Apostolic Hermeneutics And An Evangelical Doctrine Of Scripture: Moving Beyond A Modernist Impasse

By Peter Enns

[Peter Enns is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary.]

I. Introduction

The purpose of this article is to explore the role that apostolic hermeneutics (i.e., the manner in which Christ and the NT authors used the OT) could have on an evangelical doctrine of Scripture. To put the matter this way is to imply that apostolic hermeneutics has not had the influence it should. As I see it, a cause of this state of affairs is, ironically, the influence of Enlightenment thinking on evangelical theology, specifically assumptions concerning standards of “proper interpretation.” In what follows I hope to approach the matter of apostolic hermeneutics not as a problem to be solved, as is too often the case in evangelical theology, but as a window into the Apostles’ “doctrine of Scripture” (however anachronistic such a concept might be). It is my opinion that the church should engage this phenomenon very directly as it continues to work out its own understanding of Scripture.

In this article I use the word “evangelical” to mean, very broadly, conservative, traditional Christianity as it has been practiced at least in America, particularly as it has been a response to the influence of “modernism” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The words “modernist,” “modernism,” and “Enlightenment” are restricted in their use to refer to the higher-critical biblical scholarship (largely a- or anti-supernaturalistic) of that same period.[1] Despite the fact that evangelicals and modernists are on opposite sides of the divide on many things, it is striking the extent to which they have shared similar assumptions, particularly as they affect biblical interpretation.[2] By way of introduction, below are two examples of where such influence can be seen.

The assumption that an historical account is true only to the extent that it describes “what actually happened”[3] mutes the varied witness of Scripture to a number of historical events. This varied witness can be seen in the so-called “synoptic problem” (Chronicles and Samuel/Kings; Gospels). The modernist assumption that varied accounts of one event constitute faulty information (error) in at least one of the accounts provides the impulse to harmonize synoptic portions of Scripture, which has been a common practice in evangelicalism.[4] The practice of harmonization, although at times legitimate, owes more to modernist assumptions of the nature of what historical accounts should look like than to allowing the varied witness of Scripture to speak.

Assumptions concerning the necessarily unique quality of divine revelation (somewhat understandable in view of critical scholarship’s consistent attack on any positive role of revelation) have muted the proper role that extrabiblical evidence should take in shaping our own ideas of the nature of Scripture. But the last 150 years have introduced to the discipline of biblical scholarship a wealth of archaeological, textual, and scientific information. In my view the evangelical response has largely been restricted to the mere observation that the OT fits in the general ANE context or to the general relevance of science, particularly when it confirms generally accepted views. But when the topic turns to the doctrinal implications of such observations, particularly when they challenge accepted positions, a defensive posture becomes the norm. It is not often asked how these ancient Near Eastern parallels or scientific observations concerning the opening chapters of Genesis positively contribute to our doctrine of revelation.[5]

What I see at work in these two examples are preconceived notions concerning (1) the nature of historiography and (2) the relationship between general and special revelation. And when such assumptions are adopted, handling the biblical evidence becomes problematic. We have the all too familiar situation where the evidence is made to fit the theory rather than the other way around. What can be said for these two examples can be said all the more concerning apostolic hermeneutics. An articulation of how the Apostles handled the OT and its implications for a Christian understanding of Scripture has also been hindered by certain assumptions of what constitutes “proper hermeneutics.” Without wishing to overstate the case, how the Apostles handled their Scripture has run the risk of being misunderstood in evangelicalism wherever modernist assumptions of proper hermeneutics have been considered supremely normative. More specifically, the implications of understanding apostolic hermeneutics for what it is, a Second Temple phenomenon, has been in direct conflict with an evangelical doctrine of Scripture, which includes among other things the notion that proper interpretation must be consistent with the author’s intention.[6]

By expecting the Apostles to conform to modern assumptions we run the danger of missing the theological and kerygmatic richness of the Apostles’ use of the OT. In an effort to better understand the NT’s use of the OT, I outline below the phenomenon of apostolic hermeneutics as a function of the Apostles’ cultural and eschatological moment. The cultural moment to which I refer is the hermeneutical milieu of the Second Temple period.[7] The eschatological moment is the apostolic message that Christ has come to fulfill one chapter of the history of God’s people and to begin another chapter to be completed at the consummation of all things. I hope that such a description of apostolic hermeneutics will also contribute to a discussion of how the church today thinks of and uses its Scripture. I take it as foundational that the church’s understanding of how to handle its own Scripture must interact on a fundamental level with the hermeneutical trajectories already in evidence in Scripture. By reclaiming the hermeneutical trajectory set by the Apostles, the church may be able to move beyond the impasse imposed by modernist assumptions.

I want to clarify, however, that I am not advocating a superficial biblicism with respect to hermeneutics, that is, “watch what the Apostles do and then do the same thing.” What I intend to outline in the concluding section of this article is that apostolic hermeneutics sets a trajectory for the church, a trajectory that sets the church on a very definite path but does not define every stage of the journey. Moreover, coming to grips with the phenomenon of apostolic exegesis involves a delicate interplay of historical, doctrinal, hermeneutical, philosophical, and theological factors. To be sure, this complexity virtually guarantees that the discussion will be ongoing and that a consensus will not likely be reached. This is of very little concern to me. Variety in interpretation has been a constant companion of the church throughout its history, the Lord has seen fit to honor it, and my intention here is not to bring this hermeneutical adventure to an end. The church today is not an interpretive island. It is, rather, to shift metaphors, one stage in a stream of interpretive tradition, which has its source within the pages of the OT itself (innerbiblical exegesis) and which I believe has been guided by the spirit of Christ.

II. Apostolic Hermeneutics as a Cultural Phenomenon

Even casual readers of the NT will notice that the OT is cited a large number of times. According to one count, there are 275 direct quotations of the OT in the NT.[8] The rather obvious point to be made is that the NT writers, and Jesus himself, understood the gospel message to be connected in some vital way to Israel’s Scripture.

The sheer number of OT references is easy enough to see in most modern English translations of the NT. But along with this is a second factor that begins to address the nature of the problem at hand: the manner in which the Apostles handled the OT seems unexpected, strange, even improper by modern conventions. The Apostles do things with the OT that, if any of us were to do likewise, would be criticized as deviations from “normal” hermeneutical standards. And thus, in a nutshell, we have the problem. As Christians with a high view of Scripture, we are dependent on “the whole counsel of God,” the entire Bible, both OT and NT, for directing us in all matters of faith and practice. And we are encouraged in this by observing that the Apostles themselves, by virtue of their recurring referencing of the OT, clearly set the church in this hermeneutical trajectory. But when we look more closely at how specifically the Apostles actually handle the OT—what they say about particular passages or events and how they arrive at their conclusions—we become aware of the hermeneutical distance between ancient and modern interpreters.

Some of the problems with the NT’s use of the OT are purely textual in nature.[9] These types of problems may well be explained either by appealing to the fluidity of text types in first-century Palestine, or perhaps more simply to the biblical writer’s memory. Such matters are worthy of detailed discussion, but are not of concern here. Rather, there is another problem that proves to be more problematic, and that I feel can be stated quite plainly, despite recurring protestations to the contrary: NT writers attribute meaning to OT texts that clearly differ from the intention of the OT author.[10] This problem can be fleshed out more precisely: The content of the NT authors’ interpretive conclusions on the OT is directly tied to two easily documented phenomena: (1) the interpretive methods they employ and (2) the interpretive traditions they transmit, both of which locate the Apostles squarely in the Second Temple world.

1. Interpretive Methods

There can be no serious doubt that the exegetical methods employed by the Apostles bear similarities to the well-documented methods of the Second Temple period.[11] To put it another way, if one knew nothing of the NT but were well acquainted with the literature of Second Temple Judaism and then read the NT for the first time, one would easily understand the NT as a Second Temple interpretive text. Any contemporary investigation of apostolic hermeneutics that does not treat the NT in the context of its hermeneutical environment will at best tell only part of the story, and at worst misrepresent the issue. There is no question that this continues to raise certain doctrinal issues concerning the role of the Apostles in defining “proper hermeneutics,” but these concerns cannot drive the discussion. The New Testament authors give us ample opportunity to observe their hermeneutical behavior, and it is upon these facts—the facts of Scripture understood in their historical context—that doctrine must ultimately be based, particularly if what one is after is the articulation of a doctrine of Scripture.

