Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:58:21.320Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Canons to the Left of Him: Brevard Childs, his Critics, and the Future of Old Testament Theology1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Iain Provan
Iain Provan
Affiliation:
New CollegeThe Mound Edinburgh EH1 2LX Scotland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is well known that the seeds from which the modern discipline of OT theology grew are already found in 17th and 18th century discussion of the relationship between Bible and Church, which tended to drive a wedge between the two, regarding canon in historical rather than theological terms; stressing the difference between what is transient and particular in the Bible and what is universal and of abiding significance; and placing the task of deciding which is which upon the shoulders of the individual reader rather than upon the church. Free investigation of the Bible, unfettered by church tradition and theology, was to be the way ahead. OT theology finds its roots more particularly in the 18th century discussion of the nature of and the relationship between Biblical Theology and Dogmatic Theology, and in particular in Gabler's classic theoretical statement of their nature and relationship. The first book which may strictly be called an OT theology appeared in 1796: an historical discussion of the ideas to be found in the OT, with an emphasis on their probable origin and the stages through which Hebrew religious thought had passed, compared and contrasted with the beliefs of other ancient peoples, and evaluated from the point of view of rationalistic religion. Here we find the unreserved acceptance of Gabler's principle that OT theology must in the first instance be a descriptive and historical discipline, freed from dogmatic constraints and resistant to the premature merging of OT and NT — a principle which in the succeeding century was accepted by writers across the whole theological spectrum, including those of orthodox and conservative inclination.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , February 1997 , pp. 1 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 The spirit of the times is well captured in the title of J. Semler's seminal work on the canon, Abhandlung von freier Untersuchung des Canons (Treatise on the Free Investigation of the Canon, 1771–1776), in which he argued that the theological approach to the Hebrew canon which regarded it as a unified body of authoritative writings, resting as it did upon historical misconceptions, should be replaced by a strictly historical approach which would establish its “true” historical development.

3 See Ollenburger, B. C. et al. (eds), The Flowering of Old Testament Theology, Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 1 (Eisenbrauns; Winona Lake, 1992), pp. 489–502, for an English translation of his original lecture.Google Scholar

4 Eichrodt, W., “Does Old Testament Theology still have independent significance within Old Testament scholarship?,” in Ollenburger, et al. (eds), The Flowering of Old Testament Theology, pp. 30–39; and Theology of the Old Testament, 2 vols., trans. Baker, J. A. (SCM; Philadelphia, 1961 and 1967)Google Scholar. Eichrodt himself could not consistently organise his OT theology around the theme of covenant, for the very obvious reason that in those many parts of the OT where religion is considered in more universalistic terms as a relationship between Cod and the world or God and humanity, rather than between God and Israel, there is scarcely any trace of that theme. The attempt by others to find a different theme which functions more happily as the centre has resulted only in such a proliferation of centres that the concept itself is brought into question.

5 von Rad, G., Old Testament Theology, 2 vols., trans. Stalker, D. M. G. (Oliver and Boyd; Edinburgh, 1962 and 1965)Google Scholar. It is clearly not the case across the broad sweep of OT literature that Israel's faith is essentially concerned with the acts of God. There are many OT books in which Yahweh's acts do not figure prominently at all. Salvation history can, in fact, be plausibly argued to be a direct concern of only about half the OT.

6 Childs, B. S., Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Fortress; Minneapolis, 1993).Google Scholar

7 The task of biblical theology, on the other hand, is to explore the relation between OT and NT witnesses in more serious dialogue with the traditions of dogmatic theology.

8 Watson, F., Text, Church and World: Biblical Interpretation in Theological Perspective (T & T Clark; Edinburgh, 1994), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

9 Barr, J., Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism (Clarendon; Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar; see also “Childs' Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture,” JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 12–23.Google Scholar

10 It has, in fact, received it, e.g. from Brett, M. G., Biblical Criticism in Crisis?: The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies (CUP; Cambridge, 1991), pp. 118–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 For the detail with regard to Kings, see Provan, I. W., 1 and 2 Kings, NIBC (Hendrickson; Peabody, 1995)Google Scholar. On inter-textuality within the OT in general, cf. Carson, D. A. and Williamson, H.G. M. (eds), It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture. Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars (CUP; Cambridge, 1988), pp. 25–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fishbane, M., Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Clarendon; Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar; and many of the newer books on Hebrew narrative.

