Per Caritatem

Dr. Bruce McCormack,  Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, has written an essay focused on the Christology of the recent Historical Theological Field Committee Report issued by Westminster seminary.  Here is a excerpt to pique your interest:  (The full essay is found here).

The issue for the writers of the Historical and Theological Field Committee Report [hereafter HTFC] does not seem to lie in the use of a Christological analogy for assessing the relation of divine and human “causality” in the production of Holy Scripture; the writers are quite willing to argue for their own version of the analogy in question.  The real issue is: which Christology counts as “orthodox” for Reformed Christians?  The presumption throughout is that a simple and straightforward equation can be made between the Chalcedonian Formula and Reformed Christology.  But can it?  I will state my conclusion at the outset and then seek to explain how I arrived at it.  My conclusion is that the Christology of the writers of HTFC is certainly “orthodox” in the ecumenical sense of the word, but – ironically, given the current situation at WTS – it is not Reformed.

For Reformed Christians, it is not simply Chalcedon which defines “orthodoxy” within the realm of Christological reflection; it is Chalcedon as interpreted by the Reformed Confessions.  Or, in the case of denominations like the OPC and PCA, it is Chalcedon as interpreted by the Westminster standards.  Westminster’s Christology stands, however, at the end of a long history of confessional reflection on the person of Jesus Christ and cannot be rightly understood without careful attention to that history.

Dr. Joel Garver offers a helpful analysis and commentary on the recently released WTS documents in relation to the suspension of Dr. Peter Enns.   If you are following this situation, Joel’s post is worth reading, as are the WTS documents.

Historic Christianity, in line with the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, rejects both Nestorianism, which includes the idea that with the God-Man we have two persons, one of divine nature and one of human nature, and Eutychianism, viz., the idea that the divine nature absorbs the human nature in the Incarnation.  Thomas Aquinas, e.g., following Chalcedon, emphasizes a theandric acting of Christ, a God-Man acting.  Chalcedon is clear that the Incarnation involves not one nature, nor two persons in two natures, but one hypostasis, one Person, the Person of the Word, subsisting in two natures, divine and human.  I see no reason why the use of the Incarnational analogy as a way to understand the nature of Scripture has to be incompatible with Chalcedonian teaching.  In fact, it seems to me that such an analogy is an extremely helpful way to assist us in developing a doctrine of Scripture that steers clear of these ancient heresies.  For example, a strict dictation theory would be a kind of Eutychianism applied to Scripture (see Dr. Joel Garver’s comments regarding the ways that the incarnational analogy speaks to possible dictational elements of Scripture), whereas what we see in certain expressions of liberal theology is an exaltation of the human side of Scripture that more or less cancels out the divinity of Scripture. 

Why some Reformed thinkers are in such an uproar about the incarnational analogy applied to Scripture still baffles me.  Theologians within the Reformed tradition itself refer to ideas along these lines.  I recall reading an article by B.B. Warfield (”The Divine and the Human in the Bible”) in my student days at Westminster.  In the article Warfield says,  ”[o]f every word in the Bible it is asserted that it has been conceived in a human mind and written by a human hand” and “of every word in the Bible it is asserted that it is inspired by God and has been written under the direct and immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit.” (p. 57).  Again, I see no reason why the authoritative claim of the word of God in light of its divinity has to be diminished by our acknowledgement that it is simultaneously the word of human beings given in human language, by human beings, and as Dei Verbum says, “in human fashion” (III.12).   The broader Catholic tradition has no problem with this kind of approach as an aid or model for our understanding the nature of Scripture.  Again, in Dei Verbum, we read,

The fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression. Hence the exegete must look for that meaning which the sacred writers, in given situations and granted the circumstances of their time and culture, intended to express and did in fact express through the medium of a contemporary literary form [Cf. St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, III, 18, 26].  Rightly to understand what the sacred authors wanted to affirm in their work, due attention must be paid both to the customary and characteristic patterns of perception, speech and narrative which prevailed in their time, and to the conventions which people then observed in their dealings with one another (DV, III.12, italics added).[1] 

The document then states that Scripture must also   be read and interpreted with its divine authorship in mind” and that equal attention must be given to the unity of Scripture as a whole, which involves of course a Christocentric understanding of all of Scripture, and “taking into account the tradition of the entire church and the analogy of faith” (DV, III.12). 

