Living And Active: Scripture in the Economy of Salvation (Sacra Doctrina) by Telford Work

Author:Telford Work
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-11-19T23:01:00+00:00

Confession as the Ultimate Exegetical "Technique"

Paying attention to the kerygmatic character of the dialogue between Jesus and Israel's Scriptures sheds light on the long-standing problem of how the later Church should regard the exegetical practices of the New Testament Church. Today's biblical interpreters belong to communities that calls them selves apostolic, but they generally hesitate to adopt the exegetical techniques of the apostles. They find it hard to reconcile themselves to a tradition built upon exegesis by means of methods deemed "unjustifiable with regard to normal, sober hermeneutical canons. 11115

But is the tradition really built upon such methods? In biblical studies the reigning approach to the New Testament's use of the Old has been technical: Scholars have painstakingly catalogued ancient examples of midrashim, pesher exegesis, Hillel's seven exegetical rules, and so on, in order to establish some kind of hermeneutical pattern with which to compare Christian schools of interpretation to those of the Talmud, the Qumran community, or Hellenistic Judaism. 116 On the other hand, as we have seen, the most striking consistency in the New Testament's use of Scripture is the priority given to Christological and eschatological assumptions rather than technical ones in choosing which texts to read and how to read them. The particular techniques ancient interpreters put to the text - Paul's qal wahomer in Romans 5-8 or his pesher in Romans 9:7-9 - are secondary, even dispensable. Augustine would put it this way: The telos to which God has pointed the texts in the service of salvation is the ultimate criterion of exegetical validity, not the reading techniques used to retrieve it. The previous chapter would say that because Christ is the content of Scripture, the confession of Christ is its only true hermeneutical canon.

When the early Church's reading practices are viewed primarily as functions of exegetical techniques, insoluble problems emerge that distance the contemporary Church from the tradition upon which it is built. For example, Richard Longenecker tries to overcome the problem by distinguishing between the inspiration and authority of the writers' conclusions and their flawed or inimitable exegetical techniques. 187 This distinction has proven to be problematic, for Longenecker's approach has already made their conclusions depend upon their techniques.188

The trouble with approaches like these is that they treat the New Testament writers as if they are working syllogistically, using exegetical techniques as their foundational hermeneutical assumptions. In fact, their most power ful hermeneutical assumptions are the events of Jesus' own life and their own kerygmatic traditions. The ultimate cornerstone of early Church exegesis is Jesus, not pesher or allegory or literalism (Eph. 2:20). Exegetical techniques are the servants of the dialogue, not the masters. When they become the masters rather than servants of confession, as they too commonly have in the history of biblical interpretation, the result has usually been Christological marginalization, weakness, incoherence, or even heresy.189

If the most basic hermeneutical assumptions of Christianity's first generation lie in Jesus' life and the Church's faith, then critical and postcritical interpreters can use Scripture apostolically without having to return to techniques that neither the present-day Church nor the academy finds persuasive.

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