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EXEGESIS*
BREVARD S.CHILDS
*This article originally appeared in Pro Ecclesia 6, no. 1 (1997) 16-26. (Published
with permission.)
122 Ex Audita
thinks, for example, of the valiant attempt during the early years of the Oxford
Movement to translate into English large portions of the exegesis of the Church
Fathers in the hopes that a recovery of the church's exegetical traditions would
halt the corrosive effects of historical criticism's entering England both from with
in and from without. Yet one is deeply saddened to see even in . B. Pusey's own
biblical commentaries5 how distant he was from the Church Fathers and how he
had lost the key to theological interpretation. Or again, W. Vischer's programmat
ic interpretation of the Old Testament as a "witness to Jesus Christ"6 not only
sounded the alarm for the German church, but also served to offer support during
the period of the Nazi threat to a host of hard-pressed pastors who continued to
search for a word of God from the Old Testament. However, in the end, Vischer's
repristination of Luther's christological interpretation could not be sustained and
was soon repudiated even by Europe's most avowedly confessional Old Testa
ment scholars (von Rad, Vriezen, Zimmerli, Wolff).7
Finally, Karl Barth's name emerges above all others in the 20th century as
providing the most ambitious attempt to construct church dogmatics on the foun
dation of biblical exegesis. One only has to compare Barth's sustained use of de
tailed exegesis throughout his dogmatics with Brunner, Althaus, Niebuhr, Tillich
and Ebeling, to name only a few, to see what a remarkably different world he had
entered from that of his contemporaries. Yet for various reasons Barth's exegesis,
for all its brilliant insights and massive stimulus, remained a "virtuoso perfor
mance" (the term is Paul McGlasson's) which could not be duplicated and which
left little lasting impact either on the biblical academy or on the church. Here the
contrast with the enduring biblical contribution of the Reformers is painfully evi
dent.
ry?
In response it is important first to recall that it was not just the Church Fa-
thers who sought to relate the message of the gospel to the Jewish Scriptures in a
manner which went far beyond asserting a relationship in terms of an historical
sequence. The New Testament does not confine itself to just a temporal relation-
ship such as that of prophecy and fulfillment. Rather its use of this temporal pat-
tern does not rule out at the same time moving the discourse to an ontological
plane. According to John 1:1 Jesus Christ was the eternal Word who was with
God in the beginning. Colossians 1:15 speaks of his being "the image of the invis-
ible God, the first-bom of all creation for in him all things were created." Finally,
Rev 13:8 makes mention of "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Of
course, this New Testament usage does not in itself resolve the issue of theologi-
cal exegesis of the whole Christian Bible, but it does provide a serious precedent
for theological reflection, and calls into question the widespread reflex of biblical
scholars to dismiss any category other than historical sequence as an illegitimate
intrusion from the side of philosophy.
At the heart of the Christian faith lies an apparent paradox in relation to
its Scriptures. On the one hand, its canonical form which consists of two Testa-
ments provides a warrant for respecting two discrete voices according to the liter-
al/plain sense of the texts. On the other hand, the Christian Church affirms that its
Christian Bible is a unified witness bearing testimony to one Lord, Jesus Christ,
who is the divine reality underlying the entire biblical canon. Are not these two
approaches in irreconcilable conflict?
THE NATURE OF A MULTIPLE-LEVEL INTERPRETATION
and to enter a world reimaged by liberating imagination. The effect of this inter-
pretive move is to assign the product of this activity to the human creative power
of its author and recipients. This understanding of biblical interpretation is pre-
cisely what I do not have in mind when I speak of a third avenue of exegesis. In
my opinion, this approach shares all the assumptions and fatal weaknesses of clas-
sic Protestant theological liberalism and, in the end, is a delusion of human hybris.
Rather, I am suggesting that confronting the subject matter of the two dis-
crete witnesses creates a necessity for the interpreter to encounter the biblical text
from the full knowledge of the subject matter gained from hearing the voices of
both Testaments. The interpreter now proceeds in a direction which moves from
the reality itself back to the textual witness. The central point to emphasize is that
the biblical text itself exerts theological pressure on the reader, demanding that the
reality which undergirds the two witnesses not be held apart and left fragmented,
but rather critically reunited.
A most obvious example of this pressure from the biblical text is found in
the church's formulation of a trinitarian doctrine of God as a response to the bibli-
cal testimony, as Yeago has shown. Similarly to speak of the witness of the Old
Testament to Jesus Christ (Christuszeugnis) is to move beyond the hearing of the
Hebrew prophets testifying to a coming royal figure. Rather, in the light of the
life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the history of Israel, the texts of
both Testaments in their fragmentary testimony to God's mysterious purpose of
new creation take on fresh life. Thus, when the interpreter moves from the reality
of God manifest in action back to the Scriptures themselves for further illumina-
tion of the divine economy, he or she is constrained to listen for a new song which
breaks forth from the same ancient, sacred texts. As a result, in spite of genera-
tions of scholarly denial, few Christians can read Isaiah 53 without sensing the
amazing morphological fit with the passion of Jesus Christ.
How can one claim to read Isaiah as the voice of Israel in the Hebrew
Scriptures and at the same time speak of its witness to Jesus Christ? It is not only
possible, but actually mandatory for any serious Christian theological reflection.
Because Scripture performs different functions according to distinct contexts, a
multi-level reading is required even to begin to grapple with the full range of
Scripture's role as the intentional medium of continuing divine revelation.
