore,

the need was to account for the presence in the Scriptures of

what seemed to be no more than a secular wedding song.

Indeed, as Silva has pointed out, though working with a

broader definition of allegory than some would allow,

____________________

            ⁶⁰Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? 53.

            ⁶¹Brown, "Hermeneutics," 612.

            ⁶²Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church,

20.

                                             23

 

"Allegorical interpretations are very difficult to avoid for a

believer who wishes to apply the truth of Scripture to his or her

life"; indeed, "every hour of the day thousands of Christians

allegorize the Scriptures as they seek to find spiritual

guidance."⁶³

            No wonder then, that, by and large, it was the Alexandrian

exegetical method that continued into the Middle Ages.

 

                           Middle Ages to ca. 1500

            It was, indeed, the Alexandrian allegorical method that

dominated the Middle Ages. Until the fourteenth century there

were few proponents of the Antiochene exegesis, at least, few

whose writings have survived. Isidore of Pelusium felt that a

great disservice was done by making the whole Old Testament

refer to Christ, because then the force of passages that really do

refer to Christ are weakened in their apologetic force.⁶⁴

Theodoret (d. 460) propounded Antiochene views for a while,

but then seems to have drawn back, even criticizing Theodore

for being more Jewish than Christian in his exegesis.⁶⁵ Julian

of Aeclanum (d. 454) has left a commentary on the Psalms, but

it is most probably a translation from

____________________

            ⁶³Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? 63, 66.

            ⁶⁴Lampe, "To Gregory the Great," 178.

            ⁶⁵Farrar, History of Interpretation, 219; Grant and Tracy, A

Short History, 63.

                                         24

 

Theodore's work.⁶⁶ Some of Theodore's teaching on the

Psalms seems to be represented in a manual composed by

Junilius Africanus (ca. 550), Instituta regularia divinae legis.⁶⁷

Finally, Isho'dad of Merv (9th cent.) has an introduction to the

Psalms that defends Antiochene exegesis and refers to

"impious" Origen as the inventor of the art of allegory. The

introduction treats only Psalms 2, 8, 45, and 110 as messianic,

just as Theodore had.⁶⁸

            Apart from these few remnants of Antiochene exegesis the

exegetical course of the Middle Ages is dominated by

Alexandrian allegory and by the "four-horse chariot" of John

Cassian (d. 435). Cassian's four senses of Scripture (literal,

allegorical, tropological, and anagogical) more fully fleshed

out the allegorical method.⁶⁹ These four senses of Scripture

were further taken up in the Psalms commentary of Cassiodorus

(490-583) and in numerous medieval commentaries to follow.

The allegory was often highly arbitrary. Farrar makes

mention of one Antonius, Bishop of Florence, who allegorized

the eighth Psalm: "to mean that God put all things

____________________

            ⁶⁶Raymond E. Brown, "The Sensus Plenior of Sacred

Scripture" (Ph.D. diss., St. Mary's University, 1955), 44-45.

            ⁶⁷Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages

(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 18;

Grant and Tracy, A Short History, 70.

            ⁶⁸Zaharopoulos, Theodore of Mopsuestia, 115; Grant and

Tracy, A Short History, 64-65.

            ⁶⁹Smalley, The Study of the Bible, 38; Brown, "The Sensus

Plenior," 56; Grant and Tracy, A Short History, 85-86.

                                          25

 

under the feet of the Pope." The sheep were the Christians, the

oxen were the Jews and heretics, the beasts of the field were

the pagans, and the fish of the sea represented the souls in

purgatory. For Antonius, the statement in Ps 74:13, "You broke

the heads of the monster in the waters," was proof that demons

could be cast out by baptism."⁷⁰

            The main vehicles for the exposition of Scripture and, in effect,

Alexandrian exegesis, in the Middle Ages were the catena and

the gloss. These were largely compilations of interpretations

and comments by the Church Fathers and their successors on

various texts of Scripture (in this way bearing some resemblance

to the growth of the Talmud in Judaism).71 There were commentaries

on the Psalms in the Glossa Psalmora, the Magna Glossatura,

and the Glossa Ordinaria. In addition to the catenas and the

glosses, there were the postilla (commentaries that developed

from lectures). All of these perpetuated Alexandrian allegorical

and Christological exegesis. Also, the Psalms were abundantly

used in the Church's liturgy, in which Gregory the Great (540-604),

one of the greatest of allegorizers, had a dominant hand in

____________________

            ⁷⁰Farrar, History of Interpretation, 297.

            ⁷¹For more information on the catenas and glosses see Farrar,

History of Interpretation, 249-53; Grant and Tracy, A Short

History, 83-84; Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, 249-50;

Smalley, The Study of the Bible, chap. 2; "The Bible in the

Medieval Schools," in Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2,

The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H.

Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 197-

209; and in the same volume, Dom Jean Leclercq, "From

Gregory the Great to Saint Bernard," 189-197.

                                         26

 

formulating. The use of the Psalter in the great Christian

festivals and liturgies helped to secure its Christological

interpretation. Leafblad notes:

            It was the tradition to conclude every psalm and versicle

            (psalm verse which was used as a complete unit apart from the

            context of the entire psalm) with the lesser doxology Gloria

            Patri. Its use in this manner set the Psalm within a New

            Testament trinitarian framework. Furthermore, it served to

            affirm the pre-existence of Christ who is prophetically

            portrayed in the psalms. More than a mere gesture, this

            dogmatic and apologetic practice served to confirm the

            Christological significance of such texts from the Old

            Testament . . .⁷²

            Before passing on to some of the later exegetes who

began to rediscover the importance of the literal sense, it

would be appropriate to mention briefly the course that Jewish

exegesis began to take in the eleventh to thirteenth

centuries. Judaism, in the face of the Christian proclamation

that Jesus was the Messiah, had tenaciously held on to a

messianic exegesis of the Psalms. There was also in Judaism,

as in Christianity, the parallel development of literal

interpretation (peshat) and a more figurative, mystical

interpretation (derash).⁷³ With Rashi (1040-1105), David Kimhi

____________________

            ⁷²Bruce H. Leafblad, "The Psalms in Christian Worship,"

Southwestern Journal of Theology 27 (1985): 48; see also

Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, 220; Smalley, The Study of

the Bible, 29; Leclercq, "From Gregory the Great to Saint

Bernard," 189; S. J. P. van Dijk, "The Bible in Liturgical Use,"

in Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West from the Fathers

to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1969), 220-52.

            ⁷³Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, "The Study of the Bible in Medieval

Judaism," Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West

from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 253-54.

                                          27

 

(1160-1235), and Abraham Ibn Ezra (d. 1167), there was a

more persistent insistence in Psalms exegesis on the peshat

versus the derash, in order to counteract Christian allegorical

interpretation. Thus, Psalm 2, traditionally interpreted in

Jewish exegesis of the day of the Messiah, becomes in Jewish

exegesis, at least according to the peshat, a psalm about

David's coronation.⁷⁴ The importance of this exegetical move

on the part of Jewish scholars, for our study, is that for those

Christian scholars who were more apologetically inclined in

their exegesis, there was correspondingly more attention paid

to the literal sense in order to interact with Jewish scholarship

on that level. However, for those who were more concerned

with the life of the Church and the process of edification, there

was correspondingly less attention to the literal sense.⁷⁵

            With the founding of the Abbey of St. Victor in 1110,

there was set in motion a recovery of the importance of the

literal sense. Hugh (or Hugo) of St. Victor (d. 1142)

emphasized the literal sense, though still retaining an

____________________

            ⁷⁴Michael A. Signer, "King/Messiah: Rashi's Exegesis of

Psalm 2," Prooftexts 3 (1983): 273-78.

            ⁷⁵For more on this subject see Rosenthal, "The Study of the

Bible in Medieval Judaism," 252-79; Signer, "King/Messiah:

Rashi's Exegesis of Psalm 2," 273-78; Uriel Simon, Four

Approaches to the Book of Psalms: From Saadiah Gaon to

Abraham Ibn Ezra, trans. Lenn J. Schramm (Albany: State

University of New York Press, 1991); James S. Preus, From

Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from

Augustine to the Young Luther (Cambridge: Belknap Press of

Harvard University Press, 1969), 70; Smalley, The Study of the

Bible, 193.

                                          28

 

allegory based on the literal sense.⁷⁶ His exegesis was still

very much Christologically oriented,⁷⁷ though little of it is

extant except for a few devotional notes on a few psalms.⁷⁸

            One of his disciples, Andrew of St. Victor (d. 1175),

practically denied any role to allegory at all. His influence is

perhaps best seen in the Psalms commentary of one who was

"almost certainly a pupil of Andrew,"⁷⁹ Herbert of Bosham

(ca. late 12th, early 13th cent.). Herbert declares that he is not

adept at explicating the mystical sense and will try to explain

only the literal or lowest sense of the Psalter.⁸⁰ Yet for each

psalm he also mentions what has been the "traditional,

christological interpretation of each psalm." Smalley notes that

one would think Herbert would be forced to choose, at this

point, in favor of the literal over the traditional. Sometimes he

does, but he is inconsistent. At times he will choose the literal

interpretation in deference to Jewish exegesis. At other times he will

opt for the traditional Christological interpretation, while admitting

____________________

            ⁷⁶Smalley, The Study of the Bible, chap. 3; Brown, "The

Sensus Plenior," 58-59.

            ⁷⁷Norbert Lohfink (The Christian Meaning of the Old

Testament, trans. R. A. Wilson [Milwaukee: Bruce, 1968], 51)

quotes him as saying, "The whole divine Scripture is one book,

and this one book is Christ."

            ⁷⁸Smalley, The Study of the Bible, 97-98.

            ⁷⁹Ibid., 187.

            ⁸⁰Ibid., 187-88. My discussion of Herbert's exegesis relies

heavily on Smalley's description (pp. 186-94).

                                        29

 

that it is not the literal interpretation. But here, he is almost

surely equivocating on the use of the word "literal," actually

making the literal meaning to be the opposite of the true

meaning.⁸¹ Herbert also interacts with Jewish exegesis,

sometimes siding with Rashi's historical exegesis, sometimes

chastising him for abandoning a traditional Jewish exegesis

and doing so out of hatred for Christians.⁸² Herbert nowhere

gives any one principle by which a messianic psalm may be

distinguished from one that is not. However, he does suggest

that on occasion the Apostle Paul has by his apostolic authority

changed the sense of some Psalms passages in his citation of

them (e.g., Ps 68:19).

            In the thirteenth century, with the rediscovery of

Aristotle, the importance of the literal sense as the

foundation for all the other senses and as the only true basis

for theological work was emphasized by Thomas Aquinas (1225-

74). He did not at all deny the allegorical or spiritual

sense, but held that this spiritual sense was limited in its

____________________

            ⁸¹See Smalley's discussion of his exegesis of Psalm 64 (The

Study of the Bible, 192-93). S. B. Frost also notes that Herbert

considered the lowest sense of the Psalter to be Christological

("The Christian Interpretations of the Psalms," CJT 5 [1959]:

27).

            ⁸²Smalley (The Study of the Bible, 193) further says regarding

Herbert's interaction with Rashi, "In a lively piece of historical

reconstruction, he argues that the Jewish people contemporary

with Christ must have been accustomed to hear the psalms

interpreted as messianic prophecies; otherwise the apostles

would never have gained a hearing when they applied these

prophecies to Christ in their preaching." I will try to show later

that this is not as reconstructive as Smalley suggests.

                                               30

 

usefulness to edification and could not be used

apologetically.⁸³ There is some disagreement over whether

this spiritual sense was, in fact, a "second" literal sense.⁸⁴ This

carried over into the fourteenth century and the work of

Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349) who, however, does indeed suggest

that a passage of Scripture may have two literal senses. There

was, on the one hand, the literal sense of the human author, and

then on the other, the "true" literal sense of the divine author.⁸⁵

He was in touch with the Jewish scholarship of his day, and

being "the best equipped scholar of the Middle Ages,"⁸⁶ he

interpreted the Psalms according to the "historical" literal

sense. But he was also a Christian who wanted to make the

Psalms relevant to the Christian life, therefore he also

interpreted each psalm according to the "spiritual" literal

sense.  Even though Nicholas is best remembered for his

emphasis on the human author's "historical" literal sense,

Preus notes that no one has pointed out (i.e., as of 1969)

that his designation of the spiritual sense as a second

literal sense, actually opened the way for a renewed

____________________

            ⁸³Smalley, "The Bible in the Medieval Schools," 215-16.

            ⁸⁴Contrast Grant and Tracy (A Short History, 88-89) with

Scott Hendrix ("Luther Against the Background of the History

of Biblical Interpretation," Int 37 [1983]: 232).

            ⁸⁵Hendrix, "Luther Against the Background," 232.

            ⁸⁶Heiko A. Oberman, Forerunners of the Reformation: The

Shape of Late Medieval Thought Illustrated by Key Documents,

translation of documents by Paul L. Nyhus (New York: Holt,

Rinehart, & Winston, 1966), 286.

                                          31

 

emphasis on spiritual interpretation and abandonment of the

historical sense. Preus writes:

            For the first time in literature, a New Testament reading

            of an Old Testament passage is dignified with the label

            "literal," and arguments are brought forward to defend it.

            Given Lyra's authority in the years that followed, it

            would now be easy for someone simply to dispense

            with the first of these literal senses (historical) in favor of the

            more edifying second "literal" sense. The near-suffocation of

            the historical-literal meaning, about which Lyra complained,

            would now be able to proceed, armed with the apparent

            authority of Augustine, Thomas, and the foremost champion of

            historical exegesis in the late Middle Ages.⁸⁷

            Preus then gives an example of how Nicholas interprets

Psalm 2 literally in regard to the original historical situation, but

then goes on to say that he, in accord with "the doctrine of the

apostles and the saying of the ancient Hebrew doctors, will

explain this psalm as being literally about Christ."⁸⁸ For

Nicholas, this spiritual literal sense does not always result in a

psalm being considered messianic, but it does open the way for

it in those who follow. Thus, unwittingly, Nicholas set in

motion a reversion to the elevation of the spiritual sense above

what was traditionally called the literal sense.

            Paul of Burgos (d. 1435) follows Nicholas's discussion

to a degree, but wants to find more of a grammatical or

historical connection that ties the spiritual sense to the

literal sense. So, for instance, that the New Testament

____________________

            ⁸⁷Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 69.

            ⁸⁸Ibid., 70 (emphasis Preus's).

                                         32

 

quotes Psalm 2 in reference to Christ is not sufficient. Rather, it

is the grammatical fact that the son in Psalm 2 is addressed in

the singular and therefore can apply to only one person, and

that person must be Christ, that secures the Christological

interpretation. Also, with this line of interpretation, Paul seeks

to make this literal Christological interpretation serve an

apologetic function. Thus, he faults the Jews, not for their

inability "to discern the spiritual senses," but because they have

a "false understanding of the literal sense."⁸⁹

            James (Jacobus) Perez of Valencia (d. 1490) argues seemingly

against Nicholas and Paul when he holds that the spiritual

sense is valid for theological (i.e., doctrinal) and apologetic

proof and seeks to discard the literal sense altogether. For him,

the Old Testament has theological value only as it is

understood to be about Christ. His commentary on the Psalms

is particularly Christological, though he may arrive at a Christ-

centered interpretation by one of two routes: either by promise

and fulfillment, or by allegorical or spiritual interpretation.⁹⁰

            The last interpreter to be considered in this section is

Jacobus Faber Stapulensis (or Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples;

d. 1536). His commentary on the Psalms was published in 1509,

____________________

            ⁸⁹Ibid., 86-97.

            ⁹⁰See the discussion of Perez in Preus, From Shadow to

Promise, 102-116.

                                               33

 

just four years before Luther began his first lectures on the

Psalms in 1513.⁹¹ Faber, in essence, says, "enough of all this

foolishness" and simplifies the entire discussion by putting

forth what he considers to be the one literal sense, which

encompasses both the meaning of the divine author and that of

the prophet.⁹² Nicholas had suggested two literal senses; Perez

had for all practical purposes abandoned the historical literal

sense; now Faber says: the spiritual sense is the literal sense,

and there is no other sense. The only "valid" sense is the

"prophetic literal sense or the New Testament literal sense. The

intention of the prophet is identical to the intention of the Holy

Spirit, who speaks through him."⁹³ For Faber, it is a "tragic,

un-Christian confusion that calls the literal sense `that which

makes David an historian rather than a prophet.'"⁹⁴ The

historical sense is practically entirely discounted:

            The actual intention of the psalmist (that is, David throughout),

            and the "autobiographical" confession arising out of that

            situation, have nothing to do with the proper interpretation of

            the Psalms. In fact, Faber opposes to that history David's claim

            of having been a mouthpiece of the spirit. One could scarcely

            remove himself more decisively from the sphere of historical

            exegesis.⁹⁵

____________________

            ⁹¹Oberman, Forerunners, 286-87.

            ⁹²Ibid., 287; Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 137-38.

            ⁹³Oberman, Forerunners, 287.

            ⁹⁴Cited in R. Gerald Hobbs, "How Firm a Foundation: Martin

Bucer's Historical Exegesis of the Psalms," CH 53 (1984): 486.

            ⁹⁵Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 138.

                                            34

 

            As Preus states, Faber "has taken what seems to be the shortest,

least arduous route to an altogether christological exegesis of

the Psalms."⁹⁶ However, as Preus goes on to state, the cost

was a high one, for doctrine, history, and the literal sense were

all sacrificed in the process.⁹⁷ It was left for the Reformation

to recover the losses.

 

                          The Reformation to ca. 1600

            In this section, we will look at Martin Luther and John Calvin

in particular, and just briefly at a few other Reformers.

 

                                  Martin Luther

            Before he nailed the ninety-five theses to the church door at

Wittenburg on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther (14831546)

was an exegete of the Psalms. In August 1513 he began a

lecture series on the Psalms that only concluded in October

1515. From the outset, he exegeted the Psalms as being

literally about Christ. This can be seen by comments on various

psalms in the preface to these lectures.⁹⁸ Regarding Psalm 1 he

says, "Literally this means that the Lord Jesus made no

concessions to the design of the Jews and of the evil and

adulterous age that existed in His time." For the second

____________________

            ⁹⁶Ibid., 142.

            ⁹⁷Ibid.

            ⁹⁸Luther's Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol. 10, First

Lectures on the Psalms I: Psalms 1-75, ed. Hilton C. Oswald,

trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (St. Louis: Concordia, 1974), 7.

                                          35

 

Psalm he says, "Literally this refers to the raging of the Jews

and Gentiles against Christ during His suffering." And

regarding Psalm 3 he says, "This is literally Christ's complaint

concerning the Jews, His enemies." His justification for this is

that "every prophecy and every prophet must be understood as

referring to Christ the Lord, except where it is clear from plain

words that someone else is spoken of."⁹⁹ Even of the first

penitential psalm, Psalm 6, Luther says, "this whole psalm is

like raging fire and the most impatient zeal erupting from the

heart of Christ."¹⁰⁰ And of another penitential psalm, Psalm

38, Luther says that it must be understood literally concerning

Jesus Christ. In v. 5 where the psalmist says, "my iniquities

have gone over my head," Luther declares that it must be

understood that, "in the first place, they went over the head in

the case of Christ with respect to punishment, but not with

respect to conscience."¹⁰¹

            His scheme, at least in the early part of these

lectures, is to give first the literal sense of each psalm as

it refers to Christ, then to give the allegorical sense as it

refers to the Church, and then to give the tropological sense

as it refers to the individual Christian. For the most part,

____________________

            ⁹⁹Ibid., 10.7

            ¹⁰⁰Ibid., 10.78.

            ¹⁰¹Ibid., 10.177.

                                           36

 

he ignored the anagogical sense.¹⁰² Also, contributing to

Luther's Christological exegesis is what Steinmetz has called

the caput-corpus-membra schema:

            All Scripture is written concerning Christ. Because of the

            union of Christ and the Church as caput et corpus, whatever is

            spoken prophetically concerning Christ is at the same time

            (simul) posited of the Church His body and of every member in

            it.¹⁰³

            However, during the course of the lectures, there seems to be a

shift away from this three or four senses of Scripture scheme,

along with a less and less explicitly literal-Christological

explanation of each psalm. Preus's explanation for this is that

Luther has turned away from the Stapulensis and Perez type of

christologizing and despite his apparent dislike, in the first part

of the commentary, for Nicholas of Lyra's "judaizing"

exegesis, he has in fact come round to Lyra in the end.¹⁰⁴

Preus believes that Luther's hermeneutic, whereby the Old

Testament must be interpreted by the New Testament,

and the literal meaning of the Old Testament was only

what the New Testament interpreted it to be, was one that

____________________

            ¹⁰²Hendrix, "Luther Against the Background," 230. However,

David C. Steinmetz feels that this non-emphasis in individual

psalms on the anagogical sense was due to the overall

eschatological orientation of the commentary (Luther and

Staupitz: An Essay in the Intellectual Origins of the Protestant

Reformation, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance

Studies 4 [Durham: Duke University Press, 1980], 60).

            ¹⁰³David C. Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament

Interpretation in Staupitz and the Young Luther," ARG 70

(1979): 55.

            ¹⁰⁴Preus, From Shadow to Promise, 268-69.

                                            37

 

left the Old Testament without any theological content.¹⁰⁵ But

as Luther continued his lectures he began to have more of an

appreciation for the "faithful synagogue" of the Old

Testament, and then he finally "discovered that the Old

Testament faith and religion were so much like his own that

they could become exemplary for his own faith, and for the

Church's self-understanding."¹⁰⁶ Preus theorizes that Luther

gradually came to an appreciation of Old Testament faith:

            In his first course as a professor of Bible, Luther's task was to

            provide an interpretation of his text that would be both learned

            and edifying for his Christian audience. Although the text was

            an Old Testament book, his first response was to abandon it, in

            effect, in favor of the New Testament. He outdid the whole

            tradition, from Augustine to Faber, both in his christological

            interpretation and in setting up an opposition between the

            "historical" sense and his "prophetic" interpretation. As he was

            at length to discover, however, he could not carry through this

            plan and at the same time do justice to the Old Testament text,

            for "all its goods" were not in present grace and spirit, but in

            future "words and promises." When Luther awakened to this

            fact and began hearing the testimony of pre-advent Israel, the

            result was not only the theological recovery of the Old

            Testament but the eloquent first themes of an emerging

            Reformation theology.¹⁰⁷

            In essence, Preus is suggesting that Luther's

Christological interpretation of the psalms in the early part

of his lecture course is what kept him from coming to the full

realization of the doctrine of justification by faith.

Preus's theory has not gone unchallenged,¹⁰⁸ and I do not

____________________

            ¹⁰⁵Ibid., 147-53.

            ¹⁰⁶Ibid., 166.

            ¹⁰⁷Ibid., 267.

            ¹⁰⁸See Gordon Rupp's review of Preus's book in JTS n.s. 23

                                                 38

 

believe that Luther's Christological exegesis was at all responsible for

hindering his discovery of justification by faith (though this may be

the case with the allegorical exegesis). Yet, one thing is certainly true:

though Preus may have exaggerated just how pronounced the change

is within the confines of the two-year lecture series in the Dictata super

Psalterium, there is no doubt that a change did occur between this first

lecture series and the next which began in 1518. Notice his different

perspective as disclosed in the preface to the publication of those lectures:

            At the urging and insistence of my fine students I am

            expounding the Psalter for the second time in your [Frederick]

            Wittenburg . . . As I expound it, I do not want anyone to

            suppose that I shall accomplish what none of the most holy and

            learned theologians have ever accomplished before, namely, to

            understand and teach the correct meaning of the Psalter in all

            its particulars. It is enough to have understood some of the

            psalms, and those only in part. The Spirit reserves much for

            Himself, so that we may always remain His pupils. There is

            much that He reveals only to lure us on, much that He gives

            only to stir us up. And as Augustine has put it so clearly, if no

            human being has ever spoken in such a way that everyone

            understood him in all particulars, how much more is it true that

            the Holy Spirit alone has an understanding of all His own

            words! Therefore I must openly admit that I do not know

            whether I have the accurate interpretation of the psalms or not,

            though I do not doubt that the one I set forth is an orthodox

            one. For everything that blessed Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius,

            Hilary, Cassiodorus, and others assembled in their expositions

            of the Psalter was also quite orthodox, but very far removed from

            the literal sense. For that matter, this second exposition of mine

            is vastly different from the first. There is no book in the

____________________

 (1972): 276-78; Scott H. Hendrix, Ecclesia in Via:

Ecclesiological Developments in the Medieval Psalms

Exegesis and the "Dictata super Psalterium" of Martin Luther,

Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 8 (Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1974), esp. pp. 263-82; Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and

Old Testament Interpretation," 26 n. 14.

                                       39

 

            Bible to which I have devoted as much labor as to the

            Psalter.¹⁰⁹

            In essence, Luther, humbly but decisively, turns his

back on allegorical exegesis, and it shows in his commentaries

on the Psalms. Now, for Luther, Psalm 1 is about the "personal

blessedness" that "is common to all men."¹¹⁰ In a preface to a

commentary on the penitential psalms he states that in his first

commentary on the Psalms he "often missed the meaning of the

text," and then goes on to exegete Psalm 6 as referring to any

penitent who is contrite over his sins.¹¹¹ Psalm 38, of which

Luther had said that it must be understood literally about

Christ, is now to be understood as portraying "most clearly the

manner, words, acts, thoughts, and gestures of a truly penitent

heart."¹¹² The prophetic-Christological interpretation is still to

be found, particularly in Psalms 2, 8, 19, 45, 68, 109, 110, 117, and

parts of Psalm 118.¹¹³ For example, in regard to Psalm 109, Luther

says that "David composed this psalm about Jesus Christ, who speaks

 the entire psalm in the first person about Judas, his betrayer, and

____________________

            ¹⁰⁹Luther's Works, vol. 14, Selected Psalms III, ed. Jaroslav

Pelikan, 284-85.

            ¹¹⁰Ibid., 14.287.

            ¹¹¹Ibid., 14.140.

            ¹¹²Ibid., 14.156.

            ¹¹³Luther's Works, 12.1-93, 97-136, 137-44, 195-300; 13.1-

37, 227-348; 14.1-39, 41-106, 257-77, 313-49.

                                             40

 

against Judaism as a whole, describing their ultimate fate."¹¹⁴

But the difference is that now Luther christologizes only when

led to do so by reason of New Testament citation or the

recognition of what appears to be the purely prophetic. Christ

is not to be found in allegory, but in promise and the belief of

the Old Testament faithful in that promise. Luther was not

entirely consistent and still occasionally engaged in allegorical

exegesis.¹¹⁵ But for the most part, the literal meaning of the

text now carries the day, though the New Testament had

priority in determining what that literal meaning was.

            What caused this change in Luther's approach? Some have

attributed it to a closer attention to the Hebrew text. When he

started the original lectures in 1513 he was not that proficient

in Hebrew. But during the years 1515-18 he studied Hebrew

more intensely in preparation for future lectures on the

Psalter.¹¹⁶ Luther himself referred to his new attention

____________________

            ¹¹⁴Luther's Works, 14.257.

            ¹¹⁵Though some have seen allegory where it does not exist;

e.g., Ronald Hals says that Luther "unashamedly allegorizes"

the "day [of Ps 118:24] as the time of the New Testament

("Psalm 118," Int 37 [1983]: 278). However, I do not believe

that this is an example of allegorizing, but rather a case of

following an exegetical track begun by Christ himself (Matt

21:42; Mark 12:1011; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; Eph 2:20; 1 Pet

2:7).

            ¹¹⁶Scott H. Hendrix, "The Authority of Scripture at Work:

Luther's Exegesis of the Psalms," in Encounters with Luther,

vol. 2, ed. Eric W. Gritsch (Gettysburg: Institute for Luther

Studies, Luther Theological Seminary, 1982), 150-52; see also James

A. Sanders, "Hebrew Bible and Old Testament: Textual Criticism

in Service of Biblical Studies," in Hebrew Bible or Old Testament:

Studying the Bible in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Roger Brooks

                                            41

 

to the Hebrew text as "theological philology."¹¹⁷ Certainly

this was one factor. Preus, as already mentioned, attributes the

change to Luther's new appreciation for the expectant faith of

the Old Testament saints and to his new found ability to relate

both the despair and the hope of the Old Testament saints to

what was happening in the depths of his own soul; or, in other

words, Luther found that he could identify with the Old

Testament saints themselves, without having to do so through

the prism of the New Testament. In his developing doctrine of

justification by faith, he was able to identify with the Old

Testament faithful without first having to identify with Christ.

I believe there is a measure of truth here, though I would want to

modify Preus's theory to some extent. That modification will

be examined in the last chapter.

 

                                    John Calvin

            John Calvin (1509-64) has been called "the first

scientific interpreter in the history of the Christian

Church."¹¹⁸ He was certainly, up to his time, the most

judicious. In his commentary on the Psalms, as far as I can

____________________

and John J. Collins, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 5

(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 44.

            ¹¹⁷Hendrix, "Luther Against the Background," 232; "The

Authority of Scripture at Work," 150-51.

            ¹¹⁸K. Fullerton, Prophecy and Authority, 81, cited in Bernard

Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of

Hermeneutics, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1970), 57.

                                          42

 

tell, only Psalm 110 in its entirety is applied directly and

literally to Christ, though many other psalms are seen as

typologically referring to Christ. All the psalms, except for

Psalm 110, have their literal meaning in the life of David or

Solomon or whoever the author of the particular psalm was.

Calvin believes in only one literal meaning of the text, but with

either prophetic or typological applications to the life of Christ.

For example, Psalm 2 is applied first of all to the reign of

David, but Calvin says, "All this was typical, and contains a

prophecy concerning the future kingdom of Christ."¹¹⁹

Sometimes, Calvin recognizes the Christological nature of a

psalm because the psalm, hyperbolically, goes beyond what

can be said of David, as is the case with Ps 16:10.¹²⁰ At the heart

of Calvin's hermeneutic in the Psalms, however, is what we

also saw in Luther, the solidarity of Christ and his members.¹²¹

A good example of this is Calvin's remarks regarding the New

Testament use of Psalm 40:

            There still remains another difficulty with this passage. The

            Apostle, in Heb. x. 5, seems to wrest this place, when

____________________

            ¹¹⁹John Calvin, Joshua and the Psalms, trans. Henry

Beveridge (repr., Grand Rapids: Associated, n.d.), 125.

            ¹²⁰Ibid., 216-24.

            ¹²¹As S. H. Russell ("Calvin and the Messianic Interpretation

of the Psalms," SJT 21 [1968]: 42) notes: "It is clear, therefore,

that the master-key of Calvin's exegesis of the messianic

elements in the Psalms is the solidarity of Christ and His

members both before and after the incarnation." See also James

L. Mays, "Calvin's Commentary on the Psalms: The Preface as

Introduction," in John Calvin and the Church: A Prism of

Reform, ed. Timothy George (Louisville: Westminster/John

Knox, 1990), 202.

                                            43

 

            he restricts what is spoken of all the elect to Christ alone, and

            expressly contends that the sacrifices of the Law, which David

            says are not agreeable to God in comparison of the obedience

            of the heart, are abrogated; and when quoting rather the words

            of the Septuagint than those of the prophet, he infers from them

            more than David intended to teach. As to his restricting this

            passage to the person of Christ, the solution is easy. David did

            not speak in his name only, but has shown in general what

            belongs to all the children of God. But when bringing into view

            the whole body of the Church, it was necessary that he should

            refer us to the head itself. It is no objection that David soon

            after imputes to his own sins the miseries which he endures; for

            it is by no means an uncommon thing to find our errors, by a

            mode of expression not strictly correct, transferred to Christ.¹²²

            Also, as in the case of Luther, there was, I believe, a

proper recognition of the faith of the Old Testament and an

identification of Calvin with the Old Testament saint, a

recognition that stands behind Calvin's oft-quoted sentences:

            I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not

            inappropriately, "An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;" for

            there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that

            is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit

            has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubt,

            hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions

            with which the mind of men are wont to be agitated.¹²³

            The question that needs to be asked, however, even as in

the case of Luther, is what effect this identification with

the Old Testament faithful had on Calvin's Christological

interpretation. Does Preus's theory, that this recognition by

Luther caused him to downplay his Christological exegesis,

apply to Calvin as well? Did the discovery of the doctrine of

justification by faith take away a Christological element from

____________________

            ¹²²Calvin, Psalms, 437.

            ¹²³Ibid., 115-16.

                                             44

 

Calvin's exegesis? Perhaps in one way it did, but in another

way, no, as Thomas F. Torrance remarks:

            It was this [doctrine of justification by faith] that led Calvin, as

            it had led Luther, toward such a clear grasp of the essential

            method we must adopt in interpretation and exposition if we

            are to be faithful to the actual matter of the Scriptures in their

            witness to Jesus Christ. Justification by grace alone calls a man

            so radically into question that he must be stripped of himself,

            and therefore in all knowing and interpreting he must work

            from a centre in Christ and not in himself.¹²⁴

            This is hard to understand. How did the doctrine of

justification by faith result in a hermeneutic in which Calvin

worked from a Christological center, and yet departed so

radically from the Christological exegesis that went before?

And is the same thing necessary for us today? Again, I will

attempt to answer this question in the last chapter.

                               Other Reformers

Like Luther and Calvin, most of the other reformers of the

sixteenth century gave more attention to the Hebraica Veritas,

and along with it, the literal-historical interpretation of the

Scriptures.¹²⁵ There was some carry-over from medieval

allegorical exegesis, but for the most part the trend was to

prepare for the Christological interpretation by

____________________

            ¹²⁴Thomas F. Torrance, The Hermeneutics of John Calvin,

Monograph Supplements to SJT (Edinburgh: Sottish Academic

Press, 1988), 158.

            ¹²⁵R. Gerald Hobbs, "Hebraica Veritas and Traditio

Apostolica: Saint Paul and the Interpretation of the Psalms in

the Sixteenth Century," in The Bible and the Sixteenth

Century, ed. David C. Steinmetz, Duke Monographs in

Medieval and Renaissance Studies 11 (Durham: Duke

University Press, 1990), 83-99.

                                           45

 

laying a solid foundation in the historical meaning of the text,

as evidenced in the Psalms commentaries of Zwingli and

Bucer.¹²⁶ There was always the threat that a strict historical

interpretation might exclude a Christological interpretation

altogether, and it actually happened in the case of the heretic

Servetus.¹²⁷ But for the most part, the recovery of the literal

historical-grammatical interpretation resulted in a

Christological interpretation which was limited to either a

prophecy in those cases where the New Testament called for

such an interpretation, or to typology where there was the

recognition that the language of the psalm seemed to go

beyond the earthly Davidic king. This was the trend that would

continue among conservative Christian scholars right up to the

present.

                      From the Reformation to the Present

            This section will give a broad, sweeping

characterization of Psalms exegesis up to the twentieth

____________________

            ¹²⁶R. Gerald Hobbs, "How Firm a Foundation: Martin Bucer's

Historical Exegesis of the Psalms," CH 53 (1984): 477-91;

"Martin Bucer on Psalm 22: A Study in the Application of

Rabbinic Exegesis by a Christian Hebraist," in Histoire de

l'exegese au XVIe siecle, ed. Olivier Fatio and Pierre Fraenkel,

Etudes de Philologie et D'Histoire 34 (Geneva: Librairie Droz

S.A., 1978), 144-63.

            ¹²⁷Servetus even considered Psalm 110 to refer exclusively to

David and his son Solomon. See Jerome Friedman, "Servetus

on the Psalms: The Exegesis of History," in Histoire de

l'exegese au XVIe siecle, ed. Olivier Fatio and Pierre Fraenkel,

Etudes de Philologie et D'Histoire 34 (Geneva: Librairie Droz

S.A., 1978), 164-78.

                                             46

 

century, while focusing more narrowly on some significant

twentieth century developments.

            "Conservative" Exegesis to the Twentieth Century

            Among Catholic scholars during this time, there was

always maintained, at least in theory, the dual sense of Scripture,

literal and spiritual.¹²⁸ There were of course those who

maintained the importance of the literal sense, and even those

who were engaged in textual and "higher" criticism.¹²⁹ But the

spiritual sense of the text was always presumed to be there.

            In conservative Protestantism, allegorical became, more

or less, a thing of the past (except for some of the more pietistic

movements). Christ was present in the Old Testament in

typology, and he was present in prophecy. For the psalms, this

meant that David had to be upheld as type, prophet, and author.

Davidic authorship of the psalms was seen as necessary, not

only for the ones attributed to him in the superscriptions, but,

of course, those assigned to him by the New Testament. David

had, at least in some measure, to be regarded as a prophet,

for the New Testament so regarded him (Acts 2:30). And

for those psalms where there was recognition that the

setting of the psalm was one in the life of David,

____________________

            ¹²⁸Brown, "The Sensus Plenior," 64-65.

            ¹²⁹Emil G. Kraeling, The Old Testament Since the

Reformation (Harper & Row, 1955; repr., New York:

Schocken, 1969), 43.

                                         47

 

but there was language in the psalm that seemed either to

resemble or foreshadow events in Christ's life, David had to be

upheld as type. Along with this, of course, it was important to

date, at least the psalms attributed to David, to the time period

of his reign. Consequently, the dating of a psalm became a very

important part of its meaning and interpretation.

            With David playing the dual role of author/prophet and type, it

became necessary to try to delineate just where in the psalms

David played these roles. Thus, more sophistication was

needed in putting whole psalms or parts of psalms into

categories. Some scholars, such as E. W. Hengstenberg

regarded all the messianic psalms as being prophetic, and

simply divided them into psalms predictive of the Messiah's

sufferings or predictive of his glories.¹³⁰ Other scholars

divided the messianic psalms into various classes. Franz

Delitzsch used five main categories: typical, typico-prophetic,

Jehovic, indirectly messianic, and purely predictive (only

Psalm 110 being in this last category). ¹³¹  A. F. Kirkpatrick

used somewhat similar categories, but  had no corresponding

category to Delitzsch's purely prophetic.¹³²

____________________

            ¹³⁰ E. W. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Testament and a

Commentary on the Messianic Predictions (London, 1872-78;

repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1956), 1.149-52.

            ¹³¹Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, trans.

Francis Bolton (repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 3.66-71.

            ¹³²A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms: With Introduction

and Notes, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

                                         48

 

            It should be mentioned here as well that there were many

Psalms commentaries on the more popular level which set forth

a messianic interpretation of many of the psalms. For

example, Spurgeon's massive, originally seven-volume,

Treasury of David has been very influential on large segments of the

conservative Christian Church.¹³³ The scholar who would

dismiss works such as these as non-scholarly or pre-critical

would do well to remember the words of Brevard Childs:

            With all due respect to Gunkel, the truly great expositors for

            probing to the theological heart of the Psalter remain

            Augustine, Kimchi, Luther, Calvin, the long forgotten Puritans

            buried in Spurgeon's Treasury, the haunting sermons of John

            Donne, and the learned and pious reflections of de Muis,

            Francke, and Geier. Admittedly these commentators run the

            risk, which is common to all interpretation, of obscuring rather

            than illuminating the biblical text, but because they stand

            firmly within the canonical context, one can learn from them

            how to speak anew the language of faith.¹³⁴

 

                 "Liberal" Exegesis to the Twentieth Century

            I fully recognize that "liberal" and "conservative" are loaded

terms that have probably worn out their welcome. However,

I use the term "liberal" as a convenient label to broadly

characterize an approach to the Bible that is more critically

oriented toward the biblical text than had been the traditional

position of historic Christianity for its first

____________________

 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), lxxvi-lxxxv.

            ¹³³The work appeared in several editions and has been

reprinted many times. The original edition was published in

London by Passmore & Alabaster, 1870-1885.

            ¹³⁴Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 523.

                                       49

 

eighteen centuries, and that does not work from the

presupposition that the Scriptures are infallible and inerrant.

            Among the various elements in the Psalms that came under

scrutiny by the critics were: (1) the authenticity of the

superscriptions, (2) Davidic authorship of any of the psalms,

(3) the unity of the compositions, (4) their antiquity, and

(5) their value for Christian theology in light of their

troublesome elements (imprecations, confessions, pharisaical

righteousness, Jewish nationalism, materialism). Little wonder,

then, that these critical scholars, with their rejection of the

supernatural, found neither prophecy nor type in the Old

Testament psalms. Messianism in the psalms, for these

scholars, was a moot point.

 

                       Twentieth Century Developments

            Much of what has already been discussed continued into the

twentieth century. Conservative Protestant scholars still looked

at the messianic psalms as either predictive, typological, or a

combination of the two. Liberal Protestant scholars continued

to deny the elements mentioned above. But there have been

some new twists in this century. What follows is a brief

discussion of some of these new developments, not necessarily

in chronological order. Interaction with many of these

developments and their representative scholars will take place

in later chapters.

                                        50

 

The Early History of Religions School

            Comparative studies in the first part of the twentieth century

tended to deny to Israel any originality in her religious

conceptions. This reached an extreme in the writings of

Friedrich Delitzsch and his "pan-Babylonianism." For

Delitzsch, the Psalms were totally unworthy of use in

Christianity and Christian worship, and bore no relationship to

Christ or the religion of the New Testament.¹³⁵ Admittedly,

this was an extreme position, and the reaction against it came

even from within the religio-historical school; but clearly there

was no desire within this movement, as practiced in the first

part of the century with all its positivist assumptions, to find

any revelation of a future messiah in the psalms.¹³⁶

 

Form Criticism

            Hermann Gunkel's work and the subsequent work of

his pupils, especially Sigmund Mowinckel, has had the

most profound impact of all twentieth century developments

on the study of the Psalms.¹³⁷ Formerly, the key to the

interpretation of a psalm had been its date and exact

____________________

            ¹³⁵See Kraeling, The Old Testament Since the Reformation,

156-58.

            ¹³⁶For more on this school see Herbert F. Hahn, The Old

Testament in Modern Research, exp. ed. (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1966), 83-118.

            ¹³⁷See Erhard Gerstenberger, "Psalms," in Old Testament

Form Criticism, ed. John H. Hayes (San Antonio: Trinity

University Press, 1974), 179-223; Ronald E. Clements,

"Interpreting the Psalms," chap. in One Hundred Years of Old

Testament Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976),

76-98.

                                         51

 

historical situation. Now, the key was to find the correct

Gattung for any given psalm, and then to determine the psalm's

Sitz im Leben. This had profound effects on both conservative

and liberal exegesis. For both, there was a shift away from the

need to find an exact date or historical situation in order to

interpret a given psalm. For those more liberally inclined, there

was no longer the need to be so radically bent on assigning all

the psalms a post-exilic or even a Maccabean date. For at least

some of those more conservatively inclined, it was noticed that

Gunkel and his followers had found that the Sitz im Leben for

many of the psalms fit better into a pre-exilic situation rather

than a post-exilic, and that the royal psalms, in particular, may

have gone back to the days of the divided monarchy, if not, the

united monarchy. For many conservatives, it was enough to

have the other side recognize that there may have been a

Davidic impetus to the Psalter, and they themselves began to

back off from the necessity of upholding the authenticity of the

superscriptions or the need to defend Davidic authorship of all

psalms attributed to him. In other words, form criticism seemed

to be, at least in Old Testament and Psalms studies, a rather

neutral discipline that both sides could engage in. The

conservative could practice form criticism in the Psalms and

still hold to both prophetic and typological messianic

elements in the psalms. The liberal could practice form

criticism and concede that, in a general way, Jesus Christ was

                                            52

 

the fulfillment of the messianic hopes in the Psalms, without

conceding that there were actual prophecies or intentionally

typological elements in them.

            It is impossible to trace in a brief survey all the developments

that have taken place in trying to find the proper cultic Sitz im

Leben of the psalms, in particular the so-called "enthronement"

and royal psalms. Well known are the hypotheses of Sigmund

Mowinckel (enthronement festival), Artur Weiser (covenant

renewal), and Hans-Joachim Kraus (royal Zion festival).¹³⁸

Again, I will be interacting with these in later chapters, but in

passing, I think it is safe to say that conservative scholars have

been much more prone to adopt portions of the Weiser and

Kraus hypotheses into their Psalms interpretation, than that of

Mowinckel's tie-in to the akitu festival and its resemblance to

the early pan-Babylonianism. In particular, those who saw the

messianic psalms as more typological in nature, rather than

purely predictive, have been able to point to various elements

in these hypotheses as messianically typological. This holds for

the next development as well.

____________________

            ¹³⁸Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship, 2

vols., trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas (New York: Abingdon, 1967);

Artur Weiser, The Psalms, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962);

Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1-59: A Commentary and Psalms 60-

150: A Commentary, trans. H. C. Oswald (Minneapolis: Augsburg,

1988-89); Theology of the Psalms, trans. Keith Crim (Minneapolis:

Augsburg, 1986).

                                                    53

        

The Myth and Ritual School

            The scholars in this school, known also as the "Scandinavian

school" and the "Patternism school" took Mowinckel's work to

another level. Mowinckel had posited the centrality of the

king's role in the cult, but had emphatically declared that it was

"wholly improbable" that the Israelite king "should have been

regarded as identical with Yahweh, or in the cult have played

Yahweh's part."¹³⁹ However, those in the myth and ritual

school proposed the identification or near-identification of the

king with Yahweh in the akitu festival, and held that the

festival involved a ritual humiliation of the king as

representative of the humiliation, death, and subsequent

resurrection and exaltation of the deity, and that many of the

psalms (such as Psalm 89) reflected this ritual.¹⁴⁰ Several of

the representatives of this school advocated that this way of

looking at the Psalms more clearly gave a typological picture

of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.¹⁴¹

____________________

            ¹³⁹Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship, 1.59.

            ¹⁴⁰For representative works of this school see Aage Bentzen,

King and Messiah, 2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970); S.

H. Hooke, ed., Myth and Ritual (London: Oxford University

Press, 1933); ed., The Labyrinth (London: Oxford University

Press, 1935); ed., Myth, Ritual and Kingship (London: Oxford

University Press, 1958); Ivan Engnell, Studies in Divine

Kingship in the Ancient Near East, 2d ed. (Uppsala: Almqvist

and Wiksell, 1943); Aubrey R. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in

Ancient Israel (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1955).

            ¹⁴¹For example, Bentzen, King and Messiah, esp. pp. 33-34,

75-76, 83 (n. 7), 86 (n. 12), 110 (n. 8), 111 (n. 8).

 

                                        54

 

            This school, which had considerable success for a while, has

been declared to be more or less a thing of the past, and even

the hypothesis that Marduk was a dying and rising divinity in

Babylonian religion has largely been abandoned.¹⁴² Yet there

are still modified remnants in survival today, notably in the

work of John Eaton.¹⁴³ And the typological, though not

explicitly stated, is implicitly suggested. For example, in the

last paragraph of the preface (p. ix) to Eaton's Kingship and the

Psalms, a work devoted to showing that most of the psalms are

royal psalms, the author says:

            I pray that the truth may be served and not hindered by this

            work, which after its fashion is turned toward the greatest

            mystery of religion, towards the representative figure that

            carries all the world's agony and hope.¹⁴⁴

            This line of typological exegesis will be further examined in

chapter 8.

 

Sensus Plenior

            Among Catholic scholars, and some Protestant scholars as

well, one way of explaining the relationship between the Old

Testament and the New Testament has been the sensus plenior,

____________________

            ¹⁴²See Karel van der Toorn, "The Babylonian New Year

Festival: New Insights from the Cuneiform Texts and their

Bearing on Old Testament Study," in Congress Volume:

Leuven, 1989, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 43 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991),

331-44.

            ¹⁴³John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, SBT 2d ser. 32

(Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1976); The Psalms Come

Alive: Capturing the Voice and Art of Israel's Songs (Oxford:

A. R. Mowbray, 1984; repr., Downers Grove: InterVarsity,

1986), esp. pp. 116-44.

            ¹⁴⁴See also Eaton's conclusion (pp. 198-201).

                                            55

 

the "fuller sense." Though there is no one authorized definition

of sensus plenior, the one put forth by Raymond E. Brown, will

serve for the present discussion:

            The sensus plenior is that additional, deeper meaning, intended

            by God but not clearly intended by the human author, which is

            seen to exist in the words of a biblical text (or group of texts, or

            even a whole book) when they are studied in the light of

            further revelation or development in the understanding of

            revelation.¹⁴⁵

            There are points in this definition over which there has been

extensive discussion and disagreement. For example, Brown

himself admits that the phrase, "not clearly intended by the

human author," involves a bit of hedging, for there are some

who suggest there must have been some awareness on the

human author's part, while others, Brown included, would say

that no awareness is required at all.¹⁴⁶ Some would limit the

"further revelation or development in the understanding of

revelation" only to the New Testament authors, while others

would extend it into post-biblical times--even to the present-as

well.¹⁴⁷

            Again, there will be more interaction with the concept of

sensus plenior in later chapters. For now, I would just note that

this has been one way that Catholic scholarship, in particular,

has been able to engage in scientific exegesis of the Psalms,

while still holding that there is a meaning, most

____________________

            ¹⁴⁵Raymond E. Brown, "The Sensus Plenior of Sacred

Scripture", 92.

            ¹⁴⁶Raymond E. Brown, "Hermeneutics," 616.

            ¹⁴⁷Ibid.

                                                 56

 

often Christological, intended in the Psalms, that is not

recoverable by scientific or critical investigation.¹⁴⁸

 

Neo-Orthodoxy and The Biblical Theology Movement

            In 1789 Johann P. Gabler gave the famous address in

which he made the distinction between biblical theology and

dogmatic theology, and declared that the former should be a

purely descriptive discipline. The result was that biblical

theology was, in fact, separated from dogmatics and, in the

process, theology almost died. Biblical theology soon became

nothing more than an investigation of the individual biblical

writers' separate and diverse theologies. The practitioners

of this new biblical theology came to regard with suspicion

all dogmatic or systematic attempts to connect the biblical

writings with an overarching unity, and they felt it could

only be done by the imposition of philosophical categories

____________________

            ¹⁴⁸For further literature on the sensus plenior see Raymond

E. Brown, "The History and Development of the Theory of a

Sensus Plenior," CBQ 15 (1953): 141-62; "The Sensus Plenior

in the Last Ten Years," CBQ 25 (1963): 262-85; "The

Problems of the `Sensus Plenior'," ETL 43 (1967): 460-69;

William Sanford LaSor, "Prophecy, Inspiration, and Sensus

Plenior," TynBul 29 (1978): 49-60; "The Sensus Plenior and

Biblical Interpretation," in Scripture, Tradition, and

Interpretation: Essays Presented to Everett F. Harrison by His

Students and Colleagues in Honor of His Seventy-Fifth

Birthday, ed. W. Ward Gasque and William Sanford LaSor

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 260-77; Douglas A. Oss,

"Canon as Context: The Function of Sensus Plenior in

Evangelical Hermeneutics," Grace Theological Journal 9

(1988): 105-27; James M. Robinson, "Scripture and

Theological Method: A Protestant Study in Sensus Plenior,"

CBQ 27 (1965): 6-27; Bruce Vawter, "The Fuller Sense: Some

Considerations," CBQ 26 (1964): 85-96.

                                             57

 

which were totally foreign to the biblical writers themselves.¹⁴⁹

            But the historico-critical investigation of the various

books of the Bible left biblical studies cold and sterile.

Biblical theology had, in fact, become theologically bankrupt.

Karl Barth's commentary on Romans and his Church Dogmatics

were written in reaction to this situation, and thus was born

a movement, of which one of the goals was the reuniting of

exegesis and theology. Barth's particular method of theological

interpretation of the Old Testament came to be called Christological

exegesis. A passage from the Church Dogmatics shows his thinking:

            And now we have only to answer the question whether the Old

            Testament witnesses understood themselves in the same way,

            i.e., as called and separated witnesses of the one revelation of

            the one God in Jesus Christ, as they undoubtedly came to be

            understood by the men of the New Testament. This is the

            decisive issue between the Church and the Synagogue. In

            denying Christ, the Synagogue denies the one revelation of the

            one God. Its answer is therefore in the negative. But the

            Church gives an affirmative answer, as does also the New

            Testament: Christ has risen from the dead, and has revealed the

            fulfillment of Scripture and therefore its real meaning. In the

            light of this, how can the Church understand the Old Testament

            witnesses except as witnesses to Christ? A religiohistorical

            understanding of the Old Testament in abstraction from the

            revelation of the risen Christ is simply an abandonment of the

            New Testament and of the sphere of the Church in favour of

            that of the Synagogue, and therefore in favour of an Old

            Testament which is

____________________

            ¹⁴⁹See Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., "Systematic Theology and

Biblical Theology," in The New Testament Student and

Theology, ed. John H. Skilton, The New Testament Student 3 (Nutley,

NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1976), 34-35. The biblical theology

I am referring to here is not the biblical theology developed by

conservative Reformed scholars which deals primarily with

God's progressive self-revelation in the Scriptures.

                                            58

 

            understood apart from its true object, and content. Already, in

            an earlier context, we have stated the basic considerations

            which have to be stated in this regard, and all that we can now

            do is to say once more that this question of the self-

            understanding of the Old Testament witnesses ultimately

            identical with the question of faith. If Christ has risen from the

            dead, then the understanding of the Old Testament as a witness

            to Christ is not a later interpretation, but an understanding of its

            original and only legitimate sense.¹⁵⁰

            One adherent of Barth's Christological exegesis was Dietrich

Bonhoeffer. I will be interacting with and appropriating elements of

Bonhoeffer's Christological exegesis of the psalms later, but for now an

excerpt from one of his writings will give an indication of his basic direction:

            According to the witness of the Bible, David is, as the anointed

            king of the chosen people of God, a prototype of Jesus Christ.

            What happens to him happens to him for the sake of the one

            who is in him and who is to proceed from him, namely Jesus

            Christ. And he is not unaware of this, but "being therefore a

            prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him

            that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he

            foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ" (Acts

            2:30f.). David was a witness to Christ in his office, in his life,

            and in his words. The New Testament says even more. In the

            Psalms of David the promised Christ himself already speaks

            (Hebrews 2:12; 10:5) or, as may also be indicated, the Holy

            Spirit (Hebrews 3:7). These same words which David spoke,

            therefore, the future Messiah spoke through him. The prayers

            of David were prayed also by Christ. Or better, Christ himself

            prayed them through his forerunner David.¹⁵¹

            Many consider this movement to have reached its

Christological and typological extreme in the work of Wilhelm

____________________

            ¹⁵⁰Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. and trans. Geoffrey A.

Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark), 1/2.489-90.

            ¹⁵¹Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the

Bible, trans. James H. Burtness (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1970), 18-19.

                                        59

 

Vischer.¹⁵² Few have followed him. Von Rad was strongly

opposed to Vischer's brand of Christological exegesis and

typology for failing to appreciate the Old Testament's

independent witness and diversity.¹⁵³ Yet he, too, tied the

Testaments together by a kind of typology, which he preferred

to refer to as "re-actualization" or "eschatological

correspondence."¹⁵⁴

            He declared that this typology was correspondent to the

belief that in the Old and New Testaments "we have to do with

one divine discourse."¹⁵⁵ Yet, for all his brilliant insights,

his particular conception of typology seems to be emptied of

its force when he states that:

            typological interpretation has only to do with the witness to the

            divine event, not with such correspondences in historical,

            cultural, or archaeological details as the Old Testament and the

            New may have in common. It must hold itself to the kerygma

            that is intended, and not fix upon

____________________

            ¹⁵²See his The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ, vol. 1,

trans. A. B. Crabtree (London: Lutterworth, 1936); also

"Everywhere the Scripture is about Christ Alone," trans.

Thomas Wieser, in The Old Testament and the Christian Faith:

A Theological Discussion, ed. Bernhard W. Anderson (New

York: Herder & Herder, 1969), 90-101.

            ¹⁵³See Brevard S. Childs, "Gerhard von Rad in American

Dress," in The Hermeneutical Quest: Essays in Honor of James

Luther Mays on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Donald J. Miller,

PTMS 4 (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1986), 82.

            ¹⁵⁴Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G.

Stalker (New York: Harper & Row, 1962, 1965), 2.319-87;

"Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament," trans. John

Bright, in Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics, ed. Claus

Westermann, ET ed. James Luther Mays (Richmond: John

Knox, 1963), 17-39.

            ¹⁵⁵Von Rad, "Typological Interpretation," 36.

                                        60

 

the narrative details with the aid of which the kerygma is

set forth.¹⁵⁶

            The same problem existed for the biblical theology

movement in America. This was different from either the

biblical theology that was practiced in the nineteenth century

as a result of Gabler's essay, or the "history or revelation"

type practiced by conservative Reformed scholars like

Geerhardus Vos. Rather it was a movement that was concerned,

just as Barth, had been, to reunite theology and biblical

studies, and was perhaps best represented by the works of

George Ernest Wright.¹⁵⁷ It was a movement that depended

heavily on a theology of the "Acts of God," and yet,

curiously, could deny that many of the acts had actually

happened, or would attempt to find naturalistic explanations

for them. Brevard Childs summarizes the criticism of Langdon

Gilkey on this point:

            They used Biblical and orthodox language to speak of divine

            activity in history, but at the same time continued to speak

            of the same events in purely naturalistic terms. "Thus they

            repudiate all the concrete elements that in the biblical

            account made the event itself unique and so gave content

            to their theological concept of a special divine deed."¹⁵⁸

____________________

            ¹⁵⁶Ibid., 36-37.

            ¹⁵⁷In particular, George Ernest Wright, God Who Acts:

Biblical Theology as Recital, SBT (Chicago: Henry Regnery,

1952); The Old Testament and Theology (New York: Harper &

Row, 1969).

            ¹⁵⁸Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 65, citing Langdon Gilkey,

"Cosmology, Ontology, and the Travail of Biblical Language,"

JR 41 (1961): 199.

                                             61

 

            In addition, the movement sought to emphasize the unity

of the two Testaments as witness to Christ who was the "central

key to the contents of the Old Testament,¹⁵⁹ yet gave warnings

about getting carried away and dissolving "theology into

Christology," and becoming ensnared in the trap of

"christomonism."¹⁶⁰ It boldly declared that the Old Testament

was the Word of God for the Church, yet warned against

drawing the inference "that the Old Testament must be

understood christologically."¹⁶¹

            Brevard Childs declared in 1970 that the biblical theology

movement was in crisis.¹⁶² After describing the "rise and fall"

of the movement, he then proceeded to declare that there was a

need for a new biblical theology, one that was more properly

established in a context suited for studying the Bible

theologically.¹⁶³ After rejecting several possible contexts

(ancient Near Eastern literature, Northwest Semitic languages,

history, culture, etc.,) he then pointed to what he felt was "the

most appropriate context from which to do Biblical

Theology."¹⁶⁴ A new movement was thus set in place

____________________

            ¹⁵⁹Wright, God Who Acts, 29.

            ¹⁶⁰Wright, The Old Testament and Theology, 9, 13-38.

            ¹⁶¹George A. F. Knight, A Christian Theology of the Old

Testament (Richmond: John Knox, 1959), 7-8.

            ¹⁶²Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis.

            ¹⁶³Ibid., 97-99.

            ¹⁶⁴Ibid., 99.

                                             62

 

that has sparked great debate and caused a vast amount of

literature to arise. For the suggested context was--of all

possible things--the canon of the Christian Church.

 

 

 

 

 

                                    CHAPTER 2

 

THE CANONICAL APPROACH OF BREVARD CHILDS

 

            This chapter and the next will consist of examinations of the

canonical approach of Brevard Childs and the canonical

criticism of James Sanders, respectively. Examination of the

work of these two scholars, before I describe my own approach

in Part Two, is necessitated by the following considerations:

(1) while both men are recognized as the founders and leading

scholars in canonical study, their actual approaches are very

different; (2) both men have done special work in the Psalms

utilizing their approaches; and (3) both men have students

and/or followers who have used their canonical approaches in

the study of individual psalms or the Psalter as a whole.

            Both chapters will begin with a description of their respective

approaches, but from that point will proceed somewhat

differently. The interaction with Childs in the scholarly

literature has been more extensive than that with Sanders. So,

while the chapter on Sanders will consist of two parts,

description and evaluation, this chapter on Childs will consist

of, first, description, then second, an examination of the

arguments of his critics. While there will be some of my own

evaluation of Childs contained in this second part, I will

reserve most of my own criticism of Childs for chapters 5-6

 

                                        63

                                              64

 

where I set forth my own approach. From the outset I inform

the reader that my evaluation of Childs will be guardedly

positive, while the evaluation of Sanders will be more negative.

In short, I will be arguing that Childs's approach is not

canonical enough, and that Sanders's approach is not canonical

at all.

 

                  A Description of Childs's Approach

            In his 1964 article, "Interpretation in Faith: The

Theological Responsibility of an Old Testament Commentary,"¹

Childs registered his disappointment with the methodology of

most Old Testament commentaries. Childs argued that the

supposed objectivity with which a commentator was expected

to begin the descriptive task destroyed the possibility of

discussing theological issues in the same commentary in any

authoritative manner:

            The majority of commentators understand the descriptive task

            as belonging largely to an objective discipline. One starts on

            neutral ground, without being committed to a theological

            position, and deals with textual, historical, and philological

            problems of the biblical sources before raising the theological

            issue. But, in point of fact, by defining the Bible as a "source"

            for objective research the nature of the content to be described

            has been already determined. A priori, it has become a part of a

            larger category of phenomena. The possibility of genuine

            theological exegesis has been destroyed from the outset.²

____________________

            ¹Brevard S. Childs, "Interpretation in Faith: The

Theological Responsibility of an Old Testament Commentary,"

Int 18 (1964): 432-49.

            ²Ibid., 437.

                                         65

 

He thus proposed that the writer of an Old Testament

commentary must consciously begin his work

            from within an explicit framework of faith. . . .

            Approaches which start from a neutral ground never can do

            full justice to the theological substance because there is

            no way to build a bridge from the neutral, descriptive

            content to the theological reality.³

            Childs suggested that the Christian exegete, in particular, must

interpret "the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament

and, vice versa, . . . the New Testament in the light of the

Old."⁴ This did not mean, however, that the Christian exegete

was bound by "theories of sacred language or sacred text which

restrict the full freedom of the exegesis and destroy the

grounds of precise textual description."⁵ Rather, the exegete,

working from a theological framework of the Bible as the

Word of God, is free to carry on the exegetical task without

having to harmonize historically the biblical texts either with

other texts or with extrabiblical evidence.⁶ Thus, we see

already Childs's concern that modern biblical exegesis, while

done in faith, cannot return to precritical naivete. Exegesis,

though explicitly done from a context of faith, must be just as

explicitly post-critical.

            More forcefully, and with a more comprehensive target than

just Old Testament commentaries, Childs's 1970 Biblical

____________________

            ³Ibid., 438.

            ⁴Ibid., 440.

            ⁵Ibid., 439.

            ⁶Ibid., 439-40.

                                        66

 

Theology in Crisis⁷ unleashed a broadside against what he

referred to as the "Biblical Theology movement," particularly

in its American setting. Childs contended that the biblical

theology movement, with its emphasis on the revelational acts

of God in history, an emphasis that was not able to carry the

theological weight laid on it, and which, in essence, resulted in

a "canon within the canon" (i.e., concentration on the narrative

portions of the Old Testament), had begun to die in the 1950s

and had, in fact, suffered a fatal blow in the early 1960s.⁸ He

also faulted the movement for trying to integrate historical-

critical reconstructions of Israelite history with historical-

theological categories such as heilsgeschichte, as if a

reconstructed Old Testament history could have anything to

say theologically.⁹

            Childs proposed instead that the canon should be made to bear

the theological weight of a proper biblical theology:

            As a fresh alternative, we would like to defend the thesis that

            the canon of the Christian church is the most appropriate context

            from which to do Biblical Theology. What does this mean? First

            of all, implied in the thesis is the basic Christian confession,

            shared by all branches of historic Christianity, that the Old and

            New Testaments together constitute Sacred Scripture for the

            Christian church. The status of canonicity is not an objectively

            demonstrable claim but a statement of Christian belief. In its

            original sense, canon does not simply perform the formal

            function of separating the books that are authoritative from

            others that are not, but is the rule

____________________

            ⁷Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970).

            ⁸Ibid., esp. pp. 55, 62-66, 83-87.

            ⁹Ibid., 39-44, 62-69, 84-85, 102, 110.

                                            67

 

            that delineates the area in which the church hears the

            word of God.¹⁰

            Two things should be noted here. The first is that Childs is

already beginning to display a certain vagueness (or, perhaps

better, expansiveness) about what he actually means by

"canon" or "canonical context." For example, in discussing the

doctrine of inspiration, he chides the biblical theology

movement for having discarded the doctrine, and then suggests

that the canonical perspective offers fresh insight on the

doctrine: "In our opinion, the claim for the inspiration of

Scripture is the claim for the uniqueness of the canonical

context of the church through which the Holy Spirit works."¹¹

In this case, "canonical context" is not the setting of a biblical

passage in the context of the entire Bible, but the canon's

setting in the context of the Christian community.

            Second, it must be remembered that Childs is explicitly post-

critical. He is not rejecting historical-critical methods; he is

simply saying that historical-critical reconstructions have

nothing to say theologically:

            The historicocritical method is an inadequate method for

            studying the Bible as the Scriptures of the church because it

            does not work from the needed context. This is not to say for a

            moment that the critical method is incompatible with Christian

            faith--we regard the Fundamentalist position as indefensible--

            but rather that the critical method, when operating from its own

            chosen context, is incapable of either raising or answering the

            full range of

____________________

            ¹⁰Ibid., 99.

            ¹¹Ibid., 104.

                                               68

 

            questions which the church is constrained to direct to its

            Scripture.

            Surely some will object to this line of argument by asserting

            that the exegete's only task is to understand what the Biblical

            text meant, and that the critical methodology is alone capable

            of doing this correctly. The historical reading is exegesis;

            everything else is "eisegesis." Our response to this type of

            objection is by now familiar. First, what the text "meant" is

            determined in large measure by its relation to the one to whom

            it is directed. While it remains an essential part of Biblical

            exegesis to establish a text's function in its original context(s),

            the usual corollary that the original function is alone normative

            does not follow. Secondly, the question of what the text now

            means cannot be dismissed as a purely subjective enterprise

            suitable only to private devotion and homiletics. When seen

            from the context of canon both the question of what the text

            meant and what it means are inseparably linked and both

            belong to the task of the interpretation of the Bible as Scripture.

            To the extent that the use of the critical method sets up an iron

            curtain between the past and the present, it is an inadequate

            method for studying the Bible as the church's Scripture.¹²

In short, Childs accuses those who use the historical-critical

method exclusively of theological "tone-deafness."¹³

            Childs's next major work was his Exodus commentary.¹⁴ In

the first two sentences of the preface Childs set forth the

goal and program of the commentary:

            The purpose of this commentary is unabashedly theological. Its

            concern is to understand Exodus as scripture of the church. The

            exegesis arises as a theological discipline within the context of

            the canon and is directed toward the community of faith which

            lives by its confession of Jesus Christ.¹⁵

____________________

            ¹²Ibid., 141-42.

            ¹³Ibid., 142.

            ¹⁴Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical,

Theological Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster,

1974).

            ¹⁵Ibid., ix.

                                       69

 

Further, in the introduction, Childs states that he

            does not share the hermeneutical position of those who suggest

            that biblical exegesis is an objective, descriptive enterprise,

            controlled solely by scientific criticism, to which the Christian

            theologian can at best add a few homiletical reflections for

            piety's sake.¹⁶

            The commentary dispenses with the usual lengthy critical

introduction; Childs feels that those matters are covered

sufficiently in other commentaries, but, more importantly, he

says, "In my judgment, a false sense of their importance is

created."¹⁷ The commentary follows the same sixfold format

for each pericope throughout: (1) Childs's own translation from

the Hebrew, (2) a treatment of the text's oral and literary

development, (3) exegesis of the text in its Old Testament

context, (4) a focus on the New Testament's use of the passage,

(5) a section on the history of exegesis of the passage, and (6)

"a theological reflection on the text within the context of the

Christian canon."¹⁸ One might have thought that this last

section would be nothing more than a repetition of the material

in the fourth section. However, it is important to notice how

Childs further defines what he intends to do in this section:

            It seeks to relate the various Old Testament and New

            Testament witnesses in the light of the history of exegesis to

            the theological issues which evoked the witness. It is an

            attempt to move from witness to substance. This reflection is

            not intended to be timeless

____________________

            ¹⁶Ibid., xiii.

            ¹⁷Ibid., x.

            ¹⁸Ibid., xiv-xvi.

                                            70

      

            or offer biblical truths for all ages, but to present a model of

            how the Christian seeks to understand the testimony of the

            prophets and apostles in his own time and situation.¹⁹

What Childs does here, in essence, is the same thing we

noticed in Biblical Theology in Crisis. "Canonical context," for

Childs, can refer to different things: either a particular

passage's context in the canon of Scripture, or the canon's

context in the Christian church. Or it can refer to both contexts

in combination. That is why the last section on "theological

reflection on the text within the context of the Christian canon"

is more than just an examination of the New Testament's use of

a passage, and why the history of exegesis section comes

before it: the canon's context is the church, and not just the

church of modern times, but the whole church.

            Up to this point, Childs had laid out his canonical approach in

monograph and commentary form, and also in several

articles.²⁰ But in 1979 Childs raised the approach to a new

level with the publication of what was at that time his most

significant work, Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture.²¹ It was a brand new way of writing an Old

Testament introduction:

____________________

            ¹⁹Ibid., xvi.

            ²⁰See Brevard S. Childs, "The Old Testament as Scripture of

the Church," CTM 43 (1972): 709-22; "The Exegetical Significance

of Canon for the Study of the Old Testament," in Congress

Volume: Göttingen, 1977, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 29 (Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 1978), 66-80.

            ²¹Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979).

                                       71

 

            This introduction attempts to offer a different model for the

            discipline from that currently represented. It seeks to describe

            the form and function of the Hebrew Bible in its role as sacred

            scripture for Israel. It argues the case that the biblical literature

            has not been correctly understood or interpreted because its

            role as religious literature has not been correctly assessed.²²

            An important phrase in this citation from Childs's

preface to the Introduction is, "sacred scripture for Israel."

Childs, while seeking to apply the canonical approach to a

larger scope, seems at the same time to have somewhat narrowed

the canonical context with which he is working, a narrowing

that has caused confusion among critics and reviewers. The

canonical context of the Christian church appears to have been

dropped. He states that his approach

            is descriptive in nature. It is not confessional in the sense of

            consciously assuming tenets of Christian theology, but rather it

            seeks to describe as objectively as possible the canonical

            literature of ancient Israel which is the heritage of both Jew and

            Christian. If at times the description becomes theological in its

            terminology, it is because the literature itself requires it.²³

Later in this chapter the question will be asked as to whether

or not Childs has either been successful in this delimitation,

or if he even had the right to do so, based on the principles

he had been espousing for over fifteen years.

            The first chapter of Childs's Introduction is devoted to

a history of Old Testament introductions. At the end of the

____________________

            ²²Ibid., 16.

            ²³Ibid.

                                                72

 

chapter he sums up the status of Old Testament studies with the

following observation and question:

            Those scholars who pursued historical criticism of the Old

            Testament no longer found a significant place for the canon.

            Conversely, those scholars who sought to retain a

            concept of the canon were unable to find a significant role for

            historical criticism. . . .

            In my judgment, the crucial task is to rethink the

            problem of Introduction in such a way as to overcome this long

            established tension between the canon and criticism. Is it

            possible to understand the Old Testament as canonical

            scripture and yet to make full and consistent use of the

            historical critical tools?²⁴

            In the over six hundred pages that follow, Childs seeks to

provide an affirmative answer to the question. The success or

failure of the attempt will be evaluated later in this chapter. At

this point it will be enough to describe how he goes about it. In

the second chapter Childs sets out all the problems with canon,

ranging from terminology to scope. He says that "it is

necessary at the outset to settle on a definition of the term

canon."²⁵ Yet he never quite gets around to defining it,

though he does make many points about what a definition

must include and emphasize.²⁶ In the third chapter he

discuss how canonical analysis relates to the various Old

Testament critical disciplines. Though he has not yet

actually defined canon, he does tell precisely what he

____________________

            ²⁴Ibid., 45.

            ²⁵Ibid., 57.

            ²⁶He had, however, defined canon in an earlier article, "The

Exegetical Significance of Canon for the Study of the Old

Testament." We will look at that definition later.

                                           73

 

means by canonical analysis. Several quotes from this section

are necessary to see Childs's thinking.

            The major task of a canonical analysis of the Hebrew Bible is a

            descriptive one. It seeks to understand the peculiar shape and

            special function of these texts which comprise the Hebrew canon.²⁷

            Canonical analysis focuses its attention on the final form of the

            text itself. It seeks neither to use the text merely as a source for

            other information obtained by means of an oblique reading, nor

            to reconstruct a history of religious development. Rather it

            treats the literature in its own integrity. . . . To take the

            canonical shape of these texts seriously is to seek to do justice

            to a literature which Israel transmitted as a record of God's

            revelation to his people along with Israel's response. The

            canonical approach to the Hebrew Bible does not make any

            dogmatic claims for the literature apart from the literature

            itself, as if these texts contained only timeless truths or

            communicated in a unique idiom, but rather it studies them as

            historically and theologically conditioned writings which were

            accorded a normative function in the life of this community.²⁸

            . . . the approach seeks to work within that interpretative structure

            which the biblical text has received from those who formed and used

            it as sacred scripture. To understand that canonical shape requires the

            highest degree of exegetical skill in an intensive wrestling with the text.

            It is expected that interpreters will sometime disagree on the nature

            of the canonical shaping, but the disagreement will enhance the

            enterprise if the various interpreters share a common understanding

            of the nature of the exegetical task.²⁹

            In answer to the question as to why the final form of

the text is the special focus of this analysis, Childs says:

            The reason for insisting on the final form of scripture lies in the

            peculiar relationship between text and people of God which is

            constitutive of canon. The shape of the biblical text reflects a

            history of encounter between God

____________________

            ²⁷Childs, Introduction, 72.

            ²⁸Ibid., 73.

            ²⁹Ibid.

                                     74

 

            and Israel. The canon serves to describe this peculiar

            relationship and to define the scope of this history by

            establishing a beginning and end to the process. . . . The

            significance of the final form of the text is that it alone bears

            witness to the full history of revelation. Within the Old

            Testament neither the process of the formation of the literature

            nor the history of its canonization is assigned an independent

            integrity. This dimension has often been lost or purposely

            blurred and is therefore dependent on scholarly reconstruction.

            The fixing of a canon of scripture implies that the witness to

            Israel's experience with God lies not in recovering such

            historical processes, but is testified to in the effect on the

            biblical text itself. Scripture bears witness to God's activity in

            history on Israel's behalf, but history per se is not a medium of

            revelation which is commensurate with a canon. It is only in

            the final form of the biblical text in which the normative

            history has reached an end that the full effect of this revelatory

            history can be perceived.³⁰

            Childs recognizes that this approach flies full in the

face of all that historical-critical, form critical, and traditio-historical

disciplines desire to do in reconstructing Israel's history and earlier

stages of the text. Childs's answer, however, is that the canon must

be recognized as itself serving a critical function.

            It is certainly true that earlier stages in the development of the

            biblical literature were often regarded as canonical prior to the

            establishment of the final form. In fact, the final form

            frequently consists of simply transmitting an earlier, received

            form of the tradition often unchanged from its original setting.

            Yet to take the canon seriously is also to take seriously the

            critical function which it exercises in respect to the earlier

            stages of the literature's formation. A critical judgment is

            evidenced in the way in which these earlier stages are handled.

            At times the material is passed on unchanged; at other times

            tradents select, rearrange, or expand the received tradition. The

            purpose of insisting on the

____________________

            ³⁰Ibid., 75-76.

                                          75

 

            authority of the final canonical form is to defend its

            role of providing this critical norm.³¹

            In other words, the earlier stages of a text's history

are important only if the canon says they are. The canon is

afforded an equal critical status with the critical scholars,

not in the reconstruction of the earlier stages of a text's

history, but in the assessment of whether or not those earlier

stages have any theological value.³²

            Then comes one of the more controversial elements of

Childs's theory. Even the sociological or historical setting

of those responsible for the final form is irrelevant, for the

recovery of that setting is also largely a matter of

reconstruction, and besides, we do not even know the identity

of the canonizers.

            But basic to the canonical process is that those responsible for

            the actual editing of the text did their best to obscure their own

            identity. Thus the actual process by which the text was

            reworked lies in almost total obscurity. Its presence is detected

            by the effect on the text. . . . The canon formed the decisive

            Sitz im Leben for the Jewish community's life, thus blurring

            the sociological evidence most sought after by the modern

            historian. When critical exegesis is made to rest on the

            recovery of these very sociological distinctions which have

            been obscured, it runs directly in the face of the canon's intention. . . .

            It is not clear to what extent the ordering of the oral and written

            material into a canonical form always involved an intentional

            decision. . . . But irrespective of intentionality the effect of the

            canonical process was to render the tradition accessible to the

            future generation

____________________

            ³¹Childs, Introduction, 76.

            ³²On this point see also Childs's Old Testament Theology in a

Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 11.

                                       76

 

            by means of a "canonical intentionality", which is

            coextensive with the meaning of the biblical text.³³

As for the relationship between canonical analysis and the

various Old Testament critical disciplines, Childs takes special

care to distinguish canonical analysis from other "critical"

methods.

            The approach which I am undertaking has been described by

            others as "canonical criticism". I am unhappy with this term

            because it implies that the canonical approach is considered

            another historical critical technique which can take its place

            alongside of source criticism, form criticism, rhetorical

            criticism, and similar methods. I do not envision the approach

            to canon in this light. Rather, the issue at stake in relation to the

            canon turns on establishing a stance from which the Bible can

            be read as sacred scripture.³⁴

            This must be one of the most frequently skipped, hastily read,

or ignored paragraphs in the Introduction, for many reviews

and scholarly interactions with Childs, even several years after

the book's publication, still refer to Childs's approach as

"canonical criticism." But it is important to note that this is not

just a trifling distinction on Childs's part. Childs's very

important point here is that while all the other methodologies

are qualified to investigate the text from their respective

disciplinary stances, none of them are qualified to either ask, or

expect answers to, theological questions.

            After a fourth chapter devoted to the relationship between the

canonical approach and textual criticism, Childs

____________________

            ³³Childs, Introduction, 78-79.

            ³⁴Ibid., 82.

                                         77

 

then applies his canonical analysis to the various sections and

individual books of the Old Testament canon. The format is

virtually the same in each case. First, he discusses the critical

issues in relation to each book, always concluding the

discussion by declaring that critical study of the book has

reached an impasse because of its failure to consider the book

from a canonical perspective. Second, he gives his own

analysis of the book's canonical shaping. Finally, he lists the

theological and hermeneutical implications of the canonical

approach to the section in question.

            Childs has published three more volumes since the

Introduction that will be only briefly touched on here, though

material from these works will be used in the next section to

show how Childs interacts with his critics. The first was the

New Testament Canon: An Introduction,³⁵ the counterpart to

his Old Testament Introduction, and quite a venture for an Old

Testament scholar. The second was Old Testament Theology in

a Canonical Context,³⁶ in which Childs further developed the

hermeneutical and theological implications of his canonical

approach. Finally, and just recently, he published what may be

considered his magnum opus, his Biblical Theology of the

Old and New Testaments: A Theological Reflection on the

____________________

            ³⁵Brevard S. Childs, The New Testament as Canon: An

Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).

            ³⁶Brevard S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical

Context (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986).

                                        78

 

Christian Bible.³⁷ It is only in this last volume that Childs

has, in my opinion, returned in a consistent manner to his

original program of doing exegesis and biblical theology in

the canonical context of the Christian church:

            Biblical theology has as its proper context the canonical

            scriptures of the Christian church, not because only this

            literature influenced its history, but because of the peculiar

            reception of this corpus by a community of faith and practice.

            The Christian church responded to this literature as the

            authoritative word of God, and it remains existentially

            committed to an inquiry into its inner unity because of its

            confession of the one gospel of Jesus Christ which it proclaims

            to the world.³⁸

            There are many elements and nuances to Childs's approach

which cannot be sufficiently explored in this brief

description. But many of them will be encountered in the

discussion of objections by Childs's critics.

 

                Objections to Childs's Canonical Approach

            Childs's canonical approach has come under intense scrutiny in

book reviews, articles, symposiums, whole journal issues,

books, and dissertations. In this section I will look at the

objections that are most relevant to my own appropriation of,

and yet distanciation from, Childs's approach. The objections

will be grouped under ten broad headings.

____________________

            ³⁷Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New

Testaments: A Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible

(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).

            ³⁸Ibid., 8.

                                              79

 

                     1. The Question of Methodology

            The problem raised by critics and reviewers here takes three

different, though non-exclusive, forms: (1) Childs has not

given a clearly explained methodology for his program of

canonical analysis, (2) the program is really nothing more than

an extension of redaction and/or form criticism, and (3) even if

there is a difference between canonical analysis and redaction

criticism, Childs has failed to show how the canonical shaping

of a book can be distinguished from the redactional shaping.

            First, Childs has been faulted for lack of methodological

clarity. This has been expressed understatedly in a recent

volume by Mark Brett: "Childs's methodological statements

were often not, however, as clear as one would wish."³⁹ More

forcefully, Donn Morgan states, not just regarding Childs, but

Sanders as well, that "despite numerous publications and the

intense debate over canon, there is little if any methodological

clarity concerning how one is to study the Bible

canonically."⁴⁰

____________________

            ³⁹Mark G. Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis?: The Impact of

the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 3.

            ⁴⁰Donn F. Morgan, "Canon or Criticism: Method or

Madness?" ATR 68 (1986): 84. See also, John J. Collins, "Is a

Critical Biblical Theology Possible?" in The Hebrew Bible and

Its Interpreters, ed. William Henry Propp, Baruch Halpern, and

David Noel Freedman, BJS 1 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,

1990), 6; Robert P. Carroll, review of Introduction to the Old

Testament, by Brevard S. Childs, SJT 33 (1980): 290.

                                          80

 

            Second, the canonical approach has been branded as

nothing more than an extension of form and redaction

criticism. Some of the following statements will show the

confusion in this area:

            Redaction criticism when applied within Old Testament studies

            has been variously designated but most often referred to as

            "canonical criticism" or "canonical analysis."⁴¹

            Most of what Childs calls "shaping" the literature into its final

            form is essentially what has long gone under the name of redactional.⁴²

            Could it not, however, count as redaction criticism and thus as

            an extension of existing historical methods?⁴³

            Childs has claimed too much and thus far demonstrated too

            little. It is possible to call [?] the approach no more than the

            giving of a new name to traditioning and redaction and then

            surrounding this process with mystery and certain abstract

            theological statements.⁴⁴

            However, despite his own, probably unguarded, statement:

"In one sense, I have simply extended the insights of the form

critical method,"⁴⁵ Childs rejects the simple equation of his

canonical approach with form or redaction criticism:

____________________

            ⁴¹John H. Hayes and Carl L. Holladay, Biblical Exegesis: A

Beginner's Handbook (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), 101.

            ⁴²Douglas A. Knight, "Canon and the History of Tradition: A

Critique of Brevard S. Childs' Introduction to the Old

Testament as Scripture," HBT 2 (1980): 136.

            ⁴³James Barr, "Childs' Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture," JSOT 16 (1980): 12.

            ⁴⁴Walter Harrelson, review of Introduction to the Old

Testament as Scripture, by Brevard S. Childs, JBL 100 (1981):

102.

            ⁴⁵Brevard S. Childs, "Response to Reviewers of Introduction

to the OT as Scripture," JSOT 16 (1980): 52.

                                             81

 

            How does the canonical process relate to the redactional

            history of a book? The method of redactional criticism seeks to

            discern from the peculiar shape of the biblical signs of

            intentional reinterpretation of the material which can be related

            to an editor's particular historically conditioned perspective. A

            canonical method also makes use of the peculiar shape of the

            literature, often in direct dependence upon redactional analysis.

            However, the models by which the seams in the literature are

            interpreted differ markedly. Canonical analysis focuses its

            attention on the effect which the different layers have had on

            the final form of the text, rather than using the text as a source

            for other information obtained by means of an oblique reading,

            such as the editor's self-understanding. A major warrant for this

            approach is found within the biblical tradition itself. The tradents

            have consistently sought to hide their own footprints in order to

            focus attention on the canonical text itself rather than the process.⁴⁶

Again,

            I have often made use of redactional criticism in studying the

            seams within the literature, but I have drawn such different

            implications from my analysis that I would distinguish my

            approach from that usually understood by that method. . . .

            Because the shapers of the material usually hid their identity,

            ascribing it no theological value, I do not feel that the main

            focus of critical research should lie in pursuing the redactors'

            motivations and biases. Rather, the emphasis should fall on the

            effect which the layering of tradition has had on the reworked

            text because of its objective status.⁴⁷

            It seems here that Childs, for all his desire to

distance what he does from redaction criticism, still ends up

saying that the only difference is the goal of the analysis

and the implications to be drawn as a result.⁴⁸ The goal is to

____________________

            ⁴⁶Childs, "The Exegetical Significance of Canon," 68.

            ⁴⁷Childs, "Response to Reviewers," 53-54.

            ⁴⁸In an earlier article ("The Old Testament as Scripture of

the Church," CTM 43 [1972]: 720), Childs even says that "the

canonical redaction shaped the tradition in order to serve as

Scripture for the use of later Israel" (emphasis mine).

                                          82

 

understand the final text as opposed to the mind of the final

redactor. The implications are hermeneutical and theological

implications, as opposed to psychological ones that result from

probing into the "editor's self-understanding." If that is the

case, why not just admit that canonical analysis has no

methodology, but is simply a stance from which to interpret the

results of all the other critical methodologies? Childs comes

very close to doing just that. It will be remembered from a

quotation cited previously that Childs himself refuses to

consider the canonical approach a "critical technique which can

take its place alongside" the other critical methods, but

considers it rather to be a "stance from which the Bible can be

read as sacred scripture."⁴⁹ There are, however, as I see it, two

major problems with Childs's attempted distinction.

            The first problem relates most closely to the third line of

criticism in regard to the methodology, that Childs has not been

able to show how a canonical shaping is any different than a

redactional shaping. In a 1977 article Childs listed what he

considered to be evidences of canonical shaping. He listed six:

            1.  A collection of material has been detached from its original

            historical mooring and provided with a secondary, theological

            context.

            2.  The original historical setting of a tradition has been

            retained, but it has been placed within a framework which

            provided the material with an interpretative guideline.

____________________

            ⁴⁹Childs, Introduction, 82.

                                         83

 

            3.  A body of material has been edited in the light of a larger

            body of canonical literature.

            4.  An original historical sequence of a prophet's message was

            subordinated to a new theological function by means of a

            radically theocentric focus in the canonical ordering of a book.

            5.  The shaping process altered the semantic level on which a

            passage originally functioned by assigning it a lessthan-literal

            role within the canonical context.

            6.  Prophetic proclamation has been given a radically new

            eschatological interpretation by shifting the referent within the

            original oracles.⁵⁰

            The problem with all of these is that it is hard to see

from any of the examples how the suggested canonical shaping

is any different from a redactional shaping. Morgan asks the question:

            What are the methodological guidelines for locating and

            isolating these canonical signs? It is precisely here that

            canonical study is dependent upon other critical

            methodologies. To the extent that these signs are to be found in

            the peculiar juxtaposition of sources and oracles, the method of

            redaction criticism is crucial in their identification. To the

            extent that these signs are to be found in the overall structure of

            books or sources, the study is really form criticism writ large.

            Each of these traditional methods does have guidelines or

            procedures that must be used if canonical analysis is to have

            any precision. At this point the distinction between canonical

            study and other methods is very difficult to define and maintain.⁵¹

____________________

            ⁵⁰Childs, "The Exegetical Significance of Canon," 70-75.

            ⁵¹Donn F. Morgan, "Canon and Criticism," 89-90. See also,

James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 139-40, 146; George M.

Landes, "The Canonical Approach to Introducing the Old

Testament: Prodigy and Problems," JSOT 16 (1980): 38;

Roland E. Murphy, "The Old Testament as Scripture," JSOT

16 (1980): 41. Cf. the criticism of J. Clinton McCann ("Psalm

73: An Interpretation Emphasizing Rhetorical and Canonical Criticism"

[Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1985], 254): "If Childs would recognize

the distinction between the literary-historical reading of a text and

                                                   84

 

            However, the second problem, and for me, the more serious

of the two, is that Childs seems to be caught in the very trap

which he himself had chided the majority of commentators for

getting caught. If in fact, canonical analysis is dependent upon

historical, tradition, form, and redaction criticisms for its data,

then it seems that Childs has, to use his own words against

him, tried "to build a bridge from the neutral, descriptive

content to the theological reality."⁵² He has, in essence, made

the theological stance of his canonical approach dependent

upon critical methodologies and redaction criticism, in

particular.

                     2. The Question of Definition

            The second problem focused on by critics is that of Childs's

very definition of canon. As we noted earlier, he did not

actually give a complete definition of canon in his

Introduction, but he has done so in other places.

            I am using the term "canon" to refer to that historical process

            within ancient Israel--particularly in the post-exilic period--

            which entailed a collecting, selecting, and ordering of texts to

            serve a normative function as Sacred Scripture within the

            continuing religious community. In

____________________

the theological evaluation of a text, he could then admit that his

canonical approach in practice is virtually identical to the

application of redaction criticism to whole biblical books." For

defenders of Childs's distinction between redactional and

canonical analysis, see Mark G. Brett, Biblical Criticism in

Crisis? 3; Charles J. Scalise, "Canonical Hermeneutics: The

Theological Basis of Implications of the Thought of Brevard S.

Childs" (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,

1987), 47-48; Rudolf Smend, "Questions About the Importance

of Canon in an Old Testament Introduction," JSOT 16 (1980): 46.

                ⁵²Childs, "Interpretation in Faith," 438.

                                          85

 

            the transmission process, traditions which once arose in a

            particular milieu and were addressed to various historical

            situations were shaped in such a way as to serve as a normative

            expression of God's will to later generations of Israel who had

            not shared in those original historical events.⁵³

            I am including under the term not only the final stages of

            setting limits on the scope of the sacred writings-canonization

            proper--but also that process by which authoritative tradition

            was collected, ordered, and transmitted in such a way as to

            enable it to function as sacred scripture for a community of

            faith and practice.⁵⁴

            One would have thought, if the term "canon" itself did

not actually appear in the first citation, that these were

definitions of "canonization," not "canon." And, in a way,

this would be correct.⁵⁵ Then why does Childs come under

such intense criticism for focusing only on the final form of the

text? It would seem entirely unjustified from these two

citations. The problem is that this "historical process"

whereby the "authoritative tradition was collected, ordered,

and transmitted" is almost totally unrecoverable. After a

section in the Introduction in which he tells what he knows of

this process, Childs then summarizes:

            First of all, it should be incontrovertible that there was a

            genuine historical development involved in the formation of

            the canon and that any concept of canon which fails to reckon

            with this historical dimension is faulty.

____________________

            ⁵³Childs, "The Exegetical Significance of Canon," 67.

            ⁵⁴Childs, The New Testament as Canon, 25.

            ⁵⁵Note Douglas Knight's ("Canon and the History of

Tradition," 138) statement and question: "From this it is

apparent that Childs is operating with a broad view of canon,

broad in terms of historical scope, nature of literary activity,

and theological interpretation. The question is whether it in fact

embraces so much that it loses its meaning."

                                       86

 

            Secondly, the available historical evidence allows

            for only a bare skeleton of this development. One searches

            largely in vain for solid biblical or extra-biblical

            evidence by which to trace the real causes and motivations

            behind many of the crucial decisions.

            . . . the Jewish canon was formed through a complex

            historical process which is largely inaccessible to critical

            reconstruction. The history of the canonical process does not

            seem to be an avenue through which one can greatly illuminate

            the present canonical text. Not only is the evidence far too

            skeletal, but the sources seem to conceal the very kind of

            information which would allow a historian easy access into the

            material by means of uncovering the process.⁵⁶

            The upshot of all this is that even though Childs defines canon

so broadly so as to take in what is normally thought of as

"canonization" rather than canon, he ends up focusing on the

final form of the text because it, rather than any historical

reconstruction of the canonization process, is the only thing we

have which actually bears the stamp of that process.⁵⁷

However, if that is the case, then why does Childs feel the

necessity to define canon so broadly? The answer may be

found in several different places, but perhaps the most

illuminating one is where Childs interacts with James Barr's

criticisms of his definition of canon.

            Barr, in his book Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism,

accuses Childs of operating with three different definitions of

canon which Barr labels "canon 1, canon 2 and

____________________

            ⁵⁶Childs, Introduction, 68.

            ⁵⁷Cf. on this point Bonnie Kittel, "Brevard Childs'

Development of the Canonical Approach," JSOT 16 (1980): 3.

                                            87

 

canon 3."⁵⁸ Canon 1 is what we usually think of by canon,

"the list of works which together comprise holy scripture."

Canon 2 "is the final form, the so-called `canonical form', of a

book, an individual book, as it stands in the Bible." "Canon 3 is

more, a perspective, a way of looking at texts, a perception for

which the term `holistic' is often used."⁵⁹ And then, at the

height of his satire, Barr states, "Canon 3 is not a canon in any

ordinary sense of the word, it is rather the principle of

attraction, value, and satisfaction that makes everything about

canons and canonicity beautiful."⁶⁰ Childs, in response to

another article where Barr had reviewed his Introduction,⁶¹

had criticized Barr and others and said that "some of the

misunderstanding of parts of my book stem from replacing my

broad use of the term with such a narrower, traditional usage,

and thus missing the force of the argument."⁶² Now, in this

book, Barr answers the charge and says:

            But when one shows that canon 1, though a factual reality, is

            not as dominant in scripture as it has seemed, one is told that

            this results from failure to see the new and wider sense of

            "canon". In other words, at this point

____________________

            ⁵⁸Barr, Holy Scripture, 75.

            ⁵⁹Ibid., 75-76.

            ⁶⁰Ibid., 76-77.

            ⁶¹James Barr, "Childs' Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture," JSOT 16 (1980): 12-23.

            ⁶²Childs, "Response to Reviewers," 53.

                                          88

 

            canonical criticism depends upon systematic confusion in

            the use of its favorite word, "canon".⁶³

And again,

            Words are no longer to be used in a sense which could provide

            a common platform with agreed values for contrary views.

            Rather, they are redefined so that their "new" meanings lead

            inevitably to the conclusion that canonical criticism is right. As

            Childs says, "some of the misunderstanding of parts of my

            book stem from replacing my broad use of the term [canon]

            with a much narrower, traditional usage, and thus missing the

            force of the argument". But the new "broad" use of the term

            has a very simple value: its meaning is identical with the

            proposition "Childs is right". If, however, one considers that

            the new broad usage of the term is a result of confusion in

            Childs's thinking, then of course one cannot express oneself

            properly in that new broad usage. In other words, the "new"

            terminology is a terminology which will lead inevitably to the

            solutions preferred by canonical criticism and will make equal

            and level discussions with other positions difficult. Thus terminology is

            no accidental factor in the question. The endless repetition of the word

            "canon" in canonical criticism is not accident, but necessity: for, as seen

            from without, the continual reuse of this word is necessary in order to hold

            together sets of arguments which otherwise would fall apart.⁶⁴

            Now, it is in his response to this attack by Barr that

one can see why it is that, while Childs focuses on the final

form of the text, he still wants to hold on to such a broad

definition of canon that encompasses the historical

canonization process as well. First, he says, somewhat

surprisingly, "Indeed, what I am proposing can be described

____________________

            ⁶³Barr, Holy Scripture, 79.

            ⁶⁴Ibid., 146-47. See the criticisms of Barr's

"misunderstanding" of Childs in Gerald T. Sheppard, "Barr on

Canon and Childs: Can one Read the Bible as Scripture?"

Theological Students Fellowship Bulletin 7/2 (1983): 2-4;

James A. Sanders, review of Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority,

Criticism, by James Barr, in JBL 104 (1985): 501-2.

                                       89

 

without immediate reference to the term ‘canon.’"⁶⁵ But then,

seemingly self-contradictingly, he goes on to tell why he

defines canon so broadly and why retention of the term is so

important.

            I use the term "canon" for this entire theological construal to

            avoid the pitfalls of Protestant orthodoxy when it spoke of the

            authority of Scripture. Such authority could be understood as

            lying in the mind of God without regard for its human

            reception. I chose the term "canon" because it includes both the

            concepts of authority and reception in order to express the

            process and effect of this transmitting of religious tradition by

            a community of faith toward a certain end in all its various aspects.

            I feel that it is important to retain the term "canon" to

            emphasize that the process of religious interpretation by a

            historical faith community left its mark on a literary text which

            did not continue to evolve and which became the normative

            interpretation of those events to which it bore witness.⁶⁶

            In other words, Childs focuses on the final form of the

text because the historical processes which shaped the text

are recoverable only through that same text. But he defines

the term "canon" broadly to include those historical processes

to keep his canonical analysis from lapsing into "Protestant

orthodoxy," or, even worse, fundamentalism. Some of Barr's

criticisms are unjust, but it is hard to keep from concluding

that what Childs does is close to running a semantic

____________________

            ⁶⁵Brevard S. Childs, "Childs Versus Barr," review of Holy

Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism, by James Barr, in Int

38 (1984): 67.

            ⁶⁶Ibid., 68. Cf. a similar statement in The New Testament as

Canon (p. 26): "I use the term canon for this entire theological

construal to avoid the error of traditional Protestant orthodoxy

(cf. H. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 22) when it spoke of the

authority of scripture as lying in the mind of God without

regard for its human reception (autopistos)."

                                         90

 

theological shell game. If the customer is a historical critic, he

lifts up one shell and shows that the peanut (the canon) was

really under the final form of the text. If the customer is an

evangelical and points to that same shell, Childs lifts up

another one instead and says that the peanut is really under the

historical, canonization process, though he has to admit that the

process has left no evidence whatsoever except that which is

under the shell which the evangelical pointed to in the first

place.

                       3. The Question of Focus

            The previous discussion leads us to an investigation of Childs's

fixation on the final form of the text. The criticism here is

twofold: (1) that to focus on the final form is to suppress the

very historical and sociological concerns with which the texts

themselves are marked, and (2) that earlier levels of the text

should be regarded as having theological value as well. I will

present both arguments first and then show Childs's responses

to them.

            Bruce Birch has well expressed the first concern:

            Was the biblical community unaware of the process of tradition

            development in shaping the canon? Have not levels of the pre-

            history of some texts been intentionally preserved so that an

            interaction of those levels is a part of the intended meaning of a

            book? Will not recovery of the historical context of those

            levels be necessary in order to apprehend the full range of the

            intended canonical dialogue?⁶⁷

____________________

            ⁶⁷Bruce C. Birch, "Tradition, Canon and Biblical Theology,"

HBT 2 (1980): 122.

                                         91

 

In other words, it would seem that if the canon itself

recognized the value of earlier levels of the text, we should

do the same, and there should be theological repayment for the

critical work expended in identifying these layers.

            The second concern has been most cogently formulated, I

believe, by Erhard Gerstenberger:

            Looking at the long chain of transmission and tradents of text

            and meaning, I cannot help but think that each station where a

            text incorporated itself, from the beginning to the present day,

            is worth serious consideration. It is difficult to imagine that any

            particular time or interpretation acquired or set forth a-or "the"-

            -normative meaning. Why is that so?

            Each historical situation has its own dignity and importance

            which may not be used one against the other. Speaking in

            traditional theological terms we may put it this way: God

            addresses humanity, taking its situation with utmost

            seriousness, no matter how humble and restricted the

            addressee's life might be. In fact, according to the Bible, God

            prefers the lowly situation of his weak and lost partners.

            Consequently, there certainly are no situations of power and glory

            to be singled out as guidelines for the interpretation of others.⁶⁸

In other words, it is not just arbitrarily wrong to take one

point in the history of the canon's formation and make it

theologically normative, but it is theologically wrong as

well: given the Lord's preference for the powerless, it could

be considered anti-theological to regard the decisions of a

group powerful enough to make and impose canonical decisions,

____________________

            ⁶⁸Erhard S. Gerstenberger, "Canon Criticism and the Meaning

of Sitz im Leben," in Canon, Theology and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in

Honor of Brevard S. Childs, ed. Gene  M. Tucker, David L. Petersen, and Robert

R. Wilson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 22; see also, Robert P. Carroll, "Canonical

Criticism: A Recent Trend in Biblical Studies," ExpTim 92 (1980): 76.

                                          92

 

as valid for all time. I believe Gerstenberger has overstated his

case, but he does present a compelling argument against

freezing one canonical moment and making it theologically

normative.⁶⁹

            Childs's reply to each of these two criticisms would be to

affirm the premise but to deny the implication. Yes, earlier

textual layers and levels do have theological value, and, yes,

the canon bears the marks of these earlier layers as well as the

historical and sociological concerns which shaped them.

However, the canon must be given its full critical function in

its assessment of that theological value. The canon itself

informs us of theological lessons that may be gleaned from

earlier layers of the text. However, the canon's function is not

paradigmatic in this regard. The canon is not an example for us

to follow. Our redactional, form-critical, tradition-historical,

and sociological analyses and reconstructions of earlier layers

and contexts are not allowed to claim theological

normativity.⁷⁰ The canon performs that

____________________

            ⁶⁹On this point see also, James L. Mays, "What is Written: A

Response to Brevard S. Childs' Introduction to the Old

Testament as Scripture," HBT 2 (1980): 161; Sean E.

McEvenue, "The Old Testament, Scripture or Theology?" Int

35 (1981): 233.

            ⁷⁰In this light it is interesting to note the perceptive comment

by Sean McEvenue (review of Introduction to the Old

Testament as Scripture, by Brevard S. Childs, in CBQ 42

[1980]: 535), regarding the sections labeled "Historical Critical

Problems" in Childs's Introduction: "These sections are done

with grace, erudition, and brilliance. However, as C. [Childs]

usually takes no position regarding these differences, an

impression is created that either no conclusion can be arrived at

in these matters or that the conclusion would make little

difference."

                                        93

 

function uniquely, for it alone, and not our reconstructions,

constitutes the vehicle for revelation.⁷¹

                  4. The Question of Intentionality

What does the canon mean? Or does it intend to mean

anything? And where does its meaning reside? Is it in the

mind of the authors? the redactors? the canonizers? God? Or

can a text have an intentionality all its own apart from any

intentionality that may have been in the minds of the authors,

redactors, or canonizers? These are the questions that have

been put to Childs's canonical approach over the question of

meaning and intentionality.⁷²

            An excerpt from the Introduction will show how Childs

has engendered these questions:

            But irrespective of intentionality the effect of the

            canonical process was to render the tradition accessible

            to the future generation by means of a "canonical

            intentionality", which is coextensive with the meaning of

            the biblical text.⁷³

____________________

            ⁷¹See the citations from Childs earlier in this chapter. Note

also Brett's comment: "Childs's solution is roughly this; if

historical reconstruction (whether emic or etic) is too

hypothetical, then a type of exegesis is needed that makes such

reconstruction largely irrelevant. Such an exegesis will be

focused on the `canonical shape' of the Masoretic text"

(Biblical Criticism in Crisis? 62). Childs himself ("Response to

Reviewers," 53-54) says, "Still I do not rule out of court the

need for investigating the historical influence on the canonical

shapers to the extent that they can be determined.

Unfortunately, we know so little about their work that many

theories have been exceedingly speculative and largely

unproductive up to now."

            ⁷²See    Dale A. Brueggemann, "Brevard Childs' Canon

Criticism: An Example of a Post-Critical Naivete," JETS 32

(1989): 314.

            ⁷³Childs, Introduction, 79.

                                         94

 

It is almost as if Childs is saying, "whether or not there is

an intentionality, there is an intentionality." Barton

rightly characterizes Childs's move:

            "Canonical intentionality" seems to be used here with a deliberate

            air of paradox. Childs is saying in effect: if we cannot conceive

            of meaning without invoking "intention", we shall have to speak

            as though the canon itself did the intending! In fact, for him, meaning

            is not a matter of intention at all, but is a function of the relationship

            of a given text to other texts in the canon.⁷⁴

            Childs's handling of a text-critical problem in 1 Sam

1:24 will show how he assigns the canon an intention apart

from any author or redactor. Childs admits that a case of

haplography has resulted in the difficult reading, wĕhanna ar

na’ar ("the boy was a boy"); moreover, what is apparently the

correct reading, without the haplography, is preserved in a

Qumran manuscript and in the Septuagint. Then he tells how

the canonical approach would handle the problem:

            It would attempt to assess the range of interpretation possible

            for this mutilated MT text, both in terms of its syntactical

            options . . . and its secondary vocalization. Within the

            parameters of a canonical corpus the method seeks to

            determine how the meaning of a given passage, even if

            damaged, was influenced by its relation to other canonical

            passages. The obvious gain in such an approach is that the

            continuity with the entire history of exegesis is maintained.

            Moreover, the means for its critical evaluation is provided

            rather than arbitrarily setting up an individualistic reading

            which never had an effect upon any historical community.⁷⁵

____________________

            ⁷⁴John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical

Study (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 224 n. 12.

            ⁷⁵Childs, Introduction, 105 (emphasis mine). See Ralph W.

