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Exegesis and hermeneutics

Exegesis and Hermeneutics

Introduction

How should one read the Bible so as to dis-cover its theology? Because the task of biblical theology is to describe the theology of the Bible, it is vital for the biblical theologianto distinguish the theology of the text fromthe theology of this or that ecclesial reading,the message of the text from the tradition of its interpretation. Whether or not it is possi-ble to recover the original meaning of a texton its own terms is the abiding question of hermeneutics. Questions about textual mean-ing and interpretation therefore lie at the cen-tre of debates concerning the nature andmethod of biblical theology. To attempt bibli-cal theology apart fromreflection onhermeneutics and exegesis — the theory andpractice of interpretation, respectively — is torisk a potentially idolatrous identification of

one's own doctrine with that of the text.Biblical theology and hermeneutics

achieved the status of independent academicdisciplines at roughly the same time, in the18th century. Yet the connection between thetwo disciplines is much more than an accidentof history. For biblical interpretation withoutbiblical theology is (theologically speaking)empty; and biblical theology without biblicalinterpretation is (hermeneutically speaking)naive. It is thus no exaggeration to say thatthe fate of biblical theology at the turn of thenew millennium is inseparably related to de-velopments in hermeneutics, and to the fate of textual meaning in particular.

The viability of biblical theology as a disci-

pline depends on the ability to interpret thebiblical texts 'on their own terms'. It was thisthat set biblical theology apart from dogmatictheology insofar as the latter began fromchurch confessions rather than the biblicalcanon. It remains to be seen, however, howthe interpretation of the biblical theologiandiffers from that of the exegete and the sys-tematic theologian. Hermeneutics bothcomplicates and contributes to the project of biblical theology. The complication arisesbecause of the historical distance that sepa-rates the text from readers today. How caninterpreters know that they are recovering the

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original message rather than imposing theirown ideas and agenda on the text? Yet her-meneutics also contributes to the project of biblical theology by showing more clearlyhow texts, thanks in large part to their liter-ary forms, nevertheless communicate acrossdistances in complex and often subtle ways.

The task of biblical hermeneutics, andhence of biblical theology, is to understandthe biblical witness on its own terms. Despitethe postmodern suspicion of all claims to cor-rect interpretation, a number of recentdevelopments in hermeneutics show how bib-lical theology might fulfil its role as a crucialmediating discipline between biblical studiesand systematic theology.

Biblical theology and interpretation:meaning and method

If biblical theology is a form of biblical inter-

pretation, how does it differ from otherinterpretative approaches? Specifically, doesthe interpretative method of the biblicaltheologian have more in common with that of the biblical scholar or that of the systematictheologian? Should the biblical theologianattend more to the original sense of particularpassages, to the larger emerging patterns that

cut across individual books, or to the Bible'soverall message? On the one hand, the booksof the Bible are historical documents; on theother hand, they are also the church's Scrip-ture.

To be sure, the very name 'biblical theol-ogy' suggests the possibility (and actuality) of theologies that are not biblical, and of studies

of the Bible that are less than theological.Where, then, does the biblical theologianstand with regard to the 'ugly ditch' thatseparates the work of the academic exegetefrom that of the confessing theologian? Thechallenge, and the hope, in thinking abouthermeneutics and biblical theology together isto find a way of reading the Bible that willneither distort Scripture by reading it merelyto confirm one's dogmatic theology, nor drainScripture of theological significance by read-ing it in a historical-critical manner only. Atits best, biblical theology bridges the yawninggap (an open wound, actually) between a

theologically impoverished historical criticismof the Bible on the one hand, and an ecclesi-ally motivated reading of the Christian Scrip-ture on the other.

Why biblical theology is a hermeneuticaldiscipline: meaning and interpretation

The task of biblical theology, as traditionallyunderstood and as defined in this volume, isto present the theology of the Bible — the parts

and the whole — in a manner that lets thetexts, in all their peculiarity and particularity,set the agenda. In short, biblical theology isthe attempt to provide a holistic yet historicalaccount of the biblical testimony to the Godof Israel and Jesus Christ. But what exactly isinvolved in this attempt? How does one setabout presenting the theology of the Bible?Does it matter, for instance, whether one is ahistorian or a believer oneself? To paraphraseBultmann's question to the exegete: is biblicaltheology without presuppositions possible?

J. P. Gabler

`Christian theology through the Middle Ages

did not try to think the thoughts of the bibli-cal writers as distinct from their own' ( H.

Boers, What is NT Theology? [Philadelphia,1979], p. 16). By and large, medieval Chris-tians did not take note of the cultural-

historical distance separating the Bible fromtheir lived faith. The Reformers' recognitionthat text and Christian tradition could comeapart implied a distinction between thethought of the biblical authors and the

thought of later theologians. In modern bibli-cal studies, this conceptual distinction gaverise to a problem that has dominated thescholarly agenda, namely, how to overcomethe cultural and historical distance that sepa-rates present-day readers from the original

situation of the authors.It is Gabler's 1787 lecture on the distinc-

tion between biblical and dogmatic theology,however, that is usually credited with theseparation of the theological disciplines, andhence with the birth of biblical theologyproper. Gabler sought to 'free' biblical studyfrom the chains of church tradition and espe-cially fromthe categories of dogmatic

theology. He saw the goal of biblical theologyas historical and descriptive, distinct from thedidactic and normative goal of dogmatic the-ology. He thus called for an inductive

approach that would yield a historically accu-

rate description of the religious thought-world of the biblical authors. At the sametime, he wished to make biblical theology thefoundation of dogmatics by uncovering theunchanging, divine concepts in the Bible.Hence he distinguished the objective descrip-tion of its historical data (`true' biblicaltheology) from the attempt to sift out whatwas of permanent value for dogmatics (`pure'biblical theology).

Anthony Thiselton has recently called at-tention to an interesting parallel betweenbiblical theology and hermeneutics at thispoint. Just as Gabler resists the captivity of exegesis to the categories of dogmatic theo-logy, so H.-G. Gadamer resists the captivityof understanding to a single scientific method.Gadamer argues that human life invites un-derstanding on its own terms, 'not in terms of some prior method predetermined in advanceof engaging with the material' (A, Thiselton,in The Modern Theologians, p. 533). In otherwords, Gadamer gives properly hermeneuticalrather than theological grounds for insistingon the primacy of the text.

Krister Stendahl

Some two hundred years after Gabler, KristerStendahl reinforced the distinction betweenbiblical and systematic theology with thehermeneutical distinction between 'what itmeant' and 'what it means' (K. Stendahl, in

IDB 1, pp. 418-432). It is the role of biblicaltheology, he argued, to describe 'what itmeant' to the original author and to theoriginal audience. The task of systematic the-ology is to say 'what it means' in a languageand conceptuality intelligible to people livingtoday. This division of interpretative labourrepresents a methodological schism in theol-ogy and hermeneutics alike. In theology, the

net effect of this division of labour is to sug-gest that exegesis is somehow 'neutral' and`objective' whereas dogmatics is 'biased' and`subjective'.

