A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism by Mark S. Gignilliat

Author:Mark S. Gignilliat [Gignilliat, Mark S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-310-58967-9
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

5

GERHARD VON RAD

(1901–1971)

The Old Testament’s Living Traditions

GERHARD VON RAD DIED ON REFORMATION DAY IN 1971. APPROPRIately, the lectionary reading for the day was Hebrews 13:7: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith.”1 Von Rad’s exegetical and theological work on the Old Testament created a horizon of interest and further study of the subject matter whose impact is felt to this day. He was a teacher. Reflecting on his teaching life, von Rad states, “My task as an academic teacher was and is: read to learn and read to teach.”2 For many, he was their teacher who spoke the word of God in the Old Testament to them; Walther Zimmerli, Rolf Rendtorff, James Crenshaw, and Brevard Childs — all standard names in Old Testament scholarship — were shaped by von Rad’s exegetical vision. However one receives his tradition-historical approach to Old Testament exegesis or his formal wedding of those reconstructions to the task of Old Testament theology proper, denying or avoiding the importance of von Rad in the history of Old Testament interpretation is not an option. As a teacher of mine once said in passing, “We can pick at von Rad’s Old Testament theology all we want, but the car had wheels on it and was driving around the block.” Certainly, this is true.

As is our custom, we will look briefly at von Rad’s life and intellectual setting and then lay out the major contours of his Old Testament interpretation.

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