12 This is a common distinction, already found in Semler (op. cit.) and often repeated in modern times, e.g. Sundberg, A. C., The Old Testament of the Early Church (Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., 1964)Google Scholar. Evidence of canon consciousness, it is often asserted — even by scholars who stress the continuity of the tradition-process rather more than Barr does — is not to be found. Thus Knight, D. A., “Canon and the History of Tradition: A Critique of Brevard S. Childs' Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture,” HBT 2 (1980), pp. 127–149Google Scholar, is happy to write of the shaping of the biblical materials, and to view their redactors as theologians, yet confesses himself “… unconvinced that this ‘shaping’ should be considered explicit and intentional canonical activity” (p. 137).

13 That the silence is deafening is well illustrated by the fact that Mays, J. L., “What is Written: A Response to Brevard Childs' Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture,” HBT2 2 (1980), pp. 151–163Google Scholar, after describing the NT canonisation process, can actually pose as a question: “Is this process in anyway analogous to what happened in ancient Israel and in early Judaism?” (p. 162). It is curious, indeed, that in “Childs' Introduction,” pp. 21–22, Barr himself suggests that Childs might usefully have considered the process of NT canonisation in forming his views about the OT process and its implications. This does not seem entirely consistent with his comments in Holy Scripture.

14 Even Barr is not entirely clear on the point (Holy Scripture, p. 57), affirming that a clear distinction between scripture and non-scripture “very probably” did not exist even at the turn of the era, while maintaining that Sundberg's “wide religious literature without definite bounds” is “perhaps too vague” to capture the reality. Why he objects to the latter if he really believes the former is not at all clear. Does he believe that there were limitations set to the number of the scriptures even before the line between scripture and non-scripture had been finally drawn? But does that not, then, imply that the notion of limitation is built in to the notion of scripture? And what are we to make of his later concession (Holy Scripture, p. 83) that there was “… back into early Old Testament times, a sort of core of central and agreed tradition, a body of writings already recognized and revered, which … functioned … in the same general way in which the canon of scripture functioned for later generations …, ” and his acceptance that “… that the whole nature of Israelite religion was canonical, that it depended on the selection of a limited set of traditions which were accepted and were to be authoritative in the community … ”?

15 Thus both Sanders, J. A., Torah and Canon (Fortress; Philadelphia, 1972)Google Scholar and Blenkinsopp, J., Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins (University of Notre Dame; Notre Dame, 1977)Google Scholar conceive of growing canonical consciousness as early as the exilic period, questions of authority and legitimation already arising then in connection with Israel's scriptures.

16 It is a curious feature of Childs' work that although he is not prepared sharply to distinguish scripture and canon in general, he seemingly thinks of the era before the pre-exilic period as somehow different in kind from the remainder: note his objection to Leiman's position that authority and canonicity were in all likelihood bound up with each other in the case of Moses (“A Response,” p. 201). It is not easy to find consistency here.

17 The point about the continuity of the canonical process is underlined by Smend, R., “Questions About the Importance of the Canon in an Old Testament Introduction,” JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 45–51Google Scholar, on p. 48: “… we may well ask whether the Song of Deborah or any prophetic oracle or a law or a psalm … do not contain within themselves a tendency towards the supra-individual, the authoritative, and the normative — and thus toward the canonical … the identity of the material and its continuity in the course of changes make it difficult, in my view, to determine with any certainty the beginning of the canonical … ”

18 Childs, , Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (SCM; London, 1979), pp. 69—106Google Scholar; cf. also the discussion on pp. 659–671.