Stendahl appears to have translated Kant'sdistinction between public fact and privatevalues into the practice of biblical interpret-ation, with fateful results. The impact onhermeneutics is no less damaging. Once onedistinguishes 'past facts' from 'present values',how may one then relate them? Stendahl'sdistinction between 'what it meant' and 'whatit means' opens up a rift in biblical interpreta-tion and hermeneutics alike, for it is not at all

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Vanhoozer, Kevin J. "Exegesis and Hermeneutics." In NEW DICTIONARY OF

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY, edited by T. Desmond Alexander and BVrian S. Rosner,

52-64. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2000.



general problem of human understanding, aproblem that includes the historicity of thereader as well as the historicity of the text.

Theories of textual interpretation now dealnot only with questions of method (e.g. how to do exegesis) but also with questions aboutthe interpreter. Hermeneutic philosopherssuch as Gadamer and P. Ricoeur, for instance,deny the objectivity and neutrality of histori-cal description, preferring rather to speak of a`fusion of two horizons' (text and reader).

Two hundred years on, the fates of biblicaltheology and hermeneutics remain inter-twined.

It was Bultmann himself who suggestedthat exegesis without presuppositions is im-possible. Every reader of the Bible makescertain assumptions (presuppositions) about

what is being said and about the right way of questioning the material so as to get under-standing. For Bultmann, the true subject matter of the Bible concerns human exis tence,both sinful and faithful. He therefore read thetext expecting to find existential truths. In-deed, his Theology of the New Testament is

essentially an existential interpretation of the writings of John and Paul. For Bultmann,then, biblical theology is a matter of inter-preting the Bible with categories drawnlargely from outside the biblical text (e.g. ex-istence, temporality, inauthenticity).

Karl Barth agrees with Bultmann that apurely 'historical' exegesis, unaffected by pre-suppositions, is a will o' the wisp. Yet hecriticizes Bultmann, along with other histor-ical critics, for not being critical enough, inthat their historical reconstructions and exis-tentialist applications ultimately fall short of engaging the real subject matter of the text.Understanding the book of Romans involvesmore than a disinterested knowledge of its

language and composition; it involves a per-sonal response to the, object of the text's

witness, the word of God. Barth here echoesthe concern of Adolf Schlatter, for whombiblical interpretation is historically inad-equate if it fails to recognize the personal ad-dress of God. ContraGabler, one does notfirst do one's historical homework and only then begin to do theology. On the contrary,one's exegesis is already affected by one'sdogmatic beliefs. The relationship betweenexegesis and theology is more a dialogicalconversation than it isa linear or unidirec-tional process. Hermeneutics, in calling atten-

tion to the assumptions readers bring to thetext, reminds us that theology is involved inthe task of exegesis from the outset.

So-called postmodern thinkers (i.e. those who no longer trust reason's power to give usuniversal truths or a universal point of view)have intensified these doubts about the possi-bility of objective description, so much so thatmany deny the validity of historical criticism

altogether. For postmoderns, the way onereads, and the meaning one finds, is thoughtmore to reflect the reader's interests, aims andcontext than those of the author. Some femi-nist biblical scholars, for instance, use women's experience or the norm of equality for women as a criterion for evaluating thebiblical text. They expose and decry the pa-triarchal ideology that lies behind many of theexplicit laws and unspoken assumptions inScripture. Do such exegetes hear the voice,and theology, of the text, or do they hear only their own voices, their own ideologies? Mod-ernity's so-called hermeneutics of suspicion(i.e. the critical questioning of traditional in-terpretations) has now hardened into the

postmodern suspicion of hermeneutics itself.Henceforth, all attempts to interpret — to say `what it meant' — are seen as wilful imposi-tions, on the text and on other readers.Postmodern exegesis has become a thor-oughly pluralistic and political affair whereno one is able to say why one interpretativecommunity's reading should count more thananother's.

What is at stake: the integrity of thetheological disciplines

The postmodern challenge is simply stated:every attempt to describe 'what it meant' is infact only an assertion of what it meansto me,

or worse, what we will it to mean.Stated in

these terms, the real issue comes to light: thequestion of authority and the locus of the

word of God. If all words are historically conditioned, and if all readings are ideologi-cally conditioned, it is difficult, if not impossible, to believe in a word from God.

The postmodern suspicion of hermeneuticsleads inexorably to the suspicion of biblicaltheology. The contemporary crisis in inter-pretation is simply the last stage of the story in which biblical studies and Christian theo-logy have gone their separate ways. The riftthat divides biblical studies from theology willbe bridged only if we develop a theological

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Exegesis and hermeneutics Exegesis and hermeneutics

clear how one can move from description of the past to present or future application. It isone thing to say what the prophet Isaiahthought about God, quite another to say whatpresent-day believers should think about God.

Truth and method in biblical theology:`the descriptive task'

The idea of biblical theology as the task of giving historical descriptions of the biblicaltestimony gives rise to three important ques-tions, all of which have become problematic.First, just what are we describing? What is theproper context within which to locate themeaning of the biblical text? Secondly, how do we get from historical descriptions of `what it meant' — exegesis — to theologicalprescriptions of 'what it means'? And thirdly,is objective historical description really pos-sible? Does not the interpreter always get inthe way?

What are we describing?

It is not enough to define biblical theology interms of ascertaining 'what it meant', for two

reasons. In the first place, one must first specify the meaning of meaning, which is nosmall part of the task of hermeneutics. Just asimportantly, one must also specify just what`it' is. Is 'it' a word, a sentence, an event, atext, a group of texts, an entire Testament, orthe whole canon? What exactly does biblicaltheology describe? The present article willfirst review various 20th-century options andthen put forward an integrative model.

Can we move from historical descriptions of religion to norms for faith? Can interpreters combine a descriptive-histor-ical reading of the Bible with one that is pre-scriptive-theological? Solutions as to how to

reconcile the descriptive and prescriptive havebeen in short supply. To a great extent, schol-ars in the academy have read the Bible in one

way, while church members have read it inanother. It has been far from apparent

whether, and how, 'what it meant' to Moses,or Ezekiel, or even John and Paul should beconsidered authoritative for Christians today.

While historians may be content with de-scribing human religious experience, believerscome to Scripture with the aim of knowing God. Indeed, the main tension in modernbiblical studies results from a clash of twointerpretative frameworks, the historian's and

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the believer's. The ultimate goal of biblicaltheology, of course, is not to impose an alienframework onto Scripture but rather to let theBible's own theological framework come tolight.

