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Let’s face it. Christians have a problem when it comes to the use of the Old Testament in the church. We have found a variety of ways of overlooking or de-emphasizing or simply dismissing the Old Testament and its inherent value for the church.
True, a fair number of texts in the Old Testament are troublesome. An example is Proverbs 23:13, which endorses and encourages corporal punishment for a child (“Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you beat him with a rod, he will not die”); or Proverbs 5, 6 and 7, which describe women in a most derogatory manner. And, as if this were not enough, large sections of the Pentateuch focus on dietary laws and the different types of offerings and sacrifices.
For the most part, the church has been content simply to have the Old Testament “be there.” Others, however, have encountered deeper difficulties with the Old Testament and have actively sought to eliminate it altogether from the Christian canon. In so doing, they have decisively extinguished any glimmer of usefulness that was thought to have been there.
One of the problems encountered in the church with regard to the Old Testament is the fact that the Old Testament is not seen to be the Word of God. Where this is the perception of the minister, it is inevitably transmitted to the laity. This attitudinal problem is reflected in the fact that in the church’s lectionary there is no continuity in the readings of the Old Testament in the way there is for the Gospel and Epistle lessons. The Old Testament is used primarily in support of the New Testament. Not only are Old Testament texts by and large neglected in preaching, but often they are omitted altogether from lectionary readings. So generally, then, it is a question of omission or misappropriation.
An apparent distrust of this body of literature, which happens to be the sacred text of Judaism, reflects the fact that for many Christians Judaism is an “alien religion.”1 This distrust, however, is not something unique to the contemporary church; in some ways the church has inherited it and has simply continued this distrust in covert ways.
The first important critic of the use of the Old Testament in the church, and the one whose name is synonymous with rejection of the Old Testament, is Marcion.2 Marcion, who lived in the second century, suggested that the God of the Old Testament is entirely different than the God of the New. For Marcion, there was no question of continuity between the two testaments. He made a clear distinction between the Creator God of the Old Testament and the God of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Naturally, canonicity and continuum were irrelevant precisely because, if the God of each is different that eliminates the fundamental connection between the two. In his polemic against the Old Testament, Marcion set the scene for other scholars. It was his position that precipitated the numerous and varied reactions to the Old Testament that we see today.
Some 60 years ago, Adolf von Harnack, in his definitive work on Marcion, not only clearly presented Marcion’s view, but also built his own case against the Old Testament by using Marcion as a foundation. What preoccupied Harnack was the canonical stature of the Old Testament. He speculated that much of the criticism leveled against Christianity in his day took the Old Testament as its point of departure. Harnack has nothing against the Old Testament in and of itself; for what it is worth, it may even be purposeful literature, but that purpose does not relate to the New Testament. Perhaps 023the most fitting place for the Old Testament, in Harnack’s view, would be in the Apocrypha, where it would be functionally more effective.
It is unclear whether Harnack was aware of the impact of his views. He was, of course, espousing these views at a time when his words served to generate bitter and deep anti-Semitic feelings among the inciters during the time of the Third Reich. Harnack suggested:
“To reject the Old Testament in the second century [in the time of Marcion] was a mistake which the church rightly repudiated [Marcion was ultimately condemned as a heretic]; to retain it in the sixteenth century was a fate which the Reformation could not yet avoid; but to continue to keep it in Protestantism as a canonical document after the nineteenth century is the consequence of religious and ecclesiastical paralysis …. [T]o sweep the table clean and honor the truth in confession and teaching is the action required of Protestantism today. And it is almost too late.”3
This kind of polemic in and of itself was important, and it called for notice by biblical scholars. But perhaps even more significant was Harnack’s appeal to those outside the church, those who were constantly seeking any artillery to use against the Jews. What was particularly useful to those who would misappropriate Harnack’s argument was the theological and ecclesiastical basis on which he founded his rejection.
Although Harnack’s view provided fuel for growing anti-Semitic feelings, particularly among those outside the church, this was overshadowed by the even greater damage done by Friedrich Delitzsch.4 Delitzsch was the son of Franz Delitzsch, the prominent conservative German Old Testament scholar. For Delitzsch, the Old Testament was dominated by inconsistencies, contradictions and an immoral thread that runs throughout it. Delitzsch, in the words of the great scholar Emil G. Kraeling, considered the Old Testament a book “full of fraud and immorality that had damaged the moral fibre of Christendom and should no longer be read as sacred literature by Christians.”5 Delitzsch endlessly portrayed the God of the Old Testament as callous and merciless. Can this God, who participates in the slaughter of a people, as described in Joshua, be the same as the God of the New Testament, the God of Jesus Christ? For Delitzsch, this was impossible.