This, I take it, is not some version of Scriptural Nestorianism where we have two persons and two natures with no metaphysical or logical priority given to the divine, but rather is very similar to the trajectory of Enns’ work (perhaps minus a specifically Roman Catholic understanding of the two things mentioned in the final quote).  Yet, given Enns area of expertise, he wants to apply the analogy to the various issues and objections leveled at Scripture that he has encountered in his particular context of Old Testament studies.  At least one of the goals that Enns’ has in mind with the incarnational analogy is to, on the one hand, (1) avoid an inappropriate elevation of the human features of Scripture (as is often the case in extreme liberal theology), as well as to (2) resist so emphasizing the divinity of Scripture that we lose sight of the fact that the Bible was (a) written in an historical context and (b) communicated in various (human) languages, with the divine Author being quite cognizant of speaking into the cultural and socio-political practices of the day (and yet not limited to these cultural boundaries).  With regard to (2), Enns utilizes the incarnational analogy as a way to faith-fully understand the similarities between, e.g., Israel’s religious practices and those of the Ancient Near East.  That is, rather than simply denying these similarities or being threatened or embarrassed by them, we can appeal to the incarnational analogy of Scripture as affirming the degree to which God condescends to reveal himself via the cultural thought patterns and with a view to the religious and political practices of the day.  Yet, Enns is also quick to point out the differences between Ancient Near Eastern practices and views and those found in Scripture.  For example, God’s people in the Old Testament were announcing YHWH as the God and proclaiming all other putative “gods” to be false, mute, dead idols.  As a Christian philosopher, I see this as something akin to what I do in my study of various philosophers in the Western tradition.  That is, as I study Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Gadamer and others, I encounter numerous similarities and continuities with Christianity.  However, with St. Augustine, what I do not find in the (non-Christian) thinkers of the Western tradition is a God-made-flesh sacrificed for me. 

In closing, while I readily acknowledge that one’s application and explication of the analogy can always be refined and improved, I still see no reason why the incarnational analogy as a way to understand the nature of Scripture is unorthodox.  If the problem is with the particular way that Enns’ has formulated it or perhaps with the way that he applies it, then why not discuss those particulars and attempt to make adjustments.  Unfortunately, so many of Enn’s detractors fail to interact with Enns’ writings in a way that demonstrates that they have actually given the book a thorough read and are competent to summarize his claims such that Enns would say, “Yes, that is an accurate version of my position” (e.g., see the following reviews, here, and here, and Enns’ responses, here and here).  If Enns’ use or formation of the incarnational analogy is so heterodox that he, as a tenured professor, should be suspended or even dismissed, then it would seem only fair (not to mention charitable) to (1) at least present Enns and the rest of the faculty with a clear explication of Enns’ position, which Enns’ would recognize as his own, and (2) to give an equally clear and detailed analysis of that which is considered heterodox in Enns’ work.  From what I understand of the situation, neither of these has occurred. 

The one substantive objection that has somewhat frequently surfaced is that Enns’ analogy denies the supremacy of the divine nature of Christ in the Incarnation. Let’s call this the “SOSF” (i.e., the Standard Objection So Far). Even if the divine nature has a supremacy (which is, it seems true, provided we are careful about what we mean by that), that is irrelevant to Enns’ point – all it takes for his point to follow is that there is a human element present in Scripture and capable of influencing the form in which Scripture expresses itself. So far as I understand it, Enns’ position is not contingent upon assigning that human element any particular priority relative to the divine nature. If this is the case, then the SOSF is a kind of detractor that doesn’t really touch the issues that Enns is trying to address in his book and use of the analogy.