Some biblical critics seek to locate author-ity in the historically-reconstructed religiousexperience that comes to expression in thetext. This approach gives rise to two prob-lems, however. First, it locates authority behind the text, that is, elsewhere than in thetext. Secondly, it does not explain why thereligious experiences and beliefs of an ancientpeople should be considered binding for con-temporary people. True, the Bible is full of fascinating grist for the historian's or culturalanthropologist's mill, but how are believerslooking for the word of God to separate the

wheat from the chaff?Modern biblical scholars have thus sought

a hermeneutical alchemy that would some-how change the dross of historically con-ditioned religion to the gold of pure theology.R. Bultmann's 'demythologizing', for in-stance, was a hermeneutical process that

restated and repackaged the kerygma in termsof existentialist philosophy, abstracting time-less truths of human existence from the`primitive' stories that make up much of theNT. Such alchemy has more hermeneuticalmagic than science about it, however, andBultmann's demythologizing sometimes ap-pears as arbitrary as early Christian- alle-gorizing (yet another attempt to extract auniversally relevant 'what it means' froma historically conditioned particular 'what itmeant').

Is biblical theology without presupposi-tions possible?

Since the Enlightenment, biblical exegesis has

largely operated on the assumption that aneutral and objective description of 'what itmeant' is both desirable and possible, at leastin the academy. Upon closer inspection, thisassumption is tied up with epistemologicalfoundationalism and with the concomitantnotion that the result of exegesis is objectiveknowledge. Any capable biblical scholar, incontemplating the historical evidence, shouldin principle reach the same conclusion. Withthe advent of modern hermeneutics, however,these unstated epistemological assumptionshave now been challenged, if not wholly over-turned. Today, hermeneutics deals with the




hermeneutic — a theory of interpretation in-formed by Christian doctrine — and if wesimultaneously recover the distinctive contri-bution of biblical theology to the project of biblical interpretation.

It is helpful to see the various theologicaldisciplines in relation to their common inter-pretative task. 'Biblical theology' is the nameof an interpretative approach to the Bible

which assumes that the word of God is textu-ally mediated through the diverse literary, andhistorically-conditioned, words of humanbeings. It is therefore an intrinsically herme-neutical endeavour, having to do with theinterpretation of the variety of biblical wit-nesses that communicate the word of God. If theology is indeed largely a matter of biblicalinterpretation, what is the place of biblicaltheology among the theological disciplines?

Just where do we situate biblical theology onthe hermeneutical arch' from explanation tounderstanding? How can we move beyondthe sterile dichotomy between historical exe-gesis and theological interpretation?

One way forward is to introduce the no-

tion of different kinds and levels of textualdescription. There is an important via media between the critical fragmentation of the Bi-ble into a hodgepodge of cultural andtheological diversity on the one hand, and asimplistic systematization of the Bible into asingle conceptual scheme on the other. It isimportant not to say that only some readersshould read the Bible with a theological inter-est. To say this would be to make biblicaltheologians simply one more interpretativeinterest group. Biblical theology must be morethan 'theologically motivated interpretation'.It would be to make a stronger claim to arguethat any description that fell short of de-scribing a text's theology remains incomplete.

To state the claim more positively, biblicaltheology corresponds to the interests of thetexts themselves (W. Jeanrond, Text and In- terpretation).

New developments in hermeneutics (e.g.communicative action, genre criticism, narra-tive studies) have prepared the way for the`second coming' of biblical theology in the21st century by enabling us to attend to alevel of textual meaning of which traditionalhistorical-criticism was largely ignorant: theliterary. Biblical theology, reinvigorated by anew appreciation of what it is to interprettexts, provides the missing link that permits

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the theological lion to lie down with the exe-getical lamb. The promise of biblical theologylies in its ability to reconcile the systematic`one' with the exegetical 'many'.

Levels of biblical theological description

Though biblical theologians have been ada-mant in distinguishing their own work fromthe more external interpretations of dogmaticand systematic theology, many believe that adescription of biblical faith should also benormative for the faith community today. As

we have seen, however, their difficulty lies inexplaining how to proceed smoothly from adescription of 'what it meant' to 'what it means' for the church today. Yet it is the text,considered at certain higher levels of descrip-tion, which itself provides the decisive clue asto its continuing significance.

Describing biblical words: theology bydictionary

On its most basic level, exegesis consists inexpounding linguistic meaning in its appro-priate historical context. The aim of the exe-

gete is, in the first instance, philological and'historical: the recovery of what words meantin their original context.

If the aim of biblical theology is to derivetheology from the Bible on the Bible's ownterms, what better way to accomplish thistask than to derive theology from the actualterms — that is, words — of the Bible? Surely on this level, one might think, the biblicaltheologian could attain to 'pure description'.

The so-called Biblical Theology Movement,popular in North America in the 1940s and1950s, was preoccupied with the notion that

word studies and etymologies gave access tothe distinctive mentality and theology of thebiblical authors. The Hebrew language was

evidence of the peculiarly Hebrew (biblical) way of thinking about God, it was claimed.Members of the Biblical Theology Movementargued, on the basis of word studies, that thebiblical notions of time, history, and divineaction were dynamic and concrete, in contrastto the static and abstract concepts of theGreeks. Members of the Biblical Theology Movement had a tendency to view theology as philology.

James Barr's The Semantics of Biblical Language (London and New York, 1961) is aformidable critique of the linguistic and her-meneutical presuppositions that lay behind

several of the articles in the early volumes of G. Kittel's TDNT, a work that, like the Bibli-cal Theology Movement, looked to words asthe primary locus of the Bible's theology.First, Barr attacks the assumption that wordshave certain root meanings that remain con-stant, even across centuries of use. It is simplynot the case that the 'basic' meaning of aword is present in each individual use of it.Many of the entries in TDNT were also guiltyof what Barr called 'illegitimate totality trans-fer'. This refers to the error of reading allpossible meanings of a particular term into asingle occurrence of the word. While it is truethat some words can have several meanings(e.g. in the phrase 'he's hot', the word 'hot'could refer to his temperature, anger, or ten-nis), it is wrong to think that the manypossibilities are always contained in the oneuse.

Closely related to this first mistake is asecond error: the etymological fallacy. Themeaning of a word cannot be deduced fromits etymology or origin. Instead, the meaning of a word must be determined in the concrete

contextof its use. Barr's work demonstratedthat it is fallacious to move too quickly from word to concept (e.g. from biblical wordsto theological doctrines). The moral is clear;one cannot move from a study of words (e.g.`salvation', 'to save') to biblical theology (e.g. soteriology).