I would like to draw an analogy with grammatical-historical exegesis. Grammatical-historical exegesis insists that the interpretation of texts must begin with the words in front of us understood in the context in which these words were written. Even with the caveats that pure objectivity is an illusion and that the author’s intention is essentially unrecoverable (or better, recoverable only on the basis of the words in front of us, which places the modern interpreter in a hermeneutical circle), it is nevertheless a fundamental notion that meaning must be “anchored” some how in something beyond the mere will of the interpreter. Any writer (including this one) who wishes to be understood will have a deep-rooted sympathy for such a hermeneutical principle.

A problem arises, however, when we observe how the Apostles handled the OT. Despite protestations to the contrary, grammatical-historical hermeneutics does not account for the New Testament’s use of the Old. However self-evident grammatical-historical hermeneutics may be to us, and whatever very important contributions it has made and continues to make to the field of biblical studies, it must be stated clearly that the Apostles did not seem overly concerned to put this principle into practice.[12] Of course, it is equally clear that at times NT writers interpret the OT somewhat literalistically, and I have no desire to dispute this.[13]

But when the smoke clears, the overall picture remains: apostolic hermeneutics, apart from the expenditure of significant mental energy and denial of plain fact, cannot be categorized as being “essentially” grammatical-historical.[14] A proper understanding, therefore, of apostolic hermeneutics must begin elsewhere, and that starting point is to engage very directly—with all its attendant doctrinal implications—the “hermeneutical-historical” context of the New Testament authors. So, to complete the analogy: in the same way that grammatical-historical exegesis is vital for our understanding the words of the biblical authors, a hermeneutical-historical approach is vital for our understanding of the hermeneutics of biblical authors. In other words, we must extend what is implied in grammatical-historical exegesis, the principle that original context matters, to the world of apostolic hermeneutics.

Returning, then, to interpretive methods, we see again and again that the Apostles approached the Old Testament in ways that are adverse to grammatical-historical exegesis but are firmly at home in the Second Temple world. What else can be said, for example, of Jesus’ argument with the Sadducees over the resurrection of the dead (Luke 20:27–40; Matt 22:23–33; Mark 12:18–27)?[15] To understand Exod 3:6 as demonstrating that “the dead rise” (Luke 20:37), as Jesus does, violates our hermeneutical sensibilities, and we should not pretend otherwise. And it will not do to soften the blow by suggesting that Jesus is merely “applying” Exod 3:6, a point made clear in his retort to the Sadducees: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matt 22:29). Knowing the Scriptures and the power of God entails reading Exod 3:6 the way Jesus did, and whatever we might think of the persuasiveness of the argument, the point is that the crowd listening was quite impressed: “Some of the teachers of the law responded ‘Well said, teacher!’ And no one dared ask him any more questions” (Luke 20:39–40; see also Matt 22:33).[16] In isolation one can certainly find creative ways of “handling” this and other problematic passages in conventional ways, but the weight of accumulated evidence, both from the NT and its surrounding world, would quickly render such arguments unconvincing.[17] The interpretive methods of Christ and the NT writers were quite at home in the Second Temple world.

2. Interpretive Traditions

What can be said about the interpretive methods of the NT authors can also be said of the interpretive traditions that find their way into their writings. Not only did the Apostles handle the OT in ways consistent with other Second Temple interpreters, but they also transmit existing interpretive traditions. In my opinion, evangelical scholarship has focused almost entirely on the question of the exegetical methods the Apostles shared with other Second Temple interpreters. But investigating Second Temple interpretive traditions that find their way into the NT gives us added and valuable information of another sort, namely, how NT authors understood a number of OT stories and passages. The fact that New Testament writers sometimes say things about the Old Testament that are not found there but are found in other interpretive texts of the Second Temple period should not be marginalized as we think through the Apostles’ doctrine of Scripture.

This phenomenon, reflected in the NT as well as throughout much of Second Temple literature, is often referred to as the “retold” or “rewritten” Bible.[18] Some prominent and lengthy examples include: Jubilees (2nd c. B.C., retelling of Creation to Sinai), Book of Biblical Antiquities (1st c. A.D., retelling of Creation to David), Genesis Apocryphon (1st c. B.C., what survives is largely a first-person retelling of the Abraham story), 1 Esdras (2nd c. B.C., retelling of Josiah to Nehemiah). In addition, and more relevant to the topic at hand, shorter retellings are reflected in many other Second Temple texts: Wis 10:1–11:4 (1st c. A.D., Adam to Wilderness), Sir 44:16–49:11 (2nd c. B.C., Enoch to Zerubbabel). The significant examples from the NT are Acts 7:2–53 (Abraham to Solomon) and Heb 11:3–31 (Creation to Rahab). Although these are all distinct literary works written for distinct purposes, what they have in common is that their retelling of the biblical stories incorporated existing interpretive traditions, that is, notions about what certain biblical texts meant that were already matters of common knowledge (at least within particular communities).

The “retold Bible” is not merely an ancient phenomenon. Rather, it is a phenomenon that has accompanied biblical interpretation throughout its history, including our own day. If we reflect on our own situation, we see that we also bring into the interpretive act our own preconceived notions about what the Bible says. For instance, several years ago I heard a sermon on Moses’ raised hands (Exod 17:11). The preacher mentioned, somewhat casually, that Moses’ hands were raised in prayer. This may or may not be the case, but the point is that Exod 17 does not say this. The preacher, however, gave no indication that he was offering an interpretation of what Moses’ raised hands meant. As far as he was concerned, this is what the Bible “says.”

Of course, this is only one example, but many more could be adduced. And it should be self-evident that, for various portions of Scripture, we have in our minds pre-existing interpretations of the Bible that reflect what we have come to think the Bible contains. So, when one is asked to talk about the battle with the Amalekites in Exod 17, one may very likely “retell” that story and include in that retelling interpretive traditions that arose at a much earlier time[19] but that have come to be included as “part” of the biblical text, not as a conscious alteration of the biblical text but as an unconscious addendum to it. These views are sometimes held so deeply (and unwittingly) that it is only through considerable argumentation that someone can be shown that what they may consider part of the Bible really is not.[20]

New Testament authors also bear witness to their participation in the phenomenon of the “retold Bible,” not only in the longer examples cited above (Acts 7, Heb 11) but by reproducing interpretive snippets that add very little if anything to the argument being made. They simply represent, by virtue of their Second Temple setting, the biblical author’s own understanding of what the OT says. Some examples are the following:

1. According to Gal 3:19, Acts 7:53 (and very likely Heb 2:2), the law was mediated through angels. This has no direct support in the OT but is reflected in the general notion that angels were present with God on Mt. Sinai in such places as Jub. 1:27–29. There the Angel of the Presence is instructed to write down for Moses the history of Israel from creation to the building of the sanctuary. In fact, the entire contents of Jubilees (which spans from Creation to Sinai) is purported to have been spoken to Moses on Mt. Sinai by the Angel (Jub. 2:1).[21]

2. In 2 Tim 3:8, Paul refers to the magicians of Pharaoh’s court as Jannes and Jambres. These names do not come to us from the OT but from the Second Temple interpretive world of which Paul was a part. The name Jannes is found in CD 5.17-19. Both names are found in Tg. Ps.-J. to Exod 1:15.

3. Peter refers to Noah as a “preacher of righteousness” in 2 Pet 2:5. No such activity is attributed to Noah in the OT but a similar depiction of Noah as one who attempted to persuade his contemporaries to repent is found in Jos., Ant. 1.74; Sib. Or. 1.125-95;[22] and b. San. 108a.

4. The dispute over Moses’ body, mentioned nowhere in the OT, is mentioned somewhat matter-of-factly in Jude 9. The original source of this story remains a debated topic. We do know, however, that Clement of Alexandria attributed this episode to the Assumption (also, Ascension) of Moses.[23] What is not debated, however, is the extracanonical origin of Jude’s comment.

5. Jude cites a portion of prophecy supposedly uttered by Enoch (vv. 14–15), which is found in 1 En. 1:9 but not in the OT.[24]

6. Acts 7:22 refers to Moses’ Egyptian education, which, although perhaps implied in Exodus (Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s house), is not at all explicit. It is mentioned explicitly in Philo’s Mos. 1.21-24 and Ezekiel the Tragedian’s Exagoge 36–38 (2nd c. B.C.).