19 Childs, , Biblical Theology, pp. 55–69.Google Scholar

20 Barr, Holy Scripture, p. 42, makes the same point in a different way and to different purpose: “No one could reasonably suppose that the self-identity of the Roman Catholic Church would be materially affected if it dropped the Book of Ecclesiasticus from its canon, or even if it dropped all the books which Protestants have traditionally counted as Apocrypha. Nor would Protestant communities be materially changed if Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom were to be read in them as Old Testament lessons.”

21 Childs, B. S., Old Testament Theology, pp. 6–7. The necessity of the distinction between Church and OT is quite clear on these pages.Google Scholar

22 “The Church has received this Septuagint as if it were the only translation; the Greek-speaking Christian peoples use it and most are not aware whether any other exists … it is the judgment of the churches of Christ that no one person [i.e. Jerome] should be preferred over the authority of so large a body of men [i.e. the Seventy]” (Augustine, City of God, 18:43).

23 “It is an obvious, but essential feature of the Old Testament,” he tells us, “that the original addressee and tradent of this biblical witness was Israel, which sets this testament clearly apart from the New Testament.” (Childs, Biblical Theology, p. 91). A clear distinction is in fact maintained here between Greek language and Hellenistic culture, on the one hand, and the Hebrew-Aramaic OT, on the other.

24 This is well illustrated if one refers to his index of biblical references and notes the small number of references to the Apocrypha. Within the book itself, a curious ambivalence towards the Apocrypha is evident. Sometimes they are clearly not canonical (e.g. on p. 116, IV Ezra is included among the “non-canonical Jewish writings”); sometimes they apparently are (cf. the discussion on pp. 189–190); but often it is not clear (e.g. on p. 131, where both Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach are cited as coming from “Jewish Hellenistic circles,” but the significance is not obvious).

25 Childs, , Introduction, pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

26 Cf. Childs, B. S., “A Response,“ HBT 2 (1980), pp. 199–211Google Scholar, on pp. 207–211, where in reply to Knight's contention that every stage in the history of the literature has as much right to its own integrity as the final form he says: “… this scholarly conviction was not shared by the editors of the biblical literature, nor by the subsequent Jewish and Christian communities of faith. The whole intention in the formation of an authoritative canon was to pass theological judgments on the form and scope of the literature” (p. 210). This is connected with the fact that the mode of divine revelation in Christ was not a process but an incarnation within an historical moment. Childs further notes in respect of the post-history (p. 202, in response to Sanders) that the early church distinguished sharply between apostolic tradition and later church tradition precisely because it set apart the period of Christ's incarnation as sui generis — both canon and creed functioned as derivatives of Christology, the apostolic witness being regarded as unique testimony that was not to be extended.

27 Childs, , Old Testament Theology, pp. 12–15.Google Scholar

28 Note the use of the very word “coercion,” for example, in Childs' review of Barr's, Holy Scripture in Interpretation 38 (1984), pp. 66–70, on p. 69.Google Scholar

29 Childs, , Introduction, pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

30 Childs, , “Response to Reviewers,” pp. 54–55.Google Scholar

31 Childs, , Introduction, p. 77.Google Scholar

32 Childs, , Biblical Theology, pp. 18–20, 71–73Google Scholar

33 Scalise, C. J., Hermmeutics as Theological Prolegomena: A Canonical Approach, Studies in American Biblical Hermeneutics 8 (Mercer University Press; Macon, Ga., 1994), pp. 68–71.Google Scholar

34 Brett, , Biblical Criticism, pp. 135–167.Google Scholar

35 Childs, , Introduction, p. 75.Google Scholar

36 Note, for example, his comments on Ephesians in The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (Fortress; Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 322–323Google Scholar, where he insists that the letter's appeal to the modern reader should be taken seriously. It is “… an essential part of the descriptive task to seek to understand how this ancient letter was transmitted, shaped, and interpreted in order to render its message accessible to successive generations of believers by whom and for whom it was treasured as authoritative.”