Barr correctly observes that meaning is ex-pressed at the level of a sentence (i.e. in theauthor's particular useof words) rather thanat the level of the sign (i.e. in the individual

words considered apart from the context of their use). The Biblical Theology Movement,

we may conclude, ultimately foundered on amisleading picture of language and an inade-quate theory of meaning. It is one thing to

study the etymology of a word, another tostudy what an author meant when using it ona particular occasion. 'What it meant' has lessto do with the origins or history of a wordthan with the circumstances of its actual use.

The lesson to be drawn from the short-lived Biblical Theology Movement is that, inBarr's words, 'It is the sentence (and of coursethe still larger literary complex ...) which isthe linguistic bearer of the usual theologicalstatement, and not the word (the lexical unit)'(Semantics of Biblical Language, p. 263). Inshort, the smallest unit of linguistic communi-cation is not the isolated word but words as


used in the performance of 'speech acts' (seeK. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in thisText?, pp. 218-229).

Describing biblical events: revelation and historical interpretation

A second possibility is that biblical theology describes either revelatory events or religiousexperiences. Modern biblical critics, having discarded the assumption of supernatural in-spiration, came to see the Bible as a collectionof fallible human documents. The new theo-logical presupposition (not always acknow-ledged) was that knowledge of God is medi-ated through the religious experience to

which the Bible bears witness. As Hans Freibrilliantly demonstrated, the inevitable result

was that theological significance was relo-cated behind the text (see H. Frei, Eclipse of

Biblical Narrative). According to a number of biblical critics,

what we have in the Bible is an interpretationof salvation history from the perspective of the faith community. However, interpret-ations that substitute a description of events

behind the text for a description of what thetexts are actually saying generally teach only religion,not theology. Be that as it may,modern biblical critics are more interested in

what may be found behind the text and inexplaining the processes of the text's compo-sition rather than in describing what lies inthe text and its processes of communication.

The result: critical interpretations that alleg-edly reconstruct 'what actually happened',but only at the cost of losing the perspectivesof the biblical witnesses themselves.

Describing biblical books: literary genresand 'word views'

The Biblical Theology Movement failed in its

attempt to derive theology from words. Simi-larly, modern biblical criticism has failed inits attempt to derive theology from extra-biblical events or experience. In each case, theerror was as much hermeneutical as theologi-cal. To be precise, biblical scholars in thetradition of Stendahl failed to answer two

vital questions: 1. what is the 'it' being de-scribed? 2. what is the meaning of 'meant'?

Any adequate biblical theology must engage with hermeneutics at least long enough toanswer the questions 'What is a text?' and`How do we determine textual meaning?' Forhow one approaches an object of study de-

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literary form of the text was eclipsed in fa-vour of recovering its historical or doctrinalcontent. Such biblical interpretation, Frei ar-gued, fails spectacularly to study the Bible onits own literary terms. By contrast, a herme-neutical approach that attends to the literaryform of the biblical text reverses the 'greatreversal' in biblical hermeneutics, and restoresthe possibility of theological interpretation.The traditional goal of biblical theology maybe best achieved by attending to the diverseliterary genres of the Bible — by describing the`text acts' of Scripture. Every text is a kind of something, a particular kind of communica-tive act, and the genre of the text is often thebest indication of the kind of point the authoris making.

The concept of literary genre is much morethan a device for classifying kinds of texts.Each literary genre represents a way of expe-riencing and representing some aspect of reality. Each genre is a communicative strat-egy that employs language to engage readersand render reality in different ways. Literarygenres are language games, each with its own

set of rules for making sense. For example,the rules for history differ from those forstory, apocalyptic, proverb and myth. Indeed,genres are as much cognitive as communica-tive strategies, that 'map' reality in diverseways. The Bible's theology is textually medi-ated, and together the rainbow of literaryforms comprise the white light of truth. Bibli-cal theology thus concerns not only wordsand concepts, not only narrated acts and wit-

nessed events, but also the 'poetics' — the`systematic working or study of literature assuch' — of Scripture (Meir Sternberg, Poeticsof Biblical Narrative [Bloomington, 1985]).

The urgent task of biblical theology is toundertake a biblical poetics in which the the-

ology of the Bible would be described notprimarily by means of etymology or history,but rather by interpreting the biblical messagein terms of its communicative integrity as aparticular kind of literature (e.g. apocalyptic,narrative, praise chorus, law, letter, etc.). Inthus describing the Bible's 'word views', bibli-cal theology serves as an indispensable toolfor helping readers to indwell the words, andthe worlds, of the Bible. Calvin was right tocall Scripture the 'spectacles of faith', thoughwe need to add that these spectacles are madeup of a plurality of lenses.

Perhaps no single genre illustrates the sig-

nificance of literary formbetter thannarrative. Narrative is a unique cognitive in-strument that is especially good at viewing aheterogeneous collection of people and eventsas evincing a certain wholeness. Indeed, with

narrative we may have to say that the me-dium is the message; there is simply no way toidentify the meaning (or referent) of the nar-rative apart from the narrative form. Readerscan view the history of Israel, or of Jesus, asthe story of divine providence, for example,only thanks to the narrative lenses of certainbiblical books. Narratives communicate waysof seeing and thinking about God's involve-ment with the world that cannot be reducedto a set of concepts.

What precisely would a biblical theologythat attends to the significance of literaryform describe in dealing with the theology of,say, biblical narrative? The particular contri-bution of the narrative genre is that authorswho employ it display worlds. A narrativedisplays a worldview, an interpreted world. Inaddition to relating a series of events, authorstake up an attitude towards it. What the

author communicates is a perspective on theworld displayed in the text. The events dis-played may be accompanied by any numberof evaluative stances (e.g. praise, mockery,condemnation). The point is that narrativenot only informs one about historical events,but also aids in the formation of one's atti-tude towards them. Narratives are powerfulinstruments for shaping the way we see,i magine and think about the world. Withoutthe biblical narratives, for instance, we mightnot be able to see the world in its created andcovenantal ordering. And just as we learnwhat it is to be a virtuous human by readingstories of heroes and villains, so we learnwhat it is to be a genuine follower of Jesus

through the Gospel narratives.The main point here is that the Bible is

made up of a variety of texts that need to bedescribed not only at the linguistic but also atthe literary level. Each of the major genres tobe found in Scripture — narrative, prophecy,apocalyptic, didactic, hymnic — contributes inits own way to the larger project of testifyingto the God of Israel and of Jesus Christ. Therecognition that the diversity of literary formsis essential to the content of the Bible neednot prevent the biblical theologian fromstudying particular theological themes. Ri-coeur, for example, has explored the ways in

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pends in large part on the nature of the objectto be known.