7. In 1 Cor 10:4 Paul is participating in a well-documented interpretive tradition that has a rock, or “well” of water, follow the Israelites through the desert. See for example Ps-Philo’s L.A.B. 10:7; 11:15; t. Sukka 3:11; Tg. Onq. to Num 21:16–20.[25]

These interpretive traditions did not derive from a grammatical-historical reading of the OT. Moreover, it is certain that they did not even originate with the New Testament authors. Not only are they too brief to have any meaning apart from a larger interpretive climate in which these traditions would have been well known, but several of these traditions are found in texts older than their New Testament counterparts. Further, some interpretive traditions in the NT are also found in more developed versions in later, rabbinic texts. Eliminating the most unlikely possibility that later rabbis read earlier, abbreviated forms of these traditions in the New Testament and decided to “follow the Christian lead” and expand them, we can safely conclude that both the rabbinic and New Testament versions of some of these traditions point to interpretive conclusions reached before either. At the very least we must conclude that any direction of influence would be most difficult to pin down. It is perhaps best to think of Second Temple interpretive traditions not in terms of a discernable linear progression but as a net of mutual influence.[26]

The matter will no doubt continue to be debated among evangelicals, but I take it as beyond any reasonable doubt that the Second Temple interpretive environment is the proper starting point for understanding what the NT authors said about the OT. My impression as to why the debate over Second Temple influence on the NT authors continues is not because the facts are in serious question (although they should always continue to be thought through), but because these facts cause difficulties for a doctrine of Scripture that modern evangelicalism has constructed for itself. What must become a significant point of discussion in the evangelical dialogue concerning doctrine of Scripture is the implications of the fact that apostolic hermeneutics is a Second Temple phenomenon. To be sure, it is more than merely a Second Temple phenomenon, but it is certainly a Second Temple phenomenon in that no understanding of apostolic exegesis can proceed without giving full attention to its historical context.

It will not do to argue, as has been done, apparently in an effort to safeguard the hermeneutical integrity of the Apostles, that the Apostles were not really “interpreting” the Old Testament but “applying” it.[27] It would need to be demonstrated that such a distinction would have been recognizable to Second Temple authors. But such a position seems motivated more by a desire to protect a particular doctrine of Scripture than it is by a direct assessment of the evidence. The same can be said for the related, and well-known, distinction between meaning and significance,[28] that is, that the Apostles did not assign new meaning to the OT but only explained its significance for the church. Such a distinction, it is thought, safeguards a high view of Scripture. There is no question that this distinction is a welcome corrective to flights of fancy in some contemporary literary theories, but it should be questioned whether this distinction can be applied without further ado to all literature, and particularly to the Bible. For one thing, the Bible is a religious text. However much we value the distinction between what the author meant and how those words can be applied by others, the Bible has a dimension that the meaning/significance dichotomy is not set up to handle: the divine author. God, by whose will Scripture exists, is not an author who sees only the part but the whole, and so his intention is not to be equated merely with that of the human author.

Of course, I realize it is still a debated point whether the meaning/significance distinction holds for the Bible, or to what extent it does, and I do not intend here to dismiss that debate as trivial. But I wish to make a more historically verifiable, and I hope therefore less conjectural, observation, namely, that however much the meaning/significance distinction may or may not hold for contemporary literature, it is clearly not a distinction that Second Temple interpreters were intent to maintain. Therefore, it is wholly anachronistic to appeal to a modern theory of proper interpretive practice to explain an ancient phenomenon, particularly if the evidence for ancient hermeneutical practice is so well documented. An understanding of the hermeneutical practices of the Apostles must be undertaken first and foremost by studying this evidence. This will lead, I hope, to an articulation of a doctrine of Scripture that Scripture is better prepared to support, rather than one that drives us to explain away what is in fact the case. A doctrine of Scripture that can account for the historical-hermeneutical setting of the Apostles, indeed, a doctrine of Scripture for which apostolic hermeneutics is a central component, will need to move beyond conventional modes of explanation.

III. Apostolic Hermeneutics in Context: Eschatology

Second Temple interpreters had an “axe to grind.”[29] This is to say that they did not interpret their Scripture out of idle curiosity or in an attempt to gain objective or academic clarity. Rather, Scripture was called upon in service of some larger goal. That goal may have had a significant cultic dimension, as it is in the case with Jubilees, for example, where the community that produced this work was clearly concerned (among other things) to make their case for a particular way of viewing the calendrical year. The Dead Sea community was convinced that the OT prophets spoke ultimately of them and their struggle to create an end-time community over against what they considered to be the questionable practices of the Jerusalem cult at the time.[30] What can be said for these two communities can be said in principle for all Second Temple interpretive texts: they were written for reasons, and the authors went to lengths to insure that those reasons were not particularly hidden.

The Apostles had their own reasons for engaging the OT, their Scripture. How they engaged the OT (interpretive methods) and even their own understanding of certain OT passages (transmission of pre-existing interpretive traditions) were a function of their cultural moment. But why they engaged the OT was driven by their eschatological moment, their belief that Jesus of Nazareth was God with us and that he had been raised from the dead. True to their Second Temple setting, the Apostles did not arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is Lord from a dispassionate, objective reading of the OT. Rather, they began with what they knew to be true—the historical fact of the death and resurrection of the Son of God—and on the basis of that fact re-read their Scripture in a fresh way.[31] There is no question that such a thing can be counter-intuitive for a more traditional evangelical doctrine of Scripture. It is precisely a dispassionate, unbiased, objective reading that is normally considered to constitute valid reading. But again, what may be considered valid today cannot be the determining factor for understanding what the Apostles did.

For example, it is difficult indeed to read Matt 2:15 as an objective reading of Hos 11:1,[32] likewise, Paul’s use of Isa 49:8 in 2 Cor 6:2. Neither Matthew nor Paul arrived at his conclusions from reading the OT. Rather, they began with the event from which all else is now to be understood. In other words, it is the death and resurrection of Christ that was central to the Apostles’ hermeneutical task. As an analogy, it is helpful to think of the process of reading a good novel the first time and the second time. The two readings are not equal. Who of us has not said during that second reading, “I didn’t see that the last time,” or “So that’s how the pieces fit together.” The fact that the OT is not a novel should not diminish the value of the analogy: the first reading of the OT leaves you with hints, suggestions, trajectories, etc., of how things will play out in the end, but it is not until you get to the end that you begin to see how the pieces fit together.

Paul did not begin with Isa 49:8, which speaks of Israel’s return from Babylon, and conclude grammatical-historically that this speaks of Christ. Rather, it is the reality of the risen Christ that drove Paul to read Isa 49:8 in a new way: “Now that I see how it all ends, I can see how this, too, fits; how it drives us forward.” Likewise (if I may speak this way), if Matthew were to be transported back into Hosea’s time and tell Hosea that his words would be fulfilled in the boy Jesus and that, furthermore, this Jesus would be crucified and rise for God’s people, I am not sure if Hosea would have known what to make of it. But if Hosea were to go forward to Matthew’s day, it would be very different for him. There Hosea would be forced, in light of recent events, to see his words, precisely because they are inspired by God, the divine author, in the final eschatological context. It is Matthew who would have shown Hosea how Yahweh’s plan for the world, which Hosea had glimpsed in only a partial, proleptic form, had been inaugurated in the death and resurrection of Christ. And so Hosea’s words, which in their original historical context (the intention of the human author, Hosea) did not speak of Jesus of Nazareth, now do.

To put it another way, it is the conviction of the Apostles that the eschaton had come in Christ that drove them back to see where and how their Scripture spoke of him. And this was not a matter of grammatical-historical exegesis but of a Christ-driven hermeneutic. The term I prefer to use to describe this hermeneutic is Christotelic.[33] I prefer this over “Christological” or “Christocentric” since these are susceptible to a point of view I am not advocating here, namely, the effort to “see Christ” in every, or nearly every, OT passage.[34] To see Christ as the driving force behind apostolic hermeneutics is not to flatten out what the OT says on its own. Rather, it is to see that, for the church, the OT does not exist on its own, in isolation from the completion of the OT story in the death and resurrection of Christ. The OT is a story that is going somewhere, which is what the Apostles are at great pains to show. It is the OT as a whole, particularly in its grand themes, that finds its telos, its completion, in Christ. This is not to say that the vibrancy of the OT witness now comes to an end, but that—on the basis of apostolic authority—it finds its proper goal, purpose, telos, in that event by which God himself determined to punctuate his covenant: Christ.

The matter can be put more directly. A grammatical-historical reading of the OT is not only permissible but absolutely vital in that it allows the church the see the varied trajectories set in the pages of the OT itself. It is only by understanding the OT “on its own terms,” so to speak, that the church can appreciate the impact that the death and resurrection of Christ and preaching of the gospel had in its first-century setting and still should have today.[35] But a Christian understanding of its Scripture can never simply end with this first reading. What makes it a Christian reading is that it proceeds—and this is precisely what the Apostles model for us—to the second reading, the eschatological, Christotelic reading.