As a former student of WTS and one who benefited from Prof. Enns’ instruction, I am saddened by the current situation, and our family has asked that our names be removed from alumni mailing lists.  As I watch this drama enfold, I can’t help but to ask myself, “What happened to the Westminster that considered it part of our calling to engage the broader culture, including the academic culture, (particularly in light of the fact that we have so many “in vogue” atheists today churning out books to show the silliness and violence of the Christian tradition)?” 

Notes

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[1] Cf. also, “Hence, in sacred scripture, without prejudice to God’s truth and holiness, the marvelous ‘condescension’ of eternal wisdom is plain to be seen, ‘that we may come to know the ineffable loving-kindness of God and see for ourselves the thought and care he has given to accommodating his language to our nature’ [Cf. St. John Chrysostom, In Gen 3, 8 (homily 17, 1)]. Indeed the words of God, expressed in human language, are in every way like human speech, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the weak flesh of human beings, became like them” (Dei Verbum, III.13). 

Given that we are in process of being confirmed in the Anglican Church and have been out of the narrowly defined Reformed world for a few years now (which by the way does not mean that we have abandoned our Reformed beliefs–just read the 39 Articles, which of course resound with Reformed teaching; the Anglican world just has more room for diversity–and yes, of course, it has its messes too and big ones), I am hesitant to post anything on more Reformed in-house fighting. Nonetheless, because I know Prof. Enns personally and have sat under his teaching and greatly benefitted from his courses, I’ve decided to post a short piece voicing some of my thoughts regarding the recent events at Westminster. In case you haven’t heard, Prof. Peter Enns, a tenured professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, was suspended for supposed heterodox teachings espoused in his book Inspiration and Incarnation. Strangely, Enns’ suspension went through even though a majority of the seminary faculty voted in favor of Enns’ orthodoxy. Apparently, the board has the power to override a faculty vote (there were of course those on the board who gave dissenting votes).

From what I can gather at least one of the concerns centers on Enns’ use of an “incarnational analogy” to speak of the nature of Scripture and whether or not this falls within the bounds of the Westminster Confession of faith. (I imagine that there are also concerns as to whether or not Enns’ engagment with higher criticism is “in bounds”; however, I haven’t heard the details on that).

Enns of course is not the first person in the history of Christianity to employ the incarnational analogy. For example, in Mary Healy’s article, “Biblical Inspiration and the Christological Analogy,” Healy discusses what she calls the “Christological analogy” and its hermeneutical implications in order to move us beyond the “false dichotomy between critical exegesis and Christian faith, so that the biblical text will once again be illumined as a means of access into the mystery of the God who revealed himself in time and space” (p. 193). Healy begins by presenting a basic definition of the doctrine of inspiration, viz., “the conviction that God himself is the primary author of the sacred books” (p. 190). In other words, God himself speaks through the biblical authors. Granting this, we must then take into account both the human and the divine authorship of Scripture. As Healy explains, the Christological analogy-comparing Scripture with the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ-was employed by the Second Vatican Council and has roots in patristic sources (e.g., Chrysostom). The SVC version reads, “For the words of God, expressed in human language, have been made like human discourse, just as of old the Word of the eternal Father, when he took to himself the weak flesh of humanity became like other men.” Here we see the sacramental character of Scripture corresponding to the sacramentality of Christ’s humanity. Moreover, just as Christ was fully human and fully divine, so too we must affirm Scripture as fully human and fully divine-neither elevating one over the other or seeing the two in tension. The human and divine aspects of Scripture form a unity and (contra modern critical practices) given this unity, we cannot presume to discern which passages are “divine” and which are merely “human” (p. 191).