Klein's criticism of Childs's approach on this text (review of

Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, by Brevard S.

Childs, in CurTM 7 [1980]: 58-59).

                                                95

 

            An interchange between David Polk and Childs over the

problem raised by such an approach is very illustrative. Polk

charges:

            Central to Childs' position is the understanding that the final

            edited form of the canonical text is always somehow

            intentional. . . . Never is the resultant product allowed to be

            regarded as an accident of transmission or the uncritical

            solidifying of botched editing. . . .

            My point of contention is that Childs considers himself

            required to treat possible aberrations in the final forms of the

            text as conscious and motivated because of a theological stance

            that proclaims the canon unreservedly to be intentional in its

            shape.⁷⁶

But Polk makes this charge as if Childs were suggesting that

even obvious textual errors were always intentional on the part

of some redactor. This is exactly what Childs is not saying. He

admits that there are accidents in the text: "Certainly in the

process of the literature's literary and canonical shaping

accidental factors entered in. This observation seems to me to

be undeniable."⁷⁷ What he is saying, however, is this:

"Nevertheless, a special level of intentionality was assigned to

the literature as a whole by virtue of its accepted role as

Scripture."⁷⁸

            Of course, the question to be asked at this point is restated by

Childs himself and then answered: "Frequently the

____________________

            ⁷⁶David K. Polk, "Brevard Childs' Introduction to the Old

Testament as Scripture," HBT 2 (1980): 167-68.

            ⁷⁷Childs, "A Response," 206.

            ⁷⁸Ibid., 206-7.

                                            96

 

response is made: why should the modern Christian church be

tied to the errors of the canonical editors?"

            However, I have sought to defend the position that to interpret

            the O.T. as Scripture has its own integrity which is of a different order.

            It is constitutive of having a canon of Sacred Scripture that the

            theological "data" on which the Church's identity is grounded does

            not lie in the events themselves, or in the text itself, but in the

            canonical text which has interpreted the events and which

            receives its meaning in the context of a community of faith.⁷⁹

Again, we see here, the importance of the community as context

for the canon. Barton's observation that meaning for Childs

resides in the relationship of a text to other texts, is only

partially correct. Rather, a text has meaning because it has

been assigned a place in the canon which has both, been shaped

by, and shaped, the community of faith for whom the canon

serves as theologically normative.⁸⁰

            Unaddressed here, and reserved for another section in

this chapter, is the theological problem that is raised by

____________________

            ⁷⁹Ibid., 207.

            ⁸⁰I believe Brett recognizes this correctly: "Can we, for

example, make any sense of the idea that communicative

intentions can be attributed to texts, rather than to human

agents, or is this, as Barr and Oeming suggest, just a ‘mystic’

anthropomorphism? And how does the idea of textual intention

relate to Childs's claim about the intentions of the actual

biblical editors? First we should stress that the idea of

canonical intentionality is one implication of Childs's view that

the Old Testament is the product of a long communal process

of reception. He explicitly opposes the `modern' idea of books

produced by individual authors with the Old Testament books

which are `traditional, communal, and developing' (1979: 574;

cf. 223, 236). In this sense, the idea of canonical intentionality

is simply a new way of expressing the long familiar idea that

Old Testament texts are more often a deposit of tradition than

the product of individual authorship" (Biblical Criticism in

Crisis? 116-17).

                                      97

 

allocating intentionality to the canonical text in its

community context, rather than to authors, and in particular,

the divine author, when it is claimed that the canon is the

vehicle of revelation.⁸¹

              5. The Question of Canonical Plurality

            The concern here is over Childs's insistence on the

Masoretic Text as the final canonical form for the text of the

Old Testament, in light of the plurality of canons that

existed in ancient Israel, in particular, the Septuagint.

Childs himself notes the problem:

            Why should the Christian church be committed in any way to

            the authority of the Masoretic text when its development

            extended long after the inception of the church and was carried

            on within a rabbinic tradition.⁸²

            Childs has several reasons for his choice of the

Masoretic Text. First there is a practical one: "In order to

maintain a common scripture with Judaism I have argued that

____________________

            ⁸¹For other criticisms of Childs's focus on the final form of the

text see the following reviews of Childs's Introduction:

Bernhard W. Anderson, TToday 37 (1980): 104; Carroll, SJT

33 (1980): 288; Thomas E. McComiskey, Trinity Journal n.s. 1

(1980): 91; Donn F. Morgan, ATR 64 (1982): 388; Barr, JSOT

16 (1980): 12-13. Also, see Barr, Holy Scripture, 161-62; D. Knight, "Canon

and the History of Tradition," 140-41; McEvenue, "The Old

Testament, Scripture or Theology?" 237; Murphy, "The Old

Testament as Scripture," 41-43; Bruce K. Waltke, "Oral

Tradition," in Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, A

Challenge, A Debate, ed. Harvie M. Conn (Grand Rapids:

Baker, 1988), 119.

            ⁸²Childs, Introduction, 89.

                                          98

 

the scope of the Hebrew canon has also a normative role for

the Christian Old Testament."⁸³ He states that he

            would not disparage the claims of those Christians who would

            follow Augustine in supporting a larger canon. However, the

            basic theological issue for its inclusion turns on the ability to

            maintain the crucial relationship between Christian and Jew.

            Up to now at least I have not seen this canonical argument for

            the inclusion of a larger canon developed.⁸⁴

While I respect Childs's right to refer to this as a

"theological issue," it seems to me to be much more

pragmatically oriented.

            Second, there are historical reasons. Childs argues

that while the Masoretic Text was stabilized by the end of the

first century AD, "The Greek Old Testament continued to

remain fluid and obtained its stability only in dependence upon the

Hebrew."⁸⁵ Also, of all the Jewish communities that had other

possible canons, it is only the one that had the Masoretic

Text that "has continued through history as the living vehicle

of the whole canon of Hebrew scripture."⁸⁶ Furthermore, only

____________________

            ⁸³Ibid., 666; see also his Old Testament Theology (p. 10):

"One of the main reasons for the Christian use of the Hebrew

text of the Old Testament rather than its Greek form lies in the

theological concern to preserve this common textual bond

between Jews and Christians."

            ⁸⁴Childs, Introduction, 666. Though I have not seen this

particular argument in the scholarly literature, I suppose

Catholics could well inquire at this point as to why Childs is so

concerned to use the canon to maintain a "crucial relationship"

with the Jews, when it would seem, in the light of maintaining

Christian unity, he should be more willing to do so with

Catholics.

            ⁸⁵Ibid., 97.

            ⁸⁶Ibid.

                                        99

 

this Jewish community "was the tradent of the oral tradition

of the vocalization of the Hebrew Bible."⁸⁷

            Finally, there are reasons that I would refer to as more

theological or traditionally apologetic in nature. Childs

almost sounds like a conservative apologist in the following

excerpt from his most recent Biblical Theology:

            From the evidence of the New Testament it seems clear that

            Jesus and the early Christians identified with the scriptures of

            Pharisaic Judaism. The early controversies with the Jews

            reflected in the New Testament turned on the proper

            interpretation of the sacred scriptures (hē graphē) which

            Christians assumed in common with the synagogue. Although

            there is evidence that other books were known and used, it is a

            striking fact that the New Testament does not cite as scripture

            any book of the Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha. (The reference

            to Enoch in Jude 14-15 is not an exception.)⁸⁸

Also, Childs maintains that early Christian use of the Greek

Septuagint as opposed to the Hebrew Bible, was culturally and

not doctrinally motivated:

            The church's use of the Greek and Latin translations of the Old

            Testament was valid in its historical context, but theologically

            provides no ground for calling into question the ultimate

            authority of the Hebrew text for church and

            synagogue.⁸⁹

            If there has been any response to Childs from A. C.

Sundberg in the scholarly literature I am unaware of it.

However, most of Childs's critics in this matter of focusing

on the Masoretic Text as opposed to the Septuagint have been

____________________

            ⁸⁷Ibid., 98.

            ⁸⁸Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, 62.

            ⁸⁹Childs, Introduction, 99.

                                     100

 

much influenced by Sundberg's work. In his doctoral

dissertation Sundberg effectively destroyed the Alexandrian

canon hypothesis and laid claim that the larger Septuagint

canon should hold normative authority for the Christian church

rather than the narrower Jewish canon.⁹⁰ In a subsequent

article he presents his case that Protestants (like Jerome a

millennium earlier) had wrongly looked to the synagogue

rather than to the early church for its authority, and should return

to the place from whence they came and embrace the larger

canon:

            Thus Protestant Christianity, in maintaining its practice of

            limiting its Old Testament to the Jewish canon, controverts the

            teaching of the New Testament scriptures that the Spirit of God

            is to be found in the church. It is evident that both in content

            and doctrine, Protestantism, in its view of Old Testament

            canon, has broken away from its spiritual heritage.⁹¹

            Most of Childs's critics in this matter have at least

partially sided with Sundberg. This is one of Sanders's major

points of criticism of Childs:

            He focuses almost exclusively, in his work on canon, on the

            final form of the text. To do that, he has to choose one text, and

            he has chosen the Massoretic Text. That is already an immense

            problem for me. It is to read back into canonical history a post-

            Christian, very rabbinic form of the text. By "very rabbinic" I

            mean a text unrelated to the Christian communities until

            comparatively late. . . . Focus on the MT leaves the NT, whose

____________________

            ⁹⁰A. C. Sundberg, Jr., The Old Testament of the Early

Church, HTS 20 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964;

repr., New York: Kraus Reprint, 1969).

            ⁹¹A. C. Sundberg, Jr., "The Bible Canon and the Christian

Doctrine of Inspiration," Int 29 (1975): 358.

                                    101

 

            Scripture was the Septuagint, out in the cold for the most

            part.⁹²

            Brett points out that Childs's insistence on the

Masoretic Text is almost ironic:

            It begins to look as if the golden thread of continuous usage

            passed into Judaism rather than into early and medieval

            Christianity, a strange turn of events for a library of books

            earlier described as Christian scripture.⁹³

And Carroll suggests that adoption of the Septuagint would

actually be more advantageous for Childs:

            The differences between these two Old Testament canons are

            often substantial and in many cases it is the Greek canon which

            carries the more explicit Christian element (e.g., order of

            books) and is already part of that hermeneutic transformation

            which elsewhere Childs wishes to incorporate into his motif of

            canonical exegesis.⁹⁴

            My own interaction with this question will come in

chapters 5-6.95

____________________

            ⁹²James A. Sanders, "Canonical Context and Canonical

Criticism," HBT 2 (1980): 186-87.

            ⁹³Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis? 65.

            ⁹⁴Robert P. Carroll, "Childs and Canon," IBS 2 (1980): 229.

            ⁹⁵For other critics of Childs on this point see Barton, Reading

the Old Testament, 91-92; H. L. Bosman, "The Validity of

Biblical Theology: Historical Description or Hermeneutical

`Childs' Play?" Old Testament Essays n.s. 3 (1990): 143; H.

Cazelles, "The Canonical Approach to Torah and Prophets,"

JSOT 16 (180): 29; D. Morgan, "Canon and Criticism," 87;

Scalise, "Canonical Hermeneutics," 201. Also see the

illuminating discussion in John Goldingay, Approaches to Old

Testament Interpretation, rev. ed. (Downers Grove:

InterVarsity, 1990), 138-45.

                                        102

 

                       6. The Question of Emphasis

 

Even among those who basically appreciate his work and agree

that the Bible should be read from a canonical perspective,

there is criticism that Childs has overemphasized the approach.

This criticism runs along four basic lines: (1) Childs has

overemphasized the value of the whole canon, (2) he has

overemphasized the structure of canon, (3) what he has

proposed is not really new, and (4) his results, to use the actual

words of reviewers, are "monotonous," "bland," "trivial," and

"unexciting."

            Knight's main criticism of Childs runs along the first of these

lines:

            In a word, our argument will be that Childs, like Gunkel

            and von Rad before him, has identified for serious study a

            largely neglected phase in the development of the biblical

            literature but that, also like them, he is overemphasizing the

            relative importance of this phase.⁹⁶

            Brett, also, feels that Childs's approach, "suitably clarified,

should become one approach to the Bible among others,"⁹⁷

and argues that

            the first problem with the canonical approach is its totalitarian

            tendency; Childs has sometimes argued as if everyone should

            become interpreters after his own image. At other times he

            envisions a more pluralist situation for biblical studies. The

            argument of this chapter is that the second Childs is to be

            preferred.⁹⁸

____________________

            ⁹⁶Knight, "Canon and the History of Tradition," 130; see

also Murphy, "The Old Testament as Scripture," 44.

            ⁹⁷Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis? 5.

            ⁹⁸Ibid., 11.

                                       103

 

It is important to note here that Childs would somewhat accept

this criticism; however, Childs has never suggested that his

approach is the only way to read the Bible. What he has done is

posit that the canonical approach is the only approach that

reads the Bible in accord with the Bible's own ontological

nature: Scripture of the community of faith.

            The second line of critique, that Childs has overemphasized

the structure of the canon, is best represented by McEvenue:

            The canon's structure is meaningful in some ways, but it is not

            in others. There is a meaningful criterion of time in the

            organization of materials, beginning with Genesis and ending

            with the Apocalypse. There may be meaning in putting the

            Pentateuch at the head of the Old Testament and the Gospels at

            the head of the New Testament. There may even be meaning in

            the lack of an attempt to organize materials in an order which

            corresponds to date of authorship. I will agree that there is

            some structure and some meaning to the canon as a whole.

            But still, for the most part, the canon is no more than an

            anthology of inspired books, linked for the most part without

            altering the meaning of the individual books.⁹⁹

I believe this criticism is somewhat unfair. While Childs has

paid a great deal of attention to the canonical ordering of

pericopes within individual books, to my knowledge he has

paid little attention to the ordering of the books as a whole.¹⁰⁰

In fact in his most recent work, while granting that there was

some theological meaning in the way the Christian Old

Testament was arranged differently from the Hebrew Bible, he

____________________

            ⁹⁹McEvenue, "The Old Testament, Scripture or Theology?"

23839; see also Sanders, "Canonical Context," 185.

            ¹⁰⁰Noted also by Brett (Biblical Criticism in Crisis? 19).

                                    104

 

specifically states that "caution is in order not to overestimate

the conscious theological intentionality of these changes . . ."¹⁰¹

In fact, he says that "a most striking feature in the

juxtaposition of the two testaments is actually the lack of

Christian redactional activity on the Old Testament."¹⁰²

Furthermore, he says that

            it is historically inaccurate to assume that the present printed

            forms of the Hebrew Bible and of the Christian Bible represent

            ancient and completely fixed traditions. Actually the present

            stability regarding the ordering of the books is to a great extent

            dependent on modern printing techniques and carries no

            significant theological weight.¹⁰³

            The third charge, that Childs is not really doing anything new,

comes from several fronts. From those who are inerrantists, the

reply to Childs is that they have always read the Bible

canonically.¹⁰⁴ From the more liberal wing, the charge comes,

in particular from Barr, that the very Biblical Theology

movement against which Childs set his program in opposition,

was, in fact, "very much a canonical movement even

____________________

            ¹⁰¹Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments,

75.

            ¹⁰²Ibid., 76.

            ¹⁰³Ibid., 74.

            ¹⁰⁴See Brian Labosier, "Matthew's Exception Clause in the

Light of Canonical Criticism: A Case Study in Hermeneutics"

(Ph.D. diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1990), 12;

Eugene H. Merrill, review of Canon and Community: A Guide to

Canonical Criticism, by James A. Sanders, in BSac 143 (1986):

83; Vern S. Poythress, Science and Hermeneutics: Implications

of Scientific Method for Biblical Interpretation, Foundations of

Contemporary Interpretation 6 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

1988), 128.

                                       105

 

if it did not use the word as a whole."¹⁰⁵ To my knowledge,

Childs has nowhere attempted to respond to either of these

objections.

            Finally, the charge is made that the canonical approach is, in

the final analysis, monotonous, bland, and trivial. In

commenting on Childs's Introduction, Barr notes that at the end

of each of the "Historical Critical Problems" sections, the same

note is always sounded: "It is like the Book of Kings: for

failure to remove the high places, read now failure to read in

the canonical context."¹⁰⁶ Harrelson, more harsh even than

Barr, says that Childs's approach is very "bland" and then

ponders, "I wonder even more why Childs is so eager to

straighten out the thought of all prior biblical interpreters,

when what comes out at the end is so trivial."¹⁰⁷ Landes, says

that he finds Sanders's work "a corrective to and many times

more exciting than Childs."¹⁰⁸ And Collins faults

____________________

            ¹⁰⁵Barr, Holy Scripture, 134 (this sentence comes near the end

of a discussion [pp. 131-34] in which Barr attempts to show

that Childs's analysis of the Biblical Theology movement failed

to demonstrate that "lack of attention to the canon was the

specific cause of its problems" [p. 134]).

            ¹⁰⁶Barr, "Childs' Introduction," 12-13. D. Moody Smith

criticizes Childs's New Testament introduction similarly ("Why

Approaching the New Testament as Canon Matters," review of

The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction, by Brevard S.

Childs, in Int 40 [1986]: 407-11).

            ¹⁰⁷Harrelson, review of Childs's Introduction, 101.

            ¹⁰⁸Landes, "The Canonical Approach," 37.

                                       106

 

Childs for isolating "biblical theology from much of what is

vital and interesting in biblical studies today."¹⁰⁹

            Even his supporters and those who are broadly considered to

be within the realm the "canonical movement" are sometimes

disappointed with the results. Walter Brueggemann, for

example, while initially impressed with the potential promise

of the Introduction, expressed dissatisfaction with Childs's next

step, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context:

            Childs' book is enigmatic, because he does not seem to adhere

            stringently to the notion of canon, which he himself has

            articulated. He repeatedly insists that we must practice a

            "canonical construal" of the material. At times, my impression

            is that he means simply that we should say what the text says,

            but it must mean more than that. However, the "more than that"

            is not only unclear, but seems to be quite subjective."¹¹⁰

And on Childs's discussion of "How God Is Known" in chapter

3, Brueggemann says, "I regard this discussion as not only

legitimate, but on the whole, persuasive, although I cannot see

what makes this a ‘canonical construal’ any more than many

other scholars have done."¹¹¹

            For the most part, I find the discussion on this issue primarily

to be subjective. For example, in contrast to Landes, I find

Childs's work to be a "corrective to and many times more

exciting" than Sanders's. However, I would agree

____________________

            ¹⁰⁹Collins, "Is a Critical Biblical Theology Possible?" 6.

            ¹¹⁰Walter Brueggemann, review of Old Testament Theology in a

Canonical Context, by Brevard S. Childs, in TToday 43

(1986): 284-86.

            ¹¹¹Ibid., 286.

                                          107

 

with Brueggemann that Childs has been inconsistent in the

application of the canonical approach.

 

                     7. The Question of Tradition

            The concern here is over the role of the early church in

the canonization of the Scriptures. The argument has been

well expressed by Barr (not in direct interaction with Childs):

            if one accepts the canon as a sign of the normative function of

            scripture for the church, on the ground that this canonization is

            a decision that the church has in fact made, I do not see how

            one escapes from ascribing a normative function to tradition

            also, a normative function that in the eyes of the canonizers of

            scripture would have seemed both right and normal.¹¹²

But Childs does not want to give the early church this

normative function. Barton expresses his dissatisfaction with

Childs in this respect:

            It seems to me, as to many readers of Childs's work, that in this

            he is trying to have it both ways. On his view it is in principle

            possible that the very same generation of Christians who fixed

            the main outlines of the canon is also a hopelessly unreliable

            guide to the correct way of reading that canon. Indeed, it is

            more than possible, it is in fact the case, for early patristic

            exegesis was notoriously given to practices Childs would

            outlaw, such as allegorization and the exploitation of merely

            verbal quibbles.¹¹³

____________________

            ¹¹²James Barr, "Trends and Prospects in Biblical Theology,"

JTS n.s. 25 (1974): 274-75.

            ¹¹³Barton, Reading the Old Testament, 97. For others who

have criticized Childs on this point see Carroll, review of

Childs's Introduction, 288; Polk, "Brevard Childs'

Introduction," 170; John F. Priest, "Canon and Criticism: A

Review Article," JAAR 48 (1980): 266; Frank Spina,

"Canonical Criticism: Childs versus Sanders," in Interpreting

God's Word for Today: An Inquiry into Hermeneutics from a

Biblical Theological Perspective, ed. Wayne McCown and

James Earl Massey, Wesleyan Theological

                                          108

 

            Childs fully recognizes the problem and has two separate

responses. First, he gives the historic Protestant response that

the period of Christ and his apostles was uniquely revelatory.

And while the Christian church did play a part in the

canonization of the Scriptures, its primary role was that of

recognition:

            The Early Church distinguished sharply between Apostolic

            tradition and later church tradition. It set apart the period of

            Christ's incarnation as sui generis. The revelation of God in

            Jesus Christ was "once for all" . . . . The Christian church was

            grounded on the Apostolic witness whose unique testimony

            was not to be simply extended.¹¹⁴

            The second is more enigmatic. He says, "The skandalon

of the canon is that the witness of Jesus Christ has been given its

normative shape through an interpretive process of the post-

apostolic age."¹¹⁵ But why this constitutes a skandalon is not

entirely clear. The word skandalon does have a magical ring to

it, but does it really serve any purpose here other than that of

permitting Childs to accept the post-apostolic decision

regarding canon, but reject whatever other post-apostolic

decisions he so chooses? While I appreciate

____________________

Perspectives 2 (Anderson, IN: Warner, 1982), 183. Note in

particular Dale Brueggemann's ("Brevard Childs' Canon

Criticism," 321) perceptive comment: "If the canon that

resulted from hermeneutical moves in the early Church has

authority, then the hermeneutical moves have authority." It

should be noted that Brueggemann's criticism here includes

Childs's reluctance to allow hermeneutical normativity to the

New Testament authors as well.

            ¹¹⁴Childs, "A Response," 202. See also Biblical Theology of

the Old and New Testaments, 66-67.

            ¹¹⁵Childs, The New Testament as Canon, 28.

                                                 109

 

Childs's dilemma here, I believe this second argument actually

runs counter to his first argument concerning the revelatory

uniqueness of the time period of Christ and the apostles. The

word skandalon was used by the New Testament and the

Reformers to refer to Christ's incarnation. To use the same

word in regard to post-apostolic activity seems to diminish, if

not destroy, that uniqueness.

            It should be noted here that Childs does not consider the New

Testament authors themselves to be reliable hermeneutical

guides either. Childs wants to maintain the distinction we have

seen before between canon as revelation and canon as

paradigm:

            The hermeneutical practice of the New Testament does not in

            itself provide a theological warrant of the church's imitation of

            this approach. We are neither prophets nor Apostles. The

            function of the church's canon is to recognize this distinction.

            The Christian Church does not have the same unmediated

            access to God's revelation as did the Apostles, but rather God's

            revelation is mediated through their authoritative witness,

            namely through scripture. This crucial difference calls into

            question any direct imitation of the New Testament

            hermeneutical practice.¹¹⁶

For me, this is more problematic than the rejection of church

tradition. I will give more attention to this in chapters 5-6.

            One more thing to be noted before we go to the next section is

that the same critics who fault Childs on his rejection of post-

apostolic tradition, also point out what

____________________

            ¹¹⁶Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments,

381.

                                    110

 

they consider to be the inconsistency in his paying so much

attention to history of exegesis. McEvenue is perhaps the

harshest critic on this point:

            The New Testament authors and subsequent Christian and

            Jewish theologians were not trying to illuminate the past.

            Rather, they were writing a theology, each for his own

            community and time, and they were using Exodus freely to suit

            their own purposes . . . Why should one expect the writers of

            the New Testament to illuminate the Book of Exodus? Childs

            appears to expect them to do this, and it is his expectation

            which has led him astray.¹¹⁷

The criticism here is wide of its target, for Childs has never

said that the history of exegesis is a guide to the illumination of

the text, though he has found a theological depth in some of the

older commentators that he looks for in vain today.¹¹⁸

However, what McEvenue does here in this attack, rather than

disproving the value of paying attention to history of exegesis,

is prove another point that Childs makes: the failure of modern

interpreters of Scripture to recognized their own interpretations

as being time-conditioned:

            The canonical approach to Old Testament theology rejects a

            method which is unaware of its own time-conditioned quality

            and which is confident in its ability to stand outside, above and

            over against the received tradition in adjudicating the truth or

            lack of truth of the biblical material according to its own

            criteria.¹¹⁹

____________________

            ¹¹⁷McEvenue, "The Old Testament, Scripture or Theology?"

232; see also Barr, Holy Scripture, 162-64; and Barton, Reading the

Old Testament, 95-96.

            ¹¹⁸Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, 53-55, 139-47;

Introduction, 523.

            ¹¹⁹Childs, Old Testament Theology, 12.

                                       111

 

            Moreover, to take seriously a canonical approach is also to

            recognize the time-conditioned quality of the modern, post-

            Enlightenment Christian whose context is just as historically

            moored as any of his predecessors. One of the disastrous

            legacies of the Enlightenment was the new confidence of

            standing outside the stream of time and with clear rationality

            being able to distinguish truth from error, light from

            darkness.¹²⁰

Childs has spoken here both correctly and eloquently.

 

                    8. The Question of the Whole Canon

            Childs explicitly rejects any canon within the canon approach

and insists that the whole canon is the context for exegesis.

            The church searches for biblical authority by struggling with

            the whole canon. It cannot pick and choose what it likes, but by

            submitting itself to the whole of Scripture, Old and New

            Testaments alike, it identifies itself with the tradition of the

            past while keeping itself open to the new and unexpected from

            the future.¹²¹

Criticism here takes one of three shapes: (1) neither the

Jewish nor Christian communities have felt bound by the whole

canon, (2) the whole canon should not be considered the

context for every exegesis, and (3) the Christian community

has always operated with a canon within the canon.

            Representative of the first of these tracks is Carroll:

            It certainly looks as though neither the Jewish nor the Christian

            communities felt bound by the canon to such an extent that

            canon alone shaped their belief and practice.

____________________

            ¹²⁰Ibid., 14.

            ¹²¹Childs, "The Search for Biblical Authority Today," ANQ

16 (1976): 205; see also, "Psalm 8 in the Context of the Christian

Canon," Int 23 (1969): 27-28; Biblical Theology of the Old and

New Testaments, 67-68.

                                         112

 

            So why should modern scholarship be so bound by canonical

            considerations?¹²²

Compare here also the comments of Morgan:

            The fact of the matter is that, regardless of how beneficial a

            holistic reading may be, the evidence suggests that the

            community of faith rarely if ever "reads" the biblical texts in

            this way! Rather, the text is studied in snippets by scholars and

            scribes (for which there is surely biblical precedent and

            mandate) and, more importantly perhaps, is read to

            congregations in pericopes or other small divisions through

            lectionary cycles and other selective processes. Indeed, there

            are some books or sections of books that are rarely, if ever,

            read within certain communities. Moreover, the tendency in

            much contemporary Bible study is to concentrate on particular

            pericopes, even verses, and not to read and interpret a "book"

            as a whole. The question then becomes, "On what grounds

            does one justify a holistic reading, when this type of reading

            has not occurred in the past and does not occur within

            contemporary communities that see this literature as Scripture

            and canon?"¹²³

And Sanders even reports that he and his students carried out experiments

with New Testament texts to see whether the authors were working

with Childs's conception of canonically holistic readings.

            But in no case did it work out in Childs' favor. Certainly there

            was evidence that some NT writers sometimes thought in

            larger terms than isolated passages: C. H. Dodd had shown that in

            According to Scripture [sic] . . . .     But it is not the same.¹²⁴

____________________

            ¹²²Carroll, "Childs and Canon," 221.

            ¹²³Morgan, "Canon and Criticism," 93; see also, Barr,

Holy  Scripture, 91-92; Barton, Reading the Old Testament, 174; J.

Collins, "Is a Critical Biblical Theology Possible?" 6; James A.

Sanders, "Biblical Criticism and the Bible as Canon," USQR

32 (1977): 163; Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical

Criticism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 32; review of Holy Scripture:

Canon, Authority, Criticism, by James Barr, in JBL 104

(1985): 502; Spina, "Canonical Criticism," 183.

            ¹²⁴Sanders, "Canonical Context," 188-90.

                                                 113

 

            I do not know that Childs has responded in the scholarly

literature to this charge, but I believe that Scalise has

answered well at least part of this charge in responding to

Barton's claim that "as a matter of historical fact, the Bible

has no ‘canonical level.’"¹²⁵ Scalise answers,

            Such a claim passes over at least a millennium of Christian

            history in which the Christian canon functioned distinctively

            (though admittedly precritically) as Scripture in an

            authoritative manner. How can one hope to make sense of the

            biblical interpretation of the Fathers, let alone that of the Reformers,

            without the assumption of a "canonical level" (or levels), which

            religiously construes all of the Bible as the Word of God?¹²⁶

            In answer to Morgan I would suggest that his

observations say more about what exegetes, preachers, and

teachers have to do by necessity of the fact that no one can

say all that can or should be said at one time, than it does

about their commitment to the unity, coherence, and therefore

the possibility of a holistic reading of Scripture.¹²⁷ As for

____________________

            ¹²⁵Barton, Reading the Old Testament, 174; see also, Barr,

Holy Scripture, 1, 59-60, 82-83; Eugene Ulrich, "The

Canonical Process, Textual Criticism, and Latter Stages in the

Composition of the Bible," in "Sha`arei Talmon": Studies in

the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to

Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov

(Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 267-74.

            ¹²⁶Scalise, "Canonical Hermeneutics," 144-45. On a different

track, Brett (Biblical Criticism in Crisis? 6, 121-22) suggests

that if Gadamer's notion of "the classic" were to be applied to

Childs's notion of canon, the charge of anachronism could be

largely discounted; on this point see also Frank Kermode, "The

Argument about Canons," in The Bible and the Narrative

Tradition, ed. Frank McConnell (New York: Oxford University

Press, 1986), 89.

            ¹²⁷See John Murray, "Systematic Theology," in The New

Testament Student and Theology, ed. John H. Skilton, The

New Testament Student 3 (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian &

Reformed, 1976),

                                      114

 

the experiments of Sanders and his students, it is impossible to

answer the charge without knowing their suggested hypotheses

and the presuppositions with which they worked. However, I

would suggest that the evidence which would have supported

Childs's proposal could not have been found anyway, since no

New Testament author wrote either a commentary or a biblical

or systematic theology.

            The second track of criticism is that the whole canon is simply

not the context for every exegesis. Interestingly, Childs is

attacked here by both more conservative and liberal

conservative scholars. Kaiser finds Childs's approach to be in

violation of his principle of "antecedent theology,"¹²⁸ and

McEvenue, without much solid argumentation (in my opinion),

simply declares:

            It is important to burst this balloon. Let us distinguish exegesis

            from biblical theology and say right away . . . the wholeness of

            the canon is meaningless. It is simply not true that the proper

            context for understanding one text of the Bible is every text of

            the Bible.¹²⁹

It will be more convenient to evaluate this charge when I

present my own approach in chapters 5-6.

            The third track is that the church has always operated

with a canon within the canon, and that it is, in fact, right

____________________

26 (first published as "Systematic Theology--II," in WTJ 26

[1964]).

            ¹²⁸ Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology:

Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (Grand Rapids:

Baker, 1981), 82-83 (to be given more attention in chapter 6).

            ¹²⁹McEvenue, "The Old Testament, Scripture or Theology?"

237.

                                           115

 

to do so.¹³⁰ Also, Kaiser, without using the canon within the

canon terminology, criticizes Childs for being "overly

concerned about a `reductionism' which would attempt to

locate the essence of the OT message in one formula or key

word such as promise, kingdom, lordship or the like."¹³¹ And

Carroll suggests that Childs does in fact have his own canon

within the canon, the theme of "Israel's encounter with

God,"¹³² a charge against which Scalise defends both Childs

and Karl Barth (of whose hermeneutics Scalise feels Childs's

hermeneutics is an extension).¹³³ I will look at this issue

closer in chapters 5-6.

 

                 9. The Question of Confessionalism

            Childs has been accused of fostering attitudes that promote

confessionalism, fundamentalism, orthodoxy, neoorthodoxy,

biblicism, hostility toward critical methods, and a

____________________

            ¹³⁰See Bosman, "The Validity of Biblical Theology," 142;

McEvenue, "The Old Testament, Scripture or Theology?" 236.

            ¹³¹Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., review of Old Testament Theology in

a Canonical Context, by Brevard S. Childs, Trinity Journal n.s.

8 (1987): 89-90. Kaiser himself opts for the "promise" theme

(Toward an Old Testament Theology [Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, 1978]).

            ¹³²Carroll, review of Childs's Introduction, 289.

            ¹³³Scalise, "Canonical Hermeneutics," 82; also his "Canonical

Hermeneutics: Childs and Barth," SJT 47 (1994): 66-67.

                                   116

 

negation of the gains of the critical scholarship.¹³⁴ I

suppose none has been harsher in this criticism than Whybray:

            This is in my opinion a new kind of obscurantism, one which

            while accepting the logic and many of the conclusions of past

            and present biblical criticism, yet dismisses it as irrelevant,

            barren and even harmful. Its purpose is praiseworthy, but its

            effect is likely to be the opposite of what its author intends.¹³⁵

Whybray goes on to say that Childs approach is a "denial of

scholarly autonomy,"¹³⁶ and a refusal to regard

            as bona fide students and interpreters of the Old

            Testament . . . all those whose aim is the study of the

            religion and literature of the ancient people of Israel

            simply as an historical phenomenon without prejudice or

            religious commitment, and so threatens to disturb, and

____________________

            ¹³⁴Most have done so, however, recognizing that Childs is not

a conservative, but arguing that in the final analysis, Childs and the fundamentalists

have the same agendas; see Barr, Holy Scripture, 147-51, 168-69; Barton, Reading

the Old Testament, 8485, 98-99, 223-24 n. 4, 230, n. 15; James A. Sanders, review

of Biblical Theology in Crisis, by Brevard S. Childs, in USQR 26 (1971): 303;

Gerstenberger, "Canon Criticism," 20; Eugene Lemcio, "The Gospels and Canonical

Criticism," BTB 11 (1981): 115. On a more theoretical level, Stephen Fowl ("The

Canonical Approach of Brevard Childs," ExpTim 96 [1985]: 76) asks whether Childs

has the right to use critical methodology: "A crucial question of a more theoretical

nature which Childs must answer is whether he can employ a historical-critical

methodology in the way he does. If Childs has created a new paradigm (to use the

language T. Kuhn employs in a philosophy of science) for understanding the Bible,

can Childs continue to use the methodology which is founded on the paradigm he

wishes to overturn? If (as Childs says) the canonical approach is not another tool

like source, form and redaction criticism, can Childs continue to employ these tools

once he has rejected the paradigm on which they are based? Childs often appears

to exercise the historical-critical method on one level and then to do biblical theology

on a level informed solely by the church's confession of the canon. Here, again, Childs

perpetuates the bifurcation between faith and reason he sought to eliminate."

            ¹³⁵R. N. Whybray, "Reflections on Canonical Criticism,"

Theology 84 (1981): 29.

            ¹³⁶Ibid., 30.

                                          117

 

            indeed, if it wins acceptance, to destroy that happy

            cooperation among workers in the Old Testament field which

            has developed since the last century and now flourishes as

            never before.¹³⁷

            Childs himself denies that his approach should be seen as in

any way an encouragement for fundamentalists or a return to

precritical exegesis.¹³⁸ While some conservatives have

embraced Childs's approach as supportive of their position,

most have correctly recognized that the program cannot be

taken in its entirety.¹³⁹

            Since I see the attack on Childs here as substantially an attack

on my own approach, I will interact with this dialogue in

chapters 5-6.

 

                      10. The Question of Theology

            This section will deal with what I believe to be the most

serious problem for the canonical approach as developed by

Childs. The charge here is that, all Childs's protests

notwithstanding, his approach is ultimately non-theological in

character. There are many nuances and variations in the way

this critique is advanced, but I shall try to group them under

____________________

            ¹³⁷Ibid., 30-31.

            ¹³⁸Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, 107-8, 141-42;

Introduction, 56 (his discussion of Meredith G. Kline's

proposal), 73, 81; "Response to Reviewers," 58; The New

Testament as Canon, 26.

            ¹³⁹D. Brueggemann, "Brevard Childs' Canon Criticism," 311-

26; McComiskey, review of Childs's Introduction, 88-91; John

N. Oswalt, "Canonical Criticism: A Review from a

Conservative Viewpoint," JETS 30 (1987): 317-25. See also

Labosier's discussion ("Matthew's Exception Clause," 82 (n. 9),

93, 95.

                                       118

 

three basic lines of attack: (1) the approach, rather than being

considered theological, should be seen instead as literary, (2)

Childs is either unable to give any real theological justification

for his position or has not done so, and (3) the theological

insights at which Childs arrives are not a result of the approach

but his own theology imposed on and through the canon.

            The first suggestion is that Childs's approach is ultimately non-

theological in character, but instead has more in common with

New Criticism and structuralism. To my knowledge this charge

was first made by Barr and then received more extensive

treatment by Barton.¹⁴⁰ Childs admits the similarity of

interests between canonical analysis and the newer literary

methods, but vigorously maintains that the theological

dimension of his approach sharply distinguishes it from mere

literary analysis.¹⁴¹ I believe Barr and Barton have argued

their positions well; but I also believe that Childs has rightly

maintained that the canonical approach, if carried through

consistently, involves much more than literary analysis--it has

a theological faith dimension which does not

____________________

            ¹⁴⁰Barr, Holy Scripture, 78 (n. 2), 158-62; Barton, Reading

the Old Testament, 100-103, 133, 141-42, 153-54, 160, 167,

202, 206-9. See also, Walter Brueggemann, "Bounded by

Obedience and Praise: The Psalms as Canon," JSOT 50 (1991):

64, n. 1; McCann, "Psalm 73," 16, 254. Barr also argues (pp.

136-37) that by stressing form over content Childs has, in

effect, excluded theology.

            ¹⁴¹Childs, Introduction, 74; Old Testament Theology, 6, 148;

Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, 72.

                                      119

 

exist (at least not by necessity) in the New Criticism. The

question for Childs, however, is whether he has the right to

claim this theological faith dimension in light of the next

two lines of critique in this area.

            The second charge is that Childs has either failed to

provide theological justification for his approach, or is, in

fact, unable to do so. Some justification for this charge was

found in what appeared to reviewers of the Introduction to be

a backing away from the canonical approach as Childs had first

described it. Commenting on the Introduction, Polk says,

            The full scope of meaning in the phrase "canonical

            interpretation," initially spelled out in Part III of Biblical

            Theology in Crisis, goes underground for the first 670 pages

            and surfaces again only in the final paragraph. . . .

            Would canonical Introductions to the Old Testament and to the

            Hebrew Bible be identical twins? Their different canonical

            contexts would seem to suggest otherwise, but nowhere in

            Childs' rich analyses is there a hint of where they might

            diverge.¹⁴²

And Barr, comparing the Introduction to Childs's earlier books

and articles, is equally perplexed:

            It is surprising, therefore, when one passes to the Introduction,

            which is much the fullest expression of canonical criticism thus

            far, to find how little this sort of insight has been developed.

            The New Testament, in fact, is comparatively little mentioned;

            even the concluding chapter on "The Hebrew Scriptures and

            the Christian Bible" is devoted primarily to the question of the

            Christian Old Testament and its identity, in view of differing

            views of its extent and definition. Little or nothing is to be heard of

            the incarnate Christ as a personality inhabiting the books of Joshua

            or of Haggai. The discussion seems to stress the kinship of Judaism

            and Christianity in that the Old Testament is shared by them

____________________

            ¹⁴²Polk, "Brevard Childs' Introduction," 167.

                                 120

 

            both. But this, while true, is of minor significance in

            comparison with the fact that the Christian canon contains also

            the New Testament, the content of which creates a great gulf

            between the two religions. The canon, far from being a bond

            holding Judaism and Christianity together, is a force that pulls

            them strongly apart.¹⁴³

Barr then goes on to say that in light of this, Childs's program

seems to have failed: "In other words, the Old Testament has

not been interpreted as Christian scripture after all."¹⁴⁴

            Childs's response to Barr and others on this point has been

categorized as particularly "thin" by Brett.¹⁴⁵ His reply was:

            I was not writing a biblical theology but an introduction to the

            Hebrew Scriptures. Although I still believe that there is

            justification for treating one portion of the Christian Bible in

            this way, the larger task clearly needs to be done, and I hope to

            address these problems in a subsequent work.¹⁴⁶

There was some justification for this answer. In the preface to

the Introduction Childs had said that his task was to "describe

as objectively as possible the canonical literature of ancient

Israel . . ."¹⁴⁷ To be fair to Childs, it must be remembered that

the title of the volume was not Introduction

____________________

            ¹⁴³Barr, Holy Scripture, 151-52; see also Robert Morgan with

John Barton, Biblical Interpretation, The Oxford Bible Series

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 213.    

            ¹⁴⁴Barr, Holy Scripture, 152.

            ¹⁴⁵Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis? 58-59.

            ¹⁴⁶Childs, "Childs Versus Barr," 70. Childs's reply to Polk

was no less "thin" ("A Response," 205).

            ¹⁴⁷Childs, Introduction, 16.

                                       121

 

the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. And since the

publication of his introductions to the two Testaments, Childs

has gone on to do the "larger task" with his Old Testament

Theology in a Canonical Context and Biblical Theology of the

Old and New Testaments. It must be recognized, however, that

this was not the program that Childs had set out in his earlier

articles and books. From the beginning he had advanced the

thesis that interpretation must be done in faith and that it was

impossible to bridge the gap from neutral objective description

to theological substance. But in seeking to write neutral

introductions as prefaces to his two theologies he has, in fact,

tried to do the very thing he said was impossible. As Childs

himself said, "The possibility of genuine theological exegesis

has been destroyed from the outset."¹⁴⁸ Perhaps Childs would

respond that the Introduction was, in fact, done from a faith

vantage point. If that is the case, then it was certainly a

truncated faith in which the word "Christian" had been

bracketed out. And as Childs has said in his Old Testament

Theology,

            To suggest that the Christian should read the Old Testament as

            if he were living before the coming of Christ is an historical

            anachronism which also fails to take seriously the literature's

            present function within the Christian Bible for a practising

            community of faith.¹⁴⁹

And this relates to the first line of attack that Childs's approach

is more literary than theological. Childs is right

____________________

            ¹⁴⁸Childs, "Interpretation in Faith," 437.

            ¹⁴⁹Childs, Old  Testament Theology, 8-9.

                                       122

 

when he says that his approach, as opposed to merely literary

approaches is motivated by theological concerns. However, it

seems very strange for him to complain that his reviewers have

misunderstood the theological character of his proposal, when

he himself was working with a very truncated theology. Dale

Brueggemann has summed up the problem this way:

            For every claim Childs would make to support his canonical

            approach, an explicit theological claim is the only thing that

            will give it substance. . . . Agreed, Childs is correct in his

            assertion that the canon must be taken as a given. One must,

            however, receive it explicitly as a gift (truly a given) from the

            Giver.¹⁵⁰

            One particular aspect of this theological problem to which I

cannot give sufficient attention here, but will address further in

chapters 5-6, is the theological rationale for canon for itself.

Barton asserts that the inability of Childs or any other advocate

of the canonical approach to provide internally biblical,

theological reasons as to the extent or the necessarily

authoritative status of the canon makes it "theologically neutral

at best."¹⁵¹ Scalise, feeling the force of this argument, has

suggested that Childs should defend his position theologically

either by following Barth's doctrine of Scripture as presented

in volume one of the Church Dogmatics, or by arguing for

a purely functional view of canon that would accord

authoritative status to the canon by virtue of its historic

and continuing role in the communities of

____________________

            ¹⁵⁰D. Brueggemann, "Brevard Childs' Canon Criticism," 318-19.

            ¹⁵¹Barton, Reading the Old Testament, 93-94.

                                     123

 

faith.¹⁵² We have already noted Childs's arguments for the

extent of the canon. We will investigate later their

theological adequacy.

            The third line of criticism is that Childs has imposed

his own theology on and through the canon, and that the

theological gain from canonical analysis has been put there by

Childs, not extracted from the canon itself. He has read his

own interests into the minds of the redactors and canonizers

and has imported extrinsic hermeneutical data into the

canonical text. The following comments are typical:

            The basic fault in all this is that Childs reads into the minds of

            the redactors and canonizers his own passionate hermeneutical

            interest. This is why he lumps together all sorts of process

            under the vague heading of canon.¹⁵³

            Childs' judgment may be correct, but he has in any case made a

            judgment which is his own and not mandated by the text

            itself.¹⁵⁴

            In practice his interpretation is often an oversubtle

            interpretation of a point within a book which must then provide

            a perspective for interpreting a book.¹⁵⁵

____________________

            ¹⁵²Scalise, "Canonical Hermeneutics," 157-58. In fact, the

latter alternative is exactly what John Piper says is the case

("The Authority and Meaning of the Christian Canon: A

Response to Gerald Sheppard on Canon Criticism," JETS 19

[1976]: 88).

            ¹⁵³Barr, "Childs' Introduction," 17.

            ¹⁵⁴Walter Brueggemann, in "The Childs Proposal: A

Symposium with Ralph W. Klein, Gary Stansell, and Walter

Brueggemann," WW 1/2 (1981): 113.

            ¹⁵⁵Carroll, review of Childs's Introduction, 289. See also Jerry

Gladson, review of Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture, by Brevard S. Childs, AUSS 20 (1982): 78; D.

Morgan, "Canon and Criticism," 91-92; Spina, "Canonical

Criticism," 182-83.

                                          124

 

            On a more theoretical level, McEvenue maintains that the

problem is not just Childs's but any biblical scholar's:

            It is simply erroneous to think that one can proceed to truth of any

            kind using the Bible or a deposit of faith as the sole criterion.

            Unless you are simply restating the explicit biblical statement,

            you are always using some criterion outside the Bible.¹⁵⁶

            McEvenue's point (as well as those of the others just cited) is

well taken and rather than interact with it here I will do so as it

reflects on my own thesis in chapters 5-6.

                                   Conclusion

            Brevard Childs is a brilliant scholar who has sought to

integrate faith and scholarship. Many of his insights will be of

great value for my own approach. I have personally been

convicted and challenged by many of the penetrating

theological statements which are contained in his two most

recent books. And in spite of those who would charge Childs

with possessing a certain hermeneutical arrogance, I have

found a refreshing humility evidenced in statements like the

following:

            No one can program the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet one can

            testify to a hope in his guidance by an attitude of expectancy

            and through willingness to experience the Scriptures coming

            alive in new and strange ways in the midst of our present, great

            need.¹⁵⁷

            There must be an anticipation, an eager and even restless

            awaiting the signs of God's presence. One cannot study

____________________

            ¹⁵⁶McEvenue, "The Old Testament, Scripture or Theology?" 236.

            ¹⁵⁷ Brevard Childs, "A Tale of Two Testaments," review of

Die Biblische Theologie: Ihre Geschichte und Problematik, by

Hans-Joachim Kraus, in Int 26 (1972): 29.

                                         125

 

            the Bible with the detachment in which one scans graffiti on a

            subway wall and expect these writings to produce great

            spiritual truths. St. Augustine approached Scripture as a man

            who had been invited to a banquet table and in sheer delight

            partook of its richness.¹⁵⁸

            There is an important sense in which the church must wait for

            the outpouring of God's Spirit and no amount of furious

            activity will avail. Conversely there remains the equally

            significant task of watching and preparing.¹⁵⁹

            I wonder, however, if something that Childs said about

von Rad could also in turn be said about him:

            As a young student who had fallen under the spell of von Rad,

            I shared with many others the conviction that his brilliant

            method held the key to a proper understanding of the O.T. Von

            Rad saw his approach as one which would revitalize the entire

            theological enterprise. Significantly, even he, in his last years,

            began to have second thoughts. . . . The promise had not

            materialized. . . . Slowly I began to realize that what made von

            Rad's work so illuminating was not his method as such, but the

            theological profundity of von Rad himself.¹⁶⁰

Could it be that the appeal in Childs's approach is not really

so much in the approach as it is in the theological

discernment of Childs himself? Perhaps that is the reason why

this chapter, though guardedly so, has been so positive.

 

 

 

 

____________________

            ¹⁵⁸Childs, "The Search for Biblical Authority," 204.

            ¹⁵⁹Brevard S. Childs, "Some Reflections on the Search for a

Biblical Theology," HBT 4/1 (1982): 10.

            ¹⁶⁰Childs, "A Response," 208.

 

 

                                 CHAPTER 3

 

THE CANONICAL CRITICISM OF JAMES SANDERS

 

            With the publication of his Torah and Canon in 1972, James A.

Sanders joined Brevard Childs in the call for serious attention

to the canon of the Old Testament.¹ The two scholars became

identified as leading proponents of canonical criticism. It soon

became evident, however, that their respective brands of

canonical criticism were poles apart theologically. Indeed, as

we have already seen in chapter 2, Childs does not like the

term canonical criticism at all, perceiving his canonical

analysis to be a stance rather than just another methodology.

Sanders himself does prefer to think of what he does as a

critical methodology, replete with reconstructions of the

canonization process. Sanders's particular variety of canonical

study was, in fact, accorded the status of a new kind of

criticism with the addition to the Fortress Press Guides to

Biblical Scholarship series of a volume by Sanders explaining

the new method.²

____________________

            ¹James A. Sanders, Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress,

1972).

            ²James A. Sanders, Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical

Criticism, Guides to Biblical Scholarship (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1984).

                                        126

                                       127

 

            This chapter seeks to describe and evaluate Sanders's canonical

criticism. Attention to Sanders, before stating in detail the

thesis of this dissertation, is not only warranted but

necessitated by the following considerations:

            (1) While Childs has been well reviewed in the scholarly

literature, there has not been sufficient critical interaction with

Sanders. Reviews of his books have been generally

sympathetic and have not dealt with matters that are potentially

destructive to the very foundations of Christian faith.

            (2) Sanders is seen by many as a needed corrective to Childs,³

while the present author feels that the gains won by Childs

would be nullified with Sanders's program. It is my contention

that while there is much in Childs's program that can be

appropriated by those who are theologically conservative, there

is little in Sanders's program of comparable value.

            (3) Sanders's concentration on canonical criticism seems to

have been sparked by his work as editor of 11QPs^a, a Qumran

scroll which contains both canonical and non-canonical

psalms,⁴ a scroll, the evidence of which we will have to

____________________

            ³For example, George M. Landes, "The Canonical Approach

to Introducing the Old Testament: Prodigy and Problems,"

JSOT 16 (1980): 37.

            ⁴Sanders, however, would say that the use of "non-canonical"

to describe the "extra" psalms in this manuscript prejudices the

discussion. Conversely, his opponents say that his

denominating it a "psalms" scroll is what prejudices the

discussion.

                                          128

 

consider in chapter 7 in the examination of the canonical shape

of the Psalter.

            (4) While some evangelicals who welcomed Childs's approach

have begun to see that he was not really the ally they were

looking for, Sanders is even less so. He is openly hostile to

fundamentalists and expressly states that canonical criticism

cannot be practiced by anyone as dishonest as a

fundamentalist.⁵ Any claim by those who refer to themselves

as evangelicals that they would not be under the condemnation

is of no use, since it is precisely in those areas where

evangelicals and so-called fundamentalists share convictions

about Scripture that Sanders is most hostile.⁶ This is especially

important, since I believe that it is precisely those with a high

view of Scripture who are most qualified to do canonical

criticism.

            The chapter will be divided into two major sections: a

description of Sanders's approach, followed by a critical

evaluation.

                    A Description of Sanders's Approach

            We will look at Sanders's canonical criticism under five major

headings: (1) the need for canonical criticism, (2) the agenda of

canonical criticism and the assumptions with which

____________________

            ⁵Sanders, Canon and Community, xvi.

            ⁶James A. Sanders, "The Bible and the Believing

Communities," in The Hermeneutical Quest: Essays in Honor

of James Luther Mays on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Donald

G. Miller, PTMS 4 (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1986), 145.

                                        129

 

it works, (3) Sanders's reconstruction of the canonical process,

(4) Sanders's points of contention with Childs, and

(5) the assumed gains of canonical criticism.

 

                        The Need for Canonical Criticism

            Sanders sees the necessity of canonical criticism arising

out of the fact that the biblical critics have locked the Bible into

the past, or, at the very least, they have chained it to the scholar's

desk. So much has this become the case that ordinary pastors

are afraid to preach exegetical sermons because there might be

some Bible scholar in the congregation who would call them to

task for not having been aware of the latest journal article on

the passage in question. Or they might be reluctant to preach

from a passage that they have been taught is "spurious" or

"secondary" or "from a later hand."⁷ Sanders argues therefore,

that the Bible must be put back where it belongs, in the context

of the believing communities which have both shaped and been

shaped by the canon.

            Sanders notes that there has been a change in the meaning of

canon: in the pre-critical days it referred to authoritative

Scripture; since the rise of biblical criticism it has rather come

to mean a closed collection of books.

____________________

            ⁷Ibid., 147.

                                    130

 

Sanders wants to return to the old view of canon, but with the

full advantage of critical scholarship.⁸

            Returning therefore to an older view of canon, he desires to

ask questions about the canon that he feels are not being asked.

Rather than investigate the question of the closing of the canon,

or the inclusion or exclusion of books from the canon, Sanders

desires instead to ask the more fundamental question as to the

very nature and function of canon, and posits that the former

questions cannot and should not be answered until the latter

question has been investigated.⁹ In essence then, rather than

investigate the closing, the endpoint of canon, he desires to ask

why there is canon in the first place, the beginning point of

canon.

            Canonical criticism also exists to answer questions about why

there is such a high degree of pluralism in the Bible. Sanders

notes that there is not a single idea in Scripture that does not

have its "contrapositive."¹⁰ Canonical criticism therefore seeks

to discover why such contradictory ideas and traditions were

allowed to exist side by side in the same canon.

____________________

            ⁸Sanders, Canon and Community, 1.

            ⁹James A. Sanders, "Adaptable for Life: The Nature and

Function of Canon," in Magnalia Dei, The Mighty Acts of

God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory G. Ernest

Wright, ed. Frank Moore Cross, Werner E. Lemke and Patrick D.

Miller, Jr. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 531.

            ¹⁰James A. Sanders, "The Bible as Canon," Christian Century,

2 December 1981, 1254.

                                          131

 

            Only in this manner, then, will the Bible scholar be able to

approach the question of closing of the canon and why there

are so many different canons (Jewish, Roman Catholic, Greek

Orthodox, Ethiopic, Protestant, etc.) in existence today.

 

                The Agenda and Assumptions of

                            Canonical Criticism

            Canonical criticism as practiced by Sanders assumes that there

are several components and characteristics of canon or the

canonical process. I will be challenging several of these

assumptions later; for now I will simply lay them out as

Sanders holds them.

            The first component in the process is that of repetition.

Sanders posits that no part of the canon ever became such upon

its first presentation to the believing community:

            The process . . . had actually begun with the first

            occasion, whenever it was, perhaps in the late Bronze age,

            that a biblical tradent spanned a generation gap and

            addressed more than one context.¹¹

            The second component in the process is that, along with the

repetition, there was also a resignification of the material. In

order for the material to span that generation gap, it had to be

of value for another community besides the one to which it was

originally addressed. Therefore it had to be capable of being

resignified to mean something different

____________________

            ¹¹James A. Sanders, "Biblical Criticism and the Bible as

Canon," USQR 32 (1977): 163.

                                           132

 

from what it originally meant.¹² This resignification needed to

be able to answer two vital questions for the later community:

who they were and what they were to do, i.e., identity and

lifestyle.¹³ Important to note also here is that what causes the

community to look to the canon for these answers are the

"historical accidents" which cause the identity and lifestyle

crisis.¹⁴

            A third component in the process (these components should not

be seen as necessarily occurring in chronological order) is that

of acceptance by the community:

            What is in the text is there not only because someone in

            antiquity was inspired to speak a needed word to his or her

            community, but also because that community valued the

            communication highly enough to repeat it and recommend it to

            the next generation and to a community nearby.¹⁵

            Especially to be noted in this regard is that the individual is

more or less reduced to a status of non-importance. It is the

community and the community alone which has shaped the

canon:

            No individual in antiquity, no matter how "inspired," slipped

            something he or she had written into the canon by a side door!

            It has all come through the worship and educational programs

            of ancient believing communities or we would not have it . . .¹⁶

____________________

            ¹²Sanders, "The Bible as Canon," 1252.

            ¹³Sanders, "Adaptable for Life," 537.

            ¹⁴Ibid., 541.

            ¹⁵Sanders, "The Bible as Canon," 1251.

            ¹⁶Sanders, "The Bible and the Believing Communities," 147.

                                         133

 

            This means also, that whatever a community decided to do

with a "canonical" book which it received and passed on to

another community, in the way of additions or alterations of

meaning, is what, in the final analysis, is really canonical.

Therefore it is important to recognize that it is not Jeremiah or

Ezekiel which is canonical, but it is the Jeremiah and Ezekiel

books which are canonical. Thus:

            If one can understand that it was not the prophet Isaiah who

            was canonical, but the Isaiah book which is canonical, then

            modern reputable scholars would not need to insist that the

            sixty-six chapters stem from a single author.¹⁷

            But what if a community is not able to find value for its own

particular situation in a canonical book which it has received

from a previous generation? Sanders's answer to this question

is the fourth component in the process:

            Then, once the sanctity of such reputation was transmitted

            along with community commendation, canon existed for the

            community and persisted whether or not that value derived was

            consistent, high, low, or latent for this or that community or

            generation. At that point when sacredness had been

            superimposed by the communities, then the survival power of

            the sacred literature as canon was assured without its having

            always to prove itself.¹⁸

            Canonical criticism, therefore, with these four steps in mind,

seeks to reconstruct the canonical process. It assumes that,

though the process was a lengthy one, there were two periods

of especially "intense canonical process" which are to be

investigated to inform the study of the rest of the

____________________

            ¹⁷Sanders, Canon and Community, xvii.

            ¹⁸Ibid., 34.

                                           134

 

process.¹⁹ Those periods are the sixth century BCE and the

first century CE. These were the special periods in the history

of Israel when there was need for the discovery of self-identity

and canon was looked to for that discovery.

            Along the way there were even non-Israelite texts which were

incorporated into the canon, which Israel borrowed from her

surrounding neighbors. These all had to go through a fourfold

process of depolytheizing, monotheizing, Yahwizing and

Israelitizing.²⁰

            Based on these assumptions as to how canon came to us via the

canonical process, Sanders posits several properties of canon

itself by which it may always be characterized.

            The first two characteristics of canon are those of adaptability

and stability, with adaptability being the primary characteristic

and stability being the secondary.²¹ That Sanders regards the

adaptability as the most important characteristic, is highly

significant, for it really determines his whole approach to

canon. He feels that previous study of canon had focused

almost exclusively on the stability factor, i.e., what books are

in the canon; but for him, adaptability is the more important

quotient, for those texts which were not adaptable, never made

it into the canon in the first place. Therefore, while there is a certain

____________________

            ¹⁹Ibid., 30.

            ²⁰Sanders, "Adaptable for Life," 541.

            ²¹Ibid., 539-40.

                                        135

 

stability to the canon (though that stability is manifested in

different forms, hence different canons for different branches

of Judaism and Christianity), adaptability is the reason why

there is a canon at all. Only that which was adaptable became

stabilized into a final canonical form. This is why tradition

criticism is especially important for Sanders, for only that

which is traditional can become canonical.²²

            A third characteristic of the canon is that it is multivalent: it is

capable of being resignified and made valuable for the different

contexts of the different believing communities.²³

            A fourth characteristic is that there are within the canon some

built-in self-restraints which serve to keep future communities

from interpreting the canon any way they please. These

constraints are not to be brought in from the outside but are

intrinsic to the texts themselves. It is the job of canon criticism

to uncover these restraints.²⁴

            Closely related to this last is the fifth characteristic,

that there are imbedded in the texts "unrecorded hermeneutics."²⁵

The uncovering of these hermeneutics is the special job of canonical

criticism. In fact, these unrecorded hermeneutics constitute what Sanders

____________________

            ²²Ibid., 542.

            ²³Sanders, "The Bible as Canon," 1253.

            ²⁴Sanders, Canon and Community, 24.

            ²⁵Sanders, "The Bible as Canon," 1253.

                                        136

 

calls the "midterm" between the canon's adaptability and stability

quotients.²⁶ In other words, the uncovering of these hermeneutics

will tell us how the traditions which were in the process of

stabilization were made adaptable to the different communities.

The uncovering of these hermeneutics may well, in Sanders's view,

be more important than the actual content of the canon itself. This

is because Sanders views the canon as being more important

paradigmatically than it is in substance. Indeed, the

hermeneutics of the Bible are to be regarded as more canonical

than the canon itself.²⁷

            Another feature of the canon is its highly pluralistic nature.

I mentioned earlier Sanders's statement to the effect that there is

practically no idea or thesis in the Bible that does not also have

its "contrapositive." Sanders feels that we should take a cue

from the pluralism in the Bible and rather than try to deny it,

we should formally recognize it "as a blessing equal to any

other the Bible has to offer."²⁸ Therefore, attempts at trying to

find a theological center to Old Testament theology or a canon

within the canon should be avoided.

            In contrast to selecting a canon within the canon on which to

            base the theological construct of whatever

____________________

            ²⁶Sanders, "Biblical Criticism and the Bible as Canon," 163.

            ²⁷Sanders, Canon and Community, 46. Note Eugene Lemcio's

perceptive comment ("The Gospels and Canonical Criticism,"

BTB 11 [1981]: 115): "Here canonization and hermeneutics become

almost identical phenomena."

            ²⁸Sanders, "The Bible as Canon," 1250.

                                     137

 

            denomination, canonical criticism eschews efforts at either

            harmonization or reductionism and admits from the outset that

            like the awe-inspiring Cathedral of Chartres, the Bible as canon

            is a glorious mess.²⁹

            However, out of all this glorious pluralistic mess, Sanders sees

one factor which seems to unite all the parts. It is what he

terms the "Integrity of Reality" or the oneness of God.³⁰ Thus

the primary characteristic of our particular canon is that it is a

monotheizing book. It shows how the people of God have

pursued the monotheizing process:

            There appears to be only one certainly unchallenged

            affirmation derivable from it [the canon]: a monotheizing

            tradition which emerges through the canonical process. It gives

            the impression that Israel always doggedly pursued the

            integrity or sovereignty of God, his oneness.³¹

            We will return later to discuss this monotheizing process; but

first we must look at how Sanders reconstructs the history of

the Old Testament canon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

____________________

            ²⁹Sanders, "The Bible and the Believing Communities," 148.

Sanders explains elsewhere that the Cathedral of Chartres is the

result of a "long process. Numerous master masons and

builders contributed to it over several generations, and it would

be difficult indeed to express adequately what makes all its

disparate parts Chartres!" (From Sacred Story to Sacred Text:

Canon as Paradigm [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987], 4).

            ³⁰Sanders, "The Bible and the Believing Communities," 150.

            ³¹Sanders, "Adaptable for Life," 551.

                                       138

 

             Reconstruction of the Canonical Process³²

 

            Sanders asks the question as to what factor in Israel's existence

would have been most responsible for giving her identity and

direction. He posits that Israel's source of identity would have

to meet four criteria: (1) it would have to be indestructible, (2)

it would have to be readily and commonly available, (3) it

would have to be highly adaptable, and (4) it would have to be

portable. He then analyzes all those things which were

seemingly most important for Israel's survival and discounts

every one as failing on at least one or more of the criteria:

neither temple, nor ark, nor tabernacle, nor monarchy, nor an

elaborate cult system measures up to the challenge of

answering the problems of identity or survival for Israel. For

when the supreme crisis of the nation's history arose, the

displacement of the Jews to the land of Babylon (one of those

things which Sanders calls "historical accidents"), none of

those things were able to constitute a source for life and the

survival of the nation. There was one element, however,

and only one, which could supply that need, and that was

a story. And story is the essence of what Torah is all about.

While it is true that there is a great deal of

____________________

            ³²The details of this reconstruction are to be found primarily in

three works: Torah and Canon; "Adaptable for Life"; and

"Hermeneutics in True and False Prophecy," in Canon and

Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion and Theology,

ed. George W. Coats and Burke O. Long (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1977), 21-41. Rather than footnote every detail of

Sanders's reconstruction I simply refer the reader to these three

works and will footnote only specific quotes or references to

other works.

                                              139

 

law (ethos) imbedded in the Torah, this is not its primary

characteristic. Rather, it is a muthos, a story, which truly

comprises the Torah. It is a story which tells Israel who she is,

what her roots are, and where she is going.

            Now we know that the Torah received its basic shape in the

crisis of the Babylonian captivity. An important question to be

asked, however, is, Why does the Torah story not contain an

account of the conquest of Palestine? We know for certain, that

Joshua (the sixth member of the hexateuch) had already been

written as well as the rest of the Deuteronomistic history. We

also know that in what von Rad refers to as ancient Israel's

"credo," and Wright, as Israel's "recitals," there was always a

mention of the conquest. Why then did the Torah become

truncated? We know that for Judaism, the Torah is her canon

within the canon; why then is Joshua not in there? Why does

Israel's canon within the canon not fully extend to include what

is in all her ancient recitals? Furthermore, why is there no

account of the glory days of Camelot (David and Solomon),

when the promise of the possession of the entire land was

finally fulfilled?

            To answer the question, Sanders says that we must go back to

the disputes that occurred between the so-called "false" and

"true" prophets in the days before Israel's deportation. The

classic record of this is found, in Jeremiah 28, in the dispute

between Hananiah and Jeremiah. Sanders makes the

observation that we must no longer think in terms of

                                     140

 

false and true prophets; we should think in terms of how the

prophets viewed Israel's traditions:

            For it is not [sic, I am sure the word ought to be "now"]

            abundantly clear that the so-called false prophets relied on

            the same authoritative traditions as the so-called true prophets

            in propounding their message of no-change, or status quo, or

            continuity. They claimed that Israel was serving Yahweh. The

            utterly engaging aspect of current study of the false prophets

            is that their arguments, based in large measure on the same

            traditions from the ExodusWanderings-Entrance story,

            were very cogent and compelling.³³

            Thus the difference between the false and true prophets was a

matter of hermeneutical perspective. The false prophets used a

constitutive hermeneutic in appropriating Israel's traditions in

order to assure Israel that the same God who brought her into

the land could maintain her there as well. The true prophets

used instead a prophetic hermeneutic in appropriating those

same traditions to warn Israel that the same God who brought

her into the land could just as easily remove her from it.³⁴

            When Israel, during the exile, began to reflect on her identity,

without tabernacle, or temple, or king, or cult, she was left only

with a story. But how was she to read that story? She had been

reading it through the eyes of the

____________________

            ³³Sanders, "Adaptable for Life," 545.

            ³⁴In one article Sanders even seems to suggest that the debate

between Hananiah and Jeremiah was one that occurred on a

purely academic level "between disagreeing colleagues" ("The

Integrity of Biblical Pluralism," in "Not in Heaven": Coherence

and Complexity in Biblical Narrative, ed. Jason P. Rosenblatt

and Joseph C. Sitterson, Jr., Indiana Studies in Biblical

Literature [Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University

Press, 1991], 162.

                                           141

 

prophets who preached constitutively. Now she began to look

around for anyone in the community who could remember

what those great judgmental prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah,

Hosea, Amos, and Micah had said. There was even a resident

judgmental prophet among them to whom they turned for

answers, asking the all-important question, "How shall we then

live?" (Ezek 33:10). And in Sanders's paraphrase, Ezekiel's

reply was "Israel lives, moves, and has its being in the

judgments of God."³⁵

            Out of this crisis, therefore, Israel began to view the Torah

through the eyes of the judgmental prophets. It was at this time

that some wise editor put Deuteronomy as the last book of the

Torah:

            Deuteronomy thus wedged itself between the narrative portions

            of JE found in the book of Numbers and their continuation in

            Joshua; in effect it displaced Joshua and its conquest narrative

            as the climax of the canonical period of authority. The wedging

            and displacement did not take place in any final way until the

            jarring events of destitution forced the radical review of

            Yahwism which accompanied the exile. But once it had done

            so, the Deuteronomic perspective held sway. True authority lay

            with the Mosaic period only . . .³⁶

            And why was Joshua, and for that matter the rest of the

Deuteronomistic history, excluded from Israel's inner canon?

Because it was more important to see Israel perched on the

other side of Jordan as being the true Israel, than it was to see

her in the land. The inclusion of Joshua in the Torah

____________________

            ³⁵Sanders, "Adaptable for Life," 548.

            ³⁶Sanders, Torah and Canon, 44-45.

                                         142

 

would have tended to suggest that for Israel to be Israel, she

had to be in possession of the land. The exclusion of Joshua,

precipitated by viewing the traditions through the eyes of the

judgmental prophets, was intended to guard against viewing

Israel as having her identity in anything except the one true

God: "Judaism could be the new Israel anywhere at all."³⁷

            It was also at this time that Israel began to acquire a proper

perspective on the cult:

            It was then that the anti-cultic and anti-

            royalist stricture of the judgmental prophets made "canonical"

            sense. What the prophets had kept saying, in effect, was that

            the cultic and royal institutions and practices did not derive

            from the Torah muthos, that is, they were unauthorized by the

            tradition the prophets adhered to (Amos 5:25; Hosea 8:4 et

            passim; Micah 6:6-7; Isa. 1:1217; Jer. 7:22, etc.) as

            authoritative.³⁸

            And that is how things developed in the first great period of

intense canonical process. When Ezra returned from Babylon,

he brought with him a Torah shaped in hermeneutical crisis

which is tantamount to the Torah as we know it today. Also,

the prophets, because of their perspective on Torah which had

allowed Israel to survive her crisis, began to be collected into

an authoritative corpus as well.

            The other period of intense canonical process was

the first century CE. Sanders has not written quite so

conclusively on this particular period, i.e., he has not been

____________________

            ³⁷Sanders, "Adaptable for Life," 550.

            ³⁸Ibid., 549.

                                         143

 

able to reconstruct the process. There are four things that may

be noted in his writings, however.

            First, it should be noted that Sanders has changed his position

somewhat on the importance of Jamnia (or Jabneh). When he

wrote "Adaptable for Life," he seemed to be taking the

conciliar view of what happened, even though he was well

aware of Jack Lewis's article.³⁹ Since then, however, he has

apparently changed his mind and even warns against thinking

of Jamnia as a council.⁴⁰

            Second, Sanders seems to be in basic agreement⁴¹ with the

work of Sundberg,⁴² and thus views the Writings section of

the canon as being in a state of flux in the first century CE. As

well, Sanders has an open view of canon, and believes that in a

sense, the canonization process is still ongoing.⁴³

 

 

____________________

            ³⁹Ibid., 532-33, and 553 n. 7.; see also Jack P. Lewis, "What

Do We Mean by Jabneh?" in The Canon and Masorah of the

Hebrew Bible: An Introductory Reader, ed. Sid Z. Leiman

(New York: KTAV, 1974), 254-61. Most recently on this see

D. E. Aune, "On the Origins of the `Council of Javneh' Myth,"

JBL 110 (1991): 491-93.

            ⁴⁰Sanders, Canon and Community, 11.

            ⁴¹Ibid., 35.

            ⁴²A. C. Sundberg, Jr., The Old Testament of the Early Church,

HTS 20 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964; repr.,

New York: Kraus Reprint, 1969).

            ⁴³James A. Sanders, "The Qumran Psalm Scroll (11QPsa)

Reviewed," in On Language, Culture, and Religion: In Honor

of Eugene A. Nida, ed. Matthew Black and William A.

Smalley, Approaches to Semiotics 56 (Paris: Mouton, 1974),

97.

                                         144

 

            Third, Sanders has especially entered the fray with his books

and articles on the Qumran Psalter.⁴⁴ We will look at this issue

more closely in chapter 7, but a few words on the topic would

be in order now. Sanders worked on the editing of the Large

Psalms Scroll from Qumran, 11QPs^a. The Scroll diverges from

the traditional Masoretic Text in three ways. First, in the extant

portion of the manuscript (roughly the last third of the Psalter)

the psalms are in a different order. Second there are several

Masoretic psalms which are not only out of order, but not

there. Third, there are about seven non-Masoretic psalms in the

collection, which Sanders describes as being written in biblical

style. Sanders has concluded from this, that the last third of the

Psalter at Qumran was open-ended, in a state of flux, and that

this Psalter was canonical for the Qumran community. Sanders

has come under criticism for these views from several quarters,⁴⁵

____________________

            ⁴⁴Some of the more significant ones are: "Cave 11 Surprises

and the Question of Canon," in The Canon and Masorah of the

Hebrew Bible: An Introductory Reader, ed. by Sid Z. Leiman

(New York: KTAV, 1974), 37-51; reprinted from McCormick

Quarterly 21 (1968): 284-98); The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll,

Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967; The Psalms Scroll of

Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa), DJD 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965);

"The Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) Reviewed"; "Variorum

in the Psalms Scroll," HTR 59 (1966): 83-94.

            45Roger T. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New

Testament Church and its Background in Early Judaism,

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 77-78; Ian H. Eybers, "Some

Remarks about the Canon of the Old Testament," Theologica

Evangelica 8 (1975): 117; Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, "The

Psalms Scroll (11QPs^a): A Problem of Canon and Text,"

Textus 5 (1966): 22-33; Sid Leiman, The Canonization of the

Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence,

Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences

47 (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1976), 154

                                            145

 

especially from the late Patrick Skehan.⁴⁶ However, Gerald

Wilson, who may be considered the foremost scholar today

regarding the Psalter's editing and composition, has come

to more or less agree with Sanders.⁴⁷

            Fourth, as far as the divergence in this time period between

Judaism and Christianity, Sanders seems to suggest that the

basic disagreement between the two was the way in which they

read the Torah. Judaism read it as law (ethos) while

Christianity read it as story (muthos). Thus:

            The frustration for Paul did not stem so much from a lack of

            affirmation of Christ by the majority of Jews of his day, but

            that he could not get them to read the Torah and the prophets

            correctly, that is, in the way he read them. For he was certain

            that if they would review the Torah story with him in the way

            he viewed it, they would then accept the Christ.⁴⁸

            Two things must be noticed about this idea. First, it was

Christianity's view of Torah as muthos which allowed a new

chapter to be added to the Torah story. The Jews of that day, as

long they regarded the Torah as basically ethos, could not do so.

            Second, note that just as in the other period of intense

canonical process, it was not a matter of false vs. true, but

____________________

55; Shemaryahu Talmon, "Pisqah Be emsa Pasuq and

11QPs^a," Textus 5 (1966): 11-21.

            ⁴⁶See all articles by Skehan in the bibliography.

            ⁴⁷Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter,

SBLDS 76 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985); "The Qumran Scroll

Reconsidered: An Analysis of the Debate," CBQ 47 (1985):

624-42.

            ⁴⁸James A. Sanders, "Torah and Christ," Int 29 (1975): 379.

                                      146

 

simply a matter of perspective that caused Judaism to go one

way and Christianity to go another. This will be very

important for our criticisms later in this chapter.

 

                           Differences with Childs

            I will simply list here what I believe to be the major

differences.

            (1) The most obvious difference is that while Childs lays heavy

emphasis on the final canonical form, Sanders wants to

emphasize the canonical process, both before and after the so-

called closing of the canon. Sanders, as has been noted already,

is much more interested in the traditioning process that led up

to canon and its "unrecorded hermeneutics" than he is in the

content of the canon. Further, Sanders assumes that the

canonical process is still a process, that "precisely . . . the same

thing is going on now in the believing communities as went on

back then."⁴⁹ With this Childs strongly disagrees.⁵⁰

            (2) In the light of the questions raised by Sundberg

regarding the Old Testament canon of the early Church,

Sanders finds it particularly troublesome that Childs latches on

to the Masoretic Text as the authoritative form of the Hebrew

Bible. He feels that it is "to read back into canonical

____________________

            ⁴⁹James A. Sanders, "Canonical Context and Canonical

Criticism," HBT 2 (1980): 187.

            ⁵⁰Childs, "A Response," 202. Cf. E. Early Ellis, The Old

Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in

the Light of Modern Research, WUNT 54 (Tübingen: J. C. B.

Mohr, 1991), 47 n. 158.

                                               147

 

history a post-Christian, very rabbinic form of the text . . .

a text unrelated to the Christian communities until a

comparatively late date."⁵¹ Sanders feels that Sundberg has

argued very persuasively and that Childs has not yet

satisfactorily answered those arguments. Therefore it would be

wrong for the Christian Church to arbitrarily limit itself to the

Masoretic Text form of the Hebrew Bible that only at a late

date replaced the Septuagint canon for only some branches of

the Church.

            (3) Sanders pays more attention to the community shaping

of the canon than does Childs. He accuses Childs of positing

some final "canonical redactor."⁵² While Childs seems to

emphasize the redaction of the books so that the final stage

becomes the glorified redaction par excellence, Sanders wants

to emphasize that no redactor ever passed his work off on to

the community without that community playing a part in the

shaping of that work.

            (4) A further problem that Sanders has with Childs is his

emphasis on the need to read everything in its full canonical

context, which Sanders feels for Childs means "literary"

context. In Sanders's view there is no real precedent in the

canon itself for a fixation on the final form:

____________________

            ⁵¹Sanders, "Canonical Context and Canonical Criticism," 187.

            ⁵²Sanders, Canon and Community, 30.

                                        148

 

            To focus exclusively on the final full literary form is simply

            not what either Judaism or Christianity did. As soon as need be

            they broke into the frozen text, and made it relevant to the next

            problem faced: and for the most part they fragmented the texts

            in order to do so--no matter how much we moderns may regret

            it.⁵³

Again Sanders writes:

            It is not clear that any of the writers of such documents [the

            Bible texts] derived the hermeneutics by which they read the

            text from canonical context . . . Childs indicates a canonical

            shape which few if any subsequent tradents heeded.⁵⁴

            Thus Sanders feels that Childs's emphasis on the full

context of the canon for interpretation is unwarranted.

            (5) Sanders argues also that to focus on that final canonical

moment as Childs does, is to focus on what was not very

significant for the early communities. Indeed, Sanders asserts

that "the overwhelming evidence points to the moment of final

shaping as not particularly more important than any other."⁵⁵

Sanders posits that there is actually no evidence to the effect

that anyone ever read any biblical book differently because of

canonization:

            There was no dramatic shift because of canonization and

            people did not start reading the whole of Isaiah, all sixty-six

            chapters in a sweep, or all of the Psalter (the whole books on

            which Childs focuses) in order to apply a theological move or

            Word derived from a whole book to the next problem they

            faced.⁵⁶

____________________

            ⁵³Sanders, "Biblical Criticism and the Bible as Canon," 163.

            ⁵⁴Sanders, "Canonical context and Canonical Criticism,"

188-89.

            ⁵⁵Ibid., 191.

            ⁵⁶Sanders, Canon and Community, 32.

                                       149

 

            (6) Another important difference is that while Childs

wants to de-emphasize the historical context of the

communities, Sanders wants to underscore those same contexts.

He regards it as irrational for Childs to disregard historical

context when the shape of the canon seems to demand it,

especially on the part of the redactors themselves:

            Does not most such editorial work indicate the intense interest

            of such redactors in date lines and historical contexts? They

            seem to be saying fairly clearly, if the reader wants to

            understand the full import for his/her (later) situation of what

            Scripture is saying, he/she had best consider the original

            context in which this passage scored its first point. Childs may

            be right to some extent that the editors of the Psalter wanted

            their readers to view David as an example of the way God can

            deal with any leader or man, but the way they did it was to

            draw attention to historical situations in which David

            supposedly composed his songs.⁵⁷

 

            (7) Perhaps the basic difference between them is their

divergence as to what canonical "shape" really means. For

Childs, shape means the final form of the canon; for Sanders,

the shape of the canon is not the form but the hermeneutics

which are responsible for that form.⁵⁸ Thus, to a large extent,

Childs is concerned with what Sanders calls the stability

quotient, and Sanders with the adaptability quotient, or rather,

the hermeneutics which renders the stable adaptable.

            (8) One other difference between Childs and Sanders is one

which I have not yet seen anyone point out in the

____________________

            ⁵⁷Sanders, "Canonical Context and Canonical Criticism," 191.

            ⁵⁸Sanders, Canon and Community, 36.

                                           150

 

literature: nowhere have I have seen Sanders pay any attention

to one of Childs's main points--or at least the one which Childs

stressed early on, that is, the need to interpret from a standpoint

of faith. Sanders does point out that "with very few exceptions,

most biblical critics have been persons of faith, staying within

a traditional believing community."⁵⁹ But nowhere have

I found a statement tantamount to what Childs first suggested.

I am not sure that Sanders, with his own faith reduced down to a

"monotheizing pluralism," could really make the statement.

 

                        The Gains of Canonical Criticism

 

            In this section I will simply list, without much elaboration, the

benefits that Sanders claims for canonical criticism. Sanders

himself lists in one place seventeen gains that can result from

his particular brand of theocentric, canonical hermeneutic.⁶⁰

We will not examine every item in this list, nor restrict

ourselves to this list. Some of the gains are repetitious⁶¹ and

neutral at best, and it is hard to see how they actually result

from canonical criticism. Also, some of them are irrelevant for

our purposes. But we will

____________________

            ⁵⁹Ibid., 3.

            ⁶⁰Ibid., 74-76.

            ⁶¹This repetitiousness is a feature of his articles as a

whole; as Robert Carroll notes (review of Introduction to the

Old Testament as Scripture, by Brevard S. Childs, in SJT 33

[1980]: 285): "Sanders's "many articles appear to be the same article in

different guises."

                                     151

 

look only at some of the more questionable advantages

maintained by Sanders.

            (1) Sanders states that "canonical study is criticism's effort to

be more scientifically accurate than it has been to date."⁶² He

feels, therefore, that his reconstructions of the periods of

intense canonical process produce this result.

            (2) Sanders believes that we really have "only a small fraction

of what was available as religious literature in ancient Israel or

in early Judaism."⁶³ His reconstruction shows how what did

not serve to meet Israel's needs at a particular point in time,

"just didn't make it."

            (3) Given Sanders's view of an open canon, one might ask him,

therefore, if anything can, in fact, be added to the canon today.

His answer is that, given what he considers to be the nature of

canon as a paradigm, "nothing need be added."⁶⁴

            (4) As a result of his study, Sanders is convinced that

there must be proposed now a new model for inspiration:

            The new model for understanding inspiration of Scripture is

            that of the Holy Spirit at work all along the process of

            formation of Scripture (of whichever canon of whichever

            believing community--Jewish, Protestant, Roman, Greek

            Orthodox all the way to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church) as

            well as through its textual and versional transmission into the

            ongoing preserving and representational process.⁶⁵

____________________

            ⁶²Sanders, "The Bible as Canon," 1252.

            ⁶³Sanders, Canon and Community, 34.

            ⁶⁴Ibid., 68.

            ⁶⁵Sanders, "The Bible and the Believing Communities," 148.

                                         152

 

Recently Sanders elaborated on this:

            The tacit, or expressed, understanding of inspiration has been

            God or Holy Spirit (or Shekinah, or Reality) working with an

            individual in antiquity, whose words were then more-or-less

            accurately preserved by disciples, schools, and scribes. The

            more responsible theory, given the data and facts we actually

            have, would be that of God or Holy Spirit (or Shekinah, truth,

            or Reality) working all along the path of formation of these

            texts. This theory of authority could then include all the so-

            called spurious or secondary passages (which are in the Bible

            whether we like it or not), all the discrepancies and anomalies,

            and that fact that more often than not what we have in the

            beautiful ruins of many passages is what the Reality of later

            believing communities bequeathed us.⁶⁶

            (5) Potentially, however, the most important consequence

of Sanders's study is his idea of monotheizing pluralism. He

started off with it as an assumption and feels that his

reconstruction also supports it.

            Throughout her history, Israel pursued the integrity of

Reality, the oneness of God. Sanders states that he is under

no delusions that Israel was a monotheizing people: "On the

contrary, even a cursory reading of the prophetic corpus

indicates otherwise."⁶⁷ Yet she did pursue it, as her

literature shows.

____________________

One of my professors at Westminster, the late Dr. Raymond B.

Dillard, upon reading this definition of inspiration, noted that it

has some remarkable formal similarities to the Westminster

Confession of Faith.

            ⁶⁶James A. Sanders, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical

Studies," in "Sha`arei Talmon": Studies in the Bible, Qumran,

and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon,

ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov (Winona Lake:

Eisenbrauns, 1992), 334-35.

            ⁶⁷Sanders, Canon and Community, 43.

                                          153

 

            The Old Testament canon monotheizes "more or less

well."⁶⁸ By that he means that, while there are polytheistic elements

in the Bible, the different parts of the Old Testament canon more

or less pursue the oneness of God, the monotheizing process.

Notice, however, what he says of the New Testament canon:

            As the OT writers and thinkers, so the contributors to the NT

            monotheized more or less well, yet they all monotheized. But

            Christians have rarely, since NT times, done so at all.⁶⁹

            This is highly significant, for in Sanders's view, the pedestal

upon which Christians have put Christ is tantamount to

polytheism: "Christomonism is Christianity's failure to

monotheize."⁷⁰ He accuses Christianity of having somehow

come to believe that Christ revealed God, asking with apparent

incredulity, "where did such a notion get started anyway?"⁷¹

Indeed, probably the most idolatrous and polytheistic people in

the world today are the "hard-core" fundamentalists.⁷² At least

three items in Sanders's list of seventeen are taken up with this

point:

            4. It may challenge the Christian tendency toward a self-

            serving reading of the Bible, especially of the NT, with

____________________

            ⁶⁸Ibid., 58.

            ⁶⁹Ibid.

            ⁷⁰Ibid., 59.

            ⁷¹James A. Sanders, God Has a Story Too: Sermons in Context

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 136.

            ⁷²Sanders, "The Bible and the Believing Communities," 152.

                                         154

 

            the tendency to feel that Christ somehow domesticated God for

            us in the incarnation.

            5. It can release Christians to honor Christ and worship him as

            the Second Person of the Godhead, the Son of God, rather than

            the idol we grasp by our limited ideas of the incarnation. . . .

            15. It may help Christians learn that God revealed his Christ as

            the climax of his own divine story and discourage the tendency

            to think that our Christ revealed God.⁷³

            The ramifications of this last point are very important

for the Christian idea of missions and evangelism. The

significance of canonical criticism for evangelism in Sanders

approach is expressed thus:

            It can release Christians to evangelize canonically and share

            the Torah-Christ story, not because we think Christ in the

            incarnation gave us an exclusive hold on God or out of fear

            that others are lost--but because out of sheer joy we cannot

            help but share the vision of the Integrity of Reality this canon

            affords.⁷⁴

            We noted earlier that, according to Sanders's approach,

Paul was not so much concerned that the Jews affirm Christ

than that they learn to read the Torah story as he had learned

to read it. The approach of Christians today should be

similar:

            There is nothing wrong in continuing to hope, as Paul did, that

            Jews acknowledge the work of God in Christ so long as

____________________

            ⁷³Sanders, Canon and Community, 74-75.

            ⁷⁴Ibid., 75. In another place Sanders says that the "true

Christian does not worry about whether others are lost" ("The

Heart of the Christian Faith for Me," in Three Faiths--One

God: A Jewish, Christian, Muslim Encounter, ed. John Hick

and Edmund S. Meltzer [Albany: State University of New

York Press, 1989], 186).

                                           155

 

            we do not go on then to insist that they "become Christian."⁷⁵

            Can Christianity be content with this kind of evangelism?

I shall try to answer that question in the next section.

 

                     Evaluation of Sanders's Approach

            My evaluation of Sanders's canonical criticism will focus first

on his reconstruction of the canonical process, and then on the

assumptions, gains, and benefits of his particular brand of

canonical criticism.

 

                  Evaluation of Sanders's Reconstruction

            James Barr, who in the past decade has been the primary critic

of Brevard Childs, has had only a few criticisms for Sanders,

but those criticisms are very pertinent. While more or less

accepting Sanders's thesis that Deuteronomy has become

wedged in between the JE narratives and Joshua,⁷⁶ he has been

less impressed with the rest of the reconstruction. He states:

            The positive vision of hermeneutics seems to depend very

            largely on vague wording and non sequiturs.

            Secondly, the actual handling of the biblical evidence seems to

            me to be too speculative and too slight in substance to provide

            a solid framework for what is supposed to be a new movement

            in criticism. The point about the placing of Deuteronomy within

            the Torah, and the consequent separation between the Torah

            and the story thereafter, is, as already mentioned, a point of

____________________

            ⁷⁵Sanders, "Torah and Christ," 389.

            ⁷⁶Barr, Holy Scripture, 51-52.

                                       156

 

            importance; but it does not seem to me that Torah and Canon

            offers any other piece of evidence that has comparable solidity.

            Too much seems to depend on very hypothetical arguments: if

            x has not happened, then how could y have happened, and if y

            did happen, how was it that z did not happen? Such argument

            are not very compelling. Moreover, Torah and Canon is much

            too easy-going in reading into the biblical writers (or

            documents) its own modern hermeneutic ideas . . . Nearly all

            the evidence cited in Torah and Canon seems to me to be

            susceptible of some different interpretation which in fact is not

            considered.⁷⁷

            Barr's criticisms of Sanders are precisely my own.

Whether or not Barr would agree with my precise examples of

non sequiturs or not, I do not know. I start first with

Sanders's reconstruction of the first intense period of

canonical process, the sixth century BC.

            (1) First, granting for a moment that neither temple, nor cult,

nor ark, nor tabernacle, nor monarchy, meet the four criteria

that Sanders posits as necessary for Israel's identity source, it

must also be pointed out that story (muthos) does not meet all

the criteria either. Evidently there were stories (traditions) that

did get lost in the shuffle. Sanders himself admits and asserts

that the majority of Israel's literature has been lost. Are we to

assume that there was no story among them?⁷⁸ What Sanders

needed to have shown is that this Torah story in particular was

indestructible, and that he has not done. Perhaps Sanders

____________________

            ⁷⁷Ibid., 157.

            ⁷⁸As well, it should be noted that there is, in fact, a

considerable amount of muthos in the extant non-canonical

texts, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.

                                         157

 

would fall back on the element of repetition, and say that since

the other traditions did not get repeated, but the Torah did, his

case is proved. But this is an argument from silence.

Arguments from silence should be accorded their proper

weight, but it seems to me that Sanders needs to show here

how the Torah story would have been adaptable in a way other

stories or traditions would not have been.

            Furthermore, the things that Sanders points to as not being

able to hold Israel together during the exile were, in fact, the very

things to which Israel turned her attention upon her return to

Palestine: the Temple was rebuilt, the cult was reestablished,

the monarchy was reinstituted with Zerubbabel (in a limited

way, of course, given the restraints of the ruling Persians) and

the ancient royal psalms were sung in anticipation of a

messianic monarch yet to come. And I think it would be hard

to support the thesis that in Ezra-Nehemiah it is the Torah

(muthos) story that takes precedence over the Torah (ethos)

laws. In other words, the Temple, the law (as law), the cult, the

monarchy, and the land were never very far away from the

hearts of the exilic community, as evidenced by the actions of

the post-exilic community. Certainly, it is true that there were

many Jews who were not especially anxious to return from

what had become a somewhat comfortable life in the exile,

and the Jews who did return had to be prodded into carrying

through to completion the rebuilding of the Temple. But all

this seems to be one of the

                                          158

 

very points that is being made by Ezra-Nehemiah and the post-

exilic prophets: that Jews who were not concerned about the

land or the temple or the law or the cult or the monarchy were

in danger of losing their very identity as Jews and as Israel.

Indeed, one of the major points made by the book of Esther

seems to be that there were true Jews who had chosen to

remain in exile, after all. Sanders's point is correct: Israel could

be Israel anywhere. But what Sanders fails to note is that the

canonical Scriptures also make clear that Israel could not be

Israel without an intense longing for all those things that made

her distinctive: a temple where God dwelt, a cult through

which God was worshipped, a law through which God's will

was made known (laws which he had given to no other nation),

a monarchy through which God's will was carried out, and a

land God himself had promised to the patriarchs. And Israel's

exile from the land was not an existential exercise in self-

identity, but the sign of their covenant God's disfavor. There

was no identity crisis; rather there was an identity exchange:

Israel had gone from being the people of God's favor, to being

the people of God's disfavor.⁷⁹

____________________

            ⁷⁹Childs ("A Call to Canonical Criticism," review of Torah

and Canon, by James A. Sanders, in Int 27 [1973]: 91) agrees

with this point as well: "I suspect that Sanders has prejudiced

the historical description of the shaping of the canon by

assuming that Israel's search for self-understanding lay at the

heart of the process. I am aware that a shattered, exiled

community posed to Ezekiel the question: `How shall we live?'

But the prophetic answer given was not in terms of Israel's

identity, but rather in terms of the divine claim on Israel both in

judgment and redemption."

                                           159

 

            (2) Second, in assuming that Joshua is in fact a continuation of

the Pentateuchal sources, it must be remembered that this is not

universally accepted in the critical scholarship, and that

Sanders is perhaps perpetuating an already discarded

nineteenth-century view. Martin Noth, for example, has shown

that the JE sources are not found in the book of Joshua.⁸⁰ In

this light, it seems rather important that Sanders, before talking

about the wedge that Deuteronomy drove between the

Tetrateuch and Joshua, should demonstrate that they were ever

actually joined.

            (3) Third, it is important to remember, that whether or not false

prophets were to be distinguished from true prophets by their

hermeneutical approach to Israel's traditions, still the clear

peshat of the canon, which Sanders himself says must not be

violated,⁸¹ does not attribute the difference to that of prophetic

perspective on the tradition. If the difference had been one only

of hermeneutical perspective, it is very doubtful that the

distinction between false and true prophet would have been

made. According to the clear peshat of the text, the false

prophet did not have a word from the Lord.

____________________

            ⁸⁰Martin Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichte Studien, 3d ed.

(Tübingen: 1967), 1.180-82, cited in Ronald Clements, One

Hundred Years of Old Testament Interpretation, (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1976), 25-26; cf. William Sanford LaSor, David

Allan Hubbard, Frederic Wm. Bush, Old Testament Survey:

The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 202-3.

            ⁸¹Sanders, Canon and Community, 24.

                                     160

 

Childs has been particularly critical of Sanders on this

point. First, he restates Sanders's position:

            He wants to illustrate that there never were any objective

            criteria by which to determine the true from the false prophet.

            The same biblical tradition could be applied by various

            prophets in different contexts with very divergent results. What

            determined its truth was largely a question of timing. The

            prophet was thus engaged above all in the hermeneutical issue

            which turned on how correctly he applied his received tradition

            to his new situation. A false prophet was one who practised

            bad hermeneutics. Because he misjudged the historical

            situation, he did not correctly understand whether the moment

            at hand was one under the judgment or the salvation of God.⁸²

Childs then goes on to make his own analysis of the Hananiah-

Jeremiah debate and comes to the following conclusion:

            The passage has nothing at all to do with Jeremiah's ability to

            time his prophecy correctly, nor does he differ with Hananiah

            merely in the practice of hermeneutics. No, the content of

            Hananiah's message is wrong. He speaks a lie in claiming to be

            sent from God, since he is not in touch with God's revelation . . .

            The theological issue is the same throughout these chapters,

            on both the original and redactional levels. The true prophet

            speaks the word of God, the false prophet only lies . . .⁸³

            Nor does Sanders maintain that this false vs. true problem as

being only a matter of hermeneutical perspective was only an Old

Testament phenomenon. He traces the hermeneutical appropriation

of tradition right into the New Testament. Sanders asks:

            Can we be surprised to observe that some of the very traditions

            of the Old Testament that the New Testament calls upon to

            support its christological claims were called upon by other

            Jews of the period to reject these claims? There are two

            observations here: (1) The Bible is

____________________

            ⁸²Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context,

136.

            ⁸³Ibid., 139.

                                          161

 

            highly pluralistic; and (2) its traditions are by their very nature

            as canon adaptable to differing contexts and needs.⁸⁴

            Why is it then that the New Testament use of the traditions

made it into Christian canon? Sanders's answer for the

Hananiah-Jeremiah debate was the "historical accident" of the

exile. Would his answer for the New Testament period be the

"historical accident" of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection,

or the destruction of Jerusalem, or the nationalizing of

Christianity by Constantine?

            (4) Fourth, if, as Sanders believes, the so-called false prophets

actually won the day in their pre-exilic debates with the

judgmental prophets, why was there still someone around in

the exilic age who could remember, substantially, the words of

Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah (with Jeremiah, close as he

was to the exilic age, it is more understandable that his words

would be remembered)? And was there no one at all who

would have been willing to preserve the Hananiah book(s)?

I believe this constitutes a problem for Sanders's reconstruction.

            (5) Fifth, if Ezekiel was as important as Sanders

postulates in the shaping of Israel's canon, then why was

Ezekiel, alone, of all the prophetic books, subjected to recurring

debates over its status in the canon? If it was Ezekiel who

gave the proper answer to Israel's identity crisis

____________________

            ⁸⁴James A. Sanders, "The Gospels and the Canonical Process:

A Response to Lou Silberman," in The Relationships Among

the Gospels: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, ed. William. O.

Walker, Jr., Trinity University Monograph Series in Religion 5

(San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1978), 234.

                                          162

 

in the exile, then why was that not remembered long enough to

assure Ezekiel's place in the canon beyond debate?

            (6) Sixth, does it really follow that Israel, in order to find her

true identity in the exile, had to truncate her Torah to a point

where Israel is perched on the other side of the Jordan,

awaiting entrance to the land, rather than actually in the land

itself? Was it that kind of mentality that produced Israel's true

wailing song?

            If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.

            May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not

            remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

            (Psalm 137:6)

            (7) Seventh, I find it very puzzling that it was at this time that

Sanders theorizes that the community finally began to accept

the prophetic denouncement of cultic practices, or that he then

goes on to suggest that:

            The harmonistic efforts, in the recent neo-orthodox period, to

            see the prophets as moralizing in favor of an ethical cult, are

            now to be seen as impertinent from the perspective of

            canonical criticism.⁸⁵

            Why was it then that the Torah was canonized in this very

same time period when it has so much to say about cultic

legislation? Why was Ezekiel the priest the one contemporary

prophet Israel listened to during the exilic period if it was only

then that they were finally beginning to accept the anti-cult

proclamations of the prophets? It just does not follow.

            (8) Finally, why is there no mention of the importance of the

covenant in the formation of the canon? Any theory of

____________________

            ⁸⁵Sanders, "Adaptable or Life," 559-660 n. 3.

                                         163

 

canonical process that ignores the importance of the covenant

has to be suspect.⁸⁶ It begins to look as if the only evidence

which Sanders excludes from consideration in his

reconstruction of the canonical process is that afforded by the

canon itself. In conjunction with this point, I think it is a

serious flaw as well for Sanders simply to ignore the evidence

that Leiman presents for the beginnings of the canonical

process.⁸⁷

            In short, as J. King West observes, "Such broad ascription of

motives to generations of the distant past as Sanders here

attempts is, of course, a risky business."⁸⁸

            As far as the other intensive period of canonical

process is concerned, it is good that Sanders has apparently

changed his mind about Jamnia. He seems, however, to accept

Sundberg's thesis too uncritically, especially since there

are reputable scholars, both Jewish and Christian, who have

marshalled substantial arguments against Sundberg.⁸⁹

____________________

            ⁸⁶See Ronald Clements ("Covenant and Canon in the Old

Testament," in Creation, Christ and Culture: Studies in Honour

of  T. F. Torrance, ed. Richard W. A. McKinney [Edinburgh: T. &

T. Clark, 1976], 1-12) who has recognized this overlooked

factor of the importance of the covenant for the canonical

process (esp. pp. 9-10).

            ⁸⁷Sid Z. Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The

Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence, Transactions of the

Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 47 (Hamden, CT:

Archon, 1976), 16-26.

            ⁸⁸J. King West, "Rethinking the OT Canon," Religion in Life

45 (1976): 25.

            ⁸⁹Leiman, The Canonization of the Hebrew Bible; Beckwith,

The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church; Eybers,

                                        164

 

            As far as the Qumran Psalter is concerned, I must frankly

admit that the situation is rather perplexing. I think any

arguments against Sanders's thesis that depend on the Large

Psalms Scroll as being merely a liturgical collection are simply

begging the question; the Masoretic Psalter itself is a liturgical

collection. Also, several of the non-Masoretic psalms do seem

to have been written in a biblical style, as opposed to the

Hodayot. Practically, however, there has not yet been a rush to

canonize the extra psalms of the newly found psalter. Again,

we will look at this issue much more closely in chapter 7.

            The most troublesome part of Sanders's reconstruction for the

first century AD, however, is his thesis that Judaism and

Christianity went their separate ways on account of their

disagreement over the muthos vs. ethos character of the Torah.

Nor does it follow that Paul's difference with the Jews was

only a matter of perspective. For Paul, it was far more than a

difference in perspective that caused Paul to say that he could

wish himself accursed from Christ for his kinsmen (a true

Moses-like statement [Rom 9:3; Exod 32:32]). Paul was not

trying to get his kinsmen simply to read Torah the way he read

Torah; rather he was trying to save his kinsmen from a certain

impending destruction without Christ.

____________________

"Some Remarks about the Canon of the Old Testament"; David

Noel Freedman, "Canon of the OT," in IDBSup, ed. Keith

Crim (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), 130-36.

                                        165

 

            In short, then, when it comes to the canonical process,

Sanders's canonical criticism, while provocative and perhaps at

times elucidating, fails to provide a credible reconstruction of

the canonical process.

 

                Evaluation of the Assumptions and Gains

                                       of Canonical

            Criticism Sanders has made several, not only unwarranted, but

dangerous assumptions concerning the nature of canon and the

canonical process. Further, he has greatly exaggerated, if not

outright misrepresented the gains to be won from his particular

brand of canonical criticism. We will examine these now.

            (1) First, why is it that only that which is traditional can

become canonical? Is there not evidence in the Bible, at least

as far as the clear peshat of the canon is concerned, that at least

some material became canonical on the spot? I am, of course,

thinking here of the laws in Exodus and of many of the

prophetic speeches. Even if the biblical evidence is disallowed,

is this not still the current critical view of Deuteronomy? Was

not Deuteronomy, according to the critical consensus, a "pious

fraud," in fact, "slipped in through the side door"? Did the

community really have a part to play in Deuteronomy's

canonization? I do not believe Sanders considers seriously

enough the possibility of simultaneous revelation and

canonization.⁹⁰

____________________

            ⁹⁰Though still sympathetic to Sanders, Everett Kalin (review

                                         166

 

            (2) Second is there any really hard evidence that the

community played a significant part in the canonical process?

If the words of the judgmental prophets could, in Sanders's

reconstruction, survive for several decades without community

help or recognition, does it really follow that the community

was integral to the canonical process. Furthermore, even if it

should be evidenced that the believing communities were

integral to the process, is there any evidence that they played

any part at all in decisions about which text of a book become

the canonical one? Was the community really involved in the

canonizing of minuscule scribal errors? It seems that these

were scribal and not communal decisions.⁹¹

            In conjunction with this point, I will say just a word

here about the community's role in inspiration. We noted

earlier that Sanders put forth a model of inspiration that sees

the Holy Spirit at work all along the process, not so much

in individuals, but in communities. This view bears a close

resemblance, as noted by R. G. Young,⁹² to the model put

____________________

of Canon and Community, by James A. Sanders, in CurTM 12

[1985]: 312) questions also Sanders's contention that anything

repeated becomes canonical.

            ⁹¹This is one point on which Bernhard W. Anderson (review

of From Sacred Story to Sacred Text, by James A. Sanders, in

RelSRev 15 [1989]: 99) criticizes Sanders. He especially

makes reference to Jeremiah 36 and the poems which Jeremiah

dictated to Baruch, which "had an authority that was not

dependent upon the social situation of their initial proclamation

or their final reception by the community as `canonical.'"

            ⁹²R. Garland Young, "The Role of the Spirit in Texts: James

Sanders, Paul Achtemeier, and Process Theology,"

Perspectives in Religious Studies 13/3 (1986): 229-40.

                                          167

 

forth by Paul Achtemeier.⁹³ It also bears some resemblance

(though there are important differences) to the view of both

Childs and Gerald Sheppard.⁹⁴ Now as John Oswalt, observes,

there is nothing about this model that is theologically

impossible: "Ultimately inspiration is from God, who can give

it where and when he wills."⁹⁵ But as Oswalt also notes, the

canon itself does not present this as its own model:

            However, the Bible does not speak to us of inspired

            communities. Rather, it speaks of inspired individuals speaking

            to the community. "God . . . spoke in time past to the fathers by

            the prophets" (Heb 1:1).⁹⁶

As he further notes, "The community, left to itself, is not a

source of regeneration but of degeneration."⁹⁷

            I will deal with this matter again in chapters 5-6, but will go on

to say here that Sanders's further contention that the canonical

process goes on even today must be strongly rejected.

Sanders's sees the canonical process as "going on

 

 

 

____________________

            ⁹³Paul J. Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture: Problems

and Proposals, Biblical Perspectives on Current Issues

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980).

            ⁹⁴Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, 104; Gerald T.

