20. For specific examples, see C. H. Dodd’s According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1952), 61–110. Dodd writes, “The method included, first, the selection of certain large sections of the Old Testament scriptures . . . . These sections were understood as wholes, and particular verses or sentences were quoted from them rather as pointers to the whole context than as constituting testimonies in and for themselves.”
21. With painstaking detail, C. H. Dodd in According to the Scriptures demonstrates that the Second Testament writers consistently drew from the same portions of First Testament Scriptures and interpreted them the same way, independent of one another (ibid., 28–60).
22. After tracing in detail how the Second Testament authors consistently (yet independently) interpreted the First Testament texts in light of Jesus Christ, Dodd comes to this conclusion as well (ibid., 108–10). Eminent New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce has this to say about Dodd’s book: “Analogy, apart from anything else, might suggest that the scheme of biblical interpretation which pervades the New Testament was similarly derived from the Founder of Christianity. The New Testament biblical exegesis is not the same as attested in the Qumran documents; both resemblances and disparities are readily recognized. But the one scheme bespeaks the influence of one powerful mind. When we observe that the main features of primitive Christian exegesis recur independently in the works of several New Testament writers, we have to look behind them for this powerful mind, and (as C. H. Dodd has remarked in his classic treatment of this subject), we are not compelled to reject the New Testament evidence which points unmistakably to the mind of Jesus Himself ” (F. F. Bruce, foreword to R. T. France, Jesus and the Old Testament [Vancouver, BC: Regent College Pub., 1998], v).
23. Luke 24:27 NASB .
24. Luke 24:32 NASB .
25. Luke 24:44–45 NASB .
26. TNK (Tanakh) is an acronym derived from the three sections of the Hebrew Bible: Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim.
27. In his book Jesus and the Old Testament, R. T. France analyzes exactly how Jesus interpreted the Old Testament.
28. Ibid., 223.
29. Ibid., 225.
30. It should be noted that the phrase “the Law and the Prophets” is often shorthand for the entire First Testament. See Romans 3:21 with 4:7. The “law” sometimes refers to the entire Hebrew canon (Rom. 3:19 with 3:10–18; 1 Cor. 14:21). The same is true for the “prophets” (Acts 13:27; 26:27).
31. John 5:46.
32. Matt. 5:17.
33. Jesus believed the Hebrew Scriptures were the revelation of God and that He was the true embodiment and fulfillment of them. See E. E. Ellis, “How Jesus Interpreted His Bible,” Criswell Theological Review 3 (1989): 341–51.
34. France, Jesus and the Old Testament, 79–90.
35. “As Christians standing within the light of New Testament revelation and looking back on the Old Testament, Christ himself acts as a hermeneutical prism. Looking back through him, we see the white light of the unity of the truth of Jesus Christ broken down into its constituent colours in the pages of the Old Testament. Then, looking forwards we see how the multicoloured strands of Old Testament revelation converge in him. When we appreciate this we begin to see how the constituent colours unite in Christ and are related both to each other and to him. In this way we see how the Old Testament points forward to him. We see how sometimes one ’colour,’ sometimes another, or perhaps a combination of them, points forward to Jesus Christ, is related to Jesus Christ, and is fulfilled by Jesus Christ” (Sinclair Ferguson, “Preaching Christ from the Old Testament,” PT Media Paper, vol. 2., http://www.proctrust.org.uk/dls/christ_paper.pdf ).
36. Because Jesus Christ and His church are united, the Bible is not only Christocentric; it’s also ecclesiocentric. To find Christ in the Bible is to find His house, His bride, His family—the church. This will become clear throughout this book. In this regard, we agree with Augustine’s first rule of biblical interpretation, totus christus: the whole Christ, Head and Body. Richard Hays unfolds what he calls Paul’s “ecclesiocentric hermeneutics” in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 84.
37. Karl Barth was one such theologian.
38. Martin Luther, as quoted in Emil Brunner, The Word of God and Modern Man (Richmond, VA: John Knox, 1964), 30.
39. Scot McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 153.
40. In scholarly circles, this method of interpretation is known as “historical criticism” or the “historical-critical method” because it uses modern tools to critique the text in its historical setting. Historical criticism is essentially scientific exegesis that came into prominence in the eighteenth century onward. (The original sense of the word reductionist is re ducere, which means “to lead back.”) It’s a modern invention.