In the first instance, one seeks to hear the historic voice of Israel in its lit-
eral/plain sense. The voices of the prophets testify to a growing future hope of sal-
vation in the very midst of political disaster. These witnesses are often fragmen-
tary, at times contradictory, and always veiled in obscurity. Nevertheless, a literal
and historical interpretation of the Old Testament is exegetically crucial especially
in revealing just how fragmentary, mysterious, and obscure was the nature of
God's messianic promise to Israel which, even following the exile, continued to
expand into a host of diverse directions.
In the second instance, one is using Scripture as an authoritative collection
of sacred writings which has assumed a unique shape and been given a special
role within the Christian community of faith as the continuing vehicle of divine
manifestation. In this role the text of Scripture, when infused by the Spirit with
the full ontic reality of God, resonates with a fresh voice, and evokes from its
readers the response of praise and wonder. This voice which transcends its origi-
128 Ex Audita
nal historical origins calls forth the hymns, liturgy, and art of the church in ever-
changing forms of grateful response. This is the genre of praise and thanksgiving.
The same words of Scripture now perform a different role in instructing
the church toward an obedient and joyful life. To project this depth of meaning
and experience back into the past as if this interpretation must be coextensive with
its original textual sense is not only a basic confusion of genre, but it falsely de-
historicizes the canonical witness of the two discrete portions of the Christian
Bible. However, to speak of Christuszeugnis in the sense being proposed is to de-
scribe a text-oriented hearing of Scripture by a Christian community of faith
which allows biblical texts to resonate from the force of a divine reality gained
through an encounter with the entire Christian Bible. This approach is far re-
moved from Vischer's in that its genre is confession not apologetics, its function
is worship not disputation, its content is eschatology not time-bound history, and
its truth is self-affirming not analytical demonstration.
In sum, if this description of the nature of truly theological exegesis is to
any degree convincing, then the conclusion is inescapable. Our modem critical
understanding of the task of exegesis, whether on the left or right of the current
theological spectrum, needs major overhauling. Simply to suggest minor adjust-
ments is hopelessly inadequate for doing justice to the true goals of interpretation
and will only result in the repetition of past failures. At a very minimum it implies
that biblical interpretation cannot continue in its present isolation, cut off from the
essential aid of church history, patristics, and dogmatics, but must strive to com-
bine its discipline within the widest possible context of rigorous theological train-
ing in the service of church and world.
gin is for Jews and Christians to agree in confessing faith in the one eternal God
of Israel who also wills salvation for the Gentiles. Each community will make its
own formulation in response to the Bible's pressure to retain Israel's particularity
commensurate with the universal rule of God. For the Christian church the contin-
uing paradox of its faith lies in its encounter through the Jewish Scriptures with
the selfsame divine presence which it confesses to have found in the face of Jesus
Christ.
NOTES
1. David S. Yeago, "The New Testament and Nicene Dogma: A Contribution to the Re-
covery of Theological Exegesis," Pro Ecclesia 3 (1994) 152-164.
2. Cf. the numerous books of Walter Brueggemann which focus on the centrality of crea-
tive human imagination for biblical interpretation. Often in this same context one adds the compo-
nent of "spirituality," but it remains unclear just who or what is meant by "spirit."
3. Theology in Reconstruction, London, 1965; Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Her-
meneutics, Edinburgh, 1994.
4. Much of the remarkable success of Hans Frei's book, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative
(New Haven, 1974), derived from his choice of hermeneutical categories such as referentiality and
narrative function which were immediately illuminating to both theologicans and biblical scholars.
5. Daniel the Prophet, Oxford, 1865; The Minor Prophets, Oxford, 1877.
6. Das Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments, Bd. I, Das Gesetz, Zollikon-Zrich, 1934.
7. Cf. my article "Old Testament in Germany 1920-1940. The Search for a New Para-
digm," Altes Testament Forshcung und Wirkung, Festschrift Henning Graf Reventlow, eds. P.
Mommer and W. Thiel, Bern, 1994,233-246.
8. R. Loewe, "The Plain Meaning of Scripture in Early Jewish Exegesis," Papers of the
Institute of Jewish Studies, London I, Jerusalem, 1964,140-185; B. S. Childs, 'The Sensus Literal-
is of Scripture: An Ancient and Modern Problem," Beitrge zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie,
Festschrift W. Zimmerli, eds. H. Donner, et al, Gttingen, 1976, 80-93; Kathryn Greene-
McCreight, Ad Litteram: Understanding the Plain Sense of Scripture in the Exegesis of Augustine,
Calvin and Barth of Genesis 1-3, Yale University Dissertation, 1994. A very different position is
represented by K. E. Tanner, 'Theology and Plain Sense," Scriptural Authority and Narrative In-
terpretation, ed. G. Green, Philadelphia, 1987, 59-78, and by R. Williams, "The Literal Sense of
Scripture," Modern Theology 7,1991,121-34. In somewhat different ways both move into the lib-
eral hermeneutical orbit of David Kelsey and are again trapped by his theory of communal "con-
strual."
9. Cf. The interesting correspondence between Jerome and Augustine on certain biblical
passages. It is conveniently edited by J. Schmid, S. S. Eusebii Hieronymi et Aurelii Augustini Epis-
tulae mutuae (Florilegium Patristicum, XXII), Bonn, 1930. Although Jerome was far more learned
than Augustine in respect to the Bible, one comes away from the debate with the sense that Augus-
tine grasped the essential hermeneutical and theological issues far more clearly than Jerome.
10. H. de Lubac, Exgse Mdivale, 4 vols., Paris, 1959-1962.
^ s
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