Sheppard,"Canon Criticism: The Proposal of Brevard Childs

and an Assessment for Evangelical Hermeneutics," Studia

Biblica et Theologica 4 (1974): 17.

            ⁹⁵John N. Oswalt, "Canonical Criticism: A Review from a

Conservative Viewpoint," JETS 30 (1987): 322.

            ⁹⁶Ibid.

            ⁹⁷Ibid.

                                    168

 

now in the believing communities as it went on back then."⁹⁸

I suppose it is in this light that Sanders also says,

            Hermeneutics, therefore, is as much concerned with the contexts

            in which biblical texts were and are read or recited as with

            the texts themselves. It is in this sense that one must insist that

            the Bible is not the Word of God. The Word is the point that is

            made in the conjunction of text and context, whether in antiquity

            or at any subsequent time.⁹⁹

            The problem with this is that modern hermeneutical theories

and constructs come to be accorded equal canonical status with

the foundational documents of the New Testament, as Childs

has well recognized:

            In sum, there is no privileged time within divine will, there are

            no special witnesses, there is no unique divine manifestation.

            Rather, these have been replaced by traditioning process,

            dynamic transcendence, and monotheistic pluralism!¹⁰⁰

Instead, with Childs and practically the entire Christian Church

in its nearly two thousand year history, we believe that "the

period of the Christ's incarnation . . . [was] sui generis. The

revelation of God in Jesus Christ was `once for all'."¹⁰¹ Childs

goes on to say, and with this I fully agree:

            Of course, the Christ who revealed himself to the Apostles was

            a living Lord and he continued to address his church

____________________

            ⁹⁸Sanders, "Canonical Context and Canonical Criticism," 187.

            ⁹⁹James A. Sanders, "Hermeneutics," In IDBSup (Nashville:

Abingdon, 1976), 404.

            ¹⁰⁰Brevard S. Childs, "Gerhard von Rad in American Dress,"

in The Hermeneutical Quest: Essays in Honor of James Luther

Mays on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Donald J. Miller, PTMS 4 (Allison

Park, PA: Pickwick, 1986), 81.

            ¹⁰¹Brevard S. Childs, "A Response," HBT 2 (1980): 202.

                                          169

 

            and the world, but the role of the Holy Spirit offers a very

            different understanding of actualization than that described by

            Sanders. The Holy Spirit appropriates for every new

            generation, in every new situation, the Christ to whom the

            Apostles bore witness. The Christ of the N.T. is not an

            illustration within a traditioning process, but the fullness of

            God's revelation. The modern Christian church does not

            function in a direct analogy to the Apostolic church, but

            through its understanding of Scripture and creed, seeks to be

            faithful in its own generation to the witness of the Apostles and

            Prophets on whom its Gospel is grounded.¹⁰²

            (3) Third, there is the very important issue of what Sanders

calls "historical accidents." Does Sanders really mean to say

that had it not been for the exile, we might be reading

Hananiah today instead of Jeremiah? And would Sanders be

willing to accept Hananiah's constitutive hermeneutics? I think

most Christians would rather not place too much faith in an

accidental canon.

            (4) Fourth, why would Israel need to bring in outside

material that needed to go through the fourfold process when

it already had depolytheized, monotheized, Yahwized, and

Israelitized material that did not make it into the canon? I need

to clarify exactly what I am disputing here. I am in full

agreement with Sanders that Israel incorporated non-Israelite

material into her canon. The book of Proverbs and perhaps

several of the psalms are good examples of this. But Sanders

fails to tell why material which was original with Israel

and therefore, in effect, born full-grown without

____________________

            ¹⁰²Ibid.

                                         170

 

having to go through the fourfold process, did not make it

into the canon.

            (5) Fifth, is it not possible that there were prior

periods of intense canonical process before the sixth century

BC? If the traditions recorded for us in the Torah bear any

resemblance to truth, would it not be fair to suggest that

there was a period of rather intense canonical process in the

wilderness?

            (6) Sixth, when Sanders says that the business of

canonical criticism is to uncover the unrecorded hermeneutics

of the canon, can Sanders himself, whose exegesis of the canon

is filled with non sequiturs and avoidance of the peshat

meaning of Scripture, be trusted as a reliable guide?¹⁰³

Sanders states:

            I have spent some twenty years probing the Bible in all its parts

            ferreting out those hermeneutics by which the biblical authors

            and contributors themselves read what was biblical or authoritative

            tradition up to their time--the prophets, psalmists and historians of the

            Torah and wisdom traditions, and then the evangelists and apostles

            of the First Testament as it was for them in the first century. There is

            an utterly remarkable consistency that emerges from honest study of

            the Bible in all its angularity and pluralism, and that consistency is not

            in the Bible's contents but in the hermeneutics that lie amongst all the

            lines of scripture.¹⁰⁴

____________________

            ¹⁰³Sanders's contention that the clear peshat meaning of the

text cannot be circumvented is admirable. However, as Robert

Maldonado points out ("Canon and Christian Scripture:

Toward a Multi-level, Contingent Understanding of Canonical

Value" [Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, 1988], 82-

84), Sanders never explains how one arrives at the clear peshat

meaning. More often than not, Sanders simply pontificates on

what the meaning is.

            ¹⁰⁴James A. Sanders, "Fundamentalism and the Church:

Theological Crisis for Mainline Protestants," BTB 18 (1988): 46.

                                           171

 

            However, why should Sanders's reading between the lines

be accorded more authority than the lines themselves?¹⁰⁵ For

Sanders to suggest that the canonical authority lies not in

the canon's content but in its "unrecorded hermeneutics" which

he has been able to "ferret" out for the past twenty years,

accords canonical status to Sanders's reconstruction and not

to the canon itself.¹⁰⁶ Indeed, this, perhaps more than

anything else is what separates Sanders from Childs. Childs

correctly recognizes that a reconstructed canonical history

can never provide a warrant for faith, especially when the

major tool in the reconstruction process is speculation:

____________________

Brian Labosier ("Matthew's Exception Clause in the Light of

Canonical Criticism: A Case Study in Hermeneutics" [Ph.D.

diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1990], 43 n. 45)

noted that Sanders's recovery of the unrecorded hermeneutics

had "become virtually as important as the actual recorded

content of the Bible." This last citation from Sanders, written

after Labosier's dissertation, shows now that the Bible's content

has in fact been surpassed.

            ¹⁰⁵On this point see Mikeal C. Parsons, "Canonical Criticism,"

in New Testament Criticism Interpretation, ed. David Alan

Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

1991), 274.

            ¹⁰⁶Anderson (review of From Sacred Story, 99) recognizes

this as well: "During the course of these essays, it becomes

increasingly clear that it is not the Bible that is canonical but

the process of the shaping of the Bible, called the `canonical

process,' or even the hermeneutics that allegedly is at work in

the process. . . . If I understand this rightly, authority does not

lie in Scripture but between the lines of Scripture in something

which can be recovered only by the tools given to us by the

enlightenment." Roland E. Murphy (review of Canon and

Community, by James A. Sanders, in TToday 41 [1984]: 373)

also notes that amidst Sanders's uncovering of the Bible's

hidden hermeneutics, "he also records some hermeneutics of

his own, which I find congenial but not necessarily flowing

from canonical criticism."

                                               172

 

            I am critical of Sanders' attempt to reconstruct the

            hermeneutical process within ancient Israel, which appears to

            be a highly speculative enterprise, especially in the light of the

            almost total lack of information regarding the history of

            canonization. He assumes a knowledge of the canonical

            process from which he extrapolates a hermeneutic without

            demonstrating, in my opinion, solid evidence for his

            reconstruction.¹⁰⁷

            Exacerbating this situation is the way in which Sanders

either ignores or caricatures opposing views, as Charles Wood

has noted:

            His portrayal of forms of biblical scholarship and theological

            reflection other than his own often verges on caricature. (One

            might gather from some passages that the notion that biblical

            scholarship might be undertaken in the service of the church

            was original with Sanders.)¹⁰⁸

            (7) This last point leads to the next question. Has

canonical criticism really put the canon back in the churches?

Are the unrecorded hermeneutics, which are more canonical than

the canon itself, really discernible by the ordinary lay

person? It seems that the rather tenuous reconstructions that

Sanders has made about the canonical process are put forth so

dogmatically as to keep the people in the pew from believing

that they could really interpret the Bible for themselves.

Brett has well recognized the problem here:

____________________

            ¹⁰⁷Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress), 57.

            ¹⁰⁸Charles M. Wood, review of From Sacred Story to Sacred

Text, by James A. Sanders, in PSTJ 41/3 (1988): 34. James

Barr (review of From Sacred Story to Sacred Text, by James A.

Sanders, in CR 1 [1988]: 141) also criticizes Sanders on this

point: "One of his great slogans is that the Bible has a

`theocentric hermeneutic.' It's all about God! How is it that no

one ever realized this before Sanders came along?"

                                            173

 

            J. A. Sanders raises just this kind of issue when he suggests

            that critical Protestant scholarship created a new type of

            "priestly" control of religious communities, even though the

            Reformation had attempted to give the Bible back to the

            people. He also seems to imply that his own version of

            canonical criticism is motivated by this Protestant principle.

            One can only wonder how he reconciles this point with his own

            stress on the necessity for historical and sociological

            reconstruction; such reconstruction is clearly dominated by

            professional biblical scholars. The most one could claim is that

            professional scholarship has no centralized authority.¹⁰⁹

            Moreover, one of the criticisms of Canon and Community,

a book that was subtitled A Guide to Canonical Criticism, was that there

was no explanation or suggestion as to how canonical criticism was

to be practiced, only examples of how Sanders would do it:

            Ultimately, this book is a great disappointment. As one who

            has tried to take seriously both Childs and Sanders and to

            communicate concerns about canon to his students, I would

            have found a brief explication of method invaluable, but

            unfortunately one is not provided here. The examples given

            represent the results of Sanders's research and do not help

            others understand how they might do similar things. Moreover,

            the book is very idiosyncratic. The work of Childs is dismissed

            for the most part, leaving Sanders as the primary representative

            of "canonical criticism." . . . The book fails in its task to

            provide methodological clarity . . .¹¹⁰

In other words, canonical criticism, as practiced by Sanders,

fails in its goal of putting the Bible back in the hands of

the church. Not even other biblical scholars, much less lay

____________________

            ¹⁰⁹Mark G. Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis?: The Impact of the

Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1991), 165-66; see also W. Sibley Towner, review of

From Sacred Story to Sacred Text, by James A. Sanders, in RelSRev 15 (1989): 102.

            ¹¹⁰Donn F. Morgan, review of Canon and Community: A

Guide to Canonical Criticism, by James A. Sanders, in ATR 67 (1985): 176.

                                              174

 

persons, are qualified to do canonical criticism, as put forth

by Sanders.¹¹¹

            (8) Eighth, why should the fundamentalists be arbitrarily

excluded from the category of believing canon-shaping

communities? In stating in the prologue of Canon and

Community that canonical criticism is not for fundamentalists

(or shall we say evangelicals?), Sanders has stated far more

than I am sure he ever meant to. Does Sanders really mean to

say that there is no process of reinterpretation and

resignification and adaptation going on in those communities

today? Can Sanders honestly say that the fundamentalists are

not trying to uncover the hermeneutics of the biblical writers?

He has, without warrant, pontificated against a believing

community that at least seeks to read the Bible canonically and

faithfully. Also, if the "so-called" false prophets were only

citing traditions from a slightly wrong perspective, will not

Sanders allow the fundamentalists to do the same?

            (9) Ninth, why should Sanders suppose that his agenda of

monotheizing pluralism is any less a canon within the canon

than any other that has come up in the history of Old

Testament, New Testament, or Biblical theology.¹¹²  Moreover,

____________________

            ¹¹¹Charles Wood (review of Canon and Community, by James

A. Sanders, in PSTJ 38/2 [1985]: 47) correctly notes that "the

book is best taken as a statement of Sanders's own program,

and not as an attempt to represent a discipline or subdiscipline

of biblical studies within which that program might be located."

            ¹¹²For a criticism of Sanders on this point see John Reumann,

                                        175

 

does it really constitute the major theme of the canon? How

can Sanders admit on the one hand, that Israel was not a very

monotheizing people, and then assert on the other that Israel

"doggedly pursued" monotheism? Furthermore, if the Bible

monotheizes only "more or less well" should we not find

another canon that does a better job? If it is only a paradigm

and it does not do the job well, would we not be better off

trying to find a new and better paradigm?

            (10) Finally, and a question on which I will need to spend some

time, does not Sanders's insistence on his monotheistic

pluralism cut the very ground out from under Christian

theology?

            Sanders accuses Christians ever since New Testament times of

being flagrant polytheists in their Christomonism, while the

New Testament writers themselves monotheized only "more or

less well," the fundamentalists being the worst polytheizers of

all. He seems to take a special delight in attacks on

Christological readings of the Bible. For example, in a review

of G. E. Wright's book, The Old Testament and Theology, his

words of highest praise are for the first chapter:

            The liveliest chapter in the book is the first, a virile attack on

            Christomonism in which Wright insists, quite rightly, that even

            Jesus Christ did not exhaust God.¹¹³

____________________

"Introduction: Whither Biblical Theology?" in The Promise

and Practice of Biblical Theology, ed. John Reumann

(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 11.

            ¹¹³James A. Sanders, "Models of God's Government," review of

                                          176

 

He says that Christians have a lesson to learn from the Jews

who know, much better than Christians do, how to monotheize:

            We cannot go on simply as we have in the past with a distorted

            christocentric singularism. We must learn how to be

            canonically faithful monotheising pluralists.¹¹⁴

            Sanders even suggests that the early Church made some of

their canonical decisions on the basis of an incorrect

Christology:

            Whereas Jesus was historically a prophetic Jew among Jews in

            the sense that we have described, to the early church he was

            protagonist and savior. This means, in canonical criticism, that

            the early church retained some of the teachings of Jesus more

            or less accurately for quite the wrong reasons.¹¹⁵

            However, for every anti-Christological statement that Sanders

makes, there are clear peshat canonical statements that provide

its true "contrapositive." He dares to ask where in the world

Christians ever got the idea that Christ revealed God. I would

dare to suggest that they arrived at that conclusion from a

rather intelligent reading of canon. Does not the Apostle John

tell us that Christ did reveal God?

            No one has ever seen God, but God's only Son, who is nearest

            to the Father's heart, he has made him known. (John 1:18 NEB)

____________________

The Old Testament and Theology, by George Ernest Wright, in

Int 24 (1970): 366.

            ¹¹⁴James A. Sanders, "A Christian Response to Elliot Dorff:

‘This is my God’: One Jew's Faith," in Three Faiths--One God:

A Jewish, Christian, Muslim Encounter, ed. John Hick and Edmund S.

Meltzer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 34.

            ¹¹⁵James A. Sanders, "The Dead Sea Scrolls--A Quarter

Century of Study," BA 36 (1973): 147.

                                          177

 

Does not Jesus himself talk about being the only way to the

Father (John 14:6)? Does not the author of Hebrews declare

that Christ is the "exact representation of his being" (Heb 1:3)?

            Sanders suggests that Christians are wrong to hold that in some

way "Christ exhausted God." But the canon makes clear that

            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. (Col 1:19-20)

                        Sanders says that

            The Church of Jesus Christ is called with

            others, Judaism and Islam, to be witness to the Integrity of

            Reality, to proclaim God's unlimited grace to all who would

            listen. The true Christian does not worry about whether others

            are lost but stays her or his mind on the joy of the faith and the

            pursuit of the Integrity of Reality in her or his life with hope in

            the promise that that very integrity will be God's ultimate and

            final gift to the believer and to all humankind.¹¹⁶

But did not the apostles say something about there being no other name

by which men might be saved (Acts 4:12)? Does not the plain sense

of the text suggest that Jesus and the New Testament writers called

on their followers to evangelize the world because the world was lost,

and not just to share a new perspective on Torah? Did Paul really

intend to stop at getting the Jews to merely "acknowledge the work

of God in Christ"? Did he not "go on then to insist that they

become Christian"?

____________________

            ¹¹⁶Sanders, "The Heart of the Christian Faith for Me," 186.

                                          178

 

            Sanders declares that "the heart of the biblical message is not

so much that we should believe in God but that God believes in

us."¹¹⁷ But it seems to me that at the heart of the biblical

message is the fact that God does not believe in us (cf. John

2:24 where Jesus explicitly refuses to believe in those who had

believed in him), but has chosen to be gracious in imparting a

faith and righteousness to those who had no hope and no

righteousness of their own.

            Ultimately, Sanders's canonical criticism fails because it

explicitly lacks the Christological element which would give it

substance. Sanders looks to the text, the community, and the

vague notion of the "Integrity of Reality" for canonical

authority, but he fails to look to Christ:

            It is not Jeremiah who is canonical; it is the Jeremiah books

            that are canonical . . . If one can understand that it was not the

            prophet Isaiah who was canonical, but the Isaiah book which is

            canonical, then modern reputable scholars would not need to

            insist that the sixty-six chapters stem from a single author. Not

            even Jesus is canonical; at least I have never heard of him

            being canonized. The gospels are canonical, and the epistles.¹¹⁸

            Maybe Sanders is equivocating on the use of the word

"canonical," but at least in the sense that I am using the word, I

would assert that Jesus is canonical. God has given Jesus Christ

"all authority in heaven and on earth" (Matt 28:18) and has

made it clear that other than through Christ, he has nothing

more to say (Heb 1:1-2). The New Testament

____________________

            ¹¹⁷Sanders, "Torah and Christ," 390.

            ¹¹⁸Sanders, Canon and Community, xvii (emphasis mine).

                                       179

 

writings have no authority other than that which Christ has

invested in them. And the Old Testament is authoritative for

the Christian only as it is read through Christ.¹¹⁹

            At one time Sanders made a statement that bore a formal

similarity to this last one. He said in a 1966 article that Christ

"is the Christian's canon of what in the Old Testament is

relevant and valid to the life of faith."¹²⁰ I do not know

whether he would stand by that statement today. This was back

in the days when he was just beginning to enter the canonical

dialogue with his editing work on the Qumran Psalms Scroll.

I can only observe that I have not seen similar statements in his

many books and articles.

 

                                 Conclusion

            The very first article by Sanders that I ever read was his

brilliant and eloquent 1978 Society of Biblical Literature

Presidential address,¹²¹ an article which every teacher of

Hebrew Bible should read in order to appreciate better the

work of the scribes and Masoretes. There is great value in the

work that Sanders has done, for he is a brilliant scholar, and

the world of biblical scholarship is in debt to him for the

work that he has done and is still doing as President of

____________________

            ¹¹⁹In Part Two I will discuss the relationship between the Old

Testament's authority before and after Christ.

            ¹²⁰James A. Sanders, "The Vitality of the Old Testament:

Three Theses," USQR 21 (1966): 163.

            ¹²¹James A. Sanders, "Text and Canon: Concepts and

Method," JBL 98 (1979): 5-29.

                                            180

 

the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center at Claremont. I do not

believe, however, that Sanders's program of canonical criticism

will result in what he had hoped, a Bible unchained from the

scholar's desk and returned to the Church. For in the final

analysis, he bids us investigate a canon which, in my opinion,

has been stripped of all authority other than that which

Sanders's reconstruction will allow.

             In the last chapter, I stated that "I will be arguing that

Childs's approach is not canonical enough, and that Sanders's

approach is not canonical at all." However, it is these two men

who are recognized as the leading scholars in canonical study.

Therefore I suggest that for evangelicals, who in their study of

the Bible put themselves under the full authority, not just of the

canon, but also the Christ who gives the canon its authority, it

is not enough to declare their approach to the Bible to be

canonical. And this is the thesis of this dissertation: The

evangelical approach to Scripture today must go beyond

"canonical"; it must be explicitly "Christo-canonical."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                 PART TWO

 

                         THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH

 

 

 

                                     CHAPTER 4

 

 

THE CANONICAL PROCESS APPROACH OF BRUCE WALTKE

 

 

 

            A prediction that was often made by Childs's critics was that,

though he himself was certainly not a conservative or a "pre-

critical" scholar, his approach would be used by those who

were.¹ The prediction has for the most part failed to

materialize. One conservative Old Testament scholar who used

insights from Childs fairly early, however, was Bruce Waltke.

In an article entitled "A Canonical Process Approach to the

Psalms,"² Waltke affirmed his indebtedness to Childs while at

the same distancing himself from him. Inasmuch as this article

provided the impetus for my own desire to write in this area, I

will summarize the content of this article in this chapter before

going on to outline in chapters 5-6 what I call the Christo-

canonical approach.

____________________

            ¹James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 148; Erhard S.

Gerstenberger, "Canon Criticism and the Meaning of Sitz im

Leben," in Canon, Theology and Old Testament Interpretation:

Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, ed. Gene M. Tucker,

David L. Petersen, and Robert R. Wilson (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1988), 20.

            ²Bruce K. Waltke, "A Canonical Process Approach to the

Psalms," in Tradition and Testament: Essays in Honor of

Charles Lee Feinberg, ed. John S. Feinberg and Paul D.

Feinberg (Chicago: Moody, 1981), 3-18.

                          

                                            183

                                          184

 

                     Assessment of Prior Interpretation

            Waltke begins his article by briefly examining the

interpretation of messianic psalms since the time of the early

church. After discussing the apparently uncontrolled allegorical

Psalms exegesis of the Alexandrian school and the more literal,

but messianically-minimizing, exegesis of the Antiochene

school, Waltke concludes that there are three basic categories

of expositors today, all of which continue the exegesis of the

Antiochene school. The first group consists of the "precritical

or noncritical expositors," who, for the most part, see as

messianic only those psalms which are quoted as such in the

New Testament. Waltke faults this group (represented by

expositors such as E. W. Hengstenberg, A. C. Gaebelein,

David Baron, and J. B. Payne) for their prooftexting and lack

of consideration for the original historical context of the

different psalms, declaring that they "actually discredit the

claims of Jesus in the eyes of literary and historical critics."³

____________________

            ³Waltke, "Canonical Process," 5. This is perhaps the only place

where I find fault with Waltke's assessment of the situation: (1)

It seems a bit unfair to refer to these scholars as either pre- or

non-critical. I don't know whether Waltke is referring here to

the time period in which they lived or their avoidance of

contact with critical issues, but in either case the label seems to

prejudicially suggest that no thinking scholar would accept the

fruits of their exegesis. (2) It seems that at least part of

Waltke's criticism of this group is that they regard these

messianic psalms, or at least portions of them, as directly

prophetic. While this may indeed be a subject open to debate,

we must at least admit that they had a measure of warrant for

so doing. David is regarded by Peter as a prophet in Acts

2:30. (3) Waltke's criticism is a little unclear when he says that

they ignore the Psalms' historical context and meaning. Yet

                                             185

 

            The second group consists of those literary-historical

critics who deny any predictive element in the Psalter. While

this group would tend to be made up of critics who would deny

altogether the supernatural element in Scripture, yet in the

way in which Waltke has defined the group, it would also

include scholars of a much more conservative bent--such as the

late Peter Craigie.⁴ While denying the predictive element in

the Psalter, this group would still maintain that the

____________________

he classes them with the Antiochene school which is

committed to the historical context for its exegesis. It does not

seem that this group can really be charged with this practice;

but, even if they were guilty of ignoring the historical context

for those psalms which they consider to be prophetic, again,

they may have warrant for doing so. In Acts 2:29 and 34, Peter

states that he can use the psalms which he quotes as referring

to Christ precisely because they did not have a prior historical

referent. (4) Finally, I do not think it is fair to hold these men

responsible for discrediting Jesus in the eyes of modern critics. Perhaps

the "prooftexting" is indeed to be deplored, but the real issue is whether

they are right or wrong. In essence then, though I agree with Waltke

in the end that the method used by this group is not the best one, I think

it would have been better to show exactly what was unacceptable

about their method instead of labeling them as noncritical.

            ⁴Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, WBC 19 (Waco: Word, 1983).

Had Craigie written a full commentary on the book of Psalms,

perhaps he would have found a psalm which he would have

considered to be messianic in its original intent; but to the best

of my knowledge he found none to be so in the first fifty. Note

the following statements on psalms which have been

historically considered to be messianic: Psalm 16--"the psalm,

with respect to its initial meaning, is neither messianic nor

eschatological in nature" (p. 158). Psalm 2--"not . . . explicitly

messianic (p. 68); Psalm 18--"Like Ps 2, Ps 18 is a royal psalm

and refers to the king as the anointed one . . . or messiah. But

neither the former nor the latter are messianic psalms in any

prophetic or predictive sense" (p. 177); Psalm 22-"Though the

psalm is not messianic in its original sense or setting . . . it may

be interpreted from a NT perspective as a messianic psalm par

excellence" (p. 202); Psalm 45--"In its original sense and

context, it is not in any sense a messianic psalm" (p. 340).

                                         186

 

idealistic language used in the Psalms, particularly the royal

Psalms, became the basis for the messianic hope. Waltke faults

this group for "untying, or at least loosening, the bond

connecting the New Testament with the original meaning of

the Old Testament."⁵

            The third group is made up of those literary-historical critics

who do allow for a predictive element. In addition to men

named by Waltke, such as Charles A. Briggs, H. H. Rowley,

Franz Delitzsch, and A. F. Kirkpatrick, I suppose someone like

Walther Zimmerli would also fit in this class.⁶ Waltke faults

this group for failing to "give a consistent and comprehensive

method for identifying the messianic element in the psalms,"⁷

and also, for limiting the messianic psalms, just as the

precritical expositors, to only those cited in the New Testament.

            Waltke's dissatisfaction with all three approaches is that

they fail to give an account for how the New Testament writers

used the psalms--for failing to account for why verses like

Ps 34:21 and 69:10 are used as references to Christ in the

New Testament (in John 19:36 and 2:17, respectively),

____________________

            ⁵Waltke, "Canonical Process," 5.

            ⁶Walther Zimmerli, "Promise and Fulfillment," trans. James

Wharton, in Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics, ed. Claus

Westermann, ET ed. James Luther Mays (Richmond: John

Knox, 1963), 111: "It is repeatedly noticeable how the language transcends

contemporary description in the direction of a superlative

which is by no means completely realized . . . a language

which arouses the expectation of a greater one who is yet to come."

            ⁷Waltke, "Canonical Process," 6.

                                               187

 

whereas verses like Ps 3:2, "How many are my foes," are never

used. Waltke concludes that:

            In all fairness, it seems as though the writers of the New

            Testament are not attempting to identify and limit the psalms

            that prefigure Christ but rather are assuming that the Psalter as

            a whole has Jesus Christ in view and that this should be the

            normative way of interpreting the psalms.⁸

 

                                A New Proposal

            Based on this examination of the data, Waltke sets forth

his thesis:

            I conclude, therefore, that both the nonhistorical and

            undisciplined method of interpreting the psalms and the

            Antiochian principle of allowing but one historical meaning

            that may carry with it typical significance are inadequate

            hermeneutical principles for the interpretation of the psalms. In

            place of these methods, therefore, I would like to argue for a

            canonical process approach in interpreting the psalms, an

            approach that does justice both to the historical significance(s)

            of the psalms and to their messianic significance. Indeed, I

            shall argue that from a literary and historical point of view, we

            should understand that the human subject of the psalms-

            whether it be the blessed man of Psalm 1, the one proclaiming

            himself the son of God in Psalm 2, the suffering petitioner in

            Psalms 3-7, the son of man in Psalm 8--is Jesus Christ.

            By the canonical process approach I mean the recognition that

            the text's intention became deeper and clearer as the parameters

            of the canon were expanded. Just as redemption itself has a

            progressive history so also older texts in the canon underwent a

            correlative progressive perception of meaning as they became

            part of a growing canonical literature.⁹

            The approach is almost revolutionary. Now we are going

to abandon the caution of the Antiochenes in their limitation

____________________

            ⁸Ibid., 7.

            ⁹Ibid.

                                               188

 

of messianic psalms, and we are going to stand by the

Alexandrians and declare even louder than they, that we are no

more going to look for messianic psalms--instead we are

simply going to read a messianic Psalter--and, what's more, we

are going to do so for better reasons, indeed, legitimate ones.

The Alexandrians were right after all; they just used the wrong

methods to get there!

            There are four things which should be especially noted about

what Waltke says that he is attempting to do here. First, he says

that he will attempt to show Christ to be the human subject of

the Psalms from a literary point of view; i.e., on a reading of

the Psalms in the larger literary context of the entire canon of

Scripture it should become evident that Christ is indeed the

subject of the Psalms. Second, he will attempt to demonstrate

this also from a historical perspective, which means that it will

be important to show that at each stage of the canonical process

there was a messianic expectation inherent in the development.

Third, it is interesting to note that at this point Waltke does not

mention that he will attempt to demonstrate this process from a

theological perspective, though this theological perspective

will in fact be very important for the thesis as he develops it.

Finally, it should be noted that Waltke claims that the

intention of the text became both deeper and clearer. That the

text's intention became clearer would not be so terribly

difficult for many critics to follow, but that the text's

                                               189

 

intention also became deeper is a bit more difficult to

accept--given Waltke's thesis that the human and divine

intentions are not to be divorced. Each of these points

will be discussed further as we begin now to look at how

Dr. Waltke unpacks his thesis.

              Dependence on, and Distance from, Childs

            Waltke readily admits his indebtedness to Childs for his

canonical process approach, but is quick to distance himself

from Childs in three particular ways. First, Waltke claims that

Childs fails to distinguish between the literary and subsequent

scribal history of the biblical books due to his lack of a clear

definition of inspiration. Waltke on the other hand

distinguishes between the two by not giving any real canonical

weight to those changes which came into the text by virtue of

scribal corruption.¹⁰

            Second, Waltke charges that

            Childs allows the possibility of a divorce between Israel's

            religious history and the canonical witness to that history.

            By canonical process I have no such division in mind and

            clearly affirm God's supernatural intervention in Israel's history.¹¹

____________________

            ¹⁰I would suggest, rather, that Childs does sufficiently

distinguish between the two stages (see p. 104 of his

Introduction), but that he purposely makes no distinction

between the two on a practical level since both the literary

development and scribal corruptions have their meaning in the

canon for the community of faith. Thus the difficult reading in

1 Sam 1:24, wĕhanna ar na ar, is not just to be dismissed and

replaced with a conjectural emendation, but it is also to be

interpreted by virtue of its existence in the canon for the

possible meaning it has for the community of faith.

            ¹¹Waltke, "Canonical Process," 7-8. Katherine D. Sakenfeld

                                              190

 

            Third, Waltke distances himself from Childs in that while the

latter emphasizes the final form of the Masoretic Text, he

emphasizes rather the "meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures

within the context of the New Testament." While Waltke's

evaluation of Childs is correct, I do not think the difference is

all that glaring. Childs does pay a good deal of attention to the

issue of the Old Testament in the New Testament context.¹²

            Though Waltke does not enumerate it in his list of

differences with Childs, he does mention another very important

distinction. While "canonical criticism"¹³ as represented in the

writings of Childs, Sanders, and Clements, asserts that through

canonical process a reworked text can actually lose its original

intention, Waltke holds that the earlier intention is not lost and

that the text is just as authoritative in its earlier stage as in its

final canonical context.

____________________

notes also in regard to Childs's Exodus commentary that the

reader is left "with the impression that it makes little or no

difference whether any of the events took place at all" (review

of The Book of Exodus: a Critical, Theological Commentary,

by Brevard S. Childs, in TToday 31 [1974]: 276).

            ¹²Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 659-71; Biblical

Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 149-219.

            ¹³Keeping in mind here that Childs does not prefer to use this

term to describe what he does. The term is more appropriately

used to describe Sanders's approach.

                                            191

 

                       Similarity to, but Distinction from,

                                        Sensus Plenior

            While readily admitting the similarity of his approach

to that of sensus plenior, developed by Catholic biblical

theologians, Waltke also distances himself from their approach

in three distinct areas. First, Waltke correctly notes that

whereas the doctrine of sensus plenior teaches that the divine

and human authorial intentions are to be divorced,¹⁴ the

canonical approach holds that there is no such divorce, but

rather that what God meant the human author meant. Oddly

enough, Waltke and Walter Kaiser, who are at odds on other

hermeneutical issues to be discussed later, seem, at least on

the surface, to be at one here. However, I would agree with

Darrell Bock that there is a bit of vagueness to Waltke's

treatment of this particular issue.¹⁵ While maintaining that

the human and divine authors had the same meaning or

intention in regards to their co-authored texts, he still ends

up positing what must be regarded as new referents for biblical

terms in the psalms. Thus, for Psalm 2, Waltke argues that

"Zion, my holy hill" becomes in the New Testament the heavenly

____________________

            ¹⁴See the definition of sensus plenior as given by Raymond

E. Brown, "Hermeneutics," JBC, ed. Raymond E. Brown,

Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood

Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 616. See also his articles, "The

History and Development of the Theory of a Sensus Plenior,"

CBQ 15 (1953): 141-62; "The Sensus Plenior in the Last Ten

Years," CBQ 25 (1963): 262-85.

            ¹⁵Darrell L. Bock, "Evangelicals and the Use of the Old

Testament," 2 parts, BSac 142 (1985): 306, 316 n. 2.

                                             192

 

Mount Zion.¹⁶ Does Waltke mean that David actually had in

mind some other location than the Mount Zion with which he

was familiar? Or, what about Psalm 16? Does Waltke's

insistence on sameness of divine and human meanings demand

that David's hope as expressed in v. 10 is a clear reference to

the resurrection?¹⁷ Also in this regard we would want to have

a clearer idea of what Waltke means when he says that the

text's intention became deeper as well as clearer. Does this

mean that the human author's intention became deeper? And

how can the text's intention become deeper without, at the

same time, undergoing at least a measure of change as well?

            Second, Waltke states that while the sensus plenior regards

            later writers as winning meanings from the text quite apart

            from their historical use and significance . . . the canonical

            process approach underscores the continuity of a

            text's meaning throughout sacred history . . .¹⁸

Later in the paper Waltke argues that, "in brief, the New

Testament does not impose a new meaning on these old psalms

but wins back for them their original and true significance"¹⁹

This is a valid point, though I would suggest that not all

____________________

            ¹⁶Bruce K. Waltke, "Is it Right to Read the New Testament

into the Old?" Christianity Today, 2 September 1983, 77.

            ¹⁷Cf. the discussion on this passage in Elliot E. Johnson,

"Author's Intention and Biblical Interpretation," in

Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible: Papers from ICBI

Summit II, ed. Earl D. Radmacher and Robert D. Preus (Grand

Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 417, 420-21, 423-25, 427.

            ¹⁸Waltke, "Canonical Process," 8.

            ¹⁹Ibid., 15-16.

                                             193

 

sensus plenior advocates resort to the idea that there is a new

meaning given to the Old Testament text. For some it is indeed

true, as, for example, when Jerome Smith approvingly quotes J.

Van Der Ploeg as saying about the author of Hebrews, "It is the

sensus plenior, profundior that interests him most . . . It plays a

major role in his exegesis of those texts that do not refer

directly and clearly to Christ and to the new economy"²⁰

(emphasis mine). However, I believe the more mainstream

advocates of sensus plenior shy away from this type of idea.²¹

            Third, Waltke states that, whereas the supposed sensus plenior

depends on a supernatural enlightening of the New Testament

writer to find that "fuller sense," the canonical process

approach depends on the progressive revelation as it unfolds

within the canon of Scripture.²² Again, some caution needs to

be exercised here in making this to be a hard and fast

distinction. Whereas there are those who would argue for this

supernatural "zapping" of the New Testament writers (and even

later non-canonical writers), sensus plenior advocates such as

Raymond Brown make no such claim, and actually talk in

____________________

            ²⁰Jerome Smith, A Priest For Ever: A Study of Typology and

Eschatology in Hebrews (London: Sheed & Ward, 1969), 20.

            ²¹Cf. Raymond E. Brown ("Hermeneutics," 617): "This

criterion is that the SPlen [sensus plenior] of a text must be

homogeneous with the literal sense, i.e., it must be a

development of what the human author wanted to say."

            ²²Waltke, "Canonical Process," 8-9.

                                                 194

 

terms that more closely resemble the canonical process

approach.²³

            In summary then, while I believe that all three distinctions

which Waltke makes regarding his approach vs. sensus plenior

are valid to a point, the methods may in fact have more in

common than Waltke would admit.

                                Four Convictions

            Waltke states that his approach rest on four convictions. First,

he states that the approach rests on the presupposition that the

"people of God throughout history are united by a common

knowledge and faith."²⁴ It should be noted here that this is a

theme which cannot be clearly sounded by someone coming at

the study from the perspective of Childs, for with him the

content of the community's faith and knowledge is constantly

changing.

            Second, for Waltke, God is the "ultimate author of the

progressively developing canon."²⁵ This is important in that

God is not only the author of the Scriptures which make up the

canon, but also author of the "canonical process."

            Third, Waltke presupposes "that as the canon developed,

lesser and earlier representations were combined to form

greater units that are more meaningful than their component

____________________

            ²³Raymond Brown, "Hermeneutics," 616.

            ²⁴Waltke, "Canonical Process," 9.

            ²⁵Ibid., 10.

                                                195

 

parts."²⁶ If we have learned anything at all from de Saussure's

structural linguistics, it is that words have little meaning apart

from their relationships with other words. It seems that what

Waltke is advocating with this premise is simply that this

principle must be carried to its larger logical conclusions.

Words have meaning in relationship to other words in a

sentence. Sentences have meaning in relationship to other

sentences in a paragraph. Paragraphs have meaning in relation

to other paragraphs in a chapter or book, etc. It seems then that

those who would deny the possibility of exegeting a word,

sentence, paragraph, chapter, book, or testament in light of the

larger canonical context are denying that this principle can be

carried out on a larger plane. It is at this point that the

differences between Waltke and Kaiser manifest themselves. It

seems to me that a fundamental error in Kaiser's hermeneutics

is his unwillingness to interpret older texts in the light of the

entire canon. While he allows any text to be informed by

antecedent texts, he will not allow subsequent texts to play a

part in the interpretation of the antecedent texts. He clearly

states that "the whole canon must not be used as the context for

every exegesis."²⁷ The much more consistent view however is

that of Waltke when he states that "because God is

____________________

            ²⁶Ibid.

            ²⁷Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology:

Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, 1981), 82.

                                          196

 

the author of the whole Bible, any piece of literature within it

must be studied in the light of its whole literary context."²⁸

            Fourth, as the last book of the New Testament was written

the canon was closed. This is an important point for Waltke's

approach since it defines the final canonical product as the

Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Does Waltke,

however, also mean that this marks the end of canonical

process? There may be some problems with this position.

Again this will be discussed in detail later.

                                  Four Stages

            As Waltke applies his canonical process approach to the

Psalms he posits that the interpreter must look at the meaning

of an individual psalm as it passes through four distinct stages:

(1) its meaning as it comes from the original psalmist, (2) its

meaning in the earlier collections in the First Temple period,

(3) its meaning in the completed Old Testament canon, and

finally, (4) its meaning in the full canon of Scripture with the

addition of the New Testament. The rest of the article (pp. 10-

16) is taken up with explicating these four stages. These arguments

will be examined in greater detail in later chapters of this paper.

For now, it will be sufficient to note a few questions that

____________________

            ²⁸Waltke, "Canonical Process," 10.

                                            197

 

must be asked in regard to Waltke's reconstruction of this

canonical process.

            Issues to Be Raised in Regard to Waltke's

                      Canonical Process Approach

            First, with regard to the first two stages, it is

important to note Waltke's heavy dependence on the royal

element in the Psalter, capitalizing, in particular, on the work

of John Eaton in his monograph Kingship and the Psalms.²⁹

Eaton had argued for a much greater royal element in the

Psalter, so that his enumeration of royal psalms was higher

than any scholars had advocated before. While Gunkel had

argued for approximately nine or ten, Eaton expanded the

number to approximately sixty-four. Waltke goes further and

suggests that

            the living king was understood to be the subject

            of most psalms. . . . We conclude therefore, that most psalms

            had a royal significance in their cultic use at the First Temple.³⁰

            The problem with this, however, is that in spite of

the growth of the recognition of the royal psalms from nine

or ten, to sixty-four, to "most," we still have not arrived at

an "all." It is, therefore, a rather significant jump when

Waltke concludes his article by declaring that "the Psalms are

ultimately the prayers of Jesus Christ, Son of God," and then

approvingly quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer: " ‘The Psalter,’ he

____________________

            ²⁹John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, SBT 2d ser. 32

(Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, 1976).

            ³⁰Waltke, "Canonical Process," 13.

                                                198

 

wrote, ‘is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of

the word.’"³¹ One issue to be examined, therefore, will be the

legitimacy of this move.

            A second issue to be raised concerns the reconstruction of the

canonical process itself. Though the general outline of these

four stages would probably be accepted by the scholarly

consensus, there are "fuzzy boundaries" at the transition points

between these stages. For example, when Waltke distinguishes

between the meaning of the psalm to the original composer and

the meaning of the psalm as it was used in the early collections

of the First Temple period, the distinction appears to be a little

too neat. Waltke is working here with the assumption that the

psalms attributed to David are, in fact, his own compositions.

We will look at that issue in greater detail in later chapters, but

assuming for now that David is the author of these psalms, this

only accounts for slightly less than half the Psalter, and even

then, not all the royal psalms. Allowance must be made for the

fact that there were royal psalms written during the second

stage of this canonical process as well, and perhaps even

during the third stage.

            Third, another problem with this reconstruction is

the nature of the activity that took place during the third stage,

and also the actual duration of this stage. On the one hand,

____________________

            ³¹Ibid., 16, citing Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans.

John Doberstein (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 46.

                                         199

 

Waltke wishes to argue that the editors of the canon, by

including the royal psalms in the Psalter at a time when there

was no son of David on the throne, were, in fact, interpreting

the psalms

            prophetically precisely as we found them interpreted in the

            New Testament. This prophetic interpretation of these old texts

            is not a reinterpretation of them away from their original,

            authorial meaning; rather it is a more precise interpretation of

            them in light of the historical realities.³²

On the other hand, Waltke also wishes to assert that

            The intertestamental literature and the New Testament make clear,

            however, that the royal dimension of the lament psalms

            became lost during this period of time, and thus

            Israel lost sight of a suffering Messiah.³³

Waltke suggests, on the one hand, that those who compiled the

canonical Psalter did so with an insight as to their true royal,

eschatological, messianic significance. But, on the other hand,

he suggests that during this same time period the true royal

significance of this same canonical Psalter was lost. What

enables him to make both suggestions for the same time period

is his assumption that the canon and the canonical Psalter were

finished by ca. 200 BC, and that the "royal dimension" was lost

between 200 BC and the time of the New Testament. This is,

however, a heavily debated assumption, especially with all

the controversy surrounding both the date for the closing of

the Old Testament canon and the actual form

____________________

            ³²Waltke, "Canonical Process," 15.

            ³³Ibid.

                                             200

 

of the canonical Psalter. Waltke himself makes reference to

this:

            We cannot be sure how the editors who compiled the final

            form of the Old Testament interpreted the laments psalms.

            It seems plausible to me to suppose that they continued to

            understand them according to their original meaning.³⁴

But can a theory of canonical process, which proposes to provide a

hermeneutical guide, rest upon only "plausibilities" at the very

stage of canonical compilation? Again, these are issues to be

looked at in greater detail in later chapters, but for now it will

be sufficient to note that there is probably no scholarly

consensus on either one of these issues, and that at present any

arguments one wishes to make based on a reconstruction of the

actual canonical process at this third stage must, due to the

very nature of the case, remain largely speculative. To look at

this problem from another angle, part of the reason why Childs

advocated a canonical reading and perspective in the first place

was to contest the dogmatism that had become attached to

scholarly reconstructions. The question to be raised here,

therefore, is whether or not this theory of canonical process,

conservative though it may be, draws authority away from the

canon to the canonical process as reconstructed.

            A fourth issue to be raised concerns the activity

that takes place in the fourth stage. Waltke devotes only

one paragraph to this last stage of the process in his article.

____________________

            ³⁴Ibid., 16.

                                             201

 

But it is clearly the most important stage. As Waltke says in

another article,

            The divine author's intention comes into ever

            sharper focus through the magnifying glass of progressive

            revelation until it reaches a flash point in the coming of

            Jesus Christ.³⁵

This "flash point" needs to be examined more closely and I will

do that in later chapters. But it must be noted here that this flash

point is all-determinative for the correct interpretation of the other

stages; that is, it is not simply stage four of the canonical process,

but it is the stage which makes sense of all that came before.

            A fifth issue that needs to be mentioned here, but discussed in

fuller detail later, has to do not so much with canonical process

as with the process of interpretation after the completion of the

canon. Since none of the authors of the Bible ever had the

whole canon to work with, are we not forced to conclude that

only those who have come after are able to arrive at insights

from a reading of the Scriptures as a canonical interpretation?

We will look at this a little closer in chapter 6.

            One last issue which I wish to raise has to do with the matter of

what Waltke calls "eggshells." In the next-to-last paragraph of

the article, Waltke states,

____________________

            ³⁵Bruce K. Waltke, "Kingdom Promises as Spiritual," in

Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship

Between the Old and New Testaments: Essays in Honor of S.

Lewis Johnson, Jr., ed. John S. Feinberg (Westchester, IL:

Crossway, 1988), 284.

                                             202

 

            From this fourth and highest vantage point we win the full

            significance of the psalms. Jesus of Nazareth, son of David and

            Son of God, fulfills these psalms. Those elements in each

            psalm presenting the king as anything less than ideal, such as

            his confession of sins, are the historical eggshells from the

            preexilic period when the psalms were used for Israel's less

            than ideal kings.³⁶

Waltke mentions here only the confessions of sin; but he might

easily have also mentioned other "eggshells" such as the

apparently self-righteous declarations of innocence and the

imprecations that have caused problems for so many

interpreters of the psalms. The problem here, however, is that

now the "prayer book of Jesus Christ" must be sent through an

editing process to make sure the prayers are fit for him to use.

Or to use a line from the preface to Isaac Watts' hymnbook

regarding his rendering of the psalms into verse, it is necessary

"to teach my author [David] to speak like a Christian."³⁷ Can

we, however, so easily separate out these apparently non-

Christian elements from the Psalms? To play out the metaphor

a little further, one expositor's eggshell may well be another

expositor's yolk. I suggest, therefore, that more attention needs

to be given to this area, as will be done in Part Three.

____________________

            ³⁶Waltke, "Canonical Process," 16.

            ³⁷As cited in Henry de Candole, The Christian Use of the

Psalms (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1958), 34. Thus the reader may

understand better the title of Watts' hymnbook, The Psalms of

David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, And

applied to the Christian State and Worship (as reported by Moira

Dearnley, "Expressions, that seem Contrary to Christ,"

Theology 73 [1970]: 161); see also, George Rust, "Christian Use of the

Psalter," in "Letters to the Editor," Theology 73 (1970): 172-73.

                                        203

                                  Conclusion

            As I mentioned earlier, I believe that Waltke's canonical

process approach is nothing short of revolutionary, and I find

myself in wholehearted agreement with the basic outline of the

approach as proposed in the article. However, the issues that I

raised in the last section have led me to believe that this

approach by itself, though far superior to the previous

approaches that Waltke surveys, still falls short of giving "a

consistent and comprehensive method for identifying the

messianic element in the psalms." Whether what I am

proposing should be seen as a supplement to the canonical

process approach, or whether it should be regarded as a new

paradigm,³⁸ remains to be seen. I would not have arrived at

what I am calling the Christo-canonical approach had it not

been for Waltke's own work and theory in this subject. The

approach which I wish to describe in the next chapters should

not be seen so much as a corrective to anything in Waltke's

approach, as a tribute to the scholarship of the man who

inspired my investigation in this area.

 

 

 

 

 

____________________

            ³⁸Using the language of Thomas S. Kuhn (The Structure of

Scientific Revolutions [Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1970]).

 

 

                                CHAPTER 5

 

   THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE OLD

TESTAMENT: CHRIST IS THE CANON ABOVE THE CANON

 

            After the survey of messianic psalms exegesis in chapter 1,

the last three chapters have been an examination of the current

emphasis on canon, canonical process, and canonical context in

recent scholarship with a view to ascertaining whether this

development should be seen as friend or foe to evangelical

biblical interpretation. I closed chapter 3 by remarking that

"Childs's approach is not canonical enough, and that Sanders's

approach is not canonical at all." Consequently, evangelical

biblical scholars who are doing what may be categorized as

canonical interpretation should find some way to differentiate

between their work and the work of those who also call their

work canonical, but do not share the same presuppositions

regarding the actual canonical character of the Scriptures.

I argued that "the evangelical approach to Scripture today

must go beyond "canonical"; it must be explicitly "Christo-

canonical." The thesis statement of the Christo-canonical

approach may be very simply put forward: "Christ is

Canon."  This chapter and the next will set forth the basic

theses or statements that I believe are contained in this

main thesis. This chapter will examine the statements

 

                                              204

                                           205

 

that predicate the relationship between Christ and the canon.

Chapter 6 will examine the statements that predicate the

relationship between Christ and those who would interpret

his canon.

                             Thesis Number One:

                       Christ Is Criterion of Canon

            The Christo-canonical approach recognizes Christ as the Lord

of the canon. It asserts that Christ is the only criterion of

canonicity and, therefore, the "Canon above the canon." In

essence, though it would agree with the statement, "Holy

Scripture is canon," it asserts that the necessarily prior and

more absolute statement is "Christ is Canon."

            The search for criteria of canonicity will end either in failure or

it will end in a reduction of the biblical canon to something less

than canon.¹ There are no other possibilities. Scholars have

suggested possible criteria for nearly two millennia and have

yet to discover or determine one that demands assent from all,

or even most, other scholars. The reason for this is that the

moment a criterion of canonicity is adopted, that criterion does

not establish the canon-

____________________

            ¹Cf. G. C. Berkouwer, Holy Scripture, trans. Jack B. Rogers,

Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 81:

"The dissatisfied feeling with which each of these attempted

solutions leaves us (i.e., the providence of God, the testimony

of the Spirit, or the authority of the Church) is continuing

evidence for one conclusion: there is no solitary, isolated

authority which can, outside of the content and the depth of the

canon itself, shed an illuminating light on the formation and the

validation of the canon. Furthermore, one cannot escape the

suspicion that in each of these attempts the canon itself is

devaluated."

                                        206

 

rather, it replaces it. It becomes the canon above the canon,

more canonical than the canon itself.

            Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., after examining the suggested

criteria for canonicity for the New Testament comes to this

conclusion:

            In the final analysis the attempt to demonstrate criteria (the

            necessary and sufficient conditions) of canonicity seeks, from a

            position above the canon, to rationalize or generalize about the

            canon as a unique, particular historical state of affairs. It

            relativizes the authority of the canon by attempting to contain it

            (kanōn) within an all-embracing criterion (kritērion).²

He then goes on to assert,

            We ought not, then, to try to secure for ourselves an

            Archimedean point outside or above the New Testament canon.

            Yet, in another respect, the canon does point back beyond

            itself--to God, its origin and author. When we think of the idea

            of canon (supreme authority), we may not think of anything or

            any other person than God. God is canon; God is supreme authority.³

The attempt to establish criteria, therefore, if done

honestly, will result in failure, since there is no

Archimedean point outside or above the canon. Any apparent

successes at finding such a criterion or criteria, are only

apparent, and, in essence, are to be seen not as establishing

the validity of the biblical canon, but rather, as seeking to

takes its place, or even worse, the place of him who alone is

____________________

            ²Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., "The New Testament as Canon," in

Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, A Challenge, A

Debate, ed. Harvie M. Conn (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), 171;

see also his article, "The New Testament: How Do We Know

for Sure?," in Christianity Today, 5 February 1988, 28-32.

            ³Gaffin, "The New Testament as Canon," 171. For a dissenting

view see Klyne Snodgrass, "Providence is Not Enough," in

Christianity Today, 5 February 1988, 33-34.

                                       207

 

canon, God. Or, to add to an earlier statement in this section,

the search for criteria of canonicity will end either in failure or

it will end in idolatry.

            Gaffin goes on in his article to build what would appear

to be a very good case for the intrinsic connection between

apostolicity and canon, emphasizing that the apostolic witness

"is not merely personal testimony. Instead, it is infallibly

authoritative, legally binding deposition . . ."⁴ But, then noting

the books of Jude and Hebrews, he remarks, "Notice, however,

how little this undeniable, substantial connection between the

apostles and the canon provides a criterion of canonicity, even

in a looser sense."⁵

            What Gaffin has shown for the New Testament canon I

believe to be the case for the Old Testament canon as well.

The search for criteria here has been extensive. Among the

suggested criteria are the following: (1) inspiration,⁶ (2)

antiquity, (3) public lection, (4) original composition in

Hebrew, (5) orthodoxy (agreement with the rule of faith),

____________________

            ⁴Gaffin, "The New Testament as Canon," 176.

            ⁵Ibid., 177.

            ⁶William Sanford LaSor, David Allan Hubbard, and Frederic

Wm. Bush, Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form and

Background of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: William B.

Eerdmans, 1982), 25; Paul J. Achtemeier, The Inspiration of

Scripture: Problems and Proposals, Biblical Perspectives on

Current Issues (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 119; Ronald

Youngblood, "The Process: How We Got Our Bible,"

Christianity Today, 5 February 1988, 26.

                                       208

 

(6) decision of ecclesiastical council,⁷ (7) preservation under

Jewish guardianship,⁸ (8) inherent worth,⁹ (9) prophetic

authorship,¹⁰ (10) public vindication,11 (11) inner testimony

of the Spirit,¹² (12) the usage of Jesus and the New Testament

authors (13) what points to Christ,¹³ (14) divine providence,

(15) community acceptance, (16) the right balance of stability

and adaptability quotients,¹⁴ and (17) covenantal structure.¹⁵

____________________

            ⁷Basically the position of A. C. Sundberg, Jr., The Old

Testament of the Early Church, HTS 20 ([Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1964); "The Old Testament of the Early

Church (A Study in Canon)," HTR 51 (1958): 205-26; "The

Protestant Old Testament Canon: Should It Be Reexamined,"

in "A Symposium on the Canon of Scripture," CBQ 28

([1966): 194-203; "The `Old Testament': A Christian Canon,"

CBQ 30 (1968): 143-55; "The Bible Canon and the Doctrine of

Inspiration," Int 29 (1975): 352-71.

            ⁸Norman L. Geisler, "The Extent of the Old Testament

Canon," in Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic

Interpretation: Studies in Honor of Merrill C. Tenney Presented

by His Former Students, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 40-41.

            ⁹Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Article V.

            ¹⁰R. Laird Harris, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible: An

Historical and Exegetical Study, rev. ed., Contemporary

Evangelical Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969),

131-95.

            ¹¹Robert I. Vasholz, The Old Testament Canon in the Old

Testament Church: The Internal Rationale for Old Testament

Canonicity, Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies 7

(Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1990).

            ¹²Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, Article V.

            ¹³Martin Luther's well known "was Christum treibet."

            ¹⁴James A. Sanders, "Adaptable for Life: The Nature and

Function of Canon," in Magnalia Dei, The Mighty Acts of

God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory G.

Ernest Wright, ed. Frank Moore Cross, Werner E. Lemke and

Patrick D. Miller, Jr. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976),

531-60.

            ¹⁵Meredith G. Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority, 2d

                                     209

 

            While all of these suggested criteria have usefulness as perhaps

aids to faith, it is fairly easy to demonstrate how none of them

can actually serve as criteria. (1) Inspiration is not so much a

criterion as a correlative of canonicity which really only pushes

the search for criteria one step further back. It in interesting to

note here that, even for the New Testament, there may well be

inspired books that are not in the New Testament canon, such

as the lost letters to the Corinthians (1 Cor 5:9; 2 Cor 2:4), the

letter to Laodicea (Col 4:16), and the possible previous letter to

the Philippians (Phil 3:1).¹⁶ The same may be true for other

books mentioned as source or supplementary material in the

Old Testament, such as the book of Jashar (Josh 10:13; 2 Sam

1:18) or the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14). (2) As

far as antiquity is concerned, the books just mentioned in the

last sentence are no doubt older than some of the books that

____________________

ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975); "The Correlation of the

Concepts of Canon and Covenant," in New Perspectives on the

Old Testament, ed. J. Barton Payne, Evangelical Theological

Society Symposium Series 3 (Waco: Word, 1970), 265-79.

            ¹⁶See Gaffin, "The New Testament as Canon," 169. It must

also be noted here that inspiration may not have been thought

of in the early church as restricted to the canonical books; on

this see Krister Stendahl, "The Apocalypse of John and the

Epistles of Paul in the Muratorian Fragment," in Current Issues

of New Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of O. A.

Piper, ed. William Klassen and Graydon F. Snyder (New York:

Harper & Brothers, 1962), 243-45; Everett R. Kalin, "The

Inspired Community: A Glance at Canon History," CTM 42

(1971): 541-49; Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New

Testament: Its Origins, Development, and Significance

(Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 255-57; Lee Martin McDonald,

The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Nashville:

Abingdon, 1988), 157-59.

                                       210

 

are in the canon. (3) Though there is ample evidence for many

parts of the Old Testament being read in synagogue service,

such as the Torah, the Psalms, and portions of the prophets, the

evidence is scanty that would suggest that the entire canonical

Old Testament was so read. (4) There are books composed in

Hebrew which are not in the canon, as well as portions of the

Old Testament which are not in Hebrew.¹⁷ (5) The analogy of

faith, while being an important hermeneutical rule, does not

seem to be a useful criterion for canonicity. There are non-

canonical books which could be seen as orthodox even by

modern evangelical standards, while at the same time books

like Ruth, Esther, the Song of Songs, etc., though not

unorthodox, hardly seem to be essential in supporting any

orthodox doctrine. (6) To see the decisions of church

councils as criteria of canonicity seems to be a failure

to "avoid confusing the existence of the canon with its

recognition, what is constitutive (God's action) with what

is reflexive (the church's action."¹⁸ (7) Geisler's interesting

suggestion that Jewish guardianship of the Scriptures

determines canonicity (Rom 3:2) falls for the very same

reason as the argument of ecclesiastical determination, a

confusing of what is constitutive with what is reflexive. It also

____________________

            ¹⁷The argument was evidently originally introduced to

exclude certain Septuagint books which at the time were extant

only in Greek, but of which we now apparently have the

Hebrew Vorlage.

            ¹⁸Gaffin, "The New Testament as Canon," 171.

                                           211

 

assumes that we know the shape of the Jewish canon during

this time period.¹⁹ (8) Inherent worth is a criterion which is

entirely too subjective. Further, to use such language as that of

the Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 1, Article V) to

describe this inherent worth, "the heavenliness of the matter,

the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style," is to

suggest that the language that God uses to communicate must

be of the highest literary quality.²⁰ (9) Prophetic authorship

fails to provide a sufficient criterion for the very same reason

that apostolic authorship fails for the New Testament canon.

(10) While Vasholz's very interesting criterion of public

vindication certainly holds true for parts of the Old Testament

(the Torah, certain fulfillments of prophetic words, etc.) it

hardly extends to the entire Old Testament. (11) The inner

witness of the Spirit, rather than constituting a criterion, should

be seen as testimony to the fact that there are no criteria that

can be established. (12) The usage of Jesus and the New

Testament authors might seem to be in line with our thesis that

"Christ is Canon." There is, however, no canonical list of Old

Testament books given in the New Testament; as well, there are

____________________

            ¹⁹Actually, Geisler's argument ("The Extent of the Old

Testament Canon," 40-41) seems to be more a reaction against

Sundberg's arguments for ecclesiastical determination than a

setting forth of a canonical criterion.

            ²⁰I do not believer the framers of the Confession had this

is mind as a criterion. But it should be noted that many have

extrapolated from such statements and argued in this way.

                                     212

 

citations of non-canonical books (though never explicitly as

Scripture)²¹ and there are canonical books which are not cited.

(13) Luther's criterion, "was Christum treibet," though it might

be seen by some as supporting the thesis, "Christ is Canon,"

should not be seen as its equivalent. First, it is too absolute an

interpretation of the phrase, "all the Scriptures," in Luke 24:27.

Second, it is just as much a criterion of Christ as it is a criterion

of the biblical canon. It presupposes what Christ must be like

based on a portion of the canon (the Gospels) and suggests that

the rest of the canon must describe a Christ which lines up

perfectly with this picture. Opposed to this, the Christo-

canonical approach does not set forth that Christ is in the whole

Old Testament, but that the whole Old Testament is in Christ.

(14) Divine providence, like the inner witness of the Spirit,

does not prove to be an objective criterion, and therefore not a

criterion at all, but a faith statement. (15) The criterion of

community acceptance fails for the same reason as that of

ecclesiastical decision. In particular, for the Old Testament,

it fails because it runs contrary to what actually happened

in the historical narratives--the word of the Lord did not

always (perhaps not even usually) find acceptance in the

community. (16) The stability-adaptability theory of

Sanders fails to provide an acceptable criterion because of

____________________

            ²¹Contra McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical

Canon, 64; and Sundberg, The Old Testament of the Early

Church, 53.

                                        213

 

the highly speculative reconstruction of the canonical process

that comes with the proposal. (17) While I continue to agree

basically with Kline that the canonical structure of the

Scriptures is broadly covenantal, and while I believe that all the

books of the Old Testament were composed in the broad

context of the covenant between Yahweh and his people, it still

remains to be demonstrated that the different books of the Old

Testament can all be shown to correspond to the elements of

covenantal treaties.

            In short, I argue that there are no demonstrable, objective

criteria that have ever been, or can be, discovered to establish

the canonical Scriptures as canonical. All the suggested

canonical criteria that we have examined can be aids to faith

and can be examined in connection with the Church's reflexive

action of recognizing and receiving the canon from God. But

they must never be seen as constitutive or determinative for

canon as criteria. Just as Gaffin has shown for the New

Testament, so it is also true for the Old Testament: God is

Canon.

            I wish, however, to go another step at this point and suggest

that not only may we say that God is Canon, but we may also

legitimately say that Christ is Canon, as the one to whom the

Father has committed all authority (Matt 28:18).

            Equivocation is the art of changing the meaning of a

word for the sake of elusiveness in argumentation, and perhaps

I could here be accused of this elusiveness. But I would

                                       214

 

argue that canon in the sense of "norm" or "rule" is more

foundational and more theologically appropriate than canon in

the sense of "list."²² Though the word canon has certainly

come to refer to the list(s) of books that were held by the early

church to be inspired and Holy Scripture, it must be recognized

that these lists were not compiled merely for curiosity's sake.

Rather, they were compiled as reflex actions to the

authoritative action of God in manifesting himself as canon.

Indeed, as Gaffin remarks concerning the New Testament, but

which I believe applies to the Old Testament as well, or better,

the Old and New Testaments together, the canon of Scripture

"is the historical phenomenon by which God, the sovereign

Architect and Lord of history, asserts and maintains himself as

canon, that is, by which his supreme authority comes to expression."²³

I especially appreciate the remarks of Gerald Bruns:

            The canonization of the Scriptures may be said to have a

            hermeneutical as well as a textual meaning, for what is

            important is not only the formation, collection, and fixing of

            the sacred texts but also their application to

____________________

            ²²Contra Jonathan Z. Smith, "Sacred Persistence: Towards a

Redescription of Canon," in Approaches to Ancient Judaism:

Theory and Practice, ed. William Scott Green, BJS 1

(Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 11-28; and Eugene Ulrich,

"The Canonical Process, Textual Criticism, and Latter Stages

in the Composition of the Bible," in "Sha`arei Talmon":

Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East

Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and

Emanuel Tov (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 267

74. I am opting here for "canon 1" rather than "canon 2" as

defined by Gerald T. Sheppard ("Canon," in Encyclopedia of

Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade et al. [New York: Macmillan,

1987], 3.64).

            ²³Gaffin, "The New Testament as Canon," 171.

                                           215

 

            particular situations. A text, after all, is canonical, not in virtue

            of being final and correct and part of an official library, but

            because it becomes binding upon a group of people. . . . The

            distinction between canonical and noncanonical is thus not just

            a distinction between authentic and inauthentic texts--that is, it

            is not reducible to the usual oppositions between the inspired

            and the mundane, the true and the apocryphal, the sacred and

            the profane, and so on. On the contrary, it is a distinction

            between texts that are forceful in a given situation and those

            which are not. From a hermeneutical standpoint, in which the

            relation of a text to a situation is always of primary interest, the

            theme of canonization is power.²⁴

            In essence, then, to read a canonical document is to

read that which exerts a contractually binding force upon the

reader. This being the case, the canon of Scripture is not

defined so much by the word "list" as it is by the words

"norm" and "rule."²⁵ And the confession of the Christian

Church is that Christ himself is the supreme norm and rule

over the Church. Or, in other words, Christ is Canon.

            Now I am certainly not the first person to suggest that

the canon of Scripture derives its authority or normativeness

from Christ. This has been a tenet of the historic Christian

faith from the beginning of Church history and this conviction

is still held today and comes to expression in new and

____________________

            ²⁴Gerald Bruns, "Canon and Power in the Hebrew Scriptures,"

in Canons, ed. Robert von Hallberg (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1983-84), 67. He goes on to say (p. 69) that

canonization is "essentially a legal process in which `binding'

means binding with the force of a contract; in fact, it means a

good deal more, because binding is a political as well as legal

metaphor."

            ²⁵On this see the discussion by Hermann Wolfgang Beyer,

("kanōn," in TDNT, ed. Gerhard Kittel, ET ed. Geoffrey W.

Bromiley, 3.596-602 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965]).

                                       216

 

creative ways. Charles M. Wood writes concerning the

relationship between Christ and canon:

            We may say that the biblical canon is the criterion of Christian

            witness, the "functional critical instrument" by which the

            Christianness of the church's witness is to be assessed; but this

            criterion derives its authority from the true norm of Christian

            witness, Jesus Christ, the absolute and underivative "author" of

            God's self-disclosure. The criterion (i.e., the canon) functions

            properly to authorize witness only when it enables access to the

            norm by which it is itself authorized and empowered (i.e.,

            Jesus Christ). . . . So, counter to Protestant orthodoxy's

            tendency to exalt scripture to the status of absolute norm, we

            must say that it is Jesus Christ, not scripture, who is norma

            normans sed non normata.²⁶

So also writes Willi Marxsen ("There should be no hesitation

now with the following statement: The ‘canon’ of the Christian

church is not the New Testament but Jesus."),²⁷ and Lee

McDonald ("The documents we possess . . . inform us that Jesus

Christ alone is the true and final canon for the child of

____________________

            ²⁶Charles M. Wood, The Formation of Christian

Understanding: An Essay in Theological Hermeneutics

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 101-2. Similar statements

may be found in James D. G. Dunn, "Levels of Canonical

Authority," HBT 4/1 (1982): 51-52: "Christ is the norm of all

that norms"; Schubert M. Ogden, "The Authority of Scripture

for Theology," Int 30 (1976): 246: "It is Christ alone who

authorizes Scripture as norma-normans, sed non normata"; and

James D. Wood, The Interpretation of the Bible: A Historical

Introduction (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1958), 175-76: "In a

profound and simple sense, Jesus is Lord and King of

Scripture." Cf. also Berkouwer, Holy Scripture, 86; Antonius

H. J. Gunneweg, Understanding the Old Testament, trans. John

Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 21; E. G. Selwyn,

"The Authority of Christ in the New Testament," NTS 3 (1956-

57): 84; Norman T. Wright, "How Can the Bible Be

Authoritative?" Vox Evangelica 21 (1991): 10, 14.

            ²⁷Willi Marxsen, The New Testament as the Church's Book,

trans. James E. Mignard (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), 61.

                                           217

 

God.").²⁸ And most recently Donald Bloesch has written that

"the final norm is Jesus Christ, the living Word of God."²⁹

            But, unlike some of the authors just quoted and referred to in

the notes, I do not wish to maintain that Christ is Canon at the

expense of a devaluation of the normativity of the Scriptures,

for the canon as the word of Christ loses no authority simply

because we maintain that its authority is derivative. And I also

want to suggest that the authority which the biblical canon has

is precisely an authority as the normative word of Christ to the

Church, and not as list. The biblical canon is canon precisely as

it is the authoritative word of God's exalted Christ, and not as a

list compiled by the Church. To confuse the two is to confuse

what is constitutive with what is reflexive. I fully agree with

David Dunbar that canon as list

            is a historical-theological idea that views the process of divine

            revelation as complete or at least in abeyance for the present.

            Only when the age of revelation is regarded as part of the past

            does the idea of a definite canon become explicit for the people

            of God.³⁰

____________________

            ²⁸Lee McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical

Canon, 170.

            ²⁹Donald G. Bloesch, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration

& Interpretation, Christian Foundations 2 (Downers Grove:

InterVarsity, 1994), 159.

            ³⁰David G. Dunbar, "The Biblical Canon" in Hermeneutics,

Authority, and Canon, ed. Donald. A. Carson and John D.

Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 301. Cf. also

David Demson ("’Justification by Faith’: The Canonical

Principle," Toronto Journal of Theology 2 [1986]: 65) when he

says that the view of the reformers was "that the church's

decision about which books to include in Scripture and which

books to exclude (a) was a human decision and not a divine

decision; but (b) was a human

                                         218

 

Furthermore, I am in agreement when he says, "There is no

escaping the fallibility of the church, even in connection

with the recognition of the canon."³¹

            I disagree, however, when he goes on to say,

            There is a general consensus among recent interpreters that the

            idea of canon is a theological construct that must be

            distinguished from the idea of "Scripture." Canon suggests the

            ideas of delimitation and selection that are not necessarily

            included in the term "Scripture."

            As a developed theological construct, therefore, canon belongs

            not to the apostolic period so much as to the postapostolic

            period. I have no quarrel with this basic interpretation; there

            seems to be no other way to deal with the patristic materials.³²

Certainly, while "delimitation" and "selection" are terms that

are most appropriate when applied to the idea of canon as

list, I would argue that canon as norm or rule is the more

"developed theological construct"³³ and is more in line with

____________________

decision made in relation to a divine decision."

            Note that I am also formally in agreement with James Barr on

at least this one point, that to speak of canon as list for biblical

times is anachronistic (Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority,

Criticism [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983], 3-4, 4142, 49-74

[esp. 49-50, 59-60, 63-66], 82-83; The Scope and Authority of

the Bible [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980], 120). I do not

believe that Brett's suggestion that regarding the Bible as a

"classic" makes Barr's claim of anachronism irrelevant

(Biblical Criticism in Crisis?: The Impact of the Canonical

Approach on Old Testament Studies [Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1991], 6).

            ³¹Dunbar, "The Biblical Canon," 354.

            ³²Ibid., 356.

            ³³Cf. Metzger, (The New Testament Canon) who also makes

this distinction: "The word kanōn has an active sense, referring

to those books that serve to mark out the norm for Christian

faith and life; it has also a passive sense, referring to the list of

books that have been marked out by the Church as normative. The

two usages may be succinctly designated by two Latin tags, norma

                                        219

 

the use of the term in the New Testament and the early Church

Fathers.³⁴ As the term is used in the New Testament it seems

to refer to what is normative for Christian life and conduct.³⁵

____________________

normans, that is, ‘the rule that prescribes’, and norma normata,

that is, ‘the rule that is prescribed’, i.e. by the Church" (p. 283);

"Discussion of the notae canonicitatis, therefore, should distinguish between

the ground of canonicity and the ground for the conviction of canonicity.

The former has to do with the idea of the canon and falls within the province

of theology; the latter has to do with the extent of the canon and falls within

the domain of the historian" (p. 284). My only disagreement here is with too sharp

of a distinction as to what falls into theology's domain and what falls into history's.

            ³⁴Jesper Høgenhaven (Problems and Prospects of Old

Testament Theology, Biblical Seminar 6 (Sheffield: JSOT

Press, 1987], 84) would seem to agree: "Theology, then, has to

do with the Bible in its normative function. The same thing

may be expressed by saying that theology has to do with the

Bible in its function as canon. Such a usage of the word `canon'

is current in modern theological literature. It may well be of

course, that the term originally had a rather more narrow or

formal significance, and that it primarily meant the exactly

defined body of writings recognized as Holy Scripture. There

would, however, be little point in arguing for a restrictive

usage of the word `canon' in this formal sense. In the

theological debate of the twentieth century ‘canon’ has come to

mean the Bible in its function as the basis for the preaching and

teaching of the Church." Cf. also, Ian H. Eybers, "Historical

Evidence on the Canon of the Old Testament with Special Reference

to the Qumran Sect," 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1966), 1.3.

            ³⁵The word kanōn occurs in the New Testament only in 2 Cor

10:13, 15, 16; Gal 6:16; and in some manuscripts at Phil 3:16.

The use in the Galatians passage certainly carries the idea of

normativeness for Christian faith and life. Though it is to be

doubted that the occurrence in the Philippians passage is

original, the usage there would also fall in line with the idea of

normativeness. In the Corinthians passage, there is question as

to the sense of kanōn. Most commentators would restrict it to

the idea of assigned geographical territory within which Paul

may work (e.g., Ralph P. Martin, 2 Corinthians, WBC 40

[Waco: Word, 1986), 314-26). There are others, however, who

would suggest that in some way the use of the term has more to

do with Paul's actual apostolic authority; cf. Beyer, "kanōn,"

3.596-602; Bengt Holmberg, Paul and Power: The Structure of

Authority in the Primitive Church as Reflected in the Pauline

Epistles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 46; Ernst Käsemann, "Die

                                             220

 

As used in the early Church Fathers, (to ca. AD 350) this same

meaning seems to be predominant as well. The kanōn is

qualified by the terms "truth," "church," and "faith." It

refers to what Christians should believe and how they should

act.³⁶ Or, to put it in another, more historic, way, the canon

is the "rule of faith and practice." Beyer believes that even

in the later Church Fathers, when the word began to be used in

phrases like "the canon of Scripture," or simply "the canon"

(ca. AD 350), the Church Fathers had more in mind the idea of

norm than list or catalog:

            The use of kanōn in this sense was not influenced by the

            fact that Alexandrian grammarians had spoken of a canon

            of writers of model Greek. Nor is the decisive point the

            equation of kanōn and katalogos, formal though the use of

____________________

Legitimität des Apostels: Eine Untersuchung zu II Korinther 1013," ZNW

41 (1942): 59-61; Inge Lønning, "Kanon im Kanon": Zum dogmatischen

Grundlagenproblem des neutestamentliche Kanons (Oslo/Munich:

Universitets Forlaget/Kaiser, 1972), 17-23; Alexander Sand, "kanōn,

onos, ho," Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst

Balz and Gerhard Schneider (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991),

2.249. C. K. Barrett, while favoring the geographical

interpretation, believes that there may be an intimation of the

apostolic authority as well (A Commentary on the Second

Epistle to the Corinthians, HNTC [San Francisco: Harper &

Row, 1973; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987], 26465).

            ³⁶On this point see Jan Gorak's insightful discussion in The

Making of the Modern Canon: Genesis and Crisis of a Literary

Idea, Vision, Division and Revision: The Athlone Series on

Canons (London & Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone, 1991),

20-23, esp. the following: "The letters of Paul identify `canon'

with the rules binding on Christians and exemplified in Christ's

own life. . . . For Paul, a ‘canon’ erases rather than transmits

established standards" (p. 22); "For classical thinkers, a person

possessed a canon; for Paul, the canon possesses a person. In

effect, Paul reimagines the canon, transforming it from a

classical pedagogic instrument or ritualized Jewish covenant

into a dynamic, unpredictable, transcendent mission ultimately

identified with Christ himself" (p. 23).

                                           221

 

            the term may be. What really counted was the concept of

            norm inherent in the term, i.e., its material content as

            the kanōn tēs alētheias in the Christian sense. The

            Latins thus came to equate canon and biblia.³⁷

It would be hard to determine if Beyer is correct on this

point.³⁸ But in any case, I would still maintain that although

even canon as list has authority, it is an authority

comparable to that of a doctrinal statement or confession of

faith.³⁹ And while it has a certain type of authority, it is

an ecclesiastically derived authority. Canon as norm or rule

is also a derived authority, but it is a Christologically,

rather than ecclesiastically, derived authority.⁴⁰ Canon as

____________________

            ³⁷Beyer, "kanōn," 3.601. For the contrary viewpoint see Barr,

Holy Scripture, 49 n. 1: "It is important to observe that `canon'

in the sense of `canon of scripture' thus appears not to derive

from the sense `rule, standard', which is the New Testament

sense of the Greek word."

            ³⁸It could be suggested that Beyer is guilty of the "theological

lexicography" with which Barr has charged the TDNT in

general (The Semantics of Biblical Language [Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1961; repr., London: SCM, 1983], 206-62).

In particular, if Barr is right that kanōn, when used to refer to

the Scriptures "derives from the familiar Greek sense, as used

of a table of figures or the like" (Holy Scripture, 49, n. 1), then

Beyer's desire to include the idea of normativity could be seen

as "illegitimate totality transfer" (Barr, Semantics, 218). As I

see Beyer's argument, however, he is suggesting that the

derivation was much more likely to have been from the prior

use of the word by the Church Fathers to refer to normativity

and authoritativeness. This is not so much a question of theological

overload, as a question of what was really in the minds of those

who first used the word in connection with the Scriptures.

            ³⁹Cf. John Goldingay (Approaches to Old Testament

Interpretation, rev. ed. (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity,

1990], 145]: "Acknowledging a canon of Scripture is a

declaration made by faith, not by sight."

            ⁴⁰Cf. on this point G. C. Berkouwer, Holy Scripture, 86: "We

can then say that the question about the canon is not of an

ecclesiastical but rather of a Christological nature." This view

                                            222

 

list is recognition of what is canonical (authoritative); it

is not in itself a canonizing.

            Barr does not like this use of the term "canon" to refer

to authoritativeness of Scripture as opposed to a list of

books that are considered to be authoritative. Arguing that

"list" or "catalogue" has "always been the normal meaning of

the word in English when applied to Scripture," he argues that

using "canon" to refer to authoritativeness is simply confusing:

            Such usage is a regrettable innovation, without secure basis in

            traditional theological language; moreover it is confusing to the

            point of being nonsensical. If we mean "scripture when seen as

            authoritative in the community" we should say "scripture when

            seen as authoritative in the community", and not confuse

            ourselves by calling it "canon".⁴¹

            I would argue, however, that there was, in fact, a

"psychology of canonicity,"⁴² a "canonical habit of mind,"⁴³ or

____________________

runs counter, of course, to that of those who view the Church's

action as constitutive rather than reflexive; cf. Nicolaas Appel,

"The NT Canon: Historical Process and Spirit's Witness," TS

32 (1971): 627-46; Thomas A. Hoffman, "Inspiration,

Normativeness, Canonicity, and the Unique Sacred Character

of the Bible," CBQ 44 (1982): 463-64.

            ⁴¹Barr, Holy Scripture, 49 n. 1.

            ⁴²Bruce K. Waltke, "The Textual Criticism of the Old

Testament," in Biblical Criticism: Historical, Literary and

Textual, ed. R. K. Harrison, Bruce K. Waltke, Donald Guthrie

and Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 49; cf.

also Bleddyn J. Roberts, "The Old Testament Canon: A

Suggestion," BJRL 46 (1963): 178.

            ⁴³Frank Kermode, "The Argument about Canons," in The

Bible and the Narrative Tradition, ed. Frank. McConnell (New

York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 601.

                                           223

 

a "canonical self-consciousness"⁴⁴ which existed, not just in

New Testament biblical times, but in the Old Testament time

period and throughout the ancient world.⁴⁵ Barr himself admits

the same, but then goes on to argue that the very idea of some

sort of "pre-canon" is the very thing that demands reconstruction:

            Was not this pre-scripture or pre-canon the forerunner of the

            scripture which was eventually to emerge, to be defined still

            later by its canon? I would myself very much affirm just these

            things. But observe the consequences if we do so. We do not

            have the pre-canon, and we cannot have access to it except

            through historical reconstruction. Only a critical reconstruction

            can tell us what was in the pre-canon in the time of Solomon or

            of Isaiah. The importance of the pre-canon, if it is granted, is a

            strong reason for the importance of source criticism in the

            Pentateuch or for the dating of the various prophetic passages

            and other such critical procedures. If we are to follow this line,

            the prototype canonical critic is not Childs but Wellhausen. For

            it was Wellhausen and those like him who were interested in

            telling us, though they did not use the words, just what was in

            the pre-canon in the days of Solomon and Isaiah.⁴⁶

____________________

            ⁴⁴Sinclair B. Ferguson, "How does the Bible Look at Itself?"

in Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, A Challenge, A

Debate, ed. Harvie M. Conn (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), 50.

            ⁴⁵Cf. on this point William W. Hallo, who would still,

however, want to suggest that an important element of canon

would be a "reasonably fixed number and sequence of

individual compositions" ("The Concept of Canonicity in

Cuneiform and Biblical Literature: A Comparative Appraisal,"

in The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective, ed. K.

Lawson Younger, Jr., William W. Hallo, and Bernard F. Batto,

Scripture in Context 4, Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies

11 [Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1991], 1-19). Cf. also W. G.

Lambert, "Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity," JCS 11

(1957): 9; Vasholz, The Old Testament Canon, 2-3.

            ⁴⁶Barr, Holy Scripture, 83. Donn Morgan also suggests that it

is "better to speak of `emerging canon' or `nascent Scripture'

when referring to issues of authority surrounding the final

composition of particular biblical texts" ("Canon and Criticism:

Method or Madness?" ATR 68 [1986]: 86).

                                          224

 

But Barr is guilty here of drawing unwarranted conclusions

from the idea that there was a canonical mindset or a

"precanon" before there was a finalized canonical list: (1) that

it is necessary for us to have this "pre-canon," (2) that it is

incumbent on us to be able to reconstruct the various canonical

forms on the way to the final canon, (3) that it is necessary for

us to gain some other avenue to the history of the canonical

process other than that provided by the canon itself.

            Nor should we see the Church as being in some way God's

cooperative partner in the establishment of canon, or relativize

the biblical canon's authority by the suggestion that it is only

authoritative in the process of interaction between text and

community.⁴⁷ The authority of the biblical canon comes from

Christ alone. Pinnock correctly says that the notion of canon

            suggests a unique normativity over the ongoing developing

            traditions. Otherwise, the Bible would just melt into human

            traditions and lose its capacity to bring about change and

            reform. In opting for the canon, the church seemed to say that

            the criteria of truth lay outside herself in a text that stood over

            her and at times even against her. By accepting the norm of

            Scripture, the church declared that there was a standard outside

            herself to which she intended to be subject for all time.⁴⁸

____________________

            ⁴⁷Cf. Peter R. Ackroyd, "Original Text and Canonical Text,"

USQR 32 (1977): 172; Robert David Maldonado, "Canon and

Christian Scripture: Toward a Multi-level, Contingent Understanding of

Canonical Value" (Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union,

1988), 214.

            ⁴⁸Clark H. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle (San Francisco:

Harper & Row, 1984), 81.

                                          225

 

The community is not canonical. There must always be a word

that keeps the community in check. It is to be noted that this

situation may never be reversed: the word always keeps the

community in check; the community never keeps the word in

check. In this respect, we should see here a correlation between

canon and covenant. Canon, like covenant, is essentially a

divinely unilateral document. Canon as list is the Church's

response to the authority of Christ manifested in the biblical

canon, a response which is analogous to that of the ancient

Israelites to the covenant given to them at Mount Sinai:

"Everything that the Lord has said we will do" (Exod 19:8). As

is well known to the biblical writers, but sometimes forgotten

by modern canonical theorists, this correct and appropriate

response stands in stark contrast to the subsequent history of

Israel.⁴⁹ Just as much to be rejected as the idea that the Old

Testament is simply the preservation of documents favorable to

the ideology of the party that finally won out in Israel's political

power struggles,⁵⁰ is the suggestion that the Old Testament is in

____________________

            ⁴⁹Cf. Edward J. Young, The Study of Old Testament Theology

Today (London: James Clarke, 1958), 101: "It is strange that

anyone should suggest that Israel had a genius for religion, for,

according to the Bible, that for which Israel had a genius was

rebellion and apostasy."

            ⁵⁰So Morton Smith (Palestinian Parties and Politics that

Shaped the Old Testament, Lectures on the History of

Religions 9 [New York: Columbia University Press, 1971]); cf.

Joseph Blenkinsopp, Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to

the Study of Jewish Origins, University of Notre Dame Center

for the Study of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity 3 (Notre

Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 142.

                                             226

 

some way the result of Israel's dogged determinism to pursue

God or monotheism.⁵¹ The Old Testament canon is not to be

seen so much as the community's instrument to pursue God,

but as God's instrument in pursuit of the community.

            Now it might be suggested here that the situation should be

seen as different for the New Testament community as the

community in whom God has put his Spirit.⁵² As can be seen

from nearly two millennia of church history, however, the

Church, though gifted with the Spirit, is not to be regarded as

authority in the same sense as the biblical canon.⁵³

Furthermore, as noted earlier in chapter 3, we must recognize

that the biblical documents are essentially individual and not

community compositions, as God uses individuals to speak not

only to, but against the community.⁵⁴ The New Testament was

not the result of the community's freedom "to compose their

own Scriptures over and above what we now call the Hebrew

____________________

            ⁵¹Sanders, "Adaptable for Life," 551.

            ⁵²Cf. P. Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture, 103-61;

Robert B. Laurin, "The Problem of the Canon in the

Contemporary Church," Foundations 10 (1967): 327-28.

            ⁵³Bloesch has a very interesting discussion on this whole issue

(Holy Scripture, 141-61). While I affirm much of what he says,

I believe he is either going too far, or speaking unguardedly

when he suggests that "both Scripture and the church share in

the infallibility of the incarnate and living Christ"

(p. 148; cf. also p. 154).

            ⁵⁴Also, as Brian Labosier notes, "The Bible speak of inspired

individuals, not inspired communities" ("Matthew's Exception

Clause in the Light of Canonical Criticism: A Case Study in

Hermeneutics" [Ph.D. diss., Westminster Theological

Seminary, 1990], 93).

                                        227

 

Bible";⁵⁵ rather, it was the freedom of God to add to the

revelation he had already imparted. Against all attempts to

disparage canonization as only "an incident, and no more than

that,"⁵⁶ or "an unfortunate freezing of tradition growth,"⁵⁷ we

must recognize the canon of Holy Scripture for what it is:

that historical document in which Christ exercises his

authority as Lord of the canon and Lord of the Church.

                            Thesis Number Two:

            Christ Asserts Himself as Canon by His Spirit

            The Christo-canonical approach recognizes the work of

the Holy Spirit in the inspiration and production of the biblical

canon as a work done under the authority and direction of

Christ. And inasmuch as the Holy Spirit, who was the effective

agent in the production of the Old Testament, is the Spirit of

Christ, the approach recognizes that not just the New

Testament, but the Old Testament as well, may be qualified

with the words that are usually reserved for the New

Testament: "of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

 

____________________

            ⁵⁵Josephine Massyngbaerde Ford, "The New Covenant, Jesus,

and Canonization," in Hebrew Bible or Old Testament:

Studying the Bible in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Roger

Brooks and John J. Collins, Christianity and Judaism in

Antiquity 5 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,

1990), 34.

            ⁵⁶Samuel Sandmel, "On Canon," in "A Symposium on the

Canon of Scripture," CBQ 28 (1966): 207.

            ⁵⁷Robert B. Laurin, "Tradition and Canon," in Tradition and

Theology in the Old Testament, ed. Douglas A. Knight

(Philadelphia, Fortress, 1977), 271.

                                           228

 

            Gaffin has demonstrated that the promises contained in John

14:26; 15:26-27; 16:13-15, that the Spirit "will guide you into

all truth" and "remind you of everything I have said to you,"

are not "given directly and indiscriminately to all believers."

Rather, they are to be seen as special promises to the apostles

that the Holy Spirit would be their divine aid in recalling and

testifying to the person and work of Jesus Christ.⁵⁸ In other

words, the promises contained in these verses are nothing less

than the promise of the New Testament, a New Testament to

be produced by the apostles, under the inspiration of the Spirit,

who himself is acting under the authority of Christ.

            We must go on to notice, however, that the Old

Testament, no less than the New Testament, is also a book

composed by the prophets, under the inspiration of the Spirit,

who himself is acting under the authority of Christ. This, I

believe, is a fair reading of a very important phrase in 1 Pet

1:11. There we read that the Old Testament prophets tried "to

find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of

Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings

of Christ and the glories that would follow." Not many

commentators have followed Selwyn in suggesting that the

prophets here are actually New Testament prophets and that the

sufferings are not those of Christ, but those for Christ by

____________________

            ⁵⁸Gaffin, "The New Testament as Canon," 176.

                                     229

 

Christians.⁵⁹ Certainly, it is to be understood that Old

Testament prophets are in view here.⁶⁰ And these Old

Testament prophets prophesied, not just by the Spirit, but by the

Spirit of Christ. Though other interpretations are possible, I

would argue that the denomination of the Holy Spirit here as

the Spirit of Christ is not a proleptic reference, calling him

the Spirit of Christ in light of what he would one day be, but

that it is instead an affirmation that even in the time period

of the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is properly called the

Spirit of Christ, and that the Old Testament, no less than the

New Testament, is biblical canon under the lordship of

Christ.⁶¹ Ed Clowney rightly notes,

            The prophets spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

            The Spirit of God who inspired them is the Spirit of Christ.

            "The Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy." Not only

            does prophecy bear witness to Jesus, but Jesus bears witness

            through prophecy. The incarnate Lord is the true witness; the

            eternal Logos is the source of the prophetic testimony.⁶²

____________________

            ⁵⁹E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of Peter: The Greek Text

with Introduction, Notes, and Essays, 2d ed. (London:

Macmillan, 1947; repr., Thornapple Commentaries; Grand

Rapids: Baker, 1981), 134.

            ⁶⁰Cf. J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter, WBC 49 (Waco: Word,

1988), 43-44; Wayne A. Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter:

An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament

Commentaries 17 (Leicester: InterVarsity; and Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1988), 68-71; Leonhard Goppelt, A Commentary on

First Peter, trans. John E. Alsup (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 95-100.

            ⁶¹I agree with Michaels (1 Peter, 44) that the question as to

whether pneuma is a reference to the Holy Spirit or the

preexistent Christ is from Peter's standpoint "a false alternative

because for him the two amount to the same thing . . . "; cf.

Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter, 69.

            ⁶² Edmund P. Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter: The Way of the

                                            230

 

Further confirmation of this may be had by comparing the

language of John 5:36 with that of John 15:26, where both

the Old Testament Scriptures and the witness that the Holy

Spirit is to bear, do, in Christ's words, "testify about me."

            I suggest, therefore, on the basis of Christ's statements in the

Upper Room concerning the New Testament, and Peter's

statements concerning the Old Testament, that we can declare

that the entire biblical canon, Old and New Testaments

together, is the one canon of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, the

authority of the Old Testament is identical to that of the New

Testament: the Old Testament, just as much as the New

Testament, is that by which Christ asserts himself as canon.

            This being the case, it become especially important to notice

that, regardless of how well-intentioned they may be,

statements to the effect that the Old Testament has been taken

over by the Church do not quite give the correct picture.

Bernhard Anderson speaks of how the Christian community

____________________

Cross, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester/Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 1988),

58. Cf. the, at least formally, similar statement of Peter Stuhlmacher

(Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Toward a

Hermeneutics of Consent, trans. Roy A. Harrisville [Philadelphia: Fortress,

1977], 27): "When we look for that systematic view of the whole which

makes possible a comprehensive biblical canon, we need to note that it

can most clearly be seen in Justin Martyr (ca. 11065), namely, in the shape

of his Logos-doctrine. Christ is witnessed to as Logos by the Old Testament

and by the apostolic literature, of which Justin gives the Gospels special

value. In both Christ is witnessed to as the Logos insofar as the Holy Spirit,

inspiring Old and New Testament authors, is not separable from the

Christ-Logos, but one of his most important modes of appearance. The

Logos-Christology together with the doctrine of inspiration thus embraces

the Old and New Testament canon at its very inception, indeed as a constitutive

bond."

                                          231

 

"appropriated" the Old Testament and "baptized" it into

Christ.⁶³ Bultmann refers to how the "Christian faith seizes

the Old Testament."⁶⁴ Wilhelm Vischer speaks of how with

"complete consistency the early Church took over Israel's

entire scripture."⁶⁵ And Harold Bloom refers disparagingly to

the "the Christian triumph over the Hebrew Bible, a triumph

which produced that captive work, the Old Testament."⁶⁶

More correctly, Gunneweg refers to the Old Testament as a

"legacy" which the Church inherited.⁶⁷ Even more insightful

is the statement of Woudstra:

            The Christian Church did not at some time during its

            history decide, somewhat belatedly, that it was going to

            "accept" or "take over" the Old Testament. The Church

            from the very start realized that its existence was bound

            up with the Old Testament. The Christ it worshipped, the

            communion it established, the rites it practiced, the

____________________

            ⁶³Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms

Speak for Us Today, rev. and exp. ed. (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1983), 17 (actually, Anderson only refers to the

Psalms as being "baptized"). Cf. John Paterson, The Praises of

Israel: Studies Literary and Religious in the Psalms (New

York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950), 7; R. B. Y. Scott, The

Psalms as Christian Praise (New York: Association, 1958), 10.

            ⁶⁴Rudolf Bultmann, "The Significance of the Old Testament

for the Christian Faith," trans. Bernhard W. Anderson, in The

Old Testament and the Christian Faith: A Theological

Discussion, ed. Bernhard W. Anderson (New York: Herder &

Herder, 1969), 32.

            ⁶⁵Wilhelm Vischer, The Witness of the Old Testament to

Christ, trans. A. B. Crabtree (London: Lutterworth, 1949), 1.26.

            ⁶⁶Harold Bloom, "`Before Moses Was, I Am'; The Original

and Belated Testaments," in Notebooks in Cultural Analysis, 1

(Durham: Duke University Press, 1984), 3, cited in Robert

Alter, "Introduction to the Old Testament," in The Literary

Guide to the Bible, ed. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode (Cambridge:

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987), 35 n. 1.

            ⁶⁷Gunneweg, Understanding the Old Testament, 4, 8-9.

                                            232

 

            gospel it preached were indissolubly linked to and squarely

            founded upon the salvation history of the Old Testament.

            Before the Church began to theologize upon its relationship to

            the Old Testament it had been compelled to submit to it. For it

            could never have existed without it.⁶⁸

            I would go beyond both of these last statements,

however, and claim with A. T. Hanson, that there is ample

justification, from the perspective of the New Testament

authors, for speaking about the "real presence" of Christ in

the Old Testament.⁶⁹ Though I agree with F. F. Bruce that

Hanson is perhaps more speculative than conclusive in some of

his exegesis, as Bruce also points out,

            It cannot be denied that more than one New Testament writer

            thought of Jesus in person, before His incarnation, as

            delivering the Israelites from Egypt and leading them through

            the wilderness into the promised land.⁷⁰

            I am not so much interested here in passages that may

refer to deeds or actions of the pre-incarnate Christ in the

Old Testament, but rather with passages that seem to refer to

him as the speaker or author of the Old Testament Scriptures,

____________________

            ⁶⁸Marten J. Woudstra, The Continued Recognition of the Old

Testament as Part of the Christian Canon (Grand Rapids:

Calvin Theological Seminary, 1963), 24; cf. C. van der Waal,

"The Continuity Between the Old and New Testaments," in

The Relationship Between the Old and New Testament, Neot

14 (1981): 14.

            ⁶⁹Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament

(London: SPCK, 1965). See also his The Living Utterances of

God: The New Testament Exegesis of the Old (London:

Darton, Longman and Todd, 1983), esp. pp. 58-60, 108. I

would not go so far as Borland, however, and suggest that all

Old Testament theophanies were Christophanies (Christ in the

Old Testament [Chicago: Moody, 1978], 3-4).

            ⁷⁰F. F. Bruce, Tradition Old and New (Exeter: Paternoster,

1970), 84.

                                             233

 

particularly the Psalms. More interaction with Hanson on these

passages will follow in Part Three. But for now the point I

want to stress is that we must recognize, not so much that

Christ is in the Old Testament, but that the Old Testament is in

Christ by virtue of his lordship over the whole canon of

Scripture, a canon that was produced, not just by the Holy

Spirit, but by the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Christ. As

Chimelli declares, "Christ is the center from which one can

understand the articulation between past and present," for it

could be no other way, since he is the "legitimate center of

Scripture as the One who Himself was speaking through these

books."⁷¹

                              Thesis Number Three:

                  Christ is Lord over the Whole Canon

            The Christo-canonical approach, recognizing that Christ is

Lord over the whole canon, rejects any form of "canon within

the canon," for there is no part of the canon that is not under

the lordship of Christ. The Gospels or the New Testament are

not more canonically authoritative than the rest of the biblical

canon, for Christ who is the authorizer of the canon, performed

the ultimate act of authorization of the Old Testament when he

placed himself under its authority, even to the death: "The

Scriptures must be fulfilled" (Mark 14:49).

____________________

            ⁷¹Claire Chimelli, "The Relevance of the Old Testament to the

Christian Faith: A Brief Historical Survey," Theological

Review 13/1 (1992): 5.

                                          234

 

            The previous two theses advanced thus far in this chapter

might lead the reader to conclude that I am operating with a

"canon within the canon." From one angle, this charge would

appear to have some validity. I want to suggest, however, that

this is not really the case.⁷² The spatial metaphor that I have

chosen to use is that Christ is the Canon "above" the canon. By

the use of the word "above" (I could also have used other

words such as "behind," "over," etc.), I believe I fully absolve

myself, and non-evasively so, of the "canon within the canon"

charge. The Christo-canonical approach does not take an

element, a principle, a verse, a passage, a book, or even a

Testament within the canon, and absolutize it, but rather, based

on the theses already given, maintains that if there is such a

thing as a canon within the canon, it is the biblical canon

within Christ as Canon. Christ is not so much in the canon, as

the canon is in Christ. Christ is not an element or principle in

the canon that is being abstracted from it and made to serve as a

canon within the canon; rather, he is the author of canon and thus

____________________

            ⁷²Cf. Donald Bloesch's self-examination on this same issue

("A Christological Hermeneutic: Crisis and Conflict in Hermeneutics,"

in The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options, ed. Robert

K. Johnston (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 98-99: "It can legitimately

be asked whether I am operating with a canon within the canon. This

is not the case if it means interpreting the whole from the vantage

point of select books in the New Testament (in the manner of

Käsemann). It is the case if it implies understanding the whole of

Scripture in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but this gospel

is either explicit or implicit in every part of Scripture." How I both

agree with Bloesch's innocent plea, and disagree with his guilty

plea, will be seen in the following discussion.

                                        235

 

legitimately set forth as the Canon that norms the biblical

canon.⁷³ And because Christ is the Lord of the whole canon,

no interpreter has the right to regard any part of the biblical

canon as more authoritative than another.⁷⁴

            Often statements are made to the effect that the Church has

always worked with a canon within the canon, that is, those

passages or books that are appealed to most often for doctrinal

or other purposes.⁷⁵ Laurin states,

            In spite of grand affirmations from those who wish to sound

            orthodox by saying, "We place ourselves under Scripture," no

            one in fact ever does, or indeed can. Everyone distinguishes in

            the Bible between what is authoritative and non-authoritative

            for him.⁷⁶

Davids, noting that "there is a tendency for each church

community to respond selectively to Scripture," defines this

reduced canon as the "part of Scripture that really functions as

Scripture for a given scholar or group."⁷⁷ For many churches

and/or scholars, the New Testament becomes this internal

canon, and sometimes it is even openly avowed that

____________________

            ⁷³Thus my approach is different from that of W. D. Davies

when he argues that Christ was elevated in Paul's thought "to

be part of the ‘canon’" and thus became the canon within the

canon ("Canon and Christology," in The Glory of Christ in the

New Testament: In Memory of George Bradford Caird, ed. L.

D. Hurst and Norman T. Wright [Oxford: Clarendon, 1987], 35.

            ⁷⁴Contra Wood, The Formation of Christian Understanding,

106-7.

            ⁷⁵Laurin, "The Problem of the Canon," 328.

            ⁷⁶Ibid., 315.

            ⁷⁷Peter H. Davids, "Authority, Hermeneutics, and Criticism,"

in New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, ed. David Alan

Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 32.

                                            236

 

this should be the case. Dunn states that "the Christian has no

choice but to affirm that Christ is the norm of all norms, that the

New Testament is the canon within the canon of the Christian

Bible."⁷⁸ Norman Wright, comparing the Old and New

Testaments and arguing for a canon within the canon

approach, suggests that "the Old Testament has the authority

that an earlier act of the play would have, no more, no less."⁷⁹

McCurley argues that Christ and the New Testament should be

seen as a corrective to the Old Testament:

            The canon within the canon principle must be taken seriously if

            Christ is not only the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise

            but also the corrective to some of the testimony to the God of

            the promise. One must, therefore, be selective in choosing what

            is appropriate in order to proclaim the Word of God . . .⁸⁰

There are others, such as Ogden, who would go even further

and suggest that "not even the New Testament is the canon of

the church, but rather, the apostolic witness to Jesus the

Christ";⁸¹ that is, "the canon within the canon to which all

theological assertions must be appropriate is the meaning to be

discerned in the earliest layer of Christian witness, and that

means the Jesus-kerygma of the apostolic community."⁸²

____________________

            ⁷⁸James D. G. Dunn, "Levels of Canonical Authority," HBT

4/1 (1982): 52. 79Wright, "How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?"

18.

            ⁸⁰ Foster R. McCurley, Jr., Proclaiming the Promise:

Christian Preaching from the Old Testament (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1974), 44.

            ⁸¹Ogden, "The Authority of Scripture for Theology," 256.

            ⁸²Ibid., 259.

                                            237

 

            Now the very fact that several of the scholars just quoted

are among those who would also in some way advocate that

Christ is Canon shows the necessity of stressing just how far the

Christo-canonical approach is from any canon within the canon

approach. I do not at all deny that every Church and every

scholar may and, indeed, does have a "working canon" that is

smaller than the biblical canon. But I would deny, along with

David Kelsey, that this working canon is the same as a canon

within the canon.⁸³ Rather, this working canon is simply the

inevitable result of the finitude and creatureliness of the student

of Scripture. It is simply an incontrovertible fact, as John

Murray has so well stated it, "that we cannot say everything all

at once nor can we think of everything that needs to be thought of

God and ourselves all at once."⁸⁴ I also agree with Murray, however,

that there is nothing inherent in this finitude "that hinders, far

less prevents, sustained confrontation with the living Word of the

 

 

 

____________________

            ⁸³David H. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 104.

            ⁸⁴John Murray, "Systematic Theology," in The New

Testament Student and Theology, ed. John Skilton, The New

Testament Student 3 (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed,

1976), 26 (first published as "Systematic Theology--II," in

WTJ 26 [1964]). Note Barr's agreement on this point (Holy

Scripture, 70): "It is quite possible that the entire matter is a

non-question. All exegetes and theologians, as we have seen,

organize and structure the material of the text in this or that

way; they cannot work unless they do so."

                                                238

 

living God."⁸⁵ To have a working canon does not preclude an

openness to the whole canon.⁸⁶

            I am also willing to concede with Kelsey that

            Close examination of theologians' actual uses of scripture in

            the course of doing theology shows that they do not appeal to

            some objective text-in-itself but rather to a text construed as a

            certain kind of whole having a certain kind of logical force. . . .⁸⁷

and that,

            In short, the suggestion that scripture might serve as a final

            court of appeals for theological disputes is misleading because

            there is no one, normative concept "scripture."⁸⁸

            I am not willing to concede, however (though Kelsey is not

necessarily insisting on this), that just because there is

necessarily some distance between the actual text and any

theologian's particular construal of that text, that the construal

then becomes a canon within the canon for that theologian.

An analogy would be helpful here. No two people have the

exact same concept of God, and no one's conception of

____________________

            ⁸⁵Murray, "Systematic Theology," 26. Actually, Murray is not

referring to a canon within the canon problem in the statements

just quoted, but is arguing for the necessity of a logical treatment

of doctrine in the Bible by means of systematic theology. I believe,

however, that the rationale of finitude works in both cases.

            ⁸⁶Cf. John Goldingay, Theological Diversity and the Authority

of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987),

97. On pp. 122-27 the author has an excellent discussion of

what various scholars mean when they refer to the canon

within the canon (but cf. also the related discussion in the

following pages, 128-33).

            ⁸⁷Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture, 14.

            ⁸⁸Ibid., 14-15.

                                          239

 

God corresponds exactly to God as he knows himself; yet this

lack of conceptual correspondence is not equivalent to idolatry.

Analogously, just because we necessarily have construals of

Scripture that may not exactly correspond to the "objective

text-in-itself," it does not follow that we are inevitably guilty of

remaking Scripture in our own image. To maintain that there is

no canon within the canon, is not to assert that we have

reduplicated the precise objective canon in our minds, but that

we are open to the whole canon in such a way that our

construals are continually subject to revision and reform under

the authority of the canon.