41. In scholarly circles, this holistic method is called “canonical criticism” because it interprets the entire biblical canon as a unified whole. It’s also called “theological interpretation” because it utilizes theology as the interpretive key to exegete the Bible. As an approach, canonical criticism says that nothing less than the whole biblical canon is adequate to properly interpret each of its parts. Theological interpretation is often associated with Karl Barth’s Der Romerbrief, 1919. As a method of biblical interpretation, theological exegesis is rooted in the Scripture itself. It is also known as the “christological hermeneutic.” Donald Bloesch wrote, “This approach, which is associated with Karl Barth, Jacques Ellul, and Wilhelm Vischer, among others, and which also has certain affinities with the confessional stances of Gerhard van Rad and Brevard Childs, 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. It is believed that the fragmentary insights of both Old and New Testament writers are fulfilled in God’s dramatic incursion into human history which we see in the incarnation and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in his life, death, and resurrection” (Donald 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 Press, 1985], 81. Also available as “A Christological Hermeneutic,” http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=0). See also Werner G. Jeanrond, “After Hermeneutics: The Relationship Between Theology and Biblical Studies,” in The Open Text: New Directions for Biblical Studies?, ed. Francis Watson (London: SCM, 1993), 85–102; John Goldingay, “Biblical Narrative and Systematic Theology,” in Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology, eds. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 123–42 (138); Joel B. Green, “The Bible, Theology, and Theological Interpretation,” SBL Forum, n.p. [cited Sept 2004], http://sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=308; J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010); Stephen Fowl, Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009); Daniel Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008); and Kevin Vanhoozer, Dictionary for Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008).
42. We agree with Brevard Childs when he said, “Many insights from the last 150 years made by historical-critical study also can be of great exegetical value if correctly used within a proper theological context. In a word, the hermeneutical issue is not between a critical and a non-critical reading, but rather how one makes use of all available insights in order to illuminate the canonical scriptures without destroying the confessional context” (“The One Gospel in Four Witnesses” in The Rule of Faith by Ephraim Radner and George Sumner [Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1998], 55). In the same vein, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedic
t XVI) makes a case for the need to use both historical-criticism and canonical exegesis in understanding the life of Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth, xvi–xxiv [see n. 6]). Two twentieth-century professors at Yale, Brevard Childs and Hans Frei, championed the holistic way of viewing Scripture. Their work marked a new shift for returning to the christological way of interpreting Scripture that predates modern hermeneutics and grammatical-historical exegesis. They both pointed out that a christological reading of the First Testament is indispensable if we are to understand history as the story of God revealing Himself in Christ. They argued that the church’s understanding of Scripture is essentially found in Jesus. Therein lies the charter for christological interpretation. The holistic approach, also known as “canonical criticism,” basically says that every part of the Bible must be interpreted in its relationship to the entire canon. Therefore, when the Second Testament was created and the canon expanded, the meaning of the First Testament changed from our perspective. It became fuller because it could be completely interpreted from the standpoint of Christ. Both Frei and Childs accept historical criticism. However, their position is that historical criticism is a good beginning but a bad stopping place. We must go on to see the fullness of the canon. Consequently, reductionism (historical criticism) and holism (canonical criticism) do not constitute an either/or choice. It’s a both/and choice. We regard them as complementary. In short, historical study of the biblical text must be inserted into the larger and richer context—the existing canon of Scripture that contains a revelation of Jesus Christ. For further reading see Hans Frei, “The ’Literal Reading’ of Biblical Narrative in the Christian Tradition” (see n. 1) and The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980); Brevard Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), Biblical Theology: A Proposal (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), and Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979); Karl Barth, Der Romerbfrief (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1922) and Epistle to the Romans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); Willem Van Gemeren, The Progress of Redemption: The Story of Salvation from Creation to the New Jerusalem (Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1988) and “Jesus Christ the Lord and the Scriptures of the Church,” “The Nature of the Christian Bible: One Book, Two Testaments,” and “The One Gospel in Four Witnesses” in Radner and Sumner, The Rule of Faith.
43. Joseph Ratzinger describes the Bible’s hermeneutic thusly: “This Christological hermeneutic, which sees Jesus Christ as the key to the whole and learns from him how to understand the Bible as a unity, presupposes a prior act of faith . . . ’Canonical exegesis’—reading the individual texts of the Bible in the context of the whole—is an essential dimension of exegesis. It does not contradict historical-critical interpretation, but carries it forward in an organic way toward becoming theology in the proper sense” (Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, xix). In this connection, we believe the modern historical reconstruction is both legitimate and important. But we do not believe that the historian’s interpretation should have some sort of primacy over the theologian’s interpretation. Consequently, we do not embrace the dominance of modern empirical epistemology in theology. The church does not have to submit its theology to the judgment of supposed neutral disciplines in modern evangelical or liberal theology. Some theologians have called this submission “the Babylonian captivity of Christian theology.” We believe that modern critical study of the Scripture—linguistic inquiry and historical investigation—though important, do not exhaust the content of Scripture. To properly understand the Bible, it must be interpreted not only as a historical, literary document but also as a source of divine revelation. Both the theological unity and the historical unity of Scripture must be held together as a cohesive narrative about Jesus. Thus we cannot understand the First Testament without the Second Testament, nor the Second without the First. The historical-critical approach, when held to exclusively, seems to imply that Genesis through Malachi are not Christian books. Therefore, when Christians read them, they are reading someone else’s mail. Historical-criticism by itself rejects the concept of a unified canon and turns advocates into near Marcionites. This was a charge that Dietrich Bonhoeffer leveled against this method. For Bonhoeffer, rejecting the authority of the First Testament was part of the way of thinking that prepared the way to anti-Semitism.