37 The same may be argued to apply to the language of Ricoeur, as useful as his work is in helping to explain how readers might grasp canonical intentionality through the reading process, “… grounding a larger vision by referring specifically to the narrative shape (‘configuration’) of the texts themselves” (Scalise, Hermeneutics, p. 71). Canonical intentionality does not refer solely in Childs to “… the theologically-construed shape … of the texts themselves” (Scalise, Hermeneutics, p. 71). That is why even though his initial comments on Ricoeur in his Biblical Theology (pp. 19–20) are somewhat warmer than those, for example, in his Introduction (p. 77), Childs still wishes to distance himself from the newer literary perspectives of Ricoeur and others, affirming that “… the stress on the autonomy of a text, while freeing the text momentarily from the excessive burden of historicism, opens up a whole set of new problems for the biblical interpreter which threaten the very life of narrative theology. It has also demonstrated that the emphasis on language can domesticate the Bible theologically just as quickly as the excessive stress on history did” (Biblical Theology, p. 205).

38 Cf. Jauss, H. R., Toward an Aesthetic of Reception (Harvester; Brighton, 1982), pp. 30–32.Google Scholar

39 It is one thing to assert, as Gadamer does, that tradition is always in principle revisable. It is another thing to move from theory to practice. What would count as sufficient reasons for criticising tradition? Given that one cannot criticise all traditions at the same time, what are the grounds upon which one might cease criticising other traditions from one's present position, and move outside this position to criticise it also? Is it at all a sensible or coherent way in which to live, given one's finitude and historicality, to make oneself the measure of all things, jumping from position to position in order to offer accumulating criticisms of every point of view? Can or does anyone actually live in this way? To assert that tradition is always in principle revisable will certainly grant one a measure of respectability within the Academy; but one wonders what the point of the assertion really is, if it is not clear how or when the principle might be carried through into practice.

40 Brett, , Biblical Criticism, pp. 146–147.Google Scholar

41 Childs, , “Response to Reviewers,” p. 56.Google Scholar

42 Brett, , Biblical Criticism, p. 154.Google Scholar

43 Childs' review of Barr's Holy Scripture, p. 69. We may note in further support of this interpretation of Childs' position his remarks in Biblical Theology, pp. 335–336, where he first speaks of “… the canonical guidelines for interpretation which have been structured into the biblical text …” (cf. the identification of editors and canonical shapers on p. 334), movingon to speak of “reader response” to the coercion of the text (a Christian reader renders the OT ultimately in a different way from a Jew because of the experience of the Gospel), but ending with the insistence that canonical restraints be observed by the reader, that reader response be critically tested in the light of the different witnesses of the whole Bible. Reader response has a legitimate role, but the uniqueness of the biblical witness must not be compromised by “… assigning an autonomous role to human imagination”.

44 Barr, , Holy Scripture, pp. 33–37, 122–123, 133.Google Scholar

45 To choose but one famous example, we may note Popper's, Karl emphasis (e.g. in Objective Knowledge [OUP; Oxford, 1972]) on the inevitable way in which all learning is guided by conscious or subconscious expectations, all knowledge is modification of previous knowledge — essentially, his emphasis on the way in which we all stand in a tradition while we do our “free” thinking.Google Scholar

46 A good example is found in Eichrodt, who is so far from succeeding in his attempt at objectivity that he chooses as his centre for an OT theology a theme (covenant) which is radically absent from much of the OT but just so happens to represent a fundamental way in which the Christian Bible in its two parts has been understood: as a book of two covenants. On the manner in which theoretically “neutral” historical research within the Academy has so often been thoroughly Christian in fact, note the perceptive book by the Jewish scholar Levenson, J. D., The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Westminster/John Knox; Louisville, 1993).Google Scholar

47 Provan, I. W., “Ideologies, Literary and Critical: Reflections on Recent Writing on the History of Israel,” JBL 114 (1995), pp. 585–606.Google Scholar

48 It is not clear to me that Brett has grasped this important point, when he holds against Childs that his position does not allow critique from outside (Biblical Criticism, p. 150). In relation to Gottwald, he asks: “What if modern biblical studies discover that the communicative intention of the canonical texts is systematically distorted by precisely those ‘hidden indices’ — historical forces behind the text — that the canonical approach excludes on methodological grounds?” It is precisely the possibility of (presumably objective) “discovery” of what is behind the text, enabling the kind of critique of the text Brett has in mind, that needs to be challenged.