            To assert that Christ is the Canon above the canon is to insist

that there is no place in the biblical canon where Christ is less

authoritative than he is in any other place. It is to recognize

that, even though we may have our favorite passages of

Scripture, Christ still reserves the right to speak to us in

passages that are "most distasteful" to us.⁸⁹ It refuses to

"silence the more challenging sections of Holy Scripture"⁹⁰

in which Christ speaks. It asserts that every canon within

the canon approach is, by its very nature, a refusal to

submit to the full authority of the canon as

____________________

            ⁸⁹James D. Smart, The Strange Silence of the Bible in the

Church: A Study in Hermeneutics (London: SCM, 1970), 149-50.

            ⁹⁰ David S. Dockery, Biblical Interpretation Then and Now:

Contemporary Hermeneutics in the Light of the Early Church

(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 179-80; cf. Goldingay, Theological

Diversity, 129.

                                              240

 

authoritative under Christ as Canon.⁹¹ Indeed, as Eugene Klug

has so eloquently stated in the foreword to a book by Gerhard Maier,

            If there really were a "canon within the canon," a "Word of

            God" which had to be separated from the Scriptural text, then

            the result would not be only a dividing of the Holy Scriptures

            apart from the Word of God, but also a setting of Christ

            Himself apart from the Scriptures (and so also the Holy Spirit)

            in a way unwelcome to each of them--in fact, one "Christ"

            from another "Christ."⁹²

And Maier himself says,

            If there should really be a canon in the canon, then not only

            would Scripture have to be divorced from the Word of God,

            but also Christ from the Scriptures, and the one Christ of

            Scripture from the other Christ of Scripture. The light of a new

            docetism would then fall on the event of the Incarnation and on

            certain parts of Scripture.⁹³

            Finally, I would just call attention to the fact that,

so far from regarding any one part of the canon being less

authoritative than any other part, or the Old Testament as

being less authoritative than the New Testament, is the

attitude of Christ who regarded the Old Testament Scriptures

so authoritative for him that he obeyed them to the point of

death.⁹⁴ Christ, here, I would suggest, obeyed the Old

____________________

            ⁹¹Cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures

and Notes 1928-1936 from the Collected Works of Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Volume I, ed. Edwin H. Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson

and John Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 313-15.

            ⁹²Eugene F. Klug, foreword to The End of the Historical-

Critical Method by Gerhard Maier (St. Louis: Concordia, 1977), 9.

            ⁹³Gerhard Maier, The End of the Historical-Critical Method,

trans. Edwin W. Leverenz and Rudolph F. Norden, with

Foreword by Eugene F. Klug (St. Louis: Concordia, 1977), 49.

            ⁹⁴Cf. Edward J. Young, Thy Word is Truth: Some Thoughts

on the Biblical Doctrine of Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

                                          241

 

Testament Scriptures, because they were, in fact, his

Scriptures. Christ's ultimate act of obedience to death was, in

fact, his obedience to his own word and promise. Christ is the

Canon above the canon, who put himself under the authority of

his own word, and because this is so, there is no canon within

the canon.

                              Thesis Number Four:

         Christ Asserts His Authority in Covenantal Canon

            The Christo-canonical approach maintains that

Christ's canon is, in fact, covenantal canon. As covenant

document, the biblical canon, Old and New Testaments

together, gives (1) a narrative of God's gracious dealings with

his people, (2) the promise of God's gracious presence and

protection, (3) and instructions regarding God's will concerning

the beliefs and behavior of his covenant people. To put it

another way, it gives: (1) a history of redemption culminating

in the salvation achieved by Christ, (2) the promise of salvation

and eternal life with God, and (3) the charter for the faith and

practice of the people of God. With the recognition of the

formal correspondences between the ancient Near Eastern

treaties (particularly the Hittite treaties) and the book of Deuteronomy,

there was a considerable amount of literature devoted to exploring

these correspondences. There was also a renewed interest in

approaching theology, particularly Old Testament theology,

____________________

1957), 51-52.

                                           242

 

from the perspective of covenant, as evidenced by the many

Old Testament theologies written from a broadly covenantal

perspective.⁹⁵

            It was Meredith Kline, however, who first suggested that

covenant and canon should be seen as correlative concepts, and

that canon is, in fact, primarily covenantal canon.⁹⁶ While

wishing to affirm the broad outline of Kline's thesis, I also wish

to express some reservations that have to do with very

important issues regarding the relationship between Christ and

covenantal canon.

            First, as mentioned earlier in the discussion under

thesis number one, I do not believe that we can take this

covenantal character of canon and turn it into a criterion of

canonicity. While all the biblical books were written, I believe,

with the assumption that the audience was a covenant people

living life in the presence of their covenant God, it would be

difficult to show that the writers had in mind the express

purpose of creating documents that would bear formal

____________________

            ⁹⁵Some of the more important ones are Walter Eichrodt, Old

Testament Theology, 2 vols., OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster,

1961, 1963); O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the

Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980);

Thomas E. McComiskey, The Covenants of Promise: A

Theology of the Old Testament Covenants (Grand Rapids:

Baker, 1985); William J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: An

Old Testament Covenantal Theology (Exeter: Paternoster,

1984).

            ⁹⁶Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1963); By Oath Consigned (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1968); "The Correlation of the Concepts of Canon

and Covenant," in New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed.

J. Barton Payne (Waco: Word, 1970), 265-79; The Structure of

Biblical Authority, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975).

                                               243

 

similarities to elements of covenantal treaties (I am thinking in

particular here of the wisdom books of the Old Testament).

Kline makes a valiant effort in this regard, but fails, in my

opinion, to establish anything more than just a general

correlation.⁹⁷ Further, there are non-canonical books that I am

sure could be squeezed into one of the treaty elements in some

way and claim a rightful place in the canon. Formal similarity

to elements of ancient Near Eastern treaties may not be seen as

criterion of canonicity.

            Second, covenant, as prevalent as it is in the Bible, should not

be exalted to a position of canon within the canon, and thus

devaluing the witness of material that is not so obviously

covenantally oriented.⁹⁸ Covenant is metaphor, and extensive

as it is in the Scriptures, it is still metaphor and only one of the

ways the Scriptures use to portray the relationship between

God and his people.⁹⁹

            Third, even though it has a certain attractiveness to

it in terms of explaining the discontinuity between the

testaments, Kline's position that the Old Testament, while it

remains Scripture for the Christian Church, is not canon for

the Church (i.e., it is good for faith, but not for practice),

____________________

            ⁹⁷Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority, 62-67.

            ⁹⁸Cf. William Johnstone's criticisms of John Bright in this

regard ("The Authority of the Old Testament," review of The

Authority of the Old Testament, by John Bright, in SJT 22

[1969]: 203).

            ⁹⁹Cf. Tremper Longman III, How to Read the Psalms

(Leicester/Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988), 56-57.

                                           244

 

must, I believe, be rejected for several reasons.¹⁰⁰ (1) First, it

absolutizes the way treaties were made and renewed in the

ancient Near East and requires that the New Testament, as a

"new treaty document," must assume the same relevance as a

brand new treaty, that is, a cancellation of the old treaty. While

that may be the case for ancient Near Eastern treaties of the

second millennium BC, we cannot assume that the New

Testament authors were working with this model in mind. (2)

Second, we must keep in mind that, while the New Testament

may in broad terms be classified as a treaty document, it is not

formally so. There is no attempt made in the New Testament to

draw up a brand new treaty, as it were, copying everything that

still applied from the old treaty and making alterations where

necessary. Kline himself admits as much when, almost against

his own thesis, he states that the Old Testament still contains

material "profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and

instruction in righteousness"¹⁰¹ (does this not cover both faith

and practice?), and when he states that "There are of course

life-norms found in the Old Testament which continue

to be authoritative standards of human conduct in New

Testament times,"¹⁰² but then goes on to say, "The New

Testament, though not legislatively codifying these life

____________________

            ¹⁰⁰Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority, 99-110; "The

Correlation of the Concepts of Canon and Covenant," 273-75.

            ¹⁰¹Kline, "The Correlation of the Concepts of Canon and

Covenant," 274.

            ¹⁰²Kline, The Structure of Biblical Authority, 102.

                                              245

 

norms, does presuppose them and didactically confirm

them."¹⁰³ Or, in other words, the Old Testament does still

contain life-norms for the people of God (thus qualifying as

canon by Kline's definition), and the New Testament is not a

treaty renewal document in the sense that we may find there

everything that still carries over from the old treaty.¹⁰⁴ It is

simply asking too much of a document that is formally

covenantal only in the loosest respects to repeat all the still

applicable elements of the former treaty.

            (3) Third, and most importantly, this view must be rejected

because it partakes of the canon within the canon approach that

suggests that Christ is more authoritative in one part of the

canon than he is in another.¹⁰⁵ If our thesis is right that the

Old Testament is Christian Scripture, not because it has been

baptized or taken over by the New Testament, but because it was,

in fact, word of Christ from the very beginning, then I do not see

how we can call it anything less than canon for the Christian Church.

____________________

            ¹⁰³Ibid.

            ¹⁰⁴Kline, in my opinion, comes dangerously close to the older

dispensational position that suggested that only if an Old

Testament law was explicitly repeated in the New Testament

did it have any validity for Christians today.

            ¹⁰⁵Kline faults Childs for failing to really "get beyond canon-

within-the-canon approaches" because he still makes human

subjectivity constitutive in canonical authority" (Structure of

Biblical Authority, 100). I fail to see, however, how Kline, who

puts himself in the position of having to figure which life-

norms in the Old Testament are still valid, though the New

Testament does not codify them, fares any better.

                                              246

 

            With these few qualifications of Kline's thesis, however,

it is still important to note just how important the idea of the

correlation of these two concepts, canon and covenant, really

is, especially in light of the Christological dimension I am

trying to emphasize in this dissertation. Kline has not been the

only one to have noticed this very important correlation.

George Ernest Wright felt that it was very "probable that the

idea of canon began in Israel's covenant renewal ceremonies,

ultimately stemming from the Mosaic covenant."¹⁰⁶ And

Clements has argued that

            it is the process of the formation of the Old Testament

            scriptures into a sacred canon which has done most to relate

            them to a concept of covenant, and that it is the Sinai-Horeb

            covenant which is consistently the point to which this reference

            is made.¹⁰⁷

I would go beyond both these last quoted scholars and suggest

that the beginning point of the covenantal character of canon is

not to be found in covenant renewal ceremonies (though the

canon-covenant correlation is there), or in the redaction process

(though I believe the redactors did their work within this frame

of understanding), but rather, that it begins with the first

inscripturation of God's covenant with his people, that is, with

Moses.

____________________

            ¹⁰⁶George Ernest Wright, The Old Testament and Theology

(New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 179.

            ¹⁰⁷Ronald E. Clements, "Covenant and Canon in the Old

Testament," in Creation, Christ and Culture: Studies in Honour

of T. F. Torrance, ed. Richard W. A. McKinney (Edinburgh: T. &

T. Clark, 1976), 4.

                                           247

 

            The Christological factor (too weak a word) of this

canon-covenant correlation; better, the all-pervasive

Christological domination of this canon-covenant correlation

becomes especially evident in that Christ himself is the very

embodiment or personification of covenant. God, speaking

through the prophet Isaiah, declares of his servant that he will

make him "to be a covenant for the people" (Isa 42:6; 49:8).

This phrase has been variously explained, often, it seems, with

a view to making it say what it does not say.¹⁰⁸ Though I am

convinced that there is a corporate element that must be taken

into account in the identification of the servant of the Lord in

the "servant songs,"¹⁰⁹ I am also convinced that in this  particular

place there is a necessary distinction that must be made between

the servant and the people, and that the people are not to be thought

of as covenant.¹¹⁰ Though it is possible that the reference is to

____________________

            ¹⁰⁸One suggestion has been that bĕrît in this verse is not

"covenant," but rather the denominative of the Akkadian barû,

"to see," and would thus mean "vision", thus providing a neat

parallel with "light" in the next line of the verse. North,

however raises an objection to this in that "bĕrît, ‘covenant’

occurs some 300 times and it would hardly be obvious even to

a contemporary that in this one instance it meant ‘vision’." He

does, however, allow for the possibility of a double entendre

(Christopher R. North, The Second Isaiah: Introduction,

Translation and Commentary to Chapters XL-LV, rev. ed.

[Oxford: Clarendon, 1967], 112).

            ¹⁰⁹H. H. Rowley, "The Servant of the Lord in the Light of

Three Decades of Criticism," chap. in The Servant of the Lord

and Other Essays, 2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), 51-60.

            ¹¹⁰Contra George A. F. Knight, Servant Theology: A Commentary

on the Book of Isaiah 40-55, International Theological Commentary

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 48; also Claus Westermann, Isaiah

                                              248

 

covenant instrumentality; that is, that the reference is to the

servant being sacrificed like the cut-up animals in Genesis

15,¹¹¹ it is more likely that the idea is that of mediatorship.¹¹²

Indeed, Christ is the mediator of the new covenant. It is

interesting to note here how we speak of the Adamic, Noahic,

Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, naming them after

their mediators; but when we come to the next covenant, we

change the manner of nomenclature and simply attach the word

"new" as qualifier. I believe that in view of how we designate

the previous covenants it would be much more appropriate to

refer to the "Christ covenant."

            Yet, he is more than just mediator of the covenant; rather,

he is the covenant. As Edward J. Young remarks, "To say that

the servant is a covenant is to say that all the blessings of the

covenant are embodied in, have their root and origin in, and are

dispensed by him.¹¹³ More recently, Alec Motyer has written,

____________________

40-66: A Commentary, trans. David M. G. Stalker, OTL

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 99-100. Also to be rejected

are suggestions that identify the servant with Cyrus (R. N.

Whybray, Isaiah 40-66, NCB [London: Oliphants, 1975], 74-

76; John D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34-66, WBC 25 [Waco: Word, 1987],

119).

            ¹¹¹Cf. A. S. Herbert, The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 40-66,

CBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 43.

            ¹¹²Cf. Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah: The English

Text with Introduction, Exposition, and Notes, NICOT (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 3.119-121; J. Alec Motyer, The

Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary

(Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 322, 391.

            ¹¹³Young, The Book of Isaiah, 3.120.

          

                                      249

 

            But the Servant is more than a covenant officiant or

            instigator; he is in his own person the Lord's covenant. Here

            again is the claim that exalts the Servant above any prophet (cf.

            verse 6). In biblical thought the covenant is a unilateral pledge

            and consequent work of God. To speak of the servant as

            covenant means that while, as we know, it is through his work

            that covenant blessings become available, it is only in him, in

            the union of personal relationship, that these blessings can be

            enjoyed. Prophets preached the covenant and pointed away

            from themselves to the Lord; the Servant will actualize the

            blessings and point to himself.¹¹⁴

            The significance of this discussion for the thesis at hand is the

supporting role it plays in showing that the biblical canon is

indeed that document whereby Christ asserts his authority as

the true Canon. The fact that there is such a close correlation

between canon and covenant, virtually approaching that of

identification or equation, points to the warrant for regarding

Christ as Canon. In particular, I wish to highlight here that

even as the covenant is the unilateral, non-negotiable promise

and command of the one who is himself the Covenant, even so,

the biblical canon is the unilateral, non-negotiable promise and

command of the one who is himself Canon.

            This also highlights the relationship between canon and

community. As Labosier says,

            Kline's concept of Scripture as a

            treaty document naturally fits this idea of the priority of the

            canon over that of the community. It is the idea of a covenant

            that creates a covenantal community, but a community acting

            by itself can never establish such a covenant document.¹¹⁵

____________________

            ¹¹⁴Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 391.

            ¹¹⁵Labosier, "Matthew's Exception Clause," 94 n. 44.

                                             250

 

            Canon, like covenant, or perhaps better, canon, as covenant,

constitutes the authoritative revelation from God to his people.

It is not the community talking to itself, but God talking to the

community. And the essence of both canon and covenant is the

Christ who in his own person embodies the promise and

authoritative command of God to the people. And that brings

us to the next thesis.

                                Thesis Number Five:

              Christ Has Incarnated Himself in Biblical Canon

            The Christo-canonical approach takes seriously the

incarnational analogy. Christ, who incarnated himself in flesh,

has also incarnated himself in word. The approach recognizes

that the skandalon of the canon is analogous to the skandalon

of the Christ.

            The incarnational analogy has been variously used to

elucidate the character of Holy Scripture. Origen is perhaps

the first to have employed it.¹¹⁶ Until the twentieth century

it was used without great elaboration simply to explain how

that even as Christ is both human and divine, so the Scriptures

can be seen as word of man and word of God. There was

little controversy attached to this analogy. A corollary attached

to this analogy was that even as Christ was fully human, but

sinless, so the Bible was fully human, but without

____________________

            ¹¹⁶Origen, On First Principles, Books 1-2, ANF 4, ed.

Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (repr., Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1956).

                                              251

 

error.¹¹⁷ But in the Church Dogmatics Karl Barth also used

the analogy to elucidate the character of the Scriptures, without

at the same time claiming their inerrancy and infallibility.¹¹⁸

Klaas Runia rightly criticizes Barth in this regard, remarking

that "to insist upon biblical fallibility along with its

humanity is actually to destroy the whole parallel with the

incarnation."¹¹⁹ He then goes on to say, "we can only conclude

that, on the ground of the parallel accepted by Barth himself,

____________________

            ¹¹⁷Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the

Bible, Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1948, 162-

63. Actually, Warfield was very cautious in the use of the

analogy, noting that there was a vast difference between the

hypostatic union in Christ and the inscripturation of the word.

He still, however, felt justified in coming to the following

conclusion: "Even so distant an analogy may enable us,

however, to recognize that as, in the case of our Lord's person,

the human nature remains truly human while yet it can never

fall into sin or error because it can never act out of relation

with the Divine nature into conjunction with which it has been

brought; so in the case of the production of Scripture by the

conjoint action of human and Divine factors, the human factors

have acted as human factors, and have left their mark on the

product as such, and yet cannot have fallen into that error

which we say it is human to fall into, because they have not

acted apart from the Divine factors, by themselves, but only

under their unerring guidance."

            Notice that this is the rest of the quotation which Jack

B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim fail to cite in asserting that

Warfield "took care to reject the analogy of the divine and

human natures of Christ as an explanation of the divine and

human in Scripture" (The Authority and Interpretation of the

Bible: An Historical Approach [San Francisco: Harper & Row,

1979], 337).

            ¹¹⁸Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T.

F. Torrance; trans. G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight

(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956), I.2.499-501.

            ¹¹⁹Klaas Runia, Karl Barth's Doctrine of Holy Scripture

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 77. Cf. also Frank M. Hasel,

"The Christological Analogy of Scripture in Karl Barth," TZ

50 (1994): 49.

                                            252

 

there is no room for his conclusion: Human witness, therefore

fallible witness."¹²⁰

            Paul Wells, though recognizing that the parallel, if it is to be

drawn, supports Runia's conclusion, would rather put the

analogy to rest.¹²¹ His reasons are as follows: (1) The analogy

seems to forget the radical difference between the hypostatic

union in Christ and whatever it is that occurs in the union of

divine and human processes in the production of Scripture and,

if anything, tends to devalue the mystery of the union God and

man in Christ. (2) There are no controls on just what elements

in the two analogues are to be compared, so though the

inerrantist position could draw the analogy between Christ's

sinlessness and the Scriptures' inerrancy, opponents to this

inference could just as well say that this is a place where the

analogy breaks down. (3) The purpose of analogy is to

elucidate the unknown by the known, but the mystery of the

union of the divine and human in Christ is, in fact, so

mysterious, that we really cannot come to any clearer

understanding of inscripturation by comparison to the

incarnation. (4) The analogy, at best, only identifies the

elements to be compared; that is, the divine and human

elements in Christ, and the divine and the human elements in

the Bible. We have no understanding of how the elements are

____________________

            ¹²⁰Runia, Karl Barth's Doctrine of Holy Scripture, 78.

            ¹²¹Paul R. Wells, James Barr and the Bible: Critique of a New

Liberalism (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980),

15, 340-79.

                                          253

 

related in each individual case and, therefore, we just do not

have the data from which to draw a proper analogy.

            I cannot enter into a full-blown discussion of Well's

points here, nor with other points of exception to the analogy

raised by different scholars.¹²² I will, however, list a few

factors that I feel warrant the use of the analogy.

            (1) The Scriptures themselves seem to provide the

invitation to draw the analogy, or perhaps better, the

Scriptures themselves draw the analogy for us. Christ himself

is called the Word (John 1:1, 14). The revelation that comes

in his person, though qualitatively different than the previous

Old Testament revelation,¹²³ is nevertheless placed on

____________________

            ¹²²Those who have been generally opposed to the use of the

analogy include Wells, James Barr and the Bible, esp. pp. 1-43, 340-79;

James Barr, "J. K. S. Reid, ‘The Authority of Scripture, 1957,’" review of

The Authority of the Scripture, by J. K. S. Reid, in SJT 11 [1958]: 86-93;

John McIntyre, "Analogy," SJT 12 (1959): 1-20; Markus Barth, Conversation

with the Bible (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1964), 143-71;

Berkouwer, Holy Scripture, 195-212.

            Those who have been generally favorable to the use of the

analogy include Runia, Karl Barth's Doctrine of Scripture, 61-

80; James I. Packer, "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God:

Some Evangelical Principles (London: Inter-Varsity, 1958),

82-84; "Biblical Authority, Hermeneutics, and Inerrancy," in

Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussion on the Philosophy

and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, ed. E. R. Geehan

(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1971), 145; René

Pache, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, trans. Helen

I. Needham (Chicago: Moody, 1969), 35-42; Abraham Kuyper,

Principles of Sacred Theology, trans. J. Hendrik de Vries

(1898; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), 477-80.

            ¹²³This qualitative difference is emphasized, I believe, by the

anarthrous en huiō in Heb 1:2; cf. William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8, WBC

47 (Dallas: Word, 1991), 11; Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary

on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 36

and n. 4; Harold W. Attridge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews,

Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 39.

                                          254

 

a time continuum with that prior revelation as in some way

being of a piece with it (Heb 1:1-2).

            (2) To be sure, there are false inferences that could be drawn

from this analogy. But, this is true of any analogy, and I

believe that the Scriptures, inviting us to draw this analogy,

show that God is willing to take the gamble. To discontinue the

use of any analogy simply because false parallels could be

drawn would be to discontinue drawing analogies at all. God is

compared to a shepherd in the way he cares for his people (Ps

23:1), and yet he is also unlike a shepherd. God is compared to

a drunken man awaking out of a stupor to come to the aid of

his people (Ps 78:65), and yet he is also certainly unlike a

drunken man.¹²⁴ For every analogy that can be drawn, there

are illegitimate parallels to be made, but this is not an

excuse to refrain from drawing the legitimate ones.¹²⁵ God

can only be known by us analogically, and every analogy

has the potentiality of devaluing our conception of God,

but God is willing to stammer and allow us

____________________

            ¹²⁴Cf. the excellent discussion on the use of analogy in our

knowledge of God in John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the

Knowledge of God, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ:

Presbyterian & Reformed, 1987), 226-32.

            ¹²⁵Cf. Longman, How to Read the Psalms, 115: "In brief, an

image compares two things which are similar in some ways but

dissimilar in other ways. The dissimilarity is what surprises us

and causes us to take notice. Then we search for the

similarity."

                                       255

 

to think he stutters.¹²⁶ Perhaps he is also willing to take

the risk with the incarnational analogy.

            (3) To be sure, the conjoining of divine and human in

one person is different from the combination of divine and

human effort in the production of the Scriptures. The process

of inscripturation is not the same as that of hypostasis.

They, are however, not unrelated, and as Nigel M. de S.

Cameron has pointed out, there is, in fact, a very vital

connection between them.¹²⁷ This point of contact occurs in

the words which Christ spoke during his earthly life. In

responding to the objections of McIntyre and Wells, de S.

Cameron writes,

            The suggestion we would make is that in the teaching of Jesus

            Christ we have that connexion between the prime and the

            secondary analogates which McIntyre and Wells have

            requested, such that the analogy is not so subjective in its

            application to Scripture as they would suppose.

            Further, though the inter-connexion of the sinlessness of Christ

            and infallibility in Scripture may depend upon the efficacy of

            the analogy, that between his sinlessness and the infallibility of

            his own teaching does not.¹²⁸

____________________

            ¹²⁶So John Calvin (in Corpus Reformatorum, cited in Runia,

Karl Barth's doctrine of Scripture, 69): "Let us therefore

remember that our Lord has not spoken according to our His

nature. For if he would speak His (own) language, would He be

understood my mortal creatures? Alas, no. But how has He

spoken to us in Holy Scripture? He has stammered. . . . So then

God has it were resigned: for as much as we would not

comprehend what He would say, if He did not condescend to

us. There you have the reason why in Holy Scripture one sees

Him like a nurse rather than that one hears of His high and

infinite majesty."

            ¹²⁷Nigel M. de S. Cameron, "Incarnation and Inscripturation:

The Christological Analogy in the Light of Recent Discussion,"

The Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 3 (1985): 35-46.

            ¹²⁸Ibid., 43.

                                        256

 

Then de S. Cameron goes on to draw a conclusion from this connection:

            At all events, we see that the teaching of the Incarnate Son,

            itself recorded for us in Scripture and thereby taking upon itself

            the character of Scripture too, provides a point of contact

            between relations in the two parts of the analogy. The

            hypostatic union in Jesus Christ gives rise to and is itself

            analogically related to the teaching of the God-man, in which

            human words are pressed into divine service. If the

            consequence of Incarnation is to bring about infallibility in the

            human language of the Incarnate One, infallibility will be the

            inevitable product of an analogous divine-human book.¹²⁹

            Now this is, in my opinion, a very important point. At

least part of the New Testament, the words that Jesus himself

spoke, are not so much analogous to the incarnation, as they

are a direct result of it. Or, to put it another way, this

portion of Scripture is not analogous to the hypostatic union;

it is hypostatic union; it is incarnation. And I would

suggest that this is not simply a truth that can be predicated

of the words which Jesus spoke, so that the words of Jesus

become as it were a red-letter canon within the canon, but

that it is rather to be attributed to all the Scriptures that

have come from him. Though I am not sure they would take

this as far as I have, McCartney and Clayton write,

            Jesus Christ was here, and interacted with people face to face.

            If God can reveal Himself truly in the person of Jesus Christ,

            with all the limitations of being human, then He can certainly

            reveal Himself truly in language. Jesus Christ was "determined" as

            an individual in a particular historical context (He even expressed

            Himself in one or more human languages) and yet even when

            He was on earth He was truly and unequivocally God. The

____________________

            ¹²⁹Ibid., 44.

                                           257

 

            incarnation serves as the utlimate foundation for God’s

            linguistic communication with us (Heb. 1:1-3).¹³⁰

The incarnation of our Lord and the inscripturation of his words are

not just analogously related; more importantly, they are

intrinsically and inherently related. The biblical canon, being

the authoritative word of Christ, is not just analogous to the

incarnation, but as word of Christ, partakes of the very

character of the incarnation. Christ has incarnated himself not

only in flesh; he has incarnated himself in his word.

            The importance of this understanding of the intrinsic, and not

just analogous, character of the relationship between Christ and

his word for the Christo-canonical approach to the Scriptures is

to be seen in at least three areas.

            (1) First, the biblical canon as incarnational word of Christ

partakes of the very character of its Lord as authoritative

canonical word.¹³¹ Christ is Canon and his words are canon.

And while I have already emphasized the point that not

Scripture, but Christ is ultimate norm, this does not mean

____________________

            ¹³⁰Dan G. McCartney and Charles Clayton, Let the Reader

Understand: A Guide to Interpreting and Applying the Bible

(Wheaton: Victor, Bridgepoint, 1994), 40-41. Cf. Vern S.

Poythress, Symphonic Theology: The Validity of Multiple

Perspectives in Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

Academie, 1987), 48-49.

            ¹³¹Cf. Jacques Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word, trans.

Joyce Main Hanks (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans,

1985), 51: "The Word of God is the very person of God

incarnate. There is no contradiction in the fact that the word is

spoken by God and also incarnate in Jesus, since this word is

what reveals God, and God has effectively revealed himself

only in the Incarnation of his Son."

                                             258

 

that Scripture is any less normative; indeed, just the opposite

is the case, for the Christian, the Scriptures are normative

precisely as they are the incarnational word of Christ and

because Christ's words cannot be separated from Christ

himself.¹³²

            (2) Second, the biblical canon as incarnational word of Christ

partakes of the very character of its Lord as accommodative

word. As Nicolaas Appel writes, "The mystery of ‘Holy’

Scripture is clothed in the human dimension of this world."¹³³

            In an important analysis of the role of accommodation in the

theology of John Calvin, Battles demonstrates how for Calvin,

unlike theologians before him who had touched on the issue,

accommodation became for him the "consistent basis for his

handling not only of Scripture but of every avenue of

relationship between God and man."¹³⁴ For Calvin,

accommodation is not just what occurs in Scripture, but within

the "whole of created reality to which, for the Christian,

____________________

            ¹³²Cf. Moisés Silva, God, Language, and Scripture: Reading

the Bible in the Light of General Linguistics, Foundations of

Contemporary Interpretation 4 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

Academie, 1990), 37-39, esp. n. 22. Silva makes the point that

modern theologians, in their separation between personal and

propositional revelation, make a dichotomy that "approaches

absurdity." See also, Vern S. Poythress, "Divine Meaning of

Scripture," WTJ 48 (1986): 252-53.

            ¹³³Appel, "The NT Canon," 627.

            ¹³⁴Ford Lewis Battles, "God Was Accommodating Himself to

Human Capacity," Int 31 (1977): 20.

                                       259

 

Scripture holds the clue."¹³⁵ After examining Calvin's

perspective on accommodation in the person of Christ, in

Scripture, and in the sacraments, Battles then comes to an

important conclusion:

            We may then conclude that all means of divine

            accommodation--from the vast reaches of the created universe

            to the characteristic turn of phrase of a prophet calling a

            stubborn people to repentance (to all of which Scripture holds

            the clue)--point to the supreme act of God's intermediation in

            Christ.¹³⁶

I wonder, then, whether we might not turn this analogy around

and suggest that it is the divine accommodation to human

understanding in the Scriptures that points to the ultimate act of

accommodation in the person of Christ, or, to put it another

way, is it possible that Christ is not called the Logos because

he is like the word of God, but, rather that the Scriptures are

called word of God because they are like the Logos? Without

necessarily claiming any support from the following quotation,

I would, however, call attention to a certain similarity of idea

in this statement of Moisés Silva regarding anthropomorphisms:

            The notion that God thereby accommodates himself to our

            imperfect human understanding contains an element of truth, to

            be sure, but perhaps we are approaching the issue from the

            wrong end. Our use of this term reflects our human-centered

            perspective. Indeed it is not altogether farfetched to say that

            descriptions of what we are and do should be termed

            "theomorphisms"!¹³⁷

____________________

            ¹³⁵Ibid., 21.

            ¹³⁶Ibid., 38.

            ¹³⁷Silva, God, Language and Scripture, 22; cf. also Vern S.

Poythress, Science and Hermeneutics, Foundations of Contemporary

                                           260

 

I would suggest that in the same way, the Scriptures are, in

their very form as word of God clothed in the word of man, a

witness to Christ as Word of God clothed in human form. Any

devaluation of the biblical canon is a devaluation of a divinely

appointed metaphorical witness to the divinity and humanity of

our Lord. This brings to me the last point in this connection.

            (3) The biblical canon, in its accommodative role as

incarnational word of Christ, partakes of the very character of

its Lord as skandalon. Even as Christ was, and still is,

skandalon because he was veiled in human flesh, so the

Scriptures are skandalon because they are word of God in

human form.

            Hermann Bavinck emphasized this scandal character of

Scripture. He writes,

            Christ became flesh, a servant without form or comeliness,

            the most despised among men . . . and so also the Word,

            the revelation of God entered creation, in the life and

            history of men and people in every form of dream and

            vision of research and meditation, even as far as the

            humanly weak and ignoble; the Word became Scripture

            and as Scripture subjected itself to the fate of all writing

            . . . Christ carried a cross, and a servant is not greater than

            his master. Scripture is the maidservant of Christ. She shares

            his revilement. She evokes hostility from sinful   man.¹³⁸

____________________

Interpretation 6 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, Academie, 1988), 111-14.

            ¹³⁸Hermann Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, 1.405, 411,

cited in Berkouwer, Holy Scripture, 199, 200. Cf. also Kuyper,

Principles of Sacred Theology, 479.

                                           261

 

Berkouwer, while sympathetic to Bavinck's desire to honor

Scripture, believes that the scandal character of Scripture is not

to be found in the divine-human analogy, but simply in the fact

that the Scriptures witness to Christ, and in their witness

partake of the scandal of the gospel.¹³⁹ But as we have already

seen, as word of Christ the Scriptures both analogously and

organically partake of the character of Christ, and thus, their

despisedness is, in fact, of a piece with the despisedness of

their Lord.

            This skandalon character of the Scriptures does not consist, as

some modern theologians imagine, in the human and,

therefore, necessarily fallible character, but in their human and

apparently fallible character.¹⁴⁰ And it is precisely in this truly

human and apparently fallible form that God has chosen to veil

himself. Most illuminating in this regard is David Steinmetz's

summary of Luther's teaching regarding God's hiddenness in

Christ:

            One of the most persistent themes in the Dictata is the motif of

            the hiddenness of God. . . . The text which inspires Luther's

            reflection on the absconditas sub contrario is I Corinthians 1:18-31,

            where Paul celebrates the wisdom of God in what the world regards

            as folly and the demonstration of the power of God in what men

            esteem as the decisive evidence of his weakness. This theology

____________________

            ¹³⁹Berkouwer, Holy Scripture, 208-12.

            ¹⁴⁰It is to be noted that this apparent fallibility is not to

be seen as restricted to just historical and scientific

factuality; it is predicated by modern theologians of the Bible's

theological content as well. Cf. James Barr, The Bible in the

Modern World (London: SCM, 1973), 119-20 (on p. 120 Barr

says "there is every reason to believe that theologically also the

Bible is imperfect").

                                            262

 

            of the cross means and implies that hiddenness is the form of

            God's revelation. The God who reveals himself in the pages of

            holy Scripture is a God who works contrary to human

            expectation. The work of God is therefore not visible to sight,

            since everything which the eye sees provides impressive

            grounds for distrusting the promises of God. The eye sees

            weakness not strength, folly not wisdom, humiliation, not

            victory."¹⁴¹

For Luther, the scandal, the skandalon of the gospel, was that

in the incarnation, God at the same time both revealed and

concealed himself. This can be seen for example in the case of

the repentant thief who was crucified with Jesus. He asked

Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom, even

though at the moment there was not the slightest bit of

empirical evidence to suggest that Jesus was anything more

than a common criminal, which was exactly how the rest of the

people there that day perceived Jesus. So the scandal of the

gospel is the incarnation, that God chose to reveal himself, not

in glory, but in the weakness of human flesh. That scandal

persists even to the present day as can easily be seen in the

liberal lives of Jesus in the last two centuries and in many New

Testament theologies: an unwillingness and therefore an

inability to recognize that "God was in Christ, reconciling the

world to himself" (2 Cor 5:19).

            But this hiddenness is also characteristic of the Scriptures. This

is what led Luther to state that not only

____________________

            ¹⁴¹David C. Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament

Interpretation in Staupitz and the Young Luther," ARG 70

(1979): 47.

                                             263

 

did God hide himself in Christ in human form, but that he did

the very same thing in the Scriptures:

            Holy Scripture possesses no external glory, attracts no

            attention, lacks all beauty and adornment. You can scarcely

            imagine that anyone would attach faith to such a divine Word,

            because it is without any glory or charm. Yet faith comes from

            this divine Word, through its inner power without any external

            loveliness.¹⁴²

A. Skevington Wood writes, summarizing Luther, that just as

            the divinity and power of God are embedded in the vessel of

            Christ's incarnate body, so the same divinity and power of God

            are embedded in Scripture, a vessel made of letters, composed

            of paper and printer's ink. In order to grasp the biblical

            revelation in its fulness it is necessary to conceive of Scripture

            in terms of the divine-human nature of Christ.¹⁴³

And, again, Luther writes:

            The Holy Scripture is God's Word, written, and so to say "in-

            lettered", just as Christ is the eternal Word of God incarnate in

            the garment of his humanity. And just as it is with Christ in the

            world, as he is viewed and dealt with, so it is also with the

            written Word of God.¹⁴⁴

            Interestingly, these citations, all of which may be

found in Rogers and McKim, are used by them to imply that

Luther, believing in the human character of Scripture,

believed also in its fallibility.¹⁴⁵ But as Wood and Dockery

____________________

            ¹⁴²Rogers and McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of

Scripture, 78.

            ¹⁴³A. Skevington Wood, Captive to the Word: Martin Luther:

Doctor of Sacred Scripture (Exeter: Paternoster, 1969), 175.

Also cited in Rogers and McKim, The Authority and

Interpretation of the Bible, 78.

            ¹⁴⁴Cited in Rogers and McKim, The Authority and

Interpretation of the Bible, 78.

            ¹⁴⁵Rogers and McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of

Scripture, 75-88.

                                           264

 

have shown, Luther himself pressed the Christological analogy

to its logical conclusion that the Scriptures are inerrant

even as Christ was sinless.¹⁴⁶

            I suggest that the scandal of the biblical canon is the

same as that of the incarnation and cross of our Lord. It is

scandalous precisely because in its character as divine word

in human form, it presents not the slightest bit of empirical

evidence to suggest that it is anything more than human words,

and therefore fallible words.¹⁴⁷ Even as Christ came in human

weakness (2 Cor 13:4), and was unrecognizable as God, so the

____________________

            ¹⁴⁶Wood, Captive to the Word, 175-78; David S. Dockery,

"Martin Luther's Christological Hermeneutics," Grace Theological Journal 4

(1983): 197-98. Cf. also John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique

of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 54.

            ¹⁴⁷I am undecided as to whether this apparent fallibility

should be seen as a designed apparentness, that is, whether

God has purposely produced the Scriptures with apparent

contradictions as a part of this scandal character. Notice that

Maier seems to suggest so (The End of the Historical-Critical

Method, 71-72): "If now, on the one hand, the idea of the

sovereignty of God associated with the concept of the entire

and verbal inspiration of Scripture has been methodologically

established, but on the other hand, varying statements in the

texts and certain deviations in the handed-down version can be

seen, then the conclusion is inescapable that the Revelator

wants to meet us just in this way. Should there actually be

contradictory statements, and should we be unable to arrive at

the true text--which we probably never could say with

complete certainty--then God would have put up with them and

would have used the ‘errors’ as tools of His Spirit, and it would

not have been the mistake of the apostles to have placed them

before us. Yes, we go a step further--consciously for a moment

we overstep the boundary line of speculation--and we draw out

the methodological consequence to the point that even

conscious errors of God's emissaries, which He does not

correct but lets appear in the text, are protected by God. That is

to say, we understand the ‘infallibility’ of Scripture, of which

the fathers spoke, in the sense of authorization and fulfillment

by God, and not in the sense of anthropological inerrancy."

                                          265

 

Scriptures come to us in human weakness and are empirically

unrecognizable as divine.¹⁴⁸ As Pinnock correctly notes,

            Just as Jesus' sonship was both hidden and revealed, so that

            some people saw it and others did not, so it is with the

            Scriptures. They look like ordinary writings; they are

            interpreted in ordinary ways. Though they shine with glory to

            the eye of faith, they seem quite unspectacular to unbelief.¹⁴⁹

The scandal of the biblical canon is the scandal of the

Christ who is Canon. Just how important this is for viewing

the Old Testament, and the Psalms in particular, in canonical

perspective in Part Three, is to be appreciated in that the

Psalter, of all the books in the Old Testament, is regarded as

human speech addressed to God and, therefore, not word of

God.¹⁵⁰

                             Thesis Number Six:

                 Christ is Lord over Canonical Meaning

            The Christo-canonical approach recognizes the lordship of

Jesus Christ over the meaning of the text. It asserts that

the Scriptures mean what Christ means by them. While

____________________

            ¹⁴⁸Cf. Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word, 56, 235.

            ¹⁴⁹Pinnock, The Scripture Principle, 97. I only agree with

Pinnock in part, however, when, in light of this understanding,

he goes on to ask, "Is not the quest for an errorless Bible that

once was but is no longer an indication of disordered

priorities?" I agree in part, inasmuch as the evidentialist

apologetic as a whole is an "indication of disordered priorities."

I disagree, however, that the presupposition or declaration of

an "errorless Bible" is also an indication of "disordered

priorities."

            ¹⁵⁰The Old Testament as a whole has been regarded as a

stumbling-block. See the discussion in Gunneweg,

Understanding the Old Testament, 155-59.

                                      266

 

recognizing a certain validity to text-oriented and reader-

response approaches, and while also recognizing that texts can

take on meanings of their own independent of their authors, the

Christo-canonical approach asserts that Christ is in complete

control of the authorized meaning of his text, and that the text

takes on no meaning independent of him.

            It could be argued that this thesis properly belongs in the next

chapter in a discussion of how the thesis that Christ is Canon

relates to the interpretive process and to the interpreter, and it

will, indeed, come into play there. But I place it here for two

reasons. First, I wish to emphasize especially the relationship

between Christ and biblical canon, and to assert that the

biblical canon is not a text that has some autonomous existence

of its own, but that it remains at all times word of Christ. It is

not itself autonomous text, nor does it come under the

autonomy of biblical scholars or interpretive communities. It

remains always canonical word of Christ and the meaning of

the text is at every moment subject only to his sovereign

determination.

            Second, I place it here because, in a way, this should be

considered a pre-hermeneutical consideration. It should have

become obvious by now how markedly different the

Christocanonical approach is from approaches that have come

under the umbrella of "canonical" in the last twenty-five years.

As Mary Callaway remarks, for these approaches,

            Characterizing scripture as canon also avoids the idea of an

            authoritative text whose meaning resides in the mind of

                                          267

 

            God, for canonical texts imply an authority resulting from

            transmission and reception of traditions that have been shaped

            in the communities of faith.¹⁵¹

For the Christo-canonical approach, however, meaning lies, not

in interpretive communities, but in Christ. So by calling this a

pre-hermeneutical consideration, I am emphasizing what those

who call them themselves presuppositionalists have declared

all along, and what Richard Gaffin has said so well: "that

interpretation of the Bible must understand itself as

interpretation of interpretation."¹⁵² In other words, it is

important for us to recognize, before we even begin to interpret

the text, that our hermeneutical activity is, in fact, post-

hermeneutical activity. There is a hermeneutical activity

which has preceded ours, and this activity is not only prior

to ours, but it also constitutes the authoritative standard by

which all subsequent hermeneutical activity on the text

is to be measured.¹⁵³ As Royce Gruenler says, "Hermeneutics

is first of all the enterprise of God."¹⁵⁴

____________________

            ¹⁵¹Mary C. Callaway, "Canonical Criticism," in To Each Its

Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and

Their Application, ed. Stephen R. Haynes and Steven L.

McKenzie (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 125.

            ¹⁵²Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., "Contemporary Hermeneutics and

the Study of the New Testament," in Studying the New

Testament Today, ed. John H. Skilton, The New Testament

Student 1 (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1974), 16.

            ¹⁵³Cf. McCartney and Clayton, Let the Reader Understand,

283-84; Jung Kyu-Nam, The Task and Method of Old

Testament Theology, ACTS Theological Journal 3 (1988): 168.

            ¹⁵⁴Royce Gordon Gruenler, Meaning and Understanding: The

Philosophical Framework for Biblical Interpretation, Foundations of

Contemporary Interpretation 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

                                      268

 

It is in this context, that I wish to address a question posed in

an article by Thomas Gillespie. He writes:

            The phrase "biblical authority and interpretation" poses a

            semantic question of considerable importance. How are

            biblical authority and interpretation related? More specifically,

            what is the semantic value of the copula and in the syntax of

            the phrase? Grammatically, the structure suggests that these

            two topics are coordinate. The "authority" qualified as "biblical,"

            however, belongs to God in the Reformed tradition, while

            "interpretation" is a human endeavor.¹⁵⁵

Gillespie goes on in the article to discuss different hermeneutical

issues, but never does, to my knowledge, come back to his original

question as to how authority and interpretation are related. I would

suggest that, at least in part, the finding of the correct answer to the

question lies in correcting the premise upon which it is built: that

authority relates to divine activity, while interpretation relates

to human activity. Rather, it is important for us to recognize

that interpretation is first a divine activity. And the significance

of the copula "and" in the phrase "biblical authority and

interpretation" should be to point to the need for human

interpretation to conform to the authoritative interpretation of

God.

            Important also in this regard is Poythress's suggestion of an

analogy between current theories as to where meaning

____________________

Academie, 1991), xvi.

            ¹⁵⁵ Thomas W. Gillespie, "Biblical Authority and

Interpretation: The Current Debate on Hermeneutics," in A

Guide to Contemporary Hermeneutics: Major Trends in Biblical

Interpretation, ed. Donald K. McKim (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1986), 192.

                                    269

 

resides (author, text, or reader) and the trinitarian nature of

God's own hermeneutical activity.¹⁵⁶ That there have been

advocates of all three positions is only to be expected in that

the suggested loci of meaning correspond to the three persons

of the Trinity; that is, God the Father (=author), Jesus Christ,

the Word (=text), and Holy Spirit (=reader, or audience, or

interpreter). And so, in a way, the modern-day hermeneutical

debate as to where meaning is found constitutes an analogue to

the actual trinitarian loci of meaning. Even our debates with

regard to hermeneutics are unwitting testimony to the prior

hermeneutical activity of God in investing the biblical canon

with meaning, and the necessity of our recognizing that

meaning is to be discovered by conforming our search for

meaning to God's own implantation of meaning.

            The importance of this last point for the Christo-

canonical approach is that Christ as Word of God, i.e., the

text to be interpreted, can, indeed, on this analogy be

regarded as the meaning of the canon. Not only is Christ

the criterion, the Lord, the author, and authorized interpreter

of the meaning of biblical canon: he is the meaning of biblical

canon; the meaning of biblical canon resides in him. Christ

is what God has spoken. Christ is what the Spirit has

understood and testified to. And supposed canonical

____________________

            ¹⁵⁶Vern S. Poythress, "God's Lordship in Interpretation," WTJ

50 (1988): 43-44.

                                       270

 

interpretations that do not find their meaning in Christ as the

author of canon are not to be considered true canonical

interpretations. The Christo-canonical approach asserts that to

say "canonical" and to say "Christological" is to be

tautologous. However, since modern-day canonical approaches

find meaning in interpretive communities or, canonical

intention in "unknown canonizers," it is important to be

tautologous when doing canonical analysis from an evangelical

perspective. We must be Christo-canonical.

 

                            Thesis Number Seven:

               Christ is Lord over the Canonical Meaning

                              of the Old Testament

            The Christo-canonical approach asserts that Christ is the

authorized interpreter of the Old Testament. Indeed, it is only

through Christ that the Church even has access to the Old

Testament.¹⁵⁷ If the Church does not come to the Old

Testament through Christ, she cannot come at all.

            This final thesis in this chapter is simply an extension,

but a very important one, of the last thesis in regard to

Christ's lordship over the meaning of the biblical text. On

the one hand, there is a historical sense in which we may

say that the Old Testament is properly an Israelite document.

As Paul declares, "Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the

divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the

temple worship and the promises" (Rom 9:4). And

____________________

            ¹⁵⁷Cf. R. Lucas, "Considerations of Methods in Old

Testament Hermeneutics," DunRev 6 (1966): 21-22.

                                           271

 

Gentiles are those who are "excluded from citizenship in Israel

and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and

without God in the world" (Eph 2:12). But on the other hand,

God, in his new work in Christ, has changed the terms of

access to the Old Testament covenants, law, and promises.

Access is granted, not by way of human ancestry, but

by faith in Christ. We "who once were far away have been

brought near through the blood of Christ" (Eph 2:13). As

Martin Kuske writes in summarizing the thought of Dietrich

Bonhoeffer, "There is for us no direct access to the Old

Testament. Christ stands between us and the Old

Testament."¹⁵⁸ The Old Testament, therefore, is properly

called a Christian document, and I affirm with Daniel Lys that

            I cannot be related to an Old Testament text otherwise than

            through Jesus Christ, because the Old Testament texts express

            the message of God's grace in an expectation whose fulfillment

            is Jesus of Nazareth for the Christian faith. To try to

            appropriate an Old Testament text directly over the centuries

            would be to ignore the characteristics of this text, to

            disincarnate it, ultimately to misunderstand it--be it in an

            ethical left-wing liberalism or in pietist right-wing

            fundamentalism.¹⁵⁹

            For the Christian interpreter, this means that access to the

proper meaning of the Old Testament comes only by way of

Christ, for it is only by Christ that the interpreter even has

access to the documents. This is not to say that the non

____________________

            ¹⁵⁸Martin Kuske, The Old Testament as the Book of Christ: An

Appraisal of Bonhoeffer's Interpretation, trans. S. T. Kimbrough,

Jr. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), 47.

            ¹⁵⁹Daniel Lys, The Meaning of the Old Testament: An Essay

on Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon, 1967), 156.

                                           272

 

Christian interpreter cannot study these documents, deriving

historical information, moral truths, and even theological data;

but it does mean that the entire study is one that is done

through a veil, and even the theological data is veiled data until

the veil is taken away in, and only in, Christ (2 Cor 3:14-16).

So, for proper interpretation to take place, there must be a pre-

hermeneutical understanding that the meaning being sought for

in the text is to be found in Christ's own hermeneutical activity

on the Old Testament. He is the Old Testament's authorized

hermeneutician. As William Johnstone says, Christ

            is the God-Man, who is not only the standard of the

            previous revelations in the Old Testament, the "Word of

            God", but the standard of the human response, the word of

            man. In him is the control of the interpretation of the

            Bible.¹⁶⁰

            The Christo-canonical approach rejects the idea, however, that

new meanings of the biblical text are created by reading them

through Christ, or as mentioned earlier, that the Old Testament

is in some way baptized into Christ to give it a Christian

meaning. Rather, the true meaning is discovered, for it is only

in Christ that the true meaning can be discovered, for he is its

authorized interpreter.

            On the one hand, there appears to be a certain legitimacy in

talking about Christ giving the Old Testament texts new

meaning. I affirm to a certain extent what Elizabeth

Achtemeier means when she says that "Jesus Christ is

____________________

            ¹⁶⁰Johnstone, "The Authority of the Old Testament," 202.

                                       273

 

the final reinterpretation of every major tradition in the Old

Testament."¹⁶¹ But I wish to go beyond this and assert that

Christ is not just reinterpretation, but God's final word that

"recapitulates" the former word and ultimately gives them their

proper and, I would dare to say, original interpretation.¹⁶²

            It is also important in this connection to note that Christ

is a free and sovereign exegete.¹⁶³ His interpretations of the

Old Testament are not subject to hermeneutical principles

whereby we can, as it were, objectively measure their

correctness. I disagree with Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard,

therefore, when they say of the New Testament authors that

"indeed, Jesus' literal fulfillment of OT prophecy was their

fundamental principle. In this they followed the example

of Jesus himself."¹⁶⁴ That they followed Jesus'

____________________

            ¹⁶¹Elizabeth Achtemeier, The Old Testament and the

Proclamation of the Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973),

163.

            ¹⁶²Cf. François Dreyfus, "The Existential Value of the Old

Testament," trans. P. J. Hepburn-Scott, in How Does the

Christian Confront the Old Testament?, ed. Pierre Benoit,

Roland E. Murphy, and Bastiaan van Iersel, Concilium 30

(New York: Paulist, 1968), 40-41.

            ¹⁶³Cf. A. A. Van Ruler, The Christian Church and the Old

Testament, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1971), 44: "It is already quite plain in the Old

Testament that only Yahweh himself can legitimately interpret

his promises, and he interprets them by the way he causes them

to be fulfilled. Here, then, he remains free."

            ¹⁶⁴William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L.

Hubbard, Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, with

Kermit A. Ecklebarger (Dallas: Word, 1993), 29.

                                        274

 

example is not to be doubted.¹⁶⁵ But that we are to see Jesus

as in some way straitjacketed by some hermeneutical principle

such as literal interpretation or grammatical-historical

interpretation is to be rejected. As McCartney and Clayton

write, "No OT prophecy that we know by NT testimony to

have been fulfilled in the first coming of Christ reads like a

newspaper account of what actually did happen."¹⁶⁶ We do

not see meaning in the Old Testament text as Jesus interprets it

according to some principle; rather, we see meaning in the Old

Testament text as Jesus interprets it.

 

                                     Conclusion

            The Christo-canonical approach asserts that Christ

is the Canon above the canon. It is only from this perspective

that a truly theological canonical interpretation can be

achieved. It is only in this way that there can be a truly

theological orientation, as Childs would desire, from the

very outset. To confess that biblical canon is Christian

canon is to confess: (1) that Christ is criterion of canon and

is himself Canon, (2) that Christ asserts himself as Canon

in biblical canon by his Spirit, (3) that the whole canon is

word of Christ, 4) that the biblical canon is covenantally binding

word of Christ who is himself Covenant, (5) that Christ has

____________________

            ¹⁶⁵On this see C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The

Sub-structure of New Testament Theology (London: James

Nisbet, 1952; repr., London and Glasgow: Collins, Fontana Books,

1965),  110; Wood, The Interpretation of the Bible, 8, 175-76.

            ¹⁶⁶McCartney and Clayton, Let the Reader Understand, 209.

                                         275

 

incarnated himself in biblical canon, (6) that the meaning of

biblical canon resides in Christ, and (7) that the Old Testament

as part of biblical canon receives its authoritative interpretation

in Christ.

            But the Christo-canonical approach does not stop with the

assertion that Christ is the Canon above the canon. It also

asserts that Christ is the Lord of the would-be interpreter of the

canon.

 

 

 

                                    CHAPTER 6

 

 

     THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE OLD

 TESTAMENT: CHRIST IS LORD OVER THE INTERPRETER

 

 

            Included in the statement, "Christ is Canon," is not only the

assertion that Christ is the Canon above the canon, but also the

conviction that the interpreter who would presume to

understand and explain the meaning of the canon must do so

under the lordship of Christ. The biblical canon belongs to

Christ, and the only ones who can expect to come to an

understanding of the meaning of biblical canon are those who

surrender their hermeneutical endeavors to the guidance and

authority of Christ. This chapter will seek to unpack in seven

theses what is constituted in this obedience.

 

                           Thesis Number Eight:

          Christ is Lord over Hermeneutical Methodology

            The Christo-canonical approach takes seriously

the lordship of Jesus Christ over the hermeneutical process,

and not just as a theological tack-on at the end. It believes that

hermeneutical methodology must be made captive to Christ.

This means that from the outset the theologian or biblical

scholar cannot take a position of supposed neutrality, but from

the very beginning, his or her exegetical endeavors must be

carried out with an eye to pleasing Christ. The approach

 

                                         277

                                       278

 

recognizes that no interpreter interprets autonomously, and,

therefore, the interpreter should from the very beginning

declare allegiance to the Lord of the canon. The interpreter

must do his or her interpretive work obediently.

            Walter Brueggemann recently published a book of essays

entitled Interpretation and Obedience, in which he says that

            obedience that seeks to act according to the covenantal

            intentionality of the God of the Bible, attending to Yahweh's

            nonnegotiable demands, must be an act of interpretation.

            Interpretive obedience is an act of imaginative construal to

            show how the nonnegotiable intentions of Yahweh are to be

            discerned from the situations in which those institutions were

            initially articulated.¹

While I agree with everything that Brueggemann says here, the

book does not really address the issues that I am concerned

about when I correlate the two nouns, interpretation and

obedience.² Rather, I am highlighting the necessity for every

stage of the act of interpretation to be done in obedience to

Jesus Christ.³

____________________

            ¹Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience: From

Faithful Reading to Faithful Living (Minneapolis: Augsburg

Fortress, 1991), 1.

            ²To be fair to Brueggemann, the book is a collection of essays

and addresses that he delivered over a period of a number of

years, a collection which he decided to publish under the rubric

of interpretation and obedience. His main thrust in the book is

with one phase of interpretation, the faithful application of

interpretation to the life situation.

            ³Cf. Vern S. Poythress, Symphonic Theology: The Validity of

Multiple Perspectives in Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

Academie, 1987), 21: "I contend that the Bible's own world

view should be the one that all theologians adopt for themselves.

All their study of the Bible should be in terms of the framework of

assumptions about God and the world that the Bible itself supplies.

This orientation is very important. Adopting the

                                       279

 

            In a paragraph that was not meant to be critical, but which

I believe ultimately does constitute an indictment of the work

being done by Christian scholars, the Jewish scholar Jon

Levenson writes,

            Most Christians involved in the historical criticism of the

            Hebrew Bible today seem to have ceased to want their work to

            be considered distinctively Christian. They do the essential

            philological, historical, and archeological work without

            concern for the larger constructive issues or for the theological

            implications of their labors. They are Christians everywhere

            except in the classroom and at the writing-table, where they are

            simply honest historians striving for an unbiased view of the

            past.⁴

By contrast, I maintain that the Christianity of Christian

scholars must extend to the "classroom" and "the writing

desk," and that for a Christian scholar to try to achieve an

"unbiased view of the past" is an act of disobedience. We are

not after an unbiased view of the past; we are after God's view.

We are not searching for an objective interpretation; we

are seeking, rather, to bring our interpretation into conformity

with the authoritative pre-interpretation of the Spirit of

Christ. Everything Christians do should be done in obedience

to God, and the act of interpretation has not received

exempt status. Autonomous interpretation is not neutral, it

is disobedient. Indeed, it is important to state here that it

could not be otherwise, for as Maier points out,

____________________

Bible's teaching is part of a theologian's obedience to God."

            ⁴Jon D. Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament, and

Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies

(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 29.

                                      280

 

"The correlative or counterpart to revelation is not critique but

obedience."⁵

            Therefore the Christian interpreter must not only act correctly,

he or she must also think correctly; this is simply part of what

is involved in being "transformed by the renewing" of our

minds (Rom 12:2), not being taken "captive through hollow

and deceptive philosophy," (Col 2:8), but rather, making sure

that in even in our hermeneutics, "we take every thought

captive to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Cor 10:5).⁶ Ronald

Ray, in summarizing the hermeneutical thought of Jacques

Ellul, says it eloquently:

            If Christians are always to live under the power of the Holy

            Spirit, Christian exegetical labor cannot consistently be

            exempted from the same requirement. And if the purpose of the

            Christian life is faithful witness to Jesus Christ, Christian

            biblical scholars cannot consistently be exempted from the

            commission binding on all Christians.⁷

            It is with this understanding that I wish to critique the views of

those who suggest that it is not enough to do all our "neutral

work" on the text, but that after having done it,

____________________

            ⁵Gerhard Maier, The End of the Historical-Critical Method,

trans. Edwin W. Leverenz and Rudolph F. Norden (St. Louis:

Concordia, 1977), 22-23.

            ⁶The reader here will readily see my indebtedness to the

writings of Cornelius Van Til, especially in the following

works: The Defense of the Faith, 3d ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ:

Presbyterian & Reformed, 1967); An Introduction to

Systematic Theology, In Defense of Biblical Christianity 5

(Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1974); A

Christian Theory of Knowledge (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian &

Reformed, 1969).

            ⁷Ronald R. Ray, "Jacques Ellul's Innocent Notes on

Hermeneutics," Int 33 (1979): 271-72.

                                           281

 

we must then proceed to draw the theological truths out of the

text. Some of the following representative quotations set

forth this idea:

            The christological principle is valid for today's interpreter as a

            canonical or theological principle. It is a second step beyond

            the grammatical-historical method.⁸

            We assert that critical methods of interpretation also will never

            do complete justice to Scripture. . . . Historical and rational

            methods of interpretation have a proper place in unfolding this

            human dimension; however, they can take us only so far in the

            interpretive process.⁹

            The solution proposed here can be summarized in three

            statements corresponding to three major steps in the

            hermeneutical process. The first step is historical interpretation

            or exegesis. The second step is the derivation of principles of

            relationship with God. The third step is theological

            interpretation, or application.¹⁰

            I propose a christological hermeneutic by which we seek to

            move beyond historical criticism to the christological, as

            opposed to the existential, significance of the text. . . . This

            approach . . . seeks to supplement the historical-critical method

            by theological exegesis in which the innermost intentions of

            the author are related to the center and culmination of sacred

            history mirrored in the Bible, namely, the advent of Jesus

            Christ.¹¹

____________________

            ⁸David S. Dockery, "Martin Luther's Christological

Hermeneutics," Grace Theological Journal 4 (1983): 203.

            ⁹William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L.

Hubbard, Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, with

Kermit A. Ecklebarger (Dallas: Word, 1993), 16.

            ¹⁰S. M. Mayo, The Relevance of the Old Testament for the

Christian Faith: Biblical Theology and Interpretative

Methodology (Washington: University Press of America,

1982), 111.

            ¹¹Donald G. Bloesch, "A Christological Hermeneutic: Crisis

and Conflict in Hermeneutics," in The Use of the Bible in

Theology: Evangelical Options, ed. Robert K. Johnston

(Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 81.

                                         282

 

            The problem with these positions is that they fail to

consider the objections raised by Childs which were discussed

in chapter 2. To quote Childs again,

            The majority of commentators understand the descriptive task

            as belonging largely to an objective discipline. One starts on

            neutral ground, without being committed to a theological

            position, and deals with textual, historical, and philological

            problems of the biblical sources before raising the theological

            issue. But, in point of fact, by defining the Bible as a "source"

            for objective research the nature of the content to be described

            has been already determined. A priori, it has become a part of a

            larger category of phenomena. The possibility of genuine

            theological exegesis has been destroyed from the outset.¹²

The answer to the dilemma that Childs portrays is to

understand that even the so-called "descriptive" work must be

done in faith. The Christian scholar does not have the right

to approach any topic, much less a biblical one, except in

full submission and yieldedness to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even in so-called "secular" research, or the study of God's

revelation in nature, the goal should be to "think God's

thoughts after him." How much more, in the study of God's

revelation in his word, should our goal be to know God

himself. This means that from the very beginning of the

scholar's interpretive work on a biblical text or topic, he or

____________________

            ¹²Brevard S. Childs, "Interpretation in Faith: The Theological

Responsibility of an Old Testament Commentary," Int 18 (1964): 437.

Interestingly, A. A. Anderson made a similar comment even before

Childs: "It is difficult to see, however, how a theology which is purely

descriptive can provide a norm for dogmatic theology or anything else"

("Old Testament Theology and Its Methods," in Promise and Fulfillment:

Essays Presented to Professor S. H. Hooke in Celebration of His Ninetieth

Birthday by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study and

Others, ed. F. F. Bruce [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963], 10).

                                          283

 

she must in humility seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, not

only in the attitude of the heart, but in the methodology of the

process. The scholar's study is not a piece of real estate that has

been bracketed out of the kingdom of God. It is not sufficient

to do all the grammatical, historical, archaeological,

philological, linguistic, contextual, sociological, cultural, and

literary study of a passage or topic, and then at the end, tack on

some theological observations and applications.¹³ Rather,

from the very beginning, and at every point along the way, the

scholar's study must be bathed in prayer, devotion, humility,

worship, wonder, awe, admiration, and surrender to the Holy

Spirit, for it is only the Spirit of Christ who "searches all

things, even the deep things of God" (1 Cor 2:10).

            To say this another way, there is an "ought" in the work of

hermeneutics.¹⁴ Christians ought to come to certain

interpretations in their hermeneutical endeavors. Our task is not

that of coming up with novel or strikingly new interpretations.

We are not just engaged in idle speculation, but in this area, as

much as in any other, must regard ourselves as those who "will

have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless

word" (Matt 12:36). Packer says its well:

____________________

            ¹³Cf. Vern S. Poythress, "God's Lordship in Interpretation,"

WTJ 50 (1988): 28.

            ¹⁴Poythress, Symphonic Theology, 25.

                                        284

 

            I must be ready to give account of my interpretative encounters

            with scripture not just to my human

            and academic peers but to God himself, who will one day

            require this of every theologian and of me among them. This is

            to say that I must follow my method responsibly as

            one who must answer for what I do.¹⁵

He then follows by declaring, "I approach the Bible . . . as the

instrument of Jesus Christ's personal authority over Christians

(which is part of what I mean in calling it canonical)."¹⁶ The

Christo-canonical approach, therefore, more than simply asserting

that the Scriptures are set in a canonical context, asserts that the

interpretation is also to be set in a canonical context, that of the

lordship of Jesus Christ.

            Having said all this, it is, however, necessary to examine

some potential objections to this approach. They are:

(1) that it overemphasizes the admitted non-neutrality of most

interpretation, (2) that the exegetical results of this approach

are not really any different than those achieved by the more

supposedly neutral approaches, nor are they necessarily more

correct, (3) that it restricts the freedom of scholarly endeavor,

and (4) that the approach breaks down the hard-won

communications between biblical scholars of all faiths, and

with regard to the Old Testament in particular, it

____________________

            ¹⁵James I. Packer, "In Quest of Canonical Interpretation,"

in The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options, ed.

Robert K. Johnston (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 44-45.

            ¹⁶Ibid., 45.

                                        285

 

alienates Jewish biblical scholars by reviving an anti-Semitic

supersessionism.

                        Objectivity Is Still the Goal

            The statement that there is no such thing as neutrality in

interpretation will not raise eyebrows among biblical scholars

and students of hermeneutics today. Though logical positivism

once reigned supreme, it does not dominate as it did in the

earlier part of this century. It is universally recognized among

biblical scholars that no one can come to the text without

presuppositions, for without them, the process of understanding

a text cannot even begin.¹⁷

            All the same, however, it seems that as long as

one announces up front his or her recognition of the fact

that they have presuppositions, that this now becomes a

nearly approximate substitute for objectivity. As long as

one admits that one has preconceptions, but promises not to

let them interfere too much, the reader may, therefore, rest

assured that the exegete will try to be as objective as

possible. And this approximate objectivity is, in fact, considered

to be a worthy goal. In other words, neutrality is still the goal.

But I am suggesting that the problem is really much more

serious than this. It is not whether one comes as an Arminian

____________________

            ¹⁷Cf. Duncan Ferguson, Biblical Hermeneutics: An

Introduction (Atlanta: John Knox, 1986), 185; John Sandys-

Wunsch, "On the Theory and Practice of Biblical Interpretation," JSOT

3 (1977): 66-74; James L. Kugel and Rowan W. Greer, Early

Biblical Interpretation, Library of Early Christianity 3 (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1986), 112-13.

                                         286

 

or Calvinist, Feminist or Liberationist, historian or sociologist,

structuralist or rhetorical critic; what matters is whether one

comes to the text in order to obey or to negotiate, whether one

comes in faith or unbelief, whether one comes committed to

work under the lordship of Christ or under the autonomy of

scholarly endeavor. I am not merely suggesting that one cannot

come to the text without presuppositions; but, moreover, that

one cannot come to the text without one of those

presuppositions being a disposition either for or against Jesus

Christ. And to recontextualize the words of our Lord into a

hermeneutical arena, "He who is not with me is against me"

(Matt 12:36). A declaration of either absolute or approximate

objectivity is a declaration against the lordship of Christ in the

sphere of hermeneutics.

            With regard to interpretive activity carried on in the

community of biblical scholars who would more or less regard

themselves as liberal, and to a lesser extent in that community

that would consider itself to be, at least in some measure,

descended from neo-orthodoxy, I would charge that there is

still a disposition against the authority of Christ as manifested

in biblical canon. As Gordon Fee says,

            The difficulty I have with liberal hermeneutics remains.

            I do not see any hope for a corrective to their autonomy

            over the text. They may be corrected by reasonable

            arguments, but reason still prevails, not the text of

            Scripture itself.¹⁸

____________________

            ¹⁸Gordon Fee, Gospel and Spirit: Issues in New Testament

Hermeneutics (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 41.

                                    287

 

            I need to emphasize here that this charge is both

serious and yet not decisively condemning. It is serious in

that the destructive tendencies and results of supposedly

neutral scholarship are well known. With regard to the Old

Testament in particular, the observation of James Smart is

especially appropriate:

            The achievements of scholars such as Herder, Eichhorn, De

            Wette, Vatke, Wellhausen, and Gunkel were monumental. No

            one can question that as a consequence of their work the Old

            Testament was vastly more comprehensible at the end of the

            century than it was at the beginning, and, compared with the

            two previous centuries, the difference was like that between

            light and darkness. Yet the theologians who dominated that

            century in Germany and shaped the minds of Christians are

            distinguished by a distaste for the Old Testament.¹⁹

While disagreeing considerably with Smart's assertion that the

Old Testament was "vastly more comprehensible" than

previously, I believe he rightly notes that these so-called

"monumental" achievements created, not love for God and his

word, but a "distaste" for it. Wellhausen himself admitted

this when he resigned from his position as professor of

theology at Greifswald:

            I became a theologian because the scientific treatment of the

            Bible interested me. Only gradually did I come to understand

            that a professor of theology also has the practical task of

            preparing the students for service in the Protestant Church, and

            that I am not adequate to this practical task, but that despite all

            caution on my own part I make my hearers unfit for their

            office.²⁰

____________________

            ¹⁹Smart, The Strange Silence, 19.

            ²⁰Cited in Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, 97.

                                        288

 

Perhaps by the use of the word "scientific," Wellhausen was

thinking of neutrality or objectivity. But, as has long been

noticed, science is not a field where neutrality reigns.²¹ And

to try to carry over a scientific objectivity into the field

of theological study is to attempt to carry over what does not

exist. In other words, there is no such thing as scientific

objectivity, much less, theological objectivity. No one can

interpret theological texts from a theologically neutral

position. All exegesis is inherently theological, and

scholars who suppose that they can bracket out their

theological biases when doing biblical exegesis, even if they

conceive of what they are doing as being only historical or

linguistic or sociological or literary, are fooling

themselves. Smart puts it well:

            The historical scholar who disclaims theological responsibility

            is simply closing his eyes to the theological aspects and

            implications of his research. Because the text upon which

            historical criticism is focused is theological in character, the

            investigation of it has had profound theological significance

            even when it has been most avowedly untheological.²²

____________________

            ²¹See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific

Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1970); Vern S. Poythress, Science and Hermeneutics,

Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation 6 (Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, Academie, 1988), esp. pp. 43-63.

            ²²Smart, The Strange Silence, 78; cf. Robert Morgan with

John Barton, Biblical Interpretation, The Oxford Bible Series

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 274: "The main

conclusion, or rather thesis, of this book is that anyone who

uses the Bible as scripture engages (whether knowingly or not)

in theological interpretation." See also Maier, The End of the

Historical-Critical Method, 53.

                                        289

 

To set up objective interpretation as a goal is to forget that

"human rebellion against God's sovereign interpretation of his

creation has radically defaced the noetic ability of human

beings to interpret creation correctly,"²³ and that neutral

interpretation without a commitment to God is simply a

continuation of that same rebellion. This is what I mean when

I say that this is a very serious charge.

            On the other hand, I also want to emphasize that this charge is

not necessarily decisively condemning. The most committed

Christians have areas in their lives where they are not fully

surrendered to the lordship of Christ. There are areas where so-

called liberals, or neo-orthodox, or neoevangelicals can call

evangelicals or fundamentalists to task for inconsistency in

their response to the authoritative commands of Christ in this

world. All I am claiming is that this is one area where I believe

it is the responsibility of evangelicals to call upon biblical

scholars in other camps to respond more fully to Christ as he

asserts himself as Canon in biblical canon. And the call is to

give up pretensions of supposed objectivity or neutrality in

biblical interpretation, and to carry out their hermeneutical

endeavors with a commitment to the one who is the Lord of

interpretation.²⁴

____________________

            ²³Royce Gordon Gruenler, Meaning and Understanding: The

Philosophical Framework for Biblical Interpretation, Foundations

of Contemporary Interpretation 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

Academie, 1991), 170.

            ²⁴Cf. John F. Johnson, "Analogia Fidei as Hermeneutical

Principle," Springfielder 36 (1973): 250; A. A. Anderson, "Old

                                             290

 

                           No Appreciable Difference

            The second objection I wish to consider is that even

with a faith commitment on the part of the biblical scholar,

there is little, if any, appreciable difference in historical,

philological, linguistic work, etc., between the results of

scholars who "interpret in faith" and those who attempt to

maintain a level of objectivity. Further, the commitment does

not guarantee the correctness of the position.

            James Barr may be used here as an example of one who

puts forth this objection:

            My own teaching life in biblical studies has been roughly

            equally divided between teaching in theological institutions

            and teaching in departments of Hebrew, Semitic languages,

            religious studies and the like; and for the life of me I cannot see

            that there is any fundamental difference in exegetical method,

            logic or criteria of relevance between the one case and the

            other. The essential difference seems to be that in a theological

            context certain questions are likely to be asked which in the

            other context may be left unconsidered.²⁵

            Theology in itself has no power to tell us what might be the

            correct text of a particular verse, or what are the semantic

            linkages between a group of Hebrew words, or why the

            Moabites slew all their Israelite captives.²⁶

There is certainly more than just a measure of truth in what

Barr says. There is no guarantee that the lexical or

____________________

Testament Theology and Its Methods," 10, 12.

            ²⁵James Barr, "Exegesis as a Theological Discipline

Reconsidered and the Shadow of the Jesus of History," in The

Hermeneutical Quest: Essays in Honor of James Luther Mays

on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Donald J. Miller, PTMS 4 (Allison

Park, PA: Pickwick, 1986), 19.

            ²⁶Ibid., 20-21.

                                            291

 

historical investigation of a text done by a Christian scholar

versus a non-Christian one will produce any different results,

either historically, lexically or theologically (hence a major

factor in Barr's argument against "theological lexicography").

This is no less than what we should expect, since the scholars

who are doing the exegesis are, in fact, people, real people who

are made in the image of God, whose thinking processes are

analogues to, and reflections of, God. And though we believe

that the noetic faculties of humans have been damaged as a

result of the fall, they have not been eradicated, and there is

every reason to believe that two people, one Christian and one

non-Christian, looking at the same piece of data, will, in fact,

see the same thing. If they didn't, there would be no way

Christians and non-Christians could even communicate with

each other. This is simply the doctrine of common grace.

            Nor does the confessional or non-confessional stance from

which one comes to the text determine the accuracy of the

interpretation. This is noted by Moisés Silva in the preface to

the first volume of a series on hermeneutics, Foundations of

Contemporary Interpretation. After noting that all the authors

are committed to the authority of the Bible and "assume from

the start that a right relationship with its divine author is the

most fundamental prerequisite for proper biblical

interpretation," he then goes on to state,

            The problem is that this theological conviction, while

            essential for a true understanding of Scripture, does not

                                                  292

            by itself guarantee that we will interpret Scripture

            aright.²⁷

            But I would suggest that, all that has been said

notwithstanding, there are two very important differences

between the two possible approaches to interpretation. First,

even as we noted in answering the last objection, biases do get

in the way of responsible interpretation. There is no doubt, for

example, that a history of Israel written by one who judges the

historical trustworthiness of the biblical account by criteria

such as the principles of "analogy" or "correlation," will be

significantly different from one written by a scholar who

judges the historical trustworthiness of the biblical account

by the principle of "uniqueness" or "supernatural causality."²⁸

As well for New Testament studies, it is evident how

different commentaries or works on New Testament

theology, or the theology of Paul, written by evangelical

scholars differ from those written by scholars who

____________________

            ²⁷Moisés Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? The

History of Interpretation in the Light of Current Issues,

Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation 1 (Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, Academie, 1987), vi. Cf. also David H. Kelsey,

The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1975), 215-16.

            ²⁸Note Gerhard Maier's warning in this regard in The End of

the Historical-Critical Method, 51: "While the secular

historiographer must apply the basic principle that all events

possess an equivalent (analogy) which makes classification

with comparable events possible, the Biblical scholar dare not

persist in using this principle of analogy in all cases. For it is

just what happens only once--the thing that cannot be

analogized--that we may anticipate as the living God's way of

acting."

                                                 293

 

apply the criterion of dissimilarity or follow

tendenz criticism.²⁹

            Second, there is a difference that may or may not show

up in the actual product, but will always be there just the same.

And that is simply that the one approach to interpretation will

be an act of obedience and the other will not. The one approach

will be pleasing to the Lord and the other will not. The one

approach will be an act of worship and the other will not. To

tell the difference between the two may be as empirically

difficult as understanding why Abel's offering was accepted

and Cain's wasn't, but it is just as certain that there will in fact

be a difference.

                     Limitation of Scholarly Autonomy

            The third objection with which I wish to deal very quickly is

one that was originally raised by R. N. Whybray in opposition

to Childs's canonical approach. He writes that Childs's

approach

            is a denial of scholarly autonomy. It presupposes--though

            Childs denies this--some kind of religious faith on the

____________________

            ²⁹In this regard it is hard for me to agree with Daniel Fuller

("The Holy Spirit's Role in Biblical Interpretation," in

Scripture, Tradition, and Interpretation: Essays Presented to

Everett F. Harrison by His Students and Colleagues in Honor

of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. W. Ward Gasque and

William Sanford LaSor [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978], 192)

when he says, "Naturally, the conclusion that the Bible is

foolishness will not affect the accuracy of the exegetical results

of those whose only concern is the academic task of describing

what the biblical writers intended to teach. An agnostic or an

atheist, whose concern is simply to set forth, say, a description

of Pauline thought, can make a lasting contribution to this

subject, if he has achieved a high degree of exegetical skill."

                                           294

 

            part of the scholar, and indeed more than that: it assumes a

            traditional kind of faith--whether Jewish or Christian-which

            expresses itself in terms of a "religious community" having the

            power to require such dogmatic beliefs as the authority of scripture.³⁰

            Though I believe that Childs, as Whybray recognizes, would

not necessarily agree with the way Whybray characterizes

Childs's assumptions, on behalf of the Christo-canonical

approach, I will enter a plea of guilty. Scholarly autonomy, in

order to be truly free (which is what I suppose Whybray and

others mean by autonomy), must submit itself to the authority

of Christ. This objection fails to recognize that there is no such

thing as scholarly autonomy; every scholar is captive in his or

her hermeneutical endeavors, either captive to the one who

wishes to keep people from understanding the truth, or, as was

Martin Luther, "captive to the Word of God."

            Ronald R. Ray, in what he calls a "recontextualized  restatement"

of John 8:31-36, imagines a conversation between Jacques Ellul

and professional biblical scholars, of which I quote a portion here:

            Once upon a time, Jacques Ellul got into an argument with the

            professionals. It began when he had the audacity to quote

            Scripture against Scripture's custodians. He told the biblical

            scholars that they would never be able to interpret Scripture

            properly unless they lived under the power of the risen Lord.

            He said that only those who are Christ's disciples can know the

            biblical truth that frees.

            The biblically wise took offense at the mutterings of such an

            unordained and theologically degreeless babe. "That's too

            simple! We know better than that, for we are the descendants

            of Wellhausen, Gunkel, and Bultmann. And

____________________

            ³⁰R. N. Whybray, "Reflections on Canonical Criticism,"

Theology 84 (1981): 30.

                                                 295

 

            besides, we have never been in bondage to anyone. How

            then can you say that Jesus Christ alone can make us free?"

            But being a good Calvinist, Ellul was unswerving in his

            view that even biblical scholars are sinners in need of

            deliverance. And so he continued, "Only if the Son makes you

            free, will you find true freedom in your biblical

            interpretation."³¹

 

            Biblical scholars need to understand that autonomous

interpretation is sinful interpretation. For it is just as

autonomous exegesis is confronted with the demands of God's

word and the conviction that same word brings when those

demands are not met, that autonomous hermeneutical endeavor

tends to make the message of the Bible other than what it

really is. As Vern Poythress says, "sin perverts

interpretation because sinners hate this subjection to God."³²

In other words, autonomous interpretation seeks to make God a

liar (1 John 1:10; 5:10). Interpretation done under the

authority of Christ has as its express goal the declaration of

God's truth as it is found in his word.

                        Supersessionism is Revived

            The last objection to be considered is that this kind of

canonical exegesis, which claims subservience to Christ,

breaks down the ties of scholarly collaboration and, with

regard to the Old Testament in particular, smacks of anti-

____________________

            ³¹Ray, "Jacques Ellul's Innocent Notes on Hermeneutics," 268.

            ³²Vern S. Poythress, "Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation,"

WTJ 50 (1988): 306. The entire article is essential reading on this

entire point.

                                          296

 

Semitic supersessionism. For the first part of this

objection, I quote from Whybray again:

            It denies the right to be regarded as bona fide students and

            interpreters of the Old Testament to all those whose aim is the

            study of the religion and literature of the ancient people of

            Israel simply as an historical phenomenon without prejudice or

            religious commitment, and so threatens to disturb, and indeed,

            if it wins acceptance, to destroy that happy co-operation among

            workers in the Old Testament field which has developed since

            the last century and now flourishes as never before.³³

            For the second part of the objection, that it revives a

supersessionist anti-Semitism, one need only consult the

volume of essays edited by Roger Brooks and John Collins,

entitled, Hebrew Bible or Old Testament: Studying the Bible in

Judaism and Christianity. Brooks and Collins, in the

introduction to the book, assert that

            the traditional supersessionist claim that biblical religion finds

            its true fulfillment in Christianity has undeniably led to the

            denigration of Judaism, ancient, medieval, and modern, and

            cannot be held innocent of the outrage of anti-Semitism and

            Holocaust in our century. Concession of this point has

            considerable implications for Christian theology, for

            supersessionism is deeply rooted in that tradition. Nonetheless,

            it is a presupposition of the dialogue presented in this volume

            that a supersessionist view of the Old Testament is no longer

            tenable.³⁴

____________________

            ³³Whybray, "Reflections on Canonical Criticism," 30-31.

            ³⁴Roger Brooks and John J. Collins, "Introduction," in Hebrew

Bible or Old Testament: Studying the Bible in Judaism and

Christianity, ed. Roger Brooks and John J. Collins, Christianity

and Judaism in Antiquity 5 (Notre Dame: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1990), 1. For other statements that call for

Christian and Jewish cooperation without presuppositions in

the study of Hebrew Bible, see F. F. Bruce, "The Theology and

Interpretation of the Old Testament," in Scripture, Tradition,

and Interpretation: Essays by Members of the Society for Old

Testament Study, ed. G. W. Anderson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979),

                                             297

 

            First, I think it important, even as Whybray, to preserve that

"happy co-operation" among scholars. But I do not think that

this means also that the scholars can leave their confessional

stances at home, or check them at the door when they attend

scholarly meetings. Rather than asking fellow scholars to

bracket their presuppositions, would it not be more honest to

have them lay all their cards on the table and simply openly

admit that their interpretations have been, wholly or in part,

guided and influenced by their faith commitments?

            Second, in regard to the charge of supersessionism, it is

important to note that, strictly, the Christo-canonical approach

does not consider the Old Testament to have been taken over

by the Church. The approach considers the Old Testament to

be the book of Christ from the very start (see chapter 5, thesis

number two). But, certainly, from the Jewish perspective, this

is just begging the question.

            Third, therefore, also in response to the charge of

supersessionism, it is important to keep in mind that this so-

called "supersessionism" is not just rooted in Christian

"tradition"; it is rooted in Christian canon. Jon Levenson

____________________

385; Paul D. Hanson, "Biblical Interpretation: Meeting Place of

Jews and Christians," in Canon, Theology and Old Testament

Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, ed. Gene

M. Tucker, David L. Petersen, and Robert R. Wilson

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 32-47; and the other essays in

the Brooks and Collins volume, in particular, the one by Rolf

Rendtorff, "Toward a Common Jewish-Christian

Understanding of the Hebrew Bible," 89-108.

                                           298

 

notes this when he says that Christian developments in Old

Testament theology in the last century reflect

            Christian supersessionist thinking, such as the insistence of

            Paul, or at least the early Paul, that it is Christians through faith

            rather than Jews through birth who inherit the status of Isaac,

            the son by the promise (Gal. 4:28-5:1).³⁵

Christian reading of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture

is not just a "plus" for Christians; it is foundational, it is

demanded, it is canonical. For our Jewish scholarly friends

to ask us to read the Old Testament without regarding it as

Christian Scripture is to ask us to be disobedient to our

consciences, our canon, and our Lord. Walter Brueggemann, in

the introduction to his Genesis commentary, though claiming no

presumptions "that the New Testament is the ‘resolution’ of

the Old Testament" or "that the Church is the `fulfillment' of

‘unfulfilled’ Israel" (though I myself would want to claim

both these things in some measure), nevertheless goes on to

note correctly:

            The best faith that can be kept with Jewish brothers and sisters

            is to be honest and candid about our presuppositions and to

            hold them in the presence of those

____________________

            ³⁵Jon D. Levenson, "Theological Consensus or Historicist

Evasion? Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies," in Hebrew

Bible or Old Testament: Studying the Bible in Judaism and

Christianity, ed. Roger Brooks and John J. Collins, Christianity

and Judaism in Antiquity 5 (Notre Dame: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1990), 116. It is interesting to note that in a

revised copy of this article in Levenson's book, The Hebrew

Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism, there is a,

perhaps significant, change of wording in this citation (p. 87).

The phrase, "such as the insistence of Paul," is changed to

"which perhaps began with the insistence of Paul." Is this

revision perhaps a lessening of the implication that

supersessionism is found in Christian canon?

                                          299

 

            brothers and sisters. Thus we have engaged in no euphemisms

            about "Hebrew Scripture," for serious Jews know what we

            Christians are up to in that regard in any case.³⁶

            Finally, in regard to the supersessionism charge, I claim that

the belief that the Old Testament is Christian Scripture cannot

be held responsible for anti-Semitism and/or the Holocaust.

There have, no doubt, been so-called Christian groups that

have been anti-Semitic, such as the "German Christians" in the

Nazi years in Germany. But it must be stressed emphatically

that those Christians did not read the Scriptures canonically

and were not obedient to the Lord of the canon. In fact, if

anything, those groups were the theological descendants of Old

Testament scholarship that had denied the Old Testament

status as Christian Scripture and had severed the Old

Testament from Christ. As Levenson correctly notes, it was the

Wellhausen school, the historical-critical school, that set the

religious climate for the "final solution."³⁷ But it was Barth

and Bonhoeffer and those in the "Confessing Church" who

were more truly the descendants of the New Testament and

who faithfully read the Scriptures as a canonical whole.

____________________

            ³⁶Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, IBC (Atlanta: John Knox,

1982), 7. Cf. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., ("The Old Testament and

the Christian Faith," CurTM 20 [1993]: 248): "The widespread

shift within the Christian community from `Old Testament' to

`Hebrew Scriptures' is one with large theological implications

that I believe have not been thought through sufficiently."

            ³⁷Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, 41-43.

                                      300

 

            Vern Poythress, in two of his articles, "God's Lordship in

Interpretation," and "Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation,"

has contributed greatly to the understanding that our

interpretation must be both redeemed and obedient

interpretation.³⁸ And as Poythress notes, this only happens as

the interpreter comes to the cross of Christ where,

            Christ in his death suffered the destruction of his own

            understanding (Matt 27:46) in order that in his resurrection he

            might communicate to us perfect wisdom (Luke 24:45). . . .

            Christ undergoes, as it were, a hermeneutical death and

            resurrection with respect to his understanding of himself and

            the OT, in order that we may be freed from our hermeneutical

            sin."³⁹

            To say that exegesis of the Scriptures must be done canonically

is to say that it must be done by those who have been redeemed

by Christ and are seeking to interpret his canon in obedience to

the Lord of canon. Therefore, it must go beyond Stuhlmacher's

proposal of a "hermeneutics of consent" with a mere "openness

to transcendence."40 Rather, it must be a "hermeneutics of

submission" with a complete vulnerability to the transcendent

God.

____________________

            38 Vern S. Poythress, "God's Lordship in Interpretation, WTJ

50 (1988): 27-64; "Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation,"

WTJ 50 (1988): 305-21.

            39Poythress, "Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation," 321.

            40Peter Stuhlmacher, Historical Criticism and Theological

Interpretation of Scripture: Toward a Hermeneutics of Consent,

trans. Roy A. Harrisville (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), esp.

pp. 83-89. As Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. notes, Stuhlmacher's

consent is not so much to Scripture as it is to historical-method

(review of Vom Verstehen des Neuen Testaments. Eine

Hermeneutik, by Peter Stuhlmacher, in WTJ 43 [1980]: 168).

                                             301

 

                              Thesis Number Nine:

             Christ is Lord over the Disclosure of Meaning

            The Christo-canonical approach asserts that the only

truly authentic interpretation of Scripture is that which is

done in hermeneutical humility and not in hermeneutical

arrogance and idolatry. It humbles itself before the Lord of

the canon, realizing that the one who is Lord of the meaning

of biblical canon is also Lord over disclosure of the same.

To say that exegesis must be done canonically is to say that

it must be done in humility. And even this humility is no

guarantee of correct interpretation. As David Steinmetz says

in summarizing the thought of Martin Luther,

            Scripture is not in our power. It is not at the disposal of our

            intellect and is not obliged to render up its secrets to those who

            have theological training, merely because they are learned.

            Scripture imposes its own meaning; it binds the soul to God

            through faith. Because the initiative in the interpretation of

            Scripture remains in the hands of God, we must humble

            ourselves in His presence and pray that He will give

            understanding and wisdom to us as we meditate on the sacred

            text. Whilst we may take courage from the thought that God

            gives understanding of Scripture to the humble, we should also

            heed the warning that the truth of God can never coexist with

            human pride. Humility is the hermeneutical precondition for

            authentic exegesis.⁴¹

There are several very important implications of this thesis.

            (1) First, it is important to understand that no

interpreter may demand satisfaction or product for his or her

exegetical labors. Despite all the skill, labor, and time

____________________

            ⁴¹David C. Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament

Interpretation in Staupitz and the Young Luther," ARG 70

(1979): 41-42.

                                                302

 

that may be expended on the sacred text, the Lord alone is in

control of the text's meaning and its disclosure. This is simply a

part of our confession that God is sovereign. Though there are

many factors that will guarantee an incorrect interpretation,

there are none, from the human side, that will guarantee a

correct one. Thomas Provence, in summarizing the thought of

Karl Barth, writes eloquently in this regard:

            The understanding of the Bible is a result of the activity of its

            subject matter, Jesus Christ, through the inspiration of the Holy

            Spirit. It is purely a matter of the sovereignty of this object that

            he causes an interpreter to know him as the object of the

            Scriptures. No methodology, no finely honed historical skills

            can bring about true understanding.⁴²

            (2) Second, every interpreter must beware of hermeneutical

idolatry, an attitude of pride that comes from the mistaken

notion that one has come to the correct understanding of a text

because of one's own hermeneutical skills. Rather, every

interpreter must refuse to exempt his or her hermeneutical

skills or discoveries from the list of things given in answer

to the question and subsequent condemnation, "What do

you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive

it, why do you boast as though you did not"

____________________

            ⁴²Thomas W. Provence, "The Sovereign Subject Matter:

Hermeneutics in the Church Dogmatics," in A Guide to Contemporary

Hermeneutics: Major Trends in Biblical Interpretation, ed.

Donald K. McKim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 261. Cf. also,

other very eloquent statements in this regard in Bloesch, "A

Christological Hermeneutic," 101-2; and Bruce K. Waltke,

"Kingdom Promises as Spiritual," Continuity and

Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the

Old and New Testaments: Essays in Honor of S. Lewis

Johnson, Jr., ed. John S. Feinberg (Westchester, IL: Crossway,

1988), 265-66.

                                     303

 

(1 Cor 4:7). Further, as Poythress points out, interpreters,

just because they live in an age of hermeneutical self-

consciousness, should not think that they are incapable of

being mired in this hermeneutical idolatry:

            Growth in autonomous hermeneutical self-consciousness and

            sophistication never reveals the radical character of sin or its

            remedy, but only spreads the cancer of sinful pride. Human

            beings who have made themselves like gods (Gen 3:22) cannot

            rectify their mistake, because their gods control their

            interpretation. Only the foolishness of the cross can save.⁴³

            (3) Third, this means that no interpreter, no matter,

how careful their exegetical work, may directly equate their

interpretation of the text with the actual meaning of the

text. Conservatives and liberals alike come under

condemnation here. Conservatives have too often equated

orthodoxy with conformity to a particular interpretation.⁴⁴

And liberals have been all too quick to dogmatize the "assured

results" of biblical criticism.⁴⁵ As Smart correctly notes,

____________________

            ⁴³Poythress, "Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation," 312;

see also his "God's Lordship in Interpretation," 62.

            ⁴⁴On this point see Moisés Silva, "Old Princeton,

Westminster, and Inerrancy," in Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A

Tradition, A Challenge, A Debate, ed. Harvie M. Conn (Grand

Rapids: Baker, 1988), 75-79.

            ⁴⁵Note James C. Howell's censure here ("Jerome's Homilies on

the Psalter in Bethlehem," in The Listening Heart: Essays in

Wisdom and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O.

Carm., ed. Kenneth G. Hoglund, Elizabeth F. Huwiler,

Jonathan T. Glass, and Roger W. Lee, JSOTSup 58 (Sheffield:

JSOT Press, 1987), 193: "There is an undeniable arrogance and

homogeneity to modern biblical criticism." Cf. also Jung Kyu-

Nam, "The Task and Methodology of Old Testament

Theology," ACTS Theological Journal 3 (1988): 168-69.

                                             304

 

            Every apprehension of the text and every statement of its

            meaning is an interpretation and, however adequately it

            expresses the content of the text, it dare not ever be equated

            with the text itself. There remains always a significant distance

            between the interpretation and the text, a distance that counsels

            humility in the interpreter and excludes the absolutizing of any

            interpretation as though it were the final truth. It is striking

            how consistently interpreters of Scripture, ancient and modern,

            conservative and liberal, have ignored this basic principle of

            hermeneutics and have identified their interpretations directly

            with the content of the text.⁴⁶

            (4) Fourth, this humility is to be not only vertical, but also

horizontal; it is to be manifested, not only before God, but also

before one's brothers and sisters. It is God and God alone who

determines who may understand his words. And though this

does not excuse the biblical scholar from exegetical labor, it

does mean that if God chooses to reveal the meaning to

someone who has expended no labor, that is his sovereign

right. The biblical scholar must always be willing to have his

or her interpretations subjected to correction from other

members of Christ's body, learned or unlearned.⁴⁷

            (5) Fifth, this humility should drive the would-be interpreter

to prayer. In his article on Barth's hermeneutics, Provence states

that, in the light of the lack of a guarantee that our exegetical

labors will produce satisfactory or assured result, and in light of the

fact that God is sovereign over the disclosure of meaning, "Prayer,

____________________

            ⁴⁶Smart, The Strange Silence, 53-54.

            ⁴⁷Cf. Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament

Interpretation," 42-43; Bloesch, "A Christological Hermeneutic," 101-2.

                                        305

 

then, is an expression of our dependence upon the sovereign

object of the text for understanding."⁴⁸ It

            is the confession that it is impossible to finally understand the

            Bible in our own power through our hermeneutical skills alone.

            Only God, as the object of the Scripture and so the determiner

            of its meaning, can graciously bestow meaning upon the

            biblical text.⁴⁹

We must carefully, however, that, even as important as this

aspect may be, it is still no guarantee of correct exegesis or a

breakthrough to understanding. Jacob may have wrestled with

God all night, and may have prevailed, but he never was told

the name of the one with whom he wrestled (Gen 32:22-32).

            (6) Sixth, though prayer is to be an important part of our

exegetical endeavor, we should not think of the hermeneutical

task as being dialogical in character. But as Gaffin has

contended, we "must recognize the essentially monological

nature" of the relationship between text and interpreter.⁵⁰ We

must never conceive of hermeneutics as being in any way a

discussion between God and the interpreter where the

interpreter suggests to God what God's words mean. Amid all

the discussion about the "two horizons" of text and interpreter,

we must never think that in some way our horizon has any

control over the horizon of the text. Indeed, it is

____________________

            ⁴⁸Provence, "The Sovereign Subject Matter," 261.

            ⁴⁹Ibid., 262.

            ⁵⁰Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., "Contemporary Hermeneutics and the

Study of the New Testament," in Studying the New Testament

Today, ed. John H. Skilton, The New Testament Student 1

(Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1974), 14.

                                             306

 

just the opposite: we had nothing to do with the horizon of the

biblical text, but the Holy Spirit, who produced the textual

horizon, if understanding is to occur, must also operate on our

horizon.⁵¹ The emphasis on the interpreter's horizon as being

determinative of meaning is, to a large extent, simply another

evidence of modern-day hermeneutical arrogance.

            (7) Finally, hermeneutical humility demands that the

interpreter recognize that the hermeneutical task is not so much

to understand God's word as to respond to it, not to criticize the

text, but to let the text criticize the interpreter, not to question

the text, but to be questioned by the text, not to make the

meaning of the text transparent to the reader, but to make the

reader transparent to the text. As noted by Ray in regard to

Ellul's hermeneutics, probably the reason we ask so many

questions of the text is that we think by doing so we will

somehow escape the "divine questioning."⁵² The interpreter

has a responsibility to come to the word of God, not just as to a

window that can be looked through in order to see a vision of God,

though that certainly is a worthy goal, but to also come to it as to

a mirror, to find out what God thinks about them. This is our

____________________

            ⁵¹For this insight into the problem of the two horizons, see

Harvie M. Conn, "Normativity, Relevance and Relativism," in

Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, A Challenge, A

Debate, ed. Harvie M. Conn (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988),

201-2.

            ⁵²Ray, "Jacques Ellul's Innocent Notes," 270.

                                          307

 

hermeneutical humility before the mirror of the word of God.

Arrogant interpreters, however, walk away and forget what

they look like.

            To say that exegesis of the Scriptures must be done canonically

is to say that it must be done in full humility before the Lord of

the canon, who alone is sovereign over the disclosure of the

meaning of the text.

                              Thesis Number Ten:

                  Christ's Canon Is Canonical over All

                          Scholarly Reconstruction

            The Christo-canonical approach presupposes that only the

Christ-authorized canon is canonical, and not any purported

scholarly reconstruction of events behind the canon. In other

words, this approach recognizes the authority of Christ over the

canon, and not that of scholars. While recognizing the

contribution of scholarship, it does not regard these

contributions as canonical. Research and commentaries on the

canon remain research and commentaries, not canon.

            This thesis really arises out of the last one and zeroes

in on one particular form of hermeneutical arrogance and

idolatry. It is all too easy for scholars to begin to take their

work too seriously, and to begin to believe that their methodology

or their key insight into the historical, literary, sociological, or

other reconstructions of a passage is, in fact, the key to the

interpretation and understanding of the passage. As Provence

remarks,

                                        308

 

            If the interpretation of the Bible is a matter of subjecting

            the text to human methodologies, then there is the

            consequent possibility that the methodologies will become

            masters of the text, and therefore authorities in the church.⁵³

            Therefore, just as Childs does for his canonical approach, I

would claim for the Christo-canonical approach that it is no

more than a stance or a perspective. At the same time, I would

also do more than Childs does for his approach, and claim that

a Christological-canonical approach is the perspective, the

proper stance, the proper angle from which to view the text.

And I would suggest that most, and perhaps even all,

hermeneutical errors arise from an improper view of the

relationship between Christ and canon. And so, on the very

point under consideration now, I claim that all attempts to

make any one methodology, or any one reconstruction of a

text's literary or sociological history to be normative, are

attempts to displace the canon from its position under the

authority of Christ and to place it under the authority of biblical

scholars. This is why I said earlier (1) that Childs's canonical

analysis was not canonical enough, for he still resorts to

redactional reconstructions to find the canonical meaning of

the final form, and (2) that Sanders's canonical criticism was

not canonical at all, for it is only the reconstruction that is

canonical for him, never the text itself.⁵⁴

____________________

            ⁵³Provence, "The Sovereign Subject Matter," 251.

            ⁵⁴Of course, this reconstruction can only be accomplished by

                                          309

 

            This is not to say that historical reconstruction may not be

useful as an aid in the interpretation of a passage. All scholars,

even conservative evangelicals, do something in the way of

reconstruction, if for no other reason than that of

harmonization.⁵⁵ The only point being made here is that for all

their potential value in elucidating the meaning of a text,

reconstructions must never be regarded as authoritative. When

they are set forth as authoritative, or allowed to become

regarded as such, there is the tacit assumption that God should

have spoken to us differently than he did, either in content or in

form.

            This is simply the confession that there are limits to what can

be uncovered by critical, investigative work on a text. And

those limits are not simply arbitrary limits set by interpreters

themselves, or set by groups of interpreters as a self-critical

society, but they are limits that are established by the canon of

Holy Scripture. As Porteous says, "The interpreter has no

option but to accept the limit set by the intention of the biblical

witness and start from what is really there."⁵⁶

____________________

biblical scholars. It seems strange, then, that Sanders feels that

his approach is a corrective to scholarship that has taken the

Bible out of the hands of the people and put chained it to the

scholar's desk.

            ⁵⁵On this, see Moisés Silva, "The Place of Historical

Reconstruction in New Testament Criticism," in Hermeneutics,

Authority, and Canon, ed. Donald A. Carson and John D.

Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 110.

            ⁵⁶Norman Porteous, "The Limits of Old Testament

                                           310

 

            This is precisely the point made by one of Childs's

students, Gerald Sheppard:

            To the degree that historical-grammatical exegesis is successful

            in reviving a "lost" historical context, it effectively de-

            canonizes the literature by putting it in some other context than

            the canonical. One can, by critical methodologies, legitimately

            attempt to get behind the present canonical shape for purposes

            of studying the history of Israelite religion or that of the early

            church and for illuminating the formation of canonical

            traditions. But to use such recovered material normatively for

            one's faith is to opt for another position of Christian faith than

            that of the Christian Church in its historical confession of the

            entire Old and New Testament canon as its Scripture.⁵⁷

            Christ has chosen to manifest himself in biblical canon,

not in scholarly reconstruction.⁵⁸ This is why I am opposed to

____________________

Interpretation," in Proclamation and Presence: Old Testament

Essays in Honor of Gwynne Henton Davies, ed. John I. Durham and

J. R. Porter (Richmond: John Knox, 1970), 15. Cf. also, Gerhard F. Hasel,

"Biblical Theology: Then, Now, and Tomorrow," HBT 4/1 (1982): 74:

"A canonical biblical theology . . . is limited by the boundaries of the

Biblical canon and the canonical form of the Biblical text."

            ⁵⁷Gerald T. Sheppard, "Canon Criticism: The Proposal of

Brevard Childs and an Assessment for Evangelical

Hermeneutics," Studia Biblica et Theologica 4 (1974): 13; see

also his "Barr on Canon and Childs: Can one Read the Bible as

Scripture?" Theological Students Fellowship Bulletin 7/2

(1983): 2. It is to be noted here, that though Sheppard has

departed somewhat from his teacher, he is still consistent on

this point. For example, in his article "The anti-Assyrian Crisis

Redaction and the Canonical Context of Isaiah 1-39," (JBL 104

[1985]: 213), after a redactional explanation as to how Isaiah 1-

39 was shaped and retained in the larger Isaiah work, he then

goes on to state regarding his explanation: "Both its speculative

nature and its limited scope prevent such analysis from being

equated with an answer to what is the `shape,' as Childs has used the

term, of the book of Isaiah. Consequently, such redactional investigations

per se can provide no sufficient guide to the reading or constructive

misreading of a canonical book as part of a still later scripture."

            ⁵⁸Cf. Wilhelm Vischer, The Witness of the Old Testament to

Christ, trans A. B. Crabtree (London: Lutterworth, 1949), 1.29-30.

                                           311

 

the efforts of scholars like Schubert Ogden, for although he

rightly recognizes that Jesus Christ is the ultimate norm for the

Church (see chapter 5), he ultimately rejects this authority by

refusing to accept Christ's authority as manifested in biblical

canon, but asserts, rather, that what is authoritative is "the

apostolic witness that is prior to the New Testament, although

accessible to us today only by way of historical reconstruction

from it."⁵⁹ Or, in other words, as he says even more clearly

later in the same article,

            Specifically it is the historical procedure of reconstructing the

            history of tradition of which the writings of the New Testament

            are the documentation, so as thereby to identify the earliest

            layer in that tradition, from which alone the true canon within

            the canon is to be discerned.⁶⁰

            In the same way, von Rad, in defending a typological

interpretation which, by his own lack of credence in the

historical trustworthiness of the biblical text, is basically a

typology without substance, states that such typological

interpretation

            has only to do with the witness to the divine event, not with

            such correspondences in historical, cultural, or archaeological

            details as the Old Testament and the New may have in

            common. It must hold itself to the kerygma that is intended,

            and not fix upon the narrative details with the aid of which the

            kerygma is set forth.⁶¹

____________________

            ⁵⁹Schubert M. Ogden, "The Authority of Scripture for

Theology," Int 30 (1976): 252.

            ⁶⁰Ogden, "The Authority of

Scripture for Theology," 258.

            ⁶¹Gerhard von Rad, "Typological Interpretation of the Old

Testament," trans. John Bright, in Essays on Old Testament

                                         312

 

What John Stek remarks about von Rad's program applies to

Ogden's as well: "With almost arrogant confidence in his own

historical method, von Rad pits his radical reconstruction of

Israel's history against the biblical witness."⁶² For all the talk

about putting forth the "kerygma," the "biblical witness," or the

"apostolic witness" of the text, methods such as Ogden's and

von Rad's seek only to put forth a reconstruction that robs the

biblical text of the very right to say what that witness is.