Modern biblical criticism, while professingto study the text scientifically, in fact ap-proached the text with the anti-theologicalpresuppositions of secular reason and hencewith a bias against the unity of the text andan anti-narrative hermeneutic. Perhaps noth-ing is so typical of the historical-criticalmethod than its tendency to fragment the

text. By contrast, the most exciting develop-ments in biblical theology are those that ap-proach the texts with a sense of their literaryintegrity, a sense that stems from a postcriti-cal hermeneutic which is open to beingshaped by Christian perspectives (cf. Van-hoozer, Is There a Meaning?, Part Two).

1.What is a text? A text is an extendedpiece of discourse — something said by some-one to someone else about something — fixedby writing. Literary texts are thus best viewedas communicative actions performed on avariety of levels for the reader's contem-plation. To understand a text, one needs todo more than parse every verb. One needs to

know what an author is doing. For texts haveboth matter (a message, a topic) and energy(the use to which an authors puts his mes-sage).

J. Barr and P. Ricoeur agree; the basic unitof meaning is not the individual sign or wordbut the sentence. For words are ambiguousuntil they are used in concrete instances of discourse. If biblical theology involves de-scription, then it behooves the biblical theolo-gian to use the right categories to describe theways in which authors communicate theirtheologies. Biblical theologians need, first,categories for describing communicative ac-tion, and second, categories for describingdifferent kinds of communicative action.

Properly to interpret biblical discourse re-quires one to develop an awareness of whatauthors are doing in their texts, of what thephilosophers J. L. Austin and John Searle call`speech acts' (J. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essayin the Philosophy of Language [ New York and Cambridge, 1969]). In particular, oneneeds to attend not only to the words them-selves but to what authors are doing withtheir words (the 'illocution'). One needs alsoto appreciate the way in which speech actscan be put together to form more sophisti-cated 'text acts' (e.g. stories, psalms, epistles).The discipline of biblical theology thus in-

volves not only linguistic and historical butalso literary competence. In the words of N.T. Wright: 'If we are to be historians andtheologians, we must also be literary critics'(The New Testament and the People of God,p. 25).

Biblical theology aims to give theologicalinterpretations of the Bible on its own terms.It is precisely this aim that links the fate of biblical theology and that of hermeneutics.Far from being inimical to biblical theology,recent work in hermeneutics may provide theconditions for its contemporary renaissance.What is needed is a biblical theology that at-tends precisely to the level of the text as acomplex communicative act, as a structuredliterary act with a certain kind of wholeness-,The 'it' in Stendahl's 'what it meant', in otherwords, is the text, taken in all its literary in,-tegrity as a complex written communication.

2. Literary genre and the forms of biblicaldiscourse. To focus on the higher, textuallevel of communicative action is to come toappreciate the importance of literary form.Only by attending to a text's literary form or

genre does one learn what kind of thing, orcommunicative act, it is. Note that a numberof exegetical approaches are necessary to ac-complish the task of understanding the text asa whole. What interpreters ultimately seek todetermine, however, is what an author is do-ing in a text: making a promise; giving awarning; stating how things are; expressing apersonal preference; telling a story; or what-ever. It follows that biblical theology shouldnot treat biblical words out of their literarycontext, but rather describe how they areused in the context of the literary whole of which they are part. It also follows that ouronly access to the events to which the Biblebears witness is inand through the literary

form, not apart from it. If the literary form of the Bible is essential to its theological andhistorical content, then biblical theology ig-nores the diverse literary genres of the Bible atits peril.

Hans Frei has argued that the significanceof the Bible's literary forms was lost as mod-ern biblical scholars, in their haste to find thetruth (e.g. 'what actually happened', or atheological proposition) used the text as evi-dence for something else. The Bible graduallycame to be read in the light of extrabiblicalevidence, leading to what Frei terms the 'greatreversal' in biblical hermeneutics, where the



Exegesis and hermeneutics Exegesis and hermeneutics

which the diverse literary forms of Scripturetreat the topic of time, a well-known theme inbiblical theology. The contrast between Greek and Hebrew concepts of time was a mainstayof the Biblical Theology Movement. What ismost striking about Ricoeur's study, however,is that he is less interested in biblical wordsfor time than in how the major biblical genresdepict time (P. Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred [ET, Minneapolis, 1995], pp. 167-180). Eachgenre configures or construes time in a dis-tinctive way: as time immemorial; ashistorical time; as 'ripe' or 'eschatological'time. Attending to the level of genre allows usto pursue longitudinal themes across Scrip-ture, then, with less danger of analyzing themout of (literary) context.

Describing the whole Bible: twoTestaments, one testimony?

The remit of biblical theology — to understandthe theology of the text on its own terms —leads us to attend to the nature of the biblicaltexts as literary wholes. There are other levelsof wholeness, however, that are of great

interest to the biblical theologian: the level of the Testament (i.e. OT theology, NT theo-logy), and beyond that, still higher and all-encompassing, the level of the canon (i.e.biblical theology proper). On this level, theit' of 'what it meant' refers to the Christian

Scriptures taken as a unified whole. Withregard to interpreting the Bible as Scripture,perhaps the most important question withregard to literary context is: one lump ortwo? To be precise, what theological assump-tions legitimate reading the two TestamentsasoneScripture? Reading the Testamentstogether involves taking hermeneutical as wellas theological positions. Most importantly, itmeans deciding that the God who raised Jesus

from the dead is the same God who broughtIsrael out of Egypt. To read the Bible typo-logically or intertextually is to let Christiantheology transform the presuppositions onebrings to the text.

What new problems or possibilities doesthe concept of canon raise for the exegesisand hermeneutics of the Bible? What happenswhen one tries to describe the key themes orthe message of the Bible considered as a uni-fied whole? The problem is quickly stated:diversity. According to Walter Brueggemann,the canon represents a collection of suchwidely diverse ideas that all attempts to

perceive a coherent theological messageresults in interpretative violence and reduc-tionism (Theology of the Old Testament:Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy [ Minneapolis,1997]). On the one hand, linguistic, his-torical, and cultural diversity hardens intowhat appears to be a theological discontinu-ity: old vs. new covenant. Christian hermen-eutics is here stretched to the breaking point;is it really possible to read both Testamentstogether? On the other hand, the hermeneuticprocess bridging two Testaments was alreadythe subject of explicit reflection by theauthors of the NT. The appropriate hermen-eutical question to ask is this: what is the sig-nificance for biblical theology of a theologicalexegesis of Scripture that takes seriously thecanonical context?

1. Brevard Childs's canonical approach.For Childs, canonization refers to the processby which the traditions of Israel and the earlychurch came to be shaped in a way that en-abled them to function authoritatively forfuture generations, much like a regula fidei(rule of faith). What Childs sets out to de-

scribe, then, is the way in which texts havebeen shaped in order to function authori-tatively in the life of the believing community.