44. Reply to Faustus the Manichean, 12, 14. http://enlargingtheheart.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/augustine–of–hippo–christ–in–the–old–testament (no longer accessible). Luther said likewise: “There is no word in the New Testament which does not look back on the Old, where it has already been proclaimed in advance. . . . For the New Testament is nothing more than a revelation of the Old” (quoted in Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 116).
45. Andrea Fernandez coined the term sensus plenior, or “the fuller sense,” to describe this fact. The sensus plenior, as developed by Raymond E. Brown in The Sensus Plenior of Sacred Scripture (Baltimore: St Mary’s University, 1955), 92, refers to “the 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 . . . when they are studied in the light of further revelation or development in the understanding of revelation.” See also David Puckett’s John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995). One of the things that modern interpreters assume is that the only safe way to understand a text is to assert it has only one true meaning. All other meanings are either false or secondary. We do not believe this. The text has many possible but harmonious meanings, all of which can be legitimized from the Bible. Each meaning harmonizes with each other; none contradicts another. That richness is why the Scriptures can continue to speak to people in different places and at different times just as powerfully as they did for their original hearers. The notion that there is only one true interpretation of the text is a modern construction. Throughout most of church history, Christians believed that there are various interpretations of a single text. Yet we will always locate their fullest meaning in Christ. In fact, a good chunk of the Second Testament, in substance, is a christological reading of the First Testament. Geerhardus Vos said that biblical theology draws a line while systematic theology draws a circle. That is, biblical theology is diachronic; systematic theology is synchronic. Diachronic reading treats the Bible as a historical book. And the historical context is preeminent in interpreting a biblical text. Synchronic reading treats the Bible as a complete and unified whole. Context, therefore, becomes the key to biblical interpretation. A diachronic reading of Scripture reads the Second Testament in light of the First. A synchronic reading looks at the First in light of the Second. The diachronic reading regards the First Testament as a pre-Christian book that prepares the way for the coming of the Anointed One. The synchronic reading treats the First Testament as a Christian book that prefigures Christ. We believe that the diachronic and the synchronic approach to the Bible must be taken together.
46. Dodd, According to the Scriptures, 130. Dodd adds, “It would not be true of any literature which deserves to be called great, that its meaning is restricted to that which was explicitly in the mind of the author when he wrote. On the contrary, it is a part of what constitutes the quality of greatness in literature that it perpetuates itself by unfolding ever new richness of unsuspected meaning as time goes on. The ultimate significance of prophecy is not only what it meant for its author, but what it came to mean for those who stood within the tradition which he founded or promoted, and who lived under the impact of the truth declared” (131–32). Some modern scholars are still stuck in ’70s and ’80s “neoevangelicalism.” The neoevangelical school did a valuable service in helping us see the benefits that historical study could bring to our understanding of Scripture. But it missed the heart of the Bible by limiting one’s understanding to modern historical methodology. Medieval allegorization failed becau
se of its tendency to dehistoricize the biblical text. But neoevangelicalism also failed because of its tendency to detextualize the history behind the text. Neoevangelicalism argued that the only meaning of the text is what was in the brain of the writer at the time that he wrote it. Neoevangelicals put the primacy on history as being the “real stuff ” and the canonical text as simply being a witness to it. In his book Truth and Method (New York: Seabury, 1975), Hans Georg-Gadamer looks at the question of hermeneutics and argues for the necessity of bringing together two horizons to accurately interpret a text. Gadamer’s thesis is that we cannot understand texts by the methods of natural science alone. They require a different sort of approach. The author of a given text was operating in his own historical horizon (of the past). We, the readers, are operating within our own historical horizon (the present). In order to understand a text, the past historical horizon of the text must be brought together with the present historical horizon of the reader. The act of interpretation is the act of bringing those two horizons together. Allegorization failed to take into account the past horizon of the original writers and readers. But neoevangelicalism also failed because it didn’t connect the past historical horizon together with the message of the entire biblical canon and the historical horizon of present readers.
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