            Far less arrogant, but still reconstructive in its orientation, is

the attitude that Scalise finds in criticisms of Childs. After

remarking that Childs attracted the same kind of reviews that

the early Barth did, Scalise notes that much of the criticism that

Childs received was for not paying enough attention to

historical and sociological reconstructions:

            For example, Walter Brueggemann criticizes Childs for

            displaying "little interest in the social dynamic behind the

            text", in contrast to Sanders. Brueggemann falls captive to the

            questionable view of historical reconstructionism that one can

            successfully go through the text to the "historical reality"

            behind it. This reconstructionist view inexorably leads him to

            psychologize the biblical writers. So, for example, concerning

            First Isaiah, Brueggemann claims, "The prophet is not driven

            simply by anger or even by anguish, but has made a cold intellectual

            assessment of the social processes around him." To read First

            Isaiah as establishing "critical distance" and offering a "critique

____________________

Hermeneutics, ed. Claus Westermann, ET ed. James Luther

Mays (Richmond: John Knox, 1963), 36-37.

            ⁶²John H. Stek, "Biblical Typology Yesterday and Today,"

Calvin Theological Journal 5 (1970): 156.

          

                                              313

 

            of ideology" may be homiletically powerful, but seems

            exegetically unwarranted.⁶³

A further problem with Brueggemann's critique is that he seems

to equate lack of "interest in the social dynamic" with "refusal

to reconstruct sociological context." There is, perhaps, not a

single discipline that could not be consulted to provide illumination

for the understanding of the text, and certainly, sociology can be

helpful as well. A problem occurs, however, when these

various disciplines are allowed to become sovereign in their

explanations as to how the text came to be in the first place,

and when they wish to make extra-textual reality the true

reality behind, and explanation for, the text. I am in no way

suggesting that the text is not referential, but rather, that it is a

consulting of the text itself which must tell us what that extra-

textual reference is. The text's own reconstruction takes priority

over scholarly reconstruction. Or to put it more bluntly, God's

reconstruction of what happened is canonically authoritative,

not a scholarly reconstruction of what supposedly "really

happened."⁶⁴

____________________

            ⁶³Charles J. Scalise, "Canonical Hermeneutics: Childs and

Barth," SJT 47 (1994): 87. Scalise is citing Walter

Brueggemann, "Unity and Dynamic in the Isaiah Tradition,"

JSOT 29 (1984): 90-94. Cf. also, Norman K. Gottwald, "Social Matrix and

Canonical Shape," TToday 42 (1985): 315-18.

            ⁶⁴Walter Brueggemann (Abiding Astonishments: Psalms,

Modernity, and the Making of History, Literary Currents in

Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox,

1991, 40) correctly observes that even so-called "objective"

historical reconstructions nevertheless "reflect powerful ideological

                                           314

 

            It is in this light that I would like to close this discussion by

briefly addressing the issue of myth in the Bible. Though once

the claim that there are myths in the Scriptures was made only

by liberal scholars, now even conservative scholars seem to

admit that there are mythological elements in the Scriptures.⁶⁵

This issue will not be especially important for the psalms

I have chosen to look at in Part Three where I apply the Christo-

canonical approach to the book of Psalms. But what I do want

to point out here is that if there are, indeed, myths or

mythological elements in the Bible, it is important for us to

recognize that it is they which are canonical, and not the

scholarly reconstructions of the actual historical account which

has been mythologized. The canonical representation of what

happened is authoritative; the canonical account is how God

wishes us to perceive the events narrated.⁶⁶

____________________

commitments."

            ⁶⁵For just a few examples of this, see Donald G. Bloesch,

Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration & Interpretation,

Christian Foundations 2 (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1994),

25577; Tremper Longman III, How to Read the Psalms

(Leicester/Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988), 118-21; Bruce

K. Waltke, "The Literary Genre of Genesis, Chapter One,"

Crux 27/4 (1991): 6-8; Elmer B. Smick, "Mythopoetic

Language in the Psalms," WTJ 44 (1982): 88-98.

            ⁶⁶Though I am not addressing it here because of its only

tangential relevance to the Psalms, what I am saying in regard

to these myths would hold for much of what is proposed in

modern narrative theology as well, in particular, the view that

we misread the accounts as history when we should be reading

them as "history-like" (Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative:

A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics [New

Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974]). But as Meir

                                           315

 

To say that exegesis of the Scriptures must be done canonically

is to say that the canon's reconstruction overrules that of the

interpreter.

                              Thesis Number Eleven:

                    Christ's Canon Is for Christ's Church

            The Christo-canonical approach demands that the interpreter of

Scripture do his or her work with an eye to the use of that work

within the service of the Church. The Scriptures were given to

build up the Church and must be interpreted with that purpose

in mind. Further, our hermeneutics must be pointedly

ecclesiological in light of the vital union of Christ and the

Church, a union which almost at times seems to approach

identification.

            As a corrective to a de-emphasis on the relationship between

canon and community in several theses in chapter 5, I now emphasize

the importance of the relationship in this thesis. The de-emphasis

in chapter 5 was in regards to the idea that canon is a community

creation. The emphasis in this chapter is that canon, nevertheless,

exists for, and in, community. Therefore it is best interpreted

when the interpretation takes place in, for, and by, the community,

____________________

Sternberg points out, all indicators in the text itself point to the

biblical authors desiring to present not fiction, but

historiography (The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological

Literature and the Drama of Reading [Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1985], 30-35, 81-83). See also John

Reumann's criticism of narrative theology's use of the term

"history-like" ("Afterword: Putting the Promise into Practice,"

in The Promise and Practice of Biblical Theology, ed. John

Reumann [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991], 198).

                                                316

 

that is, the Church. In this connection, there are three things

that need to be stressed.

            (1) Interpretive efforts are best undertaken in the sphere of the

Church.⁶⁷ I do not necessarily mean by this a particular

denomination, local congregation, small group, or similar

structure, though any of these could be and probably should be

entailed. I do mean by this, however, that interpretation

properly takes place within the community of the redeemed.

The Christ who gave to the Church the Old and New

Testaments by his Spirit has also promised illumination of

those Scriptures by His Spirit. And only those who confess

Christ as Lord may properly claim that they are being aided in

their exegesis by the Spirit.

            This does not mean that the Scriptures may not be studied in

other contexts besides that of Church, seminary, and Christian

college or university. It does mean that it is only in these

contexts that there can be put forth the claim that the Spirit of

God, "who searches all things, even the deep things of God" (1

Cor 2:10), is present.

            Though I agree with Daniel Fuller that the role of

the Holy Spirit is to "change the heart of the interpreter, so

that he loves the message,"⁶⁸ I do not agree with him, however,

____________________

            ⁶⁷Cf. James D. Wood, The Interpretation of the Bible: A

Historical Introduction (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1958),

175; George A. F. Knight, A Christian Theology of the Old

Testament (Richmond: John Knox, 1959), 7.

            ⁶⁸Daniel P. Fuller, "The Holy Spirit's Role in Biblical

Interpretation," in Scripture, Tradition, and Interpretation:

that the Holy Spirit's role in illumination is limited to the

                                       317

 

attitudinal and does not involve the cognitive.⁶⁹ Fuller

suggests that for there to be a cognitive illumination, the Holy

Spirit would also have to impart new information "beyond the

historical-grammatical data that are already there for everyone

to work with."⁷⁰ What exactly constitutes "new information"

could be debated, but I believe that a proper exegesis of the

relevant passages (especially 1 Cor 1:18-2:16) will show that,

at the very least, we have to say that this attitudinal change is

one that affects the cognitive as well. Because we love the

message, we also understand the message.⁷¹ And this

cognitive understanding is one which non-redeemed exegesis

cannot obtain.

            However, it is important to keep in mind, that the

Spirit, though imparted individually to each new believer,

is the gift of Christ to the whole Church. Therefore, it

is important for biblical interpreters to subject their

____________________

Essays Presented to Everett F. Harrison by His Students and

Colleagues in Honor of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. W.

Ward Gasque and William Sanford LaSor (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1978), 192.

            ⁶⁹For a valuable and, I believe, correct evaluation of

Fuller's position, see Millard J. Erickson, Evangelical

Interpretation: Perspectives on Hermeneutical Issues (Grand

Rapids: Baker, 1993), 33-54.

            ⁷⁰Fuller, "The Holy Spirit's Role," 192.

            ⁷¹Cf. Erickson (Evangelical Interpretation, 54): "The role of

the Holy Spirit in illumination, then, is to convey insight into

the meaning of the text. Illumination does not involve the

communication of new information, but a deeper

understanding of the meaning that is there."

                                                318

 

understanding of Scripture to both scholarly and non-scholarly

critique in the Church. No interpreter is immune to the

arrogance mentioned earlier which would make a direct

identification between what the text says and one's

interpretation of the text. Therefore, it is necessary, though we

each individually have the Spirit of God, to allow our brothers

and sisters in the body of Christ who also have the Spirit of

God, to examine our interpretations, and in this way, exhibit

the humility that is needed for authentic exegesis. As Kraus

remarks regarding the thought of Calvin in this area, study of

the Scriptures should take place "within a community of

brothers, in which each one helps the others, corrects them,

engages them in a dialogue that leads to a better

understanding."⁷² And especially important is the observation

of Steinmetz on Luther's thought:

            The interpretation of Scripture . . . is not, however, simply a

            private event, however important the lonely meditation of the

            biblical scholar may be. The interpretation of Scripture is an

            activity which takes place in the sphere of the Church. . . . The

            Church's rule of faith is a hermeneutical landmark which

            delimits the area within which the exegesis of Scripture may be

            pursued. . . . The student of Scripture is a member of a

            community to which he is responsible and from which he

            receives aid.⁷³

            It is in this light, also, that the history of interpretation is to be

regarded as a vital part of

____________________

            ⁷²Hans-Joachim Kraus, "Calvin's Exegetical Principles," Int

31 (1977): 10.

            ⁷³Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament Interpretation

in Staupitz and the Young Luther," 42.

                                            319

 

interpretation within the context of the Church. It is not simply

a coincidence that Childs's canonical interpretation places such

a great value on the history or exegesis; nor is it without

significance that Childs has come in for heavy criticism in this

area (see chapter 2). For our devaluation of earlier, so-called,

"precritical" exegesis is simply a sign of our hermeneutical

arrogance in thinking that "what is later in time is necessarily

better."⁷⁴ In what I believe is one of the most telling portions

of Childs's Introduction, he writes,

            One of the major reasons for working seriously in the history

            of biblical exegesis is to be made aware of many different

            models of interpretation which have all too frequently been

            disparaged through ignorance. With all due respect for Gunkel,

            the truly great expositors for probing to the theological heart of

            the Psalter remain Augustine, Kimchi, Luther, Calvin, the long

            forgotten Puritans buried in Spurgeon's Treasury, the haunting

            sermons of John Donne, and the learned and pious reflections

            de Muis, Francke and Geier. Admittedly these commentators

            run the risk, which is common to all interpretation, of

            obscuring rather than illuminating the biblical text, but because

            they stand firmly within the canonical context, one can learn

            from them how to speak anew the language of faith.⁷⁵

            The fault of modern hermeneuts is not so much that they think

the older exegetes were in error, but in thinking that they

themselves are free from it. Rather, the right attitude is to see

our consultation of the exegetical work of earlier interpreters as

a consultation of the Holy Spirit as he may have illuminated

them.

____________________

            ⁷⁴Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 79.

            ⁷⁵Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 523.

                                            320

 

            To say that one is interpreting canonically is to say that one is

interpreting Christ's canon within the sphere of Christ's

Church.

            (2) It is important to realize that interpretation takes place not

only within the Church, but also for the Church. This is a vital

part of canonical interpretation: using the canon in the way in

which the Lord of the canon intended it to be utilized. Christ's

words are to be interpreted with the express intention of

encouraging, instructing, unifying, and maturing the Church

until it attains "the whole measure of the fullness of Christ"

(Eph 4:13). Landes well remarks,

            Any exegesis which refuses to expound the theological

            dimensions in these writings overlooks their very raison d'etre.

            Such a refusal may be deemed satisfactory for the exegete who

            works outside a theological milieu, but it is totally inadequate

            for the interpreter in the seminary community of scholars.⁷⁶

            It is important to note in this regard the work of the Reformers.

As Smart notes, they were not "militant protesters and

agitators" but primarily "theologians and preachers"⁷⁷ who

saw what they were doing as vital for the life of the Church.

Kraus observes,

            It is well for us to understand that the Reformers' exegesis of

            Scripture could not remain detached research and scholarly

            interpretation of the Bible. We can observe everywhere their

            direct participation in the life and suffering of the church, the

            seriousness and urgency with

____________________

            ⁷⁶George M. Landes, "Biblical Exegesis in Crisis: What is the

Exegetical Task in a Theological Context?" USQR 26 (1971):

276.

            ⁷⁷Smart, The Strange Silence, 162.

                                                321

 

            which they comfort and exhort, the way they

            debate and instruct.⁷⁸

            Especially important to note here is that, in spite of the

Reformation principle of the perspicuity of Scripture, the

Reformers still recognized that hard exegetical work was still

necessary to correctly understand the full import of the text.

This hard exegetical work was to be done by scholars who, to

recall the earlier quotation from Steinmetz, saw their work as

being one of responsibility to the Church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

encapsulated it well: "We study the Scripture vicariously for

the community of Christ."⁷⁹

            It is no accident, therefore, that now in this century those who

are most often associated with "canonical" interpretation are

both scholars and preachers. Elmer Dyck notes,

            The fact that all of these are both active professors and

            ordained clergy is of more than passing interest. It is testimony

            to the inherently theological nature of the approach, to the

            concern that the Bible be made accessible to both the

            confessional and academic communities.⁸⁰

            The interpreter who wishes to interpret canonically,

therefore, while recognizing that his or her ultimate

responsibility is to Christ, the Lord of the canon, has at the

same time been given a measuring device to determine how

____________________

            ⁷⁸Kraus, "Calvin's Exegetical Principles," 11-12.

            ⁷⁹Cited in Martin Kuske, The Old Testament as the Book of

Christ: An Appraisal of Bonhoeffer's Interpretation. trans. S. T.

Kimbrough, Jr (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), 19 n. 86.

            ⁸⁰Elmer Dyck, "What Do We Mean By Canon?" Crux 25/1

(1989): 18.

                                           322

 

responsible that interpretation has been, by evaluating how

useful it is for the life of the Church.⁸¹

            (3) Finally, a very important reason why the interpreter must

relate exegesis to the life of the Church is the vital union

between Christ and the Church, a union as we noted earlier,

that at times almost seems to approach identification. If the

Scriptures have to do with Christ, then they also have to do

with the Church. A thesis to be considered later concerns

Christological interpretation, so in a way, I am running ahead a

bit here. But the point I am trying to make now is simply that if

we determine that the Scriptures are to be read

Christocentrically, then it is also important to note that in the

light of both, this vital union of Christ and the Church, and that

of corporate solidarity, that Christocentric interpretation will,

of necessity, be ecclesiological as well.⁸²

            Steinmetz has observed this as an important

principle in Luther's hermeneutics as well:

            The third and final hermeneutical device employed by

            Luther is the so-called caput-corpus-membra schema.

            All Scripture is written concerning Christ. Because of the

____________________

            ⁸¹Note that this is somewhat similar to what Augustine's

principle that an interpreter who misunderstands the precise

intent of the author and yet still draws out a meaning "that may

be used for the building up of love" was not to be held

accountable for what he had done (On Christian Doctrine, 1.36,

NPNF 2.533, ed. Philip Schaff (repr., Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1956).

            ⁸²On this point see Dan G. McCartney and Charles Clayton,

Let the Reader Understand: A Guide to Interpreting and

Applying the Bible (Wheaton: Victor, Bridgepoint, 1994), 55-

58.

          

                                         323

 

            union of Christ and the Church as caput et corpus,

            whatever is spoken prophetically concerning Christ is at the

            same time (simul) posited of the Church His body and of every

            member in it.⁸³

            At the same time, I would agree with McCartney and Clayton

that reserve needs to exercised in labeling this exegesis as

"ecclesiocentric," as opposed to "Christocentric."⁸⁴ For the

direction of significance runs from Christ to the Church, never

from the Church to Christ. If the Scriptures have to do with the

Church, it is because they have to do with Christ, and not vice-versa.

            In regards to the Old Testament, in particular, this approach

recognizes that the Old Testament Scriptures point not only to

Christ, but to his Church, and that the activity, evangelistic

work, etc., of the Christian Church are subject matter of Old

Testament prophecy, foreshadowing, and typology (e.g., Luke

24:46-47; Acts 2:16-21; Rom 8:35-36; 1 Pet 1:1012). So in

response to Sean McEvenue's criticism of Childs that "he

even defends Calvin's position that the literal sense of some

Old Testament texts can include Jesus and the life of

____________________

            ⁸³Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament Interpretation

in Staupitz and the Young Luther," 55.

            ⁸⁴McCartney and Clayton, Let the Reader Understand, 307, n.

41. This is in reaction to the use of the term in Richard B.

Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven

and London: Yale University Press, 1989), esp. pp. 84-87, 161-

62, 184. Cf. also, Robert B. Sloan, "The Use of the Old Testament

in the New Testament," in Reclaiming the Prophetic Mantle,

ed. G. L. Klein (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 151.

                                            324

 

the church,"⁸⁵ I would say, whether Childs would accept the

charge or not, we who are evangelicals must plead guilty.

            To say that exegesis must be done canonically is to say

that it must be done in the context of the Christian Church, for

the Church, and will assume that the Scriptures speak, not only

to the Church, but of and about the Church.

 

                          Thesis Number Twelve:

        Christ's Canon is Paradigmatically Authoritative

            The Christo-canonical approach believes that the

New Testament exegesis of the Old Testament is not just

authoritative in terms of content, but also paradigmatically

authoritative in terms of exegetical methodology. It is tenuous

to regard the interpretations of the New Testament authors as

valid while rejecting the methods they used to achieve that

exegesis. The New Testament authors did not come to correct

conclusions through incorrect methods. This thesis grows out

of the last one, in that by adopting the methods of the New

Testament authors, we set our exegesis squarely within the

context of the pattern of apostolic interpretation.

            Whether we may legitimately follow the exegetical

methods of the New Testament writers has been a subject for

debate and the literature has been extensive. Nor has the answer

to this question always been given in absolute terms. As

Moisés Silva notes, the answers are on a continuum from

____________________

            ⁸⁵Sean E. McEvenue, "The Old Testament, Scripture or

Theology?" Int 35 (1981): 233.

                                          325

 

"outright rejection" of apostolic methods to "total

acceptance," with views in between perhaps best characterized

as leaning toward being "sympathetically negative" or

"guardedly positive."⁸⁶ I will define my point on this

continuum after a brief survey of some of the positions along

this continuum.

            The older tactic among those who rejected outright the

possibility of apostolic interpretation serving as a pattern

for our hermeneutics today, was to denigrate the apostles'

exegesis of the Old Testament as lacking in regard for

original meaning and context, being eisegetical rather than

exegetical, and simply not able to command respect in the

modern-day world.⁸⁷ Though there are still vestiges of this

 

____________________

            ⁸⁶Moisés Silva, class notes for the course "Hermeneutics in the

New Testament Period" (Westminster Theological Seminary, 1986).

            ⁸⁷Friedrich Baumgärtel, "The Hermeneutical Problem of the

Old Testament," trans. Murray Newman, in Essays on Old

Testament Hermeneutics, ed. Claus Westermann, ET ed. James

Luther Mays (Richmond: John Knox, 1963), 142-44; in the

same volume, Rudolf Bultmann, "Prophecy and Fulfillment,"

trans. James C. G. Greig, 53-55; James Barr, Old and New in

Interpretation: A Study of the Two Testaments (New York:

Harper & Row, 1966), 142-46, 154; Joachim Becker,

Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament, trans. David

Green (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 94; S. L. Edgar, "New

Testament and Rabbinic Messianic Interpretation," NTS 5

(1958): 47-54; "Respect for Context in Quotations from the

Old Testament," NTS 9 (1962): 55-62; Antonius H. J.

Gunneweg, Understanding the Old Testament, trans. John

Bowden, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 209; Vernon

S. McCasland, "Matthew Twists the Scripture," JBL 80 (1961):

143-48; Roland E. Murphy, "Christian Understanding of the

Old Testament," TD 18 (1970): 324, 329-30; S. Marion Smith,

"New Testament Writers' Use of the Old Testament,"

Encounter 26 (1965): 246-50.

                                            326

 

kind of argument, text-centered and reader-response theories

seem to have robbed this approach of much of its force.

            Another approach has been to uphold the actual results of the

New Testament authors' exegesis, but to deny that they were in

any way trying to provide examples for us to follow. This is a

"not so much that . . . as this" type of argument. They were

"not so much" actually trying to exegete the Old Testament

passages they cited, or provide us with a hermeneutical

textbook, "as" they were simply trying to preach the Gospel.

They were interested in delivering a message, not producing a

scientific exegesis.⁸⁸ To me, however, this argument seems to

suggest that the apostles were incapable of doing two things at

the same time. They could either have come to the right conclusions,

or they could have used the right methods, but they could not

possibly have done both (but, of course, we moderns can!).

            Another tack has been to suggest that the apostles used

methods that were, in fact, entirely appropriate for their

____________________

            ⁸⁸Ted Carruth, "The Implications of Proper Principles of

Biblical Interpretation for Christian Unity," in Biblical

Interpretation: Principles and Practices: Studies in Honor of

Jack Pearl Lewis, ed. F. Furman Kearley, Edward P. Myers,

and Timothy D. Hadley (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), 54;

Norman R. Ericson, "The NT Use of the OT: A Kerygmatic

Approach," JETS 30 (1987): 338; Prosper Grech, "The

`Testimonia' and Modern Hermeneutics," NTS 19 (1973): 319;

Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Living Utterances of God: The

New Testament Exegesis of the Old (London: Darton,

Longman & Todd, 1983), 185-86; Lester J. Kuyper, "The Old

Testament Used by New Testament Writers," Reformed

Review 21 (1967): 13; Richard N. Longenecker, "Can We

Reproduce the Exegesis of the New Testament?" TynBul 21

(1970): 32; George Ernest Wright, God Who Acts: Biblical

Theology as Recital, SBT 8 (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1952), 59-64.

                                         327

 

day, as a proper, as it were, contextualization of the message

for their day, but that their methods are inappropriate for

ours. Longenecker reasons, in part, along this line:

            What the NT presents to us in setting out the exegetical

            practices of early Christians is how the gospel was

            contextualized in that day and for those particular audiences.

            We can appreciate something of how appropriate such methods

            were for the conveyance of the gospel then and of what was

            involved in their exegetical procedures. And we can learn from

            their exegetical methods how to contextualize that same gospel

            in our own day. But let us admit that we cannot possibly

            reproduce the revelatory stance of pesher interpretation, nor the

            atomistic manipulations of midrash, nor the circumstantial or

            ad hominem thrusts of a particular polemic of that day--nor

            should we try. For various reasons, neither we nor our

            audiences are up to it. Ours, rather, is to contextualize the

            gospel in our own day and for our own circumstances,

            speaking meaningfully to people as they are and think today.⁸⁹

While I certainly believe that the apostles may be

paradigmatic for us in demonstrating how to contextualize

the Gospel, it seems to me fairly arbitrary on Longenecker's

part to suggest that they are paradigmatic for us in

contextualization, but not in hermeneutics. Moreover, it

seems hard to understand how that if "neither we nor our

audiences are up to" the apostolic methods of interpretation,

how we can be any more "up to" the results they obtained from

those methods. It seems more illogical to me to suggest to

our audiences that the apostles stumbled onto correct

interpretations through faulty methods.

____________________

            ⁸⁹Richard N. Longenecker, "`Who is the Prophet Talking

About?' Some Reflections on the New Testament's Use of the

Old," Themelios 13/1 (1987): 8.

                                          328

 

            Another approach has been to suggest that what is really

most important is that we have the same presuppositions that the

apostles did, and not necessarily their methods. We must share

their presuppositions about the relationship between the Old

and New Testaments, and the necessity to understand the Old

Testament in a Christological manner (broadly speaking), but

we do not need to follow their methods. We share their faith

commitments, but not necessarily their hermeneutics.90 In

addition to the objections raised to the other approaches, the

problem here is that the apostles' presuppositions and

hermeneutics are inextricably related. To criticize the one is to

criticize the other. We must keep in mind, as well, that the

apostles' presuppositions have not exactly escaped critique in

the twentieth century, as the whole program of demythologization

provides testimony.

            Perhaps the most substantial argument is that which

suggests that, though in theory we could reduplicate apostolic

exegesis, the apostles wrote from a uniquely "revelatory

stance." Therefore we should not try to do so, for our

____________________

            ⁹⁰Walter Eichrodt, "Is Typological Exegesis an Appropriate

Method?" trans. James Barr, in Essays on Old Testament

Hermeneutics, ed. Claus Westermann, ET ed. James Luther

Mays (Richmond: John Knox, 1963), 231. Unless I am

misreading him, this also seems to be the position of Klyne

Snodgrass ("The Use of the Old Testament in the New," in

New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, ed. David Alan

Black and David S. Dockery [Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

1991], 415, 427), though he does also say, "With great fear of

possible abuse, however, I would not want to argue that the

apostles could be creative because of their context, but that we

are confined to more mundane methods" (p. 427).

                                           329

 

interpretation does not partake of the same revelatory nature.

This is Longenecker's major reason:

            What then can be said to our question, "Can we reproduce the

            exegesis of the New Testament?" I suggest that we must

            answer both "No" and "Yes." Where that exegesis is based

            upon a revelatory stance, where it evidences itself to be merely

            cultural, or where it shows itself to be circumstantial or ad

            hominem in nature, "No." Where, however, it treats the Old

            Testament in more literal fashion, following the course of what

            we speak of today as historico-grammatical exegesis, "Yes."

            Our commitment as Christians is to the reproduction of the

            apostolic faith and doctrine, and not necessarily to the specific

            apostolic exegetical practices.⁹¹

Though I admit the necessity of distinguishing between the

revelatory era of the apostles and the non-revelatory era in

which we must do our exegesis, I still see major problems with

this reasoning. The first is that Longenecker's "`No' and

‘Yes’" is a rationalistic, though at the same time, arbitrary,

distinction. It seems to me that Longenecker is not so much

saying that the problem is one of revelatory versus non-

revelatory, but pre-critical versus historico-grammatical. That is,

we may follow the apostles when they conform to our modern

form of grammatical-historical interpretation, but when they

depart from it, we may not follow them. McCartney and Clayton,

in summarizing Longenecker's position, address the issue well:

____________________

            ⁹¹Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic

Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 219-20; cf. also his

"’Who is the Prophet Talking About?’" 8; "Can We Reproduce

the Exegesis of the New Testament?" 36-38; see also, Carruth,

"The Implications of Proper Principles of Biblical

Interpretation," 54; Clark H. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle

(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), 44-45; Sloan, "The Use

of the Old Testament in the New Testament," 155.

                                         330

 

            That is, as long as the NT writers conform to what we have

            already decided is correct (grammatical-historical exegesis) we

            may "follow" them. But this is equivalent to saying, "I will

            follow you wherever you go, so long as you go in my

            direction." What kind of "following" is that? What

            transcendent authority rests exclusively upon the grammatical-

            historical method of exegesis?"⁹²

            Longenecker would answer in reply that we are failing to

distinguish here between what is normative and descriptive.93

But that kind of response only begs the question: the very

issue under consideration is whether apostolic exegesis should

be considered normative or descriptive. And it seems to me

that Longenecker has opted for descriptive over normative

solely on the criterion of conformity to respectable

twentieth-century exegetical methodology.94

            The second problem is that by not following the pattern

of apostolic interpretation we actually fail to follow the

pattern that was laid down for them by our Lord. As

Longenecker himself says,

____________________

            ⁹²McCartney and Clayton, Let the Reader Understand, 68.

            ⁹³Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 219-20.

            ⁹⁴Not strictly concerned with hermeneutics, but more so with

homiletics, Donald E. Gowan, in a book which is attempts to

restore the Old Testament to use in Christian preaching

(Reclaiming the Old Testament for the Christian Pulpit

[Atlanta: John Knox, 1980], 145-46), suggests that the Psalms

should be prayed, not preached; but then, after noting that

sermons on the Psalms do occur in the book of Acts, says that

"This attitude appears as early as the New Testament itself, but

nonetheless it must be questioned on form critical principles."

Evidently the apostles are not good homiletical models either. I

do not know whether Sidney Greidanus was specifically

thinking of Gowan, but he addresses this issue in The Modern

Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching

Biblical Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 19.

                                         331

 

            The authority of Christ undergirds the doctrine and practice of

            the earliest Christians, and is reflected throughout the New

            Testament. Convinced of his Messiahship and Lordship, the

            early believers began with Jesus as the "certain and known

            quantity." And in him they witnessed a creative handling of the

            Scriptures which became for them both the source of their own

            understanding and the paradigm for their own exegesis of the

            Old Testament.⁹⁵

But by admitting this, Longenecker actually undermines his

argument in regard to the apostles' "revelatory"

interpretation, for he suggests here that their exegesis was

not so much revelatory as it was patterned interpretation,

with our Lord himself providing the pattern.⁹⁶ Instead, I

believe that S. Lewis Johnson has drawn the more correct

conclusion based on the data:

            I propose that the exegetical methods of the biblical authors are

            valid for interpreters today. And, furthermore, though we

            cannot claim the infallibility for our interpretations that the

            biblical authors could, since they were inspired authors, we

            must follow their methods. Since they are reliable teachers of

            biblical doctrine, they are also reliable teachers of

            hermeneutical and exegetical procedures.⁹⁷

____________________

            ⁹⁵Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 51; also, The Christology of

Early Jewish Christianity, SBT 2d ser. 17 (Naperville, IL: Alec

R. Allenson, 1970), 9.

            ⁹⁶Douglas A. Oss ("The Interpretation of the ‘Stone’ Passages

by Peter and Paul: A Comparative Study," JETS 32 (1989):

198-99), also, while placing great value on the New Testament

authors' methods, still says, "It would be ungrounded to claim

normative status for something that is taught only at the

descriptive level and not taught elsewhere in propositional

form." I believe, however, that this objection does not fully

reckon with the normativeness of the apostles' exegesis, when

the pattern for that exegesis was received from the Lord himself.

            ⁹⁷S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., The Old Testament in the New: An

Argument for Biblical Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), 83.

                                               332

 

Patrick Fairbairn also took this view:

            For there can be no doubt that the manner in which our Lord

            and his apostles understood and applied the Scriptures of the

            Old Testament, was as much intended to throw light generally

            on the principles of interpretation, as to administer instruction

            on the specific points for the sake of which they were more

            immediately appealed to.⁹⁸

            To return to a point I made at the beginning of this

section, it is only by making the pattern of apostolic

interpretation a vital part of our hermeneutical methodology

that we may fully claim that our exegesis is being done within

the context of the whole Church of Jesus Christ and that we

ourselves are at one with the apostles in the interpretation

and preaching of the Christian faith. As Beale says,

            If the contemporary church cannot exegete and do theology

            like the apostles did, how can it feel corporately at one with

            them in the theological process? If a radical hiatus exists

            between the interpretive method of the NT and ours today, then

            the study of the relationship of the OT and the NT from the

            apostolic perspective is something to which the church has

            little access. Furthermore, if Jesus and the apostles were impoverished

            in their exegetical and theological method and only divine inspiration

            salvaged their conclusions, then the intellectual and apologetic

            foundation of our faith is seriously eroded.⁹⁹

____________________

            ⁹⁸Cited in S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., "Response to `Patrick

Fairbairn and Biblical Hermeneutic as Related to the Quotations of the

Old Testament in the New,'" in Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible:

Papers from ICBI Summit II, ed. Earl Radmacher and Robert D. Preus

(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 792.

            ⁹⁹G. K. Beale, "Did Jesus and His Followers Preach the Right

Doctrine From the Wrong Texts? An Examination of the Presuppositions of Jesus'

and the Apostles' Exegetical Method," Themelios 14 (1989): 94. For others who

are generally agreed with this position, see T. W. Manson, "The Old Testament

in the Teaching of Jesus," BJRL 34 (1952): 332; David S. Dockery, "Typological

Exegesis: Moving Beyond Abuse and Neglect," in Reclaiming the Prophetic

Mantle, ed. G. L. Klein (Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 174-75; Alfred von Rohr Sauer,

"Problems of Messianic Interpretation," CTM 35 (1964): 573; McCartney and

                                           333

 

            Having now declared where my loyalties lie, it is still

necessary, however, to make just a few qualifications that may

seem to take me out of the "total acceptance" and place me in

the "guardedly positive" camp. But this is only apparently so.

            First, as already mentioned in the quotes from S. Lewis

Johnson, we cannot claim infallibility for interpretations that

we ourselves make in following the apostolic pattern, as can

the apostles. Their witness is, indeed, uniquely revelatory. But,

lest this be seen as a concession to the argument that we cannot

follow their pattern, it must be strenuously insisted upon, that

our historical-grammatical interpretations are no less fallible,

and perhaps even more so. Interpretations that follow the

apostolic pattern and appear to be in accord with the general

tenor of the New Testament teaching, are to be regarded as

more canonically faithful than interpretations that are, perhaps,

more historically-grammatically oriented but depart from New

Testament teaching.

            Second, following the apostolic pattern of exegesis does not

mean that we are confined to this pattern. The apostles did not

necessarily think in historical-grammatical terms.¹⁰⁰

____________________

Clayton, Let the Reader Understand, 67-71. In agreement, but

more guardedly so, are Pinnock, The Scripture Principle, 44-

45; and E. Earle Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early

Christianity, WUNT 18 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, and Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 172.

            ¹⁰⁰Though I do not necessarily agree with Dan G. McCartney

                                    334

 

The apostles are infallible in their interpretation, but not

omniscient. Therefore, we may use all the tools that are

available to us, including the many critical disciplines that have

arisen in the last two centuries. However, they may not be used

in ways that conflict with the authoritative pattern of New

Testament exegesis.

            Third, I readily concede that the New Testament authors did

not leave us a hermeneutics textbook. So, to a certain extent,

there is measure of subjectivity and speculation in actually

ascertaining just what the apostolic methods were. But this

concession is as far from supporting the thesis that we should

not try to emulate their exegesis, as the fact that there are no

systematic theologies in the New Testament should keep us

from trying to ascertain what the theology of the New

Testament is. I would suggest that there are as many clues in

the New Testament as to how to interpret the Old Testament,

as there are clues to the Christology or the Pneumatology of the

New Testament.

            Finally, I need to stress just how distant this approach is from

that of James Sanders in "ferreting out the unrecorded

hermeneutics"¹⁰¹ that supposedly lie, not in, but in between,

____________________

when he says that they did not think in these terms "at all"

("The New Testament's Use of the Old Testament," in

Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, A Challenge, A

Debate, ed. Harvie M. Conn [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988],

102-3).

            ¹⁰¹James A. Sanders, Canon and Community: A Guide to

Canonical Criticism, Guides to Biblical Scholarship

(Philadelphia, 1984), 50-51. See the discussion in chapter 3.

                                        335

 

the lines of the Bible. Rather, this is an approach that seeks to

faithfully correlate the teaching of the biblical writers with

their exegetical methodology--not one that seeks, in digging

out the unrecorded hermeneutics that lie between the lines, to

oppose those hermeneutics to the teaching of the lines themselves.

            To say that exegesis of the Scriptures must be done canonically

is to say that it must be done in conformity to the pattern which

the Lord of the canon himself used and imparted to his

apostles, who, in turn, used it to interpret the Old Testament in

the writing of the New.¹⁰²

                            Thesis Number Thirteen:

                  Christ's Canon Is to Be Interpreted in

                       the Light of Its Canonical Unity

            The Christo-canonical approach takes seriously the

view of biblical canon as the one unified discourse of the

one God. It denies that the unity of the Scriptures comes

from the divine author, while their diversity comes from

their human authors, but affirms that both come from God,

who is, in himself, unity and diversity. It recognizes, at least

in theory, the possibility of theology as discourse analysis. It

____________________

            ¹⁰²It is very strange that in a recent hermeneutics textbook,

which is far better than most in many ways (Klein, Blomberg, and

Hubbard, Biblical Interpretation), the authors would exclaim

concerning the New Testament writers, "Certainly they use the

OT in ways that we do not recommend to students today!" (p. 131).

Perhaps that is why they only "concede" that Matthew's use of

Hos 11:1 has "validity, though not in the same historically

defensible way," the way, which for them, has the greatest

authority (p. 149).

                                         336

 

asserts that God has progressively revealed himself in biblical

canon so that the first word must be interpreted in the light of the

last word. The last word is both the best word and, by virtue of

being the last word, the all-decisive word for interpretation.

Therefore, this approach affirms that the Old Testament must

be understood in the light of the New Testament, and that the

New Testament has "priority in `unpacking' the meaning of

the Old Testament."¹⁰³

            Perhaps no other idea associated with the phrase

"canonical approach" is called to mind so much as that of reading

any one part of the Scriptures in the light of the whole canon.

And the Christo-canonical approach affirms this idea. But it

does so for different reasons than some of the recent

advocates of canonical approaches have suggested. It is not

because the biblical canon is that body of writings which has

shaped and been shaped by the community, but because it is

that body of writings in which God authoritatively speaks

and reveals himself.¹⁰⁴ And it believes that God, more

____________________

            ¹⁰³Bruce K. Waltke, "Is it Right to Read the New Testament

into the Old?" in "Current Religious Thought," Christianity

Today, 2 September 1983, 77. Cf. McCartney and Clayton, Let

the Reader Understand, 48.

            ¹⁰⁴Indeed, this has been the understanding, not only of historic

Christianity, but of Judaism as well. Cf. Gerald L. Bruns

("Midrash and Allegory: The Beginnings of Scriptural

Interpretation," in The Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. Robert

Alter and Frank Kermode [Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press, 1987], 626-27): "As the rabbis, Augustine, and

Luther knew, the Bible, despite its textual heterogeneity, can be

read as a self-glossing book. One learns to study it by following

the ways in which one portion of the text illumines another.

The generation of scribes who shaped and reshaped the

                                          337

 

so than any human author, reserves the right to interpret his

own words. There are, however, several major objections to

this approach. The purpose of this section is to deal with

these objections.

            (1) The first objection is that this approach tends

toward eisegesis rather than exegesis. Walter Kaiser is,

perhaps, the most representative spokesperson for this

objection. He maintains that

            the whole canon must not be used as the context for every

            exegesis. . . . the Church at large (since the time of the

            Reformers especially) is in error when she uses the analogy of

            faith (analogia fidei) as an exegetical device for extricating

            from or importing meanings to texts that appeared earlier than

            the passage where the teaching is set forth most clearly or

            perhaps even for the first time. It is a mark of eisegesis, not

            exegesis, to borrow freight that appears chronologically later in

            the text and to transport it back and unload it on an earlier

            passage simply because both or all the passages involved share

            the same canon."¹⁰⁵

He does allow, however, for the canon as a whole to come into play:

____________________

Scriptures appear to have designed them to be studied in just this way."

            ¹⁰⁵Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology:

Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (Grand Rapids:

Baker, 1981), 82. For other representative criticisms along this

line, not just to the canonical approach per se, but also to

previous similar formulations such as analogy of faith, etc., see

Elliot E. Johnson, "Author's Intention and Biblical

Interpretation," in Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible:

Papers from ICBI Summit II, ed. Earl Radmacher and Robert

D. Preus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 425-26;

Expository Hermeneutics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids:

Zondervan, 1990), 183; Willis Beecher, The Prophets and the

Promise (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1905; repr., Grand

Rapids: Baker, 1963), 9-10; Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard,

Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 11, 171 (note, however,

the at least apparently contradictory statement on p. 123).

                                         338

 

            There is one place where canonical concerns must

            be introduced, however. After we have finished our exegetical

            work of establishing what, indeed, the author of the paragraph

            or text under consideration was trying to say, then we must go

            on to set this teaching in its total Biblical context by way of

            gathering together what God has continued to say on the topic.

            We should then compare this material with our findings

            concerning the passage being investigated. But mind this point

            well: canonical context must appear only as part of our

            summation and not as part of our exegesis.¹⁰⁶

In other words, with what Kaiser calls his principle of "antecedent

theology," or "analogy of antecedent scripture,"¹⁰⁷ canonical

concerns do come in, but only at the level of systematic theology.

            There are, however, several problems with this objection. First,

it fails to reckon sufficiently with the divine authorship of the

Scriptures. Elliot Johnson, expressing a view similar to

Kaiser's, says, "The interpreter must not confuse his own

greater knowledge of a subject with the interpretation of an

author's meaning. This is not exegesis but rather eisegesis."¹⁰⁸

But Johnson fails to ask how the interpreter acquired this

greater knowledge. If it was acquired by reading the author's

later interpretation of his own words, then this is not eisegesis,

but exegesis in the truest sense of the word. We must recognize

the right of the sovereign God to be his own exegete. As Waltke says,

"The Christian doctrine of plenary inspiration of Scripture demands

____________________

            ¹⁰⁶Kaiser, Toward an Exegetical Theology, 83.

            ¹⁰⁷Ibid., 134-40.

            ¹⁰⁸Johnson, "Author's Intention," 425.

                                               339

 

that we allow the Author to tell us at a later time more

precisely what he meant in his earlier statements."¹⁰⁹ And as

he has said more recently,

            The classical rule sacra scriptura sui ipsius interpres (the Bible

            interprets itself)--more specifically, the New interprets the Old—

            should be accepted by all Christian theologians. Is it not self-

            evident that the author of Scripture is the final exponent of his

            own thoughts?¹¹⁰

God has communicated to us in his word, and even as we

would do for human authors, so we should do for the divine author

and interpret his statements in context. This means that we

may conceive of the Bible as one unified discourse.¹¹¹ Again,

as Waltke remarks,

            The canon constitutes a unified linguistic context. We

            understand the parts of a linguistic stretch in terms of its larger

            unities. The words of Scripture are understood with its

            sentences, its sentences within its paragraphs, its paragraphs

            within its chapters, its chapters within its books and its books

            within its canon, and this understanding of the whole work

            qualifies and modifies our understanding of the smaller parts

            right down to the individual words. The linguistic unity of Scriptures

____________________

            ¹⁰⁹Waltke, "Is it Right to Read the New Testament into the

Old?" 77.

            ¹¹⁰Waltke, "Kingdom Promises as Spiritual," 264.

            ¹¹¹For similar statements, see Ronald E. Clements, Old

Testament Theology: A Fresh Approach, New Foundations

Theological Library (Atlanta: John Knox, 1978), 23, 152-53;

"Monotheism and the Canonical Process," Theology 87 (1984):

337-38; Joseph Coppens, "Levels of Meaning in the Bible,"

trans. Theodore L. Westow, in How Does the Christian

Confront the Old Testament?, ed. Pierre Benoit, Roland E.

Murphy, and Bastiaan van Iersel, Concilium 30 (New York:

Paulist, 1968), 136-37; Daniel Lys, The Meaning of the Old

Testament: An Essay on Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon,

1967), 109-10; Norbert Lohfink, The Christian Meaning of the

Old Testament, trans. R. A. Wilson (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1968), esp.

pp. 37-39 (Lohfink speaks of canonization as "an act of authorship").

                                       340

 

            calls for an interpretation of its parts within the total canon

            containing both testaments.¹¹²

Therefore, at least in theory, we may conceive of biblical theology

or canonical interpretation as a kind of discourse analysis. I say,

"in theory," because, while I am metaphorically borrowing a

linguistic term to describe biblical theology and canonical

interpretation, I am not suggesting that there is any rigid, as it

were, "syntactical" canonical arrangement of the various books.

But, at the same time, by saying, "in theory," I am referring to

our limitations in understanding the mind of God. That God is

the author of the Scriptures means that, in God, the canon,

anthological though it is, has a greater coherence than a single

work by any human author, though that coherence is not

ascertainable to us with our limited tools for doing linguistic analysis.

            A second problem with this objection, is the way in which

Kaiser allows canonical concerns to come in through the back

door, i.e., at the point of systematic theology, with his

____________________

            ¹¹²Bruce K. Waltke, "Historical Grammatical Problems," in

Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible: Papers from ICBI

Summit II, ed. Earl Radmacher and Robert D. Preus (Grand

Rapids: Zondervan, 1984) 122-23; cf. also his "Is it Right to

Read the New Testament into the Old?" 77; and "A Canonical

Process Approach to the Psalms," in Tradition and Testament:

Essays in Honor of Charles Lee Feinberg, ed. John S. Feinberg

and Paul D. Feinberg (Chicago: Moody, 1981), 10. See also,

Raju D. Kunjummen, "The Single Intent of Scripture--Critical

Examination of a Theological Construct," Grace Theological

Journal 7 (1986): 81-110. Kunjummen suggests that in the light

of the biblical books all having one common author, God, that

"one may justifiably speak of the intrinsic genre of Scripture as

a whole" (p. 94).

                                              341

 

principle of "antecedent theology" after the exegetical work has

been done. The difficulty here, however, is determining just

when this "after" is, and at what point we can declare that the

exegetical work has been done. The very first time that an

interpreter reads a passage of Scripture exegetical work is

being done. How many more times must it then be read before

the "after" is allowed to take place? Is a Christian really

supposed to keep reading the passage, bracketing out his or her

Christianity and knowledge that the passage is part of the

larger discourse of the Lord? At what point may the Christian

read the passage as a Christian in obedience to the Lord? Is the

Christian really supposed to keep reading the passage "as if the

New Testament did not exist"?¹¹³ As Sloan says in reference

to a historical naivety that would try to read the Old Testament

as if the New had not been written, "You cannot `unread' a

story. You can only read it again."¹¹⁴ On purely hermeneutical

grounds, Kaiser's "after" is deficient in failing to recognize the

existence of the hermeneutical spiral. But on theological

grounds, it is deficient in failing to recognize the authority of

Christ over the process of interpretation.

____________________

            ¹¹³The way in which John L. McKenzie tried to write his Old

Testament theology (A Theology of the Old Testament [Garden City, NY:

Doubleday, 1974], 319); cf. the criticism of McKenzie in M. J. Evans,

"The Old Testament as Christian Scripture," Vox Evangelica 16 (1986): 27-28.

            ¹¹⁴Sloan, "The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament,"

156.

                                            342

 

            Again, it is important to keep in mind that I am working with a

concept of canon that regards biblical canon as a manifestation

of the divine Author's authority over his people. If that is so, it

is illegitimate to say, as Kaiser does, that "canonical context

must appear only as part of our summation and not as part of

our exegesis." For that is to say that Christ is Lord over one

part of our hermeneutical endeavors, but not over another.

Rather, Christ is Lord of the whole process.

            (2) A second objection to the canonical approach is that it

flattens out the revelation contained in the Bible, that it tries to

make the whole canon say the same thing in all its parts, and

that it effectively takes the "progress" out of "progressive"

revelation. Again, Kaiser is the spokesperson here:

            In no case should a later doctrine be used as an exegetical tool

            to unlock an earlier passage. That would be an extremely

            serious methodological mistake, for, in effect, all revelation

            would then be leveled out. Virtually every passage dealing

            with a particular topic would end up saying almost the same

            thing as the latest revelation of God on that topic.¹¹⁵

And if someone should respond to this objection by saying that

this later doctrine is taught in the New Testament passages,

then Kaiser answers:

            Should someone plead, "but that is a biblical sense which can

            be shown from another passage to be fully scriptural," we will

            reply, "Then let us go to that passage for that

____________________

            ¹¹⁵Kaiser, Toward an Exegetical Theology, 161-62.

                                           343

 

            teaching rather than transporting it to odd locations in earlier

            parts of the canon."¹¹⁶

The simple response to Kaiser on this point, however, is that the

New Testament itself is exegeting the earlier texts; the New

Testament itself bids us to go back to the "odd locations" and

read the texts and interpret them in the light of the full canon.

            At the same time, I admit that there is a real danger here.

Though I believe that the New Testament is a legitimate guide to

the understanding of the Old, I, too, believe that we must be careful

not to make them to be saying the same thing. God has done a

new thing in Christ, and the last word is not the same as the

first word. There is a radical discontinuity between "God spoke

to our forefathers at many times and in various ways" and "but

in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son" (Heb 1:1-2).

But we must also recognize that there is a radical continuity as

well. In both statements it is God who speaks, and the Son by

whom he speaks in the New Testament is the same son "through

whom he made the universe" (Heb 1:2) in the Old Testament. Or,

to import an "antecedent Scripture" (Genesis 1) into our understanding

of the Hebrews passage, we may say that in these last days God has

"spoken" to us by his Son, the very same Son by whom he "spoke" the

____________________

            ¹¹⁶Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "A Response to `Author's Intention

and Biblical Interpretation,'" in Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and

the Bible: Papers from ICBI Summit II, ed. Earl Radmacher

and Robert D. Preus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 445.

                                         344

 

universe into existence.¹¹⁷ If this is the case, then we must

recognize the radical continuity that exists between the first

word and the last word. At the same time, continuity is not

identity. I am in no way suggesting that the last word is

identical to the first word. If an author's later words were

identical to his earlier words, then there would be no need for

them to be spoken. But it does mean that the earlier words may

not be understood in abstraction from the discourse as if the

later words had not been spoken.

            In this connection it is important to reiterate what I

said in the first paragraph of this section. The Christocanonical

approach denies that the unity of the Scriptures comes from

the divine author, while their diversity comes from their

human authors, but affirms that both come from God, who

is in himself unity and diversity. Or, to put it another way,

Scripture's discontinuity, as well as its continuity, is a result

of its divine authorship. The diversity and discontinuity,

as well as the unity and continuity, are part of the divine

intention of the author.¹¹⁸ Therefore, the discontinuity

between the Old and New Testaments does not

____________________

            ¹¹⁷As said Hugo of St. Victor: "The whole divine Scripture is

one book, and this one book is Christ" (cited in Lohfink, The

Christian Meaning of the Old Testament, 51).

            ¹¹⁸On this point I am indebted to Vern S. Poythress,

Symphonic Theology: The Validity of Multiple Perspectives in

Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, Academie, 1987), 48-51.

See also, Douglas A. Oss, "Canon as Context: The Function of

Sensus Plenior in Evangelical Hermeneutics," Grace

Theological Journal 9 (1988): 107.

                                           345

 

constitute a reason why we may not read the Old Testament

through the eyes of the New.

            (3) A third objection is that the New Testament writers

themselves do not provide a paradigm for us to follow, that

they did not read canonically, but atomistically and non-

contextually. Amidst all the debate concerning the so-called

"testimonia" or testimony "books," there began to be in the

middle part of this century a higher regard than previously

held regarding the New Testament writers' respect for

context.¹¹⁹ There was reaction to this, however, and various

authors responded by maintaining that the New Testament

writers had no real regard for the original historical

context.¹²⁰ While Childs's program of canonical analysis does

____________________

            ¹¹⁹Rendel Harris, Testimonies, 2 parts (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1916, 1920); C. H. Dodd, The

Old Testament in the New, FBBS 3 (London: Athlone, 1952;

repr., Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963) 1952); According to the

Scriptures: The Substructure of New Testament Theology

(London: James Nisbet, 1952; repr., London and Glasgow:

Collins, Fontana Books, 1965); S. L. Edgar, "Respect for

Context in Quotations from the Old Testament," NTS 9 (1962):

55-62 (Edgar's thesis was that whereas the apostles often

showed complete disregard for original context, those

quotations which could be reasonably believed as attributable

to Christ himself showed profound respect for context); E.

Earle Ellis, Paul's Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver

and Boyd, 1957); R. Rendall, "Quotation in Scripture as an

Index of a Wider Reference," EvQ 36 (1964): 214-21.

            ¹²⁰R. T. Mead, "A Dissenting Opinion about Respect for

Context in Old Testament Quotations," NTS 10 (1964): 279-89

(this article is written in reaction to the one by Edgar mentioned in

the previous footnote); A. C. Sundberg, Jr., "On Testimonies,"

NovT 3 (1959): 268-81; George V. Pixley, "Awareness of Literary

Context in Early Christian Use of the Psalms" (Ph.D. diss.,

University of Chicago Divinity School, 1968); James Barr, Old and

New in Interpretation, 142-43. For a more recent statement

of this position, see Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the

                                       346

 

not stand or fall based on whether or not the New Testament

writers had regard for the historical context of their Old

Testament citations, there was the general supposition that the

canonical approach would have seen them as having greater

regard. But, indeed, Barr faulted the canonical approach on this

very issue, repeating his earlier position that the New

Testament writers paid little attention to historical context:

            For any kind of strictly canonical principle of exegesis the

            interrelation of Old and New Testaments must be of great

            importance, and if the New Testament failed to see things

            "canonically" that must be a serious objection to any attempt to

            maintain that the canon is central.¹²¹

And James Sanders reported that In a genuine effort to test

            Childs' thesis, and with the hope he was right, my students and

            I thought precisely of the above kinds of hypotheses about the

            composition of the NT, and proceeded to probe in that

            direction. But in no case did it work out in Childs' favor.

            Certainly there was evidence that some NT writers sometimes

            thought in larger terms than isolated passages: C. H. Dodd had

            shown that in According to Scripture [sic] . . . But it is not

            the same.¹²²

Thus, even an apparent ally in canonical analysis declared that

"very few tradents, if any, read Scripture in the way Childs

theorizes."¹²³ And, indeed, Childs, who at one time had

placed some emphasis on the importance of seeing a certain

____________________

Christian Biblical Canon (Nashville: Abingdon, 1988), 66.

            ¹²¹James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 82.

            ¹²²James A. Sanders, "Canonical Context and Canonical

Criticism," HBT 2 (1980): 189.

            ¹²³Ibid., 188-89.

                                         347

 

respect for context in New Testament citations of the Old,¹²⁴

seems now, himself, to have abandoned this category as having

substantial significance for biblical theology (and I take it,

canonical analysis).¹²⁵

            That the New Testament writers must have made their Old

Testament citations with special regard for the original

historical context is not necessarily inherent to the

Christocanonical approach. However, in conjunction with the

last thesis (number five, that the New Testament canon is

paradigmatic for hermeneutic methodology) I do believe it can

be shown that the New Testament writers did not make their

citations of the Old Testament with disregard for context.

I agree with Beale when he says,

            I remain convinced that once the hermeneutical and theological

            presuppositions of the NT writers are considered, there are no

            clear examples where they have developed a meaning from the

            OT which is inconsistent or contradictory to some aspect of the

            original OT intention.¹²⁶

            It is not the purpose of this dissertation to make a

taxonomic investigation of all New Testament citations of Old

Testament passages to see whether or not historical context

has been respected. In Part Three, in connection with Psalm

____________________

            ¹²⁴Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 114-18.

            ¹²⁵Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New

Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible

(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 76.

            ¹²⁶Beale, "Did Jesus and His Followers Preach the Right

Doctrine From the Wrong Texts?" 92.

                                       348

 

129, we will examine one very much disputed passage in this

regard. But let me suggest finally in regard to this  objection,

that perhaps the problem so many scholars have in this area,

is not the New Testament writers' lack of regard for original

context, but rather the scholars' failure to recognize that the

New Testament authors were capable of connecting more contexts

than the scholars give them credit. Poythress writes in this regard,

            I would claim that the NT authors characteristically do not aim

            merely at grammatical-historical exegesis of the OT. If we

            expect this of them, we expect something too narrow and with

            too exclusively a scholarly interest. The NT authors are not

            scholars but church leaders. They are interested in showing

            how OT passages apply to the church and to the NT situation.

            Hence, when they discuss an OT text, they consider it in the

            light of the rest of the OT, in the light of the events of salvation

            that God has accomplished in Christ, and in the light of the

            teaching of the Jesus himself during his earthly life. They bring

            all this knowledge to bear on their situation, in the light of all

            that they know about that situation. In this process they are not

            concerned, as scholars would be, to distinguish with nicety all

            the various sources that contribute to their understanding. Both

            they and their readers typically presuppose the context of later

            revelation. Hence, what they say using an OT passage may not

            always be based on the OT text alone, but on relations that the

            text has with this greater context.¹²⁷

            In other words, the problem is not with the New

Testament authors' lack of regard for the original historical

____________________

            ¹²⁷Vern S. Poythress, "Divine Meaning of Scripture," WTJ 48

(1986): 276-77. Interestingly enough, the following quotation

from James Barr is quite similar (Old and New in

Interpretation, 27): "In this respect the Old Testament material

relates itself to Christ not so much through the meanings

directly intended by the original writers of passages, but

through the combinations and alterations which these meanings

produce when they are associated with other elements under

the conditions which actually obtained in post-biblical Judaism."

                                         349

 

context. The problem is with our modern-day failure to

recognize what the New Testament authors understood: that

the original historical context is not the only context for

determining the meaning of a passage. Nor is it even the most

important context: that honor goes to the canon.¹²⁸

            (4) The last objection to be considered is that this approach, in

particular, the idea that the Old Testament must be read in the

light of the New, comes into conflict with another tenet of the

canonical approach, that there is no canon within the canon.

How can we say that the New Testament is the final word, the

last word, the best word, the determinative word, and yet avoid

saying that it, therefore, constitutes for us a canon within the

canon? This is a considerable objection, so much so for Childs

that he is very reluctant to even speak about progressive

revelation for fear that it would give the New Testament a

"higher normative value."¹²⁹

            Curiously enough, this objection is actually the

flip side of the second objection mentioned above. There,

the problem was that the canonical approach tended to

flatten everything out so that there was no actual progress in

____________________

            ¹²⁸Contra Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Biblical

Interpretation, 11, 98, 132, 149-50.

            ¹²⁹Mark G. Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis?: The Impact of

the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 28-29,

referring to Child's Exodus commentary, The Book of Exodus:

A Critical, Theological Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1974), 495-96.

                                             350

 

revelation; here the problem is that the approach seems to give

the New Testament pride of place in canonical interpretation. It

looks as if canonical interpreters want to have their cake and

eat it too.

            I admit that there is a certain measure of validity to this

charge, but I would want to argue that this measure is more

apparent than real. The New Testament, by its very position

as the end point in God's revelation, has, as do the final words

of any discourse, priority in unpacking the meaning of earlier

statements. However, this does not mean that the Old

Testament does not have a similar function in regard to the

New. Sometimes, it is the final words of a discourse that are

misunderstood because the hearer fails to relate them to earlier

statements. Not only does a speaker have the right to say to

those who have misunderstood some of the earlier parts of a

discourse, "Didn't you hear what I said at the end?" but the

speaker also has the right to say to those who have

misunderstood the later parts, "Didn't you hear what I said at

the beginning?" Jesus himself, in a manner, does this very

thing. One the one hand, he could say, "Are you still standing

around waiting for Elijah? He has already been here. Didn't

you see him?" (Matt 11:14-15, considerably paraphrased). But

on the other hand, he could say "If you were a little more

familiar with your Old Testament, you would know more about

me" (John 5:39-40, also considerably paraphrased).

                                          351

 

            What I am arguing for here is the necessity of seeing

the relationship between the Old and New Testaments as one

that is bi-directional. While it is certainly true that the

Old Testament must be understood in light of the New, it is

also important that the New Testament be understood in light

of the Old. It is not just that we may understand the Old

Testament better because of Jesus, but also that we may

understand Jesus better in light of the Old Testament.¹³⁰

Usually when this kind of sentiment is expressed, the Old

Testament - New Testament direction is thought of simply in

terms of background.¹³¹ But I am suggesting a relationship

which is much more substantial, one in which the Old Testament

provides content and substance which may truly be said to be

interpretive for reading the New Testament. I am willing to

____________________

            ¹³⁰Thus, James Luther Mays ("Prayer and Christology: Psalm

22 as Perspective on the Passion," TToday 42 [1985-86]: 323)

after remarking that we may understand Psalm 2 in terms of

Jesus, then says, "But the canonical relation between passion

narrative and psalm invites us also to undertake to understand

Jesus in terms of the psalm, that is, to view him through the

form and language of this prayer. That would be to follow the

example of the apostles and evangelists by using the psalm as a

hermeneutical context." See also, his "Historical and

Canonical: Recent Discussion about the Old Testament and the

Christian Faith," in Magnalia Dei, The Mighty Acts of God:

Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory G. Ernest

Wright, ed. Frank Moore Cross, Werner E. Lemke and Patrick

D. Miller, Jr. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 512-13.

            ¹³¹Cf. the recent article by George Sabra ("The Old Testament

in Twentieth-Century Western Theology," Theological Review

13/1 [1992]: 17-34), where, after reviewing several adjectives that

potentially describe the relationship of the Old Testament to the New

Testament ("accidental," "antithetical," "preparatory," "identical"),

he opts for a relationship of "alongsidedness," correctly recognizing, I

believe, that "preparatory" is not sufficiently descriptive of this relationship.

                                           352

 

accept Norman Wright's statement that "the Old Testament has

the authority that an earlier act of the play would have, no

more, no less,"¹³² as long as it is also understood that the

following statement is consequent: "The New Testament has

the authority that a later act of the play would have, no more,

no less." Furthermore, it is essential to understand both the

earlier and later acts as coming from the hand of the same

author.

            On the one hand, it is to be recognized that the New Testament

does, in a measure, relativize certain portions of the Old

Testament (dietary laws, sacrificial system, etc.). But, on the

other hand, it must be acknowledged that the New Testament

still recognizes the authority of the Old Testament and nowhere

considers itself as having become its replacement. Unlike a

merely human author, who may revise his or her thinking in

later writings, so that scholars have to talk about, say, the

"early Barth" and the "later Barth," the divine author who

speaks in the Old and New Testaments is not to be spoken of as

the "early God" and the "late God." He reserves the right to

relativize earlier statements, which is simply, as I see it, little

more than contextualizing and accommodating his message,

but he nowhere repudiates them. The Old and New Testaments

together constitute the one biblical canon for the people of

God.

____________________

            ¹³²Norman T. Wright, "How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?"

Vox Evangelica 21 (1991): 19.

                                              353

 

            There are two things that must be underscored before closing

discussion on this particular thesis. First, it is important to note

just how much the Old Testament really is a different book

when not read in light of the New Testament. As Waltke

observes, those who read the Old Testament in the light of the

New worship in churches; those who do not, worship in

synagogues.¹³³ Baker correctly notes that

            a correct Christological interpretation of the Old Testament is

            essential to justify the existence of Christianity, because it was

            precisely the Jews' different Christological interpretation of

            their scriptures that led them to execute Jesus for blasphemy

            and persecute his followers.¹³⁴

            And as VanGemeren comments, "The OT must be read in the

light of Jesus' coming. The interpreter of the OT who does so

must come to different conclusions than those of the rabbis."¹³⁵

This does not mean, as Rendtorff suggests, that reading the

Old Testament in the light of the New inevitably leads to the

assumption that "the Hebrew Bible had no meaning at all before

Christianity appeared."¹³⁶ But it does mean that the Old

____________________

            ¹³³Bruce Waltke, class notes for the course "Psalms,"

Westminster Theological Seminary, 1986-87. Cf. similar

statements in Waltke, "Historical Grammatical Problems," 123-

24; Lohfink, The Christian Meaning of the Old Testament, 44.

            ¹³⁴David Baker, "Interpreting Texts in the Context of the

Whole Bible," Themelios n.s. 5/2 (1980): 23.

            ¹³⁵Willem A. VanGemeren, "Israel as the Hermeneutical Crux

in the Interpretation of Prophecy (II)," WTJ 45 (1983): 270.

            ¹³⁶Rolf Rendtorff, "Must `Biblical Theology' be Christian

Theology?" BibRev 4/3 (1988): 42; cf. W. E. Lemke, "Is Old

Testament Theology an Essentially Christian Theological

Discipline?" HBT 11 (1989): 59.

                                              354

 

Testament must mean something different to the Christian than

it does to others who do not read it through the lens of the

New Testament, and that the Christian must regard the New

Testament as only rightly read when it is read in connection

with the New Testament as one complete story, the Old

Testament being, therefore, incomplete without the New.¹³⁷

            On the one hand, James Barr would deny this. In arguing

that exegeses of Old Testament passages, whether they occur

in churches or synagogues, should not necessarily be any

different, he remarks,

            An objection which has sometimes been raised to suggestions

            such as I have made here is that they would lead to a Christian

            preaching identical with synagogue preaching. I find it very

            hard to take this objection seriously. . . . one may ask whether

            there is anything in principle against a synagogue sermon

            anyway. If Jesus went to worship in the synagogue, why

            should Christians object to a kind of interpretation which will

            be comparable at points to what is possible also in the

            synagogue?¹³⁸

But even Barr has to admit that the Old Testament, understood

on its own without the New Testament, leads to a different

interpretation:

            If the authority of the Old Testament had been absolute and

            final, does it not irretrievably mean that the "Jews" of John

            10:33 were in the right, and indeed only doing

____________________

            ¹³⁷Cf. D. Moody Smith, Jr., "The Use of the Old Testament in

the New," in The Use of the Old Testament in the New and

Other Essays: Studies in Honor of William Franklin

Stinespring, ed. James M. Efird (Durham: Duke University

Press, 1972), 39; Lawrence E Toombs, The Old Testament in

Christian Preaching (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 27.

From a Jewish perspective, see Jon Levenson's discussion in

The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism, 27-28.

            ¹³⁸Barr, Old and New in Interpretation, 154.

                                            355

 

their duty, in stoning Jesus "because you, being a man, make

yourself God"?¹³⁹ And despite Barr's remarks about Jesus'

attendance at synagogue worship, we must remember what

happened the one time that it is recorded for us that he actually

preached a sermon there from an Old Testament text (Luke

4:14-30). The Christian has no choice, in obedience to her

Lord, but to read the Old Testament as the book of Christ.

            Second, it is important to note that this principle, that any one

part of Scripture must be read in the light of the whole canon,

has important implications in regard to our theological

reflections. In particular, it is important to note that no New

Testament writer was able, as we are today, to do

hermeneutical work in the light of the whole canon. Vern

Poythress, who is in essential agreement with the canonical

approach, suggests that "none of the human authors except the

very last can survey the entire product in order to arrive at an

interpretation of the whole."¹⁴⁰ While Poythress's statement

might seem to be the logical deduction to draw from the canonical

process, I think that a couple of additional factors need to be

considered. First, can we really be sure that the very last author of

a New Testament book was totally aware of the rest of the New

Testament canon? While this is of course possible, it would be hard to

____________________

            ¹³⁹James Barr, The Scope and Authority of the Bible

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 118.

            ¹⁴⁰Poythress, "Divine Meaning of Scripture," 263.

                                           356

 

demonstrate, and given the conditions of the early Church and

the times in which it began, is rather unlikely. But, even if it

could be demonstrated that the last New Testament author was

aware of the rest of the New Testament canon, I think we must

conclude that even he was not able to arrive at an interpretation

of the whole. It is only after the last book has been added to the

canon and the canon finally completed, that anyone could have

been in a position to interpret any one part of Scripture in the

light of the whole. In other words, we do not have anywhere in

the New Testament an interpretation of an Old Testament

passage in the light of the entire canon of Scripture as we have

it today; so in a very real sense, we have a better view of the

whole than did any New Testament author. The logical

implication of this for the interpretation of the Old and New

Testaments, is that in the light of our better view of the entire

canon, we may be in a position to come to a fuller

understanding of the whole than the New Testament writers

themselves. Can we go this far? Is this not what theology is all

about? This is not to claim that our theology is any more

correct, but it may mean that it is more complete.

            To say that exegesis of the Scriptures must be done canonically

is to say that it must be done in the light of the whole canon of

Scripture, realizing that he who is the Lord of the canon speaks

to us authoritatively in all its parts.

                                          357

 

                            Thesis Number Fourteen:

                     Christ's Canon Is a "Fuller Sense"

            The Christo-canonical approach asserts that biblical canon, as

canon of Christ, is, by virtue of its divine authorship, a sensus

plenior. It does not so much argue that there is a divine sensus

plenior in the text of Scripture, as that the text of Scripture is a

sensus brevior of the Word of God. It postulates, not so much

isolated cases of sensus plenior in the Old Testament, but

rather, that at every point the human text of Scripture is a

sensus brevior of the divinely intended meaning.

            I take my starting point for this discussion from a statement by

William Sanford LaSor: "Something like a sensus plenior is

required by many portions of Scripture, possibly by all of

Scripture."¹⁴¹ In this statement, even though qualified with the

word "possibly," I believe LaSor has really come to heart of the

matter in regards to sensus plenior. The Word of God is fuller

than the text of Scripture, not only in some places, but in every

place. This statement is analogous to Barth's famous formulation

that at every point the Bible is a witness to the Word of God and

yet, at the same time, a fallible word of man. As opposed to trying

to separate out what in the Bible were fallible human words and

what were infallible divine words, Barth simply declared that at

every point we are confronted with a fallible human witness to the

____________________

            ¹⁴¹William Sanford LaSor, "Prophecy, Inspiration, and Sensus

Plenior," TynBul 29 (1978): 59.

                                               358

 

divine Word. Where the analogy breaks down, however, is in

Barth's apparent assumption that fallibility is an ontological

component in humanness. Whereas I fully agree that

"limitation" and "finiteness" are words that describe man as he

is ontologically, I deny that "fallibility" is also such a word.

"Fallibility" is ontologically predicated of the fallen human

nature, not of human nature as it came from God. So to

improve on Barth's formulation, I would suggest that at every

point in biblical canon, we have simultaneously the infinite

word of God and the finite, limited word of man. At every

point in the text there is an infinite gap between what the

human author meant and what the divine author meant. This

gap is neither reduced nor substantially altered depending on

whether the text is one which is verbally dictated by God to the

human author with little or no input from the latter, or one in

which the human author was a full participant in the actual

formulation of the thoughts and words.

            This is not, of course, the traditional view of what a sensus

plenior is. As defined, by Raymond Brown, it is

            the deeper meaning, intended by God but not clearly intended

            by the human author, that is seen to exist in the words of

            Scripture when they are studied in the light of further revelation

            or of development in the understanding of revelation.¹⁴²

____________________

            ¹⁴²Raymond E. Brown, "Hermeneutics," JBC, ed. Raymond

E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, and Roland E. Murphy

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 616 (emphasis

Brown's).

                                                359

 

Though originally the sensus plenior was pretty much regarded

as being a Roman Catholic formulation,¹⁴³ many evangelicals

have also adopted the term to describe their own positions to

a greater or lesser extent.¹⁴⁴ For the most part, the only

functional difference between the Catholic and Evangelical

uses of the term is that the Catholic would say that in

addition to the revelation whereby the New Testament authors

____________________

            ¹⁴³For the history of the use of the term and concept, see Raymond

E. Brown, "The Sensus Plenior of Sacred Scripture" (Ph.D. diss., St. Mary's

University, 1955); "The History and Development of the Theory of a Sensus

Plenior," CBQ 15 (1953): 141-62; "The Sensus Plenior in the Last Ten Years,"

CBQ 25 (1963): 262-85; cf. Coppens, "Levels of Meaning in the Bible," 125-39.

For Catholic reaction against the idea of sensus plenior, see Rudolph Bierberg,

"Does Scripture Have a Sensus Plenior?" CBQ 10 (1948): 182-95; Bruce Vawter,

"The Fuller Sense: Some Considerations," CBQ 26 (1964:) 85-96; Biblical

Inspiration (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 115. For a Protestant, but non-

Evangelical perspective, see James M. Robinson, "Scripture and Theological

Method: A Protestant Study in Sensus Plenior," CBQ 27 (1965): 6-27.

            ¹⁴⁴See David S. Dockery, Biblical Interpretation Then and Now:

Contemporary Hermeneutics in the Light of the Early Church (Grand Rapids:

Baker, 1992), 176-78; S. Lewis Johnson, The Old Testament in the New,

49-51; William Sanford LaSor, "The Sensus Plenior and Biblical

Interpretation," in Scripture, Tradition, and Interpretation: Essays

Presented to Everett F. Harrison by His Students and Colleagues in

Honor of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. W. Ward Gasque and William

Sanford LaSor (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 49-60; "Prophecy,

Inspiration, and Sensus Plenior"; McCartney and Clayton, Let the

Reader Understand, 153-58; Douglas J. Moo, "The Problem of Sensus

Plenior," in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. Donald A. Carson

and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 179-211,

397-405; Douglas A. Oss, "Canon as Context: The Function of Sensus

Plenior in Evangelical Hermeneutics," Grace Theological Journal 9 (1988):

105-27; "The Interpretation of the ‘Stone’ Passages by Peter and Paul: A

Comparative Study," JETS 32 (1989): 199; James I. Packer, "Biblical

Authority, Hermeneutics and Inerrancy," in Jerusalem and Athens:

Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius

Van Til, ed. E. R. Geehan (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed,

1971), 148.

                                        360

 

were able to perceive it, a sensus plenior could also be

discovered by church tradition or post-apostolic revelation.

Evangelicals, on the other hand, whether they actually

adopt the term, or only liken their hermeneutical ideas

to it, are usually careful to specify that the sensus plenior only

exists within the canon of Scripture itself.¹⁴⁵ Therefore, a

sensus plenior, as used by an evangelical, whether it is so

stated or not, usually simply means an interpretation of any one

passage in the light of the whole canon, i.e., a canonical

interpretation (hence the title of Oss's article: "Canon as

Context: The Function of Sensus Plenior in Evangelical

Hermeneutics").¹⁴⁶ What I am emphasizing, in addition to this

usual evangelical formulation, is just how pervasive this sensus

plenior really is. McCartney and Clayton declare that "since the

NT writers do not cover everything in the OT, we may expect

large areas where the typology or sensus plenior has not been

stated explicitly in the NT."¹⁴⁷ What I am doing here is going

beyond this and asserting that this is the case for the entire Old

Testament.

____________________

            ¹⁴⁵LaSor, "Prophecy, Inspiration, and Sensus Plenior," 59-50;

"The Sensus Plenior and Biblical Interpretation," 275;

McCartney and Clayton, Let the Reader Understand, 328 n. 14;

Oss, "Canon as Context: The Function of Sensus Plenior in

Evangelical Hermeneutics," 106-7; Poythress, "Divine

Meaning of Scripture," 273 (n. 25), 276; Waltke, "A Canonical

Process Approach to the Psalms," 8; "Kingdom Promises as

Spiritual," 284.

            ¹⁴⁶Oss states as much on p. 107: "Sensus plenior, here

defined, refers to the recognition of the canon of scripture as a

single and unified literary work."

            ¹⁴⁷McCartney and Clayton, Let the Reader Understand, 157.

                                            361

 

            To discuss all the arguments for and against the sensus

plenior, as it is used among Catholics, Evangelicals, or as I am

proposing here, is beyond the scope of what I can accomplish

in this section and, again, would require another dissertation.

Rather, what I will do is list the reasons why this perspective

on sensus plenior is so important for the Christo-canonical

approach to the Scriptures and, in particular, to the Old

Testament and Psalms.

            (1) First of all, this point is important in reinforcing the

earlier thesis (number two) in regard to the need for

hermeneutical humility. This idea, that the real meaning of

the text is always infinitely more than the text itself, should

cause the would-be interpreter a great deal of humility before

the Lord of the canon. This is especially important in light of

the vast amount of both scholarly and popular literature which

abounds on any given book or passage of Scripture. It is this

abundance of literature which effectively keeps seminaries,

despite the constant cries to do so, from collapsing the Old

and New Testament departments into one. And if the seminary

is large enough, it is ideal to hire several professors in each

department who can complement each other with specializations

in Pentateuch, poetry, prophecy, Gospels, Paul, different

critical methodologies, etc. On the one hand, this need to
specialize should humble the professor as he or she realizes

that the literature in the larger field of the two Testaments

is so enormous. On the other hand, the

                                         362

 

need to specialize can lead scholars to take themselves too

seriously and actually believe that they are specialists and

masters in their field. We need to remind ourselves frequently

that the literature in our respective areas deals, for the most

part, with the grammatical-historical meaning of the texts as

they come from the human author, and does not exhaust even

this area, much less the meaning the text has in the mind of

God.

            (2) Second, this thesis is critical for a right perspective on the

question of whether or not the human and divine meanings of

the text are to be equated. The simple answer, in the light of

this thesis that I am proposing, is: "Of course not!" The gap

between the human and divine meanings of the text is as wide

as every other gap between creator and creature. Therefore the

hermeneutical goal cannot be simply to understand the words

of the text as the original human author and his intended

audience would have understood them; rather, the

hermeneutical goal must be to know God and his Christ. And

this cannot be achieved by merely paying attention to the

historical-grammatical meaning of the text, the only meaning

of which the human author was aware. The hermeneutical goal

must be to press on beyond what the human author may have

meant to know as much as possible of the mind of God. As opposed

to one of the most recent textbooks on hermeneutics, we must not

be content with the suggestion that "the goal of hermeneutics" is

                                            363

 

            the meaning the biblical writers "meant" to communicate at the

            time of the communication, at least to the extent that those

            intentions are recoverable in the texts they produced,¹⁴⁸

or, that

            The meaning of a text is: that which the words and

            grammatical structures of that text disclose about the probable

            intention of its author/editor and the probable understanding of

            that text by its intended readers.¹⁴⁹

This is simply too restricted a goal, given the fact that God

means infinitely more than the human author could possibly

have meant.¹⁵⁰

            Aside from all the problems that exist in even equating

the meaning of a text with its human author's intention, such

as the necessity entailed in this view to predicate of the

human authors that they were fully conscious of all the

complexities of their thought processes, conscious and

unconscious, that went into their utterances and writings,¹⁵¹

____________________

            ¹⁴⁸Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical

Interpretation, 108.

            ¹⁴⁹Ibid., 133.

            ¹⁵⁰This point completely mitigates the question posed by Jack

R. Riggs ("The `Fuller Meaning' of Scripture: A Hermeneutical

Question for Evangelicals," Grace Theological Journal 7

[1986]: 226): "If the human writers wrote beyond what they

knew, then has not divine revelation ceased to be a disclosure

or unveiling?" That God has revealed himself is not at issue;

the issue is whether he has "fully" done so in such a way that

the meaning of what God says is exhausted by a grammatical-

historical investigation of the text. The question also ignores

Scripture's simultaneous concealing function, that God has also

"hidden" himself in Scripture.

            ¹⁵¹For an excellent presentation of the difficulties here, see

Philip B. Payne, "The Fallacy of Equating Meaning with the

Human Author's Intention," JETS 20 (1977): 243-52.

Interestingly, all the reasons that Payne gives as to why meaning

                                             364

 

there are major problems with trying to equate the human and

divine intentions in the utterances and writings of the

Scriptures. Most important is that the human author simply

could not have been aware of all the implications and

applications that the divine author has for the text.¹⁵² It

could be answered in objection here, that this approach to the

problem blurs the crucial difference between meaning and

significance. This is the major objection of Walter Kaiser,

building on the work of E. D. Hirsch.¹⁵³ But, as Poythress

argues, significance is implied in meaning, if meaning is to

be equated with the author's intention, for God "intends" all

the significances, implications, and applications of the text.

Using Mal 3:8-12 as an example, Poythress contends that

            we may say that, in the light of the rest of the Bible, we know

            that God intends us to apply Malachi to our proportional

            giving. But if we say that God intends(!)

____________________

may not be equated with the human author's intention, are

conversely reasons as to exactly why meaning may be equated

with the divine author's intention.

            ¹⁵²Cf. Darrell L. Bock, "Evangelicals and the Use of the Old

Testament in the New," BSac 142 (1985): 308; George

Bradford Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 60; Erickson, Evangelical

Interpretation, 30; S. Lewis Johnson, The Old Testament in the New, 50.

            ¹⁵³Kaiser, Toward an Exegetical Theology, 24-40; The Uses

of the Old Testament in the New (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 25-

26, 6366; "Legitimate Hermeneutics," in A Guide to Contemporary

Hermeneutics: Major Trends in Biblical Interpretation, ed. Donald

K. McKim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 112-13; E. D. Hirsch,

Validity in Interpretation (New Haven and London: Yale University

Press, 1967). Surprisingly, this is one area where Waltke is in

agreement with Kaiser ("A Canonical Process Approach to the

Psalms," 8, 15-16; "Kingdom Promises as Spiritual," 284); on this

point note the criticism of Darrell Bock, "Evangelicals and the Use

of the Old Testament in the New," 219, 306, 316 n. 2.

                                         365

 

            each valid application of Malachi, then in an ordinary sense

            each valid application is part of God's meaning (=intention),

            even if it was not immediately in the view of the human author

            of Malachi. This seems to break down the idea that there is an

            absolute, pure equation between divine intention and human

            author's meaning. Divine intention includes more, inasmuch as

            God is aware of the all the future applications.¹⁵⁴

Doug Oss has also spoken to this issue:

            At this point one can be confident that God has foreseen every

            historical context, every cultural milieu, the societal mores of

            all generations, and each individual's personal circumstances,

            and that he intended the Holy Scriptures to be applied to all of

            them, indeed, that he has placed application within the very

            nature of the Bible. Application is a dimension of meaning.155

Thus we cannot, and must not, restrict the meaning of the text

to the human author's intention. To do so would be would be

to bring the human knowledge of God's word on to a plane

with God's own knowledge.¹⁵⁶

____________________

            ¹⁵⁴Poythress, "Divine Meaning of Scripture," 246-47. See,

also, Peter Cotterell and Max Turner, Linguistics and Biblical

Interpretation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1989), 59.

Thomas W. Gillespie argues that even on a purely linguistic level, "to

speak of the meaning of a text, therefore, is to speak of its

sense and its significance" ("Biblical Authority and

Interpretation: The Current Debate on Hermeneutics," in A

Guide to Contemporary Hermeneutics: Major Trends in

Biblical Interpretation, ed. Donald K. McKim [Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1986], 197).

            ¹⁵⁵Oss, "Canon as Context," 126. I believe this also

effectively counters Elliot Johnson's proposal of "sensus

singular" and "references plenior" ("Author's Intention and

Biblical Interpretation," 427).

            ¹⁵⁶As Ramesh P. Richard remarks, "Surely Kaiser has not

forgotten that if the divine became human, it does not mean

that the human became divine" ("Levels of Biblical Meaning:

Methodological Proposals for Scripture Relevance, Part 2,"

BSac 143 [1986]: 124).

                                        366

 

            (3) Third, this thesis is critical for understanding the way that

the New Testament authors understood and used the Old

Testament. It is imperative that we see that the New Testament

writers did not restrict their understanding and use of the Old

Testament to the human author's intention, but that they

pressed on "beyond intentionality."¹⁵⁷ Now it is necessary to

keep in mind that this was not always the case. Moo correctly

notes that there are instances where the New Testament authors

emphasize the human author's understanding of his own words

(e.g., Acts 2:25-28).¹⁵⁸ But it is just as important to

understand that they often go beyond to a meaning that could

not possibly have been in the mind of the human author. In his

book, The Uses of the Old Testament in the New, Kaiser

attempts to interpret Old Testament passages in such a way that

the meaning of the passage in its original context is identical

with the use of that same passage in the New Testament. And,

quite frankly, his exegeses are really very sound. And yet, as

Erickson points out, it is highly unlikely that we would really

come to these exegetical results if we did not have some

knowledge of how the New Testament authors had used

the passages in question.¹⁵⁹ Indeed, what makes Kaiser's

exegeses of these passages so sound, is that he

____________________

            ¹⁵⁷Sloan, "The Use of the Old Testament in the New

Testament," 154.

            ¹⁵⁸Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," 204.

            ¹⁵⁹Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 15, 29.

                                            367

 

has, in fact, let the New Testament usage of those same

passages influence his understanding of them. And this is

as it should be. If the hermeneutics of the New Testament

authors are to be in any way a guide for us, then it is necessary

for us to understand that their perspective on the text was

one that did not see itself limited to a simple understanding

of the intent of the human author. At the very least we must

note that from their perspective, "the text was not used up by a

single event."¹⁶⁰ They correctly perceived that God had more

to say in the text than the human author did. And they are to be

our guides.

            (4) Fourth, this understanding is important for a true

appreciation of the uniqueness of the Bible. Kaiser, in holding

to the single meaning theory, goes to the point of agreeing with

Jowett and Barr that the Bible is to be interpreted like any other

book.¹⁶¹ But, as McCartney and Clayton point out, "The Bible

is no more like ‘any other book’ than the death of Christ is like

any other death."¹⁶² And Erickson notes that these

            antisupernaturalist (or at least nonsupernaturalist)

            assumptions eliminate any meaning conveyed by a

            divine coauthor of which the human author would not be

____________________

            ¹⁶⁰Snodgrass, "The Use of the Old Testament in the New,"

416.

            ¹⁶¹Kaiser, "Legitimate Hermeneutics," 113-14. See, also, a

discussion of this idea in Paul R. Noble, "The Sensus Literalis:

Jowett, Childs, and Barr," JTS n.s. 44 (1993): 1-23; and James

Barr, "Jowett and the Reading of the Bible `Like any Other

Book,'" HBT 4 (1982-83): 1-44.

            ¹⁶²McCartney and Clayton, Let the Reader Understand, 81.

                                               368

 

            consciously aware. This also excludes effectively any role for

            the Holy Spirit in the interpretational process . . . ¹⁶³

To treat the Bible like any other book is to regard it as a text

whose meaning is fully discernible by our hermeneutical

efforts without the aid or illumination of the Holy Spirit. The

Christo-canonical approach, by maintaining that at every point

the meaning of the words of the text is less than the meaning

which exists in the mind of God, preserves the uniqueness of

the Scriptures as God's word.

            (5) Fifth, this understanding of the difference in meaning

between that of the human and divine authors allows the word

of God to be indeed word of God for today. As LaSor states,

            If the passage that we are studying means nothing more when

            we have finished than it meant to the original audience, then it

            has only antiquarian interest. It is not the word of God to

            us.¹⁶⁴

By saying that this approach allows the word of God to be

word of God for us today, I am not adopting the view that in

some way the Bible "becomes" the word of God. Rather, I am

arguing that the failure to recognize that God's meaning in a

text is more than the human author's meaning is, at the same time,

a failure to allow the text to have any meaningful significance

for the present situation. The human author's intention almost

certainly did not include me, but God's intention did,

____________________

            ¹⁶³Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 30-31.

            ¹⁶⁴LaSor, "Prophecy, Inspiration, and Sensus Plenior," 50;

also, "The Sensus Plenior and Biblical Interpretation," 265.

                                          369

 

and this is part of the meaning of the text. By suggesting that

the human author's meaning in a text is identical to God's

meaning, and that it is only recoverable by grammatical-

historical interpretation, we are in essence cutting ourselves off

from the full meaning of the text as God would have us

understand it today. Therefore, I would put this conception

under the indictment that Carson pronounces on a host of

modern hermeneutical methods: "Yet the most touted

hermeneutical approaches today never enable anyone to hear a

sure word from God: indeed, they positively preclude such an

eventuality."¹⁶⁵

            To see that the divine author's intention in the text is infinitely

larger than that of the human author allows the text to be

personalized and contemporized. Indeed, it was for this very

reason, that Alexandria won out for so long over Antioch.

Beryl Smalley answers the question as to why the Medieval

theological student preferred the Alexandrian method to that of

the Antiochenes: "The former satisfied a paramount emotional

need and corresponded to a world outlook while the latter

struck him as cold and irrelevant."¹⁶⁶ And it is for

____________________

            ¹⁶⁵Donald A. Carson, "Hermeneutics: A Brief Assessment of

Some Recent Trends," Themelios n.s. 5/2 (1980): 20.

            ¹⁶⁶Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages

(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), 19. Cf.

Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? 65-67; David

Steinmetz, "The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis," TToday

37 (1980): 2930; Norman K. Gottwald, "A History of Biblical

Interpretation for Contemporary Baptists," Foundations 10

(1967): 307; Pinnock, The Scripture Principle, 192-93.

                                        370

 

this very same reason that nearly two centuries of grammatical-

historical, single-meaning exegesis has proved to be practically

barren and sterile, because, as Steinmetz put it,

            The medieval theory of levels of meaning in the biblical text,

            with all its undoubted defects, flourished because it is true,

            while the modern theory of a single meaning, with all its

            demonstrable virtues, is false.¹⁶⁷

            Charles Wood notes that "`understanding a text' may be

no single thing at all. What constitutes understanding

depends a great deal on the use one wants to make of the

text."¹⁶⁸ If this is so, it is important to note that only the

idea that God's meaning is more than the human author's makes

possible the true appropriation of the text for a host of uses

besides that entailed in the mind of the original human

author.

            In contrast to John Piper, then, who suggests that

defining

            the meaning of Scripture not in terms of the human

            author/redactor's intention but rather in terms of God's

            intention communicated afresh to each new generation

            through the Scriptures has resulted in a depreciation of

____________________

            ¹⁶⁷Steinmetz, "The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis," 38.

See also his "Theology and Exegesis: Ten Theses," in Histoire

de l'exegese au XVIe siecle, ed. Olivier Fatio and Pierre

Fraenkel, Etudes de Philologie et D'Histoire 34 (Geneva:

Librairie Droz S.A., 1978), 382, in particular, theses 1, 8, and

9. For reaction against Steinmetz, see T. Raymond Hobbs,

"Christology and the Study of the Old Testament," in The

Christological Foundation for Contemporary Theological

Education, ed. Joseph D. Ban (Macon: Mercer University

Press, 1988), 28-29.

            ¹⁶⁸Charles M. Wood, The Formation of Christian

Understanding: An Essay in Theological Hermeneutics

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 19.

                                             371

 

            the once-for-all historical particularity of divine

            revelation,¹⁶⁹

I suggest, instead that defining the meaning of

Scripture in terms of the human author/redactor's intention has

resulted in a depreciation of God's intention communicated

afresh to each new generation.

            I must admit, however, that I am somewhat bewildered by

Raymond Brown's admission that,

            After having written a doctoral dissertation and several

            articles on the SP [sensus plenior], I find that in teaching

            Sacred Scripture I virtually never mention the SP in class.

            (When I jokingly told Mgr. Coppens that his students also         

            report that he rarely ever mentions the SP in class, he

            reminded me that he teaches exegesis and not theology, and

            that the SP was advocated more for the benefit of the theologian

            than for the exegete.)¹⁷⁰

Nor can I understand why Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard draw

the conclusion that just because Douglas Moo says that "it is

important to insist that this `deeper meaning' is based on and

compatible with the meaning intended by the human

author,"¹⁷¹ that Moo is, therefore, "at a loss, then, to find any

usefulness for the approach in the exegete's interpretive

work."¹⁷² Rather, the idea that God's word is not just the what

the human author meant, but what God means today, makes

____________________

            ¹⁶⁹John Piper, "The Authority and Meaning of the Christian

Canon: A Response to Gerald Sheppard on Canon Criticism,"

JETS 19 (1976): 96.

            ¹⁷⁰Raymond E. Brown, "The Problems of the `Sensus

Plenior,'" ETL 43 (1967): 462.

            ¹⁷¹Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," 210.

            ¹⁷²Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical

Interpretation, 139 n. 81.

                                             372

 

this an intensely practical concept--if for no other reason, than

what is to be mentioned in the next point. But I also hope to

show just how practical it is in exegeting the Psalms in Part

Three.

            (6) Sixth, closely related to this last point, this emphasis

highlights the intention God had in producing the Old

Testament as a book for use by Christ and his followers. I am

particularly indebted to the way in which Glenn Olsen has

formulated this:

            It should be equally obvious that if Jesus is who he claims to

            be, the Christ, by definition he has the right to explain how

            God, that is, he, was working in Jewish history to bring the

            fulfillment now given in himself. He can draw the most

            surprising, or illuminating, conclusions he wishes from

            traditional materials. . . . There is no necessity that everything

            he says about the meaning of the events of Jewish history be

            limited to what these events signify to the scientific historian.¹⁷³

            The entire Old Testament history was constructed, and the Old

Testament as a document written, with a view in God's

intention to the use to be made of them by his Son and the

followers of his Son. This is why van Ruler's idea of the

coming of Christ as "an emergency measure that God

postponed as long as possible"¹⁷⁴ is inconsistent, not just with

the witness of the Old Testament but with that of the New as

well, which views the Old Testament as book of Christ (Luke24:25

____________________

            ¹⁷³Glenn W. Olsen, "Allegory, Typology, and Symbol: The

Sensus Spiritalis. Part One: Definitions and Earliest History,"

Communio (US) 4 (1977): 175-76.

            ¹⁷⁴Arnold A. van Ruler, The Christian Church and the Old

Testament, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1971), 69.

                                               373

 

27, 45-47; John 5:39; 1 Pet 1:10-12). To anticipate a portion of

the argument to be put forward in Part Three, it makes a

considerable difference whether we see Jesus merely

appropriating the language of the lament psalms, or whether

we see that God's intention in inspiring the human author to

write these psalms, was that his Son might turn to them for

consolation and comfort in his passion. It makes a difference

whether we see the Psalms as prayers that we may pray

because of the similarity of the psalmist's situation to our own

human situation, or see them as the prayers which God inspired

the psalmist to write in order that in our corporate solidarity

with Christ, the psalms that he turned to in order to find words

of both lament and praise, may be our psalms as well. When

Paul says that "everything that was written in the past was

written to teach us, so that through endurance and the

encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom

15:4), I believe he was not merely talking about appropriation

by the reader, but intention on the part of the divine author.

The Old Testament is a book given by the inspiration of God

for the use of his Son and all those who are in corporate

solidarity with his Son, that is, those who are "in Christ." And

that makes this idea that the meaning of the Scriptures is more

than just the meaning of the human author an intensely

important and practical concept.

            Furthermore, it is important to note that this

effectively nullifies the argument that the New Testament

                                       374

 

authors would not have appealed to this fuller meaning of

Scripture for apologetic purposes. Aside from Moo's

observation that "we must be careful not to think that methods

of proof not convincing to us would necessarily have been

equally unconvincing to first-century Jews,"¹⁷⁵ there is, for

the point I am stressing now, his even more relevant comment:

            Much, if not most, of the use of the Old Testament in the New

            is designed to assure or convince Christians, for whom the

            general relevance of the Old Testament for the church was

            already assumed.¹⁷⁶

So while there may be some truth to the claim that a "fuller

meaning" type of exegesis cannot be used apologetically (even

though I believe there are, in fact, examples of it in the New

Testament), it must be kept in mind that we are talking about

something here that is essentially intra-ecclesiastical, for use

within the Church, by the Church, for the Church.

            (7) Finally, that the divine meaning and intention is infinitely

greater than the human author's is critical to the very character

of biblical canon as canon. If the text of Scripture means no

more than what the human author means, then the text ceases

to be canon. Doug Oss correctly notes that the separation

between meaning and application, i.e., the meaning of the text

and God's intention as to how he wants the text applied,

"results in the loss of normativeness for the

____________________

            ¹⁷⁵Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," 202-3; cf. Oss,

"The Interpretation of the `Stone' Passages," 199.

            ¹⁷⁶Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," 203.

                                             375

 

message of the Bible."¹⁷⁷ To restrict the meaning of the text to

what only the human author may have meant is effectively to

decanonize the text. And so we see how just how important

this thesis is to whole the program of canonical exegesis.

            To say that exegesis of the Scriptures must be done canonically

is to say that the interpreter must recognize from the outset that

the meaning he or she derives from the text will always be

infinitely lower than the meaning that is there, for that meaning

is, and always will be, the sole possession of God.

 

                                   Conclusion

            What I am about to say here could be regarded, I suppose, as

another thesis, but I think it is seen more appropriately as a

summing up all the theses of these last two chapters. The

Christo-canonical approach, while focusing on the written

canon, does not abstract that canon from its author. Thus, it is

not a text-centered approach, but a theologically-, i.e.,

Christologically-centered approach. This approach notes that a

strictly text-centered reading of the Bible, as opposed to an

extra-textual referential reading, has in fact served to create a

biblicism worse than that ever practiced by so-called

fundamentalists. Further, this approach recognizes that the

Scriptures are already Christian Scripture by virtue of Christ's

ownership of them; thus there

____________________

            ¹⁷⁷Oss, "Canon as Context," 125.

                                           376

 

is no need to over-Christologize them in ways that are not

prescribed by the Lord of the canon himself.

            There is a distinction to be made, as mentioned in the last

section, between the apologetic/evangelistic use of the

Scriptures and what I referred to as an intra-ecclesiastical use.

It is to be granted that this distinction is not necessarily a very

sharp one. So, for example, the Lord's Supper would be

regarded as being intra-ecclesiastical, a communion between

the people of God and their Lord, which the non-believer can

only observe as an outsider. Yet, on the other hand, it may have

an apologetic/evangelistic function as well, as perhaps

suggested by the words of Paul in 1 Cor 11:26. In any case,

the point I am making is that to a large extent, the Christo-

canonical exegesis I am proposing is an intra-ecclesiastical

one as opposed to an apologetic one, at least in the traditional

evidential conception of apologetics. In other words, I am

maintaining for the Christo-canonical approach what Bonhoeffer

did for allegorical interpretation, that it "remains a splendid

freedom of the church's exegesis, not as a false means of

proof, but as a celebration of the fullness of the witness to

Christ in Scripture."¹⁷⁸

            Till now I have avoided referring to typological

or allegorical exegesis. It is not my desire to make a case

____________________

            ¹⁷⁸Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures

and Notes 1928-1936 from the Collected Works of Dietrich

Bonhoeffer Volume I, ed. Edwin H. Robertson, trans. Edwin

H. Robertson and John Bowden (New York: Harper & Row,

1965), 321.

                                          377

 

either for or against either one at this point, even though I will

lay all my cards on the table and declare that, in my opinion,

there is abundant evidence for the typological interpretation of

the Old Testament in the New Testament, and a somewhat

lesser case for the allegorical, if the allegorical is to be defined

as Wolfson does, "the interpretation of a text in terms of

something else, irrespective of what that something else is."¹⁷⁹

I hedge here a bit on the allegorical, for in Paul Jewett's

opinion, there is an organic relationship between the texts that

are used allegorically in the New Testament and the

interpretation made of them, which effectively cancels out the

qualifying phrase in Wolfson's definition, "irrespective of what

that something else is."¹⁸⁰ Also, as Silva notes, "every hour of

the day thousands of Christians allegorize the Scriptures,"¹⁸¹

thus it seems strange to try to develop "a hermeneutical

approach that works in splendid isolation from the way

believers usually read the Scriptures."¹⁸²

            Nor has it been my concern thus far to discuss literal vs.

spiritual, or literal vs. figurative exegesis. Again, I lay my

cards on the table and declare that there are abundant

____________________

            ¹⁷⁹H. A. Wolfson, Philo (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press), 1.134.

            ¹⁸⁰Paul K. Jewett, "Concerning the Allegorical

Interpretation of Scripture," WTJ 17 (1954-55): 13.

            ¹⁸¹Silva, Has the Church Misread the Bible? 66.

            ¹⁸²Ibid., 67.

                                       378

 

examples in the New Testament where an Old Testament

promise or prophecy or prediction has been "spiritualized" in

the New Testament pronouncement of that Old Testament

passage's fulfillment. On the other hand, there are also

instances, as Darrell Bock notes, where the figurative in the

Old Testament has become literal.¹⁸³

            But whether, and to what extent, these methods are to be used

is not my concern in this thesis.¹⁸⁴ Rather, the concern is that

the Scriptures are to be interpreted Christologically. By this I

do not mean that all kinds of allegorical, typological, or

spiritualizing exegeses are to be employed, though again, I

believe all these to be within the range of the "splendid

freedom of the church's exegesis." I do mean, however, that the

canon may not be abstracted from its author, and that if Christ

has incarnated himself in his word, then an exegesis that misses

Christ in the text, has simply failed to accomplish its

hermeneutical goal.

            This does not mean that we have to look under every

"stone, leaf, or door" in the Old Testament in order to find

____________________

            ¹⁸³See his discussion in "Evangelicals and the Use of the Old

Testament in the New," 310. So, for example, the author of

Psalm 22 almost certainly did not experience crucifixion;

therefore, figurative details in his description of his distress,

became literal when Christ was crucified.

            ¹⁸⁴As Bonhoeffer remarks, "The first presupposition remains

that the Scriptures are already given as a unity in Christ; this

comes before both literal and allegorical exegesis" (No Rusty

Swords, 1.321-22 n. 1).

                                         379

 

Christ. There is no compulsion for us to find Christ where he is

not. As Poythress says,

            We need not practice any artificiality, such as

            introducing an allegorical meaning on an unpromising Old

            Testament text in order to force Christ into the text.

            For several reasons, no artificiality is needed. Christ

            is the Word of God and is God. He speaks wherever God

            speaks in the Old Testament.¹⁸⁵

So it is not a matter of trying to force a Christological exegesis

on Old Testament passages, but rather, as David Baker remarks,

"The very nature of the Old Testament itself, rightly understood,

demands Christological interpretation."¹⁸⁶ The Christological

interpretation I am thinking of is not one that tries to turn

Mordecai into a type of Christ (though I am not ruling out the

possibility that someone might be able to show such a

connection), but one that seeks out that interpretation of the

Old Testament which accords with the author of the Old

Testament, the Christ who has incarnated himself in its pages.

Thus it may well be that the correct Christological

interpretation of a passage is that there is no allegory, no

type, no substantive connection between Christ and the

text other than that Christ is the author of the text. Thus,

Bonhoeffer was able to remark concerning the Song of Songs

____________________

            ¹⁸⁵Poythress, Symphonic Theology, 39. Cf. Miller, "The Old

Testament and the Christian Faith," 248.

            ¹⁸⁶Baker, "Interpreting Texts in the Context of the Whole

Bible," 23.

                                         380

 

that he preferred "to read it as an ordinary love song, and that is

probably the best `Christological' exposition."¹⁸⁷

            Christological exegesis is not the same as Luther's "was

Christum treibet," though it does have affinities to it. Rather,

what the Christo-canonical approach asserts is that every single

word of the Old Testament "shows Christ." This cannot

necessarily be demonstrated by a grammatical-historical

exegesis which presupposes that either the only or the most

important meaning of the text is that which originally existed

in the mind of the human author. But it is demonstrable to

those who come to the text in faith, seeking the illumination of

the Holy Spirit, and fully humbling themselves before the Lord

of the canon, who alone reserves the right to disclose the

meaning of his words and to reveal himself in Holy Scripture.

This demonstration is not necessarily one that will be

apologetically satisfying, but it is one that I believe is

vital to the life of the Church.¹⁸⁸ To borrow a line from

the title of an article by Karlfried Froehlich, "Always to

keep the literal sense in Holy Scripture means to

____________________

            ¹⁸⁷Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, rev.

ed., ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 176.

            ¹⁸⁸Cf. François Dreyfus, "The Existential Value of the Old

Testament," trans. P. J. Hepburn-Scott, in How Does the

Christian Confront the Old Testament?, ed. Pierre Benoit,

Roland E. Murphy, and Bastiaan van Iersel, Concilium 30

(New York: Paulist, 1968), 39-40: "One thing is certain, that

for the Christian there is only one living, vital reading of the

Old Testament, only one reading that can answer the question

of the meaning of his existence: that which starts from Jesus

Christ as its center, in relation to whom every element of the

Old Testament must be situated."

                                          381

 

kill one's soul."¹⁸⁹ To read the Holy Scriptures in all their

parts and fail to meet Christ there would inevitably kill the

Church. And for pastors and teachers to exegete and expound

the canonical text in abstraction from the Lord of the canon, is

to be disobedient to the Lord who gave those pastors and

teachers to the Church in order that they might lead the Church

to attain "the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph

4:13).

            David Steinmetz has called attention to how Luther used

ancient Church language regarding the eucharist to describe

what happens when the Christian reads the Scriptures.¹⁹⁰ Even

as the communicant eats the bread and drinks the wine in order

to meet Christ in the communion, so the interpreter of Scripture

"digests" the text in order to meet Christ in the act of

interpretation. Bruce Waltke has picked up on and employed

this imagery in an article entitled "Hermeneutics and the

Spiritual Life," concluding that just as Christ hid himself

in a body in the incarnation, so he has also hidden

____________________

            ¹⁸⁹Karlfried Froehlich, "`Always to Keep the Literal Sense in

Holy Scripture Means to Kill One's Soul': The State of Biblical

Hermeneutics at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century," in

Literary Uses of Typology from the Late Middle Ages to the

Present, ed. Earl Miner (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1977), 21.

            ¹⁹⁰Steinmetz, "Hermeneutics and Old Testament

Interpretation in Staupitz and the Young Luther," 41.

                                          382

 

himself "in his textual presence in Scripture."¹⁹¹ Then he

comes to the all-important conclusion of the article:

            What I am contending for in this paper is that the Bible is

            not like ordinary literature any more than the eucharist is like

            ordinary food. To make my point memorable, let me state it

            absurdly: exegetical theologians who dedicate themselves to

            instructing the expositor on how to exegete the text by the

            grammaticohistorical method alone are like systematic

            theologians, who in explaining the eucharist, dedicate

            themselves to instructing the worshipper on how to masticate

            the bread and digest it.¹⁹²

            Without necessarily depending on a precise analogy between

communion and the interpretation of Scripture, I would still

maintain that the interpretation of Scripture is a sacred activity,

a sacrament. And like communion, it is one in which only

those who have pledged allegiance to the Lord of the canon are

qualified to participate. In all our dialogue with biblical

scholars who are not confessing Christians, it is essential that

we put that dialogue in its proper perspective, and always

remember, using the analogy of communion again, that is they

who have come to our table, and not we to theirs. And while we

have an apologetic responsibility to enter into current hermeneutical

discussion, we must keep in mind that the interpretation of

Scripture is primarily an intra-ecclesiastical activity. Therefore,

while there is a certain point to which we can go in discussing

____________________

            ¹⁹¹Bruce K. Waltke, "Hermeneutics and the Spiritual Life,"

Crux 23/1 (1987): 9; cf. also his "Kingdom Promises as

Spiritual," 265.