What gave Delitzsch’s argument particular force was that his objections were born out of practical considerations that could easily be perceived by lay people. Delitzsch’s objections, in a manner of speaking, come from the grassroots. His aversion to the Old Testament can be described, again in Kraeling’s words, as follows:
“The Old Testament is full of deceptions of all kinds: a veritable hodgepodge of erroneous, incredible, undependable figures, including those of biblical chronology; a veritable labyrinth of false portrayals, misleading reworkings, revisions and transpositions, therefore also of anachronisms, a constant intermixture of contradictory particulars and whole stories, unhistorical inventions, legends and folk tales—in short, a book full of intentional and unintentional deceptions, a very dangerous book, in the use of which the greatest care is necessary.”6
Delitzsch’s undisguised disdain and contempt for the Old Testament spilled over into the teaching of anything associated with the Old Testament in theological schools.
But the questions raised by Harnack and, in particular, Delitzsch, although still resonating to some extent in today’s society, are not the views that made an indelible impression on contemporary scholarship and the church. For this, we must look to the views of two giants of modern theology—Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf Bultmann.
Schleiermacher is generally recognized as one of the greatest theological minds in modern history. It is no surprise, therefore, that his views on the Old Testament have made a lasting mark on biblical scholarship within the church.7 Schleiermacher believed that there was a place for the Old Testament, but it was not in the realm of the Christian church. He developed an early version of the notion of “promise and fulfillment” as a way of describing the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament. However, rather than uniting the Old Testament and the New, for Schleiermacher “promise and fulfillment” separates the two. For the Jews, whose faith is grounded in the Old Testament, and for the “non-believers,” who have no relation either to the Old Testament or the New, Christ is the same. Thus, Schleiermacher argues, the Jews are as far removed from Christ as are the non-believers. This is one way of suggesting that Judaism and the Hebrew Bible are as far removed from Christianity and the New Testament as any other religion and its scripture.
Moreover, Schleiermacher argued, Christian 024doctrine is generally not based on the Old Testament; what little is based there is not worth keeping, since it creates more problems than it solves. What then should be done with the Old Testament? Schleiermacher does not go quite as far as Marcion in abandoning the Old Testament altogether, but he does say that the Old Testament should not be used for Christian teaching. What then is the role of the Old Testament? It should be at most, he suggests, an appendix to the New Testament.
For Rudolf Bultmann,8 the Old Testament has a role to play in the life of the church. According to his view, however, the Old Testament is not revelation for the Christian, nor is it the Word of God. According to Bultmann, the Old Testament serves as Vorverstandnis (pre-understanding) for the New Testament. In this regard it is useful, though it is not indispensable. Accordingly, he suggests that “the pre-understanding … of the gospel which emerges under the Old Testament can emerge just as well within other historical embodiments of the divine law.”9 Thus, because the Old Testament is only a pre-understanding, it has severe limitations on its role within the church. As a way of helping with the understanding of the New Testament, the Old Testament might be used for pedagogical reasons. The church cannot rely on it for any other reason, precisely because all its demands on the individual are seen to be obsolete. To make the Old Testament central or even indispensable for the church is to make the pre-understanding into a final understanding. Bernhard Anderson has summed up Bultmann’s view in this way:
“The Christian proclamation cannot and may not remind hearers that God led their fathers out of Egypt, that he once led the people into captivity, and brought them back again into the land of the Promise, that he restored Jerusalem and the Temple and so on. Israel’s history is not our history and in so far as God has shown his Grace in that history, such grace is not meant for us.”10
So the modern church is left with a potpourri of ideas regarding the Old Testament. Attempts to reverse some of the views expressed here by making the Old Testament the primary Scripture in the church serve only to complicate matters further.11
How then is the Old Testament perceived in the church? Some see it as a reading for Sunday worship, often as a complement—but perhaps more often as a contrast to the New Testament lessons. Can it, like the New Testament, be seen to be an indispensable part of the Christian Bible, as holy, as inspired, as containing the promises of God, the same God as the New Testament, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?
What we face in the church today, with respect to the value and use of the Old Testament, is decidedly more dangerous than Marcion’s proposals. For Marcion, the rejection of the Old Testament as an integral constituent of the Christian Bible also meant in effect discounting a significant part of the New Testament. Our problem becomes clearer when we recognize that the New Testament uses much of the imagery and vocabulary of the Old Testament and interprets events in the Old Testament in light of events in New Testament times. The early church, sensitive to the unacceptable nature of Marcion’s thesis, rejected his arguments. Today, however, the indifference to the value and relevance of the Old Testament leads to the interpretation of the New Testament in a vacuum.
The issue of the continuum between the Old Testament and the New leads inevitably to the question of canon. Inspiration, revelation, and promise and fulfillment are all brought in question if the canon of the Bible is taken apart.
Alfred Jepsen has suggested that “there is no such thing as an ‘Old Testament’ except as a part of the Christian Canon.”12 The fundamental problem with this view is that it dismisses the possibility of the validity of the Old Testament in its own right. The Old Testament is indeed a part of the Christian canon (a significant part), but it has a message of its own, while simultaneously shedding light on New Testament matters.