The coming of Christ is, as the church claims, the central event in the entire human story. The implications of that event included the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost and the formation of a new people of God, the church, where now Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, become one people of God. Whatever racial, class, or gender distinctions might have been operative beforehand now count for nothing. A new world has begun where a Spirit-created people of God are formed into a new humanity, a humanity that lives and worships as one and as such fulfills, at least proleptically, the ideal lost in the Garden. In other words, there is not only a Christotelic dimension to apostolic hermeneutics but, as Richard Hays argues (see n. 33), an Ecclesiotelic dimension as well: the apostolic use of the OT does not focus exclusively on the person of Christ, but also the body of Christ, his people. For example, in Gal 3 the church is Abraham’s “seed,” that is, the people of God are being redefined by faith in Christ, not by some other characteristic (being of Jewish descent). But even here Abraham’s seed (Gal 3:29, plural σπέρμα), that is, the new Israel, is properly understood only in its relation to Christ the seed (Gal 3:16, singular σπέρματι): “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29). Paul is not merely “applying” Gen 12:6 to the life of the church. He is saying that the telos of Gen 12:6 (assuming he has this text in mind) is realized in the church. More importantly, the Ecclesiotelic dimension of Gen 12:6 is an extension of the Christotelic starting point. The story of Abraham has its telos in the church (we are Abraham’s seed) only because Christ completes the story first (he is Abraham’s seed).

One can say the same for Rom 15:1–4. Here Paul exhorts the strong to “bear with the failings of the weak.” To make his point he cites Ps 69:9 (“The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me”) and continues his argument, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us.. . .” Although at first blush this may seem to suggest a direct (moralistic?) application of an OT text to the life of the Christian, it is worth seeing more precisely the manner in which Paul argues his point. Specifically, he does not cite Ps 69:9 with respect to the church primarily, but with respect to Christ and how he first fulfills Ps 69:9.

We should all please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. (15:2–4, TNIV)

Hence, the manner in which Ps 69:9 was “written to teach” the church (the Ecclesiotelic dimension) was by first seeing Ps 69:9 in its Christotelic fullness: it was written to teach us because it is Christ who first brought this text into the life of the church.

I do not hesitate to point out that the Christotelic and Ecclesiotelic dimensions do not explain absolutely everything the Apostles do with the OT. As I mentioned above, there is diversity in how the Apostles handled the OT and I have no desire to gloss over the fact. I will maintain, however, that the shape of apostolic hermeneutics is best explained by bearing in mind the cultural and eschatological factors outlined above. It is far less strained and historically much more justifiable to explain apostolic hermeneutics in its cultural/eschatological context generally and view other uses of the OT within that paradigm than it is to impose a modernist hermeneutic onto the Apostles, and then have to contort ourselves to “explain” the other and much more frequent uses of the OT that go against the modernist grain.

IV. Some Implications and Trajectories for the Church’s Use of Scripture

It is one thing to observe the phenomenon of apostolic hermeneutics but quite another to suggest what to do with it, specifically how it should affect the church’s understanding and use of Scripture for proclamation and teaching. It is precisely this point that will and should remain the topic of vibrant discussion for the church, and so I make no pretense at having arrived at a final solution to the problem; any suggestions toward a solution could be met by very sober counter-reflections. In my view, however, this type of conversation will yield greater clarity. With this in mind, I suggest the following implications for how apostolic hermeneutics affect the contemporary Christian use of the Bible.

1. How does apostolic hermeneutics affect inerrancy? There is no question that “inerrancy,” at least in its earlier formulations, is not a term that is designed to encompass apostolic hermeneutics understood in its Second Temple context. This is also true for the issues mentioned briefly at the outset of this article, historicity and extrabiblical data. The evidence with which all biblical scholars work daily was either unknown when evangelicalism was working out this doctrine, or the implications of this evidence had not yet been fully appreciated by a critical mass of theologians. The field of ANE studies (literature, archaeology) was in its infancy in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which inspired renewed reflection on Second Temple literature in general, were first discovered in 1947. In view of this evidence, the church must cultivate a culture of vibrant, creative, expectant, and trusting discussion of what the Bible is and, flowing from that, how it is to function in the life of the church.

The purpose of speaking of an inerrant Scripture is not to generate an abstract comment about the church’s sacred book, but it is to reflect on our doctrine of God, that is, that God does not err.[36] But such a confession does not determine the manner in which the notion of an inerrant Scripture is articulated. It may very well be that the very way in which God “does not err” is by participating in the cultural conventions of the time, in this case, first-century Palestine. The Bible is not inerrant because it conforms to some notion of how we think something worthy of the name “Scripture” should behave. Rather, our doctrine of Scripture flows from, if I may say it, Scripture—or better, Scripture understood in its historical context and not as an a-historical treatise. And the scriptural data include not just texts such as 2 Tim 3:14–17, taken in isolation, that consciously reflect on the nature of the OT. It is just as important to observe how NT authors behave toward the OT. In other words, 2 Tim 3:14–17 is a declarative statement by Paul on his very high view of the OT—it is “Godbreathed.” But just as interesting to me is to see how Paul puts a principle such as this into practice, to observe how his “doctrine of Scripture,” outlined in no uncertain terms in 2 Tim 3:14–17, plays out in such places as 1 Cor 10:4, 2 Cor 6:2, Gal 3:16, 19, etc., etc. Paul, being a Second Temple Jew, saw no tension between his high view of Scripture and the hermeneutical practices of his time. If I may speak this way, for God himself, the Second Temple setting of the Apostles is not a problem for modern interpreters to overcome but to understand. The manner in which Paul demonstrates his high view of Scripture is by participating fully in the hermeneutical expectations of his time while also reflecting the inauguration of the eschaton. These factors must be active in any Christian formulation of a doctrine of Scripture.[37]

I am aware that this opens us up to the charge of circularity and subjectivity, but it is no more circular and subjective than adopting any doctrine of Scripture. Any notion of what Scripture is must in the end be in intimate, Spirit-led conversation with what Scripture does. And this is a matter of continual reflection and dialogue among Christians who are so inclined. It is not a matter that is fully worked out by any council or creed, but has always a “work-in-progress” dimension. This is not to imply that nothing is settled, but that the church, fully in dialogue with its own past and present, is continually in the process of getting to know better and better the Scripture that God has given us.

The issue, therefore, is not whether Scripture is “inerrant” nor certainly whether the God who speaks therein is “inerrant,” but the nature of the Scripture that the inerrant God has given us. And this is something the church proclaims to itself and the world by faith. Scripture is not “inerrant” because it can be shown that there really is no “synoptic problem” or that the Apostles are doing faithful grammatical-historical exegesis. Ultimately there is no “because” other than “Scripture is inerrant because it comes from God.” And the ability to confess this is a gift from God. When the church studies its Scripture it is not to try to bring the phenomenon of Scripture into conformity with any ready-made doctrine, but to see how an understanding of Scripture in context should define and challenge those doctrines. Then the church can go about the task of seeing what aspects of these theories are worth keeping near us and what should be moved to the side.

2. Can we do what the Apostles did? I have heard the common objection that the Apostles were justified in their “creative” handling of Scripture because their apostolic authority allowed them to do so. This view is seriously problematic. First, I am not sure how appealing to apostolic authority exonerates the Apostles. Should not one more readily assume that it is precisely their inspired, authoritative status that would demand they take God-breathed Scripture more seriously? Second, one could just as easily argue that it is precisely because they were the Apostles, to whom the inscripturation of the New Testament had been entrusted, that we should follow them. We follow them in their teaching, so why not in their hermeneutic? Otherwise we might be tempted to impose on Scripture a hermeneutical standard that is essentially foreign to it, which is in fact what has happened. Third, and most importantly, we must remember that the “problematic” ways in which the Apostles handled the OT cannot be addressed as a function of the apostolicity. In fact, if anything is not a sign of their apostolic authority, it is in how they handled the OT: both their interpretive methods and interpretive traditions are well documented in other Second Temple texts. To be sure, their Christotelic goal is where their apostolic authority should be located, not their interpretive methods.