Continuing with the Christological analogy, just as there heretical Christologies, so too are their imbalanced doctrines of Scripture and inspiration. One might, e.g., fall into a kind of “Monophysite” exegesis in which the human dimension of the text is severely downplayed. An extreme version of this would be a “dictation” theory. A second imbalanced approach would move in a direction in which the human aspects are unduly exalted and the divine (if attended to at all) serves as a kind of afterthought. Given our desire to avoid both of these extremes, Healy suggests that we consider a “‘Chalcedonian’ form of exegesis, which does full justice to the human and the divine aspects of Scripture in the integral unity, [...] one which takes seriously the human authorial processes and rigorously investigates the relevant manuscripts, languages, literary genres, historical contexts, cultural settings and so on-but [is] open from the beginning to the interior and vertical dimension. The logical priority of the human dimension is at the service of the teleological priority of the divine: interpretation is for the sake of the knowledge of God in Christ” (p. 192). Clearly, employing the Christological analogy as our hermeneutical key does not mean that we write off completely historical-critical methods. Yet, we do recognize that such “tools” are not neutral and are informed by our own convictions. For example, whether or not we believe that God acts in history will no doubt influence our interpretation. Though we all bring presuppositions to the table and begin with a certain perspective, “[t]he only perspective that is adequate to the realities mediated by Scripture is that which is open to the living God: that is, the perspective of faith. Faith is here understood not merely as assent to confessional doctrines but as a prophetic, that is, divinely bestowed, interpretation of all reality. Its absence-whether real or by artificial abstraction-will close off the most significant dimensions of reality from the perception of the interpreter” (p. 193). To illustrate her point, Healy gives the following excellent analogy taken from Farkasfalvy, “[e]xcluding the experience of faith from the exegetical process … is like subjecting a musical piece to the judgment of a jury whose members must be deaf, so that their aesthetic experience would not interfere with the unbiased objectivity of their judgment” (Farkasfalvy, “In Search of a ‘Post-Critical’ Method of Biblical Interpretation,” p. 303; as cited in Healy, p. 193).

If the current interpretation of the Westminster Confession finds the incarnational analogy heterodox, so much the worse for the Confession. (If there is more to it than this, someone please fill me in).

For more details on Enns’ suspension and his book, see the following blogs/websites:

Sacra doctrina (Dr. Joel Garver)

A review of Inspiration and Incarnation by Susan Wise Bauer

Brandon Withrow

Under the Sun

Christianity Today

*Healy’s article was published in Behind the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation. Edited by Craig Bartholomew, C. Stephen Evans, Mary Healy, and Murray Rae (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), pp. 181-195.

Below is a summary with added comments here and there of a lecture given by Dr. Peter Enns of Westminster Theological seminary on Chronicles and intrabiblical interpretation.

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When we look at the Bible itself, we see evidence of intrabiblical interpretation. The book of Chronicles is an excellent example of intrabiblical interpretation. Though our (Protestant) canonical order follows the LXX, in the Hebrew Bible the book of Chronicles is last. Chronicles is not simply the “extra stuff” that the Samuel/Kings books failed to use, rather it is a theological statement, a theology. In some respects, Chronicles is a theology of the OT, and that is precisely why it is placed last. In fact, Chronicles something different about the same event. When you compare 2 Samuel 7:16 with 1 Chronicles 17:14, the natural question to ask is, “Whose house/kingdom is in view? Is it David’s or God’s?” Harmonization is a common approach used by many evangelicals to “solve” this “problem.” (Here we might ask as to whether the ancients would even see a problem?) Instead of the harmonization approach, Enns suggests that we should look for theological reasons for why these apparent discrepancies are found. To be sure, it is logically possible for one event to be told from various points of view, yet without contradiction. So instead of harmonization, we might consider exploring the ancient way. Chronicles is a post-exillic book, i.e., it is written after the return from exile. Samuel/Kings is a pre-exillic text. The pre-exillic Israelite world had confidence in David’s everlasting reign. In contrast, the post-exillics came back to a land that God had said that they would have forever—a land now with no king, no temple, no sacrifice, no forgiveness etc. So, as you would imagine, one of the first things they did was to rebuild the temple. Being without a temple in the ancient world was something of a crisis and caused God’s people great confusion and dismay. Given the seriousness of the exile for God’s people, it is rather strange that it is often so quickly dismissed. I Chronicles 17 transfers the ultimate fulfillment of 2 Samuel from the earthly transitory realm and locates it in the unchanging heavenly realm. This is an extremely significant theological point, viz. the emphasis is that God is on the throne. The Israelites have come back after the exile and they are asking, “Are we still the people of God? Is the God of the past still the God of the present even though we do not have what we used to have?” The reason why Chronicles is last in the canon is that it is a statement of Israel’s self-identity in view of their circumstances. This is why it begins with a genealogy, and the first name in the genealogy is Adam. Why Adam? The people want to emphasize that their identity goes back to the very beginning—they are God’s people and have always been God’s people.