Of its own accord, the Old Testament is capable of reminding us of God’s revelation to his people Israel. It clearly shows us God’s involvement in history on behalf of his people. In this respect, in and of itself, the Old Testament is authoritative. Brevard Childs reckons that “the decisive force at work in the formation of the Canon emerged in the transmission of a divine word in such a form as to lay authoritative claim upon the successive generations.”13 This “divine word” of which Childs speaks did not die with the beginning of the Christian era, but, as for generations of Jews, continues to function for Christians, though clearly on a different level because of Christ. The New Testament, with its message and promise of God in Christ, helps us to understand in a new light the Old Testament and the message found there. But the Old Testament also has a reciprocal function; it 025lends considerable insight into the understanding of the New Testament, in terms of themes, vocabulary, imagery and world view preserved in the Old Testament. Terence Fretheim correctly notes:
“[T]he Old Testament is (often literally) contained within the New Testament; in being so blended into the New, it becomes as new as the New. Together they constitute a new coherent totality, yet without the Old losing its character as Word of God.”14
Christians continue to seek knowledge in an ever-changing world. The quest for meaning and understanding, for clarification and for new and refined knowledge has led Christians to interpret and reinterpret their present experiences in the light of contemporary scientific knowledge, the various traditions that have been inherited (including the Christian tradition) and the Bible. This ongoing engagement, seeking knowledge that relates and gives meaning to their experiences, means that the Bible (both Old Testament and New Testament) is subject to continued criticism in the light of changing experiences and values. In this light, the interpretation of the Old Testament in the New Testament is of absolute importance. A. Gunneweg suggests that, “it would be no exaggeration to understand the hermeneutical problem of the Old Testament as the problem of Christian theology.”15 Whether or not it is the problem of Christian theology, it is certainly a significant one.
This problem is a kind of paradigm of an ongoing process by which inherited traditions are reinterpreted in the light of present experiences. There is no doubt that the historical setting of an Old Testament text is in many instances different from the New Testament context to which it is applied (as shown by many examples in the Gospels and the Pauline corpus). However, a New Testament writer’s reinterpretation of an Old Testament text, need not necessarily supersede the original sense in the Old Testament. The Old Testament can be interpreted in its own right, outside of the New Testament’s use of it.
Consider a few examples that might be helpful. The Deuteronomic laws (Deuteronomy 5) are in effect a reinterpretation of the Convenant code in Exodus 20. Deuteronomy does not merely repeat these themes but reinterprets them in the light of then-prevailing conditions. However, this renewal of the Covenant code in Deuteronomy does not supersede the words of Exodus; rather, both accounts must now be reckoned with.
Similarly, the popular proverb, “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 18:2), was a maxim that pointed to the punishment that succeeding generations would have to endure for the sins of their ancestors. Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel objected to the people’s belief that their destiny was predetermined by the sins of their ancestors. Therefore, the prophets argued that the consequences of sin will have to be borne by the people themselves: “But every one shall die for his own sin; each person who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge” (Jeremiah 31:30).
One other example will suffice here. The prophet Isaiah’s words, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4; Micah 4:3), were spoken at a time when there was widespread belief that all nations would recognize the authority of Yahweh. This being the case, there would be no need for weapons or war.
However, in Joel 3:9–10, we have a reversal of Isaiah’s words. Because of the nations’ crimes against each other (Joel 3:4–6), God will judge all nations and there will be war. “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, ‘I am a warrior’ ” (Joel 3:10).
These examples of Old Testament texts reinterpreted within the Old Testament itself provide an insight into the constant reinterpretation that is necessary.
In the New Testament, there are many Old Testament texts that have been reinterpreted, particularly in light of the momentous and climactic occurrence of the Christ event. Let me give one example of an Old Testament text that has been reinterpreted in the New Testament. In 1 Timothy the writer reinterprets the “fall” event of the Old Testament as a way of arguing polemically against women:
“Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty” (1 Timothy 2:11–15).
Because of the fall, women are perceived to be 036inferior to men. We are not sure of the rationale behind this argument, but in the wake of contemporary concerns and a reawakening of our concern for the role of women in our society, this interpretation of the fall is now unacceptable. This is one clear instance in which the New Testament reinterpretation of the Old Testament does not supersede the latter, but rather the Old Testament serves as a corrective to the New Testament.
Most of the time, experience dictates the nature of the interpretive task. This experience may be molded from traditions that have been inherited or by new factors within the church or society. The fact that the Bible in general and the Old Testament in particular can be appropriate in a variety of ways—and has been throughout history—indicates its “aliveness” and relevance as the biblical word in our own time.
The church benefits by recognizing the wealth of the Old Testament. There is no doubt that the Old Testament contains God’s word for people in every time, and while the Christ event is climactic for the church, this does not nullify God’s salvific acts recorded in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is an indispensable part of the Bible of the Christian church and cannot be viewed only as a pre-understanding (Bultmann), or as a contrast to the New Testament. The fact that Jesus quoted and referred to the Old Testament on so many occasions (for example, Matthew 9:12–13) should be a prominent reminder of its importance.