So, can we do what the Apostles did? Responses to this question can be represented by three options: (1) defend the Apostles as practicing a hermeneutic that is fundamentally grammatical-historical, which can only be done by dismissing the Second Temple evidence and ignoring the original OT context of the passages cited; (2) dismiss apostolic hermeneutics as irrelevant to the church’s present interpretive task, a position that is more fundamentally problematic for evangelicals than reading their hermeneutic in their Second Temple context; (3) acknowledge the Second Temple setting of apostolic hermeneutics but discern carefully what is and what is not normative for the post-Apostolic setting. Richard Longenecker, who has provided the most nuanced answer to this question, adopts the third option and interprets it thus: we may follow the Apostles where they treat “the Old Testament in a more literal fashion, following the course of what we speak of today as historico-grammatical exegesis.. . .”[38]

I very much appreciate the way in which Longenecker has negotiated this difficult issue in a fresh and creative way. And, in appreciating the force of his argument, one must keep in mind that his audience is not simply evangelicals but also the mainstream of NT scholarship. He wants to guard against the extremes of both liberalism and the Bultmann school, which dismissed apostolic exegesis as “arbitrary” and “ingenious twisting” of the OT, and “Roman Catholic” and “post-Bultmannians,” who he feels are too willing to handle the OT in a haphazard fashion.[39]

I agree with Longenecker in employing the third option, but I draw the distinction between what we can and cannot do a bit differently. Longenecker draws the distinction between different types of exegetical methods and argues that those more akin to grammatical-historical exegesis command our attention whereas those more suited to first-century cultural conventions do not. It is hard not to see the common sense in such a proposal. Still, rather than making a distinction between methods on the basis of a modern standard, I would like to suggest that we distinguish between hermeneutical goal and exegetical method.

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. But that means, quite clearly, that we cannot be limited to following them where they treat the OT in a “more literal fashion,” as Longenecker proposes, since the literal (first) reading will not lead the reader to the Christotelic (second) reading. To limit apostolic authority in the way Longenecker does, it seems to me, amounts to not following the Apostles in any meaningful sense. The ultimate standard is still ours, not theirs.

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 preeschatological moment—simply reads the OT “on its own terms”—such is not a Christian proclamation in the apostolic sense.

What then of the exegetical methods employed by the Apostles? Here I follow Longenecker to a degree in that we do not share the Second Temple cultural milieu of the Apostles. I have no hesitation in saying that I would feel extremely uncomfortable to see our pastors, exegetes, or Bible Study leaders change, omit, or add words and phrases to make their point, even though this is what NT authors do. One very real danger that we are all aware of is how some play fast and loose with Scripture to support their own agenda.[40] The church instinctively wants to guard against such a misuse of Scripture by saying, “Pay attention to the words in front of you in their original context.” What helps prevent (but does not guarantee against) such flights of fancy is grammatical-historical exegesis.

But this does not mean the church should adopt the grammatical-historical method as the default, normative hermeneutic for how it should read the OT today.[41] Why? Because grammatical-historical exegesis simply does not lead to a Christotelic (apostolic) hermeneutic. A grammatical-historical exegesis of Hos 11:1, an exegesis that is anchored by Hosea’s intention, will lead no one to Matt 2:15. The first (grammatical-historical) reading does not lead to the second reading. This is a dilemma. The way I have presented the dilemma may suggest an impasse, but perhaps one way beyond that impasse is to question what we mean by “method.” The word implies, at least to me, a worked out, conscious application of rules and steps to arrive at a proper understanding of a text. But 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? As B. Lindars puts it:

The New Testament writers do not take an Old Testament book or passage and ask, “What does this mean?” They are concerned with the kerygma, which they need to teach and to defend and to understand themselves. Believing that Christ is the fulfillment of the promises of God, and that they are living in the age to which all the Scriptures refer, they employ the Old Testament in an ad hoc way, making recourse to it just when and how they find it helpful for their purposes. But they do this in a highly creative situation, because the Christ-event breaks through conventional expectations, and demands new patterns of exegesis for its elucidation.[42]

Lindars makes the point very clearly and picks up on a fundamental truth: what drives apostolic hermeneutics is not adherence to a “method.” Rather, the coming of Christ is so climactic as to require “new patterns of exegesis.” To speak of the Apostles’ exegetical “methods” may lead us down the wrong path to begin with.

This is why I have always been attracted to Biblical Theology, as understood in the trajectory of G. Vos, as a means of putting some interpretive meat to the Christotelic bone. Biblical Theology is a term that is open to a variety of understandings. I am using the term in the sense in which it was used by Vos, although by no means confined to his use, as the “self-revelation of God” as recorded in the Bible.[43] 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.

This leads me to several final suggestions, all of which are interrelated.[44]

3. Biblical interpretation, even that which occurs in the Bible itself, is embedded in culture. The exegetical methods of the Apostles were embedded in the cultural expectations of the Second Temple world. And since we do not advocate a Christian “reconstructionism,” as Longenecker puts it (see n. 38), the temptation is to dismiss these conventions as irrelevant for contemporary practice. This may be so, but there may be a lesson to be learned here as well.

To understand the contextual nature of even the Apostles’ interpretive activity should be a healthy reminder to all of us that God gave us the gospel not as an abstract doctrinal formulation, but already contextualized. And if this is true for God, it should remind us that our own interpretations are contextual as well. As “subjective” as this sounds, it is nevertheless inescapable that our own cultural moment plays a significant determining role in how we read and understand Scripture. I would submit that, if this notion is troublesome for us, it is because we have not adequately grappled with the doctrinal implications of the fact that

God himself gave us Scripture in context. This fact should motivate us to greater humility about our own interpretive conclusions while at the same time inspiring us to greater depth and profundity as we engage the OT in its Christotelic fullness.[45]

4. Biblical interpretation is at least as much art as it is science. The more I reflect on the nature of biblical interpretation throughout its long history as well as in today’s world, the more I am convinced that there must be more to the nature of biblical interpretation than simply uncovering the “meaning of the text,” as if it were an objective exercise. Although the OT ultimately coheres in Christ, there are multiple ways of expressing that coherence.[46] In other words, the OT is open to multiple layers of meaning. I may not agree that Moses’ raised hands in Exod 17 are a sign of the cross. I may not agree that Rahab’s red cord is a type of Christ’s blood. But I must remember that there are many in the history of Christ’s church who have thought these things. As much as these interpretations may run up against my own hermeneutical sensibilities, I must nevertheless be willing to allow those sensibilities to be open to critique. Moreover, inasmuch as Scripture is the Word of God, I would expect multiple layers of meaning insofar as no one person, school, or tradition can exhaust the depth of God’s Word.

So, I do not think Christian proclamation of the OT has taken place where the interpreter remains on the level of grappling with the Hebrew syntax or ancient Near Eastern context. That is merely the first step—an important step, as I mentioned earlier—but still a first step. Christian proclamation must move well beyond the bounds of such “scientific” markers. In the end, what every preacher and interpreter knows instinctively is that the words that actually come out of their mouths are a product of much more than an exegetical exercise. Christian, apostolic proclamation of the OT is a subtle interpenetration of a myriad of factors, both known and unknown, that can rightly be described not as a product of science but as a work of art. It includes such things as creativity, intuition, risk, a profound sense of the meaningfulness of the endeavor, all centered on the commitment to proclaim “Jesus is Lord.”

5. Biblical interpretation is at least as much community oriented as it is individually oriented. I sometimes speak with younger pastors or students who say, “I worked all weekend on this sermon”; sometimes they even contemplate the passage for as long as a week or two. Others write exegetical papers for my classes that require “research,” but such research rarely goes back beyond several recent commentaries or articles. And it is a rarity indeed if they ask their fellow classmates for help (although they do tend to line up outside my door a day or two before the due date).

But biblical interpretation is a true community activity. It is much more than individuals studying a passage for a week or so. It is about individuals who see themselves in a community that has both synchronic and diachronic dimensions. Truly, we are not islands of interpretive wisdom, degrees in hand and off to conquer the Bible. We rely on the witness of the church through time (with the hermeneutical trajectory set by the Apostles as a central component), as well as the wisdom of the church in our time—both narrowly considered as a congregation, denomination, or larger tradition, and the church more broadly considered as a global reality. Biblical interpretation is not merely a task that individuals perform, but it is something that grows out of our participation in the family of God in the broadest sense possible.