Chronicles (and the Scriptures in general) also help us to see that God’s revelation progressed through history. The ultimate basis of hope is based in heaven with the kingdom of God, not with the kingdom of man. In Jesus, the two dimensions are fused such that the kingdom has come with Christ. The “spin” that Chronicles puts on the earlier texts is that we now have to understand our past in light of present circumstances. This is why it is inadequate to look at these texts (Samuel and Chronicles) and ask, “Which is right?” (Interestingly, this is the question of both the modern critic and the fundamentalist). Instead, the biblical question is, “Why are these different accounts given to us?” As Enns points out, Chronicles is one of the most Messianic books in the OT. That is, Messianic in that we are looking for a future that will restore the glories of the past—where a king is on the throne, a priesthood is established, Jerusalem is a safe haven, boundaries are extended, there no threats from the outside, and so on,. This is the Messianic hope of the OT. Christ comes and fills that hope and much, much more.Lastly, Chronicles raises the issue of the relationship between text and event. The whole issue of the relationship between text and event brings us into dialogue with modern biblical scholarship. For example, instead of asking, “What did x actually say, or which of the gospels gets it right,” perhaps a better question is “What is this gospel trying to say?” In other words, we want to consider what each corpus of material is attempting to say. Then we can begin to look at the various points of view and see how they relate. Enns closed the lecture by reminding us that we should also ask, “What does this tell us about what God is like?” Given God’s comfort with history and all its vicissitudes, not to mention that the Bible that we have is that one that God has chosen to give us, we must continually strive to have a doctrine of Scripture that Scripture itself can actually support. All to often we instead find ourselves ardently defending a doctrine of Scripture that fits more comfortably with our modern presuppositions and that in the end that forces us into explaining away what Scripture is actually doing.

Below are selected passages (with minimal commentary here and there) from Peter Enns’ article, “Apostolic Hermeneutics and an Evangelical Doctrine of Scripture: Moving beyond a Modernist Impasse.” (The article originally appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of the Westminster Theological Journal).

Personally, I found the article extremely helpful and would recommend it, as well as Enns’ book, Inspiration And Incarnation: Evangelicals And The Problem Of The Old Testament, to those interested in engaging hermeneutical issues from a distinctively Christian point of view. (Because I am citing the passages from an electronic copy of the article, there are no “page numbers” to cite. My copy of the original article as published in the WTJ is packed in a box, as we are preparing to move into our first home this week!) Lastly, if anyone wants an electronic copy of the article in its entirety, email me and I’ll be happy to send it your way.*******
In his article, Enns argues that “the Apostles’ hermeneutical goal (or agenda), the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ, must be also ours by virtue of the fact that we share the same eschatological moment. This is why we must follow them precisely with respect to their Christotelic hermeneutic.” Consequently, if we employ a Christotelic hermeneutic, we cannot simply treat the OT primarily literally (a “first reading”), as this does not lead to a Christotelic reading (a “second reading”).