            ¹⁹²Waltke, "Hermeneutics and the Spiritual Life," 10.

                                       383

 

hermeneutical issues with them, there is also a point beyond

which we cannot. According to Richard Gaffin, we who are

confessing Christians should see

            just how wrong and confusing it is, with an eye to the

            contemporary scene, to speak of the hermeneutical problem, as

            if all without differentiation are entangled in the same

            dilemma. Those who know the text to be the voice of the great

            Shepherd need not and cannot assume the burden of

            hermeneutical difficulties created by those who refuse to

            listen.¹⁹³

            To say that exegesis of the Scriptures must be done canonically

is to say that it must be done Christologically. So it should be

apparent now just how important it is for evangelical believers

to differentiate their canonical exegesis from that of those who

refuse to submit their hermeneutical endeavors to the Lord of

the canon. So I repeat my last words from the end of Part One:

I suggest that for evangelicals, who in their study of the Bible

put themselves under the full authority, not just of the canon,

but also the Christ who gives the canon its authority, it is not

enough to declare their approach to the Bible to be canonical.

And this is the thesis of this dissertation: The evangelical

approach to Scripture today must go beyond "canonical"; it

must be explicitly "Christo-canonical."

 

 

 

____________________

            ¹⁹³Gaffin, "Contemporary Hermeneutics and the Study of the

New Testament," 14.

 

 

 

                                        PART THREE

 

       THE APPLICATION OF THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL

                    APPROACH TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS

 

 

 

 

                                     CHAPTER 7

 

 

THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE SHAPE

                        OF THE BOOK OF PSALMS

 

 

            Klaus Seybold has noted that for the commentators of the

Middle Ages, "the exposition of the Psalms seems to have

become a hermeneutical paradigm."¹ Following this medieval

tradition, I propose to use the book of Psalms as hermeneutical

paradigm for the Christo-canonical approach outlined in the

previous chapters. This is especially fitting for two reasons.

First, the Psalms, perhaps more than any other book of the Old

Testament, has become the focus of attention for those

attempting to employ the canonical approach, as will become

apparent by the references to the scholarly literature referenced

in this chapter and the next. Second, when Brevard Childs

sounded the call for a new way of doing biblical theology, it

was by the use of a psalm that he first illustrated his "new"

canonical approach to doing exegesis.²

            This chapter will be devoted to an investigation of what the

Christo-canonical approach has to contribute to the

____________________

            ¹Klaus Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, trans. R. Graeme

Dunphy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990), 249.

            ²Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1970), 151-63.

                                                  387

                                         388

 

discussion of the many issues concerning the growth and

canonical shape of the Psalter. The next chapter will examine

the approach's contribution to understanding the use of

the Psalter in the rest of the canon. Chapter 9 will then

test the validity of those contributions by looking at three

particular psalms. Finally, chapter 10 will look at the

hermeneutical implications of this approach for the

interpretation and use of the Psalms in the Christian Church.

            Does the Christo-canonical approach have anything to

contribute to the discussion that has dominated Psalms studies

in the last decade in regard to the canonical shape of the

Psalter? This chapter will examine this question by starting at

the micro-level of psalm superscriptions, and progressing to the

macro-level of suggested rationales for the shape of the Psalter

as a whole.

 

                          The Psalms Superscriptions

            Though much speculation surrounds the superscriptions

of the Psalms, it is safe to say that the prevailing scholarly view

is that the titles are late and originated not with the individual

psalms themselves, but with the editors who put the Psalter

together as a collection. Among the arguments against the

authenticity of these titles are (1) their very loose connection

with the actual content of the psalms they head,

(2) their third person style, and (3) the tendency of the

Septuagint, Syriac, and other versions to either change,

substitute, or add titles, possibly reflecting that the same

                                         389

 

thing happened in the transmission of these psalms in Hebrew

texts.³

            More conservative scholars have argued for the traditional

understanding of the psalm titles. Among the arguments

brought forward in favor of their authenticity are the following:

(1) the comparative data suggests that it was not the practice in

the ancient Near East for hymns to be circulated without

accompanying information of various sorts, (2) the fact

that the Septuagint has an unusually hard time of it in

translating the technical terms in the titles suggests that they

are of great antiquity, (3) that even in rabbinical discussions

the meanings of the technical terms seem to have been lost

also suggests their antiquity, and (4) there are no Hebrew

manuscripts that do not have the titles.

            Seeking to cut through the impasse, Brevard Childs,

though admitting the titles' secondary character, did not see

this as cause for disparagement of them. Rather than viewing

the titles as spurious and therefore to be disregarded, he has

suggested that these titles, though not original, are nonetheless

canonical--an indication of how the unknown canonizers

of the Psalms wished us to read them.⁴ The question that

the Christo-canonical approach asks at this

____________________

            ³On this tendency in the Septuagint, see Albert Pietersma,

"David in the Greek Psalms," VT 30 (1980): 213-26.

            ⁴Brevard S. Childs, "Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis,"

JSS 16 (1971): 137-150; Introduction to the Old Testament as

Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 512-13, 516-17, 520-22.

                                         390

 

point is whether this way of viewing the psalm titles

sufficiently acknowledges their canonical status. It offers the

following observations to the problem.

            First, the canon's reconstruction of the psalm titles must be

given its priority in the discussion, and the received canon of

the Christian Church has these titles. Whatever the outcome of

the debate as to whether the psalms titles are canonical or not,

it must be acknowledged that both initial and subsequent

readings of the canon suggest that they are. At this point,

Childs's thesis, that though the titles may not be original they

are nevertheless canonical, is a welcome corrective to the

indifference with which the superscriptions were once treated.

At the same time, the canonicity that Childs argues for is

rooted in the community model of canon-it is not a theological

statement.

            Second, not only do the psalms have titles, but there is a

tendency for other lyrical compositions in the canon to have

something which approximates a title as well. The Song of the

Sea in Exodus 15, the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32, the

Song of Deborah and Barak in Judges 5, the prayer of Hannah

in 1 Samuel 2, the song of David in 2 Samuel 22 (parallel to

Psalm 18), the prayer of Hezekiah in Isaiah 38, the prayer of

Jonah in Jonah 2, and the prayer of Habakkuk in Habakkuk 3,

all have introductory notices giving some kind of genre

designation to what follows and naming the author/performer

of the composition.

                                            391

 

            Third, there is the matter of the New Testament

references to the psalms headings. Leaving till the next section

the discussion regarding authorship, it will be sufficient to note

here the possibility that Jesus and the New Testament authors

regarded the headings of the Psalms as providing accurate

information regarding authorship. The evidence is somewhat

ambiguous, however, for in two places, Acts 4:25 and Heb 4:7,

psalms are attributed to David which have no headings in the

Masoretic Text. In the Acts passage, the royal nature of Psalm

2 quoted there may have influenced the Davidic attribution. In

the Hebrews passage, the quotation from Psalm 95 is

introduced with the words "he [God] spoke through David,"

(en dauid). It is ambiguous whether the author is relying on the

Septuagint's attribution of the psalm to David, or whether the

en should be taken as locative, not instrumental, with David

being a reference not to the person, but to the book which came

to be called by his name.⁵

            Fourth, the canon's voice in the distribution of the

psalm headings must be heard along with the comparative

data. Gerald Wilson has called attention to the fact that

the superscriptions of the psalms play no explicit part in

the overall organization of the Psalter.⁶ He did suggest,

____________________

            ⁵Cf. F. F. Bruce, The Book of Hebrews, rev. ed., NICNT

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 107-8; William L. Lane,

Hebrews 1-8, WBC 47a (Dallas: Word, 1991), 92, 94; Paul Ellingworth,

Commentary on Hebrews, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

1993), 251.

            ⁶Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, SBLDS

76 (Chico, CA: Scholar Press, 1985), 139-141.

                                           392

 

however, that the editors of the Psalter used the genre

designations in the titles to "soften" the disjunctions

between groups of psalms where there were transitions from

psalms of one author to those of another.⁷ I would like to

suggest, however, that the distribution of these psalm headings

also provides a witness that is corroborated by the comparative

data.

            Haim M. I. Gevaryahu suggested in several articles that the

psalm superscriptions were originally postscripts that were

later transferred to the beginning of the psalms with which they

are connected. He believed that the earlier postscripts were

added to the psalms during the exile under the influence of

Akkadian hymnic literature, and then transferred to the

beginning of the psalms some time after the exile.⁸ He

also argued that the psalms, which were originally

anonymous compositions, were given author attributions

during the exilic period. Wilson dismissed Gevaryahu's

thesis because the content of the psalm superscriptions

and the Akkadian and Sumerian colophons were too dissimilar,

particularly in that the Akkadian colophons do not contain

 

 

____________________

            ⁷Wilson, Editing, 163-67; see also his "Evidence of Editorial

Divisions in the Hebrew Psalter," VT 34 (1984): 337-52.

            ⁸Haim M. I. Gevaryahu, "Biblical Colophons: A Source for the

‘Biography’ of Authors, Texts and Books," in Congress

Volume: Edinburgh, 1974, ed. G. W. Anderson et al., VTSup 28

(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 42-59.

                                          393

 

authorship information.⁹ And indeed, this is certainly the

case, as the work of Lambert has shown.¹⁰

            Bruce Waltke has challenged Wilson's dismissal of

Gevaryahu's connection between Akkadian hymnic colophons

and biblical psalmic superscriptions,¹¹ and in the process has

also revived a thesis originally propounded by J. W. Thirtle

ninety years ago.¹² Thirtle's thesis was that the phrase

lamnassēah in the superscript of a psalm was originally a

postscript to the preceding psalm. Waltke, then, took the work

of Thirtle and Gevaryahu and combined them to arrive at the

thesis that over the process of time there was a wholesale

corruption in the transmission of the Psalter, whereby the prose

colophon of one psalm was conjoined with the prose

superscript of the following psalm. Thus he argues that

all the information in a superscript to a psalm prior to the

genre and author designation should really be seen as a

postscript to the previous psalm. He also called attention to

the fact that while the Akkadian colophons do not contain author

designations, the Egyptian hymn superscripts do contain author

designations, as well as genre information. Waltke then went

____________________

            ⁹Wilson, Editing, 145-55.

            ¹⁰W. G. Lambert, "Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity," JCS

11 (1957): 1-14.

            ¹¹Bruce K. Waltke, "Supercripts, Postscripts, or Both," JBL

110 (1991): 583-96.

            ¹²J. W. Thirtle, The Titles of the Psalms: Their Nature and

Meaning Explained (New York: Henry Frowde, 1904), 11-12.

                                         394

 

on to show how this thesis could well explain certain

phenomena in the Psalter. For example, the phrase in the

superscript of Psalm 56, "For the director of music. To the

tune of ‘A Dove on Distant Oaks,’" seems to tie in rather well

with Ps 55:7-8,

            I said, "Oh that I had the wings of a dove!

                        I would fly away and be at rest-

            I would flee far away

                        and stay in the desert.¹³

I would suggest also that there may even be cases where the

information in the superscript concerning genre designation

should really go with the previous psalm. Thus, I agree with

Torczyner that the phrase in the superscript of Psalm 30, "A

song for the dedication of the temple," should really be seen

as referring to Psalm 29, to which it would go very

appropriately.¹⁴

            What I want to focus on, however, is the correspondence

between the biblical data and the Egyptian superscripts and

Akkadian colophons. Wilson's rejection of Gevaryahu's notion

that the biblical superscripts (originally colophons) grew out

of contacts with Akkadian literature during the exile is

probably justified. I believe, however, that the connection

manifests itself in another way. The fact that Egyptian

hymnody denotes the author of the composition, whereas

____________________

            ¹³Waltke, "Superscripts," 592-93.

            ¹⁴Referred to disapprovingly in Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms

1-59: A Commentary, trans. Hilton C. Oswald (Minneapolis:

Augsburg, 1988), 354.

                                            395

 

Akkadian hymnody does not, agrees with the biblical data. The

first three books of the Psalter, containing eighty-nine psalms,

contain author designations for all but seven, and the number is

reduced if the tradition is taken into account that would

connect these orphan psalms with the psalms that precede

them. By contrast, in the last two books of the Psalter,

containing sixty-one psalms, only nineteen have authors

designations, and in no case is the designated author a post-

exilic figure. Correspondingly, the term lamnassēah, which

occurs fifty-two times in the first three books, occurs only three

times in the last two books, and only in conjunction with the

name David in the latter. This leads me to the following

conclusions.

            (1) During the existence of the monarchy in Israel, when there

was a closer association between Israel and Egypt, the biblical

psalms, like the Egyptian hymns, generally contained author

and genre designations in the headings. During the exilic and

post-exilic years, when Israel came more directly under the

influence of Akkadian literature, there was a tendency to

follow Akkadian practice and not designate the authors

of the compositions. Indeed, in the last two books of the

Psalter, there are no guild designations; the authors are Moses,

David, and Solomon. The fact that the clan guilds, though

operative in the post-exilic era, do not have their names

attached to any psalms in the last two books of the

 

                                                396

 

Psalter, but are credited with some twenty-seven compositions

in the first three books, accords well with this conclusion.¹⁵

            (2) The technical musical or liturgical terms used in the pre-

exilic psalms do not occur in the exilic or post-exilic psalms.

The reason for this is that their precise meaning was lost during

the exile. Practically the only terms used in the last two books

that are also used in the first three books, are ones whose

meaning is relatively clear, mizmôr, šîr, and tĕpillâ. The only

two other terms that occur in superscripts of psalms in the last

two books as well as in the first three, are lamnassēah (three

times) and maśkîl (only once), and then only in psalms that are

ascribed to David. Interestingly, the technical term selâ, whose

meaning has eluded scholars for over two millennia, occurs

seventy-one times in thirty-nine psalms in the entire Psalter;

but there are only four occurrences in two psalms in the last

two books, and both of those psalms are ascribed to David.

            (3) The psalms in the last two books of the Psalter are not

simply compositions that were written after the exile and then

attributed to David. Rather, they are compositions that either

were already known and had not yet been added to the

collection, or they were psalms that were discovered too late

____________________

            ¹⁵On this point, see also Nahum M. Sarna, "The Psalms

Superscriptions and the Guilds," in Studies in Jewish Religious

and Intellectual History Presented to Alexander Altmann on

the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Siegfried Stein

and Raphael Loewe (University, AL: University of Alabama

Press; and London: Institute of Jewish Studies, 1979), 281-300.

                                            397

 

to add to the Davidic collections in the first two books. The

fact that the only liturgical terms from the first three books of

the Psalter that occur again in the last two books are in

Davidically ascribed psalms gives tremendous weight to this

conclusion.

            This comports well with Gevaryahu's and Waltke's thesis, that

during the exile, the technical meanings of the musical and

liturgical terms were lost.¹⁶ It also lends support to Wilson's

suggestion that in the exilic period there was "a move from

performance to meditation" in the use of the Psalter.¹⁷ Indeed,

it is even possible that Psalm 137 provides a clue in this regard:

the songs of the Lord were not sung in a foreign land.

            Fifth, in the light of the foregoing data, I would

suggest that the headings of the Psalms, rather than being

relegated to the function of providing editorial or redactional

information, should instead be recognized as canonical and

more properly studied under the disciplines of philological

investigation and textual criticism. As Waltke remarks, his

thesis that there has been a wholesale corruption in the

transmission of the titles, a corruption stemming in part

from the disuse of the psalms during the exilic period,

____________________

            ¹⁶Gevaryahu, "Biblical Colophons," 52 n. 36; Waltke,

"Superscripts," 594; see also, Sarna, "The Psalms

Superscriptions," 289-90.

            ¹⁷Gerald H. Wilson, "The Shape of the Book of Psalms," Int

46 (1992), 137-38 n. 30.

                                              398

 

is indeed, a conjecture.¹⁸ But as he also notes, it is a conjecture

that accords well with the extra- and intra-canonical data, and

I would add, with the implicit witness of the psalm headings

themselves. The three witnesses, I believe, are enough to

warrant the acceptance of Waltke's thesis, and to cause a

revision in our view of the psalm superscripts.

            Sixth, even given all this evidence, I call attention to how little

hermeneutical gain comes as a result of the debate. Since most

of the technical terms of the Psalter are so obscure in their

meaning, it makes little interpretive difference whether the

psalm headings are regarded as authentic or not. Only in rare

cases in recent scholarship have any of these technical terms

made a significant contribution to anyone's arguments

regarding the meaning of a psalm to which a heading

containing any of these terms are attached. Until more

philological conclusions are reached on the meanings of these

technical terms, the interpretative gains from a study of these

titles will be minimal. There are, however, two areas where the

acknowledgement of the canonicity of these titles brings

significant results. They give far more credence to the

recognition of the authenticity of the authorship ascriptions,

and of the historical notices contained in the titles.

____________________

            ¹⁸Waltke, "Superscripts," 595.

                                            399

 

            Seventh, to confirm Wilson's observation referred to earlier,

it is interesting to note how few direct implications these psalm

headings have for the overall arrangement of the Psalter. Aside

from the Songs of Ascents, there is no place where all the

songs of one designation, be it genre, authorship, musical

performance, etc., are gathered together in one place without

exception.

 

                         The Authorship Ascriptions

            The question of the reliability of the authorship ascriptions

of the psalms is one that is complicated by several factors. First,

there is the whole problem of the translation of the preposition

lĕ. Does it mean "by," "for," "to," "on behalf of," "belonging

to," "concerning," or just what? Second, there is the problem of

just exactly what "David" refers to. Does it ever, or always,

refer to the person David? Or could it possibly at times, or even

always, refer to the Davidic dynasty, or the king who currently

happens to sit on David's throne? Or could it simply refer to

psalms written in a Davidic tradition?¹⁹

            Without trying to interact with all the possible

arguments for or against the interpretation that would see

David and other named individuals or groups as the authors

of the psalms attributed to them, I will simply list what I

____________________

            ¹⁹Thus suggest Raymond E. Brown and James C. Turro

("Canonicity," in JBC, ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A.

Fitzmeyer, and Roland E. Murphy [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,

1968], 531-32).

                                       400

 

believe are the contributions the Christo-canonical approach

can make to the discussion.

            First, I argue that the canon, which contains these ascriptions,

must be allowed to testify. Whatever lĕdāwid means, it should

be interpreted as part of the canon, not ignored.

            Second, the data from the previous section must be taken into

account. That all the authorship notices are pre-exilic comports

well with the comparative data in regards to Egyptian

hymnody. The convergence of canonical and comparative data

supports the position that the titles are authentic, and that the

ascriptions of authorship are to be taken seriously.²⁰

            Third, the intra-canonical data, I believe, seriously weakens

the case that lĕdāwid means something other than authorship.

I briefly list some of this data here.

            (1) An internal consistency between the psalm

headings should be noticed. Psalm 14 equals Psalm 53 and both

are ascribed to David. The last five verses of Psalm 40 equals

Psalm 70 and both are ascribed to David. Psalm 108 is made

up of portions from Psalms 57 and 60, and all three are ascribed

to David. Psalms 8 and 144 are both ascribed to David, and

 

 

____________________

            ²⁰For the contrary, but majority view, see Alan M. Cooper,

"The Life and Times of King David According to the Book of

Psalms," in The Poet and the Historian: Essays in Literary and

Historical Biblical Criticism, ed. Richard Elliott Friedman,

HSS 26 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 117-31; James

Luther Mays, "The David of the Psalms," Int 40 (1986): 151-54.

                                               401

 

both contain a wisdom meditation which begins with the words

"What is man . . ."

            (2) A comparison of Psalm 18 with its parallel in 2 Samuel

22 shows that the lĕdāwid in the psalm was meant to be taken, at

the very least, as meaning that David was the speaker of these

words. That either this psalm or other psalms were written by

others for David to use seems unlikely in light of the passage in

the next chapter in 2 Samuel (23:17), where David in the first

person says, "The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; his

word was on my tongue."

            (3) However one may regard the historicity and accuracy

of the Davidic tradition, it is clear that the tradition regards

him as a very musically talented person. He is brought into

Saul's service because of his instrumental abilities (1 Sam

16:14-23; 18:10). Though the passage is open to varying

interpretations, 2 Sam 1:17-27 seems to suggest that, upon

the death of Saul and Jonathan, David composed the lament

which he then sang and ordered to be sung in memorial of

them. Though the passage is somewhat derogatory in its reference,

Amos 6:5 also refers to David's musical ability. At the very

least, David is regarded as a patron of the musical arts in

1 Chr 23:5 (cf. 2 Chr 29:25-27; Neh 12:36), providing four

thousand Levites with musical instruments; it is possible

that he is even regarded as the manufacturer or inventor of

these instruments. In 1 Chronicles 25, David sets apart the

sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun for musical

                                      402

 

service (cf. 1 Chr 15:16; 2 Chr 8:14; 23:18; 35:15; Ezra 3:10;

Neh 12:24). When Hezekiah purified the temple, it is recorded

that he "ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words

of David and of Asaph the seer" (2 Chr 29:30).

            (4) As we have already seen in an earlier section, Jesus

and the New Testament writers regard David as the author of

many of the psalms (Matt 22:41-45 [par. Mark 12:35-37; Luke

20:41-44]; Acts 1:15-20; 2:25-34; 4:25-26; 13:35-36; Rom

4:68; 11:9-10; Heb 4:7). In several of these passages, Acts

2:25-34 being the prime example, there is an apologetic used

which is rendered void if David is not the author of the cited

psalm.

            (5) In other places in the canon, lĕ + proper name almost

certainly refers to the author of the following composition (Isa

38:9; Hab 3:1).²¹

            This intra-canonical data puts the matter almost beyond

question as far as the witness of the canon is concerned. The

authorship ascriptions are authentic and were, indeed,

understood as indications of authorship.

            Third, in spite of the data just presented, it must be noted that

there are still either real or potential ambiguities in the use of

these authorship designations.

            (1) There are certain psalms which seem to in some way

conflict with the authorship inscription. Psalm 20 is

____________________

            ²¹On this point, see Bruce K. Waltke and Michael O'Connor,

An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake:

Eisenbrauns, 1990), 206-7.

                                             403

 

ascribed to David, and yet contains what appears to be, at least

in part of the psalm, a prayer, not of the king, but of the people

on behalf of the king. Psalms 18, 122, and 144 are ascribed to

David, and yet contain third person references to David in the

body of the psalm. It should be noted, however, that in two of

these psalms (18 and 144) the reference to David comes in the

very last verse of the psalm, perhaps evidence of a liturgical

tack-on to an already existent composition. For Psalms 20 and

122, the possibility of a joint compositional liturgical effort

between David and his appointed liturgists must be reckoned

with. In this case, it could be that as long as part of the psalm is

Davidic, the whole psalm was designated thus.

            (2) It must be recognized that the preposition lĕ is

used in other ways in the psalms. The still not quite

understood term, lamnassēah, could, based on the argumentation

above, be translated as "by" the director of music. There is

as much justification for translating lîdûtûn in the title of Psalm

39 as "by Jeduthun" as "for Jeduthun." Also, the postscript

at the end of the second book of the Psalter, "This concludes

the prayers of David son of Jesse," comes after two psalms

that are not ascribed to David, one of which, Psalm 72, is

entitled "to Solomon." If the tradition that untitled psalms

should be attributed to the author of the previously ascribed

psalm is taken into account,²² then it is possible

____________________

            ²²See Wilson, Editing, 173-81; "The Function of `Untitled'

                                           404

 

that the editors considered David as the one praying in Psalm

72 and that the title of the psalm was meant to be taken as, not

"by Solomon," but "concerning Solomon."

            This data would seem to suggest that, though the evidence is

overwhelmingly in favor of the lĕ + proper name formula as

being an indication of authorship, syntactical, text-critical, or

contextual considerations must be taken into account to allow

for other possibilities in individual cases. Nevertheless, that

most of the psalms which have the lĕdāwid notice in the

heading is indicative of authorship is secured. And the

canonical authority of these notices should be given their full

weight in the interpretation of the psalms that bear them.

            Fourth, though the authorship designations provide, in my

opinion, important hermeneutical information, they do little in

the way of providing a clue as to the over-arching structure of

the Psalter. The psalms of no one author constitute a non-

interrupted section of the book. David's psalms, though

concentrated in the first two books, occur in the three other

books as well. Though Psalms 73-83 constitute a concentration

of Asaphite compositions, Psalm 50 has been left out of that

collection. The Korahite Psalms (42, 44-49, 84-85, 87-88) are

interrupted by an untitled psalm in the first run, and by a

Davidic psalm in the second, and the Korahite psalms

themselves are in two different books. Even

____________________

Psalms in the Hebrew Psalter," ZAW 97 (1985): 404-13.

                                              405

 

the two compositions attributed to Solomon (72, 127) are

separate. The evidence for the final canonical arrangement

of the Psalter is more indirect, providing, in my opinion,

chronological, rather than organizational, data.

                              The Historical Titles

            The historical notices in the twelve or thirteen psalms that have

them,²³ have long been discounted by critics as providing any

credible historical information. They are seen rather as

evidences of scribal and rabbinical midrash. In Childs's

canonical approach, however, these midrashic notices are still

to be recognized as part of the received canon; they are "not

some post-biblical ‘Jewish distortion’, but part of the biblical

tradition itself, and must be taken seriously as such."²⁴ They

are not original, nor authentic, nor historical; nevertheless, they

are canonical. Is this approach sufficiently canonical? The

Christo-canonical approach offers the following observations

in answering this question.

            First, as I have suggested in the two preceding

sections, there should be a predisposition toward acceptance

of the canon's testimony regarding these historical notices.

Given the preceding data concerning the reliability of the

titles and the authorship notices within those titles, I

____________________

            ²³I am not counting Psalm 30 in this group, as the title is

not making reference to an incident in the life of David, and, as

mentioned earlier, it is possible that the phrase there, "for the

dedication of the temple," may refer to the previous psalm.

            ²⁴Childs, "Psalm Titles," 149.

                                          406

 

believe we must begin with a presumption of canonicity with

regard to these historical descriptions.

            Second, the attempts of Childs and Elieser Slomovic²⁵

to find in the content of the psalms the possible linguistic

connections which the editors of the Psalms may have seen

when they affixed historical notices to them, weakens, in my

opinion, the very case originally brought forward against their

authenticity. It is much the same situation as Barton describes

in regards to the Pentateuch:

            The more impressive the critic makes the redactor's work

            appear, the more he succeeds in showing that the redactor has,

            by subtle and delicate artistry, produced a simple and coherent

            text out of the diverse materials before him; the more he

            reduces the evidence on which the existence of those sources

            was established in the first place.²⁶

One of the reasons the historical notices were thought to be

inauthentic was that there was nothing in the psalm to warrant

the suggested tie-in between the particular narrative referred to

in the heading and the psalm itself. But now that the reasons

why the editors made the connections which they did are

discovered, it seems that the underpinnings of the critique

against the authenticity of these historical notices have become

somewhat loosened. Not that they have become entirely

unpinned, for sometimes the connection discovered is a very

subtle one indeed, and one wonders why the original

____________________

            ²⁵Elieser Slomovic, "Toward an Understanding of the

Formation of the Historical Titles in the Book of Psalms,"

ZAW 91 (1979): 350-80.

            ²⁶John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical

Study (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 57.

                                           407

 

author would not have the made the connection a little tighter.

Nevertheless, the attempt to find the connections tends to

weaken the case against the historical titles' authenticity in the

first place. In a statement that is almost incredible in its

admission, Childs says,

            To summarize: the most important factor in the formation of

            the titles appears to be general parallels between the situation

            described in the Psalm and some incident in the life of

            David.²⁷

            Third, as Childs has noticed, these notices are fairly formulaic.

They consist of (1) the preposition bĕ, (2) an infinitive

construct, and (3) an incident in David's life narrated in the

third person.²⁸ On the one hand, this observation would tend

to suggest that the third person, stereotypical form of these

notices marks them as non-Davidic in origin, and most likely

stemming from a single person, school, or redaction. On the

other hand, this observation does little, if anything, in terms of

suggesting who this person, school, or redactor may have been.

            Fourth, and to be taken into consideration as a line of

converging evidence with the observation just made, is a

question Childs raises concerning the placement of the

historically titled psalms. He notes that these psalms are

clustered between Psalms 51 and 60 inclusive (only Psalms 53,

____________________

            ²⁷Childs, "Psalm Titles," 147.

            ²⁸Ibid., 138-39. I also agree with Childs that the

superscription for Psalm 7, falling as it does outside this

formulaic category, is probably not meant to be taken as an

historical reference, but is rather of a liturgical nature.

                                            408

 

55, and 58 not having them). If Psalm 7 is discounted (see

previous note) then there are only three psalms with historical

notices prior to this cluster (3, 18, 34), and only two afterwards

(63, 142; if we count Psalm 63 as being in the cluster, then

only Psalm 142 comes afterwards). The importance of this

observation is twofold: (1) There has not been an attempt made

to tie every, or even a majority of the psalms ascribed to David

into an historical incident in his life. If the cluster, Psalms 51-

63, is removed, then only five of the remaining sixty Davidic

psalms are so connected.

            (2) Even in the cluster, the historically titled psalms are not in

long strings; beginning at Psalm 51, the pattern between

historically titled and non-historically titled psalms is as

follows: 2,1,1,1,2,1,2,2,1. If the historically titled psalms ever

did exist as a distinct group, in the process of incorporation

into the existing canonical Psalter, they have been broken up,

scattered, and dischronologized, other organizational factors

having taken priority.

            Fifth, the foregoing would suggest that the relative

scarcity of these historical notices, coupled with their erratic

distribution in the Psalter, argues for their authenticity. Not

every psalm, and not even psalms that could arguably serve

as candidates for a midrashically embellished title--perhaps

even more so than the ones chosen--have titles. Why is Psalm

54 historically titled, but not Psalm 109? Why is Psalm

34 historically titled, but not Psalm 35? The

                                        409

 

evidence would suggest that whoever the person or persons

were who attached the historical titles to the psalms, they (1)

had no intention of doing it for every Davidic psalm, and (2)

they were not building on only the flimsiest of verbal and

linguistic similarities between the passage and some narrative

with which they wished to connect it, but rather, were simply

attaching to the psalm reliable historical tradition concerning

the psalm's original composition.

            Sixth, as Childs points out,

            It is important to note that the incidents chosen as evoking

            the psalms were not royal occasions nor representative of the

            kingly office. Rather David is pictured simply as a man,

            indeed chosen by God for the sake of Israel, but one who

            displays the strengths and weaknesses of all men.²⁹

The titles, with possibly only one or two exceptions, show

David in distress. And, indeed, the psalms to which these

historical titles are attached, are all either laments, or contain

within them laments remembered. Against Childs's assertion

that the historical titles were added to these psalms in

order to remove them from their original cultic context, place

them in a historic Davidic context, and thus democratize

them,³⁰ I would suggest that the canonical data favors

the view that they were already democratized to begin

____________________

            ²⁹Brevard S. Childs, "Reflections on the Modern Study of the

Psalms," in Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God: Essays on

the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed.

Frank Moore Cross, Werner E. Lemke, and Patrick D. Miller, Jr.

(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), 384.

            ³⁰Ibid.

                                            410

 

with. The third-person style argues against David titling these

psalms himself, but it could certainly have been done by

personnel of the cultic/liturgical guilds set up by David to

whom he would have delivered these compositions after he

wrote them. Indeed, certain members may have been present

when David composed these psalms, either in the actual

context of the situation described in the historical ascription, or

upon David's mature reflection on the same incidents.³¹

            Seventh, in the light of the foregoing data, the historical titles,

when they are unambiguous in their references, do have a

hermeneutical role to play in the interpretation of the psalms to

which they are attached. However, they have practically no

role to play in determining the over-arching factors in the

shape of the Psalter, except in their indirect witness. As I

mentioned previously, if they ever did exist as an "incidents in

the life of David collection," they have been broken up,

scattered, and dischronologized. Other organizational factors

have taken precedence.

 

                            Earlier Psalter Collections

            It has long been recognized that there are earlier collections of

psalms that stand behind the present canonical Psalter. Among

them are the following:

____________________

            ³¹Note F. F. Bruce's opinion that "some at least of the

`historical' titles to the Psalms probably go back to the time of

the monarchy" ("The Earliest Old Testament Interpretation,"

OTS 17 [1972]: 37-52).

                                              411

 

            A first Davidic collection (3-41)

            A second Davidic collection (51-70 [-72?])

            Later Davidic groupings (108-110, 138-145)

            Korahite (42-49, 84-88)

            Asaphite (73-83)

            Enthronement (93-99)

            Songs of Ascents (120-134)

            Davidic historical incidents (51-63)

            Hallelujah Psalms (103-106, 111-117, 146-150)

            Psalms of the Enemy (3-13)

            Clusters of Royal Psalms (18-21 [perhaps even larger than

            this])

            Beyond these, there may be other smaller groupings as

well. As intriguing as it is to study these various collections

and develop theories as to the various stages by which the

present Psalter came into existence, it is frustrating as well, and

for two main reasons: (1) Despite all the theorizing that may go

on, it remains only conjectural whether or not a particular

collection existed as such prior to the final collection, or

whether it actually became a collection as the Psalter was re-

ordered. For example, did the enthronement psalms exist at one

time as an independent collection that was incorporated into

the Psalter, or did the editors pull together the various

enthronement psalms into one place in the Psalter? (2) The fact

must be reckoned with that almost always there seem to be one

or two psalms that break up a string of psalms of the same

type. There are untitled psalms in both of the large Davidic

collections. There are non-Korahite and non-Asaphite psalms

in both of those collections, as well as an Asaphite psalm

removed some distance from that collection. Psalm 94 interrupts

the run of enthronement psalms. Several psalms intrude in the

                                             412

 

"historical incidents in the life of David" collection." Psalm 19

interrupts a run of royal psalms. Only the Songs of Ascents

stand in the Masoretic Text as an unbroken group, but in

11QPs^a, Psalms 132 and 134 are separated from the rest. Only

two observations are to be made at this point from the

perspective of the Christo-canonical approach.

            First, when it comes to the topic of earlier collections of

Psalms, because of the highly conjectural nature of the

discussion there is almost nothing theological that can be said.

Childs's warnings about the theologically bankrupt character of

reconstruction must be heeded here. What we have to work

with is the canon in its received form. While it may be

attractive to speculate as to the makeup of earlier collections

of psalms, such speculations are only for the curiosity shop.

They cannot be pressed into the service of theology.

            Second, in whatever form previous collections may

have existed, e.g., a Korahite collection, an Asaphite

collection, etc., the canonical reordering of those collections

and redistribution of the psalms within them is canonical,

is authoritative, and is theological. This does not mean that

psalms that have been separated from earlier putative

collections should not be interpreted in reference to other

psalms of that collection; it is an axiom of modern studies

of the Psalms that psalms of a particular type or form should

be studied together. Most likely, for example, we will learn

                                       413

 

more about Psalm 22 as a lament, by studying it in its

relationships with other laments, rather than in the context

of Psalms 21 and 23. It does mean, however, that the psalms

must not be interpreted with reference to other psalms of

the same type as if they were a collection. Rather, the

collection is the canonical Psalter as it has been handed

down to us in its present ordering. Attempts to make

theological statements about the psalms must work with the

present shape of the canon, and not the putative earlier shape of

its various possible earlier groupings. And in this connection,

the relationship between Psalm 22 and its surrounding psalms

is significant.³² This leads to the next area of discussion.

 

                      Earlier Forms of the Psalter

            Intriguing as well is the discussion as to what the

Psalter may have looked like at its various stages on the

way toward its final shape. I am not thinking here so much

about the earlier individual collections of psalms, but about

the Psalter as a whole as the various collections were

incorporated into it. But, again, in my opinion, the discussion

here is too speculative to be of any theological significance.

We simply do not have these earlier forms of the book

of Psalms on its way to completion, but rather, the

____________________

            ³²So, for example, Auffret believes that Psalms 15-24 form a

chiasm with Psalm 22 being the counterpart to Psalm 17. See

his La Sagesse a Bati sa Maison: Etudes de structures littéraires

dans l'Ancien Testament et spécialement dans les Psaumes,

OBO 49 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 407-38.

                                         414

 

book at the end of the process. Thus, conjectures that would

try to find thematic, theological, or functional changes in

the Psalter from beginning to end, must, in the very nature

of the case, rest on theories of compilation which simply

depend on too many variables.

 

                   The Elohistic and Yahwistic Psalters

            Of special interest to all students of the shape of the Psalter is

the problem of the Elohistic Psalter. Beginning with Psalm 42

and ending with Psalm 83, there is a marked preference for the

use of Elohim over Yahweh. Outside this grouping, there is

even more so a marked preference for Yahweh over Elohim.

Among the several very interesting phenomena that accompany

this problem of the Elohistic Psalter are the following: (1) The

preference for Elohim that begins Book Two of the Psalter is a

phenomenon that transcends the boundaries of the book

divisions. The Elohistic Psalter extends for a total of twelve

psalms past the break between Books Two and Three, but stops

short of the break between Books Three and Four by six

psalms. (2) Parallel passages provide different witnesses:

where Psalm 14 and the last verses of Psalm 40 are

paralleled in Book Two by Psalms 53 and 70, on most

occasions Elohim is substituted for Yahweh. But in Psalm

108, the designations for the deity are the same as they are

in the parallel passages in Psalm 57 and 60. (3) The guild

collections are affected somewhat differently. The Asaphite

collection is totally enclosed within the Elohistic Psalter.

                                          415

 

But the Korahite collection is split, with the first part, Psalms

42-49 occurring in the Elohim section, but the second part,

Psalms 84-88 coming in the Yahweh section.

            This is a fascinating problem, indeed. Several solutions to the

problem have been suggested. One is that the predominant use

of Elohim in the Elohistic Psalter is a move comparable to that

of fencing the Torah--the chances of using the Lord's name in

vain are considerably lessened when the name is used less

frequently. Another is that there was a conscious move in the

Elohistic Psalter to emphasize that Israel's deity was the

universal God of all the earth. Another, perhaps to be seen as a

corollary of this one just named, is that the move to the

predominant use of Yahweh in the last two thirds of the book is

the result of a conscious, narrowing, nationalistic particularism

that sought to totally discontinue the use of the more general

designation for Israel's deity.³³ Also, there is the suggestion

that the Elohistic Psalter has a northern, more syncretistic

provenance, as opposed to the Yahwistic Psalter, with a

southern, more "Yahweh only" provenance.

            The Christo-canonical approach only notes here

that there is simply not enough data to form a credible hypothesis

to account for this phenomenon. None of the suggestions

made above would appear to be either proved or ruled out.

Given, however, the previous sections that dealt with titles,

____________________

            ³³Wilson, Editing, 197.

                                         416

 

authorship, and historical veracity, I believe it would be better

to speak of a possible northern redaction of already existent

psalms, rather than seeing the psalms in the Elohistic Psalter as

being northern in origin.

 

                                  The Five Books

            Another intriguing aspect with regard to the collection

of the Psalms is the division into five books. Evidence of the

lateness of this division is the fact that Book Three is split

between the Elohistic and Yahwistic Psalters.³⁴ The long-

standing consensus, that the doxologies at the end of each

of the five books were editorially and artificially tacked on

to the psalms that concluded each section, has been contradicted

by the work of Wilson. He has demonstrated the possibility

that the doxologies at the end of Psalms 41, 72, 89, and 106

are integral to those Psalms, and that it was not the doxologies,

but the psalms themselves that were relocated editorially to

close the five books (with Psalms 146-150 being one long

doxology).³⁵ The apparently purposeful placement of

____________________

            ³⁴So Wilson ("Shaping the Psalter: A Consideration of

Editorial Linkage in the Book of Psalms," in The Shape and

Shaping of the Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159

[Sheffield: JSOT Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993],

77): "The anomalous character of both Psalms 72 and 89

within their respective contexts . . . suggests alternatively that

Psalm 72, with its doxology and postscript, may be a late

editorial intrusion that has disturbed the original integrity of the

Elohistic Psalter."

            ³⁵Wilson, Editing, 182-90.

                                            417

 

royal psalms at the seams of the book divisions gives support

to this conclusion.³⁶

            Motivation for this way of dividing the book obviously came

from the desire to create five books on the analogy of the five

books of Moses. The artificiality of the results, however, are

confirmed by the inability on the part of any scholar to

correlate the contents of the five books of the Psalms with the

five books of the Pentateuch.³⁷ Particularly devastating to any

theory that would try to line up the contents of the respective

books with their supposed analogues in the Pentateuch is the

emphasis that the fourth book of the Psalter places on the

person of Moses,³⁸ an emphasis that would have been far more

appropriate in the second or fifth books of the Psalter.

            A bit more promising as an explanation as to how the

Psalter received its five divisions is the theory that the number

of psalms in each book matches up with the sedarim, the

sections into which the Pentateuch was divided for reading

lessons in the synagogue services.³⁹ Two drawbacks to this way

____________________

            ³⁶Gerald H. Wilson, "The Use of the Royal Psalms at the

‘Seams’ of the Hebrew Psalter," JSOT 35 (1986): 85-94.

            ³⁷Wilson, Editing, 200, 203.

            ³⁸Ibid., 187; "Shaping the Psalter," 75-76.

            ³⁹There are many who have made suggestions along this line;

for some of the more recent attempts, see Aileen Guilding,

"Some Obscured Rubrics and Lectionary Allusions in the Psalter,"

JTS n.s. 3 (1952): 41-55; Norman Snaith, Hymns of the Temple

(London: SCM, 1951).

                                              418

 

of looking at the problem are: (1) there is a discrepancy among

the various traditions and biblical manuscripts as to the precise

number and location of these sedarim, and (2) even though

there is a relatively close correspondence between the number

of sedarim and the psalms in the first three books of the Psalter,

in the last two books the numbers are considerably out of line. I

reproduce a chart here from Wilson.⁴⁰

 

                             Büchler         Rabinowitz          Arens                  Pss

            Gn                   42                    43                    44                    41

            Ex                    30                    29                    31                    31

            Lv                    17                    23                    25                    17

            Nu                   27                    32                    30                    17

            Dt                    28                    27                    31                    44

            Totals              144                 154                 161                 150

 

As can be seen from the chart, none of the proposed

enumerations of sedarim in the Pentateuch matches up

perfectly with the enumeration of the psalms in the five books,

though the numbers are fairly close for the first three books of

the Pentateuch and the first three books of Psalms. If one takes

the suggestion of Westermann, that Psalm 119 was the original

____________________

            ⁴⁰Wilson, Editing, 200-201. Wilson's information for the chart

comes from the following sources which I have not had

opportunity to research: Adolf Büchler, "The Reading of the

Law and Prophets in a Triennial Cycle," JQR 5-6 (1893-94):

5.420-68, 6.1-73; L. Rabinowitz, "Does Midrash Tehillim

Reflect the Triennial Cycle of Psalms?" JQR 26 (1935-36):

349-68; Anton Arens, "Hat der Psalter seinen ‘Sitz im Leben’

in der synagogalen Lesung des Pentateuch?" in Les Psautiers,

Orientalia et Biblica Lovaniensius IV (Louvain: Publications

Universitaires, 1961), 107-31; Die Psalmen in Gottesdienst des

Alten Bundes (Trier: Paulinus, 1968).

                                          419

 

closing psalm of the fourth book,⁴¹ the numbers match up

more closely (using Büchler's enumeration, 27 sedarim in

Numbers corresponding to 30 psalms in the Book Four, and 28

sedarim in Deuteronomy corresponding to 32 psalms in Book

Five). Westermann's theory is also intriguing in that it provides

a chiastic arrangement for the first and last psalms of a putative

Psalter that once ended with Book Four, i.e.,

            Psalm 1 -Torah Psalm

                        Psalm 2 -Royal Psalm

                                    Psalm 3-117 -Main Collection

                        Psalm 118 -Royal Psalm

            Psalm 119 -Torah Psalm

This would have definite messianic implications for how

the editors viewed the Psalter at one stage of its growth before

the addition of the last psalms. Thus the Psalter was a book of

God's law and God's king. The first two psalms which, most

scholars are now agreed, were added to the beginning of the

Psalter for didactic purposes, proclaims that those who wish to

be blessed must follow the law of the Lord and render homage

to his anointed king. The last two psalms, then, Psalms 118-

119, reinforce that message. This is supported by the many

parallels scholars have discovered between Psalms 1 and 2.⁴²

____________________

            ⁴¹Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms, trans.

Keith R. Crim and Richard N. Soulen (Atlanta: John Knox,

1981), 253. Cf. also, Seybold, Introducing the Psalms,17; Annemarie

Ohler, Studying the Old Testament: From Tradition to Canon,

trans. David Cairns (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1985), 351; J.

Clinton McCann, Jr., "The Psalms as Instruction," Int 46

(1992): 119-20.

            ⁴²Pierre Auffret, The Literary Structure of Psalm 2, JSOTSup

                                             420

 

            As attractive as this thesis is in its messianic implications, and

I will be returning to it later to explore them more fully, the data

is simply insufficient to say with any confidence that the fourth

book of the Psalter at one time ended with Psalm 119. In favor

of the thesis is that each new book of the Psalter does, indeed,

seem to begin a new collection. Psalm 42 begins the Korahite

collection; Psalm 73 begins the Asaphite collection. Psalm 90

begins an emphasis on Moses. If the fifth book of the Psalter

started with Psalm 120, the first of the Songs of Ascents, then

it, too, would begin with a new collection. The current break

after Psalm 106 actually seems to disrupt a trio of psalms, 105-

107, that seem to go together in terms of length, similar

beginnings ("Give thanks to the Lord"), and similar content

and narrative style. Against the thesis, as Wilson has noted, is

the fact that Psalm 119 has no doxological ending like that of

the other closing psalms of the respective books and, of course,

Psalm 106, which does close Book Four.⁴³ It would be easy to

____________________

3 (Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 1977); Gerald T.

Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in

the Sapientializing of the Old Testament, BZAW 151 (Berlin:

Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 136-43; Patrick D. Miller, Jr., "The

Beginning of the Psalter," in The Shape and Shaping of the

Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159 (Sheffield: JSOT

Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 83-92; John T.

Willis, "Psalm 1--an Entity," ZAW 91 (1979): 381-401. For

some implications drawn from these parallels, see James

Luther Mays, "The Place of the Torah-Psalms in the Psalter,"

JBL 106 (1987): 10-11; Raymond Jacques Tournay, Seeing

and Hearing God in the Psalms: The Prophetic Liturgy of the

Second Temple in Jerusalem, trans. J. Edward Cowley,

JSOTSup 118 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 165.

            43Wilson, Editing, 202-3.

                                            421

 

suggest that somehow the doxology was incorrectly attached to

the wrong psalm in the course of transmission, but there is

absolutely no textual corroboration either for the doxology's

absence from Psalm 106, nor for its presence at the end of

Psalm 119. Given the current state of the research, it is hard to

reach firm conclusions regarding the rationale behind the

placement of the seams between the five books. Whether this

five-book schema holds any recoverable hermeneutical or

theological significance will be discussed in the last section of

this chapter.

                      Competing Canonical Psalters?

            With the publication of the text and translation of the

Dead Sea Psalms Scroll, 11QPs^a, James Sanders entered into a

large controversy regarding the form of the Psalter in the

last century BC and the first century AD.⁴⁴ The scroll, with

several fragments which have been fitted into place by

researchers, is comprised of approximately the last third of

the Psalter, beginning with Psalm 101. Among the psalms

which are in the Masoretic Text, but unattested in the Scroll are

Psalms 106-108, 110-117, and 120. There is quite a variance

between the traditional Masoretic order and the order in the

scroll; e.g., Psalms 146 and 148 come immediately after Psalm

____________________

            ⁴⁴James A. Sanders, "The Scroll of Psalms (11QPss) from

Cave 11: A Preliminary Report," BASOR 165 (1962): 11-15; The

Psalms Scroll of Qumran (11QPs^a), DJD 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965);

The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967).

See also, Yigael Yadin, "Another Fragment (E) of the Psalms Scroll

from Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa)," Textus 5 (1966): 1-10.

                                             422

 

105; Psalm 119 comes after the Songs of Ascents, Psalms 133

and 134 come near the end of the scroll, removed quite some

distance from the other Songs of Ascents, but still retaining the

same superscription. After Psalm 150 there are several non-

Masoretic prose and poetic compositions as well as two

Masoretic psalms, Psalms 140 and 134. Interspersed among the

Masoretic psalms in the body of the scroll are some verses

from Sirach, two non-Masoretic psalms, and a portion of Psalm

93. The non-Masoretic psalms and prose compositions in the

scroll are the following: (1) "Plea for Deliverance," previously

unattested, but now attested in 4QPs^d and 11QPs^b,

(2) Sirach 51:13ff; 51:30, (3) "Apostrophe to Zion," previously

unattested, but now attested in 4QPs^f, (4) "Hymn to the

Creator," previously unattested, (5) 2 Samuel 23:7, (6) A prose

piece which Sanders has entitled "David's Compositions,"

previously unattested, (7) Psalm 154, previously known from

the Syriac Psalter, (8) Psalm 155, previously known from the

Syriac Psalter, and (9) Psalm 151 A and B, previously known

from the Septuagint and the Syriac.⁴⁵ In addition to this large

scroll, there are several other fragments and scrolls

____________________

            ⁴⁵For a comparison between the additional Qumran psalms

and versions of the same in the Syriac, see David Flusser,

"Psalms, Hymns and Prayers," in Jewish Writings of the

Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran

Sectarian Writings, Philo, Josephus, ed. Michael E. Stone,

CRINT (Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984),

551-77.

                                        423

 

which also attest to varying degrees of divergence from the

traditional Masoretic form of the Psalter.⁴⁶

            Sanders has proposed, both in the publication of the text and

translation, and in many articles, that the scroll is, in fact, a

competing canonical form of the Psalter, and that the scroll is

proof that the last third of the Psalter was still in a state of flux

around the time of Christ.⁴⁷ Reaction to Sanders's contentions

have been many. In this section, I will try to evaluate the

debate from the Christocanonical perspective.

            First, both sides have worded their arguments somewhat

prejudicially. Sanders has been accused of biasing the case by

using the terms, "biblical" and "Psalms scroll," to refer to

11QPs^a, instead of referring to it as a "scroll of psalms."⁴⁸

Detractors of Sanders's hypothesis are more careful

____________________

            ⁴⁶For details on these, see Wilson, Editing, 63-138.

            ⁴⁷James A. Sanders, "Ps. 151 in 11QPss," ZAW 75 (1963):

7386; "Two Non-canonical Psalms in 11QPs^a," ZAW 76

(1964): 57-75; "Pre-Masoretic Psalter Texts," CBQ 27 (1965):

114-23; "The Psalter at the Time of Christ," TBT 22 (1966):

1462-69; "Variorum in the Psalms Scroll," HTR 59 (1966): 83-

94; "The Dead Sea Scrolls--A Quarter Century of Study," BA

36 (1973): 109-48; "Cave 11 Surprises and the Question of

Canon," in The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible: An

Introductory Reader, ed. Sid Z. Leiman (New York: KTAV,

1974), 37-51; "The Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPs^a)

Reviewed," in On Language, Culture, and Religion: In Honor

of Eugene A. Nida, ed. Matthew Black and William A.

Smalley (Paris: Mouton, 1974), 79-99; "A Multivalent Text:

Psalm 151:3-4 Revisited," HAR 8 (1984): 167-84; "The Dead

Sea Scrolls and Biblical Studies," in "Sha’arei Talmon":

Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East

Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and

Emanuel Tov (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 323-36.

            ⁴⁸M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, "The Psalms Scroll (11QPs^a): A

                                           424

 

in their wording; thus, Emanuel Tov refers to 11QPs^a as "the

so-called Psalm Scroll,"⁴⁹ and even classifies the scroll as

being among the "biblical paraphrases and anthologies," and

the "various non-biblical scrolls."⁵⁰ At the same time,

opponents of Sanders's hypothesis have been prejudicial in

their comments as well. Haran refers to the "apparent

confusion" which exists in the scroll.⁵¹ Goshen-Gottstein

refers to the "selective character and radically different order"

of the scroll.⁵² Patrick Skehan talks about the "deviant

Qumran Psalms Scrolls,"⁵³ and the "off-beat" non-canonical

psalms within it.⁵⁴ Beckwith, in the title of one of his

articles on the issue, refers to the "eccentric Psalms Scrolls

from Qumran."⁵⁵ Cross refers to the scroll's "bizarre

____________________

Problem of Canon and Text," Textus 5 (1966): 24-25, 43;

Menahem Haran, "The Two Text-Forms of Psalm 151," JJS 39

(1988): 171-72 n. 3; "11QPs^a and the Composition of the Book of

Psalms," abstract in "Sha’arei Talmon": Studies in the Bible,

Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu

Talmon, ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov (Winona Lake:

Eisenbrauns, 1992), xxi-xxii.

            ⁴⁹Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 386.

            ⁵⁰Tov, Textual Criticism, 109, 220.

            ⁵¹Haran, "11QPsa," xxi-xxii.      

            ⁵²Goshen-Gottstein, "The Psalms Scroll (11QPsa)," 29 n. 32.

            ⁵³Patrick W. Skehan, "The Biblical Scrolls from Qumran and

the Text of the Old Testament," BA 28 (1965): 100.

            ⁵⁴Patrick W. Skehan, "Qumran and Old Testament Criticism," in

Qumrán: sa piéte, sa théologie et son milieu, ed. M. Delcor,

BETL 46 (Louvain: Ducolot, University Press, 1978).

            ⁵⁵Roger T. Beckwith, "The Courses of the Levites and the

                                          425

 

order."⁵⁶ Talmon speak of the "unorthodox arrangement" in

the scroll.⁵⁷ It is important to keep in mind that, regardless of

the side one takes in the debate, the Qumran scrolls and

fragments do provide our earliest attested Psalter

manuscripts.⁵⁸ Even if one wishes to argue that the Septuagint

provides witness to the fact that the Masoretic 150 psalms was

already known before Qumran,⁵⁹ it must still be recognized

that we have no Septuagint manuscripts as early as the Qumran

scrolls. Wilson's caution against using our knowledge of the

contents, arrangement, and shape of the current canonical

Psalter to prejudicially rule out the possibility of the Qumran

Psalter's canonical status is a valid one.⁶⁰ We simply cannot

take the present shape of the Psalter and hold it up as

____________________

Eccentric Psalms Scrolls from Qumran," RevQ 11 (1984): 499.

            ⁵⁶Frank Moore Cross, Jr., "The History of the Biblical Text in

the Light of Discoveries in the Judean Desert," HTR 57 (1964):

286.

            ⁵⁷Shemaryahu Talmon, "Pisqah Be emsa Pasuq and 11QPs^a,"

Textus 5 (1966): 12.

            ⁵⁸Israel Yeivin ("The Division into Sections in the Book of

Psalms," Textus 7 [1969]: 78) notes that the scroll conforms to

traditional scribal practices.

            ⁵⁹Beckwith, "The Courses of the Levites," 503.

            ⁶⁰Gerald H. Wilson, "The Qumran Psalms Manuscripts and

the Consecutive Arrangement of Psalms in the Psalter," CBQ

45 (1983): 386; "Qumran and the Hebrew Psalter," Theological

Students Fellowship Bulletin 8/5 (1985): 11. See also the

discussion in Peter R. Ackroyd, "The Open Canon," chap. in

Studies in the Religious Tradition of the Old Testament

(London: SCM, 1987), 209-11 (first published in Colloquium--

The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review 3

[1970]: 279-91).

                                            426

 

the standard to which ancient manuscripts must be in

conformity to have been considered canonical in their own day.

            Second, the scroll's supposed liturgical character cannot be

used as an argument against its canonical status at Qumran.

There are, indeed, many differences between the arrangement

in the scroll and that in our current canonical Psalter that could

be seen as evidence of liturgical shaping. The prose piece near

the end, entitled "David's Compositions," certainly gives

credence to this possibility:

            And he wrote 3,600 psalms and songs to sing before the altar

            over the whole-burnt perpetual offering every day, for all the

            days of the year, 364; and for the offering of the Sabbaths, 52

            songs; and for the offering of the New Moon, and for all the

            Solemn Assemblies and for the Day of Atonement, 30 songs.

            And all the songs that he spoke were 446, and songs for

            making music over the stricken, 4, and the total was 4,050.⁶¹

In addition to this, in the scroll's text of Psalm 145 there is

a refrain after every verse, "Blessed be the Lord and blessed

be his name for ever and ever."⁶² Psalms 133 and 134 are

separated from the other Songs of Ascents. Psalm 118 does

not occur in its entirety, but only in a sort of mosaic form,

with only vv. 1, 15, 6, 8, 9, and 29 occurring in that order

in one of the scroll's columns. These are several other

liturgical moves that are noted by those who would argue

against the scroll's canonical status at Qumran.⁶³ However, it

____________________

            ⁶¹Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll, 87.

            ⁶²Ibid., 16.

            ⁶³For these and other suggestions of the scroll's liturgical

shaping, see Beckwith, "The Courses of the Levites," 503-4,

524;

                                         427

 

must be borne in mind, that the current canonical Psalter is

itself a liturgical document.⁶⁴ The Masoretic Psalter itself

displays many evidences of liturgical shaping. For two

examples similar to the objections raised to 11QPs^a, note that

the refrain in Psalm 136 is very similar to Psalm 145's

refrain in the Qumran scroll; in fact, the similarity between

Ps 135:8-12 and Ps 136:10-22 raises the possibility that Psalm

____________________

Ian H. Eybers, "Historical Evidence on the Canon of the Old Testament with Special

Reference to the Qumran Sect," 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1966), 2.165;

"Some Remarks about the Canon of the Old Testament," Theologica Evangelica

8 (1975): 117; Goshen-Gottstein, "The Psalms Scroll (11QPs^a)," 24-25, 2932; S. B.

Gurewicz, "Hebrew Apocryphal Psalms from Qumran," AusBR 15 (1967): 15;

Haran, "The Two Text-Forms of Psalm 151," 171-72 n. 3; R. Laird Harris, "The

Dead Sea Scrolls and the Old Testament Text," in New Perspectives on the Old

Testament, ed. J. Barton Payne (Waco: Word, 1970), 210; A. Hurvitz,

review of The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll, by James A. Sanders, in IEJ 21 (1971):

184; Sid Z. Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and

Midrashic Evidence, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences

47 (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1976), 15455 n. 183; L. H. Schiffman, "Messianic Figures

and Ideas in the Qumran Scrolls," in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism

and Christianity, ed. James H. Charlesworth, The First Princeton Symposium on

Judaism and Christian Origins (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), 127; Lawrence

A. Sinclair, "11QPs^a: A Psalms Scroll from Qumran: Text and Canon," in The Psalms

and Other Studies Presented to Joseph I. Hunt, Professor of Old Testament and

Hebrew, Nashotah House Seminary, on His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Jack C. Knight

and Lawrence A. Sinclair (Nashotah, WI: Nashotah House Seminary, 1990), 114;

Skehan, "The Biblical Scrolls from Qumran and the Text of the Old Testament,"

100. "The Scrolls and the Old Testament Text," in New Directions in Biblical

Archaeology, ed. David Noel Freedman and Jonas C. Greenfield (Garden City,

NY: Doubleday, 1969), 95, 99; "A Liturgical Complex in 11QPs^a," CBQ 35 (1973):

195-205; "Jubilees and the Qumran Psalter," CBQ 37 (1975): 343-47.

            ⁶⁴James A. Sanders, "Cave 11 Surprises," 44-45; "Text and Canon: Old

Testament and New," in Melanges Dominique Barthélemy: Etudes Bibliques

Offertes A L'occasion de Son 60e Anniversaire, ed. Pierre Cassetti, Othmar

Keel, and Adrian Schenker, OBO 38 (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires;

Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1981), 389; Wilson, Editing, 82-83.

                                           428

 

136 may have existed at one point without the refrain. A

further example may be found in the breakup of the Korahite,

Asaphite and Enthronement Psalms; there is certainly the

possibility that they were all at one time complete collections,

and yet broken up for some liturgical reason, similar to the way

in which in 11QPs^a, Psalms 133 and 134 are separated from

the Songs of Ascents, while still retaining their titles (at least

Psalm 133 does; the place where Psalm 134 would have a title

is damaged). The admitted liturgical character of 11QPs^a is not

a weighty argument against its canonical status.

            Third, a very interesting argument against the

canonicity of the scroll has been raised by Shemaryahu Talmon.

He makes his arguments based on the pisqah be emsa pasuq,

spaces in the text which according to ancient scribal tradition

"were meant to draw attention to possible biblical or extra-

biblical literary expansions for liturgical or homiletical

purposes."⁶⁵ These spaces in the text, he suggests, were

meant to aim at "supplementary expostulations which are

not of a historiographical nature but rather are poetical

paraphrases on historical events, such as are found in the

Book of Psalms."⁶⁶ He suggests, for example, that one

____________________

            ⁶⁵Talmon, "Pisqah Be emsa Pasuq and 11QPs^a," 17; see also,

Gurewicz, "Hebrew Apocryphal Psalms from Qumran," 20-21;

Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1985), 404-5.

            ⁶⁶Talmon, "Pisqah Be emsa Pasuq and 11QPs^a," 18.

                                             429

 

such occurrence in 2 Sam 7:4 (having to do with the Davidic

covenant) was meant to direct attention to Psalm 132, and that

another one in 2 Sam 12:13 (in the Bathsheba narrative) was

meant to call attention to Psalm 51. He then goes on to suggest

that another one of these occurrences in 1 Sam 16:7-13 was

meant to call attention to Psalm 151 A, that 1 Sam 17:37 was

meant to call attention to Psalm 151 B, and that perhaps Psalms

154 and 155 are tied in to pisqah be emsa pasuq as well. He

then argues, almost incredibly, that this proves the non-

canonical nature of these last mentioned psalms:

            In concluding we wish to stress that there can be no doubt that

            the men who introduced the p.b.p. into the MT never

            considered the extraneous expansions to which they point as

            integral compositions of the Bible. They were intended to

            remain outside the authoritative canon, as some kind of

            appendices to the original Scripture version.⁶⁷

But to use this as an argument against the canonicity at

Qumran of Psalms 151, 154, and 155, is to provide an argument

against Psalms 51 and 132 as well. As Wilson remarks,

            Far from precluding the possibility of "canonicity" for these

            apocryphal compositions in 11QPs^a, this use of canonical texts

            (including pss) to expand p.b.p. elsewhere in scripture seems to

            enhance that possibility.⁶⁸

This argument simply cannot be used against the canonical

status of the Qumran scroll.

            Fourth, despite the lack of cogency in the previous arguments,

there are a few arguments which have a measure of validity to

them, even though they are by no means conclusive.

____________________

            ⁶⁷Ibid., 21.

            ⁶⁸Wilson, Editing, 75.

                                              430

 

One such argument is that the scroll's arrangement of psalms

and additional compositions may represent specific sectarian

concerns. If this argument could be verified, it would carry

some weight. It has been suggested that in the prose piece,

"David's Compositions," some of the figures there do

correspond with the calendar of the Jubilees.⁶⁹ The

correspondence does not, however, secure a substantial

connection. Beckwith's suggestions as to some liturgical

affinities between the same composition, the extra psalms in

11QPs^a, the courses of the Levites, and some notes on

prescribed psalms for liturgical use in the Mishnah does

nothing to secure a sectarian orientation for the scroll.⁷⁰

            Another argument, again based on the numbers in

"David's Compositions," notes that the numbers, 3,600 and

4,050, are both multiples of 150. It is then argued that the

editor of the scroll was working with a known Masoretic Psalter

containing 150 psalms.⁷¹ This reasoning has a certain cogency

to it, but it does not really prove that it had to be the Masoretic

150 behind the scroll; it could just as easily have been

some other arrangement, or simply a tradition that a Psalter

should have 150 psalms. Thus, Wacholder has certainly

____________________

            ⁶⁹William H. Brownlee, "Significance of David's

Compositions," RevQ 5 (1965): 569-70; Ben Zion Wacholder,

"David's Eschatological Psalter 11Q Psalms^a," HUCA 59

(1988): 71-72; Skehan, "Jubilees and the Qumran Psalter."

            ⁷⁰Beckwith, "The Courses of the Levites," 499-524.

            ⁷¹Beckwith, "The Courses of the Levites," 503-4; Skehan,

"The Scrolls and the Old Testament Text," 95.

                                              431

 

overstated the case when he says that "almost all commentators

assume that the compiler of this scroll had before him a text

more or less identical with that of the traditional Psalter."⁷²

            Fifth, when the evidence from 11QPs^a is taken into account

along with other Qumran Psalms manuscripts, the matter is still

inconclusive. Wilson has written several articles assessing the

joint testimony of the scrolls and has found that the evidence,

while not decisive, generally supports Sanders's thesis that the

last two thirds of the Psalter were still in a state of flux during

the time period of Qumran.⁷³ This is based on the fact that

there are more contested joins between the psalms in the last

two books than for the first three books, and that the earlier the

manuscript the less supportive it is of the Masoretic order.

Beckwith has countered Wilson's arguments by noting that,

even though the evidence for lack of agreement with the

traditional Masoretic arrangement is more pronounced in the

last two books, this "is all of a piece with the fact that evidence

of every kind is fullest for the last two books of the Psalter."⁷⁴

He notes that while there are only five psalms in the last two books

which are yet unattested from Qumran, there are twenty-nine

____________________

            ⁷²Wacholder, "David's Eschatological Psalter," 47.

            ⁷³Gerald H. Wilson, "The Qumran Scroll Reconsidered: An

Analysis of the Debate," CBQ 47 (1985): 624-42; "Qumran

and the Hebrew Psalter," 10-12; "The Qumran Psalms Manuscripts and

the Consecutive Arrangement of Psalms in the Psalter," 377-88;

Editing, 93-138.

            ⁷⁴Beckwith, "The Courses of the Levites," 504 n. 11.

                                            432

 

such psalms in the first three books. And though the evidence

is meager for the first three books as compared with the last

two, there are significant differences from the Masoretic order

there as well.

            Sixth, it is important to keep in mind the cautionary and sane

remarks of Emanuel Tov, who observes that "probably the

majority of scholars take as their point of departure the

assumption that all Qumran texts reflect the outlook of the

Qumran community."⁷⁵ He then goes on to note:

            We do not really know whether all the texts found in Qumran

            were used actively by the community at one of the stages of its

            history. If most of the texts would have remained locked in a

            "library", and if in their daily life the sectarians use only one

            group of texts, we cannot any longer speak of their openness to

            matters of canon and to textual diversity.⁷⁶

As one of the more recent books on the Psalms states, "Given

the paucity of our data, it is impossible to decide for sure what

we have before us."⁷⁷ Until there is more data about the

function of the Psalter in the Qumran community, it is

impossible to make firm statements about the status of the

various Psalter texts found at Qumran.⁷⁸

____________________

            ⁷⁵Emanuel Tov, "Hebrew Biblical Manuscripts from the

Judaean Desert: Their Contribution to Textual Criticism," JJS

39 (1988): 33.

            ⁷⁶Ibid.

            ⁷⁷William L. Holladay, The Psalms through Three Thousand

Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis: Augsburg

Fortress, 1993), 102.

            ⁷⁸One recent suggestion is that the Qumran psalms scrolls

might have a canonical status, but on a different level; see D.

Kraemer, "The Formation of Rabbinic Canon: Authority and

                                        433

 

            Seventh, regardless of the outcome of the debate over the

canonical status of the Psalms manuscripts at Qumran, the

Christo-canonical approach to the Psalms does not consider the

potential canonical status of 11QPs^a or any of the other scrolls

to be a threat. That there are fuzzy boundaries as to the exact

limits of the canon, or the exact ordering of its contents, is a

given of the approach. To reiterate what I said earlier in

chapter 5, canon as list is equivalent to a statement of faith; it is

not in itself canonical. Moreover, the practicalities of the current

situation in the Church with regard to the canon are not going to

very easily, or at all, allow for any serious bid to add new

compositions to our canonical Psalter. While I believe that the data

still favors the thesis that considerably before the time of Qumran,

there was a collection of Psalms corresponding to what we

consider today to be the canonical Psalter,⁷⁹ such a thesis is not

____________________

Boundaries," JBL 110 (1991): 627.

            ⁷⁹The question of the closing of the canon of Scripture and the

time when the Psalter would have been considered canonical

and have received its present Masoretic shape are matters

which are simply beyond the scope of this dissertation. I will

simply say here that I basically agree with a number of scholars

who believe that the Old Testament canon was closed by the

beginning or middle of the second century, BC, if not long

before. On this see Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew

Scripture; "Inspiration and Canonicity: Reflections on the

Formation of the Biblical Canon," in Jewish and Christian Self-

Definition, vol. 2, Aspects of Judaism in Graeco-Roman

Period, ed. E. P. Sanders (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 56-63;

Roger T. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New

Testament Church and its Background in Early Judaism (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985); Eybers, "Historical Evidence on the

Canon of the Old Testament"; Duane L. Christensen,

"Josephus and the Twenty-Two-Book Canon of Sacred

Scripture," JETS 29 (1986): 37-46.

                                            434

 

essential for a confessional, Christological, canonical approach

to the interpretation of Scripture. And this brings to me to the

final issue to be dealt with in this chapter.

 

                      The Final Shape of the Psalter:

               Theological? Canonical? Christological?

            As I begin this last section, there are three questions

that I will be trying to answer. (1) Is there a theological

rationale that will account, either in whole or in part, for

the final shape of the book of Psalms? (2) If there are

recoverable rationales, either singular or plural, for the final

shape of the book, do they then make the resulting shape of the

Psalter canonical? In other words, supposing that we are able to

discern the motivations that have provided the Psalter with its

present canonical shape, does that motivation plus the shape of

the Psalter itself become authoritative for the way the Psalms

are to be read? (3) Finally, does this study have any relevance

for a Christological interpretation of the Psalms? Does the

shape of the Psalter itself either invite or preclude a

Christological interpretation?

                    Is there a Theological Rationale?

            The studies that have taken place in the Psalter in the last

couple of decades, most recently due to Childs's canonical

emphasis, have been very refreshing.⁸⁰ They are a

____________________

            ⁸⁰For a survey more exhaustive than the brief one that I give

here, see David M. Howard, Jr., "Editorial Activity in the

Psalter: A State-of-the-Field Survey," WW 9 (1989): 274-85;

and an updated version of the same article in The Shape and Shaping

                                           435

 

welcome change from the cold sterility that locked the psalms

into a reconstructed historical or cultic framework that was

simply too hypothetical to command scholarly consensus and

too distant to be meaningful for contemporary proclamation.⁸¹

            First, there have been studies that have explored the

connections between the individual psalms on more of a micro-

level, examining the relationships between psalms that are

either beside each other, or contained in relatively small

groupings. Mention was made earlier of studies that have seen

the connections between Psalms 1 and 2. In addition to these

there have been studies such as Zimmerli's, which explored the

connections of some forty psalms which are juxtaposed in

pairs.⁸² It has been suggested that the psalms in the fourth

book of the Psalter, or at least some of the psalms in it, are

arranged around a Moses theme.⁸³ Alternatively, the suggestion

____________________

of the Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159 (Sheffield:

JSOT Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 52-70.

            ⁸¹Cf. J. Gerald Janzen, "The Canonical Context of Old

Testament Introduction," review of Introduction to the Old

Testament as Scripture, by Brevard S. Childs, in Int 34 (1980):

412: "Whereas the modern hermeneutical axiom has it that a

biblical text must be interpreted within its originating Sitz im

Leben, Childs argues that such an axiom locks such a

(reconstructed) text into a narrow particularity of its

(reconstructed) Sitz im Leben, creating a yawning

hermeneutical gap between that text and its situation and the

present-day reader."

            ⁸²Walther Zimmerli, "Zwillingpsalmen," in Wort, Lied, und

Gottespruch: Beiträge zu Psalmen und Propheten: Festschrift

für Joseph Ziegler, ed. Josef Schreiner, FB 2 (Wurzburg:

Echter, 1972), 105-13 (a study actually a bit ahead of its time

in its emphasis on intra-Psalter connections).

            83David M. Howard, Jr., "A Contextual Reading of Psalms 90-

                                                436

 

of Michael Goulder is that the psalms in the fourth book are

very liturgically shaped, with the ordering of the psalms

reflecting the alternating pattern of the evening and morning

sacrifices.⁸⁴ Joseph Brennan has called attention to what he

considers to be three cycles of psalms in the fifth book of the

Psalter, 107-119, 120-136, and 137-150, which he believes

deal respectively with the theme of Exodus and covenant

renewal, pilgrimage to Zion, and the final victorious combat.⁸⁵

He has also called attention to some themes that seem to bind

the first eight psalms of the Psalter together.⁸⁶ Leslie Allen has

noticed the overlap in vocabulary between Psalms 18 and 19

and how the latter plays a redactional role by its intrusion into

a run of royal psalms (18, 20, 21).⁸⁷ It has been noticed that

trios of psalms form interlocking patterns, e.g., Psalms 134-136.

            Second, on the way to more of a macro-level discussion,

several studies have called attention to various parallel,

____________________

94," in The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter, ed. J. Clinton

McCann, JSOTSup 159 (Sheffield: JSOT Press of Sheffield

Academic Press, 1993), 108-123; cf. Wilson, "Shaping the

Psalter," 75-76.

            ⁸⁴Michael D. Goulder, "The Fourth Book of the Psalter,"

JTS n.s. 26 (1975): 269-89.

            ⁸⁵Joseph P. Brennan, "Some Hidden Harmonies of the Fifth

Book of Psalms," in Essays in Honor of Joseph P. Brennan, ed.

Robert F. McNamara (Rochester: St. Bernard's Seminary,

1976), 126-58.

            ⁸⁶Joseph P. Brennan, "Psalms 1-8: Some Hidden Harmonies,"

BTB 10 (1980): 25-29.

            ⁸⁷Leslie C. Allen, "David as Exemplar of Spirituality: The

Redactional Function of Psalm 19," Bib 67 (1986): 544-46.

                                          437

 

chiastic, and inclusio patterns in the Psalter, or otherwise

suggestive placements of psalms. Mention was made earlier of

Auffret's suggestion of a chiastic arrangement for Psalms 15

24. I mention here a few others. John Walton has suggested

that the placement of Psalm 53 as the "first of new series of

‘enemy’ psalms" serves "to draw a parallel between the

problems David faced with Saul and those he encountered at

the hands of his son Absalom."⁸⁸ McCann has called attention

to the rather similar themes that dominate Psalms 42-44 and

73-74 at the beginning of the second and third books,

respectively.⁸⁹ Psalms 1 and 2 have been seen as forming

chiasms or inclusios with several other pairs of psalms. Psalms

1 and 41 form an inclusio with their use of the ašrê formula.

Psalm 1 as a Torah psalm is related by Mays to the two other

major Torah psalms, 19 and 119; Mays notes that just as Psalm

1 is followed by a royal psalm, Psalms 19 and 119 are preceded

by royal psalms.⁹⁰ Wilson sees Psalms 1 and 2 as forming an

inclusio with the end of the Psalter, with Psalms 145-150

forming the counter to Psalm 1, and Psalm 144 providing the

royal counterpart to Psalm 2.⁹¹ Brennan suggests that it is

____________________

            ⁸⁸John H. Walton, "Psalms: A Cantata about the Davidic

Covenant," JETS 34 (1991): 26.

            ⁸⁹J. Clinton McCann, Jr., "Books I-III and the Editorial

Purpose of the Hebrew Psalter," in The Shape and Shaping of

the Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159 (Sheffield:

JSOT Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 95.

            ⁹⁰Mays, "The Place of the Torah-Psalms," 10-11.

            ⁹¹Wilson, "Shaping the Psalter," 80.

                                      438

 

Psalm 149 which corresponds to Psalm 2, with Psalm 150

matching Psalm 1.⁹² Wilson also suggests that Psalm 41 at the

close of Book I, corresponds to Psalm 2.⁹³ Gerald Sheppard

suggests that the placement of Psalm 90, immediately after the

close of Book III, casts Moses into his role of intercessor and

makes all the previous laments in the first three books Moses'

laments.⁹⁴

            Finally, there have been suggestions at more of the macro-level

which try to suggest either a single rationale or sets of

rationales for the final shape of the Psalter. Walter

Brueggemann has put forth the suggestion that the beginning

and end points of the Psalter set the parameters for a discussion

of the message of the Psalms.⁹⁵ Psalm 1 stresses the need for

obedience to receive the blessing of the Lord, and Psalm 150

emphasizes the praise the Lord should receive from his

creation, but a praise that is not tied to blessing or any

particular motivation. Brueggemann then suggests that the

theological theme of the Psalter is "the crisis and resolution of

God's hesed," and "the route of Israel's faith from the

obedience of Psalm 1 to the praise of Psalm 150."⁹⁶

____________________

            ⁹²Brennan, "Psalms 1-8: Some Hidden Harmonies," 26.

            ⁹³Wilson, "The Use of Royal Psalms," 94 n. 13. 94Gerald T.

Sheppard, "Theology and the Book of Psalms," Int 46 (1992): 150.

            ⁹⁵Walter Brueggemann, "Bounded by Obedience and Praise: The

Psalms as Canon," JSOT 50 (1991): 63-92.

            ⁹⁶Ibid., 79 n. 2.

                                             439

 

The problem, however, is that on the way from the first psalm

to the last, there are many laments and psalms of crisis:

            In order to move from Psalm 1 at the beginning to Psalm 150 at

            the end, one must depart from the safe world of Psalm 1 and

            plunge into the middle of the Psalter where

            one will find a world of enraged suffering.⁹⁷

This path is not unlike Brueggemann's earlier renaming of the

traditional form-critical categories of hymn, lament, and thanksgiving

song as psalms of "orientation," "disorientation," and "reorientation."⁹⁸

Complicating the journey, however, is the fact that "obviously

the Book of Psalms is not arranged to trace that route in a clear,

direct and simple way."⁹⁹ Thus Brueggemann sees the

endpoints of the Psalter as suggesting its main theme, but notes

that the internal arrangement does not trace that theme in a

straight path. As a slight corrective to Brueggemann's earlier

work regarding the path from orientation to disorientation to

reorientation, John Goldingay suggested that because the

Psalter does not collect these various psalms into their own

places in the canon, that we should take a clue from this and

recognize that this path is a cyclic one: "Israelite psalmody is

cyclic, in that the end of one psalm can be the beginning

____________________

            ⁹⁷Ibid., 72.

            ⁹⁸Walter Brueggemann, "Psalms and the Life of Faith: A

Suggested Typology of Function," JSOT 17 (1980): 3-32; The

Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary, Augsburg

Old Testament Studies (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984).

            ⁹⁹Brueggemann, "Bounded by Obedience and Praise," 79 n. 2.

                                         440

 

of another."¹⁰⁰ He goes on then to note that this very cycle

reflects the life of faith: "Thus the believer's life with God is

lived in an ever-repeated alternating of praise and prayer,

prayer and praise as he lives by this cycle."¹⁰¹ Perhaps this

cycle could be seen as a corrective to Brueggemann's more

recent idea as well, explaining why the journey from obedience

to praise is not a clearcut straight path.¹⁰²

            Wilson has argued that though the evidence clearly

suggests that Books I-III have had a redactional history separate

from that of Books IV-V, still, there are some moves that

affect the shape and interpretation of the whole. The prefixing

of Psalm 1 to the front of the entire collection, for example,

turns the Psalter from a hymnbook, a performance oriented

collection, to a book to be used in meditation and

____________________

            ¹⁰⁰John Goldingay, "The Dynamic Cycle of Praise and Prayer

in the Psalms," JSOT 20 (1981): 86.

            ¹⁰¹Ibid., 87.

            ¹⁰²I believe that Brueggemann's thesis has important

implications for the modern day presentation of the gospel,

where all too often the grace that is offered is "cheap grace."

Brueggemann remarks in another article ("Response to James

L. Mays, `The Question of Context,'" in The Shape and

Shaping of the Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159

[Sheffield: JSOT Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993], 37

n. 2), "I am aware of the theological problem for conventional

Christianity with the affirmation that faith begins in obedience.

The canonical arrangement of the Psalter may require us to

rethink our conventional notions of `grace-law' which perhaps

belong to particular historical crises." For many in the conservative

Reformed camp today, this rethinking has already occurred.

                                              441

 

contemplation.¹⁰³ I concur, at least in part, with his opinion

that

            the clear evidence of organization evident in the book, and the

            apparent shift of function away from public performance to

            private meditation and appropriation, render "hymnbook" an

            inadequate and misleading designation.¹⁰⁴

            More controversial, in my opinion, are his suggestions

as to the redactional function of the last two books. After

noting that the first three books have to do with the rise and

"declining fortunes of the Davidic monarchy,"¹⁰⁵ Wilson

suggests that the last two books are a move away from this

Davidic emphasis:

            Books Four and Five take a decidedly different approach to the

            question by shifting emphasis away from hope in human,

            Davidic kingship back to the premonarchic period with its

            (supposed) direct reliance on God's protection and the

            individual access guaranteed by the Law (Pss 90, 119). These

            books look to the establishment of the direct divine rule which

            is most clearly expressed in the YHWH MALAK psalms, 94-

            99, which become the theological "heart" of the expanded final

            Psalter.¹⁰⁶

In a later article Wilson asks the question,

            Are the final editors seeking to counter the lamentation

            associated with the collapse of the Davidic hopes in the

            first     three books with a call to praise the only true and

            eternal King--Israel's only hope? As a result of its

____________________

            ¹⁰³Wilson, "The Shape of the Book of Psalms," 137-38;

"Shaping the Psalter," 72; Editing, 204-7.

            ¹⁰⁴Wilson, "Shaping," 81-82. Cf. Seybold, Introducing the

Psalms, 24-25; John Alexander Lamb, The Psalms in Christian

Worship (London: Faith, 1962), 7-8; Massey H. Shepherd, Jr.,

The Psalms in Christian Worship: A Practical Guide (Collegeville,

MN:Liturgical, 1976), 19-27.

            ¹⁰⁵Wilson, "The Use of the Royal Psalms," 91.

            ¹⁰⁶Ibid., 92.

                                         442

 

            final form, the Psalter counters continuing concern

            for the restoration of the Davidic dynasty and kingdom with

            the wise counsel to seek refuge in a kingdom "not of this

            world"--the eternal kingdom in which YHWH alone is     king.¹⁰⁷

            I find Wilson's argument less convincing here. First, it seems to

fly in the face of the joint message of the first two psalms, that

the path of blessing is found in obedience to God's law and

paying due homage to his anointed king.¹⁰⁸ Second, it seems

to ignore the royal psalms that occur in the last two books of

the Psalter, in particular, Psalms 101, 110, 118, 132, and 144.

Wilson counters here by suggesting that the Davidic

collections in the last book of the Psalter show David

"modelling an attitude of dependence and trust in Yahweh

alone."¹⁰⁹ But I fail to see how this is any different from the

royal and Davidic psalms in the first three books. Indeed,

the last psalm in the third book, Psalm 89, clearly shows

that the human king's reign is nothing more than the

analogue of Yahweh's reign. Third, it seems that if Wilson's

suggestion for the redactional purpose of this last third

of the Psalter is correct, it was entirely lost on future

____________________

            ¹⁰⁷Wilson, "Shaping the Psalter," 81-82. McCann seems to

support this thesis as well ("Books I-III and the Editorial

Purpose of the Hebrew Psalter," 95-99; A Theological

Introduction to the Book of Psalms: The Psalms as Torah

[Nashville: Abingdon, 1993], 42-44).

            ¹⁰⁸Indeed, as Miller notes ("The Beginning of the Psalter,"

88), the linkages between Psalms 1 and 2 suggest that the

people should hear, in all the psalms that follow, the voice of

the king. See also, James L. Mays, "In a Vision: The Portrayal

of the Messiah in the Psalms," Ex Auditu 7 (1991): 3.

            ¹⁰⁹Wilson, Editing, 227.

                                              443

 

generations of Israelites who awaited the one who would raise

up the fortunes of the fallen Davidic dynasty. It seems to go

against the grain of the rest of the canon.

            John Walton, using Wilson's work, envisions the Psalms "as a

cantata around the theme of the Davidic covenant."¹¹⁰ Though

there are many points of interest that Walton raises, and though

the general thesis was in essence already shown to be true by

Wilson, at least for the first three books,¹¹¹ I find his

rationales for the placement of individual psalms, other than

for those at the seams, not to be very cogent.¹¹² Also, I believe

Wilson has shown that the first three books were redacted on a

different design than were the last two; it would be hard--and

Walton himself seems to admit the difficulty-- to extend the

cantata into the last two books.

            There are other suggestions that I can only just

mention. Terence Collins, from a structural perspective,

tries to show that the Psalter, irrespective of the intentions

____________________

            ¹¹⁰Walton, "Psalms: A Cantata about the Davidic Covenant,"

JETS 34 (1991): 21-31.

            ¹¹¹Wilson, "The Use of the Royal Psalms."

            ¹¹²Wilson comes to the same conclusion; he states

("Understanding the Purposeful Arrangements of Psalms in the

Psalter: Pitfalls and Promise," in The Shape and Shaping of the

Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159 [Sheffield: JSOT

Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993], 44), "The thematic

connections and linkages he suggests are tenuous at best and,

while occasionally apt, are not ultimately convincing."

Interestingly, the one example Wilson uses (p. 45 n. 1) to show

the tenuousness of Walton's connections, his suggestion that

the references to old age in Psalm 71 coming at the end of

Book II are meant to show David near the end of his reign (pp.

24, 26), seems to me to be one of his more defensible

suggestions.

                                           444

 

of its authors, collectors, or editors, gives out it most

basic message at the "implicit subconscious level."¹¹³

Leslie Allen suggests that the royal psalms were all at one time

in a single collection, and that they have been distributed

throughout the Psalter, functioning "like the fruit in a well-

made cake, ensuring that with every slice of psalmody

testimony to the royal hope is present."¹¹⁴

            Is there a theological rationale for the shape of the Psalter?

I believe there may well be, but, in my opinion, studies on the

shape of the Psalter are still in an infancy stage. Many

connections have been noticed; many chiasms, inclusios,

linguistic parallels, etc., have been uncovered. But for now, the

question is perhaps best seen as being in the same category as

the search for a center for Old Testament theology. While

many interesting suggestions have been made concerning the

shape of the Psalter, I doubt if there is going to emerge one that

will command a scholarly consensus very soon. It is certainly

an intriguing question, one that should occupy the Psalms

Group at SBL for some time to come. There are, however, a

few things that I believe should be kept in mind during this

search.

            (1) I would suggest that we must be very careful about

superimposing a predetermined grid on the Psalter and making

____________________

            ¹¹³Terence Collins, "Decoding the Psalms: A Structural

Approach to the Psalter," JSOT 37 (1987): 41-60.

            ¹¹⁴Leslie C. Allen, Psalms, Word Biblical Themes (Waco:

Word, 1987), 114.

                                       445

 

the Psalms fit into all the right slots. Wilson has made the

point eloquently (even if somewhat allegorically):

            We now stand on the borders of the promised land. Like

            Moses' spies, we need to take care to learn the lay of the land

            and to acquire an intimate knowledge of its inhabitants, lest we

            be misled by our own preconceived notions to see giants where

            there are none and lest we, because of our misconceptions, fail

            to take the land.¹¹⁵

            (2) I believe we must be very careful about letting the search

for the shape of the Psalter become a reconstructive exercise.

Roland Murphy cautions:

            Hypothetical historical reconstruction is as inescapable in

            contextual interpretation as it is in the usual historical criticism

            that is applied to the Psalter. This is a cautionary observation,

            lest the new contextual studies of the Psalter in the context of

            canon or book might seem more "objective" than other

            approaches.¹¹⁶

I believe that, while there is a certain validity to Murphy's

warning, the search for the shape of the Psalter does not

necessarily have to become involved in these reconstructive

efforts. Statements and observations can be made about how a

psalm functions at a particular location in the Psalter, without

suppositions as to where it originally was or why it was moved

to its current location. If we can avoid this, then we are simply

working with the canon's reconstruction, which, as I have argued

previously, is much to be preferred to the scholarly reconstruction.

____________________

            ¹¹⁵Wilson, "Understanding the Purposeful Arrangements of

the Psalms," 51.

            ¹¹⁶Roland E. Murphy, "Reflections on Contextual

Interpretation of the Psalms," in The Shape and Shaping of the

Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159 (Sheffield: JSOT

Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 21.

                                              446

 

            (3) Finally, I suggest that we need to be very careful in making

statements about the canonical function of a psalm or groups of

psalms, that would negate other emphases in the Psalter. This

was the problem I had earlier with Wilson's contention that the

last two books of the Psalter, and especially the Yahweh-malak

psalms at the beginning of Book IV, in their emphasis on

Yahweh's kingship, were at the same time a devaluation of the

Davidic dynasty. Suggestions of editorial purpose should not

be used to offset or nullify contentual statements and

emphases.

 

                   Is the Psalter's Shape Canonical?

            In the same article in which Walton attempts to show

that the Psalter is a cantata on the theme of the Davidic

covenant, he asks the following questions:

            When we consider the issue of authority, how would the

            editor's agenda be considered? Should we speak of an inspired

            author of the individual psalm or be more concerned with the

            inspired agenda of the editor? Is only one of them inspired

            (author or editor) or, if both are, do both carry equal weight? If

            the editor is to be considered inspired, did he convey enough of

            his rationale for us to identify it with any degree of objectivity?¹¹⁷

Or, to use the wording of James L. Mays,

            Can the mentality that turned the collection of cultic pieces into

            literature be deduced in sufficient specificity to provide a guide

            to the way the psalms were being understood and composed, a

            kind of geistige Heimat of the Psalter in its final stage of

            formation?¹¹⁸

____________________

            ¹¹⁷Walton, "Psalms: A Cantata," 23.

            ¹¹⁸James L. Mays, "The Question of Context in Psalm

Interpretation," in The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter, ed. J.

Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159 (Sheffield: JSOT Press of Sheffield

                                         447

 

            In response to these questions, I make the following

observations. First, our oldest manuscripts of psalms show

affinities to the Masoretic arrangement, and perhaps a

knowledge of the Masoretic order on the part of the editor(s),

but by no means identity with it. Whether these scrolls were

canonical or not is, at this stage, impossible to tell. But the

possibility that they were should caution us against assuming

too readily that the Masoretic arrangement is the only

arrangement that could have been canonical.

            Second, it is the Masoretic arrangement with which the

Christian Church works today. It is the Psalter which the

Church has received. Therefore, it is right that we should

explore this arrangement for what the editors of the Psalter

may have been trying to tell us.

            Third, it is necessary to remember that the Psalter

is one of the few books in the canon where the separations

between pericopes are well defined. Unlike the narrative,

historical, and doctrinal books in the Bible, or even the

prophetic books, except for a handful of instances, it is fairly

easy to tell where one composition ends and the next one

begins. Therefore, unlike studies in the structure of books

like Genesis, Samuel, Matthew, or Romans, we will never

be able to expect the same kind of results or regard for the

structure of the Psalter as for the former. As Murphy notes,

____________________

Academic Press, 1993), 14.

                                           448

 

too many of our ideas about what message is being sent by the

shape of the Psalter are, though insightful, nevertheless,

hypothetical.¹¹⁹ While the purposeful placement of many of

the psalms has, in my opinion, been demonstrated to

satisfaction, it is possible that the location of other psalms is

best explained simply by the fact that that is just where the

scribe happened to put them. It is all too easy for us in this day

of computer technology, to forget that the scribes were not

working with word processors, and probably did not perform

very many cut and paste operations.

            Fourth, it is important to keep in mind that, even if we should

decide that the structure of the Psalter is canonical, that is still a

long way from taking our observations about the theological

rationale for that structure and turning them into dogma. I

venture to say that we will not be able to make any theological

deductions from the structure of the Psalter, that do not appear

in the content of the Psalter itself.

            Given the preceding observations, I believe that whether the

shape of the Psalter is canonical or not is probably an

unresolvable question. And inasmuch as I am stressing canon

as authority or rule, rather than canon as list, I would suggest

that rather than talking about the "canonical shape of the

Psalter," it would be better to refer to the "shape of the

canonical Psalter." This would avoid giving the impression that

the shape or structure of the Psalter is on the same

____________________

            ¹¹⁹Murphy, "Reflections on Contextual Interpretation," 22-23.

                                         449

 

level of authoritativeness as its contents. Theological

deductions and statements may still be derivable from the

shape or structure of the book, but their role will most likely be

that of support for the content that is already in the psalms

themselves. Also important, however, they may aid in calling

attention to overlooked content as well.

             Does the Psalter Have a Christological Structure?

            Given what I have said in the previous sections, the answer to

this question should probably be apparent. I believe that the

studies on the shape of the Psalter make it more than just

probable that the book of Psalms has received a structure that

calls attention to its messianic elements. The prefixing of

Psalms 1 and 2 and their multiple chiastic relationships with

other portions of the Psalter (Psalms 18 and 19, Psalms 118

and 119, Psalms 144 and 146-50, Psalms 149 and 150) call

attention to the fact that the Psalter is not only the Word of

God but also the word of his anointed king. That the seams

of the Psalter are generally sewn with royal psalms (2, 72,

89, and perhaps even 41 and 144) most likely means that

there was an intention on the part of the editor(s) to trace

the fortunes of the Davidic reign and subsequent dynasty

in the placement of these psalms. This is all the more

likely due to the work of John Eaton in showing, his

detractors notwithstanding, just how pervasive the royal

                                         450

element is in the Psalter.¹²⁰ Indeed, the very presence of

these royal psalms in the Psalter, as many have suggested,

arranged thus at a time when there was no Davidic king on the

throne, testifies to the way in which they were being read,

not so much historically as eschatologically and hopefully,

awaiting the coming of him who would fulfill the hopes and

dreams of the people for a king who would reign in righteousness.¹²¹

            I believe all these things are real and present in the

shape of the canonical Psalter. At the same time, their role

is one of support. They are aids to our faith that when God

inspired holy individuals to write the Psalms, he did so with

his Son in mind. The belief that the Psalms are messianic and

Christologically oriented, though strengthened by these

____________________

            ¹²⁰John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, SBT 2d ser. 32

(Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1976).

            ¹²¹James Luther Mays, "The David of the Psalms," 153-55;

Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak

for us Today, rev. and exp. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster,

1983), 19192; F. F. Bruce, "The Theology and Interpretation of

the Old Testament," in Scripture, Tradition, and Interpretation:

Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study,

ed. G. W. Anderson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 413-14 n. 30;

Ronald E. Clements, Old Testament Theology: A Fresh

Approach, New Foundations Theological Library (Atlanta:

John Knox, 1978), 151; Delmar L. Jacobson, "The Royal

Psalms and Jesus Messiah: Preparing to Preach on a Royal

Psalm," WW 5 (1985): 192-95; Samuel Terrien, The Psalms

and Their Meaning for Today, (Indianapolis and New York:

Bobbs-Merrill, 1952), 91; Claus Westermann, The Living

Psalms, trans. J. R. Porter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989),

59; Walther Zimmerli, "Promise and Fulfillment," trans. James

Wharton, in Essays on Old Testament Hermeneutics, ed. Claus

Westermann, ET ed. James Luther Mays (Richmond: John

Knox, 1963), 111; Tournay, Seeing and Hearing God in the

Psalms, 229; Allen, Psalms, 114-15; Roland E. Murphy, The

Psalms, Job, Proclamation Commentaries, (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1977), 33.

                                       451

 

matters of shape and form, is best secured by the use of other

evidence which is more properly called canonical. A few years

ago, Gerald Sheppard wrote an article in which he proposed to

            concentrate on textual warrants for a Christian, theological

            interpretation of the Book of Psalms. These warrants will be

            drawn from implications of the "shape" of the book and its

            intertextual function within Christian scripture as a whole.¹²²

In this chapter we have done something similar, and found that

the warrants to be drawn from the "shape" of the Psalter are

considerable, but perhaps not necessarily conclusive. We now

turn to look at the second line of evidence, their "intertextual

function within Christian scripture as a whole."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

____________________

            ¹²²Sheppard, "Theology and the Book of Psalms," 143.

 

 

 

 

 

                                  CHAPTER 8

 

 

    THE CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO THE

  PSALMS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE CANON

 

 

            Canonical interpretation is inner-biblical exegesis with

authority. It is intertextuality with the understanding that the

interplay between texts must ultimately, if it is to have any

meaning, be situated in God as the author of canon and text.

This chapter, then, will be an investigation of the meaning of

the Psalms as they are used in the rest of the biblical canon.

Primarily, "the rest of the biblical canon" means the New

Testament, though the Old Testament will be investigated as

well. However, before looking at this usage, it is necessary to

examine three unresolved issues that were raised in chapter 4.

 

                           Three Lines of Evidence

            Bruce Waltke, in the article that was the original

inspiration for this dissertation, argued for a "canonicalprocess

approach" that would trace the meaning of the psalms through

four stages: (1) the time of the original composition,

(2) the First Temple period and initial collections of psalms,

(3) the Second Temple period and completion of the canonical

                                             453

                                         454

 

Psalter, and (4) the time of the New Testament.1 Of great

importance to Waltke's thesis, that the tracing of this process

results in an interpretation that sees the whole Psalter as

messianic, are: (1) the pervasiveness of the royal element in the

Psalter, (2) the fairly uniform process of the Psalter's growth,

and (3) the continued recognition of this royal element in the

Psalter's growth, shaping, and canonization in the

intertestamental period.

            This raises, then, three important questions: (1) can the

Christological interpretation of the Psalms be based on a royal

interpretation of the Psalter? (2) can it rely on the

reconstruction of a four-stage process? and (3) can data for the

canonical interpretation of the Psalms be taken from the

intertestamental period? In the pages that follow, I will deal

with the first of these questions at some length, and with the

last two more briefly.

 

                      Royal Interpretation of the Psalms

            Waltke's article, in part, was based on John Eaton's work

in his book, Kingship and the Psalms.² Eaton argues in this

monograph for a much more pervasive presence of the royal

elements in the Psalter than had previously been acknowledged.

____________________

            ¹Bruce K. Waltke, "A Canonical Process Approach to the

Psalms," in Tradition and Testament: Essays in Honor of

Charles Lee Feinberg, ed. John S. Feinberg and Paul D. Feinberg

(Chicago: Moody, 1981), 3-18.

            ²John H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms, SBT 2d ser. 32

(Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1976).

                                         455

 

Gunkel had argued that there were perhaps nine or ten royal

psalms, with other psalms preserving somewhat obscured royal

elements as well. His pupil Mowinckel and, in turn,

Mowinckel's pupil Birkeland, had acknowledged a much larger

royal presence in the Psalter.³ Eaton, at the end of the process,

as it were, then identifies some sixty-four psalms as royal.⁴

Since many of these psalms are not ascribed to David, Waltke,

then, goes on to add to Eaton's number all those that are so

ascribed and several others as well, and postulates that well

over the half the Psalter is comprised of royal psalms and was

understood throughout the period of collection and

canonization as a royal hymnbook.⁵

            I find myself in basic agreement with the positions of both

Eaton and Waltke. There are, however, several complicating

factors that must be taken into account which somewhat

qualify my wholehearted use of this line of evidence in support

of a Christological interpretation of the Psalms.

            (1) It must be kept in mind that influencing Eaton in

this area are his affinities toward both the myth and ritual, or

"patternism" school, and also the Uppsala school. Both of these

somewhat related ways of looking at the Psalms in the context

of the ancient Near East have been generally rejected by

Old Testament scholars today. Though these are really

____________________

            ³See Eaton, Kingship, 1-20, for details of this process.

            ⁴Ibid., 27-85.

            ⁵Waltke, "Canonical Process," 9-15.

                                            456

 

distinct schools, they have both been very much involved in

the discussion regarding the close relationship between God,

king, and cult.⁶ The myth and ritual school, in particular,

has been faulted for several reasons, first, for generally

assuming that the "pattern" of relationships in this area

could be simply imposed on the Israelite institutions.⁷

Indeed, the whole anthropological model which formed the

basis for the application has been abandoned by contemporary

anthropologists.⁸ Second, the whole interpretation of the

akitu festival, not just how it might have affected Israelite

practice, but even what it meant in Babylon is a subject of

considerable debate.⁹ Third, Israel's late acceptance of the

____________________

            ⁶Arthur L. Merrill and John R. Spencer, "The ‘Uppsala School’

of Biblical Studies," in In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on

Ancient Palestinian Life and Literature in Honor of G. W.

Ahlström, ed. W. Boyd Barrick and John R. Spencer, JSOTSup

31 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), 20-21. See also, G. W.

Anderson, "Some Aspects of the Uppsala School of Old

Testament Study," HTR 43 (1950): 239-56; A. S. Kapelrud,

"Scandinavian Research in the Psalms after Mowinckel," ASTI

4 (1965): 74-90.

            ⁷John W. Rogerson, Myth in Old Testament Interpretation,

BZAW 134 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1974), 66-84;

Shemaryahu Talmon, "The ‘Comparative Method’ in Biblical

Interpretation-Principles and Problems," in Congress Volume:

Göttingen, 1977, VTSup 29 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 320-56.

See also, Robert A. Oden, Jr., "Theoretical Assumptions in the Study of

Ugaritic Myths," Maarav 2/1 (1979): 43-63.

            ⁸Denise Dombrowski Hopkins, "New Directions in Psalms

Research--Good News for Theology and Church," Saint Luke's

Journal of Theology 29 (1986): 273; Karel van der Toorn, "The

Babylonian New Year Festival: New Insights from the

Cuneiform Texts and their Bearing on Old Testament Study,"

in Congress Volume: Leuven, 1989, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup

43 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 343-44.

            ⁹van der Toorn, "The Babylonian New Year Festival," 331-44.

                                      457

 

kingship, as well as the many indications that despite the

king's status as "son of God," he was nevertheless regarded as

fully human, make the thesis that the king was a stand-in for

Yahweh in cult ritual highly unlikely.¹⁰ Fourth, any

suggestion that the Israelite king was in some way regarded as

either the physical or metaphysical son of the deity and

therefore divine, or the deity incarnate, has been discouraged

in light of the much more defensible adoptionistic view.¹¹

Fifth, the use of the psalmic literature to draw and secure

the connections to religious festivals in the ancient Near

East, when neither the legal codes nor monarchical narratives

____________________

            ¹⁰Martin Noth, "God, King, and Nation in the Old

Testament,." chap. in The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other

Studies, trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas (Edinburgh and London:

Oliver & Boyd, 1966), 161-75; Erhard Gerstenberger,

"Psalms," in Old Testament Form Criticism, ed. John H. Hayes

(San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1974), 192; Karl

Heinrich Rengstorf, "Old and New Testament Traces of a

Formula of the Judaean Royal Ritual," NovT 5 (1962): 237-38;

Terence Kleven, "Kingship in Ugarit (KTU

1.16 I 1-23)," in Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical & Other Studies

in Memory of Peter C. Craigie, ed. Lyle Eslinger and Glen

Taylor, JSOTSup 67 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), 52-53.

            ¹¹Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh, trans. G. W.

Anderson (New York: Abingdon, 1954), 37; Gerald Cooke,

"The Israelite King as Son of God," ZAW 73 (1961): 202-25;

Gerhard von Rad, "The Royal Ritual in Judah," chap. in The

Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, trans. E. W.

Trueman Dicken (Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd,

1966), 226-27; Noth, "God, King, and Nation," 17273;

Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, King and Messiah: The Civil and

Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings, ConBOT 8 (Lund:

CWK Gleerup, 1976), 259-66; Shalom M. Paul, "Adoption

Formulae: A Study of Cuneiform and Biblical Legal Clauses,"

Maarav 2 (1980): 175-76; Leonidas Kaligula, The Wise King:

Studies in Royal Wisdom as Divine Revelation in the Old

Testament and Its Environment, ConBOT 15 (Lund: CWK

Gleerup, 1980), 102.

                                                 458

 

make reference to such practices, seems methodologically

unsound.¹²

            (2) Eaton also relied heavily on Birkeland's very

influential The Evildoers in the Book of Psalms.¹³ Birkeland

argued that, since the evildoers in the Psalms were described in

the same way throughout the Psalter, and the enemies in some

twenty of the Psalms were clearly to be identified as Gentiles,

unless there were other considerations to prove differently, the

enemies should be regarded as Gentiles throughout. Moreover,

he argued, since it would make the most sense to regard the

King as the one whose enemies would be the Gentile nations

and powers, psalms that pertained to these enemies were to be

identified as royal psalms. Birkeland's thesis has not gone

unchallenged, however, most recently by Steven Croft.¹⁴ And

though there has been the suggestion that Birkeland deserves

another hearing,¹⁵ the consensus today is that his

generalizations are too sweeping.

____________________

            ¹²W. Stewart McCullough, "Israel's Kings, Sacral and

Otherwise," ExpTim 68 (1956): 145; Noth, "God, King, and

Nation," 161; William J. Dumbrell, The Faith of Israel: Its

Expression in the Books of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids:

Baker, 1988), 208.

