Waltke Update

Justin Taylor has helpfully posted further information about Bruce Waltke's departure from RTS. It seems that the parting was amicable, though I do get the feeling that some pressure was placed on Waltke to this effect (hence Waltke's comment, "I find no fault with the RTS administration, in fact, I think they did the right thing"). Was the "right thing" asking him to renege his views, to explain them further, or to resign? It seems that Waltke is going to be picked up by Knox Theological Seminary which shows that one man's loss is another man's gain.

Walter Kaiser and Jewish Exegetical Methods in the NT

I've been reading Walt Kaiser's essay on "Single Meaning, Unified Referents" in Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. While some of it is okay, I confess to being concerned and confused by the subsection, Did the NT authors use the Jewish exegetical methods of their day? I am confused because Kaiser denies the presence of midrash in the NT to illuminate OT texts. (Midrash is a Jewish argumentative form usually consisting of a main text that is explained and interpreted by a second text). I find this strange because Paul clearly uses midrash in Romans 4 where he links Gen. 15.6 and Psalm 32.2 as part of his exposition of logizomai (credit, reckon, impute). In Romans 5 he uses a qal wahomer (an inference a minori ad maius or from lesser to greater) about reconciliation. Against Kaiser, I would say that Psalm 16 is messianic in canonical perspective and in light of the revelation of Jesus Christ's life, passion, and exaltation; but I find it difficult to retroject that back into the mind of the Psalmist. I recommend the studies by Richard N. Longenecker (Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period) and Hermann Bateman (Early Jewish Hermeneutics and Hebrews 1:5-13: The Impact of Early Jewish Exegesis on the Interpretation of a Significant New Testament Passage) as pretty definitive proof that NT authors did use Jewish interpretive devices in their exposition of Scripture.

A more pressing problem for Kaiser is Paul's use of allegory in Gal. 4.24. The word allegoreo does not mean the "grammatico-historical method". Calvin struggled with this one as well since he rejected rabbinic interpretation, Origen's allegory, and medieval allegory too. On this, you really must read John Thompson's article on "Calvin as biblical interpreter" in the Cambridge Companion to John Calvin available on Google Books. Calvin seems to follow Chrysostom in regarding this use of Genesis 21 in Galatians 4 as a typological link and not a whole scale departure from the original sense. Calvin was, with due restraint, still open to figurative readings of Scripture.

Kaiser also quotes Louis Berkhof and John Owen against the concept that Scripture has multiple-meanings. In terms of negating arbitrary and fanciful allegorizing of Scripture, I think that is generally correct. The WCF 1.9 states: "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one)" and this is a clear attack on the classic medieval interpretation of Scripture with four senses of literal, allegorical, moral, and spiritual. but it is not a denial of typology, canonical readings, or even situating the biblical interpretation in its ancient and cultural context. The fact that one uses Scripture to interpret Scripture requires some model of typology and also validates the canon as an interpretive context. The catch cry ad fontes requires us to examine all ancient sources of relevance to the biblical texts. And we should be like Calvin and Luther who knew the Church Fathers and cite them at length in biblical study too.

Marcion, Adolf von Harnack, and the OT

Here's a quote from Adolf von Harnack on Marcion and the OT:

"To reject the Old Testament in the second century was a mistake which the Church rightly repudiated; to retain it in the sixteenth century was a fate which the Reformtion could not yet avoid; but to continue to keep it in Protestantism as a canonical document after the nineteenth century is the consequence of religious and ecclesiastical paralysis" (Marcion, 418).

Well not much to say after that one!

The Gospel of John and the OT

"While John does quote the Old Testament to speak of promises fulfilled in Jesus, more often he draws out the significance of Jesus' deeds or words by explaining them in terms of motifs and imagery drawn from the pages of the Old Testament and from Jewish interpretive traditions".

M.M. Thompson, 'The gospel according to John,' in The Cambridge Companion to the Gospels, ed. Stephen G. Barton (Cambridge: CUP, 2007), 185.

Bultmann the Marcionite!

As a follow-up to my post on Bultmann the Heretic, I've located a reference that indicates Bultmann's Marcionite tendencies:

"[T]o the Christian faith the Old Testament is no longer revelation as it has been and still is, for the Jews . . . [it] is not in the true sense God's word."

R. Bultmann, "The Significance of the Old Testament for the Christian Faith," in The Old Testament and Christian Faith, ed. B.W. Anderson (New York, 1963): 31-32.