6. Biblical interpretation is at least as much about progress as it is maintenance. At the risk of sounding somewhat simplistic, I think of biblical interpretation more as a path to walk than a fortress to be defended. Of course, there are times when defense is necessary, but the church’s task of biblical interpretation should not be defined by such. I see regularly the almost unbearable burden we place on our preachers by expecting them, in a week’s time, to read a passage, determine its meaning, and then communicate it effectively. The burden of “getting it right” can sometimes be discouraging and hinder effective ministry. I would rather think of biblical interpretation as a path we walk, a pilgrimage we take, whereby the longer we walk, the longer we take in the surrounding scenes, the more people we stop and converse with along the way, the richer our interpretation will be. Such a journey is not always smooth. At times what is involved is a certain degree of risk and creativity: we may need to leave the main path from time to time to explore less traveled but promising tracks. To be sure, our job is also to communicate the gospel in all its simplicity, but that does not mean that biblical interpretation is an easy task—the history of the church’s interpretive activity should put such notions to rest. Biblical interpretation always requires patience and humility lest we stumble. Such a metaphor helps me remember that I am not required to handle everything that comes my way, and that the gospel will not crumble in the process. But as I attempt to understand Scripture—in the context of the diachronic and synchronic community of which I am a part—I move further along the path. And at the end of the path is not simply the gaining of knowledge of the text, but of God himself who speaks to us therein. The goal toward which the path is leading is that which set us on the path to begin with: our having been claimed by God as co-heirs with the crucified and risen Christ. The reality of the crucified and risen Christ is both the goal and font of Christian biblical interpretation.

V. A Reformed Postscript

An unspoken principle that has undergirded my thoughts here is my own Reformed conviction concerning the nature of Scripture. To take seriously the historical setting in which Scripture was given—in this case the hermeneutical milieu of first-century Palestine—is to assume that the historical context of Scripture is vital. This principle has been articulated in different ways in the Reformed tradition.[47] For Calvin it was his frequent appeal in his commentaries and the Institutes to accommodation. For Warfield it was concursus.[48] There are other ways of putting it. I prefer the phrase “incarnational analogy” of Scripture. Whatever the label, what unites these views is that revelation necessarily implies a human context. When God speaks and acts he does so within the human drama as it is expressed at a certain time and place and with all its concomitant cultural trappings. This makes revelation somewhat “messy” but it does not seem to work any other way. In fact, it would seem that God would not have it any other way. For God to participate in our earthliness in Scripture is analogical to his prime revelation in Christ, who was made in everyway like his brothers (Heb 2:17). This is to say that, if to identify Christ himself as a first-century Jew is the great demonstration of the lengths to which God will go to redeem his people, the great manifestation of God’s love, is there any reason to shy away from identifying the NT, the written witness to Christ, as likewise defined by its first-century context?

What has motivated my thoughts here is a very conscious attempt to articulate what I see as an important element of a Reformed doctrine of Scripture, that it has pleased God to reveal himself in time and place, and that understanding something about those times and places will help us understand not just what a passage means, but what Scripture is. This is why extra biblical evidence, which seems to be more plentiful in recent generations than in centuries past, is always a vital “conversation partner” for thinking through what the Bible is. Although the evidence does not determine the outcome, it does affect things, at times even to the extent that new ways are required to think of old problems. In my view, a Reformed doctrine of Scripture will always engage, not reluctantly but with great enthusiasm, the relationship between special and general revelation, with the result being a better understanding of the God who knows us and made himself known to us.