            ¹³H. Birkeland, The Evildoers in the Book of Psalms (Oslo:

I. Kommisjon & J. Dybwad, 1955).

            ¹⁴Steven J. L. Croft, The Identity of the Individual in the

Psalms, JSOTSup 44, (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 15-48;

see also, G. W. Anderson, "Enemies and Evildoers in the Book

of Psalms," BJRL 48 (1965-1966): 18-29; W. H. Bellinger, Jr.,

Psalmody and Prophecy, JSOTSup 27 (Sheffield: JSOT Press,

1984), 28-29; Gerstenberger, "Psalms," 199.

            ¹⁵T. Raymond Hobbs and P. Kenneth Jackson, "The Enemy in

the Psalms," BTB 21/1 (1991): 22-29.

                                   459

 

            (3) Third, Eaton's own arguments have been considered

methodologically unsound. Bellinger, in particular, has

answered Eaton point for point and concluded that

            though at first glance Eaton's arguments for his position look

            impressive, when considered individually, they do not show as

            much as he claims for them; they do not assure the royal

            interpretation.¹⁶

In my opinion, however, the strength of Bellinger's answers to

Eaton lie, not so much in disproving Eaton's thesis, but in

simply demonstrating that Eaton has not proved his case

beyond a reasonable doubt.¹⁷

            All these points notwithstanding, Eaton's work and those of

both the myth and ritual, and Uppsala schools have, in my

opinion, done a great service in calling attention to the very

important role of the king in the cult and the life of the nation.

The following points, in particular, I believe should be related

to the Christological interpretation of the Psalter, though I am

not at the same time claiming that such a Christological

interpretation is secured by them.

            First, as Murphy correctly notes, "The central role of the king

in the life of the nation is almost beyond our

____________________

            ¹⁶Bellinger, Psalmody and Prophecy, 31. See also, David J.

Plein, The Psalms: Songs of Tragedy, Hope, and Justice, The

Bible & Liberation Series (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 194.

            ¹⁷For what I believe to be a fairer critique of Eaton's

position, see Croft, The Identity of the Individual in the

Psalms, 73-132.

                                             460

 

comprehension."¹⁸ Aubrey Johnson makes reference to Lam

4:20 and the lament so plaintively put forth there:

            The breath of our nostrils, the Messiah of Yahweh,

                        Was caught in their pits,

            Of whom we had said, "In his shadow

                        We shall live (i.e. flourish) amid the nations."¹⁹

A passage such as this surely must surely be reflective of how much

the fortunes, hopes, and desires of the people were bound up with

their king. Several psalms certainly show this close relationship

(Psalms 20, 84, 89), and there are many others that would do

the same if recognized as royal (e.g., Psalms 22, 118). This

would tend to provide justification, therefore, for drawing a

line to Christ, in whom the lives and fortunes of his people are

entirely taken up.

            Second, it is important to recognize, however little we may

know about specific aspects, that the king certainly played a

central role in the cult. There is no evidence to suggest that the

king ever took on the role of Yahweh in the cultic drama. It is

still only speculation that he ever underwent a mock

humiliation, though this would certainly be one way of

explaining the apparently exaggerated description of the

distress in so many of the laments. Nevertheless, there is

abundant evidence from the monarchical narratives that

demonstrates, not only the king's central role in the

____________________

            ¹⁸Roland E. Murphy, The Psalms, Job, Proclamation

Commentaries (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 31.

            ¹⁹Aubrey R. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel,

2d ed. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967), 2.

                                          461

 

cult, but also his ultimate responsibility in seeing that the

cult functioned properly. We need only call attention here to

narratives concerning David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah,

and, in a more negative light, Manasseh. Certain royal psalms

would seem to highlight this connection as well. If Psalm 22,

for example, is, indeed, a royal psalm, then we see there how

even the seemingly personal cultic actions of the king have

implications for a host of others, the "great assembly," the

"poor," even "all the ends of the earth," and "all the rich of

the earth." Even "posterity" and "future generations" seem to

be included among those who benefit from the king's

fulfillment of his vows of praise.²⁰ While it is probably

going too far to suggest that the king in some way suffered

vicariously for the sins of the people, though there are

several who would still hold to this idea,²¹ it is important to

____________________

            ²⁰Cf. John H. Eaton, Psalms: Introduction and Commentary,

Torch Bible Commentaries (London: SCM, 1967), 71.

            ²¹For the older suggestions of this possibility see Johnson,

Sacral Kingship; Helmer Ringgren, The Messiah in the Old

Testament, SBT 18 (London: SCM, 1956), 54-66; Ivan

Engnell, Studies in the Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near

East, 2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), 35, 127; A Rigid

Scrutiny: Essays by Ivan Engnell, ed. and trans. John T. Willis

(Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969), 41, 89, 105,

221-230. For more recent holders of this position see J. A.

Soggin, "Notes for the Christian Exegesis of the first part of

Psalm 22," chap. in Old Testament and Oriental Studies, BibOr

29 (Rome: Biblical Institute, 1975), 163-65; Eaton, Kingship

and the Psalms, ix; "The Psalms and Israelite Worship," in

Tradition and Interpretation: Essays by Members of the Society

for Old Testament Study, ed. G. W. Anderson (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1979), 270-71; The Psalms Come Alive: Capturing

the Voice & Art of Israel's Songs (Downers Grove: InterVarsity,

1984), 129-44; and with some moderation, Aage Bentzen, King

and Messiah 2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970), 46-48.

                                           462

 

remember the priestly functions that seem to have belonged to

the kingly office.²² In addition to all that David did to

establish the cult (appointing Levites, singers, and other

liturgical personnel; writing and commissioning psalms;

providing and manufacturing instruments) he seems to have

even performed priestly functions (1 Chr 15:27; 16:2-3; 21:26;

cf. also for Solomon, 2 Chr 6:3, 13).23 This data, plus the

titling of the king in Psalm 110 as a "priest in the order of

Melchizedek," provides justification for drawing a line from

the sacral ministry of the king as it may be portrayed in the

Psalms to the New Testament and the sacral ministry of our

Lord.

            Third, the term "anointed" (māšîah) should be given its full

significance as providing a crucial link to the Christology of

the New Testament. Just under sixty years ago, the then newly

elected president of the Society of Biblical Literature could, in

his presidential address, castigate the scholarly world for what

he perceived to be their failure in this regard:

            There seems to be abroad a strangely perverted and

            sadistically exaggerated sense of honesty in estimating

            our sacred writings,   according to which one ought always

            to choose the less worthy and less religious of two

____________________

            ²²See most recently on this, Eugene H. Merrill, "Royal

Priesthood: An Old Testament Messianic Motif," BSac 150

(1993): 50-61.

            ²³The Masoretic Text of 2 Sam 8:18 also notes that David's

sons served as priests. The text appears to be corrupt there,

however, and the parallel in 1 Chr 18:17 refers to them as royal

attendants (hāri šōnîm lĕyad hammelek).

                                             463

 

            possible interpretations of any given passage. Whenever in the

            Psalms the word "Messiah" appears, every nerve is strained,

            and every device of a forced exegesis utilized, in order to make

            it refer merely to the secular king and his mundane affairs.

            Even where the whole context is saturated with the

            characteristic motifs of Israel's dynamic and intensely religious

            Messianic expectation, one must never admit that the Messiah

            is meant.²⁴

Today, it would be almost unthinkable for such an address to

be given at SBL, with the scholarly consensus being that the

term refers only to the currently reigning king. Regardless,

however, of whether or not the term "messiah" is ever used in

the Old Testament to refer to an eschatological figure--and

I am not convinced that it is not²⁵--it is nevertheless

appropriate to see the term in its various texts both as a

reference to the reigning historical king, and as foundational

for the characterization of the future eschatological king.²⁶

I disagree with J. J. M. Roberts when he says

            A discussion of the Old Testament's contribution to the

            development of the later messianic expectations can hardly be

            focused on the Hebrew word for messiah, māšîah. In the

            original context not one of the thirty-nine occurrences of

            māšîah in the Hebrew canon refers to an expected figure of

____________________

            ²⁴George Dahl, "The Messianic Expectation in the Psalter,"

JBL 57 (1938): 2 (presidential address delivered December 28,

1937).

            ²⁵For the suggestion that, though the word refers primarily to

the reigning king, there may nevertheless be idealistically

future-oriented expectations, see I. J. du Plessis, "The Relation

Between the Old and New Testaments from the Perspective of

Kingship/Kingdom--Including the Messianic Motif," Neot 14

(1981): 47; Keith R. Crim, The Royal Psalms (Richmond: John

Knox, 1962), 60-61; Heinz Kruse, "Psalm cxxxii and the Royal

Zion Festival," VT 33 (1983): 291; John I. Durham, "The King

as ‘Messiah’ in the Psalms," RevExp 81 (1984): 430.

            26Mettinger, King and Messiah, 14.

                                           464

 

            the future whose coming will coincide with the inauguration of

            an era of salvation.²⁷

            Even if some of the passages where māšîah occurs were

            later understood as prophetic predictions of the Messiah, as

            happened for example with Ps 2:2, such passages provide an

            inadequate base from which to discuss the Old Testament

            contribution to the development of messianic expectations.²⁸

Such statements, though they may be accurate in terms of the

non-eschatological character of these occurrences, seem to

completely disregard the foundational character of these

references for the later understanding of the concept. It seems

incongruous that in the post-biblical period the term "messiah"

was picked out of thin air to describe some kind of

eschatological deliverer without any reference at all to the

biblical use of the term. It would be strange indeed that the

term, which so far has only been attested in Israelite

literature, even though the practice of anointing kings

was common in the ancient Near East,²⁹ would be used

in postbiblical literature with no remnants of its historical

usage. Nor does it seem credible that Christ was so described

by his followers without some kind of understanding of what

the term meant in the Old Testament. As Ringgren states,

____________________

            ²⁷J. J. M. Roberts, "The Old Testament's Contribution to

Messianic Expectations," in The Messiah: Developments in

Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. James H. Charlesworth, The First

Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins

(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), 39.

            ²⁸Ibid., 41.

            ²⁹Shemaryahu Talmon, "Kingship and the Ideology of the

State," chap. in King, Cult and Calendar in Ancient Israel:

Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 36.

                                      465

 

            As a matter of fact, the Christian belief in Jesus as the

            messianic King and Saviour would be unthinkable and

            unintelligible apart from the background of the Old Testament

            kingship ideology as expressed in the royal psalms.³⁰

The simple claim I am making here is that the Old Testament

information in regard to "messiah" should be recognized as

forming a foundation for the later concept of "the Messiah" and

that attributes of the former are understood to be also attributes

of the latter. Or, in other words, we may use the Old Testament

texts about the messiah to help us understand the Christ.

            Fourth, it is important to understand the special relationship

which existed between God and his "anointed." Though, as

mentioned above, the idea that the Israelite king was regarded

as God's son in some physical or metaphysical sense, as though

he were deity incarnate, is almost unthinkable, it must be

recognized that the king's status as adopted son of God was no

less real. As Shalom Paul remarks,

            The concept of the king as the offspring of a deity

            is a well-known feature of ancient Near Eastern

            literature and iconography. In Israel, however, where

            no claims were ever made for the deification of the king,

            this idea, though literally rejected, was nevertheless

            reinterpreted metaphorically to signify divine election and

____________________

            ³⁰Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of the Psalmists (Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1963), 114; cf. Ronald E. Clements ("Messianic Hope

in the Old Testament," JSOT 43 [1989]: 10-11), who says that the

work of Bentzen, Mowinckel, and others has "established

beyond question that the imagery and titles accorded to the messiah

were drawn from earlier titles applied to the reigning king of

Israel."

                                            466

 

            legitimation, thereby establishing a personal intimate

            relationship between God and king.³¹

As God's anointed and adopted son, the king was especially

endowed with the Spirit of God (1 Sam 16:3).³² He was also a

supernaturally wise king, one who was to rule not by his own

wisdom, but by wisdom that was given to him.³³ Though not

to be considered divine, he was nevertheless the Deity's

viceregent. Indeed, as Mettinger remarks, "One is almost

tempted to speak of the king as `the image and likeness of

God' on earth."³⁴

            It is in this light that the question as to the relationship

between the royal psalms (psalms about the human king)

and the enthronement psalms³⁵ (psalms about the kingship

____________________

            ³¹Paul, "Adoption Formulae," 175-76.

            ³²Johnson, Sacral Kingship, 15-16.

            ³³Thus remarks Kaligula (The Wise King, 132): "A king could

not perform his duties without divine wisdom--consequently

royal wisdom was esteemed in the kingship ideology of the

ancient Near East. By wisdom a king could obey the will of his

god(s) with humility and thereby rule successfully. . . . A king

therefore was expected to seek wisdom through prayer. . . .

Laws, plans of temples, information about success or failure in

war, etc. were mediated to a king by divine revelation." Note in

this connection that Solomon prayed for wisdom (2 Chr 1:10),

and that David received the plans for the temple from the Spirit

(1 Chr 28:11-19).

            34Mettinger, King and Messiah, 263.

            ³⁵The bias towards the cultic ritual view of the enthronement

psalms is evident in the very name given to them. I agree with

Wendell Bowes who suggests that "a more appropriate name

should be sought for the enthronement psalms such as the

‘Kingship psalms of Yahweh’" ("The Basilmorphic Conception

of Deity in Israel and Mesopotamia," in The Biblical Canon in

Comparative Perspective, ed. K. Lawson Younger, Jr., William

W. Hallo, and Bernard F. Batto, Scripture in Context 4, Ancient Near

                                        467

 

of Yahweh) should be viewed. Psalm 89 provides the clue in

this regard. J.-B. Dumortier has called attention to the close

similarities between the hymn to Yahweh in vv. 2-19 and the

oracle of Yahweh concerning his servant David in vv. 20

38.36 The parallels are indeed striking. Does the Lord have a

strong arm (v. 14)? Then so does the king (v. 26). Is the Lord

characterized by covenant lovingkindness (vv. 2-3, 15)? Then

so is the king (v. 20). Is the Lord characterized by faithfulness

(vv. 2-3, 6, 9? Then so is the king (v. 38). Is the Lord

incomparable to his in the heavenly council (vv. 79)? Then so

is the king incomparable to his own people and all the kings of

the earth--even to the point where he can be given a name

which is usually reserved for God, elyôn (vv. 20, 28).37 Is

the Lord mighty (v. 9)? Then so is the king (v. 22). Is the

Lord exalted (v. 14)? Then so is the king (vv. 20, 25). Does

the Lord rule over the proud waters (vv. 10-11)? Then the

king also is ruler over the sea and the rivers (v. 26). Will

the Lord defeat all his enemies (v. 11)? Then even so

will the king be victorious over all his foes (vv. 23

____________________

Eastern Texts and Studies 11, [Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen,

1991], 262).

            ³⁶J.-B. Dumortier, "Un Ritual D'intronisation: Le Ps. LXXXIX

2-38," VT 22 (1972): 176-96.

            ³⁷On this point Herbert G. May ("Aspects of the Imagery of

World Dominion and World State in the Old Testament," in

Essays in Old Testament Ethics, ed. James L. Crenshaw and

John T. Willis [New York: KTAV, 1974], 68) notes, "As Yahweh

is incomparable with the members of the heavenly court, so David

(= the king) is the highest (Elyon) of the kings of the earth."

                                       468

 

24). Is the Lord's faithfulness established in the heavens,

baššahaq (v. 7)? Even so is the king (or his throne) established

as the faithful witness in the skies, baššahaq (v. 38). In short,

then, everything that is true of Yahweh in vv. 2-19 is true also

of the earthly king in vv. 20-38. And though the glory of the

earthly king does not come close to the splendor of the

heavenly king, at the same time his dominion is nonetheless

one that can be described in cosmogonic proportions. Thus vv.

2-19 and vv. 20-38 come together to describe the one great

world kingdom of the Lord Almighty and his co-regent and

earthly representative and witness--David the son of Jesse. The

implications this has for the psalm are tremendous. The

psalmist has established a formidable case for the lament to

come in the last part of the psalm: if the earthly kingdom of the

Davidide falls, then so must the kingdom of Yahweh; the

kingdoms stand or fall together. The Lord simply cannot allow

the king to continue to undergo the degradation described in

vv. 39-52 without being untrue to himself, without lying to

David, without violating the covenant, and without

endangering his own reputation as sovereign ruler of the

universe. As Clifford notes, these verses "actually describe a

single event, the acclamation in heaven and on earth of Yahweh's

world-establishing victory, which includes the commissioning

of the Davidide as earthly regent of the new order."³⁸ The royal

____________________

            ³⁸Richard J. Clifford, "Psalm 89: A Lament over the Davidic

                                        469

 

psalms are nothing more than reflections of the Psalms of

Yahweh's kingship.³⁹

            Attention has been called to the risk that God took in

allowing himself be thought of in terms of human kingship.⁴⁰

Attention needs to be called as well to the risk that he took in

establishing a human monarchy in Israel as a reflection of his

own kingship. However, it is precisely this risk that provides the

justification for our drawing a line from the Davidic king, the

adopted son of God, as he is so described in the Psalms, to

God's greatest "risk," the incarnation and sacrifice of the last

Davidide, who was, indeed, the very Son of God.

            Taking all these factors into account, I believe the case

that Eaton has made for recognizing many more royal psalms

in the Psalter than had previously been thought is a very

sound one. And I believe as well that Waltke's extension

of Eaton's arguments to cover all the Davidically attributed

____________________

Ruler's Continued Failure," HTR 73 (1980): 36.

            ³⁹In this light, therefore, it seems that the seemingly

extravagant language in the royal psalms should not be

attributed to mere "court style" (e.g., David J. A. Clines,

"Psalm Research Since 1955: I. The Psalms and the Cult,"

TynBul 18 [1967]: 125), as recognized by Mettinger (King and

Messiah, 102-5).

            ⁴⁰Thus N. Q. King ("Kingship as Communication and

Accommodation," in Promise and Fulfillment: Essays

Presented to Professor S. H. Hooke in Celebration of His

Ninetieth Birthday by Members of the Society for Old

Testament Study and Others, ed. F. F. Bruce [Edinburgh: T. & T.

Clark, 1963], 142-43): "It was the very antiquity and widespread

nature of Kingship ideas which made Kingship a most dangerous

symbol of communication regarding the God of Israel." On the

commonality of perceiving deity as king, see Bowes, "The

Basilmorphic Conception of Deity," 235-75.

                                       470

 

psalms is correct as well. It may well be that many more

psalms could prove capable of a royal interpretation. In

particular I am thinking here of the article by Barre and

Kselman in which they demonstrate convincingly the royal

character of Psalm 23.⁴¹ The fact that some psalms are not so

easily recognizable as royal could be due to several factors,

among them being a democratization process that some psalms

may have gone through, revision into cryptic forms so as to

avoid the wrath of the Persian king in the post-exilic period,⁴²

and the ambiguity that exists in poetic expression as a matter of

course.

            Coupled with the evidence mentioned in the previous chapter

regarding the Psalter's chiastic or, at least, inclusio shape that

highlights the royal element, it is very possible that the Psalter

should be seen as a royal collection, at least in its initial

impetus and in the first three books. As Mowinckel remarks,

All this points to the fact that in Israel, as in Babylonia and

Egypt, the psalms--together with the corresponding august

cultic dispositions--were originally intended, not for all and

sundry, but for the king and the great.⁴³

____________________

            ⁴¹Michael L. Barre and John S. Kselman, "New Exodus,

Covenant, and Restoration in Psalm 23," in The Word of the

Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freeman, ed.

Carol L. Meyers and M. O'Connor, American Schools of Oriental

Research Special Volume Series 1 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,

1983), 97-127.

            ⁴²Cf. Kruse, "Psalm cxxxii," 290.

            ⁴³Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship, 2

vols., trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas (New York: Abingdon, 1967), 1.77.

                                          471

 

            All this notwithstanding, the fact that the royal element

is not necessarily demonstrable for all the psalms in the Psalter,

coupled with the New Testament's Christological use of psalms

that are not conclusively demonstrable as royal, stops me short

of claiming that a canonical approach, in order to arrive at a

Christological interpretation, must presuppose an entirely royal

Psalter. In other words, the royal interpretation of the Psalter,

though supporting Waltke's thesis that all the psalms should be

understood as referring ultimately to the person of Christ, "that

the Psalms are ultimately the prayers of Jesus Christ,"⁴⁴ does

not, in my opinion, ultimately provide the rationale for the way

in which the New Testament authors connected the Psalms to

Jesus Christ. While I believe the data definitely supports the

theses of Eaton and Waltke, and should be utilized in the

interpretation, exegesis, and proclamation of the Psalms and

the New Testament passages that use them, the canonical

approach sees more going on in the New Testament's

Christological use of the Psalms than simply the recognition of

their royal character.

 

                           Canonical Process

As mentioned earlier, Waltke seeks in the canonical process

approach to trace the meaning of the Psalms through a four-

stage process whereby the Psalter received its final

____________________

            ⁴⁴Waltke, "Canonical Process," 16.

                                      472

 

shape, from the individual psalm as it came from the psalmist,

to the usage of the Psalms in the First Temple period, the

Second Temple period, and then finally to the time of the New

Testament. There are, however, in my opinion, at least two

problems with this postulated four-stage process, which I will

deal with very quickly.

            First, not all psalms fit the process. This is perhaps, only a

minor point, and yet one that needs to be taken into account.

There are Davidic psalms that were, perhaps, never used in the

First Temple period, and may have only been added to the

collection in the Second Temple period; this is at least one

explanation for the Davidic psalms in the last two books.

Conversely, there are, perhaps, psalms that were incorporated

into the collection as soon as they were composed, in either the

putative second or third stages. Also, Waltke's tracing of this

process only deals with the Davidic psalms, and does not

account for the other compositions.

            Second, the whole matter of the third stage is very

unclear. As discussed in the previous chapter, complicating

the whole discussion is the data from the Qumran scroll

11QPs^a. The actual shape of the Psalter in this time period,

the rationale for the shape that it received, whether there

were competing canonical psalters, and even when the Masoretic

canonical Psalter was put in its final form are all problems to

which we do not have firm answers. In other words, the

                                        473

 

whole theory of a four-stage process and what the editors of the

Psalter were thinking at each of the stages is a reconstruction,

and one for which there is just not enough evidence to establish

it. And even though I believe Waltke's reconstruction is, in

fact, the most credible reconstruction of those that have been

proposed, I am not prepared to use it is as foundational for a

Christological approach to the Psalms any more than I would

be willing to grant theological relevancy to Sanders's

reconstructions. It is impossible to use reconstructions that are

not provided by the canon itself as a base from which to make

authoritative proclamation. The gap from reconstruction to

authoritative theological statement is a chasm that cannot be

bridged.

 

                    The Intertestamental Period

            Connected to the previous discussion is that of the messianic

expectation in the intertestamental period and whether any of

this information can be used to advance the cause of a

canonical approach to the Psalms. Waltke actually seems to go

both ways on the subject. On the one hand, he suggests that

"the royal dimension of the lament psalms became lost during

this period of time, and thus Israel lost sight of a suffering

Messiah."⁴⁵ On the other hand he says,

            We cannot be sure how the editors who compiled the final

            form of the Old Testament interpreted the lament psalms.

____________________

            ⁴⁵Ibid., 15.

                                       474

 

            It seems plausible to me to suppose that they continued to

            understand them according to their original meaning.⁴⁶

Perhaps Waltke is assuming here that the Psalter's final form

was reached before the close of the Old Testament period and

the beginning of the intertestamental period. But this is by no

means a foregone conclusion, especially in light of the possible

canonical status, for at least one Judean community, of

11QPs^a. And while I do not agree with Marvin Tate that we

should no longer even think in terms of an intertestamental

period,⁴⁷ I believe there are fuzzy boundaries here, and that no

definitive statement can be made as to which period it was that

saw the Psalter receive its final form. So even though I believe

with Waltke that the Psalter does show signs of being put into

its final form by editors who still understood its messianic

significance, the possibility that this may have happened in the

intertestamental period, even late in that period, precludes

basing a canonical approach to the Psalms on that data. For, as

has been satisfactorily demonstrated, there was no one unified

view of messianic expectation in this time period.⁴⁸

____________________

            ⁴⁶Ibid., 16.

            ⁴⁷Marvin E. Tate, "Promising Paths Toward Biblical

Theology," RevExp 78 (1981): 175.

            ⁴⁸James H. Charlesworth, "From Messianology to Christology:

Problems and Prospects," in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest

Judaism and Christianity, ed. James H. Charlesworth, The First

Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins

(Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), 5-6, 28-29, 31-32; in

the same volume, Shemaryahu Talmon, "The Concept of Mashiach

and Messianism in Early Judaism," 79-115; also his earlier article,

                                    475

 

It has been shown, as well, that the rabbinic materials are either

silent or ambiguous in this area, and that the use of them may

well be anachronistic.⁴⁹ The canonical approach, in order to be

a truly theologically authoritative approach, must rest on the

use of canonical texts by other canonical texts. It is to that

evidence that we now turn.

 

             The Use of the Psalms in the Old Testament?

            The reader will notice that I have put a question mark

at the end of the heading for this section. Though I

certainly appreciate the emphasis that has been placed on

inner-biblical exegesis in the last few years, in particular,

the distinguished and fascinating work of Michael Fishbane,⁵⁰ 

____________________

"Types of Messianic Expectation at the Turn of the Era," chap.

in King, Cult and Calendar in Ancient Israel: Collected Studies

(Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 202-24.

            Though I agree with Charlesworth on this point, I disagree

when he states, "The term `the Messiah' simply does not appear

in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament). The last group of

scholars to acknowledge this fact were the conservative

Christians, and now the very conservative New Testament

specialist [the late] Professor George Eldon Ladd states

without qualification, that `the simple term "the Messiah" does

not occur in the Old Testament at all'" (p. 11, emphasis mine).

Ladd, however, in the very next sentence says, "The word

always has a qualifying genitive or suffix such as ‘the messiah

of Jehovah,’ ‘my messiah,’" and then goes on to suggest that the

term may, indeed, be used eschatologically in certain places in

the Old Testament (A Theology of the New Testament [Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], 136).

            ⁴⁹Samuel Sandmel, "Parallelomania," JBL 81 (1962): 9; Jacob

Neusner, "The Use of Later Rabbinic Evidence for the Study of

First-Century Pharisaism," in Approaches to Ancient Judaism:

Theory and Practice, ed. William Scott Green, BJS 1

(Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 221; "Mishnah and

Messiah," BTB 14 (1984): 3-11.

            ⁵⁰Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient

                                            476

 

I still have reservations about the conclusions that can be drawn

from such studies.

            First, there are problems with regard to the dating of the

biblical books and the disagreement among scholars on this

dating. There is no scholarly agreement as to the chronological

order of the different biblical books, especially between

liberals and conservatives. Second, even if it could be shown

that one book is earlier than another, it cannot be simply

assumed that citations from one in the other are, in fact,

citations. The possibilities of the relationship between a

citation and its supposed source are numerous: (1) one text

could be using the other one, (2) they could both be dependent

on another source, (3) one text could be citing a different

Vorlage of the other text, (4) the phrase, sentence, or paragraph

in question could be part of a common stock, (5) the citation

could be from an auditory recollection rather than a written

version of the other text, (6) the parallel passages could, in fact,

be quite independent of each other. And, of course, allowance

must always be made for the possibility of scribal attempts to

bring either the citing text or the cited text into closer conformity

with the other, or perhaps to nuance things a little differently.

____________________

Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985); also, before him, Nahum M.

Sarna, "Psalm 89: A Study in Inner Biblical Exegesis," in

Biblical and Other Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann, Studies

and Texts 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 29-46.

                                     477

 

            In light of this, it would be better in many cases to talk

about inner-biblical connections, rather than inner-biblical exegesis.

I believe this is especially important in the case of the Psalms.

The most likely potential use of material from the Psalms lies

in Chronicles and the prophets. And even though I myself

would work with the supposition that the Davidically attributed

psalms would predate both of these, I realize that is a minority

position. And even if I were granted this assumption, that

would still not preclude the possibility that psalmic material

has been reworked into its current form in the Psalter. As for

the other psalms, it is practically impossible to say in which

direction the line of usage lies. In any case, the discussion in

this section will limit its assumptions to one of inner-biblical

connection, and not inner-biblical exegesis.

            Inasmuch as the concern of this dissertation is with the

Christological usage of the Psalms, there are only two relevant

sets of passages: those places where the Chronicler appears to

be citing the Psalms, and those where there is a messianic

connection in the prophetic material. What the Chronicler does

is of some importance, for considerable portions of the Psalms

seem to appear in his texts. However, the use of the Psalter by

the prophets is not of the same nature. If there is any use at all

it is only by way of allusion, or perhaps, the following of a similar

pattern. For example, Ringgren has called attention to striking

                                    478

 

similarities between Psalm 2 and the Servant Song in Isaiah

49.51 Indeed, those of the myth and ritual and Uppsala schools

have drawn parallels between the laments and/or royal psalms

and the Servant Songs in Isaiah.⁵² Keith R. Crim has noted the

similarity between the titles in Isa 9:6-7 and phrases in the

Psalms.⁵³ However, one is hard pressed to really find any kind

of extended use of a pericope from the Psalms in the

prophets.⁵⁴ For the prophets, then, it will be sufficient to say at

this point that the prophetic parallels to passages in the lament

and royal psalms support the messianic, royal interpretation

discussed earlier in this chapter. I turn now to look at the

extended use of the Psalms in the Chronicler.

            There are two places in Chronicles where there appears

to be an extended quotation from the Psalms. In 1 Chr 16:8-36

there is a psalm apparently composed of Ps 105:1-15; 96:1-13;

____________________

            ⁵¹Helmer Ringgren, "Psalm 2 and Belit's Oracle for

Ashurbanipal," in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth:

Essays in Honor of David Noel Freeman, ed. Carol L. Meyers

and M. O'Connor, American Schools of Oriental Research

Special Volume Series 1 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1983),

94.

            ⁵²For example, Bentzen, King and Messiah, 48-67.

            ⁵³Crim, The Royal Psalms, 63-65. The correspondences are:

"Wonderful Counselor" (Ps 20:4; 72:18; 89:5); "Mighty God"

(Ps 20:6; 21:13); "Everlasting Father" (89:26, 29; 21:4, 6);

"Prince of Peace" (72:3, 7; 89:14; 101:1).

            54John Day ("Prophecy," in It Is Written: Scripture Citing

Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, ed. Donald

A. Carson and Hugh G. M. Williamson [Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1988], 47-48), in a section where

he refers to the usage of the Psalms in the prophets, makes

reference to "theological echoes," "linguistic echoes," etc., but

there are not really any quotations extensive or close enough to

persuade me that the prophet was necessarily quoting from the Psalms.

                                       479

 

106:1, 47-48. The psalm is said to be a composition which

David committed to the Levites upon the occasion of the ark's

being brought to Jerusalem. In 2 Chr 6:41-42 there is a citation

from Ps 132:8-10. The citation concludes a long prayer of

Solomon on the occasion of the ark's being placed into the

newly built temple. The passages raise a host of questions. In

the 1 Chronicles passage why does the Chronicler put the

songs in the mouth of David when none of them are so

attributed in the text of the Psalter?⁵⁵ Why did he choose these

particular psalms? Why is there no reference to the ark in any

of the cited material, when the bringing up of the ark to

Jerusalem is the very occasion being celebrated, and the

corresponding account in 2 Chronicles does use a citation

which seems more appropriate?⁵⁶ Why did the Chronicler

use only a portion of Psalm 105, stop at the place he did,

and cite all of Psalm 96? In the 2 Chronicles passage why

does the Chronicler cite a much shorter passage than he

did in the 1 Chronicles passage? Why did he use this citation

____________________

            ⁵⁵Gerald T. Sheppard ("Theology and the Book of Psalms," Int

46 [1992]: 147), however, overstates the problem when he

suggests than "when the editors of Chronicles used Psalms

from the Psalter, they did so in a manner that the

superscriptions do not anticipate . . ." None of the psalms

which the Chronicler used have superscriptions.

            ⁵⁶If it is assumed that the Chronicler took this material from

the Psalter, then, as Trent C. Butler notes ("A Forgotten

Passage from a Forgotten Era (1 Chr XVI 8-36)," VT 28

[1978]: 143), "The significant question is why the writer chose

portions of three psalms which had no claim to belong to the

Davidic tradition and which required removal of anachronisms

to accommodate them to the context."

                                       480

 

to replace the recorded ending of the prayer in 1 Kings 8:50-53?

And why did he use a prayer which requests that the ark might

come to its resting place, apparently forgetting that the ark is

already there?⁵⁷ I cannot possibly address all these questions,

though some may be touched on in the discussion which

follows. What I do wish to do, however, is to make a few

observations relevant to the question of the purpose served by

these citations.

            First, it is important to reiterate what I said

earlier and emphasize that we should not simply assume

that the Chronicler is citing from the Psalms. While this

is certainly a possibility, it is equally possible that the author

had before him a single, intact composition which he cited

in its entirety.⁵⁸ In fact, I am more inclined to think that this

is the actuality.⁵⁹ This may well account for the Chronicler's

____________________

            ⁵⁷Kruse, "Psalm cxxxii and the Royal Zion Festival," 291. One

possible answer to this question is that too much has been read

into this liturgical petition, and that the ark was not part of an

annual procession.

            ⁵⁸So Peter R. Ackroyd, "Some Notes on the Psalms," NTS n.s.

17 (1966): 398 n. 5; I & II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah:

Introduction and Commentary, Torch Bible Commentaries

(London: SCM, 1973), 64-65. When Butler ("A Forgotten

Passage," 142 n. 1) says that "the recent attempts to deny

dependence upon the canonical Psalms must be rejected in

light of the practice of the Chronicler of relying so heavily

upon other literary sources," he is not really responding to

Ackroyd's suggestion. The question is not whether the

Chronicler used sources; the question is what sources he used.

            ⁵⁹Though Andrew E. Hill would not go so far as to suggest

that this could have been an original composition he still

suggests that the Chronicler's "labor in combining three Psalms

into a new composition was consciously governed by Hebrew

poetic device and structure ("Patchwork Poetry or Reasoned Verse?

                                        480

 

attribution of these psalms to David: his Vorlage so attributed

them (or rather, attributed "it"). At the same time, it must also

be kept in mind that the Chronicler does not specifically say

that David was the author; the text simply says that "on that

day, then, David gave at first (or, "at the head") to praise the

Lord by the hand of Asaph and his brothers" (1 Chr 16:7). In

fact, though it would have served the Chronicler's purpose to

do so, he does not even specifically say that David sang this

song. In the 2 Chronicles passage, again, I do not believe we

may simply assume that the Chronicler has borrowed this from

Psalm 132. It may well have been common liturgical stock

from which the Chronicler drew. In any case, I am not willing

to talk about the Chronicler's use of the Psalms, but more

guardedly, about his use of psalmic material.

            Second, rather than trying to discover the Chronicler's purpose

in these two passages separately, I believe it is more important

to see how they function together. With this in mind, the

following commonalities seem especially significant.

            (1) Both passages have to do with the bringing of the ark into a

construction built especially for it, constructions whose

building was directed by the king.

            (2) In both passages, the king has a central role to play, not just

in the directing of the transfer of the ark,

____________________

Connective Structure in I Chronicles XVI," VT 33 (1983): 98).

Could not the same labor have produced this composition from

the beginning?

                                             482

 

but in the very words that are used. In 2 Chronicles 6, Solomon

is definitely the speaker; it is less clear in 1 Chronicles 16, but

David nevertheless has something to do with the

commissioning of the words to be sung on that occasion.

            (3) On both occasions the king performs duties that are

tantamount to those of a priest (1 Chr 16:2-3; 2 Chr 6:12-13).

            (4) Both accounts use the formula "his love endures forever"

(1 Chr 16:34, 41; 2 Chr 5:13; 7:3, 6). Mark Shipp observes that

the only other time the phrase occurs in Chronicles is at 2 Chr

20:21, and that there it occurs in connection with Jehoshaphat's

appointment of men to sing it. Thus, every time it is used in

Chronicles it is connected with an act of loyalty on the part of

the anointed king.⁶⁰

            (5) In both passages, the recitation of psalmic material

contains the word "anointed" (1 Chr 16:22; 2 Chr 6:42). If,

indeed, the Chronicler was the one who composed this psalm

in 1 Chronicles out of three independent texts, it is especially

significant that 1 Chr 16:22 is the last verse quoted from the

Psalm 105 text. Interestingly, then, this psalm has a formal

connection with Psalm 89 which we discussed earlier. In Psalm

89, a hymn in praise of Yahweh's kingship is followed by the

dynastic oracle in which Yahweh declares his faithfulness to

his anointed. In 1 Chr 16:8-36, the order is reversed; the oracle

of Yahweh, in which he warns kings not to touch his

____________________

            ⁶⁰Mark R. Shipp, "`Remember His Covenant Forever': A

Study of the Chronicler's Use of the Psalms," ResQ 35/1 (1993): 30-32.

                                     483

 

anointed ones, is followed by a hymn in praise of Yahweh's

kingship.

            Given this data, I would suggest that the psalms in Chronicles

function in the Chronicler's post-exilic setting to reinforce the

need for, hope for, and expectation of, the restoration of the

Davidic dynasty. I agree with a number of scholars who

suggest that the message of Chronicles is both eschatological

and messianic. Williamson's conclusion on this issue is worth

quoting:

            Our contention, then, is that, with the completion of the period

            of Davidic-Solomonic rule, the Chronicler intends his readers

            to understand that the dynasty has been eternally established.

            We have not found evidence to justify the view that with

            Solomon's building of the temple the content of the promise

            was exhausted, but rather that the completion of the temple was

            a contributory factor to the establishment of the promise.⁶¹

And as Newsome remarks:

            The possibility must also be entertained that the eschatological

            expectation of the Chronicler was . . . in fact, messianic, or at least

            royalist, in that he looked for the immediate restoration of the house

            of David, quite possibly in connection with the continuation of the

            cult of the Second Temple.⁶²

 

If this interpretation is correct, it is interesting to note the

referential shift that takes place between Psalm 105:15 and

1 Chr 16:22. When the term "anointed ones" occurs in the

Psalm, it is, in fact, one of the very few places where

____________________

            ⁶¹Hugh G. M. Williamson, "Eschatology in Chronicles,"

TynBul 28 (1977): 142-43. Cf. W. F. Stinespring, "Eschatology in

Chronicles," JBL 80 (1961): 209-19; Robert North, "Theology

of the Chronicler," JBL 82 (1963): 369-81.

            ⁶²James D. Newsome, Jr., "Toward a New Understanding of

the Chronicler and His Purposes," JBL 94 (1975): 208.

                                          484

 

its referent is not a king or kings. In fact, its exact referent is

somewhat ambiguous. It could be referring to the entire

population of Israel, or it could be a reference to the patriarchs,

or to Abraham in particular. But the Chronicler, by quoting the

verse and omitting all that follows in regard to the subsequent

history of Israel, both in Psalm 105 and Ps 106:2-46, changes

the referent so that now it is the Davidic dynasty.⁶³ David and

his sons become the fulfillment of the promises made to

Abraham and the patriarchs. As Sara Japhet remarks,

            Read as one continuous psalm, its message is unequivocal: the

            covenant with the patriarchs is consummated in their time.

            There is no break, not even any "history," between Jacob and

            salvation!⁶⁴

Similarly, Ps 132:8-10 is used in 2 Chr 6:41-42 to replace

1 Kgs 8:50-53 in the prior parallel account of Solomon's prayer.

Instead of concluding with a reference to Moses and the

Exodus as the grounds for the answering of the prayer, now the

motivation supplied is the faithfulness of David and a plea to

the Lord that he would remember his covenant with his

anointed ones. Raymond B. Dillard calls attention to this:

            What ground can be offered that God should grant Solomon's

            requests? In the Kings account of the prayer, the ground

            for       God's answer is his unique relationship to Israel

            deriving from the Exodus (1 Kgs 8:50-53). The Chronicler,

            however, omits these verses from his Vorlage, as he does

            with other material pertaining to the Exodus . . . instead

            he grounds the expectation   of God's favorable response to

____________________

            ⁶³Cf. Butler, "A Forgotten Passage," 144.

            ⁶⁴Sara Japhet, "Conquest and Settlement in Chronicles," JBL

96 (1979): 218.

                                       485

 

            Solomon's prayer in the divine promises to David. In place

            of the theme of election and redemption in the Exodus, the

            Chronicler introduces a free citation of Ps 132:1, 8-10.⁶⁵

            The psalms in 1 Chronicles 16 and 2 Chronicles 6 are used to

reinforce the eschatological messianism of the Chronicler's

message for the post-exilic generation. Lest the people reckon

the construction of the Second Temple to be a complete

fulfillment of the Lord's promise to be faithful to his covenant,

the Chronicler reminds his readers that the Temple, its cultic

personnel, and its liturgy and sacrifice will yet be under the

direction and supervision of the anointed of the Lord. It is a

reminder that there is a Davidic king yet to come. The glory

that was "Camelot" will, indeed, return. And the Psalms play

an important role in the Chronicler's delivery of this prophetic

message. This return, however, did not occur for another four

hundred years.

 

                                    The "Flash Point":

               The Use of the Psalms in the New Testament

            In an article written several years after his "Canonical

Process Approach to the Psalms," Waltke wrote that in this

____________________

            ⁶⁵Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles, WBC 15 (Waco: Word,

1987), 51. I also agree with Dillard's conclusion (pp. 51-52)

that hasdê dāwîd, at least in this passage, is to be taken as a

subjective, rather than an objective, genitive; for the same

view, Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, OTL (Louisville:

Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 604-5; Shipp, "’Remember

His Covenant Forever,’" 39. For the contrary view see Hugh G.

M. Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, NCB (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1982), 220-21; "`The Sure Mercies of David':

Subjective or Objective Genitive?" JSS 23 (1978): 31-49;

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "The Unfailing Kindnesses Promised to

David: Isaiah 55:3," JSOT 45 (1989): 91-98.

                                          486

 

canonical process "the divine author's intention comes into ever

sharper focus through the magnifying glass of progressive

revelation until it reaches a flash point in the coming of Jesus

Christ."⁶⁶ I argued earlier in this chapter that the canonical

"process" itself plays a supportive role, but not necessarily one

that is canonically authoritative. This "flash point," however,

I wish to argue, does play such a role. Therefore, it is especially

important for the canonical approach to understand how the

Psalms are used at this stage.

            Though the ideal would be to look at all the uses of the Psalms

in the New Testament, I will deal at length with the use of Ps

22:23 in Heb 2:11-13 and then attempt to extrapolate from that

usage some rationales for the use of the Psalms in the New

Testament, particularly in regard to those places outside the

Gospel accounts in which the author places a passage from the

Psalms on Christ's lips, for I believe it is these passages that

most clearly provide a hermeneutical entryway into an

understanding of how the New Testament writers conceived of

the relationship between Christ and the Psalms. I will not be

looking specifically at other messianic uses of the psalms,

though I believe the findings will have implications for those

as well.

____________________

            ⁶⁶Bruce K. Waltke, "Kingdom Promises as Spiritual,"

Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship

Between the Old and New Testaments: Essays in Honor of S.

Lewis Johnson, Jr., ed. John S. Feinberg (Westchester, IL: Crossway

Books, 1988), 284.

                                          487

 

                The Use of Psalm 22 in Hebrews 2:11-13

            A most intriguing case is the use of Psalm 22:23 in Heb

2:12. The author uses the quotation to support the preceding

argument in v. 11 that Jesus, the sanctifier, and those whom he

sanctifies are "of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to

call them brothers." Immediately, then, to support this

assertion, the author introduces the citation from Psalm 22

followed by two other quotations which it will be necessary to

examine as well:

            He says,

                        "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the

                        presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.

            And again,

                        "I will put my trust in him."

            And again he says,

            "Here am I, and the children God has given me."

The third quotation comes from Isa 8:18. It is uncertain as to

whether the second quotation comes from Isa 8:17; 12:2; or

2 Sam 22:3. I prefer to see it as coming from Isa 8:17 for

reasons which I will give later. The more important problem,

however, is that there is no place in the Gospel accounts where

it is recorded that Jesus spoke these words. The question

then is what hermeneutical move was employed by the author

of Hebrews in making this quotation. The author of Hebrews

has been accused more than once of stepping out of

                                      488

 

bounds hermeneutically in his over-zealousness to see Christ in

the Old Testament.⁶⁷ Is that what he did here?

Suggested Explanations

            To account for the author's use of these passages, several

suggestions have been made which I deem unsatisfactory. The

problem is not that the explanations carry no weight at all (for

some I do mean exactly that), but rather, that the explanation

does not sufficiently explain the author's motivation for the use

of these passages, his interpretation of them, or how he could

have expected the quotations to convince his readers of the

point he was arguing.

Septuagint influence

            One suggestion is that the wording of the Septuagint

is what drew the author to these passages. Kenneth J.

Thomas notes that in Hebrews "only 56 variations of any

kind from LXX a/b are found in direct quotations from

the O.T."⁶⁸ The implication of the word "only," I suppose,

is that this variation is not all that significant; but it seems to

 me that this actually calls for closer scrutiny in the assertion of

____________________

            ⁶⁷So, e.g., Theodore H. Robinson, The Epistle to the

Hebrews, MNTC (London: Harper & Brothers, 1933), 25:

"The citations are not particularly apt; we should not imagine that

the author found no little difficulty in discovering Old

Testament passages which would suit his case."

            ⁶⁸Kenneth J. Thomas, "The Old Testament Citations in

Hebrews," NTS 11 (1965): 306.

                                            489

 

dependency in any one passage. George Howard comes to a

quite different conclusion from Thomas. He asserts that "it is

now probable that the text used by the author of Hebrews is, on

occasion, closer to a Hebrew recension more ancient than the

Masoretic text."⁶⁹ I am not sure whether Howard is trying to

suggest that the author was actually using a Hebrew text, or

that he was using a Greek translation based on a Hebrew text

other than the Masoretic Text, though I believe that he must

mean the latter, since the majority opinion is that the author did

not even know Hebrew.⁷⁰ In any case, more caution needs to

be used in asserting Septuagint influence.⁷¹

            In the first quotation from Ps 22:23, the renderings of the

Septuagint (Ps 21:23) and the Masoretic Text are almost

identical. The only difference is a significant one, however,

since it is the first word of the quotation. Where the Septuagint

has diēgēsomai for the Hebrew ǎsappĕrâ, Hebrews has

apangelō. Various theories have been put forward to account

for the difference. To the suggestion that the author may have

quoted the passage from memory and simply forgot the

____________________

            ⁶⁹George Howard, "Hebrews and the Old Testament

Quotations," NovT 10 (1968), 208.

            ⁷⁰Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Living Utterances of God: The

New Testament Exegesis of the Old (London: Darton,

Longman & Todd, 1983), 105.

            ⁷¹As J. C. McCullough remarks ("Some Recent Developments

in Research on the Epistle to the Hebrews--II," IBS 3 [1981]:

2930), "The Codices A and B are just two codices of the LXX

which happen to have been preserved. It would be a rare

coincidence indeed if history happened to preserve the precise

LXX manuscript used by the author of Hebrews."

                                        490

 

Septuagint wording, McCullough points out that it would have

been especially strange for the author to have forgotten the

very first word of the quotation.⁷² Others have suggested that

by the use of apangelō the author was subtly reinforcing his

previously made point of Jesus' superiority to the angels

(angelos) and is also playing on the word euangelizomai.⁷³

But as McCullough again points out, euangelizomai has not yet

been used.⁷⁴ As far as angelos, it does not follow how the use

of apangelō would really serve to highlight the contrast here.

The author surely considers Christ superior to the angels, but

he is not trying to polemicize against them. Another suggestion

is that apangelō is the more common word. Again, McCullough

notes that, while that may be so, nevertheless, the author does

use the less common diēgēsomai in Heb 11:32.⁷⁵

McCullough's own solution is that apangelō is simply a

Septuagintal variant.⁷⁶ While this is certainly a possibility,

there is, in fact, no corroborating text. Ellingworth suggests

that the author was influenced by the use of anangellō in

Ps 22:32 (LXX 21:32) and the very similar Ps

____________________

            ⁷²J. C. McCullough, "The Old Testament Quotations in

Hebrews," NTS 26 (1980): 368.

            ⁷³Thomas, "Old Testament Citations," 306; H. J. B. Combrink,

"Some Thoughts on the Old Testament Citations in the Epistle

to the Hebrews," Ad Hebraeos: Essays on the Epistle to the

Hebrews, Neot 5 (1971): 29.

            ⁷⁴McCullough, "Old Testament Quotations," 368.

            ⁷⁵Ibid.

            ⁷⁶Ibid.

                                        491

 

78:3-6 (LXX 77:3-6) which uses diēgēsomai.⁷⁷ While this is

possible, it seems to me unlikely, since the author is not citing

Ps 22:32, but Ps 22:23. I will save the explanation that I favor

for later in the chapter. For now, it should simply be noted that

both the Septuagint and Hebrews provide rather straightforward

translations of the Hebrew. It would be hard to imagine how

either the wording or the syntax of the Greek in either case

could have come any closer to approximating that of the

Masoretic Text. It is unnecessary, therefore, to suppose

either that the author is following the Septuagint, or that there

was anything in particular about the Septuagint's translation of

this passage that caused him to be drawn to this verse in order

to prove his point.

            There is some debate as to which passage the author is

citing in the second quotation. The consensus seems to favor

Isa 8:17, though some have argued for 2 Sam 22:3 or Isa 12:2.

The motivation for suggesting a passage other than Isa 8:17 is

the kai palin which separates it from the third quotation, the

reasoning being that if the author had had Isa 8:17 in mind at

the start, he would not have separated it from his citation of

Isa 8:18 with the phrase "and again." Bruce answers by

positing that the author made the separation because he was

trying to make two different points.⁷⁸ Wherever the citation

____________________

            ⁷⁷Paul Ellingworth, Commentary on Hebrews, NIGTC (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 168.

            ⁷⁸F. F. Bruce, The Book of Hebrews, rev. ed., NICNT, Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 83-84. William L. Lane (Hebrews 1-8,

                                        492

 

is from (I favor the Isa 8:17 passage), it is interesting to note

that though the vocabulary is the same, the Hebrews passage

changes the word order slightly. There is nothing, therefore,

particularly distinctive about the Septuagint rendering of the

passage that would have caused the author to be drawn to this

passage.

            The third quotation come from Isa 8:18. It has been

suggested that the Septuagint's rendering of this verse, which

turns what is a single clause in the Hebrew into two clauses

in the Greek, is what drew the author of Hebrews to this text.⁷⁹

Additionally it is suggested that the Septuagint's use of ho

 theos to render the tetragrammaton in v. 18 allowed the author

of Hebrews to reckon that not Isaiah, but ho kyrios, previously

mentioned in v. 13 of Isaiah 8, is the speaker in Isa 8:17-18,

especially since the Septuagint begins v. 17 with the word

kai erei. The reasoning then is that the author took ho kyrios

and ho theos in Isaiah 8 to be two different persons, and that

the speaker in Isa 8:17-18 is not Isaiah but ho kyrios, that is,

Jesus.⁸⁰ The first argument holds little

____________________

WBC 47a [Dallas: Word, 1991], 59) notes that in Hebrews

10:30 "contiguous quotations from Deut. 32:35-36 are

separated by the same formula"; cf. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes,

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1977), 109.

            ⁷⁹Bruce, The Book of Hebrews, 84.

            ⁸⁰Donald Hagner, Hebrews, Good News Commentary (San

Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983), 31-34; Combrink, "Some

Thoughts on the Old Testament Citations," 30; James Moffatt,

A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the

Hebrews, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924), 33.

                                          493

 

weight, in my opinion, for it is not at all uncommon for only

part of a sentence to be quoted in the New Testament. The

author simply quoted as much of Isa 8:18 as served his

purpose. The second argument seems a bit more substantive,

but not compelling. Theos/kyrios interchanges are very

common in the Septuagint, and usually without any material

explanation.⁸¹ The kai erei at the beginning of Isa 8:17 may

have enhanced a messianic interpretation, but I do not believe

it would have initiated it.

            There seems, therefore, not to be any substantive differences in

the Septuagint in any of the three passages that would have

particularly pointed out these passages as messianic.

 

Philonic influence

            Philonic influence has been suggested for this passage,

mainly because of the author's use of kai palin, comparable

to Philo's use of the same as a literary device.⁸² Also it is

claimed that since "in Philo trustful hope towards God is the

essential mark of humanity," that the author's use of these

verses to show Jesus as one who had to trust God like ordinary

humans, shows Philonic influence.⁸³ As far as the kai palin is

____________________

            ⁸¹Henry B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in

Greek, rev. ed., ed. Richard R. Ottley (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1902; repr. New York: KTAV, 1968), 327.

            ⁸²Moffatt, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 33.

            ⁸³Ibid.

                                        494

 

concerned, Ronald Williamson has shown that there is no great

significance in the use of the same phrase in Hebrews (kai

palin also occurs in John 19:37; Rom 15:10-11; and 1 Cor

3:20).⁸⁴ As far as the philosophical connection is concerned,

borrowing from Philo, especially in this particular passage,

seems extremely improbable. As Ronald Nash remarks,

"Philo's philosophical system was totally incompatible with the

notion of incarnation."⁸⁵

 

Qumran influence

            Simon Kistemaker has claimed that the pešer style

of exegesis found at Qumran, such as in 1QpHab, "is the

method adopted by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews."⁸⁶

After making this blanket statement, however, he admits that

the features of this pešer style of exegesis are seen in particular

in the citations of four psalms (Ps 8:5-7; 95:7-11; 110:4;

40:7-9).⁸⁷ While I cannot find in his discussion a clear-

cut definition of pešer, it seems that he does see the

primary characteristics as being (1) the substitution of words,

(2) the quotation of a lengthy passage followed by an

____________________

            ⁸⁴Ronald Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews,

ALGHJ 4 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), 509-10.

            ⁸⁵Ronald H. Nash, "The Notion of Mediator in Alexandrian

Judaism and the Epistle to the Hebrews," WTJ 40 (1977): 106

(emphasis his).

            ⁸⁶Simon, Kistemaker, The Psalm Citations in the Epistle to the

Hebrews (Amsterdam: Van Soest, 1961), 11.

            ⁸⁷Ibid., 12.

                                       495

 

interpretation, and (3) the repetition of particular words or

phrases from the quotation, accompanied by commentary.⁸⁸ It

seems then that our passage should not come under the pešer

classification since none of these characteristics are

evidenced here.⁸⁹

 

Rabbinic midrash

            The claim that the author of Hebrews used midrash is a

rather common one.⁹⁰ Midrash has been variously defined.⁹¹

At the very least, however, we would have to characterize it as a

somewhat embellishing style of interpretation. This granted,

it seems that there is not enough justification to include

this passage in the category. The quotations are simply

____________________

            ⁸⁸Ibid., 74-75.

            ⁸⁹I would not have even mentioned this, except that later in the

chapter there will be a discussion of Heb 10:5-7 and its use of

Ps 40:6-8. On that passage Dan McGaughey remarks (The

Hermeneutic Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews [Th.D diss.,

Boston University School of Theology, 1963], 41) that it is

introduced in "typical pesher" style. Yet, the quotation in this

passage is introduced in essentially the same way. Contrast

Irvin W. Batdorf, "Hebrews and Qumran: Old Methods and

New Direction," in Festschrift to Honor F. Wilbur Gingrich,

ed. Eugene Howard Barth and Ronald Edwin Cocroft (Leiden:

E. J. Brill, 1972), 22.

            ⁹⁰James W. Thompson, The Beginnings of Christian

Philosophy: The Epistle to the Hebrews, CBQMS 13

(Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1982),

3; cf. George Wesley Buchanan, To the Hebrews: Translation,

Comment and Conclusions, AB 36 (Garden City, NY:

Doubleday, 1972), xix.

            ⁹¹See Renee Bloch, "Midrash," trans. Mary Howard Callaway,

in Approaches to Ancient Judaism: Theory and Practice, ed.

William Scott Green, BJS 1 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978),

29-50.

                                           496

 

introduced with a brief introduction and there is no

embellishment.

 

The "Testimony Book" Hypothesis

            This theory, in its most developed form, was presented by

Rendel Harris in the early part of this century.⁹² The theory

was that there was circulated in the first century Church a

Testimony Book containing a list of Old Testament passages

to be interpreted messianically of Jesus Christ. F. C. Synge

advanced the theory further and claimed specifically that

Hebrews 2:12-13 was evidence of the thesis.⁹³ In fact, in

explaining the second kai palin in this passage, he compares it

to the similar occurrence in Heb 10:30 and says that in both

places, "The simplest explanation is that he is quoting from a

book of texts. Here, it appears to him, are two texts. He has no

notion that they come from the same chapter," and "the context

is unknown to the author."⁹⁴ The testimony book hypothesis

has all but disappeared from the scene.⁹⁵ The charge that the

context was unknown to the author will be dealt with later.

____________________

            ⁹²Rendel Harris, Testimonies, Parts I & II (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1916, 1920).

            ⁹³F. C. Synge, Hebrews and the Scriptures (London: SPCK,

1959), 2, 17.

            ⁹⁴Ibid., 53.

            ⁹⁵See Hugh Montefiore, A Commentary on the Epistle to the

Hebrews, HNTC (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 64.

                                                497

 

Sensus plenior

            It has been suggested that the author of Hebrews is dependent

on revelation and that his use of the passages which he cites

constitute a sensus plenior.⁹⁶ I have dealt with this idea earlier

in chapter 6, where I argued that all of Scripture is a sensus

brevior of the word of God, and that therefore, all of Scripture

may be said to contain a sensus plenior. I believe, however,

that this fuller sense is not to be uncovered by revelation, but

by canonical exegesis. I will argue later that the author of

Hebrews understood these passages as he did, not because he

had been supernaturally "zapped," as it were, but because he

interpreted them canonically. Suffice it then to say for now that

while I am sympathetic to the idea that the author saw a fuller

sense in these Old Testament texts, he came to that realization

by hermeneutical extrapolation, and not by special revelation.

 

The "Redeemer" myth

            Ernst Käsemann asserts that the author of Hebrews was

acquainted with the Gnostic "redeemed redeemer" myth, and

that one of the important characteristics of this myth, the

syngeneia, "which describes the relation of the family to the

world of light as a sonship, and that of souls to each other

 

____________________

            ⁹⁶Jerome Smith, A Priest For Ever: A Study of Typology and

Eschatology in Hebrews (London: Sheed & Ward, 1969), 20.

                                      498

 

as a brotherhood," is what influences his use of quotations

here.⁹⁷

            If Käsemann has correctly represented this particular Gnostic

idea, then it must be admitted that this idea of syngeneia is

closely parallel to what the author of Hebrews is driving at in

chapter 2. But I do not believe that Käsemann has convincingly

demonstrated that the author must have derived this idea from

Gnosticism. The author in no wise appeals to it, but he does

appeal to the Old Testament, where he apparently finds the

idea already laid out for him.

 

Hierophany

            One last theory which I wish to mention before going

on to give what I consider to be the most plausible explanation,

is that of Paul Minear. His idea is that at least part of the book

of Hebrews is made up of what he calls a "theopoetic."⁹⁸ He

says that "the basic perception of theopoetic is the insistence

that creative poetic vision must be accorded a major role

as a prelude to theological construction."⁹⁹ The particular

relevance the theory has for this passage is that Minear

feels that just as "these texts [Ps 22:23; Isa 8:17-18]

____________________

            ⁹⁷Ernst Käsemann, The Wandering People of God: An

Investigation of the Letter to the Hebrews, trans. Roy A.

Harrisville and Irving L. Sandberg (Minneapolis: Augsburg,

1984), 87, 94-95.

            ⁹⁸Paul S. Minear, "An Early Christian Theopoetic?" Semeia

12 (1978): 201-14.

            ⁹⁹Ibid., 202.

                                             499

 

were poetic; so was the exegesis."¹⁰⁰ He then suggests that the

author of Hebrews experienced a hierophany, a vision of Christ

in the temple as the "unseen liturgist" leading the congregation

in praise to God, and that it was this vision which prompted the

author to see these texts as messianic.¹⁰¹ Minear further states

that the author of Hebrews "witnessed to his awareness of the

presence of the living Jesus standing among his brothers at

worship. How few modern treatments of the resurrection

include this quiet testimony!"¹⁰²

            This is probably the most radical of the theories discussed thus

far; but Minear does make some rather interesting points that I

feel must be taken into consideration in coming to the correct

conclusion as to how the author came to his use and

interpretation of the two passages. These points are: (1) the

poetic texts which the author had before him were recognized

as such by him, and he gave them a poetic exegesis, (2) the

texts were, indeed, dramatically relevant to the author's point,

(3) the texts were interpreted by him liturgically, and he had in

his mind's eye a vision of Jesus as the liturgist, and (4) the texts

were interpreted by him in the context of the resurrection of

____________________

            ¹⁰⁰Ibid., 203.

            ¹⁰¹Ibid., 203-4.

            ¹⁰²Ibid., 210.

                                       500

 

Christ.¹⁰³ With these points in mind, we now look at another

proposed solution, which I believe is the correct one.

 

Towards a Solution

            There are several factors which in their convergence

caused the author of Hebrews not only to view Ps 22:23 and

Isa 8:17-18 as messianic, but also to put those texts on the lips

of Christ as first-person speaker of those texts. And what I wish

to demonstrate is that those factors were all of a canonical nature.

 

The use of Psalm 22 in the New Testament

            While the verse in question is not used anywhere else in the

New Testament, its surrounding context certainly was. In

particular, this usage was connected with the passion of our

Lord. Ps 22:8 ("All who see me mock me; they hurl insults

shaking their heads") seems to be alluded to in Matt 27:39;

Mark 15:39; and Luke 23:35. Ps 22:9 ("He trusts in the Lord;

let the Lord rescue him") may be seen reflected in Matt 27:43.

Ps 22:19 ("They divide my garments among them and cast lots

for my clothing") is clearly reflected in Matt 27:35; Mark

15:24; Luke 23:24; and John 19:24. There may even be an

allusion to Ps 22:15 ("I am poured out like water") in John

19:34, though the majority of commentators have preferred to

see there a connection to other passages. Some have even

suggested a connection between Ps 22:32 ("for he has done it")

____________________

            ¹⁰³Ibid., 203-4, 210.

                                           501

 

and John 19:30 ("It is finished"). But of course, the one that

comes most readily to mind is the cry of our Lord from the

cross as he expressed his suffering and anguish in the words of

Ps 22:2 as recorded in Matt 27:46 and Mark 15:34, "My God,

My God, why have you forsaken me?" I am not willing to

agree with those who would suggest that Psalm 22 influenced

the Gospel writers to create some of the details of Christ's

crucifixion,¹⁰⁴ though I do believe they certainly structured

and worded their accounts to highlight the correspondences

between the psalm and the crucifixion. So I would suggest that

this is at least part of what is going in the mind of the author of

Hebrews as he takes this quote from Psalm 22. So much of it

was already applied to Christ in the Gospels (or in the Gospel

traditions) that he concluded that Christ was the speaker in the

whole psalm.

The context of Psalm 22:22

            It is also important to take into consideration the original

context of the verse quoted in Heb 2:12. The verse which the

author of Hebrews quotes is the first verse in an extended vow

of praise section in the psalm. Common to almost all the

lament psalms is the abrupt change from either pleading for

help or describing the distress, to suddenly praising God or

vowing to praise him. Psalm 22 is no different, except perhaps

in the disproportionately large

____________________

            ¹⁰⁴Contra Hartmut Gese, "Psalm 22 and the New Testament,"

TD 18 ((1970): 242.

                                     502

 

amount of space given over to this vow, approximately one

third of the psalm. Though it should not be thought that the

author of Hebrews was in any way a modern-day form critic, it

seems very probable that both he and the early Christian

community found it preposterous to think that Jesus could be

lamenter in the first part of the psalm, but not the giver of the

vow of praise in the last part.¹⁰⁵ In connection with this it is

also important to note that there is only one time in the Gospel

accounts where it is recorded that Jesus referred to his disciples

as "brothers." This is in Matt 28:10 where Jesus appears to the

women on the morning of the resurrection and says to them,

"Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see

me."¹⁰⁶ Of special interest in this connection is that the word

for "tell" in this verse is apangellō, the same word with which the

quotation in Heb 2:12 begins. It is possible that this could have

influenced the author of Hebrews, either consciously or subconsciously,

to substitute this word for diēgēsomai in his citation of Psalm

____________________

            ¹⁰⁵Cf. Edmund P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering

Christ in the Old Testament (Colorado Springs: NavPress,

1988), 161; Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Epistle to the

Hebrews, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker,

1984), 72.

            ¹⁰⁶Many have called attention to this; cf. Claus Westermann,

The Psalms: Structure, Content, and Message, trans. Ralph D.

Gehrke (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1980), 126; Donald Guthrie,

The Letter to the Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary,

Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Leicester: Inter-

Varsity, 1983; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 90; Robert H.

Smith, Hebrews, Augsburg Commentary on the New

Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 49.

                                            503

 

22.¹⁰⁷  In any case, it is certain that by putting the words of

the vow or praise portion of this psalm on Jesus' lips the

author of Hebrews was thinking specifically of the resurrected

and exalted Christ.¹⁰⁸ Thus, while I consider it extremely

doubtful that the author of Hebrews experienced some kind of

hierophany, I believe Minear correctly understands that the

author sees Christ fulfilling a liturgical role as the

"archetypal lamenter"¹⁰⁹ who, having been raised from death,

now leads those whom he came to redeem in a great chorus of

praise to God.¹¹⁰ This becomes all the more convincing in

____________________

            ¹⁰⁷Interestingly, the somewhat parallel John 20:17 has

legō rather than apangelō, yet emphasizes the idea of

brotherhood even more sharply, "Go instead to my brothers

and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to

my God and your God.’" Interestingly, Graham Hughes

(Hebrews and Hermeneutics: The Epistle to the Hebrews as a

New Testament Example of Biblical Interpretation, SNTSMS

36 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979], 168 n.

114) makes a similar argument for the substitution, but based

on a different passage, Luke 8:20. It is also possible that the

substitution of apangelō for diēgēsomai could have been for the

purpose of achieving phonetic assonance; see Karen H. Jobes,

"Rhetorical Achievement in the Hebrews 10 ‘Misquote’ of

Psalm 40," Bib 72 (1991): 392.

            ¹⁰⁸Cf. John Brown Hebrews, (1862; repr. London: Banner of

Truth, 1961), 118: "These words are plainly a description of

what the Messiah was to do after his sufferings."

            ¹⁰⁹Leslie C. Allen, Psalms, Word Biblical Themes (Waco:

Word, 1987), 127.

            ¹¹⁰Several commentators have pointed out the possible

importance of a liturgical understanding of this and other

passages in Hebrews; see Kistemaker, The Psalm Citations, 59;

B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Greek Text with

Notes and Essays, 3d. ed. (London: Macmillan, 1920), 476; F.

J. Schierse, "The Epistle to the Hebrews," in The Epistle to the

Hebrews and the Epistle of St. James, New Testament for Spiritual

Reading (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969), xv; Markus Barth,

"The Old Testament in Hebrews, An Essay in Biblical Interpretation,"

in Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation: Essays in

                                         504

 

light of the importance the author attaches to the theme of

Christ's priesthood.

            Also to be taken into account is how the context of Psalm 22

accords with the context of the addressees in the epistle. The

context in the psalm is that of the righteous sufferer, one who

has put his trust and hope in God, and yet is beset with horrible

afflictions. He is persecuted, mocked, surrounded by enemies,

divested of his clothing, his dignity, and his very humanity.

Similarly, the addressees of the epistle are those who, though

having put their trust in God, are yet beset with horrible

afflictions. They have been persecuted, mocked, insulted, and

divested of their property (Heb 10:32-34). The context of

Psalm 22 would remind the readers of how fully their humanity

and their plight is shared by their "elder brother."

 

New Testament use of the context of Isa 8:17-18

            Not only the context of the passage quoted from the

psalm, but also that of the quotation from Isaiah must be

taken into account as well.¹¹¹ C. H. Dodd believed that

the whole of Isa 6:1-9:7 may have been seen by the early

____________________

Honor of Otto A. Piper, ed. William Klassen and Graydon F.

Snyder (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 73.

            ¹¹¹Isa 8:17-18 is not used anywhere else in the New

Testament, though C. J. A. Hickling ("John and the Background

of Hebrews 2.10-18," NTS 29 [1983]: 113) sees possible allusions

in John 6:37, 39; 10:29; 17:2, 24; 18:9.

   

                                      505

 

Christians as a "single complex unit of prophecy."¹¹² This

larger context was, indeed, richly used in the New Testament.

Isa 6:9-10 is echoed in Matt 13:13-15; John 12:37-41;

Acts 28:25-27; and Rom 11:7-8. Isa 7:14, as well as 8:8

is seen as fulfilled in Matt 1:23. Isa 9:1-2 is regarded as

fulfilled in Matt 4:15-16. I believe it should also be seen

as reflected in Jesus' answer in John 9:12 to the question

put to him earlier in John 8:53.¹¹³ Isa 8:14-15 is reflected in

Matt 21:44; Luke 2:34; Rom 9:32-33; and 1 Pet 2:6-8. The

very next phrase in Isa 8:18, declaring that Isaiah and his

children would be for signs and symbols, though the author of

Hebrews did not quote it, nevertheless may have also played a

part in his seeing messianic overtones in the passage.

            As with the context of Psalm 22, so the larger context of

Isa 8:17-18 should be seen in relationship with the context of the

original readers of the epistle. This context would have called

up images of suffering, in particular, that of Isaiah, who was

destined to prophesy to deaf ears and blind eyes, and who,

according to legend died a martyr's death, to which Heb 11:37

may be a reference. The sign-prophet and his sign-children

were living in days of apostasy, when the royal kingdom of

David could be described as having been reduced to

____________________

            ¹¹²C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-structure

of New Testament Theology (London: James Nisbet, 1952;

repr., London and Glasgow: Collins, Fontana Books, 1965), 81.

            ¹¹³Which is another argument for the position that the story

contained in John 8:53--9:11 has, in fact, been dislocated.

                                       506

 

little more than a stump. As Bruce points out, we may have

here in this passage the beginning of the remnant doctrine.¹¹⁴

How important then for the struggling believers to whom the

author writes, that they are not a remnant alone, but that Christ

is one with them. Thus both citations, as Westcott notes, have

to do with righteous sufferers who identify themselves with

their people.¹¹⁵ The context of the Isaiah quotation, like that

of the Psalm 22 citation, seems also especially relevant in light

of his emphasis on the need for faith. The believers to whom

the author writes, though, as we noted before, had already

displayed great courage in the midst of tribulation, had begun

to waver to the point that the author had to describe their

situation in terms of regression (Heb 5:12). The fact that they

were a suffering wilderness congregation was not enough; after

all, Isaiah's congregation was a suffering wilderness people as

well (Isa 8:21). What would make the difference would be faith

or the lack thereof. To those who would believe among Isaiah's

hearers, the Lord would be a sanctuary; but to those who would

not believe, he would be a "stone that causes men to stumble

and a rock that makes them fall" (Isa 8:14). So it was also for

the congregation of the author of Hebrews; they were not

allowed to rest on their wilderness laurels:

____________________

            ¹¹⁴Bruce, The Book of Hebrews, 83-84; cf. Geerhardus Vos,

The Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews, edited and re-written

by Johannes G. Vos (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 60-61.

            ¹¹⁵Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 51.

                                        507

 

            Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they

            not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he

            angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose

            bodies fell in the desert? And with whom did God swear that

            they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?

            So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their

            unbelief. (Heb 3:16-18)

Thus the context of Isaiah was especially important for the

establishment of the author's point of the necessity of faith in

his hearers.

            So we see that it was the context of the passages which actually

provided meaning for the quotations in the new contexts in

which the author makes the reference, and that the original

contexts were called up in the minds of his readers by the

literary device of "securing maximum of meaning with

economy of word."¹¹⁶ The author did not use the Old

Testament passages simply because the rest of the New

Testament interpreted the texts messianically, but also because

the contexts of those messianic passages were especially

relevant for the context of his day as well.

Linked contexts

            Not only did the author have an eye on the contexts of the

passages which he cited, but he also had an interest in the way

in which those contexts were connected to each other.¹¹⁷

Raymond Watrous well recognizes that "the context of

____________________

            ¹¹⁶Robert Rendall, "The Method of the Writer to the Hebrews

in Using Old Testament Quotations," EQ 27 (1955): 214. In the

same place the author notes that the epistle "is a masterpiece of

condensed reference."

            ¹¹⁷Geoffrey W. Grogan, "Christ and His People: An

                                           508

 

Exegetical a particular quotation often provides the relation to a

specific complex of ideas which explains the transition to another

quotation."¹¹⁸

            Besides the connection already noticed, that both persons in the

cited texts are righteous sufferers, there are others that may be

seen. Bruce has noticed that both contexts bring out the theme

of the hidden face of God.¹¹⁹ In Psalm 22 God's face is hidden

from the psalmist; but in the last part of the psalm he rejoices

that the Lord "has not hidden his face from him but has listened

to his cry for help" (v. 25). In Isa 8:17, immediately preceding

the words cited in Hebrews 2, the prophet says, "I will wait for

the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob."

Another link is provided by the expression of trust that occurs

in both contexts (Ps 22:5-6, 10-11; Isa 8:17).

            So we see that there is, in fact, in the author's use

of these citations, an intricate interplay of contexts. The

passages cited are linked to each other and to their respective

contexts. The contexts are linked to each other as well. In

addition, uses made by other New Testament writers

provide a further set of connections. And, as well, the

____________________

and Theological Study of Hebrews 2.5-18," Vox Evangelica 6

(1969): 62.

            ¹¹⁸Raymond Langworthy Watrous III, "The Hermeneutics of

Hebrews" (Th.M. thesis, Westminster Theological Seminary,

1979), 18.

            ¹¹⁹Bruce, The Book of Hebrews, 83.

                                          509

 

passages and their respective contexts are connected to the

situation of the readers.¹²⁰

            Rather than suggesting that the author simply picked

verses out of the air, on the one hand, or that he was in some

way supernaturally "zapped" with these passages, on the other,

it seems that the more feasible explanation is that he was

simply doing proper canonical exegesis. He read the older

texts in the light of the added revelation to the canonical

corpus. He considered this newly added canonical material to

indeed be canonical, that is, authoritative for the way in

which he was to read the older texts. And yet, the verses

were not simply lifted out of their original contexts

carelessly, but rather, those contexts come into play in

____________________

            ¹²⁰Though it is not part of my canonical argument for the author's

hermeneutical method, perhaps another factor that accounts for the

author's placing of Old Testament passages on Christ's lips is something

the author says in the first part of the epistle: that God now speaks by

his Son. It seems that the author could not very well make a statement

like that at the very beginning of his epistle and then let Christ be silent

throughout the entire letter. Graham Hughes (Hebrews and Hermeneutics, 57)

seems to allude to this when he writes that our failure to understand the

hermeneutics of Hebrews is a "failure to understand the author's ‘theology

of the Word of God,'" and that what we have in Hebrews is the "working out

of this theology in which the inescapable conviction that Jesus is the final

form of God's word has to be reconciled with God's former modes of

Speaking. The exact way this is seen to happen is that the previous form

reaches its fullest meaning, and only reaches it, in the context of the new

and final event of God's Address. . . . all previous forms now have their fullest

significance within this Christian context. We are to understand, first, that the

writer's conviction about the Christological form of the Word of God operates

as the first and largest hermeneutical consideration in his handling of the

Old Testament texts." Cf. also, George B. Caird, "The Exegetical Method

of the Epistle to the Hebrews," CJT 5 (1959): 45; Ronald E. Clements, "The

Use of the Old Testament in Hebrews," Southwestern Journal of Theology 28

(1985): 38.

                                       510

 

helping to understand how the cited passages apply to their

new context. Was he fully aware of all the connections we

have been able to uncover in this investigation? I am not

absolutely convinced that he was, though it would certainly be

possible. It depends in part on the model one envisages for how

the author composed the epistle: was it a letter that was written

very hastily, or was it a carefully crafted composition in which

the author actually thought through all the possible

connotations and images that a citation would raise in the

minds of the readers. I am inclined toward the latter; but even

if he did not see all the connections, that is not a problem, for

I am convinced that we have not seen them all either. In every

passage of Scripture, God always means infinitely more than

what the human author had in mind when writing the text.

            This is canonical interpretation. And my thesis is that this

method of interpretation should be seen as setting a canonically

authoritative hermeneutical paradigm for us to follow.

             Other Passages in Which Christ is the Psalmist

            The use of the Heb 2:12 citation of Ps 22:22 in the

preceding section as an example of canonical exegesis was a

fairly safe one. Though many would doubt that the author

necessarily saw all the possible connections which I and many

others have suggested, there are few today who would contend

that he had no regard at all for context in his choice of this

                                       511

 

verse as a text. This is not the case, however, with other

passages in which a New Testament author seems to portray

Christ as the speaker of a psalm.

            Though there is disagreement as to which passages would

actually belong in this group, I would include the following:

            Matt 13:35 (Ps 78:2)

            Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34 (Ps 22:2)

            Luke 23:46 (Ps 31:6)

            John 2:17 (Ps 69:10)

            John 13:18 (Ps 41:10)

            John 15:25 (Ps 35:19; 69:5)

            John 19:24 (Ps 22:19)

            Acts 2:25-28 (Ps 16:8-11)

            Rom 15:3 (Ps 69:10)

            Rom 15:9 (Ps 18:50 [2 Sam 22:50])

            Rom 15:11 (Ps 117:1)

            Heb 10:5-7 (Ps 40:7-9)

It is impossible for me to give any kind of full discussion to these

passages, but I will very briefly touch on each one. For the purpose

of this dissertation, which is to explore the possibility and value of

canonical exegesis, it will not be necessary to discuss variations

between the Masoretic, Septuagint, and New Testament texts unless

specifically warranted by canonical concerns.

 

Matthew 13:35 (Psalm 78:2)

            The quoted words from Psalm 78 are not actually

attributed to Jesus, but are rather considered by Matthew

o be fulfilled in Jesus' ministry of teaching in parables.

The fulfillment, however, only makes sense if Jesus is regarded

as first-person speaker in the psalm. Similarity of contexts

is, again, to be taken into consideration. (1) In both Psalm 78

                                        512

 

and Matthew 13 the teacher of parables is concerned with the

rejection of God's word and the stubbornness of those who

refuse to listen. (2) Both Jesus and the Psalmist are ultimately

interested in kingdom issues: the Psalmist ends his long

historical recital with the establishment of the Davidic

monarchy (78:70-72); Jesus' parables are, specifically, parables

of the kingdom. (3) In both passages, this teaching about the

kingdom also has to do with the kingdom being taken away

from those for whom it was apparently originally intended and

given to others: in Psalm 78 the Lord rejects Ephraim and

chooses Judah (vv. 67-68); in Matthew 13, for those who

refuse to listen, even what they do have will be taken away (vv.

1112). (4) In both passages the speakers deal with God's law

(Ps 78:5-10; Matt 13:52). (5) Finally (not to imply there could

not be more), in both passages the teaching which has to do

with things "from of old" is nuanced with "new" things. In

Psalm 78 the new thing is the rejection of Ephraim and the

choosing of Judah, David, and Mount Zion. In Matthew 13,

Jesus, "who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well

as old" (v. 52), seems to be emphasizing in the parables a new

view of the kingdom, one which is "already but not yet," the

kingdom that has come in the person of the teller of parables

himself. These correspondences warrant, I believe, the use that

Matthew makes of this psalm, and the placing of its words on

Christ's lips.

                                         513

 

Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34 (Psalm 22:2)

            There is no need to spend much time on the relevance of Psalm

22 to the passion narrative. No one has ever accused Jesus of

quoting out of context here. Moreover, these are not words that

the Gospel author quotes, but ones that he records Jesus as

quoting. As the very Son of God, suffering for sins that were

not his own, enduring an alienation from God from whom he

had never been separated, and experiencing an agony and an

anguish that should not have been his, the Savior gave to these

words a depth of meaning they had never before

known.¹²¹

 

Luke 23:46 (Psalm 31:6)

            Since this is an utterance which, again, is reported to have

actually been spoken by our Lord, I will not spend much time

here. It is to be noted, however, that there are several elements

in Psalm 31, as in many other psalms, that match up well with

the new situation into which Jesus transports these words. The

desire to be delivered from shame (v. 2), the pleas for

deliverance from the trap (v. 5), the "anguish" of the soul (v.

8), the mention of the enemies (v. 12), the slander, terror, and

conspiracy (v. 14), the desire to enjoy

____________________

            ¹²¹Cf. Hans Walter Wolff, "The Hermeneutics of the Old

Testament," trans. Keith Crim, in Essays on Old Testament

Hermeneutics, ed. Claus Westermann, ET ed. James Luther

Mays (Richmond: John Knox, 1963), 193-94; Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, trans. James H. Burtness

(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1970), 36-37.

                                    514

 

once again the light of God's face (v. 17), all correspond to

some facet of Jesus' passion.

 

John 2:17 (Psalm 69:10)

            Like the reference in Matt 13:35, this is not said to have been

spoken by Christ. Rather, John states that at some point the

disciples remembered the quoted phrase, "Zeal for your house

consumes me," and connected it with Jesus' cleansing of the

temple. We are perhaps supposed to infer from a similar

statement in v. 22 about the disciples remembering after the

resurrection the words which Jesus spoke in v. 19, that the

remembering in v. 17 took place after the resurrection as

well.¹²² Whatever the case, to be applied to Jesus, the

quotation must be regarded as being a first-person utterance.

There does not seem to be much in the context of Psalm 69 that

matches up very easily with the situation in John 2. There are,

however, a couple of parallels which do take on a special

significance. First, Raymond Brown calls attention to the

fact that in Ps 69:9, just before the verse which John cites,

it reads, "I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my

own mother's sons." Brown then connects this with the

mention of Jesus' brothers in John 2:12, and with Jesus'

____________________

            ¹²²For the opposite view, see Bruce G. Schuchard, Scripture

Within Scripture: The Interrelationship of Form and Function

in the Explicit Old Testament Citations in the Gospel of John,

SBLDS 133 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 18 n. 5.

                                         515

 

subsequent estrangement from his brothers (John 7:3-5).¹²³

Second, there is the matter of just what the quoted phrase

means in its context in the psalm. Marvin Tate's opinion

is that "the context suggests deep concern about the behavior

of some in the community whose actions are contrary to

those appropriate for the ‘house’ of God" (whether "house"

refers to the temple or to the people of Yahweh).¹²⁴ These two

factors, plus the extensive use this psalm receives in other

places in the New Testament, certainly provide reason to

believe that John did not just arbitrarily connect this passage

with the cleansing of the temple.

 

John 13:18 (Psalm 41:10)

            Discussion of this citation will be reserved for the next

chapter.

 

John 15:25 (Psalm 35:19; 69:5)

            In this passage Jesus is the quoter. After noting

that the world hates both him and his Father, he then says,

"But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: `They

hated me without cause.'" The exact source of the citation

is not certain. Most commentators opt for Psalm 69 on account

of the extensive use the psalm receives in the rest of the New

Testament. Also favoring Psalm 69 is John's account of how

____________________

            ¹²³Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii),

AB 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 124.

            ¹²⁴Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100, WBC 20 (Dallas: Word,

1990), 196.

                                          516

 

Jesus, during the crucifixion, uttered the words, "I thirst,"

consciously setting in motion an event that would fulfill the

words in Ps 69:22. That both contexts show Jesus' concern

with the idea of fulfillment would support the possibility that it

may have been the same psalm being thought of in both places.

However, there is an argument to be made for Psalm 35 as

well.¹²⁵ Not only is it a lament psalm, with many of the same

motifs as Psalm 69, but interestingly, if the citation was

reckoned as coming from this psalm, then it is significant that

the previous verse in this psalm (v. 18) reads,

            I will give you thanks in the great assembly;

            among throngs of people I will praise you.

This verse is very similar to the Ps 22:23 citation in Heb 2:12,

as well as some others that we have yet to look at. Of course,

Psalm 69 has a vow of praise section as well (vv. 3137), but

somewhat removed from the verse cited in John 15. It may well

be that it was this passage that was in the mind of our Lord.

 

John 19:24 (Psalm 22:19)

            Unlike the synoptics, which mention the dividing

of Jesus' clothing, but do not explicitly connect it with

Ps 22:19, John, after describing the event, introduces the

quotation, and uses a fulfillment formula to do it. Since the

original context of the citation has already been discussed,

there is no need to do so here. I only wish to note that,

____________________

            ¹²⁵Cf. Schuchard, Scripture Within Scripture, 122-23.

                                517

 

again, in order for the citation to fit its new context, we should

consider John as having reckoned the quotation as a first-

person reference finding a first-person fulfillment.

 

Acts 2:25-28 (Psalm 16:8-11)

            Important to an understanding of Peter's use of Psalm 16

as an apologetic on the Day of Pentecost are three crucial points.

First, Peter's apologetic is valid only if, in at least some respect,

the verses cited do not apply to David. Second, David was in

some way conscious that this psalm did not ultimately have to

do with himself. Third, to be applicable to Christ, the citation

must be conceived of as a possible first-person utterance of

Jesus.

            There does not seem to be anything in the context of

Psalm 16 that would correspond in more than just a general

way with the context of the situation in Acts 2. While I do

not deny Kaiser's argument that the word hāsîd in Ps 16:10

would have supported a messianic inference on Peter's part,

at the same time there is no reason to believe that Peter would

not have been drawn to this passage if the word had not been

there, or that "the reason this passage should ever have been

linked to the Messiah along with the Davidic speaker rests

on the proper understanding of the term hāsîd."¹²⁶ There are

too many other psalms that are used messianically in the New

____________________

            ¹²⁶Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., The Uses of the Old Testament in

the New (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 32-33; also, Donald Juel,

"Social Dimensions of Exegesis: The Use of Psalm 16 in Acts 2," CBQ

(1981): 548-49.

                                             518

 

Testament that do not have any specific messianic

terminology, to suggest that it is the occurrence of this term

on which Peter's argument rests, especially when the word,

Kaiser's arguments notwithstanding, is not a messianically

reserved term.¹²⁷

            There is a point of contact, however slight, between the

context of the citation and another psalm cited in the Acts passage.

In Acts 2:34 Peter cites Ps 110:1 to prove a similar point: David

has not ascended to heaven, Jesus has; therefore the Psalm

more specifically applies to him. Interestingly Ps

110:1 and Ps 16:2 are the only two verses in the Psalter where

both the words Yahweh and Adonai occur in conjunction with

a speech reference (Ps 110:1, nĕum YHWH la dōnî; Ps 16:2,

āmart laYHWH ādōnāy). The Ps 16:2 text seems to be textually

corrupt and most translations have opted for reading a first

person singular instead of the Masoretic Text's second

feminine singular, though there have been attempts to make

sense out of the consonantal text as it stands.¹²⁸ It is possible

that they may be more contentually similar than would appear

on the surface. In any case, it is possible that these psalms

became connected by the principle of gezerah shavah.

____________________

            ¹²⁷Kaiser's use of an argument along the lines of corporate

solidarity to explain the many times when the term occurs in

the plural is not convincing (Kaiser, The Uses of the Old

Testament in the New, 34).

            ¹²⁸For one such attempt which amends only the Masoretic

vocalization to second masculine singular, see Peter C. Craigie,

Psalms 1-50, WBC 19 (Waco: Word, 1983), 154-58.

                                          519

 

Giving strength to this suggestion is the fact that both psalms

have the phrase "at my right hand."¹²⁹ There is a difference,

however, in that in Psalm 16 Yahweh is at David's right hand,

whereas in Psalm 110 it is the king who is at Yahweh's right

hand. Interesting as well is the possibility that there may be an

allusion to Psalm 132 in Acts 2:30 between the two psalm

citations. If so, it is interesting to note that this psalm is one of

those that has a dialogical character to it: David speaking to the

Lord, and the Lord speaking to David.

            So on the one hand, there does not seem to be any

specific element in the context of Psalm 16 that corresponds to

anything in the situational context in Acts 2. The two psalms

that are cited, however, along with the one to which there may

be an allusion made, do form an interesting trio: Psalm 16 is

David talking to the Lord; Psalm 132 is a dialogue between

the Lord and David; and Psalm 110 is the Lord talking to

David. The lack of a specific relationship between the context

of the citation from Psalm 16 and the situation in Acts 2 is

more than made up for by the intertextual connections of

the Psalms that are either cited or alluded to. I am not willing

to say dogmatically that Peter was aware of all these

intertextual connections. I do believer, however, that God

has woven these intertextual connections into the

____________________

            ¹²⁹Richard N. Longenecker, "Acts," in The Expositor's Bible

Commentary, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

1981), 9.280.

                                        520

 

fabric of Scripture, and that canonical exegesis, working on

this presupposition, can uncover them.

 

Romans 15:3 (Psalm 69:10)

            The citation here consists of the second half of the verse which

was quoted in John 2:17 with reference to the cleansing of the

temple. In the Romans context Paul cites the verse in order to

hold up before his readers Jesus as an example of one who did

not please himself, even as Paul encourages his readers to bear

with the weaker brothers since "we who are strong ought to

bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves"

(v. 1). It has been suggested that the quotation is not

particularly apt, for in Psalm 69 the psalmist is speaking of

how he bears the reproaches of those who reproach God. In

Romans, however, the concern is not to offend the weaker

brother. It is interesting to note, though, that in Psalm 69 the

concern of the psalmist is not just with his relationship to God,

but he also pleads in vv. 7-8 for others who, like him, have also

put their hope in God:

            May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me,

                        O Lord, the Lord Almighty;

            may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me,

                        O God of Israel.

So in the midst of his service and suffering for God, he is also

concerned that the insults that are falling on him will not

weaken the faith of those who are devotees of Yahweh. Perhaps

Paul is thinking of this passage as well when he holds up

Christ as the ultimate example of one who was seemingly

                                            521

 

unconcerned for his own welfare. This, plus the rich usage this

psalm receives in the New Testament, seems to show that there

was, indeed, a larger context of references at work.

 

Romans 15:9 (Psalm 18:50 [2 Samuel 22:50])

            Following on the heels of the previous citation from the Psalter

is this quotation from Psalm 18. Having encouraged his readers

to "accept one another, just as Christ accepted you" (v. 7), he

then goes on to declare in v. 8 that one of the goals of Christ's

ministry was "that the Gentiles may glorify God for his

mercy." He then quotes Ps 18:50 and three other passages in

support of this last statement. He introduces this first quotation

with the "it is written" formula. In spite of the way it is

introduced, however, I believe it is best, to consider Paul as

regarding these to be Christ's words. First, as Cranfield notes,

the omission of kyrie from the Septuagint may have been

deliberately done so as to present Christ as the speaker.¹³⁰

Second, as Hanson points out, the very next verse of the psalm

says,

            He gives his king great victories;

                        he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed,

                        to David and his descendants forever.

To extrapolate from this and regard Christ as the speaker of the

previous verse would have been no great leap, especially

____________________

            ¹³⁰C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary

on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,

1979), 2.745-46.

                                            522

 

since the psalm is Davidically attributed anyway.¹³¹ Third, of

the four quotations that Paul introduces, only the last is

introduced by naming the speaker, in this case, Isaiah. Since

the quotation from Isaiah is about the Messiah, "the Root of

Jesse," and not words that could be put on the Messiah's lips, it

makes sense that for this one alone of the four, he must it

introduce it by naming the speaker. Fourth, the liturgical

connection should be considered: just as in Heb 2:12, if Christ

is the speaker, then he would be regarded as leading people in

praise to God.

            Aside from these items, however, there does not seem to be

anything in the context of the psalm, other than the reference to

Gentiles, that would have called Paul's attention to this psalm.

 

Romans 15:11 (Psalm 117:1)

            This citation is the third of the four that Paul uses to support

the statement in v. 8 that Christ has come so that the Gentiles

may glorify God. The psalm is the shortest in the Psalter, and

otherwise unused in the New Testament. If there is a rationale

that may be active in putting the psalm on Christ's lips, I would

again suggest that it may be the liturgical connection.

____________________

            ¹³¹Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament

(London: SPCK, 1965), 157.

                                               523

 

Hebrews 10:5-7 (Psalm 40:7-9)

            The interesting thing about this citation is that, other than the

passion accounts where the verses from the psalms that are

spoken by Jesus occur in narrative, this is the only place other

than Heb 2:12 where the author explicitly remarks that Christ

is the speaker of a psalm. All the places we have just looked at

imply as much, but only these two passages in Hebrews make

it explicit. Interesting as well is the contrast between the

potentiality for contextual factors in the two psalms having

been taken into account by the author. While there is abundant

evidence for the Heb 2:12 citation that the context of Psalm 22

was taken into account, there is practically none that the same

was done for Psalm 40 in the Heb 10:5-7 citation. The psalm is

not quoted anywhere else in the New Testament, and there is

nothing in the context that seems to correspond in any special

way with the context of the citation in Hebrews 10. Kaiser's

study of some of the key words in the context of the cited

verses in Psalm 40 is very illuminating,¹³² but, in my opinion,

does little if anything to show what may have drawn the

attention of the author of Hebrews to the passage as having

messianic import. If we take into account, however, the

liturgical nature of some of the previous psalm citations, then

this may well provide the clue, for the very next verses after

the ones that are quoted read,

            I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;

____________________

            ¹³²Kaiser, The Uses of the Old Testament in the New, 123-41.

                                           524

 

            I do not seal my lips,

                        as you know, O Lord.

            I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;

                        I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.

            I do not conceal your love and your truth

                        from the great assembly.

I believe this may have been the influencing factor. As we have

seen several times before, the quotation from the psalm is often

either a vow of praise, or in the vicinity of such a vow. It may

well be that we should take a clue from this pattern to help us

understand the New Testament authors' understanding of the relation

between the Psalms and Christ.

            Besides the citations we have looked at in this section, there

are others where there is a citation or possible citation, and,

even though we cannot be sure that the words are regarded as

Christ's by the author, it would certainly make sense if they

were regarded as such. In Acts 4:25-30, Psalm 2:1-2 is quoted

in the context of a prayer by the Jerusalem believers in praise

to God for the release of Peter and John. But important to note

is the fact that the words quoted are spoken, as is clear from Ps

2:7, by the one who is referred to as the "Anointed one" in v. 2.

In 2 Cor 4:13, Paul quotes Ps 116:10 ("I believed; therefore

I have spoken") and then follows with these words:

            With that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore

            speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus

            from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us in his

            glorious presence. (vv. 13-14)

The context does not demand that Christ be regarded as the

speaker of the words cited, but the corporate solidarity of

                                         525

 

Christ and his people in the resurrection would tend to

suggest that Paul, when he says, "that same spirit of faith,"

was perhaps thinking of the faith Christ had that he would

rise from the dead.¹³³ Another place where Christ himself

may be citing a psalm is Matt 26:38 (par. Mark 14:34) where,

as Douglas Moo has shown, there may be at least a partial

quotation of Ps 42:6.¹³⁴ There is also the very interesting

view of A. T. Hanson that the quotation of Ps 82:6 in John

10:34-36 is to be considered, as far as John is concerned, as

the words of the pre-existent Word.¹³⁵

____________________

            ¹³³Hanson argues that Paul is, indeed, quoting the Psalm as

words of Christ (Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, 145-47).

            ¹³⁴Douglas J. Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," in

Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. Donald. A. Carson

and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986),

188-89; Joel Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological

Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark

(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 173.

            ¹³⁵Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, "John's Citation of Psalm

LXXXII: John X.33-36," NTS 11 (1965): 158-62; "John's

Citation of Psalm LXXXII Reconsidered," NTS 13 (1967):

363-67; Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, 164. For alternative

views see James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of

Psalm 82 and the Gospel of John. John 10:34," HTR 59 (1966):

186-91; J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Psalm 82 in John

10," JTS n.s. 11 (1960): 32932; "Melchizedek and the Gods:

Fresh Evidence for the Jewish Background of John x. 34-36,"

JTS n.s. 17 (1966): 399-401; Richard Jungkuntz, "An

Approach to the Exegesis of John 10:3436," CTM 35 (1964):

556-65; M. De Jonge and A. S. van der Woude,

"11QMelchizedek and the New Testament," NTS 12 (1966):

301-26; Gerald W. Vander Hoek, "The Function of Psalm 82 in

the Fourth Gospel and History of the Johanine Community: A

Comparative Midrash Study" (Ph.D. diss., Claremont Graduate

School, 1988), 241; Jerome H. Neyrey, "`I Said: You are

Gods': Psalm 82:6 and John 10," JBL 108 (1989): 647-63;

Stephen L. Homcy, "`You are Gods'? Spirituality and a

Difficult Text," JETS 32 (1989): 485-91.

                                         526

 

            Having made this survey of all the places in the New

Testament where Christ either is, or could be viewed as the

speaker of the Psalm which is cited, I now make some

observations which will be fundamental for an understanding

of what I wish to do in the next two chapters.

            First, for some of the passages, it was relatively easy to

understand, not just how the portion of the psalm fit the

situation into which the authors had transported it, but also to

understand how the original context of the citation fit as well.

            Second, in several of the cases, the connections were

established, not just between the cited psalm and the context of

the passage where it is quoted, but at times between the psalm

and a third text or set of texts, usually from the psalms, but

sometimes from other portions of the Old Testament.

            Third, it is possible that in some cases it was not the context of

the psalm that so much influenced the citation, but rather, the

prior use of that psalm in other New Testament passages or

traditions.

            Fourth, in some cases the connections discovered are very

subtle, certainly raising a question as to whether the author was

actually aware of them.

            Fifth, there are some cases where there is simply not enough in

the context to see how the author could have been drawn to the

passage.

                                          527

 

            Sixth, for most of the citations that are in this last category,

one thing that could tie them together is the liturgical connection,

and in particular, the vow of praise.

 

                                    Conclusions

            In the light of this study of citations from the Psalms where the

author considers Christ to be the speaker of the psalms, I make

the following deductions concerning the hermeneutical moves

which the New Testament writers employed in their use of the

Psalms.

            First, I believe it has been demonstrated that the authors of the

New Testament were, in fact, working with a regard for the

context of the citations which they used. Donald Patience came

to the same conclusion in a dissertation several years ago:

            An initial aim of this study was to demonstrate that the New

            Testament writers quoted the Old Testament psalms without

            regard to context. The results of this investigation have

            indicated the reverse conclusion. Not one psalm investigated

            could have been said to have been used merely as a proof-text.

            All the psalms which were investigated were used quite

            appropriately to the context.¹³⁶

I am not suggesting that this can be demonstrated in

every case, but I believe it can be in the majority of cases. And

even in those cases where it cannot, I believe there are

____________________

            ¹³⁶Donald G. Patience, "The Contribution to Christology of

the Quotations of the Psalms in the Gospels and Acts" (Ph.D.

diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1969), 193.

Interestingly, another dissertation done a year earlier came to

quite different conclusions (George V. Pixley, "Awareness of

Literary Context in Early Christian Use of the Psalms," [Ph.D.

diss., University of Chicago Divinity School, 1968], 347-48).

                                         528

 

factors that come into play that are not unrelated to this

first point.

            Second, I believe the evidence bears out that the New

Testament writers assumed that if Christ was, in fact, the

speaker in one part of the psalm, he was in fact the speaker in

the entire psalm. Over a century ago, another commentator on

the Psalms, John Brown of Haddington, said the same thing:

            If the speaker in a psalm, or if the subject of a psalm, is

            obviously the same from the beginning to the end, and if a

            portion of such a psalm is, in the New Testament, expressly

            referred to the Messiah, the whole is to be considered as

            applicable to him.¹³⁷

I believe Brown's observation in this regard is in agreement

with the canonical witness of the New Testament. Now there

are some problems with this to be sure, for many of the psalms

that we have just investigated contain confessions of sin and

imprecations. I will deal with this objection in the concluding

chapter. But for now, I simply note that I believe the evidence

shows that the authors of the New Testament were, indeed,

operating on such a principle.

            Third, I believe this study demonstrates the truth of a point

I made in an earlier chapter; that is, that the New Testament

authors were capable of working with more than just one

context at a time. The connections which they draw are not

always based on just the immediate context of the verses they

cite, but many times are based on the connections between

____________________

            ¹³⁷John Brown, The Sufferings and Glories of the Messiah: An

Exposition of Psalm 18 and Isaiah 52:13-53:12, (1852; repr.,

Byron Center, MI: Sovereign Grace, 1970), 27.

                                         529

 

several contexts. Not only this, but they were working with an

assumption that these multiple contexts were divinely ordered.

They believed in a canonically authoritative intertextuality.

            Fourth, I believe the evidence also bears out that, even

though they were surely not twentieth-century form critics,

they nevertheless extrapolated from the use of one psalm of

a particular genre to the whole genre. They were able to

recognize the formal similarity between the elements of the

different psalms. The citing of the vow of praise from several

different psalms warrants this conclusion. Interestingly, the

already-quoted John Brown came to a similar conclusion as

well:

            Many of the Psalms plainly refer to the same subject, and

            are composed on a common plan; so that when you

            satisfactorily establish that one of such a class of

            psalms is Messianic, you cannot reasonably doubt of the

            reference of those which obviously stand in the same

            class.¹³⁸

I suggest that this may account for the use of those

psalms in which there is nothing in the context of the psalm

itself that seems to warrant its use. In those cases, psalms of the

same genre have, in fact, become the larger context. The author

of Hebrews can use Psalm 40 in Hebrews 10 because he has

already used Psalm 22 in Hebrews 2. After all, Psalm 22

contains a vow of praise, and the cited verses from Psalm 40

immediately precede the vow of praise portion in that psalm.

____________________

            ¹³⁸Ibid., 27.

                                      530

 

            And this leads me now to my final conclusion. There is no

genre or class of psalms in the Psalter which is not used

messianically in the New Testament. Be it lament,

thanksgiving psalm, hymn, royal psalm, Zion psalm, wisdom

psalm, there is a representative of each with a Christological

usage in the New Testament. May we say then, that, rather than

thinking in terms of messianic psalms, we should think instead

of a messianic Psalter? Though I do, indeed, regard this as a

proper conclusion, perhaps this is put a little too strongly for

some to give their assent. So I will reword it: The New

Testament writers considered the book of Psalms to be a

messianic reservoir. They regarded it as a book from which

they could draw phrases, sentences, images, metaphors, and

liturgical expressions to help them better understand this

person they called the Christ.¹³⁹ And what they knew of the

person of Christ helped them better understand the content of

the Psalms. The mentality behind this recognition of the

Psalms as a messianic reservoir was not that of an atomistic

proof-texting, but one that reasoned from the recognition that

any one passage in the Psalter was to be understood in an

expanding circle of contexts. And standing in the middle of the

circle was the divine liturgist himself. I believe that this

perspective on the book of Psalms should be canonically,

that is, authoritatively, paradigmatic for us. In the next

____________________

            ¹³⁹Cf. what I believe to be a similar understanding in Durham,

"The King as `Messiah' in the Psalms," 425-26, 433-34.

                                         531

 

chapter I will try to show how this thesis may account for

what has been considered to be the unwarranted Christological

use of some psalms in the New Testament. I will then attempt

to demonstrate how even psalms that are not used by the New

Testament may be interpreted Christologically.

 

 

 

                                CHAPTER 9

 

 

                THREE MESSIANIC PSALMS

 

 

            In illustrating the use of canonical analysis in his new

proposal for doing biblical theology, Brevard Childs began

with a psalm as an example.¹ I wish to do the same in this

chapter.² The three psalms that I have chosen are Psalms 8,

41, and 129. The choice was motivated by several

considerations. Psalm 8 was chosen because (1) it was the

psalm that Childs used for his paradigm, (2) it belongs to the

genre of hymn, and (3) it is quoted often in the New

____________________

            ¹Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1970), 151-63. This chapter in Childs's book is

basically the same material as in his slightly earlier article,

"Psalm 8 in the Context of the Christian Canon," Interpretation

23 (1969): 20-31.

            ²Some other psalm studies have been done in light of the

Childs's canonical analysis; see e.g., James Luther Mays,

"Psalm 118 in the Light of Canonical Analysis," in Canon,

Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor

of Brevard S. Childs, ed. David L. Peterson, Gene M. Tucker,

and Robert R. Wilson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 299-311.

See also James A. Sanders's canonical reading of this same psalm, but, of

course, with his own particular brand of canonical criticism

("A New Testament Hermeneutic Fabric: Psalm 118 in the

Entrance Narrative," in Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis:

Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee, ed. Craig A.

Evans and William F. Stinespring [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987], 177-90).

            Evangelicals have been doing canonical analysis all along

under the rubric of biblical theology. See Tremper Longman

III, "Psalm 98: A Divine Warrior Victory Song," JETS 27

(1984): 267-74; "The Divine Warrior: The New Testament Use

of an Old Testament Motif," WTJ 44 (1982): 290-307.

 

                                         533

                                      534

 

Testament. Psalm 41 was chosen because (1) it has not, to my

knowledge been given an intentional canonical analysis, (2) it

is used only once in the New Testament, and (3) it belongs to

the genre of lament. Psalm 129 was chosen because (1) to my

knowledge, it, too, has not received a canonical analysis, (2) it

is not used at all in the New Testament, and (3) it belongs to

the category of thanksgiving song, thus rounding out the

coverage of the basic form-critical classifications. As far as

their original contexts are concerned, Psalms 41 and 129 will

be treated more extensively than Psalm 8, primarily because,

for this particular psalm, the New Testament usage is fuller.