In their final form, the Christian Scripturesinclude two Testaments, each of which is tobe read in the light of the other. For Childs, itfollows that the OT must not be described inabstraction from its connection to the NT. Itis precisely this interdependence of OT andNT interpretation that constitutes the uniqueremit of biblical theology according to Childs.To interpret the OT as if it were an autono-mous text is to misinterpret it; at the veryleast, it is to interpret it out of its proper (i.e.canonical) context. In speaking of a canonicalcontext, Childs is referring both to the final

form of each individual biblical book and totheir position in relation to one another. Notethat on Childs's view, 'what it meant' (e.g. theservant songs of Isaiah) shades into 'what itmeans' (e.g. Jesus Christ as servant of theLord), precisely because the final form in itscanonical intention serves as a rule of faith —asScripture — for past, present, and futurechurch members. This is the canonical versionof the hermeneutical circle: read intertextu-ally, the old in light of the new and new inlight of the old. Childs has followed his ownhermeneutical advice in his commentary onthe Exodus (The Book of Exodus, OTL

[Philadelphia and London, 1974, 1979]), inwhich he deals with the 'NT context' of thestory of Moses.

The most frequent criticism of Childs isthat he exaggerates the importance of thefinal form. Some exegetes balk at carrying de-scription to this level. Why, asks the biblicalcritic, should we describe OT words and textsin their canonical rather than their historicalcontext? J. Barr and H. Rdisanen, for in-stance, believe that it is arbitrary to limit thescholar's work to intra-canonical description;they prefer to march around the canonicalwalls, looking for extrabiblical informationand parallels that might shed light on the text.Childs, for his part, is trying to mediate be-tween the critical approach of the academyand the confessional approach of the church.He presents his canonical approach as a her-meneutic common to both saints andscholars. However, he does not provide anadequate argument to support his notion thatthe final form alone is theologically author-itative.

Childs has recently supplemented his liter-

ary argument about the canon's structurewith a more properly theological argumentabout the canon's substance. Childs speaks of the hermeneutical role' of biblical theology,namely, to understand the 'two choirs' of voices within the Christian Bible 'in relationto the divine reality [Jesus Christ] to whichthey point in such diverse ways' (BiblicalTheology of the Old and New Testaments, p.85). Childs is not always clear, however, as towhether reading the Bible for its witnessto Christ is a matter of the literary shape of the text or the interpretative interests of thecommunity. Is 'canon' a fact about the text orabout the interpreting community that looksto it for guidance? Stephen Fowl speaks for

reader-oriented critics today when he suggeststhat we eliminate the concept 'meaning' andinstead admit that we read the Bible with cer-tain aims and interests (Engaging Scripture

[ Oxford, 1998], p. vii). The issue is whetherthe canonical reading is mandated by the textitself or arbitrarily chosen by an interpretativecommunity.

Paul Noble believes that Childs's prefer-ence for the final form of the biblical textmust ultimately be grounded in a doctrine of inspiration. What Childs calls 'canonical bib-lical theology of the Old and NewTestaments' is more properly understood in

terms ofdivine authorship. Childs's claimthat the meaning of the text can only be ar-rived at in the context of the canon as awhole 'is formally equivalent to believing thatthe Bible is so inspired as to be ultimately thework of a single Author' (P. Noble, The Ca-nonical Approach, p. 340). This idea is verysignificant for hermeneutics and biblical the-ology.

2.Thick description: Scripture interpretsScripture. If the 'it' in 'what it meant' refers tothe whole Christian Bible, Old and New Tes-taments, then we cannot claimto have

adequately described the text if we ignore thecanonical level. To interpret isolated passagesof the OT as evidence of the religious or cul-tural history of Israel is to give 'thin'descriptions only. Similarly, the use of NTtexts to reconstruct the historical Jesus yieldsdiluted descriptions only. Childs, along withhis mentor Karl Barth, is absolutely right toinsist on this point.

To read the Bible canonically is to read theBible as a unified communicative act, that is,as the complex, multi-levelled speech act of a

single divine author. It follows that biblicaltheology — not just OT or NT theology butthe theology of the whole Bible — is the at-tempt to read Scripture as the word of God.To read the Bible canonically may be to read

it according to its truest, fullest, divine inten-tion. This is a most important point; thecanonical approach is a matter not of how thechurch reads the Bible but of what the Bibleis. To read the Bible as unified Scripture is not

just one interpretative interest among others,but the interpretative strategy that best corre-sponds to the nature of the text itself, givenits divine inspiration.

It is possible to describe texts, like actions,at various levels of complexity. One can

speak of neural firings, of the movement of anindex finger, of pulling the trigger, of assassi-nating a President — all might be descriptionsof the same act, though they work on differ-ent explanatory levels. However, the firstdescription is 'thin' when compared to thelast. Thin descriptions are the result of usingtoo narrow a context to interpret an intendedaction. A description fails to generate under-standing if something essential is left out of the story. It is one thing to describe the bio-logical mechanism of the tear duct, quiteanother to describe why someone is crying.Similarly, it is not enough to describe biblical

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words, events, or even books taken in isola-tion.

Thin descriptions of the text suffer from apoverty of meaning. While each level yieldshelpful descriptions, we cannot claim to haveunderstood the true meaning of the action —

what an author (human or divine) is doing — until we contemplate it in its final form, as acomplete act. To remain on the level of wordsand concepts, or even of literary genres, doesnot yield a sufficiently 'thick' description of the message of Scripture. Only the final formof the text displays the divine communicativeact in its completeness; hence the final form isthe best evidence for determining what theauthors, human and divine, are ultimately doing.

The canon, as a collection of divinely inspired texts, describes the unified com-municative act of God as it takes up andcoordinates the diverse human commu-nicative acts performed at the comparatively lower levels of sentences and books. Thecanon is a great hall of witnesses in whichdifferent voices all testify to the Lord Jesus

Christ. Over and above the laws andpromises, the warnings and commands, thestories and the songs, is an all-embracing act,that of witnessing to what God was and isdoing in Christ. When described at this higherlevel, the canon mediates the subject matterthat unifies Scripture and emerges from, butcannot be reduced to, the smaller, less com-plex speech acts that comprise both Testa-ments (e.g. telling a story, prophesying,promising, etc.). Thanks to their overarching canonical context, the smaller communicativeacts are caught up and reoriented to the largerpurpose of 'making wise unto salvation'.

What biblical theology should describe isthe multi-levelled, human/divine discourse of

the Bible — the canonical texts as complexcommunicative acts (cf.