49 Brett, M. G., “Against the Grain: Brevard Childs' Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible” Modern Theology 10 (1994), pp. 281–287, on p. 283.Google Scholar

50 It is precisely Childs' criticism of Brueggemann (Biblical Theology, pp. 71–73), in fact, that he separates form and content, emphasising the role of the canonical interpreter in shaping the theological content of the Bible.

51 Watson, Text, pp. 133–136, offers a reading, for example, which tends to emphasise Lindbeck's focus on intrasystematic truth rather than upon correspondence to extrinsic reality. Brett, Biblical Criticism, pp. 156–167, argues, on the other hand, that Lindbeck is not uninterested in the question of correspondence to reality, but only concerned to say that reference to ontological reality is inseparable from the wider cultural-linguistic system in which it is perceived — that theological reality is encountered only through the witness.

52 Childs, , Introduction, p. 45.Google Scholar

53 As Barr, , “Childs' Introduction,” p. 15Google Scholar, notes: “The canonical reading here presented makes no sense unless one already has a latish Deuteronomy, a Deutero-Isaiah, and so on.” And again, on p. 20: “From a canonical point of view, there is no ‘Deutero-Isaiah,’ there are no concluding ‘additions’ to Daniel, no ‘epilogue’ to Qoheleth.”

54 Childs, , “Response to Reviewers,” p. 55.Google Scholar

55 Childs, , “Response to Reviewers,” p. 56.Google Scholar

56 Childs, , Old Testament Theology, pp. 24–25Google Scholar, esp. p. 23: Childs' analysis of the canonical process “… is not to suggest that canonization changed profane literature into sacred by rendering it qualitatively different from its origins”; cf. further Brett, Biblical Criticism, pp. 150–153.

57 Childs, , “Response to Reviewers,” p. 56.Google Scholar

58 E.g., Childs, , Old Testament Theology, p. 6Google Scholar; Biblical Theology, p. 71; cf. also Exodus, OTL (SCM; London, 1974), p. xiii.Google Scholar

59 Childs' ambivalence towards historical critical “results” has been spotted by more than one (nervous) reviewer of the Introduction; cf. for example, Landes, G. M., “The Canonical Approach to Introducing the Old Testament: Prodigy and Problems,” JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 32–39Google Scholar, who laments that: “… in the face of the full thrust of the constantly reiterated shortcomings of historical-critical results which accompanies Childs' treatment of nearly every Old Testament book … the unfortunate impression is liable to be left that canonical analysis can be successfully pursued without giving much if any serious attention to the fruits of historical-critical research” (p. 35).

60 Scalise, , Hermeneutics, p. 67.Google Scholar

61 Blenkinsopp, J., “A New Kind of Introduction: Professor Childs' Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture,” JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 24–27Google Scholar, also notes (p. 24) the curious fact that although Childs is in fact much influenced in his general approach by “… recent and not so recent trends in literary criticism …,” he makes only passing reference to these in his writing. Scalise, Hermeneutics, pp. 71–74, argues that, aside from his background in traditional critical method, a theological concern also underlies Childs' lack of openness in this area: he is suspicious of any approach to biblical theology that does not emphasise the christological role of the Christian canon, fearful of the threat of reductionistic perspectives on Scripture. It is certainly striking that even in his Biblical Theology, where he is in certain respects quite warm towards the newer literary approaches to Scripture (pp. 18–22), Childs' main emphasis lies still upon the problem of extra-biblical referentiality. He seems to have great difficulty in seeing past this problem, as if it is somehow impossible for a well-crafted story (for example) nevertheless to refer to external reality both historical and divine.