Notes

1. By defining my terms in this manner I do not wish to create the false impression that this historical period can be so easily captured by the use of such labels. Moreover, I do not wish to suggest that developments in biblical interpretation during this period are necessarily negative. The benefits of "modern" biblical scholarship, such as developments in textual criticism and broader historical/cultural issues pertaining to the ANE and Greco-Roman periods, are felt by students of Scripture across the ideological spectrum.
2. For an example of this phenomenon, see Peter Enns, "William Henry Green and the Authorship of the Pentateuch: Some Historical Considerations," JETS 45 (2002): 385-403.
3. The ideal of a historian’s objectivity is a standard that many consider to have been set in place by the German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) in his famous dictum "wie es eigentlich gewesen" (as it actually happened). See Leonard Krieger, Ranke: The Meaning of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 4.
4. More recently, harmonization of synoptic accounts can no longer be considered to be the consensus evangelical position. See Raymond B. Dillard, 2 Chronicles (WBC 15; Waco: Word, 1987); idem, "Harmonization: A Help and Hindrance," in Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, A Challenge, A Debate (ed. H. Conn; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), 151–64; V. Philips Long, The Art of Biblical History (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), esp. 76–87. This development in evangelical biblical scholarship reflects the broader scholarly acknowledgement that all attempts to reconstruct history have a local dimension.
5. Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church’s Response to Extrabiblical Evidence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995); idem, "The Antiquity of the Unity of the Human Race Revisited," Christian Scholar’s Review 24 (1995): 380-96. On the role of science and theology, a very succinct summary can be found in Howard J. Van Till, "The Fully Gifted Creation," in Three Views on Creation and Evolution (ed. J. P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 159–247, esp. 173–78.
6. It is of interest to note that such a problem is mainly confined to evangelicalism in that evangelicals have stood to lose more by locating the Apostles’ hermeneutical practices in the Second Temple period. The way the lines have been drawn in evangelicalism, the following observation by C. H. Toy would no doubt be perceived as inadequate: "We must accept the local setting of [the Apostles’] teaching as part of their human shape; and be content to take spiritual essence of their thought, undisturbed by the peculiar forms which it received from the times. Here we are dealing with them only as interpreters of the Old Testament; and the only question to be answered is, how far they have given the sense of the passages they cite" (Quotations in the New Testament [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884], xxv; my emphasis).
7. Of course, there are other dimensions to the culture of first-century Palestine, but in keeping with the purpose of this essay I limit myself to the phenomenon of Second Temple biblical interpretation. I do acknowledge, however, a degree of artificiality in separating this hermeneutical phenomenon from the myriad of other factors at work in Second Temple Judaism, be they political, sociological, cultural, etc.
8. David McCalman Turpie, The Old Testament in the New (London: Williams and Norgate, 1868), 267–69. Others come up with a different count. For example, the third edition of the Greek New Testament published by the United Bible Societies lists 251 OT passages that appear in the NT. And, since some passages are used more than once, there are 317 NT passages that quote an OT text.
9. For example, Matt 2:23 and John 7:23 have no corresponding OT referent, nor do references to the resurrection "according to the Scriptures" in Mark 8:31, Luke 24:46, and 1 Cor 15:3. Some appear to be conflations of OT texts: Rom 9:33 (Isa 8:14 and 28:16), Matt 27:9–10 (Zech 11:12–13 and Jer 32:6–9[?]). At times the NT citation agrees with the LXX over against the MT, at other times the reverse is true. Still other times the NT citation conforms to no known LXX or MT text. Many scholars present the various statistics in a variety of ways, but all illustrate the textual problems of the NT’s use of the OT. See E. Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (1957; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 150–87; idem, The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in the Light of Modern Research (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 51–74; Moisés Silva, "Old Testament in Paul," Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (ed. G. F. Hawthorne and R. P. Martin; Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press), 630–34. For a specific example, see Moisés Silva, "The New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Text Form and Authority," in Scripture and Truth (ed. D. A. Carson and J.D. Woodbridge; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 147–65.
10. This is not a private observation. Klyne Snodgrass puts it well, "The main problem for modern readers in the New Testament use of the Old Testament is the tendency of New Testament writers to use Old Testament texts in ways different from their original audience" ("The Use of the Old Testament in the New," in New Testament Criticism and Interpretation [ed. D. Black and D. Dockery; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991]). This essay is reprinted in G. K. Beale, The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Text? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 34 (hereafter Right Doctrine). Beale’s volume is a valuable resource for many major articles on apostolic hermeneutics. In subsequent references to articles reprinted there, I will cite the original bibliographical information followed by Right Doctrine and the page number in that volume.
11. The central importance of understanding the NT’s use of the OT in its Second Temple context is hardly necessary of defense. "As a Christian, I am, of course, vitally interested in the exegetical phenomena of the New Testament. But as an historian, I am concerned to have an accurate understanding of both Jewish and Christian hermeneutics during the period under study, believing that each must be seen in relation to the other" (Richard Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period [2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999], 3); ".. . it is obvious that the earliest Christians employed many of the exegetical presuppositions and practices that were common within various branches of Judaism in their day, and that they did so quite unconsciously" (ibid., 187); "The influence of Paul’s general cultural milieu, and in some particulars his rabbinic training, on his style and dialectical methods is quite apparent" (Ellis, Paul’s Use, 54); "In order to understand how the Old Testament functions in the New, we must immerse ourselves in the writings of the time" (Steve Moyise, The Old Testament in the New: An Introduction [New York: Continuum, 2001], 7); "Biblical interpretation in the New Testament church shows in a remarkable way the Jewishness of earliest Christianity. It followed exegetical methods common to Judaism and drew its perspective and presuppositions from Jewish backgrounds" (Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 121); "The very fact. .. that so many New Testament scholars have turned to the evidence of the Jewish religion and literature contemporary with the New Testament writers is, or should be, a solid indication that more is required for an understanding of the New Testament than the New Testament text alone, with the Old Testament as background" (Martin McNamara, Palestinian Judaism and the New Testament [Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983], 37). John Lightfoot was of the same opinion nearly 350 years ago: ".. . when all the books of the New Testament were written by Jews, and among Jews, and unto them; and when all the discourses made there, were made in like manner by Jews, and to Jews, and among them; I was always fully persuaded, as of a thing past all doubting, that the New Testament could not but everywhere taste of and retain the Jews’ style, idiom, form, and rule of speaking" (A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica: Matthew-I Corinthians [1658; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979], 3). The fact that Lightfoot was restricted in his comparative work to the Talmud should not cloud the significance of the observation made.
12. For example, ".. . the conviction that the grammatical-historical meaning is the entire and exclusive meaning of the text seems to stem more from post-Enlightenment rationalistic presuppositions than from an analysis of the Bible’s understanding and interpretation of itself " (Dan G. McCartney, "New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament," in Inerrancy and Hermeneutic, 103).
13. For example, Paul’s use of Deut 25:4 in 1 Cor 9:9 and 1 Tim 5:18. Many correctly address this issue of the variety of ways in which Second Temple authors in general and the NT authors specifically use the OT, for example, literalism, typology, analogy, promise-fulfillment, contrast. See Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 69–277; Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, esp. chaps. 1 and 4; Roger Nicole, "The New Testament Use of the Old Testament," in Revelation and the Bible (ed. Carl F.H. Henry; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958), 135–51; Right Doctrine, 13–51; I. Howard Marshall, "An Assessment of Recent Developments," in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture (ed. D. A. Carson and H.G.M. Williamson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1–21; Right Doctrine, 195–216; Douglas J. Moo, "The Problem of Sensus Plenior," in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon (ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 187–91, 209–10; Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 79–101.
14. Although it is certainly true that the strangeness of apostolic hermeneutics is often acknowledged in evangelical literature, there is nevertheless a significant line of argumentation that tries vigorously to maintain the "essential" grammatical-historical foundation of the Apostles, i.e., that the Apostles’ interpretation of the OT must remain related in some direct way to the intention of the OT author. "[Typological exegesis] does not read into the text a different or higher sense, but draws out from it a different or higher application of the same text" (G. K. Beale, "Did Jesus and His Followers Preach the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Text?" Them 14 [1989]: 89-96; Right Doctrine, 395); "[The Apostles] stay within the conceptual bounds of the Old Testament contextual meaning, so that what results often is an extended reference to or application of a principle which is inherent to the Old Testament text" (ibid.; Right Doctrine, 397); "God could have multiple referents in mind, even if the prophet may not have known all the constituent details. This concept is not a bad one, provided it is clear what the human author said and whatever more God says through him are related in sense" (Darrell L. Bock, "Use of the Old Testament in the New," in Foundations for Biblical Interpretation [ed. D. Dockery et al.; Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994], 104–5). See also Moo, "Sensus Plenior," 204, 211. Such a stance will never be able to account for the very radical way in which the NT authors re-interpret the OT. Ellis is much more subtle in his understanding of Paul’s exegesis of the OT as "grammatical-historical plus" (Paul’s Use, 147–48). McCartney, however, points out that the "plus" is precisely what makes apostolic hermeneutics not grammatical-historical ("New Testament’s Use," 102). It is probably best to say, along with McCartney, that grammatical-historical exegesis is compatible with apostolic hermeneutics, but no more (ibid., 111).
15. This is not the place to multiply and catalogue the "odd" uses of the OT by the NT authors. I am assuming that the reader is sufficiently familiar with the nature of the problem, either firsthand or by virtue of the fact that the presence of the problem continues to generate scholarly attention. For a recent treatment see Moyise, Old Testament in the New. Ellis includes helpful bibliographic information on scholarly works on apostolic hermeneutics from 1950–1990 (Old Testament in Early Christianity, 63–66).
16. It is a recurring line of argumentation among evangelicals that the NT writers would have needed to engage the OT in something approximating grammatical-historical exegesis if their purpose was to convince their contemporaries. This is especially true for Matthew’s Gospel, which was written for a Jewish audience. Concerning Matthew, Walter Kaiser, Jr., writes, "The gospel was more than a catechetical handbook or even a liturgical guide—it was a tract written to move tough-minded resisters to conclude that Jesus was the promised Messiah from God. If that were so, then all such embellishment would be recognized for what it is: worthless as an evangelistic or apologetic tool and singularly unconvincing" (Walter Kaiser, Jr., The Uses of the Old Testament in the New [Chicago: Moody, 1985], 44; see also 229). But in fact, the opposite is the case. It is precisely the employment of Second Temple hermeneutical standards that gave their arguments the proper hearing. Charles R. Taber, whom Kaiser cites disapprovingly, has it correct in my view: ".. . the New Testament writers used a hermeneutic in relation to many Old Testament citations which was derived from rabbinic interpretation but was at the opposite pole from what we would consider legitimate today. In our terms, some of the Old Testament passages cited are clearly taken out of context.. .. But the fact of the matter is that what they considered proper hermeneutics was part and parcel of their cultural heritage" ("Is There One Way to Do Theology?" Gospel in Context 1 [1978]: 8, cited in Kaiser, Uses of the Old Testament, 234). My only correction to Taber’s observation is to replace "rabbinic" with "Second Temple." See also Moo, "Sensus Plenior," 203: ".. . we must be careful not to think that methods of proof not convincing to us would necessarily have been equally unconvincing to first-century Jews."