Rather, “a Christian understanding of the OT should begin with what God revealed to the Apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for OT interpretation. We, too, are living at the end of the story; we are engaged in the second reading by virtue of our eschatological moment, which is now as it was for the Apostles the last days, the inauguration of the eschaton. We bring the death and resurrection of Christ to bear on the OT. Again, this is not a call to flatten out the OT, so that every psalm or proverb speaks directly and explicitly of Jesus. It is, however, to ask oneself, ‘What difference does the death and resurrection of Christ make for how I understand this proverb?’ It is the recognition of our privileged status to be living in the post-resurrection cosmos that must be reflected in our understanding of the OT. Therefore, if what claims to be Christian proclamation of the OT simply remains in the pre-eschatological moment—simply reads the OT ‘on its own terms’—such is not a Christian proclamation in the apostolic sense.”

Enns then asks, “Just how far do we follow the exegetical methods used by the Apostles?” Given that we did not live in the Second Temple period, we cannot follow the Apostles in toto, i.e., we do not have the authority to omit, add or change words as the Apostles often freely did. However, this is not to endorse a strict grammatico-historical approach (GH), because that approach will not yield a Christotelic reading. So is a Christotelic approach just a better “method” than the GH orientation? Here Enns is instructive and asks, “what if ‘method,’ so understood, is not as central a concept as we might think? What if biblical interpretation is not guided so much by method but by an intuitive, Spirit-led engagement of Scripture with the anchor being not what the author intended but by how Christ gives the OT its final coherence?” It is not “method” per se that serves as the impetus of apostolic hermeneutics, rather the arrival of Christ necessitates new exegetical horizons. Thus, speaking in terms of Apostolic exegetical “methods,” is likely to lead us astray.

Enns goes on to say that this is in part why he has been attracted to Biblical Theology (BT) of the Vosian flavor. By BT, Enns has in mind the sense in which Vos used the term, viz., as the “self-revelation of God” as recorded in the Bible. [1]. Further explicating Vos’ notion, Enns writes, “Inherent in Vos’s conception of Biblical Theology are such notions as the progress of redemption culminating in the person and work of Christ in whom Scripture coheres, while also showing a respect for theological diversity as a function of the historical situatedness of revelation. Both of these dimensions of Biblical Theology are central to the thoughts I have outlined here. Such an approach to biblical interpretation is not a “method” that assures a stable exegetical result, but a spiritual exercise wherein a Christian looks at Scripture from the point of view of what she/he knows to be true—Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again—and reads the OT with the expectation that it somehow coheres in that fact. Perhaps Biblical Theology is as much about where one starts as it is about where one finishes. From a more explicitly ‘methodological’ point of view, I have tended to focus on such things as links (both on the lexical and larger syntactical levels) between various portions of Scripture as well as larger OT themes that either explicitly or subvocally come to completion in Christ. But these ‘methods’ do not determine the Christotelic conclusion. Rather, they are employed with the end result already in mind. This is also true for those portions of the OT that have been resistant (and for good reason) to typology, namely, Wisdom Literature. And again, this is why I find the term “Christocentric” unhelpful. Christ is not the ‘center’ of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, but he is the ‘end.’ As in-Christ beings participating in the last days, we are obliged to think of how that status impinges upon what a proverb or Ecclesiastes ‘means.’ And the ‘method’ by which these horizons are bridged is a creative, intentional, purposeful exploration that moves back and forth between the words on the page and the eschatological context that we share with the Apostles but that the OT authors did not.”

 

Notes
[1] Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 5.

In one of my Old Testament courses taken at Westminster with Dr. Pete Enns, I recall a helpful and thought provoking lecture on the Bible as “theological history.” Below is my synopsis of the lecture.

The Bible is theological history. On one level the operative word is history, but history that is presented to us in a theologically driven manner. In other words, it is history that is presented and presented for a purpose, viz., to teach us about God. The Bible does not simply give us “events” without presentation and purpose because without presentation or purpose, the events have no meaning. Also, without events the presentation and purpose have no basis. Events are the world of history. Presentation/purpose is the world of historiography. As a starting point, Enns wants to suggest that the purpose of the Bible is to get us to encounter God and not simply history (this is not to say that history is unimportant). The purpose of the Bible is not to say that “x happened,” but the purpose is so that we would know God.