C. Bartholomew,Reading Ecclesiastes, esp. ch. 7). When de-scribing 'what it meant/means', it is perhapsbest to think of a series of expanding interpre-tative frameworks. There is first the semanticrange of what words could possibly havemeant in their historical situation, then thehistorical context of what authors could havemeant at a particular point in the history of redemption, then the literary context of whatthe words could have meant as part of a par-ticular kind of literature, and finally what the

words at a certain time in a certain kind of

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text mean today when read as part of a uni-fied canon that, taken as a whole, points toJesus Christ.

In the final analysis, the best way to de-scribe 'what it meant' is to interpret a givenpassage of Scripture in its linguistic-historical,literary, and canonical context. It is notewor-thy that at the highest level, the Bible itself constitutes its own most adequate context.Hence the Reformation principle for biblicalinterpretation applies to biblical theology too;Scripture interprets Scripture.

Biblical theology and theological herme-neutics

One of the most prominent emphases of con-temporary hermeneutics concerns the role of the reader in interpretation. Virtually no onein the field of hermeneutics today believes inthe possibility of value-neutral interpretation.Biblical theology, however, despite its having achieved the status of an independent aca-demic discipline about the same time ashermeneutics, has for most of its history made

pure description of linguistic and historical

data its goal. Can biblical theology survive ina hermeneutical age?

The inevitability of hermeneutics

To raise the question of hermeneutics is toraise the question of who it is that is under-taking the task of interpretation, and why. Tobe sure, communities of interpreters approachthe Bible with diverse ideological interests. Isit possible, however, to approach the text

with the interest of understanding it? This isthe ultimate aim of biblical theology, and of interpretation in general: to receive the texton its own terms, not in terms of somemethod or scheme determined in advance. If one did have such an interest — of under-

standing the biblical text on its own terms — would it be primarilyhistorical rather thantheological? The suggestion of the presentarticle is that having a theological interest, farfrom being arbitrary, is rather required if oneis do justice to the nature of the Bible itself,taken not only as a collection of humanspeech acts but also as a unified divine canonical act.

It is commonplace to be asked to choosebetween rival interpretative interests: 'I be-long to Childs'; 'I belong to Eichrodt'; 'Ibelong to Ladd'. Or again: 'I belong to femi-nism'; 'I belong to liberalism'; 'I belong to

evangelicalism'. Faced with such diversity, thepostmodern reflex is to tolerate them all; toeach exegete his or her own hermeneutics. Inthe face of such interpretative plurality, it isimportant to ensure that one's interpretativeinterest corresponds to the communicativeintent of the t ext. Otherwise interpreters willdescribe not the theology of the text but onlytheir own agendas and ideologies.

The biblical texts themselves have a theo-logical interest, an interest in mediating theknowledge of God. To undertake theologicalexegesis is not a matter of arbitrarily deciding to read theologically rather than historically,but rather of specifying and respecting theappropriate context for 'thick' description. Todo biblical theology is to take a 'multi-level,integrative approach to the text as a complexcommunicative act involving words, events,texts and Testaments.

Hermeneutics is inevitable, not because thebiblical texts are unclear but because the aimsand interests of the interpreter often are.One's readings, even the purported objectivehistorical descriptions, are always governed

by certain assumptions: about the kind of textone is reading, about the extent of its coher-ence or unity, about its relationship to othertexts, about whether it is a human word only or also the word of God. If neither exegesisnor pure historical description without pre-suppositions is possible, then it is importantto approach the biblical text with the rightpreliminary assumptions. It is important todevelop a properly theological hermeneutic.

Biblical theology as theological interpre-tation

Christopher Seitz and Francis Watson, OTand NT theologians respectively, agree thatthe real issue behind the decision to read the

Bible canonically is a theological one. ForSeitz, it is a question concerning how con-fident modern liberal biblical critics are thatthe Scriptures of the OT and NT 'have thepower to witness to divine reality' (C. Seitz,Word without End, p. 108). For Watson, it isa matter of the Christian conviction that thetruth of Jesus Christ is extually mediatedthrough both Testaments, 'according to theScriptures'. No other justification is adequatefor reading the OT and NT together than thetheological conviction that these texts mediatethe truth of the one God.

As we have seen, attempts to offer pure


historical descriptions of the biblical texts infact yield only thin descriptions with respectto theology. If one construes the 'it' of 'whatit meant' too narrowly, one gets no furtherthan non-theological exegesis. To limit bib-lical theology to historical description is toabandon the attempt to read the Bible astheologically normative for the church and toreject the notion of divine inspiration anddivine authorship, and thus to refuse to readthe Bible as the word of God. It is impossibleto read the Hebrew Scriptures as OT withouttaking a stand on the relation between thetwo Testaments, a stand that ultimately fol-lows from one's view of God and JesusChrist: 'Where theological concerns are mar-ginalized, the two Testaments fall apart almost automatically' (Watson, Text and Truth, p. 5). In short, neither exegesis norbiblical theology is possible apart from ex-plicitly theological presuppositions, as-sumptions about the nature and identity of God. The academy has its assumptions too,but they are all too often either a-theologicalor based on radical revisions of Christian or-

thodoxy. Thanks to the postmodern critiquesof objectivism, however, Christians need nolonger fear the rhetoric of the academy whichsays that only its assumptions are rationalones.

As presented here, biblical theology is thatapproach which describes the 'word views'and literary shapes of the Bible, and especially that 'thick' description of the canon as a di-

vine communicative act. Biblical theology is adescription of the biblical texts on levels thatdisplay their theological significance. Ac-cordingly, biblical theology is nothing lessthan a theological hermeneutic: an inter-pretative approach to the Bible informed by Christian doctrine. The biblical theologian

reads for the theological message commu-nicated by the texts taken individually and asa whole collection.

`Biblical theology is a theological, hermen-eutical, and exegetical discipline, and itshermeneutical and exegetical dimensions areplaced at the disposal of its overriding theological concern' (Watson, Text and Truth, p. vii). The theology of the texts ismediated through various kinds and levels of communicative action, all of which need to beacknowledged and described. Theologicalexegesis aims at recovering an intention thatis historical, embodied in literary forms, and

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denied. The last 200 years of biblical interpre-tation have been dominated by claims thatthere are irreconcilable conflicts among theauthors of Scripture, and by theories of thetradition history of both Testaments that con-flict with the data presupposed by the

canonical form of the Scriptures themselves.

A movement of the 1950s and 1960s,sometimes called simply the biblical theologymovement, reacted against these trends andsought to identify 'centres' that unified eitherthe OT or the NT or both. That quest, how-ever, has been largely abandoned. Todayunity in Scripture is perceived for the mostpart only by advocates of canonical criticismand by evangelicals who continue to believethat Scripture does not contradict itself as atheological corollary of their acceptance of itsinspiration. D. N. Freedman (The Unity of the Hebrew Bible), J. Hultgren (The Rise of

Normativ e Christianity ) and J. Reumann (V a-riety and Unity in New Testament Thought)are among the most important recent excep-tions from other theological traditions.