Textual, grammatical, philological, and other such matters will

only arise as seem warranted within the parameters set by the

focus of the discussion, that is, how these psalms function in

the context of the Christian canon.

 

                                         Psalm 8

            This psalm is probably best classified as a hymn

in praise of the Lord, specifically, a hymn in praise of the

Lord as creator, though v. 5 does seem to have some wisdom

connections.³ There are several problems in the psalm of

a textual, syntactical, and semantic character. For the

____________________

            ³Though this is the consensus, many also consider the psalm

to be a mixed type; for discussion, see Erhard Gerstenberger,

Psalms: Part 1: With an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, Forms of

Old Testament Literature 14 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988),

67-72.

                                          535

 

purposes of understanding the psalm in the rest of the canon,

there are only four that need to be touched on here.

            First, there is a syntactical problem with regard to the

phrase translated "from the lips of children and infants" in

v. 3. Dahood regards it as connected to what precedes rather

than with what follows,⁴ though most commentators have

opted for the more traditional rendering.⁵ In any case, the

Septuagint and New Testament syntactical representation is

credible.

            Second, there is the problem of how the word ōz in v. 3 should

be rendered. The Septuagint translates the word with the verb

that precedes it as "you have perfected praise." But the word ōz

is usually translated as "strength" or "stronghold." It is true that

there are occasions where people are called upon to "ascribe"

(nātan) strength to the Lord (Ps 29:1; 68:34; 96:7); but there is

no indication in the Hebrew Bible that the noun by itself ever

came to mean "praise." Probably we should not regard this as

an instance where the Septuagint translators were attempting to

give a literal meaning of ōz as "praise," but rather as an instance

where they struggled with trying to understand how it was

that utterances from infant lips could establish strength. Perhaps

they were right. Robert Gundry has made a very interesting

____________________

            ⁴Mitchell J. Dahood, Psalms 1-50, AB 16 (Garden City, NY:

Doubleday, 1965), 48-50.

            ⁵See Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, WBC 19 (Waco: Word,

1983), 105, 107.

                                   536

 

case for the translation "praise." He suggests that the Hebrew

psalmist used the word ōz because of its parallelism with

"song" (zimrāt) in Exod 15:2. He notes that rabbinic midrash

connects the singing of the children in the Psalm with a

tradition regarding children singing at the crossing of the Red

Sea. Gundry also remarks,

            As in Rev 4:11; 5:12, 13, the divine attribute praised becomes

            so identified with the act of praise that it comes to mean the

            praise itself. In Ps 8:3 the Lord silences the hostile speech of

            his enemies by the praise of children, z being chosen because

            the other side of its double meaning, "strength," emphasizes

            Yahweh's might working through the weakness of children. No

            other meaning than "praise" will stand with mpy."⁶

            Third, there is the problem of how ĕlōhîm in v. 6 should be

translated. Possible meanings are "God," "gods," "angels," and

"divine beings." The Septuagint's rendering of "angels" is

certainly a valid option.

            Finally, there is the problem of the translation of mĕ

at in v. 6, rendered in most translations as "a little lower."

In Hebrews 2:7, 9, where part of this psalm is quoted, there

seems to be an allusion to this verse and the "little" is there

made to refer to time. The suggestion has been made that the

author of Hebrews could only have done this based on the

Greek text, which leaves open the question as to what

"little" refers to, but that in the Hebrew text, no such

____________________

            ⁶Robert H. Gundry, The Use of the Old Testament in St.

Matthew's Gospel with Special Reference to the Messianic

Hope, NovTSup 18 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 121-22. Cf. R. T.

France, Jesus and the Old Testament: His Application of Old

Testament Passages to Himself and His Mission (Grand

Rapids: Baker, 1982), 34, 251-52.

                                           537

 

time reference is possible. Kidner's suggestion that the word

can refer to time is true, but in the passages where it does so

there are other words to indicate the time reference. While the

time reference in Ps 8:6 is not impossible, it seems unlikely.

I will deal with the rendering in Hebrews when we discuss the

usage of this psalm in that passage.

            Now we will look at the psalm as it used in the rest of the

canon. The focus will be on two passages, Matt 21:16 and Heb

2:6-9, where longer citations of parts of the psalm are given.

Other places where the psalm is alluded to, 1 Cor 15:27 and

Eph 1:22, will be touched on in the discussion of the two main

passages.

 

                                 Matthew 21:16

            In this passage, Ps 8:3 is quoted by Jesus to reply to the

objection of the chief priests and scribes to the children

shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David" when Jesus makes his

triumphal entry into Jerusalem and into the temple area.

Though I have no illusions that we have in this account the

ipsissima verba of Jesus, I do not believe there is any

justification for dismissing this account as having been "spun

out of Ps. 8:3 and the quotation put in Jesus' mouth."⁷

            As the story is told in Matthew, when Jesus enters the city, the

crowds spread coats and palm branches on the road in

____________________

            ⁷The words in quotes are those used by Robert Gundry in

reference to those who hold this view. See his arguments

against this position in The Use of the Old Testament in St.

Matthew's Gospel, 200.

                                        538

 

front of him. In Matt 21:9, the crowds, using language adapted

from Psalm 118:25-26, shout,

            Hosanna to the Son of David!

            Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

            Hosanna in the highest!

As he proceeds to enter the temple area he drives out the money

changers and heals blind and lame people who are brought to him.

While in the temple area, some children keep up the cries that

had been shouted out earlier. All that is recorded that they said

was, "Hosanna to the Son of David"; but presumably, this is

only a shorthand to refer to the other things that had been said

earlier. Upon hearing this the chief priests and scribes indignantly

ask Jesus whether he hears what the children are saying ("Jesus,

are your auditory faculties working?"). Jesus replies in the

affirmative and then asks them a question quoting Ps 8:3, "Have

you never read, `From the lips of children and infants you have

ordained praise'?" ("Chief priests and scribes, are your visual

and memory faculties working?"). Then Jesus leaves, with

apparently no reply coming from his interrogators.

            What I wish to call attention to here is the fascinating

set of intertextual connections that are evoked by Jesus'

quotation of the passage from Psalm 8, inviting his listeners

to make connections between Psalm 8 and Psalm 118. The

cries of the children in welcoming Jesus to the city of Jerusalem

and to the temple, taken from Psalm 118, are now equated

with the cries of the children and infants in Psalm 8 in praise of

                                              539

 

the Lord. In a very subtle way, Jesus identifies himself with the

God who is praised in Psalm 8.⁸ Not only this, but it must be

remembered that the one being welcomed so gladly in Psalm

118 fills the capacity of a worship leader. In the psalm, the "I"

is, almost beyond doubt, the king. He has been given a great

victory, and because of his victory, the whole nation rejoices

with him in the Lord who has become his strength (ōz) and his

song, (zimrāt) (v. 14).⁹ There seems to be a procession through

either the city or temple gates, at the end of which the "I" of the

psalm promises to give thanks to the Lord (vv. 19-21). He is

welcomed with shouts of "Hosanna" and "Blessed is he who

comes in the name of the Lord" (vv. 25-26). There is a festal

procession, at the end of which the "I," the king, again pledges

his vow of praise and thanks to the Lord. Thus, by connecting

the cries of the children to those in Psalm 118, Jesus effectively

announces that the children's chorus is under his direction.

Their praises are not just for the Messiah, but for the Lord, and

Jesus is their leader. In essence he is saying, "You ask me if I

hear what they are shouting? Why, I'm their director; I'm the

one who has called them here; they're singing under my

supervision."

____________________

            ⁸France, Jesus and the Old Testament, 151-52.

            ⁹See the remarks above regarding the connection of these

words to Exod 15:2 and possibly to Ps 8:2.

                                     540

 

            The context of the situation in Matthew 21 should also

be noted in this regard. Jesus has just driven out the money

changers, quoting Isa 56:7 and Jer 7:11 while doing it. The

Jeremiah passage condemns the people of Judah for the evil

practices, even Baal worship, which they had allowed to take

place in the temple. The Isaiah passage called attention to how

the temple should become a place of prayer. And that is just

what the children were doing in the temple courts, praying to,

and praising God. Thus the mention of Psalm 8 becomes a

condemnation of the chief priests and scribes. They had

condoned evil practices which had turned the temple into a den

of robbers, but sought to stifle the prayers and praises of the

children, who, by welcoming the one who came in the name of

the Lord, were, in fact, praising the Lord.

            There is another very interesting effect of the move

to quote Psalm 8 in connection with the shouts of the children.

Not only the words cited from Psalm 8, but also the context

of the psalm must be taken into account. It is interesting

that Jesus only quotes half of the sentence from Psalm 8:3,

leaving it for the chief priests and scribes to fill in the rest:

"because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger."

By quoting Ps 8:2 to answer the objections of the chief priests

and scribes, Jesus effectively casts them into the role of God's

enemies, who now need to be silenced.¹⁰ They had

____________________

            ¹⁰Cf. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 109-110; R. T. France, Jesus and

the Old Testament, 34.

                                            541

 

already shown themselves to be the enemies of the one who

comes in the name of the Lord; now they show themselves, by

their opposition to the cries of the children, to be God's

enemies as well. This seems to be further confirmed by the fact

that the very next day, Jesus makes another "Have you never

read" address to them. And this time, the portion he accuses

them of being ignorant of comes from Psalm 118: "Have you

never read in the Scriptures: `The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is

marvelous in our eyes.'?" So on two consecutive days he makes

these "Have you never read" addresses to them, and in both

cases the address effectively condemns the addressees. They

are the Messiah's enemies in Psalm 118; they are God's

enemies in Psalm 8.

            Thus we see how the citation of Ps 8:2 evokes a host of

intertextual connections.

 

                                   Hebrews 2:6-9

            It was on this passage that Childs focused in his

examination of Psalm 8. The first thing he called attention to

was what he considered to be significant differences between

the Hebrew and Septuagint texts, in particular, the same

differences we noted earlier in regard to the translation of

ĕlōhîm and mĕ at. The fact that the Septuagint renders these

two words, respectively, as angelous and brachu (capable

of being interpreted "a little while" as opposed to the more

restricted possibilities for the Hebrew word), plus the fact

                                           542

 

that the synonymous parallelism of man/son of man was lost

on the author of Hebrews, made possible exegetical moves on

his part that allowed him "to read into the psalms a full

Christology."¹¹ In summarizing his conclusions Childs states:

            The New Testament writer, working on the basis of the Greek

            Old Testament text, has been able to move his interpretation

            into an entirely different direction from that of the Hebrew Old

            Testament. The psalm becomes a Christological proof text for

            the Son of Man who for a short time was humiliated, but who

            was then exalted by God to become the representative for

            every man.¹²

There are some other things Childs has to say in this section

that I do agree with, but I believe he has erred in his

conclusions here. First, the angelous translation of the

Hebrew ĕlōhîm is not, in my opinion, particularly significant

for the author. As Childs himself admits, the Septuagint

translation "does not in itself do an injustice to the Hebrew."¹³

Second, brachu is, in fact, ambiguous, having either a

spatial or temporal reference. It may well have a temporal

reference, and most modern commentators seem to agree

that it does.¹⁴ But I find it hard to follow Childs's

____________________

            ¹¹Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, 156.

            ¹²Ibid., 157.

            ¹³Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, 156.

            14Paul Ellingworth, Commentary on Hebrews, NIGTC (Grand

Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 154; William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8,

WBC 47a (Dallas: Word, 1991), 42-43, 48; Harold W.

Attridge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews,

Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 76; Philip

Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the

Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 85, 89-90. For the

opposite view, see F. F. Bruce, The Book of Hebrews, rev. ed.,

NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 72.

                                              543

 

reasoning that it was the possible temporal force of the Greek

translation that made possible a Christological interpretation of

the passage. If it was translated in terms of degrees rather than

duration, that would not change the text's applicability to

Christ. Finally, the evidence is not very compelling that the

author failed to understand the Hebrew parallelism in the terms

man/son of man. For sure, there is an emphasis on Jesus as the

"Son" in the epistle, but there is no place where the author

refers to Jesus as the Son of Man. And even here in this

passage, in my opinion, he does not do it either. There is debate

among the commentators as to the exact point in the passage at

which the author begins referring to Christ, whether at some

point in vv. 7-8, or not till Christ is actually named in v. 9.15

I believe the latter position is the more defensible one; even

Childs seems to agree.¹⁶ But in any case, few commentators

see the "son of man" phrase as a direct reference to Christ in v.

6, and the author does not repeat the phrase when he does name

Jesus in v. 9, a perfect opportunity to have used the phrase there as

____________________

            ¹⁵Opting for the former are Hughes, Commentary, 85-87; and

Ellingworth, Commentary, 150-52. Opting for the latter are

Lane, Hebrews, 47; Bruce, Hebrews, 75 n. 35; L. D. Hurst,

"The Christology of Hebrews 1 and 2," in The Glory of Christ

in the New Testament: In Memory of George Bradford Caird,

ed. L. D. Hurst and Norman T. Wright (Oxford: Clarendon,

1987), 153.

            ¹⁶Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, 157: "The writer of

Hebrews makes the point that man in his actual state has not

fulfilled the promise of the psalmist. Taking this then as his

clue, he moves into his christological confession: We see rather

. . ." (emphasis mine).

                                        544

 

a Christological title. None of the points Childs makes for

hermeneutical moves on the part of the author seem to be

especially significant.

            What does seem to me to be significant, however, are the

intertextual connections that are being made in citing the

psalm. And here, it will seem that I am going to reverse myself

by now pointing out just how significant the phrase "son of

man" is in this quotation. The author has already cited Old

Testament passages in the first chapter to show Christ's

superiority over the angels as a Son (1:5-6, citing Ps 2:7 and 2

Sam 7:14). In the very next chapter he will comment on Jesus'

superiority to Moses as being that of "a son over God's house"

in contrast to that of a "servant in all God's house" (3:3-6). It

seems then that the quotation of Ps 8:5-7 in regards to the "son

of man" connects with these other passages, but emphasizing

a much different point. In chapters 1 and 3, Jesus is a Son

who is superior to the angels and Moses. In Hebrews 2 he is

also a Son, but the emphasis there is not on superiority to

some other group, but rather on the Son's solidarity with

those who corporately come under the title, "son of man."

This is why I would suggest that everything from Heb 2:6

up to the actual mention of Jesus by name in v. 9 is descriptive

of man in general. The author was not unaware that the

phrase "son of man" was a Christological title;¹⁷ rather,

by using it as he does, perhaps even being

____________________

            ¹⁷Contra Attridge, Hebrews, 74.

                                        545

 

intentionally ambiguous, he sets in motion a series of

thoughts and supporting quotations that will impress on

his readers just how real the solidarity is between Jesus and

those who are now called his "brothers." The reference to

Psalm 8 in 1 Cor 15:27, in the context of a discussion on Christ

as the Second Adam, validates the solidarity focus of the use of

the quotation by the author of Hebrews.¹⁸

            A second thing that happens in this citation is that the

author, whether consciously or unconsciously, calls up the

possible connections that exist between Psalm 8 and Psalms 1

and 2. Patrick Miller has explored these, remarking that in Psalm

8 "We encounter one of the clearest collections of royal motifs

outside the explicitly royal psalms."¹⁹ He then goes on to note

how Psalm 8 contributes to allowing us to see that "the îš of

Psalm 1 is as much a ruler as the ruler of Psalm 2 is an îš."²⁰

This assertion of Miller's is consonant with the recognition that

Psalm 8 has taken the statements of Gen 1:2628 regarding the

dominion man was to have over the earth and clothed them in

royal language.²¹

____________________

            ¹⁸Cf. Douglas J. Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," in

Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. Donald A. Carson

and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 207.

            ¹⁹Patrick D. Miller, Jr. "The Beginning of the Psalter," in

The Shape and Shaping of the Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann,

JSOTSup 159 (Sheffield: JSOT Press of Sheffield Academic

Press, 1993), 92.

            ²⁰Ibid.

            ²¹Cf. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, King and Messiah: The Civil

and Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings, ConBOT 8 (Lund:

                                        546

 

            This ties in interestingly with the possibility that the term "son

of man" may either have had or taken on royal connotations in

Israel. Walter Wifall has advanced the interesting thesis that

            David and his family were called "man" or "son of man" in the

            dual sense of the heavenly origins of ancient near eastern

            kingship on the one hand and of Israel's covenant belief that

            her rulers shared a common humanity with the rest of

            "mankind" on the other.²²

In setting forth this thesis, Wifall makes reference to several

studies that have attempted to demonstrate that the David story

has been projected backwards onto Genesis 1-4. Thus, e.g.,

David = Adam; Bathsheba = Eve; Absalom and Amnon = Cain

and Abel.²³ Wifall then argues that the story may be projected

forward as well, noting the correspondences between the story

of David and the book of Ezekiel (e.g., Ezekiel, just like David,

receives the blueprints for the new temple). Wifall suggests

that Ezekiel's being named "son of man" was as the result of

the loss of the title by the Davidic dynasty at the Exile.²⁴

Reaching into New Testament times, Wifall then argues that

just as

____________________

CWK Gleerup, 1976), 269; Aage Bentzen, King and Messiah,

2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), 17, 40. On p. 40 Bentzen

remarks, "In my opinion both Genesis 1 and Psalm 8 speak of

the ‘First Man’ and the ‘First King.’"

            ²²Walter Wifall, "David: Prototype of Israel's Future?" BTB 4

(1974): 96.

            ²³Ibid., 94-95.

            ²⁴Ibid., 96-98.

                                       547

 

            Ezekiel had adopted the royal term "son of man" in

            the temporary absence of David . . . In a similar manner, Jesus

            may have adopted Ezekiel's royal description "son of

            man" to proclaim the advent of God's kingdom.²⁵

All this points to the very real possibility that Psalm 8 should be

regarded as a royal psalm, using the royal term "son of

man."²⁶ Psalm 80:18, in my opinion, almost certainly uses the

term in reference to the king.²⁷ Also lending credibility to this

suggestion is that Psalm 144, with language in v. 3 almost

perfectly paralleling that of Ps 8:5, is not only a Davidically

attributed psalm, but one that mentions David by name (v. 10).

            To complete the picture, mention must be made of the

citation which most immediately precedes Psalm 8 in Hebrews,

and that is Ps 110:1 in Heb 1:13. Barnabas Lindars has made

the striking observation that there is no place in the New

Testament where Psalm 8:7 is either quoted or alluded to

without Psalm 110:1 being in the surrounding context.²⁸

Besides the occurrence here in Hebrews 1 and 2, Ps 8:7 is

____________________

            ²⁵Ibid., 102.

            ²⁶Wifall himself suggests this ("David: Prototype," 104).

Francis J. Moloney ("The Reinterpretation of Psalm VIII and

the Son of Man Debate," NTS 27 [1981]: 656-72) has argued

that the Targumic rendering of this psalm also considers it as

royal.

            ²⁷Cf. Anthony Gelston, "A Sidelight on the `Son of Man,'"

SJT 22 (1969): 189-96; David Hill, "`Son of Man' in Psalm 80

v. 17," NovT 15 (1973): 261-69; France, "Jesus and the Old

Testament," 185.

            ²⁸Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The

Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations

(London: SCM, 1961), 50.

                                       548

 

quoted in 1 Cor 15:27, with what appears to be a fairly

obvious allusion to Ps 110:1 in v. 25. The same thing appears

to happen in Eph 1:20-22, with Ps 110:1 being alluded

to in v. 20 and Ps 8:7 in v. 22. Lindars claims that both verses

are represented in 1 Pet 3:22, though I am not so convinced

of the allusion to Psalm 8 in that instance.²⁹ But in any

case, it is certain that a connection was meant to be made

between Psalm 110 and Psalm 8. That Psalm 110 is a royal

psalm serves to reinforce the connection noted earlier between

Psalm 8 and Psalm 2. Markus Barth, taking his cue from the

Scandinavian scholars, has suggested that a royal festival

stands behind most, and perhaps all, the Old Testament

citations in the first two chapters of Hebrews.³⁰ Whether or

not we see a royal festival background here or not, I believe we

must definitely recognize the employment of the royal motif.

And the use of Psalm 8 in Hebrews 2 serves to carry this royal

motif back to creation, where it, indeed, properly belongs.³¹ If

it is, indeed, true that man being made in God's image is to be

correlated with the concept of the royal figure being the

____________________

            ²⁹Cf. Terrence Callan ("Psalm 110:1 and the Origin of the

Expectation that Jesus Will Come Again," CBQ 44 [1982]:

622-36), who argues for the close connection between Ps 110:1

and the Son of Man in Dan 7:13-14.

            ³⁰Markus Barth, "The Old Testament in Hebrews, An Essay in

Biblical Interpretation," in Current Issues in New Testament

Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Otto A. Piper, ed. William

Klassen and Graydon F. Snyder (New York: Harper &

Brothers, 1962), 72-73.

            ³¹Cf. Gerard Van Groningen, Messianic Revelation in the Old

Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 99-105.

                                           549

 

image of deity, then it becomes all the more significant that in

Hebrews 1:3 Christ is set forth as the very image of God.

            Thus Psalm 8 is part of a complex intertextual weaving of

motifs and contexts that serves to highlight the solidarity of

Christ and his people and the royal character of the solidarity.

Christ, the Son of God, the royal King, the very image of God,

has come as Son of Man that the sons of men may become

what they were meant to be, kings who represent God as his

image on this earth.

            So the canonical function of Psalm 8 is not demonstrated

by pointing out how the author of Hebrews capitalized on

minor changes in the text that occurred in the translation from

Hebrew to Greek. Rather, it is demonstrated by listening

carefully to what the text has to say as the Author of canon

clarifies earlier words by putting them in new contexts, and

making them speak to new situations.

 

                                      Psalm 41

            Unlike the previous case, Psalm 41 is used only once in

the New Testament, in John 13:18. Before we look at that

usage, however, there are a number of challenging difficulties

which confront the would-be interpreter of the psalm itself.

First, there is the problem of genre. It would probably be

fair to say that a majority of commentators categorize the

psalm as a song of thanksgiving.³² I am inclined, however, to

____________________

            ³²Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary, trans. Herbert

Hartwell, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 343; Willem A.

                                       550

 

side with those who would categorize it as belonging more

appropriately to the lament genre.³³ Though the first-person

singular perfect, āmartî, in v. 5 does suggest the

possibility that the psalmist is recounting his lament than

rather than actually delivering it, it may well be that the

perfect here should be taken as a present.³⁴ Decidedly against

the thanksgiving classification, in my opinion, is the lack of

____________________

VanGemeren, "Psalms," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary,

ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991),

5.325; James Luther Mays, Psalms, IBC (Louisville: John

Knox, 1994), 171; Leopold Sabourin, The Psalms: Their Origin

and Meaning (New York: Alba House, 1969), 2.127; Klaus

Seybold, Introducing the Psalms, trans. R. Graeme Dunphy

(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990), 161-62; Hans-Joachim Kraus,

Psalms 1-59: A Commentary, trans. Hilton C. Oswald (Minneapolis:

Augsburg, 1988), 430-31; Loren R. Fisher, "Betrayed by Friends:

An Expository Study of Psalm 22," Int 18 (1964): 20-38.

            ³³Steven J. L. Croft, The Identity of the Individual in the

Psalms, JSOTSup 44 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 137-38,

179; A. A. Anderson, The Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

1972), 1.321-22; Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths:

The Psalms Speak for us Today, rev. ed. (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1983), 240; John W. Rogerson and J. W. McKay,

Psalms 1-50, CBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1977), 196-97; John H. Eaton, Psalms: Introduction and

Commentary, Torch Bible Commentaries (London: SCM,

1967), 116-17; Kingship and the Psalms, SBT 2d ser. 32

(Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1976), 44-45; Dahood,

Psalms 1-50, 249; Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the

Psalms, trans. Keith R. Crim and Richard N. Soulen (Atlanta:

John Knox, 1965, 1981), 193; Gerstenberger, Psalms, 174-77.

Still basically under the category of lament, Mowinckel

classifies the psalm as a psalm of sickness (The Psalms in

Israel's Worship, trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas (New York:

Abingdon, 1967), 2.1-2, 6, 9. Craigie (Psalms 1-50, 319)

follows suit and further regards it as a liturgy for the sick.

            ³⁴See the discussion on the different varieties of the perfect in

Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical

Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 479-95.

Gerstenberger (Psalms, 175) suggests that it simply serves as a

quotation mark.

                                        551

 

any actual word of thanksgiving in the text. The only such note

comes in the doxology in v. 14, and in spite of Wilson's

arguments to the contrary,³⁵ I believe the evidence still favors

the view that the doxologies at the end of psalms occurring at

the seams of the Psalter are attachments to the psalms and not

part of the original composition.

            A second problem has to do with the Sitz im Leben. It would

appear from vv. 4-5 and v. 9, that the psalmist's lament arises

out of a time of illness. But attempts to be more specific, such

as the suggestion of a cultic setting, with vv. 11-13 being an

utterance based on the prior assurance of a priest that the

psalmist's petition would be answered, are more tenuous.³⁶

While a cultic Sitz im Leben for the psalm is certainly a

possibility, it does not seem very helpful in terms of exegesis

to explain words that are recorded by words that are not.

            Another problem has to do with the function of the wisdom

material that occurs in vv. 2-4, and the function of the verb

māśkîl, which seems to be used unusually here. The usual

position has been to regard these words as lending force

to the psalmist's plea: those who "have regard" for, or

"pay attention" to the poor are blessed because, when they

themselves are in trouble, the Lord will come to their aid;

____________________

            ³⁵Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter,

SBLDS 76 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 182-86.

            ³⁶Cf. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 319.

                                          552

 

the psalmist himself has been one who has such regard for the

poor, therefore the Lord should heal him.³⁷ Following this

same track, Craigie argues that the words in these verses are

those of the priest, and that the supplicant does not speak till v.

5.³⁸ Going in a different direction, Weiser argues that the

weak (dal) in v. 2 is the psalmist himself, and that he is

addressing a congregation of worshippers whom the psalmist

encourages to "pay attention" to him, "because by doing so

they will share his joyful gratitude for God's help, which he is

about to praise and which will reveal to them also the grace of

the Lord."³⁹ Others have made textual emendations which

seem unnecessary in a text that can be made sense of as it

stands.⁴⁰ The majority view here is most likely the correct one.

The wisdom utterance in these verses is motivation for the

Lord's answering of the psalmist's prayer. And māskîl

el, though usually used in a more reflective type wisdom

context, or a business context, simply means to "pay attention

to," or "have regard for," similar to the way it is used in Neh

8:13.

            Somewhat less of a problem is the proper translation

of the imperfects in vv. 2-4. Are they simple futures, or should

____________________

            ³⁷For example, Eaton, Psalms, 116-17.

            ³⁸Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 320.

            ³⁹Weiser, Psalms, 343-44.

            ⁴⁰Louis Jacquet, Les Psaumes et le coeur de l'homme: Etude

textuelle, littéraire et doctrinale, 3 vols. (Gembloux: Duculot,

1975-79), 1.821.

                                       553

 

they be translated as jussives? Either one is certainly

possible, but based on Janzen's study of the word ašrê,

which convincingly demonstrates that it is not a wish but

a description of a person's enviableness, it makes more sense in

the context to regard them as futures, further describing this

enviableness.⁴¹

            Though there are several other problems in the text that

could be discussed, there are only two others that I believe have

particular importance for interpreting the psalm in the larger

canonical context. One has to do with the meaning of the word

bĕliyya al in v. 9, and the phrase higdîl ālay āqēb in v. 10. The

former I will discuss in the next section on the meaning of

Psalm 41 in its context in the book of Psalms and in the Old

Testament, for I believe the use of the word is particularly

significant in this connection. The latter I will discuss in

the examination of the use of the psalm in John 13:18, since

this phrase is quoted there.

 

                Psalm 41 in the Context of the Book of Psalms

                                 and the Old Testament

            As mentioned above, I believe the occurrence of the

word bĕliyya al is significant in understanding the role of Psalm

____________________

            ⁴¹Waldemar Janzen, " Ašrê in the Old Testament," HTR 58

(1965): 215-26. I disagree, however, with his conclusion that

the word "is never applied to oneself, for there is no ground for

envying oneself" (p. 224). In Psalm 41, the speaker does use it

to describe himself, not to express enviousness of himself, but

rather to express how enviable is his position.

                                            554

 

41 in its Old Testament canonical context. I will first, then,

examine this significance.

 

bĕliyya al

            The etymology of the word is uncertain. After surveying

various scholarly opinions, which range from equating the term

with some kind of prince of the underworld, to the possibility

that it is simply the Hebrew negative, bĕlî, in combination with

some form of yā al, "profit" or "benefit," Otzen says,

            There is hardly a convincing solution to the etymological

            problem posed by beliyya al. This much can be said, however:

            it is based on some mythological term whose meaning we are

            no longer able to recover or on some name, which has been

            "interpreted" by popular etymology as a negative with the

            prefix beli.⁴²

At times the word seems to have more of its supposedly

mythological and supernaturally sinister connotations. At other

times, it seems to be little more than just a characterization of

certain persons as being wicked, emptied of whatever

underworld associations it may have had. It does seem,

however, that there are special connections between these

usages.

            (1) In some passages, the persons described with the word

bĕliyya al seem to be accused by the text with slander or

speaking evil of someone (1 Kgs 21:10-13; Prov 6:12-14;

16:27; 19:28).

____________________

            ⁴²Benedikt Otzen, "bĕliyya al," in TDOT, vol. 2, rev. ed., ed.

G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, trans. John T.

Willis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 133.

                                             555

 

            (2) In other passages there appears to be a connection with

idolatry or disregard for the holy things of the Lord (Deut

13:12-13; 2 Chr 13:7; Nah 1:11-2:1; 1 Sam 1:15; 2:12; Ps

101:3; 2 Sam 23:6). These last two passages, in particular, need

to be taken together. In Ps 101:3, a Davidic psalm, and most

certainly a royal psalm, David declares that he will set before

his eyes "no vile thing," and then states later in the psalm that

"whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I put to

silence" (v. 5); further he states that "every morning I will put

to silence all the wicked in the land" (v. 8). In 2 Sam 23:6, he

declares that "evil men are to be cast aside like thorns."

            (3) Two of the occurrences are parallel to each other (2 Sam

22:5; Ps 18:5). In these two passages, which refer to the

"torrents of destruction" (bĕliyya al) there seems to be the

strongest connection to some kind of mythological underworld

motif.

            (4) In other passages there seems to be a reference to ill

treatment of, or disregard for the poor or those in need (Deut

15:7-11; 1 Sam 25:17, 25; 30:22).

            (5) In two passages it is the wicked Benjamites, who were

guilty of particularly vile practices, including homosexuality

and idolatry, to whom the term refers (Judg 19:22; 20:13).

Notice further Benjamite connections in 1 Sam 10:27 and

2 Sam 20:1.

                                        556

 

            (6) Finally, in one place, and the only one in which the term

occurs with the definite article, and also the only place where

the term is used without justification, Shimei curses David and

calls him an îš habbĕliyyā al (2 Sam 16:7). This last passage

has a Benjamite connection as well.

            From this brief survey, there are some patterns which I

believe begin to emerge. (1) Being characterized by bĕliyya al

means being a slanderer, one who shows little concern for those

who are in need, one who disregards and even desecrates holy

things. (2) There is a strong Benjamite-bĕliyya al connection.

(3) David, in particular, saw it as his royal duty to rid the land

of bĕliyya al. (4) Of the twenty-seven occurrences of the term

in the Old Testament, five occur in writings attributed to David

(including all three occurrences in the Psalms), four occur in

narratives as characterizations of David's enemies, and one

occurs in a narrative where a Benjamite calls David an îš

habbĕliyyā al.

            There is a strong tradition in rabbinic Judaism that connects

Psalm 41 with the coup attempt of Absalom and the treachery

of David's counselor Ahithophel in going over to Absalom's

side.43 This tradition connects the traitor in v. 9 with

Ahithophel. The study here suggests that the tradition

____________________

            ⁴³See the references to these in M. J. J. Menken, "The

Translation of Psalm 41.10 in John 13.18," JSNT 40 (1990):

69; and in Bruce G. Schuchard, Scripture Within Scripture:

The Interrelationship of Form and Function in the Explicit Old

Testament Citations in the Gospel of John, SBLDS 133

(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 113-14.

                                        557

 

may be more than just "idle" midrash. Taking David, for the

sake of argument, to be the author of the psalm, the

connections that can be made seem to be more than just

coincidental. (1) In the psalm, David's enemies say of him that

a "thing of belial," dĕbar-bĕliyyā al, has come upon him

(v. 9). And indeed, during the revolt of Absalom, Shimei, a

Benjamite cursed David, calling him a man of belial, îš

habbĕliyyā al (2 Sam 16:7). (2) One particular charge which

David brings against his enemies in v. 7 is that

            Whenever one comes to see me,

                        he speaks falsely, while his heart gathers slander;

                        then he goes out and spreads it abroad.

And, as we have seen, there is a strong connection between

bĕliyya al and the accusation of slander. (3) One thing in

particular that the person characterized with the term bĕliyya al

does not do is to have regard for those who are in need.

Interestingly, David characterizes himself as a person who does

pay attention to the weak and the poor. Thus we see that a

major argument in the psalm is that though David's enemies

accuse him of being a man of bĕliyya al, David argues that

such is not the case, for he is one who has regard for the weak,

the exact opposite of what a man of bĕliyya al would do.

Rather, it is his enemies, the ones whose mouths are full of

slander, who should be characterized with such a term. It is

interesting to note as well that there is a confession of sin

in the psalm (v. 5). If this psalm were, indeed, to be connected

with the Absalom revolt, then this confession would

                                         558

 

correspond with David's recognition that even though it is evil

men who are revolting against him and being traitorous, that

the whole series of events was, in fact, set in motion by his

own sins and by his failure to deal as he should have with the

situation involving Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom. Could it be

that the question of the enemies in v. 6, "When will he die and

his name perish?" could be the expression of a desire to see the

Davidic kingship come to an end with no successor? Could it

be also that the prayer in v. 11, "Raise me up that I may repay

them," catches something of the flavor of David's last words to

Solomon to make sure that Shimei was repaid for what he had

done (1 Kgs 2:8-9):

            And remember, you have with you Shimei son of Gera, the

            Benjamite from Bahurim, who called down bitter curses on me

            the day I went to Mahanaim. When he came down to meet me

            at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord: "I will not put you to

            death by the sword." But now, do not consider him innocent.

            You are a man of wisdom; you will know what to do to him.

            Bring his gray head down to the grave in blood.

            Based on this data, I will make two suggestions here

that I cannot develop at length in this dissertation. The first

is that there may indeed be a recoverable historical setting

for this psalm, and the situation may well be the revolt

of Absalom and the treachery of Ahithophel. I am not

advocating here a return to the days when it was thought

that the best avenue to understanding a psalm's meaning

was to recover the historical situation behind the psalm.

Nor, however, do I believe that possible clues to the

interpretation of a psalm which are provided by the canon

                                        559

 

itself should be ignored. Second, if an interpretation which

takes account of the correspondences just noted should prove

to be warranted, I believe it could well provide reason to

reexamine the psalms of sickness in the Psalter. In the account

of the Absalom revolt, there is no indication of David

experiencing such a sickness that he was bed-ridden for any

period of time. Is it possible that the references to sickness in

this psalm are to be taken metaphorically and not literally?

Could this be true for other psalms of sickness as well? Or, are

we to see a connection in the fact that David is on his sickbed

or deathbed when he gives Solomon the charge to carry out a

death sentence against Shimei? I simply raise these two

questions, suggesting that the current consensus on these points

should be re-examined.

 

Intra-Psalter Connections

            First, I wish to explore the connections between Psalm 41 and

the two other psalms that contain this word bĕliyya al, Psalms

18 and 101. To be noticed in this connection is that the word is

used differently in the three psalms. In Psalm 18, a

thanksgiving psalm (par. 2 Samuel 22), the psalmist himself

describes his past distress in underworld/water ordeal

terminology (vv. 5-6):

            The cords of death entangled me;

                        the torrents of destruction (bĕliyya al) overwhelmed me.

            The cords of the grave coiled

                        around me; the snares of death confronted me.

                                      560

 

In Psalm 41, as we have already seen, the psalmist puts the

term in the mouth of his enemies as they suggest that "a thing

of bĕliyya al" has come upon him. In Psalm 101, the word is

used to refer to some "vile" thing that the king pledges not to

set before his eyes. And yet, in spite of the difference in the

ways they use the word, they are still connected. Psalm 101 is

very similar in content to 2 Sam 23:1-7, in terms of its

expression of the essential righteousness of the king's

household and his hatred for the things of bĕliyya al. And, of

course, this passage in 2 Samuel 23 follows right on the heels

of 2 Samuel 22, the parallel version of Psalm 18. The

connection with Psalm 41 is established in that the prayer and

oracle in 2 Samuel 22-23 follows upon the rebellion of

Absalom in 2 Samuel 15-19, in which Shimei was the one who

accused David of being an îš habbĕliyyā al, and the rebellion in

2 Samuel 20, in which Sheba, a Benjamite, is referred to as an

îš bĕliyya al.

            Also to be noted in regard to these three psalms are the other

motifs that occur in them. In each one there is the proclamation

of integrity and righteousness before God and the confidence

that the Lord is very much pleased with and delights in the

psalmist (Ps 18:20-25; 41:12-13; 101:2-8). All three psalms

make reference to the enemies (18:38-49; 41:6-12; 101:3-5,

7-8), and in Psalms 41 and 101, those enemies are particularly

characterized as slanderous.

                                             561

 

            These observations lead me to the conclusion that Psalm 41

should, indeed, be regarded as a royal psalm, and that there is

no need for hesitation in regarding the psalm as confirming

Wilson's thesis regarding the placement of royal psalms at the

seams of the Psalter.⁴⁴ This leads to the next set of

connections to be examined.

            As a royal psalm at the seam between Books One and Two,

Psalm 41 should be explored for the connections it has with

Psalms 2, 72, and 89. With Psalm 2, Psalm 41 has in common

the theme of the conspiracy of the wicked and the delight

which the Lord takes in the psalmist. There are also very

interesting linguistic parallels; key words in Psalm 2 which are

also found in some form in Psalm 41 are yāsab, śākal,

ābad, and ašrê. With Psalm 72, Psalm 41 has in common the

themes of taking care of the poor and needy, the perpetuity of

the king's name, and the continuance of the king's life. With

Psalm 89, Psalm 41 pays attention to the king's enemies and,

again, the desire that the king's name may continue. Along with

Wilson and Walton, then, I believe it is right to see that, on a

large scale, these royal psalms do, indeed, trace the fortunes of

the Davidic dynasty.⁴⁵

____________________

            ⁴⁴Wilson himself seems to waver a bit on the issue; see his

Editing, 208 and n. 15; and "The Use of the Royal Psalms at

the ‘Seams’ of the Hebrew Psalter," JSOT 35 (1986): 87-88, 94 n.

13.

            ⁴⁵Wilson, "The Use of the Royal Psalms," 85-94; John H.

Walton, "Psalms: A Cantata about the Davidic Covenant,"

JETS 34 (1991): 21-31. It should be noted, however, that I am in basic

agreement with Wilson in his criticism of the tenuousness of

many of Walton's suggestions. See the discussion on this in chapter 7.

                                        561

 

            Also, it is to be noticed that the psalm seems to have

interesting connections with the psalms that surround it.

Zimmerli has called attention to the fact that four consecutive

psalms at the end of Book One, Psalms 38-41, all have the

word āmartî in them at some point.⁴⁶ Psalms 38 and 41 may,

in fact, be purposefully placed at the outside of this four-psalm

collection as psalms that have the motifs of sickness and slander,

while all four psalms have the motifs of enemies and confession

of sin. Christoph Barth has called attention to the linguistic

connections between Psalms 40 and 41.⁴⁷ Most interesting

among these connections are that both psalms contain the ašrê

formula, and that Psalm 41 seems to pick up where the last

verse in Psalm 40 ends: Ps 40:18 begins with the petition,

"Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me"; and,

of course, Ps 41:2 begins by pronouncing a blessing on

those who consider the poor (this is actually a conceptual

rather than linguistic connection, since the verbs and

nouns are not the same). It is also interesting to note that

Psalm 41 and Psalms 42-43 are not totally unrelated.

____________________

            ⁴⁶Walther Zimmerli, "Zwillingpsalmen," in Wort, Lied,

und Gottespruch: Beiträge zu Psalmen und Propheten: Festschrift

für Joseph Ziegler, ed. Josef Schreiner, FB 2 (Würzburg: Echter,

1972), 106.

            ⁴⁷Christoph Barth, "Concatenatio im ersten Buch des

Psalters," in Wort und Wirklichkeit: Studien zur Afrikanistik

und Orientalisk: Eugen Ludwig Rapp zum 70 Geburtstag, ed.

Brigitta Benzing, Otto Böcher, and Günther Mayer

(Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, 1976), 35.

                                               563

 

There are still enemies; there is still the need for vindication;

and there may be a reference to some physical infirmity

(42:11). Also, even though the last four psalms of Book One

are connected by the use of the first-person perfect,

āmartî, the disjunction between Books One and Two is

nevertheless softened somewhat with the occurrence in Psalm

42 of the first-person imperfect (cohortative), ômĕrâ.

            Finally, it is certainly interesting to compare Psalm 41,

the last psalm in Book One, with the book's first psalm.

The use of the ašrê formula at the beginning of the two

psalms invites the comparison. Aside from this interesting

connection, it is important to note that in each case the psalmist

can be called ašrê because he has done that which is right in

the sight of the Lord and has the assurance that the Lord

will sustain him. Psalm 1, by telling us that the wicked

will perish (ābad), prepares us for Psalm 41, for when

we read there that the psalmist's enemies wish for his name

to perish (ābad), we know that their desires will not be fulfilled,

but that instead they will be the ones who will perish. When

we read in Psalm 1 that the blessed man is one whose delight

(hepes) is in the Lord, we are not too surprised to find out in

Psalm 41 that the Lord is pleased (hāpas) with the psalmist

there who has been careful to be mindful of the poor, as

the law says to do. Psalm 1 tells us that the man will be

blessed who delights in the things in which Yahweh himself

delights, and Psalm 41, which, at the end of Book One

                                         564

 

forms an inclusio with Psalm 1, simply confirms what we have

already been told.

            Perhaps it seems that I am paying too much attention to the

structure of the Psalter, after disclaiming in chapter 7 that the

shape or structure of the book holds any authoritative canonical

claim on us. At the same time, however, it is interesting that

those who edited the Psalter into its final shape, did so in such

a way that our attention is called to the many correspondences

and parallels that exist between certain psalms. I do not believe

the shape of the book is ultimately authoritative for us. But

there is nothing wrong in listening to the voices of some

ancient Israelites who, perhaps, read these Psalms more

carefully than we, and arranged them accordingly.

 

                     The Use of Psalm 41 in John 13

            In John's account of the evening in the Upper Room the

night before our Lord's crucifixion, Jesus, after having washed

the disciples feet and encouraging them to show the same kindness

and humility to each other, then enigmatically says, "I am not

referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is

to fulfill the Scripture: `He who shares my bread has lifted up

his heel against me'" (John 13:18). The Scripture being quoted,

of course, is Psalm 41:10.

            Of great interest in the past two decades are several

studies that have shown that John, by putting this quotation

on Jesus's lips, has actually called up more than just Psalm

                                         565

 

41, but, as well, the entire narrative of betrayal of David by

Ahithophel.⁴⁸ In the discussion that follows, I will attempt to

synthesize the results of these studies, adding some new

observations as well (indicated by an asterisk), by going

chronologically through the story of Absalom's revolt against

David and the betrayal of Ahithophel, noting the

correspondences with the passion accounts in the Gospels.

            *(1) As David flees the city of Jerusalem on account of

Absalom's advance, his officials say to him, "Your servants are

ready to do whatever the king chooses" (2 Sam 15:15). This is

strikingly reminiscent of the disciples who pledge their loyalty

to Jesus on several different occasions, but in particular, on the

very night of his betrayal (Matt 26:35).

            (2) On the way out of the city, David tries to persuade

Ittai the Gittite, and all the men of Gath who are with him,

to go back to their own people, since there is no reason for

them to lose their lives in David's cause. Ittai, however, replies,

"As surely as the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives,

wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or

death, there will your servant be" (2 Sam 15:21). Earlier in

the Passion Week, Jesus had declared, "Whoever serves me

must follow me; and where I am, my servant will also be'"

____________________

            ⁴⁸T. Francis Glasson, "Davidic Links with the Betrayal of

Jesus," ExpTim 85 (1974): 118-19; L. Paul Trudinger,

"Davidic Links with the Betrayal of Jesus: Some Further

Observations," ExpTim 86 (1975): 278-79; Menken, "The

Translation of Psalm 41.10 in John 13.18," 68-73; Schuchard,

Scripture Within Scripture, 113-15.

                                         566

 

(John 12:40). Glasson, who calls attention to so many of these

parallels, says that he does not put very much weight on this

particular one. But I believe we will see as we go along that it

bears more weight than Glasson suggests.

            *(3) The story records that as the king and all his men passed

by the crowds on the way out of Jerusalem, the "whole

countryside wept aloud." This is very much reminiscent of the

large crowd and the "daughters of Jerusalem" who mourned for

Jesus as he carried his cross to Golgotha (Luke 23:26-31).

            (4) The king and his men cross the Kidron Valley (2 Sam

15:23). Jesus, also, crossed this valley on the way to the garden

of Gethsemane (John 18:1).

            *(5) At one point during the flight, David expresses his hope

that he may return, but at the same time declares that his fate is

in the Lord's hands, and then adds, "Let him do to me whatever

seems good to him" (2 Sam 15:26). This, of course resonates

with Jesus' desire that the cup might be taken from him, yet

resigning himself to whatever the Father wills (Matt 26:36-44

and par.).

            (6) David's flight progresses till he begins to ascend the Mount

of Olives, weeping as he goes (2 Sam 15:30). And, of course,

Jesus, too, ascends this same mount and weeps in great agony

(Matt 26:30-45). Not only does Jesus weep, but he specifically

calls the disciples' attention to his great sorrow (Matt 26:37-38).

                                      567

 

            (7) Immediately after the mention of David's ascent up the

Mount of Olives, the text for the first time mentions that David

had been told that his trusted advisor Ahithophel had gone over

to Absalom (2 Sam 15:31; Ahithophel's treachery had already

been related by the narrator in v. 12). David prays, "O Lord,

turn Ahithophel's counsel into foolishness." So also, Jesus

prayed for deliverance from the cup (Matt 26:3644).

            *(8) The text mentions that David arrived at the summit of the

Mount of Olives "where people used to worship God" (2 Sam

15:22). Luke emphasizes in his version of the account that

Jesus went out "as usual" to the Mount (22:39).

            (9) David puts in motion a plan that will "frustrate"

Ahithophel's advice (2 Sam 15:34). Jesus, though betrayed by

Judas, was still in charge of the whole situation. If this was a

Passion Play, then Jesus was not only lead actor, but also

director, producer, and in charge of casting ("What you are

about to do, do quickly" [John 13:27]).

            *(10) Later in the king's flight, he encounters Shimei, as we

saw in a passage earlier. Shimei curses David, calling him an îš

habbĕliyyā al (2 Sam 16:7). Can we see here, perhaps, an

analogy to Jesus' being called Beelzebub, "the Prince of

Demons" (Matt 10:25; 12:24)?

            *(11) Abishai son of Zeruiah, one of the men

accompanying David, says to his king in regard to the curses

of Shimei, "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?

                                          568

 

Let me go over and cut off his head" (2 Sam 16:9). This seems

to line up well with two situations in the Gospels. The first, of

course, is in the passion account when Peter cuts offs the high

priest's servant's ear (John 18:10) It is also very similar to an

earlier narrative where some of Jesus' disciples ask if they

should "call fire down from heaven" to destroy the Samaritans

who would not receive Jesus (Luke 9:5154).

            *(12) David emphatically refuses the request: "What do you

and I have in common, you sons of Zeruiah?" He goes on

further to say that the Lord has told Shimei to curse him (2

Sam 16:10-12). Jesus, on both of the occasions mentioned

above, emphatically rebuked the requesters, and in Peter's case

makes a remark to the effect that what is happening is God's

will. To Peter he said, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink

the cup the Father has given me?" (John 18:11). In some

manuscripts of Luke 9:56, Jesus replies to the disciples, "You

do not know what kind of spirit you are of."

            (13) Ahithophel's advice to Absalom was to strike that very

night, while David would still be weary, and kill him (2 Sam

17:1-2). Judas led the soldiers to the Garden that very night

while Jesus was weary from his Gethsemane experience (Matt

27:47).

            (14) Ahithophel says that only the king would be killed.

He remarks, "The death of the man you seek will mean the

return of all; all the people will be unharmed." This seems

                                            569

 

somewhat reminiscent of Judas identifying the one person to be

arrested with a kiss (Matt 26:48-49), and also of Jesus' words

to the soldiers, "If you are looking for me, then let these men

go" (John 18:8). Ahithophel also said that if the king was

struck, all the people would flee. And of course, as we know

from Mark 14:50, when Jesus was arrested, all his disciples

fled.

            (15) The Lord frustrated the plans of Ahithophel by causing

Absalom's men to disparage Ahithophel's advice. When

Ahithophel realized that his advice was not going to be

considered anymore, he went to his hometown, put his affairs

in order, and hanged himself (2 Sam 17:23). Judas also hanged

himself (Matt 27:5). Other than Saul, who fell on his sword in

battle to avoid having the Philistines take his life, Ahithophel

and Judas are the only persons in the Bible who committed

suicide. Moreover, the language that describes the suicides of

each in the Septuagint and in Matthew are strikingly similar.

            Was Jesus, when he quoted the words of Ps 41:10

in the Upper Room, thinking of these correspondences when

he did so? Or was John, in his report of the passion of our

Lord, thinking of them? The sheer weight of these parallels

makes it practically certain. But there are other indicators

as well. For example, it is interesting to note one major

difference between John's version of Psalm 41:10 and the

Septuagint's version. The Septuagint has translated fairly

                                       570

 

literally the Hebrew higdîl ālay āqēb, by using the verb

emegalynen. John, however, has the verb epēren. Menken

has advanced the thesis that John has been influenced

here by 2 Sam 18:28 where Absalom and Ahithophel

are referred to as those who "lifted their hands against"

the king. Menken then argues that in place of the woodenly

literal Septuagint rendering of the Hebrew verb, John

has made his own translation of the Hebrew, using the

verb "lifted" (nāśĕ û) as a more appropriate idiom in Greek.⁴⁹

Though this suggestion is credible, I find it perhaps too

speculative.

            What I wish to focus on, however, is the possibility that our

Lord may have had more in mind that night than just a single

verse of the psalm. There are several indications that such is

the case.

            First, I believe it is important to go back to the second verse of

the psalm, where the psalmist says, "Blessed is he who has

regard for the weak" (or "poor"). Interesting in this regard is

the fact that just a few days earlier in Bethany, when Jesus was

anointed with costly perfume by Mary, Judas voiced his

opposition to the extravagant action (John 12:4-6):

            But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray

            him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money

            given to the poor? It was worth a year's

____________________

            ⁴⁹Menken, "The Translation of Psalm 41.10," 70-73. For

the view that John was trying to be more idiomatic than the

Septuagint, see Roger J. Humann, "The Function and Form of

the Explicit Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John,"

Lutheran Theological Review 1 (1988/1989): 39-40.

                                       571

 

            wages." He did not say this because he cared about the

            poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money

            bag, he used to help himself to what was put in it.

It is interesting that in the Matthean and Markan versions of

this account (Matt 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9), it is not just Judas,

but all the disciples who make this objection. But what is

interesting to note as well is that it is immediately after this

incident that Judas decides to betray Jesus. I freely admit that

this is speculative, but at the same time, very likely, that this

incident could have prompted the recall of Psalm 41:2 in the

mind of our Lord.⁵⁰ He who was a thief accused him who was

sinless of disregarding the needs of the poor--just as in Psalm

41, they who were men of bĕliyya al accused the psalmist of

being such a person, even though he had shown that he was

not, as evidenced by his regard for the poor. Perhaps the words

and actions of Judas prompted the Savior to be especially

meditative in this Psalm during the week of his passion.

            Lending credence to this suggestion is the fact that

not only does Jesus quote from Psalm 41 on the night of his

betrayal, but also from Psalm 42. I mentioned in the previous

____________________

            ⁵⁰On the one hand, I want to affirm fully John's many

assertions that Jesus knew everything that would happen to him

(e.g., 13:1; 18:4; 19:28). But on the other hand, I also want to

confess fully the incarnation and the fact that the eternal Son of

God subjected himself to all that it means to be human,

including human thought processes, and having a "succession

of moments." In accordance with this, I find it both logical and

orthodox to predicate of Jesus that he "recalled,"

"remembered," "understood," "reasoned." Even so, in this case,

I suggest the words and the actions of Judas brought Psalm 41

to mind.

                                       572

 

chapter the opinions of several scholars who believe that in

Matt 26:38 there is a conscious allusion to Ps 42:6. Douglas

Moo regards this as an example of what he calls "use of

Scriptural language as a vehicle of expression."⁵¹ He writes,

            We may take Jesus' words of lament in Gethsemane as an

            example: perilypos estin hē psychē mou heōs thanatou ("My

            soul is sorrowful, even unto death," (Mk 14:34/Mt 26:38). The

            rarity of perilypos (only eight times in the LXX, never in Philo

            or Josephus, only twice in the NT), especially in combination

            with psychē, renders an allusion to the "refrain" of Psalms 42

            and 43 (perhaps originally a single psalm) virtually certain.⁵²

So on the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus quotes from

two consecutive psalms.

            It is interesting to note in this connection that Psalms

41 and 42 are connected to each other by more than just

juxtaposition. They are also connected via a third psalm.

Psalm 55, though it is never quoted in the New Testament, has

a passage very similar to the one in Psalm 41:10. Verses 13

15 read,

            If an enemy were insulting me,

                        I could endure it;

            if a foe were raising himself against me,

                        I could hide from him.

            But it is you, a man like myself,

                        my companion, my close friend,

            with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship

                        as we walked with the throng at the house of God.

____________________

            ⁵¹Douglas J. Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," in

Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. Donald A. Carson

and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 188.

            ⁵²Ibid., 188-89. See also Edgar Monroe McKown, "The

Influence of the Psalms upon the New Testament" (Ph.D. diss.,

Boston University Graduate School, 1932), 46.

                                        573

 

At the same time, however, notice the connection this passage

has with Ps 42:5:

            These things I remember

                        as I pour out my soul:

            how I used to go with the multitude,

                        leading the procession to the house of God,

            with shouts of joy and thanksgiving

                        among the festive throng.

            It is entirely possible that it was the connections

between these various psalms that prompted in the mind of

Christ, the appropriation of, not only Psalms 41 and 42-43,

but also other psalms that he appropriated in connection with

his passion (Psalms 22, 31, 34, 69, 118).

            By using the word, "appropriation," I take the risk

of being misunderstood, so I will anticipate one of my

conclusions from the last chapter. I mentioned above that

Douglas Moo categorizes Jesus' use of Ps 42:6 as "use of

Scriptural language as a vehicle of expression." I quote here

the rest of the paragraph cited above so we can see what Moo

means by that:

            But there is little evidence that we should find in Jesus' allusion

            an attempt to cite the psalms(s) as authoritative prefigurement

            of His sufferings in the Garden. Jesus appears simply to be

            using familiar biblical language to express His emotions. To be

            sure, Jesus' use of this language may suggest a general

            identification of His plight with the psalmist's--oppressed by

            enemies, seeking God's vindication and rescue--but we would

            be wrong to accuse him of misusing the text or reading into it

            new meaning if we were to find no evidence that Psalms 42-43

            were predictive of Jesus' agony in Gethsemane.53

____________________

            ⁵³Ibid.

                                           574

 

            I appreciate Moo's concern here. At the same time,

I believe there is more that is going on than just a "general

identification." To be sure, Jesus "appropriates" the psalmist's

language. But what is important to see here is that this is not

just an "after thought" appropriation. Rather it is both an

"intentional" and an "intended" appropriation. That is, when

God inspired David and the other psalmists to compose their

laments, their thanksgiving songs, and their hymns, these

compositions were not only, or even primarily intended by God

for use in their original contexts. Instead, God intended them

for use by his Son. And, if we are to determine what a text

means by authorial intention, then it seems that we have to say

that these psalms receive their fullest and intended meaning in

Christ's appropriation of them. I will have more to say on this

in the last chapter.

            One intriguing issue, and one which I will only raise here,

and address further in the last chapter, is the confession of sin in

v. 5. Glasson, comparing Psalm 41 with several other psalms,

such as Psalm 69, which were used messianically in the New

Testament, yet contain confessions of sins, states that, of

course, these psalms cannot in their "entirety be applied to

Jesus."⁵⁴ Grudinger differs, however; he remarks:

            Yet I suggest that it is at this very point that the early Church

            interpreters may have understood Jesus as

____________________

            ⁵⁴Glasson, "Davidic Links," 118-19.

                                           575

 

            fulfilling the psalmist's role as testified to in this

            psalm.⁵⁵

He then reasons that either the early Church would have

understood Jesus as confessing sins in this verse vicariously, or

that the sins in the original psalm were not actually the

psalmist's sins, but one with which his enemies has wrongly

charged him. Again, I will come back to this in the last chapter.

 

                                     Psalm 129

            I consider Psalm 129 to be in the general category of

thanksgiving psalm. It has been typed otherwise, however,

particularly because of the last half of the psalm. Therefore

some have categorized it as a lament,56 while most others have

analyzed it as a psalm of trust.57 Though there is a future

orientation to the psalm in the last four verses, the only

statement about Yahweh himself comes in the backward-

looking portion of the psalm. The liturgical nature of the

psalm, as evidenced by the first two verses, plus the declaration

of YHWH sāddîq, "Yahweh is righteous," leads me to think that

the dominant motif here is not so much trust as it is praise. In

____________________

            ⁵⁵Trudinger, "Davidic Links: Further Observations," 279.

            ⁵⁶Bernhard Anderson, Out of the Depths, 70, 242; Mitchell J.

Dahood, Psalms III, 101-150, AB 17a (Garden City, NY:

Doubleday, 1970), 230.

            ⁵⁷VanGemeren, "Psalms," 707; Leslie C. Allen, Psalms

101-150, WBC 21 (Waco: Word, 1983), 188-89; A. A.

Anderson, Psalms, 2.871-72; Sabourin, The Psalms, 2; Hans-

Joachim Kraus, Psalm 60-150: A Commentary, trans. Hilton C.

Oswald (Minneapolis: Augsburg), 460-61.

                                         576

 

any case, genres should not be seen as existing only in

"rigid" and "pure" forms.⁵⁸

            Many have suggested that the psalm has undergone an

extensive reworking so that what was originally an individual

psalm has become a communal one. Seybold, in particular, has

proposed that the psalm originally consisted of vv. 2-4 and 6

7, which was simply the prayer of a rural, agrarian Israelite,

who offered it at the sanctuary.⁵⁹ The psalm then was taken up

into the collections of prayers and songs. It was communalized

with the addition of v. 1, "Let Israel say"; Zionized with

the addition of v. 5, "May all who hate Zion . . ."⁶⁰;

and then given a liturgical finish with the addition of a

priestly blessing formula in v. 8b, "We bless you in the name

____________________

            ⁵⁸On this, see Tremper Longman III, Literary Approaches to

Biblical Interpretation, Foundations of Contemporary

Interpretation 3 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, Academie, 1987),

16 and n. 7.

            ⁵⁹The following account of Seybold's reconstruction is taken

from Introducing the Psalms, 104-5; "Die Redaktion der

Wallfahrtspsalmen," ZAW 91 (1979): 25; Die Wallfahrtspsalmen:

Studien zur Enstehungsgeschichte von Psalm 120-134, BibS(N)

3 (Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 27-28, 47-49,

57-58.

            ⁶⁰Which also, according to Seybold, betrays its secondary

character by lack of conformity to the metrical pattern of the

rest of the psalm, and for lack of consistency with the internal

parallelism with the other verses. There is, however, no need to

delete or make textual emendations, either for metrical reasons,

or to make the parallelism more consistent. As Tremper

Longman III has shown, whether there is such a thing as meter

in Hebrew poetry is very tenuous ("A Critique of Two Recent

Metrical Systems," Bib 63 [1982]: 230-54). I believe this lack

of consistency in meter should probably be seen as extending

to parallelism as well.

                                          577

 

of the Lord."⁶¹ A later redactor who did not recognize the last

line of the psalm as a priestly blessing formula, thinking

instead that it was a harvester blessing similar to that found in

Ruth 2:4, tried to make the connection more obvious by

inserting the first half of v. 8.

            While Seybold's proposal is very imaginative and

at times insightful, and I would have no trouble accepting

much of what he says (except for the part about the clumsy,

ignorant redactor), this whole matter of reconstructing a

text's history is the very thing I have been quarrelling with

throughout this thesis. There is simply no way to construct

a bridge from historical reconstruction to theological

statement. Even if the psalm was originally an individual

composition with only the individual's own experience in

mind, though I do not believe it is⁶²; and even if v. 5 is an

____________________

            ⁶¹Many have suggested that v. 8b (or 8c if the last verse is

reckoned to be a tri-colon) is a priestly blessing. See, Allen,

Psalm 101-150, 187-88, 190; Kraus, Psalm 60-150, 463;

Weiser, Psalms, 771; Mays, Psalms, 405; Oswald Loretz, Die

Psalmen, II: Beitrag der Ugarit-Texte zum Verständnis von

Kolometrie und Textologie der Psalm 90-150, AOAT 207/2

(Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979), 275;

Richard Press, "Die zeitgeschichtliche Hintergrund der

Wallfahrtspsalmen," TZ 14 (1958): 413.

            ⁶²It seems more credible, and more simple, to understand that

a creative psalmist has written a composition for all Israel to

sing, but in first-person style. See James Luther Mays, "The

Question of Context in Psalm Interpretation," in The Shape and

Shaping of the Psalter, ed. J. Clinton McCann, JSOTSup 159

(Sheffield: JSOT Press of Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 18;

Psalms, 404.

                                      578

 

addition, though as Allen argues, it is not⁶³--even if these

things are true, I cannot extract from these possibilities any

theological relevancy. In other words, the present text of Psalm

129 is canonical and reconstructions of putative earlier forms

of the psalm are not.

            There are only two other matters that are of concern before

looking at the psalm in its context in the book of Psalms and in

the Old Testament. The first is the interpretation of the verbs in

vv. 5-8. Are they imperfects or are they jussives? Most

translations opt for the jussive. Allen has argued that it makes

more sense to see them as simple imperfects, which is also

what tips the scales for him in typing the psalm as a song of

confidence rather than either a lament or thanksgiving song.⁶⁴

I am not fully persuaded one way or the other, nor convinced

that, whichever way they are taken, that either confidence or

hope would be excluded in either construal.

            Second, though it has become popular of late to regard

the second of the two blessing formulas in v. 8 as a priestly

blessing upon the worshiping community, and therefore not to

be seen as a part of the quotation put in the mouths of those

who pass by the enemies of Zion, I am not convinced that this

has been satisfactorily demonstrated. Against it, in my

____________________

            ⁶³Allen, Psalms 101-150, 189: "It is significant that v 5

nestles firmly into the psalm stylistically as well as

exegetically . . ."

            ⁶⁴Allen, Psalms 101-150, 187-88; also, Westermann, 460-62.

                                         579

 

opinion, is the possibility that the last two lines are somewhat

chiastically structured, with YHWH preceding ālêkem in the

first line, but following etkem in the second line. The matter,

however, cannot be firmly decided either way.

            In any case, the psalm is one in which Israel as a collective

body praises the Lord for his righteousness to them during the

course of their entire history and for freeing them from the

wicked. They are both hopeful and confident that he will

continue to do so.

 

                 Psalm 129 in its Old Testament Context

            First, it is important to note that the psalm is one of the Songs

of Ascents and bears close similarities to other psalms of the

same group. I cannot go into a discussion here of the purpose

of this collection, except to say the consensus seems to be that

the psalms are pilgrimage songs, having some connection with

the journeys Israelites would make to Jerusalem to attend the

great festivals there.⁶⁵

            Evidencing itself as being a part of this collection

are the affinities it has with the other psalms: references to

Zion and Israel; liturgical formulas such as "Let Israel say,"

and "We bless you"; references to the name of the Lord; and

____________________

            ⁶⁵For surveys, see Allen, Psalms 101-150, 219-21; Seybold,

"Die Redaktion der Wallfahrtspsalmen," 247-68; Die

Wallfahrtspsalmen; Press, "Die zeitgeschichtliche Hintergrund

der Wallfahrtspsalmen," 401-15; Cuthbert C. Keet, A Study of

the Psalms of Ascents: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary

upon Psalms CXX to CXXXIV (London: Mitre, 1969); Daniel

Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Biblical

Poetry, SBLMS 39 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989).

                                        580

 

the fact that the enemies are national enemies. Liebreich has

called attention to the close linguistic connection that exists

between the Songs of Ascents and the priestly blessing in Num

6:24-26.⁶⁶ He calls attention to the fact that four key words in

the priestly benediction ("bless," "keep," "be gracious," and

"peace") occur in all but three of the fifteen psalms. Grossberg

has taken Liebreich's work and suggested that there may,

therefore, be some substance to the older view that these songs

have a connection with the steps of the temple. Indeed, he

notes the correlation between four significant pieces of data:

(1) the fact that rabbinic literature has it that the priests cited

this benediction on the steps of the temple, (2) the fact that the

same rabbinic tradition has it that there were fifteen of these

steps, (3) the fact that there are fifteen Songs of Ascents, and

(4) the fact that there are fifteen words in the priestly

benediction in Num 6:24-26. I believe these correlations are

probably more than just coincidental; at the same time, I am

not quite sure what to make of them, except to note, as

Grossberg does, that there does seem to have been a concern

on the part of the editors to allow concerns of transtextuality to

play a part in the collection.⁶⁷

____________________

            ⁶⁶Leon J. Liebreich, "The Songs of Ascents and the Priestly

Blessing," JBL 74 (1955): 33-36.

            ⁶⁷Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Biblical

Poetry, 50-51.

                                     581

 

            The opening words of the psalm, of course, bear

considerable similarity to the opening words of Psalms 118 and

124. Not only is there this formal similarity, but there is a

contentual similarity as well. In all three psalms, there is the

reflection on the psalmist's past history of deliverance from

enemies by the help of the Lord. In all three psalms the

imagery that is used to portray these enemies is especially

graphic. In Psalm 129 the enemies are pictured as plowmen

who dig deep furrows into the psalmist's back. In Psalm 124,

the enemies attack, their anger flares, they are out to swallow

their prey, they are a flood about to engulf their victims, they

are raging waters, and powerful torrents. In Psalm 118 the

enemies are pictured as surrounding their would-be victim;

they swarm around him like bees. But in all three, the Lord

provides a great deliverance, and it was, in all three, a

deliverance that only the Lord could have accomplished. It is

also interesting that Psalm 118, like Psalm 129, contains a

blessing formula, only the one there occurs in the midst of

blessing the Messiah, whereas the one is Psalm 129 is a

blessing that blesses no one.⁶⁸

            In its connections with the rest of the Old Testament,

there are two motifs in Psalm 129 that call up similar passages.

First the psalmist describes Israel from the days of her

"youth." This evokes passages like Exod 4:22; Hos

____________________

            ⁶⁸Since Psalms 118 and 124 are usually categorized as

thanksgiving psalms, perhaps that should have a bearing on the

genre analysis of Psalm 129.

                                          582

 

2:15; 11:1; Jer 2:2; 22:21; and Ezek 23:3. All these passages

describe Israel as a child; sometimes the image is flattering,

sometimes it is not, but it is always associated with suffering.

As Kraus remarks, "The history of Israel is one single passion

narrative."⁶⁹

            Second, the psalmist describes Israel's suffering as having

furrows cut in one's back with the plowman's plow. This calls

up passages like Isa 1:6; 51:23; and Mic 3:12.

            Israel was greatly oppressed during her history. Most of it she

probably earned. But, the point to keep in mind here is that in

this psalm post-exilic Israel points to such sufferings as had

happened all through that history--the bondage in Egypt, the

oppression during the time of the Judges, the exile to Babylon--

and still declares, "But they have not gained the victory over

me." Could it be that we should see in the sufferings of Israel

and the victory that Yahweh gave her, the greater sufferings

and the greater victory of a greater Son yet to come?

 

                  Psalm 129 in its New Testament Context

            There is a very interesting in passage in John 19:1. It

reads as follows:

            Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. This happened

            so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Plowmen have

            plowed my back and made their furrows long."

____________________

            ⁶⁹Kraus, Psalms 60-150, 462

                                        583

 

No, it doesn't read like that. But part of the thesis of this

dissertation is that it could have.⁷⁰ It could have, just as

easily as John 19:34-36 says that Jesus' death was timed so

that the soldiers did not have to break his bones, and that

            These things happened so that the scripture would be

            fulfilled: "Not one of his bones shall be broken,"

thus fulfilling Ps 34:21. Or as Paul, in Eph 4:8 used Ps

68:19 to describe the ascension of Christ. For the book of

Psalms was a messianic reservoir from which a host of phrases

and symbols and images could be drawn to describe what God

did in Christ Jesus. By this I do not mean that it was simply a

resource book of favorite quotations, much like a pastor might

use on a Saturday night to pepper up the next morning's

sermon. These were not just literary allusions. They were that--

but they were more than that. For the New Testament writers

recognized that there was an intrinsic connection between

Jesus Christ and this book. Indeed, it was his book. Israel's

psalms were his psalms. And Israel's history was his history.

 

 

____________________

            ⁷⁰Therefore I disagree with Gerard Van Groningen's ultimate

conclusion (Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament [Grand

Rapids: Baker, 1990], 403) when he says, "There is no

reference to Psalm 129 in the New Testament. Further, the

psalmist refers to all the sufferings the children of Israel

suffered throughout their history. Yahweh, however, had

delivered them by cutting the cord of the wicked (v. 4). Israel

is called upon to curse those in the future who will not call

Yahweh's blessings upon Israel (vv. 5-8). There is, in this last

part, a reference to a messianic passage (Gen. 12:1-3). Neither

this passage, nor any other part of this psalm, should be

considered messianic."

                                          584

 

            In Matt 2:15, the author of that Gospel, after recounting

the story of the flight of Joseph and Mary and the baby

Jesus into Egypt, and how they stayed there until the

death of Herod, then goes on to say:

            And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the

            prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

Matthew has been accused by a number of scholars as being a

twister of the Scriptures.⁷¹ After all, the passage in Hos

11:1, from which Matthew quotes, isn't even a prophecy; it's a

historical reference to the history of Israel, in particular,

their time in the land of Egypt. But as many have noticed,

that is exactly the point that Matthew seems to be trying to

make. It is only by looking at what Matthew is doing in his

Gospel, but particularly in the first two chapters, that we

see that he was very much concerned with history. Not only in

order to see what Matthew is doing in his quotation of Hos

11:1, but also to better understand Psalm 129, I want to

briefly look at a number of analogies between the first few

chapters of Exodus and the first few chapters of Matthew

(though I may occasionally look a little farther), analogies

which Matthew invites us to draw by quoting Hos 11:1.⁷²

____________________

            ⁷¹For example, S. Vernon McCasland, "Matthew Twists the

Scripture," JBL 80 (1961): 143-48.

            ⁷²For much of what follows I am indebted to M. D. Goulder,

Type and History in Acts (London: SPCK, 1964). See also his

Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London: SPCK, 1974); and

Robert  H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and

Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982). See also, R.

T. France, "The Formula-Quotations of Matthew 2 and the

Problem of Communication," NTS 27 (1981): 233-51.

                                            585

 

            (1) The most obvious correspondence is that both narratives

are concerned with the birth of a baby. And both babies are

destined to become the deliverers of their people.

            (2) In each case there is an account of the slaughter of

innocent boy babies.

            (3) In the Exodus account, Pharaoh is outwitted by the

Hebrew midwives (Exod 1:15-21). In Matthew, Herod is outwitted

by the Magi (Matt 2:16).

            (4) Moses has to flee Egypt because Pharaoh tries to kill him.

Jesus has to flee Israel because Herod tries to kill him. There

is, however, with this parallel, a rather significant contrast as

well; for in Jesus' case, it is the land of promise and a Jewish

king from which he is forced to flee.

            (5) The Israelites were in Egypt because of a Joseph who

was a dreamer. Jesus is taken down to Egypt because of a Joseph

who dreamed (Matt 2:13). In Matthew 1-2 Joseph has three

revelatory dreams.

            6) Both Josephs are sons of a father named Jacob (Gem

30:22-24; Matt 1:16).

            7) Moses is able to return to Egypt "for all the men who

wanted to kill you are dead" (Exod 4:19). Jesus can return to

Israel "for those who were to trying to take the child's life are

dead" (Matt 2:19).

            8) Moses still has to come face-to-face with another

Pharaoh before whom he performs miracles. Jesus must yet come

                                        586

 

face-to-face with another Herod who wants to see him perform

some miracle (Luke 23:6-9).

            (9) Moses is provided with a spokesperson who will appear

before Pharaoh. The spokesperson is related to him, older than

him, and also dies before Moses does. Moses is like God and

Aaron is his prophet. At one point Aaron has doubts about

Moses (Exod 4:14-16; 7:1; Num 12:1-8). Jesus is provided

with a spokesperson who will appear before Herod. The

spokesperson is related to him, older than him, and also dies

before Jesus does. Jesus is God and John the Baptist is his

prophet. At one point John has doubts about Jesus.

            These are the correspondence which relate most closely to the

earliest chapters of both Exodus and Matthew. A few others,

however, may be instructive as well.

            (10) After the Red Sea crossing (cf. 1 Cor 10:2) the Israelites

are tempted forty years in the wilderness). After Jesus' baptism

he immediately goes to be tempted forty days in the

wilderness.

            (11) The Israelites' temptations are, for the most part, ones

that involve complaining about food, and the first thing God gives

them in response to their complaints is bread (Exod

16). Jesus’ first temptation has to do with breat (Matt 4:1-

4).

            (12) Moses is several times rejected by his own people

(Exod 2:14; 5:19-21; 16:1-3; 17:1-3; Num 12:1-9; 14; 16; 21:4-

                                        587

 

5). Concerning Jesus, John says "He came to that which was

his own, but his own did not receive him" (John 1:12).

            (13) Moses was almost stoned by his own people

(Num 14:10). Jesus was almost stoned by his own people

(John 8:59; 10:31).

            (14) The Lord three times tells Moses exactly what will

happen with regard to Pharaoh (Exod 3:18-20; 4:21-23; 7:1-5).

Jesus three times tells the disciples about his coming betrayal

and crucifixion (Matt 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:17-19).

            (15) Moses gives instructions for the institution of the

passover (Exod 12:21-27). Jesus gives instructions to his disciples

regarding the preparation of the passover (Luke 22:7-19).

            (16) Moses has seventy elders (seventy-two with Eldad and

Medad) (Exod 24:9). Jesus sends out the seventy-two (Luke

10).

            (17) The Lord gives Moses a sign that will only be fulfilled

if Moses trusts (Exod 3:12). Jesus gives the Jews a sign that will

only be fulfilled if the Jews trust (John 2:1822).

            (18) Moses feeds the multitude in the wilderness (Exod 16).

Jesus feeds the five thousand (Mark 6:30-42).

            (19) The Exodus was a remembering of God's covenant

with his people (Exod 2:24). The work of Christ was a remembering

of God's covenant with his people (Luke 2:72-73).

                                   588

 

            (20) Moses gives the law from Mt. Sinai (Exod 20). Jesus

reinforces the law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7).

            (21) And here is the one that perhaps sums it all up. Israel is

God's firstborn son (Exod 4:22). Jesus is God's firstborn son

(Rom 8:29; Col 1:15-18; Heb 1:6).

            And with this last one in particular, we are more than

justified in bringing Psalm 129 into the picture. Even as Israel

could say that she had been oppressed from youth, so Jesus could

say that even from his youth he had been oppressed.⁷³ Even as

Israel could complain of the furrows dug into their backs by the

plowmen, so Jesus could complain of the punishment he had

received, even the flogging at the hands of the Gentiles

(certainly, the metaphorical plowmen in Psalm 129, are, at the

same time, very literally non-Israelite). Even as the Israelites

could declare that Yahweh had given them the victory, so

Jesus, as we have seen in other psalms, is the ultimate worship

leader and giver of praise as the risen and exalted Son of God.

            Thus we see that, because of the intra-canonical connections

Psalm 129 has with Exod 4:22; Hos 11:1; Matt 2:15, and a host

other passages, Psalm 129 should be considered to be a

messianic psalm. This is not due to the psalm being in some

way a specific prediction of Christ's sufferings, but

____________________

            ⁷³Andrew Bonar, Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms

(New York: R. Carter, 1861; repr., Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1978),

397.

                                       589

 

rather because it belongs to the Christian canon of Scripture.

And yet, it was predictive, for if we believe that the canon is

the creation of one Author who has written the former words

with a view to the later ones, and has in the later ones clarified

his intentions in the earlier words, then we should also believe

that when the New Testament authors interpreted the Psalms

with reference to Christ, and as we do so today in following the

pattern of interpretation they left for us, we are reading the

canon as it was intended to be read; we discern the canonical

intentionality that is there. And because we do so through the

lens of the New Testament, then this reading must be more

than just canonical, it must be Christo-canonical.

 

                                  Conclusion

            I believe I have been able to demonstrate, following the pattern

of the New Testament authors, that the psalms considered in

this chapter are rightly and appropriately interpreted with

reference to Christ. These last two chapters together, I believe,

have shown that the more correct approach, rather than

working with the assumption that there are messianic and non-

messianic psalms, is to work with the assumption that the

Psalter as a whole is messianic. This, however, raises a number

of questions and implications. I will address these in the

concluding chapter.

 

 

                                CHAPTER 10

 

       Implications of the Christo-Canonical Approach For

                      Interpreting the Book of Psalms

 

 

            In this final chapter I wish to lay out some of the

implications of the Christo-canonical approach for both the

scholarly and ecclesiastical communities. Since, as I have

indicated in a previous chapter, biblical scholars should not

see their work as divorced from their Christianity and Church

community, I will not attempt to distinguish between the

applicability of these implications.

 

          The Psalms Are to Be Interpreted According

                    to the New Testament Paradigm

            This is the heart of the Christo-canonical approach.

The Bible is not only contentually authoritative, but

it is also paradigmatically authoritative. And I believe that

scholars who want their interpretations to come under the

rubric "canonical" must do so by consciously trying to follow

the paradigm for interpretation that is set forth by the New

Testament authors, who, in turn, received their pattern from

Christ.

            Joachim Becker, in a book that is, from a strictly

descriptive, historical-critical perspective, reticent

to recognize an intentional messianic element in the Old

 

                                           590

                                    591

 

Testament, near the end of the book, however, asks himself and

his readers a question:

            The christological actualization of the Old Testament in the

            New is so commanding that it confronts exegesis with the

            question of conscience whether the historical-critical method,

            which we too have employed, is in fact a way at all of carrying

            out exegesis of the Old Testament as such. . . .

            Above all, we must remember that the messianic interpretation

            of the Old Testament, arbitrary as it may appear, is

            nevertheless based on the highest authority. The scriptural

            interpretation of the early church is not simply a question of

            late Jewish mentality; it is carried out with the aid of the Spirit

            (see especially 2 Cor. 3:12-18). It is one of the processes that

            make up revelation and are constitutive for the church. The

            Spirit dictates an inalienable form of scriptural interpretation.

            Jesus himself, according to Luke 24:32, 45, opened the

            Scriptures. Christ himself casts light on the Old Testament. . . .

            If at the outset we found it easy to caricature the traditional

            picture of messianic expectations, we must now retract. To find

            Christ at every stop on our way through the history of Israel

            and the Old Testament is not only no deception but also a duty

            imposed on us by the inspired testimony of the New Testament,

            the meaning of which we must strive to understand.¹

I appreciate Becker's words here in relation to his need to

subject his historical-critical interpretation of the Old

Testament to the authoritative witness of the New Testament.

Indeed, this is the very thing that this dissertation calls

for. We need such scholars who will, as Becker so correctly

recognizes, strive to be Christians not only in Church but

also at their desks and in their research. And we need

professors of hermeneutics who will train their students to

____________________

            ¹Joachim Becker, Messianic Expectation in the Old Testament,

trans. David Green (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 94-96.

                                         592

 

interpret the Bible, not according to an arbitrarily imposed

paradigm, but according to the one that is

taken from the material to be interpreted itself, the paradigm

that is laid down for us in the New Testament by Jesus and his

apostles.

 

                 The Psalms Are a Messianic Reservoir

            I have argued in this paper that the Psalter should be

seen as a messianic reservoir. By this I mean that the New

Testament authors considered there to be an intrinsic connection

between Christ and the book of Psalms and that anything in

the Psalter was "fair game" to use in reference to the person

of Christ. Thus, we should not think in terms of messianic

versus non-messianic psalms, but instead use as a working

assumption the existence of a messianic Psalter. The only

troublesome part for me in stating this hypothesis is that it

seems to preclude the purely predictive element that many

would still wish to see in at least certain psalms.² The New

Testament provides warrant for there being a predictive

element in the Psalter (e.g., Acts 2:30). And as Tournay has

demonstrated, the psalmists who followed David seem to have

____________________

            ²Cf. the discussion on this in William J. Hassold, "Rectilinear

or Typological Interpretation of Messianic Prophecy?" CTM

38 (1967): 155-67. See also, Ronald E. Clements, "Messianic

Prophecy or Messianic History?" HBT 1 (1979): 87-104;

Harvey D. Lange, "The Relationship Between Psalm 22 and

the Passion Narrative," CTM 43 (1972): 610-11; Edward R.

Dalglish, "The Use of the Book of Psalms in the New Testament,"

Southwestern Journal of Theology 27 (1985): 28-30.

                                        593

 

perceived their role as, indeed, being a prophetic one.³ At the

same time, however, even as there are prophecies in the books

more traditionally regarded as being prophetic in nature, that

have both immediate and distant fulfillments, so I believe that

there are probably no psalms that are purely predictive. And

yet, they are all predictive. So I agree with Tremper Longman

when he says, "Messianic psalms, in an exclusively narrow

sense, do not exist."⁴ But I also agree with him when he says,

"All the psalms look forward to Jesus Christ."⁵

            I want to emphasize, however, that I do not see

this forward look as merely a broad kind of generalized

messianic expectation, though it certainly may have been

that on the part of many, perhaps most, of the psalmists.

But rather, it is important to keep in mind here that if we truly

believe that the Scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit

of Christ, then we should expect to see Christ in the Psalms.

In other words, there is an incarnational element to the book

of Psalms: Christ has incarnated himself in biblical canon. I

____________________

            ³Raymond Jacques Tournay, Seeing and Hearing God in the

Psalms: The Prophetic Liturgy of the Second Temple in

Jerusalem, trans. J. Edward Cowley, JSOTSup 118 (Sheffield: JSOT

Press, 1991).

            ⁴Tremper Longman III, How to Read the Psalms (Downers

Grove: InterVarsity, 1988), 73.

            ⁵Ibid., 68.

                                       594

 

believe that this is what Bonhoeffer meant when he said that

"Christ was in David."⁶ Bonhoeffer remarks,

            David was a witness to Christ in his office, in his life, and in

            his words. The New Testament says even more. In the Psalms

            of David the promised Christ himself already speaks (Hebrews

            2:12; 10:5) or, as may also be indicated, the Holy Spirit

            (Hebrews 3:7). These same words which David spoke,

            therefore, the future Messiah spoke through him. The prayers

            of David were prayed also by Christ. Or better, Christ himself

            prayed them through his forerunner David.⁷

I do not believe this is very far from the perspective of the

New Testament writers. And even though he does not agree

with them, Hanson is certainly correct in understanding the New

Testament authors as understanding that there was, in fact, a

"real presence" of Christ in the Old Testament.⁸

            It is this which I believe provides the answer to the

question as to how the words of the very human psalmist, can

also be the words of God. Bonhoeffer reflected on this

question:

____________________

            ⁶See the discussion on this in Martin Kuske, The Old

Testament as the Book of Christ: An Appraisal of Bonhoeffer's

Interpretation, trans. S. T. Kimbrough, Jr. (Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1976), 67-81.

            ⁷Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible,

trans. James H. Burtness (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1970), 18-

19. Cf. Jouette M. Bassler ("A Man For All Seasons: David in

Rabbinic and New Testament Literature," Int 40 [1986]: 168)

on the perspective of the New Testament authors: "Not only,

however, did David speak of Jesus in the psalms, he also

spoke, the New Testament writers were convinced, as Jesus."

            ⁸Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament

(London: SPCK, 1965); see also his The Living Utterances of

God: The New Testament Exegesis of the Old, (London:

Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983).

                                         595

 

            It is at first very surprising that there is a prayerbook in the

            Bible. The Holy Scripture is the Word of God to us. But

            prayers are the words of men. How do prayers then get into the

            Bible?⁹

And the answer is that Christ by his Spirit has incarnated

himself in biblical canon. Thus, at one and the same time, they

are the words of man and God. So when the New Testament

authors interpreted the Psalms with reference to Christ, they

were not imposing on the Psalms an arbitrary hermeneutical

grid, but they were interpreting the Psalms as they were meant

to be interpreted. They were not reading Christ into the Psalter,

but correctly recognizing the Christ who was already there. In

other words, the appropriations that Christ and the New

Testament authors made of the Psalms, were intended

appropriations.

            After making a similar statement in the last chapter, I went on

to remark,

            When God inspired David and the other psalmists to

            compose their laments, their thanksgiving songs, and their

            hymns, these compositions were not only, or even primarily

            intended by God for use in their original contexts. Instead, God

            intended them for use by his Son. And, if we are to determine

            what a text means by authorial intention, then it seems that we

            have to say that these psalms receive their fullest and intended

            meaning in Christ's appropriation of them.

I need now to clarify what I mean by this. If we are to

conceive of the Holy Scriptures as the word of God, and if we

grant that God, unlike any human author, understands all the

____________________

            ⁹Bonhoeffer, Psalms, 13-14; see also his Life Together, trans.

John W. Doberstein (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 44-46.

                                      596

 

implications and ramifications of what he says in his word,

then it seems to me that we must understand that later

appropriations of Old Testament passages by New Testament

authors are, in fact, intended appropriations.¹⁰ And if the locus

of meaning is to be found in authorial intention,¹¹ then it

follows that New Testament appropriations of Old Testament

passages are, in fact, explications of the meanings of those

passages. This is not "reading God's mind"; rather, it is reading

God's word with the presupposition that it is God's word. It is

simply recognizing that the writings of "these inspired poets

were so shaped and moulded by the Holy Spirit that they might

grow and expand with the growth of revelation, and `gather

wealth in the course of the ages.'"¹²

 

 

 

____________________

            ¹⁰Cf. William Alexander, The Witness of the Psalms to Christ

and Christianity, The Bampton Lectures, 1876 (New York: E.

P. Dutton, 1877), 30: "The applicability of so many passages is

a proof that the application was intended to be made."

            ¹¹The debate over whether meaning is to be found in author,

text, or reader was briefly touched on in chapters 5 and 6. My

argumentation here is based on the fact that this debate must

necessarily work with different assumptions when the author in

view is God. With the human author, there is certainly the

possibility that a text can engender new meanings or that

readers can read meanings into the text, of which the author

would not have been aware. With the divine author, however,

there are no valid or invalid text-oriented or reader-oriented

meanings that are outside his purview.

            ¹²A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms with Introduction

and Notes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), xii-

xiii.

                                    597

 

      The Psalms are the Skandalon of the Old Testament

            The Psalms, precisely because they are human prayers,

and yet prayers in which Christ has incarnated himself, are

the skandalon of the Old Testament. Even as Christ in his

humanity, in his having come to earth in the "likeness of sinful

flesh," is the stumbling block of the New Testament, so the

Psalms constitute the stumbling block of the Old Testament.¹³

We love Jesus holding children in his arms and blessing them.

We are less enamored with the Jesus who drives out the money

changers and who pronounces doom and destruction on the city

of Jerusalem. In like manner, we love Psalm 23, but we hate

Psalm 109. There are four problematic areas in the Psalms that

I believe are put in right perspective if we understand that

Christ is the Psalmist, and that these very human prayers are

his prayers.

            First, it has been noticed that some of the prayers

appear to be very prideful prayers, such as Psalm 26 where

the psalmist asks for vindication from the Lord because he

has lived a blameless life.¹⁴ Now this psalm is perfectly

understandable as the prayer of a man who is simply painting a

____________________

            ¹³Cf. Thomas Merton (Bread in the Wilderness [Collegeville,

MN: Liturgical; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1953], 95): "The Christ

who is born to us of Scripture is just as hard to recognize as the

Christ Who is born of Mary."

            ¹⁴For one scholar's problem with this psalm, see Friedrich

Baumgärtel, "The Hermeneutical Problem of the Old

Testament," trans. Murray Newman, in Essays on Old

Testament Hermeneutics, ed. Claus Westermann, ET ed. James

Luther Mays (Richmond: John Knox, 1963), 138.

                                       598

    

portrait of himself as the opposite of the evildoer, and as von

Rad, remarks, "There is no room for any intermediate state, or

for any of the finer shades so familiar in human

evaluations."¹⁵ At the same time, however, these psalms do

seem to both our Reformation heritage and to our modern ideas

of pride and humility, to be psalms that we cannot so easily

take on our lips. But I believe we can do so as we pray these

psalms in Christ, who was, indeed, blameless.¹⁶

            Second, the Psalms appear to be very "whiny" prayers. It

surprises many people to discover that well over half of the

Psalms contain either laments or remembered laments. It is

good to keep in mind, however, the tremendous gulf that exists

between the complaints in the Psalms and the complaints of the

Israelites in the wilderness. The psalmists complained in

second person. God makes tremendous allowances for the

honest complaints of his people. So even in Old Testament

times, the complaints were not something to be seen as whiny.¹⁷

But was there anyone more qualified to pray these lament

psalms than Christ, who took upon himself all the laments and

____________________

            ¹⁵Gerhard von Rad, "`Righteousness' and ‘Life’ in the Cultic

Language of the Psalms," chap.in The Problem of the

Hexateuch and Other Essays, trans. E. W. Trueman Dicken

(Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1966), 243-66

(citation from p. 250).

            ¹⁶So C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (London:

Geoffrey Bles, 1958), 135.

            ¹⁷It is good that scholars have called the Church back to the

lament psalms. See Claus Westermann, "The Role of the

Lament in the Theology of the Old Testament," trans. Richard

N. Soulen, Int 28 (1974) 20-38; Walter Brueggemann, "The

Costly Loss of Lament," JSOT 36 (1986) 57-71.

                                    599

 

the complaints and the cries of his people? I suggest that in

Christ, we may learn what it is to lament again.

            Third, and much more of a problem apparently than

the previous two, are the imprecatory psalms.18 Can these

be Christian prayers? Can we see Christ as the psalmist

even here? I do not think that we can take Craigie's way of

dealing with these psalms:

            But these psalms are not the oracles of God; they are

            Israel's response to God's revelation emerging from the painful

            realities of human life, and thus they open a window into the

            soul of the psalmist. The psalmists in ancient times were bound

            to the same commitment of love for enemies as is the modern

            Christian or Jew (cf. Lev 19:17-18; Exod 23:4-5), and their

            expression of vindictiveness and hatred are not "purified" or

            "holy" simply by virtue of being present in Scripture. They are

            the real and natural reactions to the experience of evil and pain,

            and though the sentiments are in themselves evil, they are a

            part of the life of the soul which is bared before God in

            worship and prayer. The psalmist may hate his oppressor; God

            hates the oppression. Thus the words of the psalmist are often

            natural and spontaneous, not always pure and good, and yet

            they reflect the intimacy of the relationship between psalmist

            and God. The expression of hatred is in a way a confession of

            sin, though it is not phrased as such; it is a part of the

____________________

            ¹⁸There is a vast body of literature devoted to the imprecatory

prayers. For differing perspectives on the imprecations see,

Chalmers Martin, "Imprecations in the Psalms," in Classical

Evangelical Essays in Old Testament Interpretation, ed. Walter

Kaiser (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972), 113-32 (first published in

Princeton Theological Review 1 [1903]: 537-53); Johannes G.

Vos, "The Ethical Problem of the Imprecatory Psalms," WTJ 4

(1942): 123-38; C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms 22-26,

136; Raymond F. Surburg, "The Interpretation of the

Imprecatory Psalms," Springfielder 39 (1975): 88-102; J. Carl

Laney, "A Fresh Look at the Imprecatory Psalms," BibSac 138

(1981): 35-45. For a very balanced discussion, see Patrick D.

Miller, Jr. Interpreting the Psalms (Philadelphia: Fortress,

1986), 150-53.

                                     600

 

            inner life of a person which may be cleansed and

            transformed through the relationship with God.19

I cannot deal with this problem in any extensive way here,

except to note that the imprecatory element is not absent from

the New Testament. Not long after Christ's resurrection and

ascension the apostles used imprecatory elements in Psalms 69

and 109 in regards to Judas (Acts 1:20). And the book of Revelation

is filled with joyful imprecations over the fall of Babylon.

Elizabeth Achtemeier has put this well:

            The church can learn from the psalmists that it is proper to pray

            for the destruction of the enemies of God. We finally desire

            that the kingdom of God will come on earth, do we not? But

            that means that God will put down every opposition to his rule,

            and the church should pray earnestly for the elimination of

            such opposition.²⁰

Therefore, I suggest that Christians, with Jesus Christ,

should pray for the destruction of the enemies of God.²¹

            The last problem has to do with the confessions of sin.

I cannot be dogmatic here, but I think it is possible that, in light

of what I believe was their tendency to view the Psalms as a

messianic reservoir, and in light of their reasoning that if Christ

is the speaker in one part of the psalm that he is the speaker

in the entire psalm, they may have regarded the

____________________

            ¹⁹Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, WBC 19 (Waco: Word,

1983), 41.

            ²⁰Elizabeth Achtemeier, Preaching from the Old Testament

(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989), 143.

            ²¹Cf. Bonhoeffer, Psalms, 56-61; Life Together, 47. For a

more recent suggestion in this regard, see William L. Holladay,

The Psalms through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a

Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993),

348.

                                    601

 

confessions of sins in these psalms as vicarious prayers on the

part of Christ for his Church. It has been so understood by

many.²² A. T. Hanson, in regard to Paul's use of Psalm

69:10 in Rom 15:3, reasons,

            There is indeed a confession of sin in verse 5 of the Psalm, but

            we may suggest that Paul would interpret this as a vicarious

            confession; like the suffering, it was part of Christ's voluntary

            self-identification with men.²³

And Bonhoeffer, commenting on the same psalm says,

            In Psalm 69, verse 5 tends to cause difficulty because here

            Christ complains to God about his foolishness and guilt.

            Certainly David spoke here of his personal guilt. But Christ

            speaks of the guilt of all men, also about the guilt of David and

            my own guilt which he has taken upon himself, and borne, and

            for which he now suffers the wrath of the Father. The true man

            Jesus Christ prays in this Psalm and includes us in his

            prayer.²⁴

We make our confessions of sins and then ask God to forgive

them in Jesus' name. So we may still pray these prayers and

believe that in solidarity, Christ prays them with us. In

this way, then, even the "penitential psalms" can be seen as

psalms that Jesus prays with us.²⁵ And that bring me to a last

point.

                            The Psalms Are to Be Prayed

 

____________________

            ²²William Alexander, The Witness of the Psalms, 41-43; John

Brown, The Sufferings and Glories of the Messiah: An

Exposition of Psalm 18 and Isaiah 52:13-53:12 (1852; repr.,

Byron Center, MI: Sovereign Grace, 1970), 33.

            ²³Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, 154-55.

            ²⁴Bonhoeffer, Psalms, 37.

            ²⁵Ibid., 51-52.

                                        602

 

            Not all psalms are to be prayed, for there are didactic and

wisdom compositions among the collection, but what prayers

are there, I believe, are meant to be prayed by Christ's people.

Therefore I welcome a number of books and articles that have

stressed the need to pray the Psalms.²⁶ But one of the

implications of this study is that they should not be prayed too

quickly. A prerequisite for praying the psalms is coming to

them through Christ. Besides the places we looked at in chapter

8 where Christ is portrayed as first-person speaker in the

Psalms, there are also places where the psalms become the

prayers of the Church (e.g., Rom 8:36). But behind this usage

is an understanding, I would suggest, that they are the Church's

prayers because they are Christ's prayers. I believe it is

imperative then, again in the words of Bonhoeffer, that,

            If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible and

            especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what

            they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus

            Christ.²⁷

____________________

            ²⁶Noel Quesson, The Spirit of the Psalms: A Handbook for

Reading and Praying the Psalms with Israel, with Jesus, and

with the Present Moment, trans. and ed. Marie-France Curtin

(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1990); Walter Brueggemann, Praying

the Psalms (Winona, MN: Saint Mary's, 1982); Lawrence B.

Cunningham, "Praying the Psalms," TToday 46 (1989): 39-44;

Yves Congar, Called to Life, trans. William Burridge (New

York: Crossroad, 1987); Balthasar Fischer, "How to Pray the

Psalms," Orate Fratres 25 (1950): 10-20; Paschal Botz,

"Praying the Psalms," Worship (1972): 204-13.

            ²⁷Bonhoeffer, Psalms, 14. Cf. A. G. Hebert (The Throne of

David: A Study of the Fulfillment of the Old Testament in

Jesus Christ and his Church (London: Faber & Faber, 1941),

253.

                                    603

 

It is not legitimate for a Christian to make an end run, so to

speak, around Christ to get to the Psalms; rather he or she must

read them, study them, and pray them, through Christ.

            In chapter 1, it was noted that a change took place in Luther's

interpretation of the Psalms. Though his first lectures on the

very Psalms were very Christological via the allegorical route,

his later lectures were less allegorical and consequently less

explicitly Christological. Preus argued that this was because

Luther had begun to appreciate the "faithful synagogue" of the

Old Testament and had found a connection between his own

humanity and faith and the humanity and faith of the psalmists,

thereby not having to understand the Psalms through Christ.²⁸

Roland Murphy also argues that this connection between our

humanity and the humanity of the psalmist is necessary for a

correct understanding of the Psalms:

            When one hears the cry of pain of the psalmist it is not difficult

            to associate this with Christ, as the New Testament itself does

            (Mt. 27:46). But one should first hear the psalmist's human

            suffering and only then go on to the personal dimension of

            one's own Christian self-understanding. . . .

            This spirit catches the mood of the Psalms much more than

            a privatized application to Christ himself.²⁹

____________________

            ²⁸Patrick D. Miller, Jr. notes a similar phenomenon which

seems to have taken place in Bonhoeffer's interpretation of the

Psalms ("Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Psalms," Princeton

Seminary Bulletin n.s. 15 (1994): 279-80.

            ²⁹Roland E. Murphy, "The Faith of the Psalmist," Int 34

(1980): 238. See also his "Old Testament/Tanakh--Canon and

Interpretation," in Hebrew Bible or Old Testament: Studying the

Bible in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Roger Brooks and John J.

                                   604

 

While I certainly appreciate these words of warning, I believe,

nevertheless, that it is the incarnation of Christ and the fact that

it was a fully human Christ who prayed the Psalms, which

allows us to fully enter into "the mood of the Psalms." It is not

so much the humanity of the psalmist as it is the humanity of

the Christ that accesses the Psalter as our prayerbook.³⁰ I do

not know that she would agree with me on this point, but

Elizabeth Achtemeier has certainly articulated well the

reasoning behind my argument here:

            It is specifically God's chosen, elect, covenant people who

            speak in the Psalms, and unless somehow we are related to that

            particular people the Psalter is not our book. If we are not now

            the new Israel in Christ, then we cannot stand in the relation to

            God in which the psalmist stood, and we cannot make the

            Israelites' prayers and praises, their laments and liturgies, the

            reflection and responses to God's action our own.³¹

Thus, I propose that it is not so much the humanity of the

original psalmist as it is the humanity of our Lord which grants

the Church access to the Psalter, and allows Christians to pray

these ancient Israelite prayers. It is this, I believe, which

Bonhoeffer understood so well:

            How is it possible for a man and Jesus Christ to pray the

            Psalter together? It is the incarnate Son of God, who has borne

            every human weakness in his own flesh, who here

____________________

Collins, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 5 (Notre Dame:

University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 21, 28-29.

            ³⁰Cf. Gerald T. Sheppard ("Theology and the Book of

Psalms," Int 46 [1992]: 154-55): "Indeed, Christ's life and death

‘fulfills’ the psalms of lament by casting light upon both his,

and our own, humanity."

            ³¹Elizabeth Achtemeier, "Preaching from the Psalms," RevExp

81 (1984): 441.

                                      605

 

            pours out the heart of all humanity before God and who stands

            in our place and prays for us. He has known torment and pain,

            guilt and death more deeply than we. Therefore it is the prayer

            of the human nature assumed by him which comes here before

            God. It is really our prayer, but since he knows us better that

            we know ourselves and since he himself was true man for our

            sakes, it is also really his prayer, and it can become our prayer

            only because it was his prayer.³²

            Thus, we may pray the Psalms because they are Christ's

psalms. And even as the Psalms find their truest and fullest

meaning in Christ, we never pray them so fully or so

meaningfully as when we pray them in solidarity with him.

 

                                     Conclusion

            I have, I suppose, said very little in this chapter that

has not already been said by many others. And I appreciate

those who have in the last few years emphasized the need for a

Christian reading and praying of the Psalms.33 But I do

believe the work in the previous chapters has made the

theological and exegetical rationales for such reading and

praying more secure.

            When I was listing the more "scandalous" elements in the

Psalter, there was one element which I did not list, and that

____________________

            ³²Bonhoeffer, Psalms, 21-22; cf. Hans-Joachim Kraus

(Theology of the Psalms, trans. Keith Crim [Minneapolis:

Augsburg, 1986], 189): "From now on anyone who prays the

Psalms is not only entering into the prayer language of Israel

but also is taking up the prayer that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ

. . ."

            ³³See Ronald B. Allen, Rediscovering Prophecy: A New Song

for a New Kingdom (Portland, Oregon: Multonomah, 1983);

Lord of Song: The Messiah Revealed in the Psalms (Portland,

Oregon: Multonomah, 1985); Holladay, The Psalms through

Three Thousand Years, 345-58.

                                       606

 

was the praises. For that is an element that we do not consider

to be very troublesome. But I would suggest that the praises in

the psalms are just as much a scandalous element in the Psalter

as any other. For we are unworthy to vocalize these praises.

But this problem is resolved in Christ as well. For not only is

he the one who is most qualified to take the praises of God

upon his lips. But the amazing thing is that he asks us to join

him in praise to his Father and our Father, his God and our

God. For he is not ashamed to call us his brothers (and sisters).

He says,

            I will declare your name to my brothers;

            in the presence of the congregation (the ekklēsia)

            I will sing your praises.

 

 

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     THE BOOK OF PSALMS AS THE BOOK OF CHRIST:

              A CHRISTO-CANONICAL APPROACH TO

                             THE BOOK OF PSALMS

 

                                               by

                                Jerry Eugene Shepherd

 

 

                                       ABSTRACT

 

            Interpretation and identification of the messianic psalms has

taken many different paths in the history of interpretation:

allegorical, typological, literal-prophetic, and idealistic, among

others. Bruce Waltke, capitalizing on the emphasis that began

to be accorded to canonical analysis in the 1970s, proposed a

"canonical process" approach to the Psalms, whereby the

Christological meaning of the Psalms was made clearer and

deeper with the growth of the canon. But "canon" has different

meanings for different scholars, as evidenced by the two names

most closely associated with canonical approaches, Brevard

Childs and James Sanders. So it is necessary to clarify what is

meant by "canon" or "canonical interpretation" when

attempting to use the concept of canon as a hermeneutical tool.

            It should be recognized that the primary characteristic of canon

is not that of "list," but "norm." It is important, therefore, that a

canonical approach to hermeneutics have a theological basis

for recognizing the canon as normative.

That theological basis is the "Canon" above the "canon," that

is, Jesus Christ. Therefore, a canonical hermeneutic which

claims to make authoritative theological statements must be

explicitly "Christo-canonical." Christ is Lord of the canon and

he is Lord of the would-be interpreter of the canon. Thus it is

necessary for a canonical hermeneutic to submit itself to the

authority of Christ. This is not done by setting up putative

historical or sociological reconstructions of the "reality" behind

the text; rather, it is done by following the hermeneutical

paradigm laid down by Christ and the New Testament authors.

That paradigm calls for us today to do canonical interpretation,

recognizing that the most important context for the

interpretation of Scripture is the canonical context.

            An investigation of the use of the Psalms in the New

Testament, particularly those Psalms in which Christ is

regarded as first-person speaker, shows the hermeneutical

presuppositions and methodologies with which the New

Testament authors worked. Those same hermeneutical

presuppositions and exegetical methods should be used by

modern-day interpreters. When so used, it will be seen that,

indeed, the Book of Psalms is the Book of Christ.