A helpful book along these lines is The Art of Biblical History, by Phil Long. Long presents Biblical historiography as an art and says that a book must be judged according to its purpose. So we should ask, “What is the writer trying to accomplish?” This then prompts him to ask, “Is the Bible a history book?” He says, neither yes nor no. Simply to say “yes” does not describe the essential character of the Bible. The Bible has diverse genres, and there is more to the Bible than just telling us what happened. Recognizing this, helps us to refrain from making false dichotomies about the Bible, e.g., that it is either history or literature. Regarding the question, “What is history?”, this requires making a distinction between history in two senses: (1) history as event and (1) history as account (this sounds similar to Von Rad’s distinction between Historie and Geschichte). When one speaks of “accounts,” one is necessarily speaking of how a particular writer choose those events and why he chose those over others. Presentation is the “how,” purpose is the “why,” and events the “what.” Because we are dealing with presentation and purpose, there is an element of artistry in biblical historiography, but this is also the case in all attempts at recording events. So all historiography is an interplay between three elements: the historical, the literary, and the theological. With any historical narrative in the Bible, there is a purposeful artistic aspect to it. That is, there is an artistic-ness to the Bible, and it is driven by a purpose. Long’s approach avoids both the fundamentalist and the liberal drawbacks, as it is aware of the presuppositions driving us all.

Long’s approach is advantageous in a number of ways. For example, Long attempts to eliminate the dichotomy between text and event, yet his approach does not fully answer precisely in what the relation between the two consists. Long says that text and event require each other—i.e., you can’t have one without the other. So both text and event need each other—the text brings the event into the present (that is the case with any historiography). In Westminster language, both text and event are part of redemptive history. So contra G.E. Wright, the events are not the “real” things that one must get “back to”—a view which basically makes the text an impediment (a foundational tenet of modern biblical studies). Likewise, contra Von Rad (to a certain extent), the text is not all that we have. Rather, what we have is text-event–the two being inseparable. In terms of Enn’s “incarnational analogy,” this suggests that Christ Himself is both text and event—He is the Word/Logos—God’s ultimate communication and He is event, time and space humanity. As the God-Man Christ is the ultimate expression of God’s redemptive acts. Acts have accompanying interpretive moments, i.e., you need to be told what the purpose of the event is. So text and event are part of the same redemptive context. Additionally, Long’s approach resists the imposition of modernist, positivistic notions of history onto ancient near eastern texts (i.e., the idea that the text is “neutral” and events are out there waiting to be “objectively” reported). As Enns emphasizes, Long tries to allow the Bible to define its own expectations of historiography. Also, Long’s approach helps to avoid the undesirable apologetic element that at times accompanies conservative exegesis. That is, for Long, the point of a biblical narrative is not to affirm the event’s historicity, but rather to teach something. We have not understood the book of Exodus, when we have simply defended that it “happened,” –that is, its mere facticity. Rather, we have understood it when we have affirmed what the text is saying about the Exodus, which is to say, what it is saying about God.

Originally, “biblical theology” (BT) was an answer to the “prejudiced” use of the Bible in dogmatics. BT’s reaction to systematics was to read the Old Testament descriptively rather than prescriptively (N.b., Vanhoozer seems to rightly question this claim. In other words, are biblical theologians somehow “unbiased” or more “objective” than systematicians? The claim seems to involve its own set of (modernist) assumptions, i.e., one must first say what it “meant,” not what it “means,” as well as a belief in neutrality). Back to the story…