17. If this were an isolated case, one could make the argument that Jesus here does not mean what he says but is only adopting the illegitimate hermeneutical practices of his opponents. Besides the fact that there is absolutely no indication of this in Jesus’ own words, if we are willing to make that argument here, we would need to be willing to make it everywhere. Moreover, one would only think of making such a case if one assumed at the outset that Jesus would not have handled Scripture in this way. It is precisely such an assumption that this essay is addressing.
18. See James Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 23. Kugel attributes the term to Geza Vermes (Scripture and Tradition in Judaism [Leiden: Brill, 1961], 67–126).
19. The "Moses raised his hands in prayer" tradition goes back at least to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, an early medieval Targum but whose traditions may go back much earlier, perhaps even to the pre-Christian era.
20. Another common example is the tradition that there were three wise men. Just what constitutes an interpretive tradition will likely depend on the interpretive community of which one is a part. From personal experience, I can say that I stumbled a bit when several years ago I was challenged to show where in the early chapters of Genesis I sawa "fall" or "Satan." Of course, as Christians we make such determinations in the context of the whole of Scripture, which includes the NT. The point, however, remains the same: my understanding of the Garden narrative is very much informed by the interpretive tradition (in this case the NT) of which I am a part.
21. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the NT authors read Jubilees and derived their theology from it directly, but that the notion of angels mediating the law is not in the OT but reflects Second Temple interpretive activity. One could derive a teaching that angels are associated with Sinai on the basis of Deut 33:2–3, particularly in the translation of this passage in LXX, but this is hardly a "plain reading" of the text.
22. The Sibylline Oracles are actually a diverse collection of writings of Jewish origin with extensive Christian reworking. Book one is considered to be of Jewish origin dating to the second century B.C. For a summary of the arguments, see J. J. Collins, "Sibylline Oracles," in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983), 1:331–32.
23. For succinct discussions of the issue, including the complex relationship between the Testament of Moses and the Assumption of Moses, see Jerome H. Neyrey, 2 Peter, Jude (AB 37c; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 65–67; Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (WBC 50; Waco: Word, 1983), 47–48; 65–76. See also Kugel, Traditions of the Bible, 886.
24. To my knowledge, the attribution of Jude 9 to 1 En. 1:9 is universally accepted.
25. Peter Enns, "The ‘Moveable Well’ in 1 Cor 10:4: An Extra-Biblical Tradition in an Apostolic Text," BBR 6 (1996): 23-38. See also E. Earle Ellis, "A Note on First Corinthians 10:4, " JBL 76 (1957): 53-56, repr. in Ellis, Paul’s Use, 66–70; Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 448 n. 34; Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrash (München: C. H. Beck, 1926), 3:406–8.
26. See also my arguments for a similar phenomenon in the Wisdom of Solomon (Peter Enns, Exodus Retold: Ancient Exegesis of the Departure from Egypt in Wis 10:15–21 and 19:1–9 [HSM 57; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997], 135–54). Rabbinic evidence always runs the risk of being applied too quickly to the question of apostolic hermeneutics. It must always be kept in mind that the earliest rabbinic literature post-dates the NT by several generations at least. This is not to say, however, that the evidence should play no role. Although it would be injudicious at best to appeal to later rabbinic practices to "explain" a NT writer’s hermeneutic, it is nonetheless the case that there are deep similarities that rabbinic writers share with Second Temple interpreters. As Donald Juel puts it, ".. . formal questions are not the sole considerations in the study of postbiblical scriptural interpretation. The rabbinic midrashim still share both an approach to the scriptural text and specific interpretive traditions with Qumran commentaries, targumic literature, and the NT. It is this world of shared approach and interpretive traditions that is of greatest interest to us" (Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], 37–38; my emphasis). Post-NT midrashic literature, therefore, is still relevant to our discussion if one understands "midrash" not simply as a genre of literature but an interpretive attitude. See also the classic essays by Renée Bloch, "Midrash," (DBSup 5; Paris: Letouzey & Ané, 1950), repr. in Approaches to Ancient Judaism: Theory and Practice (ed.W. S. Green; trans M. H. Callaway; 6 vols.; BJS 1; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 1:29–50; idem, "Note méthodologique pour l’étude de la littérature rabbinique," RSR 43 (1955): 194-227, repr. in Approaches to Ancient Judaism, 1:51–75.
27. See Kaiser, Uses of the Old Testament, 226: "The only change that we have detected in the NT use of the Old is in application—not in meaning."
28. This distinction is clearly articulated in E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967).
29. Speaking of Second Temple interpreters, James Kugel writes, ".. . ‘pure’ exegesis as such does not really exist. The ancient interpreter always had an axe to grind, always had a bit of an ulterior motive. . ." (Traditions of the Bible, 21).
30. See, e.g., 1QpHab 7.1-8.13; 11.2-8. It is partly because of the NT’s decidedly eschatological emphasis that considerable hermeneutical overlap is seen between the NT and many of the Qumran documents. Specifically, a number of scholars have considered apostolic exegesis to have affinities with the pesher method documented in the Dead Sea Scrolls. See Moyise, Old Testament in the New, 9–16; Longenecker, Biblical Interpretation, 38–45 and throughout.
31. This is one of the central points in McCartney, "New Testament’s Use," 101–16. It is not the Apostles’ methods that drove their exegesis but their hermeneutical goal of proclaiming Christ. See also Juel: ".. . the confession of Jesus as the crucified and risen King of the Jews stands at the beginning of Christological reflection and interpretation of the Scriptures" (Messianic Exegesis, 171); "The confession of Jesus as Messiah is not a goal toward which scriptural interpretation moves but the presupposition for the interpretive tradition. It is not the solution to some problem generated by earlier exegesis but in large measure the generative problem itself " (ibid., 117); and, concerning Christian interpreters’ use of Dan 7 via Ps 110 in relation to their own experiences, "It is to say that what distinguished their exegesis from that of other Jewish sectarian groups was the link with a specific historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified as a royal pretender and vindicated by God at his resurrection. It is still the confession of Jesus as the vindicated King that provides the connection point and controls the shape of the tradition" (ibid., 169). Ellis, contrasting apostolic hermeneutics to rabbinic, speaks of the NT’s "eschatological orientation" which centers its use of the OT on "some aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry" (Old Testament in Early Christianity, 94). Longenecker writes, "The Old Testament contained certain specific messianic predictions, but more than that it was ‘messianic prophecy’ and ‘messianic doctrine’ throughout when viewed from its intended and culminating focal point" (Biblical Exegesis, 208); "[The earliest Christian interpreters] worked from the same fixed two points: (1) the Messiahship and Lordship of Jesus, as validated by the resurrection and witnessed to by the Spirit; and (2) the revelation of Godin the Old Testament as pointing forward to him. Thus their perspective was avowedly Christocentric and their treatment thoroughly Christological" (ibid., 190).
32. For a recent discussion on Matthew’s use of Hosea, see John H. Sailhamer, "Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:15, " WTJ 63 (2001): 87-96; Dan G. McCartney and Peter Enns, "Matthew and Hosea: A Response to John Sailhamer," WTJ 63 (2001): 97-105.
33. The term "Christotelic," as far as I am aware, occurs nowhere else in print. It is derived from Richard B. Hays’s description of Paul’s hermeneutic as "ecclesiotelic" (see below), which Hays distinguishes from "ecclesiocentric" (see Richard B. Hays, "On the Rebound: A Response to Critiques of Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul," in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel [ed. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders; JSNTSup 83; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993], 77–78. I have been introduced to these terms by my colleagues Profs. Doug Green and Steve Taylor.
34. Greidanus speaks of the "danger of Christomonism" in preaching, by which he means a proclamation of Christ apart from the centrality of bringing glory to God, which was the reason for which the Father sent the Son to earth (Preaching Christ, 178).
35. Moyise speaks of the OT providing "images" to understand Christ, while the NT "redefines" those images in the light of Christ (Old Testament in the New, 135).
36. Recently, Kevin J. Vanhoozer has articulated an approach to theology that brings doctrine of God and doctrine of Scripture into close conversation (First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2002]). I cannot help but think that such a proposal will yield very positive results for how the church thinks through its understanding of the nature of Scripture.
37. "We often proclaim our theories about Scripture in the abstract, but the use of the Old Testament by New Testament writers raises questions about our theories" (Snodgrass, "Use of the Old Testament," in Right Doctrine, 31); "It has become all too common in theological circles today to hear assertions as to what God must have done or what must have been the case during the apostolic period of the Church—and to find that such assertions are based principally upon deductions from a given system of theology or supported by contemporary analogy alone.. . Nowhere do we need to guard against our own inclinations and various pressures more carefully than in our understanding of the New Testament writers’ use of the Old Testament.. . .Traditional views of either the right or the left [cannot] be allowed to stand unscrutinized in light of recent theories" (Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 185). Longenecker’s comments on pp. 185-86 can scarcely be improved upon for their relevance and succinctness.
38. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 217; see also xxxviii. He writes elsewhere, "It is my contention that, unless we are "reconstructionists" in our attitude toward hermeneutics, Christians today are committed to the apostolic faith and doctrine of the New Testament, but not necessarily to the apostolic practices as detailed for us in the New Testament" ("Who Is the Prophet Talking About? Some Reflections on the New Testament Use of the Old," Them 13 [1987]: 4-8; Right Doctrine, 385).
39. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 193–96.
40. Of course, the Apostles would have a similar problem with this in that the only agenda Scripture is called to support is Christ.
41. The assumption that historical-grammatical hermeneutics is "normal" and transcends cultural and historical boundaries is a common argument among evangelicals. A recent work that propounds this view throughout is Dale F. Leschert, Hermeneutical Foundations of Hebrews: A Study in the Validity of the Epistle’s Interpretation of Some Core Citations from the Psalms (National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion Dissertation Series 10; Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1996). See also Peter Enns, review of Dale F. Leschert, Hermeneutical Foundations of Hebrews, WTJ 60 (1998): 164-68.
42. Barnabas Lindars, "The Place of the Old Testament in the Formation of New Testament Theology: Prolegomena," NTS 23 (1976): 59-66; Right Doctrine, 143.
43. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 5.
44. Although these musings are entirely my own, I have benefited from Richard B. Hays’s observation in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 178–92. In these pages, which conclude his book, Hays discusses the degree to which Paul’s letters can serve as hermeneutical models for today. Interested readers will find there a stimulating discussion that explores some different dimensions of the topic at hand.
45. R. T. France puts it well. Speaking of Matthew’s use of the OT, he writes, "Our cultural and religious traditions would not allow us to write like this, and do not allow us to read Matthew, initially at least, with the shared understanding which we must assume his original readers, or some of them, would have had. But the inevitable distance which cultural relativity puts between us and Matthew’s original readers does not entitle us to write him off as obscurantist or incapable. And when we attempt to read him on his own terms, by putting ourselves in the place of the original readers, we may not only achieve a more respectable appreciation of his literary ability and his skill as a communicator, but we may also be in a position to discern those guiding principles of interpretation which need to find as appropriate an expression in our cultural situation as Matthew gave them in his" ("The Formula-Quotations of Matthew 2 and the Problem of Communication," NTS 27 [1981]: 23-51; Right Doctrine, 134).
46. As Greidanus puts it, "Many roads lead from the Old Testament to Christ," (Preaching Christ, 203–25).
47. I am not suggesting that this principle is confined to the Reformed tradition, only that it has been characteristic of a Reformed doctrine of Scripture.
48. B. B. Warfield, "The Divine and Human in the Bible," Presbyterian Journal (May 3, 1894), repr. in B. B. Warfield: Evolution, Science, and Scripture: Selected Writings (ed. M. Noll and D. Livingstone; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 51–58.