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The Same Yesterday and Today and Forever? A Hermeneutical Study of the Use of the Old Testament in the Epistle to the Hebrews and its Implications for Scriptural Authority and Biblical Preaching in a Secularized Western Setting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2021

Samuel Maginnis Open the ORCID record for Samuel Maginnis [Opens in a new window]
Samuel Maginnis*
Affiliation:
a priest in the Church of England. He is currently serving his curacy in the parish of St John the Baptist, Loughton, in the Diocese of Chelmsford, UK.
*
Email: srh.maginnis@gmail.com
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Abstract

Secularization and pluralism have created a crisis of biblical authority within contemporary Western Christianity. Responding to this, Christine McSpadden has produced a manifesto for preachers which approaches the Bible not as just one ‘sacred text’ amongst others but as a unique means of life-changing encounter with the living and active Word of God. Though she makes no reference to it, McSpadden’s understanding of Scripture closely echoes that of one of the earliest Christian texts, the Epistle to the Hebrews. The purpose of this paper is to examine Hebrews’ use of the Old Testament and what its interpretive method reveals about the author’s understanding of the nature of Scripture; to identify the extent to which McSpadden’s approach follows this understanding and method; and to determine what further implications this shared tradition may have for the doctrine of scriptural authority and the practice of biblical preaching in a contemporary Western setting. It concludes that McSpadden’s approach stands firmly in the tradition first articulated in Hebrews and that together they reflect the most ancient Christian understanding of scriptural authority, which protects the Bible texts from historical irrelevance on one hand and from unduly speculative and subjective interpretations on the other.

Keywords

biblical interpretationEpistle to the HebrewshermeneuticshomileticsOld Testament in Christianitypreachingresponses to secularizationscriptural authority
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , May 2022 , pp. 67 - 79
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Copyright
© The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2021

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References

2 Christine McSpadden, ‘Preaching Scripture Faithfully in a Post-Christendom Church’, in Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays (eds.), The Art of Reading Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 126.

3 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, pp. 127-28.

4 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 142.

5 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 136.

6 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 132.

7 The understanding that each of these three heads of authority must uphold, and be interpreted in light of, the others is often said to originate with Richard Hooker (c. 1554–1600), though Hooker’s approach was itself a development of the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) – Charles Miller, Richard Hooker and the Vision of God: Exploring the Origins of ‘Anglicanism’ (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2013), p. 176.

8 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 127.

9 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 135.

10 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 129.

11 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 139.

12 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 140.

13 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 136.

14 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 130.

15 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, pp. 128, 140.

16 Anthony Thiselton, Hermeneutics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), p. 2.

17 Marie Isaacs, Sacred Space: An Approach to the Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (JSNTS, 73; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), p. 67.

18 The identity of Hebrews’ author has been a matter of controversy since antiquity; for convenience I will follow L.D. Hurst’s example and refer to him as Auctor – Andrew Lincoln, Hebrews: A Guide (London: T&T Clark, 2006), pp. 2-4; L.D. Hurst, The Epistle to the Hebrews: Its Background of Thought (SNTSMS, 65; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 4. In light of Auctor’s self-reference at 11.32 using a masculine singular participle I will assume throughout this essay that he was male – Ken Schenck, ‘God Has Spoken: Hebrews’ Theology of the Scriptures’, in R. Bauckham, D.R. Driver, T.A. Hart and N. Macdonald (eds.), The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), p. 322, n.3.

19 13.22, translating τοῦ λóγου τῆς παρακλήσεως – see Lincoln, Hebrews, p. 9.

20 Lincoln, Hebrews, pp. 21-22.

21 John Webster, ‘One Who Is Son: Theological Reflections on the Exordium to the Epistle to the Hebrews’, in Bauckham et al. (eds.), Hebrews and Christian Theology, pp. 74-78.

22 Richard Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (2nd edn; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 147-48. Compare the 29 quotations listed by B.F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Greek Text with Notes and Essays (London: Macmillan, 1889), pp. 469-70; and 35 quotations identified by George Howard, ‘Hebrews and the Old Testament Quotations’, NovTest 10 (1968), pp. 208-16.

23 Graham Hughes, Hebrews and Hermeneutics: The Epistle to the Hebrews as a New Testament Example of Biblical Interpretation (SNTSMS, 36; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 2.

24 Hurst, Hebrews, pp. 2-3.

25 Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, p. 140.

26 Kenneth Thomas, ‘The Old Testament Citations in Hebrews’, NTS 11 (1964–65), pp. 303-25 (303); J.C. McCullough, ‘The Old Testament Quotations in Hebrews’, NTS 26 (1980), pp. 363-79 (363); Susan Docherty, ‘The Text Form of the OT Citations in Hebrews Chapter 1 and the Implications for the Study of the Septuagint’, NTS 55 (2009), pp. 355-65 (362).

27 Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, pp. 6-7.

28 Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, pp. 153.

29 G.B. Caird, ‘The Exegetical Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews’, CJT 5 (1959), pp. 44-51 (45); Susanne Lehne, The New Covenant in Hebrews (JSNTS, 44; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), pp. 101-102.

30 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 3.

31 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 24.

32 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 9.

33 Harold Attridge, ‘God in Hebrews’, in Bauckham et al., Hebrews and Theology, p. 103; Hughes, Hebrews, p. 8.

34 Schenck, ‘God Has Spoken’, in Bauckham et al., Hebrews and Theology, pp. 322-23.

35 John Webster, ‘One Who Is Son: Theological Reflections on the Exordium to Hebrews’, in Bauckham et al., Hebrews and Theology, pp. 75-78; Hughes, Hebrews, p. 47.

36 Hughes, Hebrews, pp. 41-42.

37 Lindars, Theology, pp. 51, 131-32.

38 Lehne, Covenant, p. 119.

39 Lehne, Covenant, pp. 95-96.

40 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 45.

41 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 70.

42 Hughes, Hebrews, pp. 54-65.

43 Morna D. Hooker, ‘Christ, the “End” of the Cult’, in Bauckham et al., Hebrews and Christian Theology, p. 209; Gareth Lee Cockerill, ‘Melchizedek without Speculation: Hebrews 7.1-25 and Genesis 14.17-24’, in Bauckham et al. (eds.), A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in its Ancient Contexts (LNTS, 387; London: T&T Clark, 2008), p. 133.

44 Hughes, Hebrews, pp. 65-66.

45 Schenck, ‘God Has Spoken’, p. 324.

46 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 104.

47 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 52; Schenck, ‘God Has Spoken’, p. 334.

48 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, p. 128.

49 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, pp. 130, 135.

50 Hughes, Hebrews, pp. 129-30.

51 Hughes, Hebrews, p. 125.

52 McSpadden, ‘Preaching’, pp. 132-33, 136.