Certain trends in the 17th and 18th centuries led to the emergence of BT as a separate discipline. E.g.,(1) the practice of compiling proof texts as the basis of Protestant doctrine; (2) Pietism—a reaction to “dead” orthodoxy; and (3) the developments of new critical methods and what would later come to be known as the “grammatico-historical” approach (thank you, Spinoza). Gabler’s distinction within BT of “true BT” (the historical study of the OT and NT) and “pure BT” (the study of the biblical material so as to distinguish that which is time-conditioned from that which is eternal truth), set BT on a trajectory paved with ever-increasing rationalistic tendencies (18th and early 19th centuries) and atomization (late 19th to 20th centuries). Also, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ANE archaeological discoveries appeared to call into question the uniqueness of biblical faith. This gave rise to the history of religions approach, which emphasized that the true subject matter of biblical studies is religion. Part of this devolution into the study of Israelite religion was due to BT’s (modernist) historical assumptions (‘what it meant’ vs. ‘what it means’ etc./K. Stendahl). Also significant is the impact that WWI had, viz., it shook confidence in notions of the goodness of humanity and of “objective” historicism. Because of the global evils giving rise to WWI we see a renewed interest in the prescriptive dimension of the Bible. Karl Barth’s commentary on the book of Romans also played a huge role in calling the church back to the authoritativeness of the Bible. Consequently, there has been a resurgence of BT, which now includes this prescriptive dimension.

There continues, however, to be differing opinions as to exactly what BT is? E.g., Is it a theology that the Bible supports or is it the theology that the Bible contains? Is there a biblical theology of Exodus? Is BT undertaken on the source level (e.g., a theology of J or P or E) or on the level of genre (e.g., the theology of the Pentateuch or law, or the wisdom books) or on the level of the theology of the OT as a whole? Both historically and synchronically, BT has meant many things.

BT in the Vosian tradition should be differentiated both from that which is advocated by critical scholars, as well as fundamentalists. As understood in the trajectory of Geerhardus Vos, BT speaks of the “self-revelation of God” as recorded in the Bible [Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), p. 5]. Vos’s understanding of BT upholds both the unity and the diversity of the Bible. For example, as Dr. Peter Enns explains, Vos emphasized the “progress of redemption culminating in the person and work of Christ in whom Scripture coheres, while also showing a respect for theological diversity as a function of the historical situatedness of revelation” [“Apostolic Hermeneutics and an Evangelical Doctrine of Scripture: Moving beyond a Modernist Impasse.” Westminster Theological Journal, Vol. 65, no. 2 (Fall 2003), p. 284]. Enns goes on to say that “such an approach to biblical interpretation is not a ‘method’ that assures a stable exegetical result, but a spiritual exercise wherein a Christian looks at Scripture from the point of view of what she/he knows to be true—Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again—and reads the OT with the expectation that it somehow coheres in that fact. Perhaps Biblical Theology is as much about where one starts as it is about where one finishes” (Ibid.,p.284).

In my reading Henri de Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis, I was struck with the similarities between his thoughts on Scripture and those of Vos/Enns. E.g., de Lubac in describing the two Testaments not as two books, but rather as two dispensations or covenants also alludes to the progressive unfolding of Scripture in redemptive history. “The goal of the one that is prior in time is to prepare the way for the second. But this is not what merits them those respective terms of ‘old’ and ‘new.’ The New Testament does not take its name solely from the fact that it comes second in time. It is not merely ‘modern.’ It is the last word, in an absolute sense […] The New Covenant is not repeated. It is completed and fulfilled once and for all” (de Lubac, p. 227). Speaking of the necessity of faith for proper exegesis, de Lubac writes, “Christian exegesis is an exegesis in faith. But it does not presuppose the instances of naivety that have sometimes been imputed to it. […], it is an act of faith in the great historical Act that has never had and never will have its equal: for the Incarnation is unique. This exegesis is conscious of its developments by virtue of a creative principle, or, to be more precise, a transfiguring principle” (de Lubac, p. 260).

As is so emphasized at Westminster, though seeing Christ as the proper hermeneutical lens of true Scriptural exegesis is predicated on faith, it is nonetheless also clearly set forth in Scripture itself by the Lord Himself (Luke 24:44). Indeed for the Church Fathers, as well as the medievals (and for those who see with the eyes of faith today), “Jesus Christ brings about the unity of Scripture, because he is the endpoint and fullness of Scripture. Everything in it is related to him. In the end he is its sole object. Consequently, he is, so to speak, its whole exegesis” (de Lubac, p. 237)