Of the many issues that could be profitably

explored, we will focus on three: 1. the questfor a centre in each Testament and in the Bi-

ble as a whole; 2. a model for the unfoldingunity of the biblical narrative; and 3. thequestion of how to respond to the diversity(especially the apparent contradictions of Scripture), including the issue of 'develop-ment'.

Centres in Scripture

The OT

Many different proposals have emerged for aunifying centre of the OT. Various scholarsattempt to trace the predominance of a singletheme, for example, covenant, promise, the

mighty acts of God, communion, the life of God's people, dominion, justice or righteous-ness. Others identify pairs of themes, for ex-ample, lawand promise, election andobligation, creation and covenant, the rule of God and communion with humankind or sal-vation and blessing. Some pairs of themesinvolve polarities, such as the presence versusthe absence of God or the legitimation of structure versus the embracing of pain. It hasbeen argued that holding together these an-tinomies is a key to finding unity withindiversity. Still other writers point simply toYahweh, or God, as the sole unifying element

within the older Testament.Certain scholars find unity in a complex of

multiple themes. Hasel concludes, 'A seem-ingly successful way to come to grips with thequestion of unity is to take the various majorlongitudinal themes and concepts and expli-cate where and how the variegated theologiesare intrinsically related to each other' ( NewTestament Theology, pp. 218-219). One of the most ambitious and compelling proposalsfor finding a unifying structure comes from E.A. Martens (God's Design: A Focus on Old Testament Theology [ N. Richland Hills,31998]), who perceives a fourfold design of God in Exodus 5:22 – 6:8 which recurs inevery major section of the OT: to bring deliv-erance; to summon a peculiar people; to offerhimself for his people; to know and give themland.

The NT

Again, single themes have been suggested as acentre for the NT: kingdom, gospel, right-eousness, justification, reconciliation, faith,new creation, salvation or salvation history,

eschatology, Israel or the new Israel, the crossand/or the resurrection, the love of God, exis-tential anthropology and covenant. Perhapsmost common of all, Jesus (or Christologymore generally) has been identified as a cen-tre.

Again, various combinations of themeshave also been proposed. C. H. Dodd (The

Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments)turned to the speeches in Acts and the pre-Pauline creeds to find elements of an earlykerygmatic summary of foundational doc-trine. A. M. Hunter (Introducing New Tes-tament Theology [London, 1957], p. 66)suggested that a reporter's digest of an earlyChristian sermon might have read like this:

`The prophecies are fulfilled, and the NewAge has dawned. The Messiah, born of David's seed, has appeared. He is Jesus of Nazareth, God's Servant, who went aboutdoing good and healing by God's power, wascrucified according to God's purpose, wasraised from the dead on the third day, is nowexalted to God's right hand, and will comeagain in glory for judgment. Therefore let allrepent and believe and be baptized for theforgiveness of sins and the gift of the HolySpirit.'

D. Wenham (`Appendix', pp. 12-13) sug-gests a multiplex centre involving the context

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The unity and diversity of Scripture The unity and diversity of Scripture

which ultimately aims (i.e. at the canonicallevel) at testifying to Jesus Christ.

Rather than take a stand with either theexegete or the systematician exclusively, then,the biblical theologian seeks instead to fosteran interdisciplinary approach to biblical inter-pretation which aims at textually mediatedtheological truth. Biblical theology is nothingless than a theological hermeneutic, a regulalegei (a rule of reading). As such, biblical the-ology is not merely a matter of repackagingthe conceptual content of the Scriptures, but away of having one's heart, mind, and imagin-ation alike schooled in the ways of seeing andexperiencing the world according to the manyliterary forms and the one canon, whichtogether constitute the word of God written.

See also:BIBLICAL THEOLOGY; UNITY AND

DIVERSITY OF SCRIPTURE; RELATIONSHIP OF

OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW TESTAMENT.

Bibliography

J. Barr, 'Biblical Theology', IDBSup, pp.104-111; C. Bartholomew, Reading Ecclesi-

astes:

OT

Exegesis and HermeneuticalTheory ( Rome, 1998); B. Childs, BiblicalTheology of the Old and New Testaments(London, 1992);H.Frei,The Eclipse of

Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Hermeneutics ( NewHaven, 1974); W. Jeanrond,Text and Interpretation as Categories of TheologicalThinking ( New York, 1988); A. LaCocque

Introduction

Throughout most of the history of the church,the unity of "Scripture has been assumed andits diversity taken less seriously. Apparentcontradictions or tensions between one partof Scripture and another have been harmon-ized. Typology has been seen as a key to un-derstanding the NT use of the OT. Difficult

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and P.Ricoeur, Thinking Biblically: Exegeti-cal and Hermeneutical Studies (Chicago,

1998); R. Lints, The Fabric of Theology: AProlegomenon to Evangelical Theology( Grand Rapids, 1993); R. Lundin, C.Walhout and A. C. Thiselton, The Promise of Hermeneutics ( Grand Rapids, 1999); R.

Morgan with J. Barton, Biblical Inter- pretation ( Oxford, 1988); P. Noble,TheCanonical Approach: A Critical Reconstruc-tion of the Hermeneutics of Brevard S. Childs(Leiden, 1995); C. Seitz, Word without End:The OT as Abiding Theological Witness( Grand Rapids, 1998); K. Stendahl, 'Biblicaltheology, contemporary', IDB 1, pp. 418-

432; A. Thiselton, 'Biblical theology andhermeneutics', in D. Ford (ed.), The ModernTheologians ( Oxford and Cambridge, MA,21997), pp. 520-537; W. VanGemeren (ed.),AGuide to OTTheology and Exegesis( Grand Rapids, 1999); K. Vanhoozer, 'Fromcanon to concept: the "same", the "other"and the relation between biblical andsystematic theology', SBET 12, 1994, pp. 96-124; idem, Is There a Meaning in this Text?

The Bible, the Reader and the Morality of Literary Knowledge ( Grand Rapids andLeicester, 1998); F. Watson, Text and Truth:

Redef ining Biblical Theology (Edinburgh,1997); N. T. Wright, The NT and the Peopleof God (London, 1992).

K. J. VANHOOZER

passages have been allegorized, and the prin-ciple of the regula fidei (`the rule of faith') hasled to clearer texts being used to interpretmore opaque ones. Since the Enlightenment,however, much of this has changed. A salu-tary emphasis on biblical theology – hearingthe message of each book and each author inits own terms – has developed, but in conse-quence the unity of the Bible has often been

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