62 Cf., for example, Whybray, R. N., The Making of the Pentateuch, JSOTS 53 (JSOT Press; Sheffield, 1987).Google Scholar

63 Barr, , Holy Scripture, pp. 33–37.Google Scholar

64 A decreasing number of OT scholars, I imagine, would find themselves able to agree with Barr, “Childs' Introduction,” p. 16, who in attacking Childs' assertions as to the speculative nature of historical-critical reconstruction, affirms: “… one could equally well say that it is the extrinsic referent, even if reconstructed, that is objective, and the canon that is illusion”. This must rank as one of the more remarkable statements made in respect of Childs' work. Contrast Smend, R., “Questions About the Importance of the Canon in an Old Testament Introduction,” JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 45–51, on pp. 45–46Google Scholar: “… the finalised texts are not imaginary entities. Here we are less under the influence of speculations, but can make observations on material that clearly lies before us …”

65 Childs, , Biblical Theology, p. 416.Google Scholar

66 It is precisely the fact that Childs concedes so much “objectivity” to historical critical theories which encourages, for example, the kind of playing off of prior stages of the tradition against the final form that we find in Knight, “Canon,” pp. 143–146 — a strategy which can make Childs' insistence on “the final form alone” seem somewhat arbitrary. The more that Childs questions, on the other hand, whether the tradents of tradition have left us sufficient information to reconstruct it (if reconstruction is even thought necessary), the more it becomes evident that playing off hypothetical “prior stages of the tradition” against the concrete final form is not a worthwhile exercise.

67 Barr, , “Childs' Introduction,” p. 15Google Scholar, notes (though with characteristic overstatement): “Though the contributions made by critical study are acknowledged, practically nowhere does Childs concede that it has made a quite decisive difference to our understanding of scripture …”

68 Childs, , Introduction, pp. 421–426.Google Scholar

69 Landes, , “The Canonical Approach,” pp. 38–39Google Scholar. Matthew 12:41 and Luke 11:32 stress the repentance motif in referring to the Jonah story.

70 Cf. similarly Barr, , Holy Scripture, p. 158Google Scholar, who writes of Childs' Introduction that it is “… much less a meditation upon the canonical form than he thinks and much more a description of a process …”.

71 Watson, , Text, pp. 42–45.Google Scholar

72 It offers us the texts for use in the present, it tells us that we ought to use them in our own theological tasks, but it does not tell us how we are to do so. It does not tell us, for example, whether the texts are essentially all on a level or not, and whether the truth they offer lies not in the individual text but in complementarity and balance established by the whole collection.

73 Murphy, R. E., “The Old Testament as Scripture.” JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 40–44.Google Scholar

74 Childs, , “Response to Reviewers,” p. 55.Google Scholar

75 Childs, , Old Testament Theology, p. 15.Google Scholar

76 Watson, , Text, pp. 188–201.Google Scholar

77 Watson, , Text, p. 279.Google Scholar

78 We may note, for example, the two extended examples of canonical exegesis in Childs, Biblical Theology, pp. 325–347, where it is explicit at least in the case of Gen. 22:1–19 that Childs seeks to show how the passage has been shaped “… in such away as to provide important hermeneutical guidelines for its theological use …” (p. 326).

79 That is to say, I do not believe (for example) that Childs grasps the extent to which the kind of narrative patterning he rejects in his response to Sanders (“A Response,” pp. 201–204, on p. 203) does in fact exist, not only in the NT in relation to the OT, but within the OT itself, and provides not only evidence of holistic reading over against Sanders but also hermeneutical guidelines for appropriating the material in the present. Having said that, Childs is surely quite correct to emphasise that hermeneutical practices found in the NT cannot be regarded as exhausting all the possibilities for Christian reading of the OT in the present, for modern Christian readers come to the Bible as two testaments, whereas the earliest readers came to it as only one. The theological task of the Church is therefore of a different order from simply duplicating the practicesof the Apostles (cf. also Childs, Biblical Theology, p. 76).

80 The programme I am suggesting here arises simply from taking with utmost seriousness Childs' own conviction that “… the relation between the historical critical study of the Bible and its theological use as religious literature within a community of faith needs to be completely rethought” (Introduction, p. 15) and that biblical theology cannot be done “… by adding a layer of icing on the historical critical Introduction” (“A Response,” p. 206). It is precisely a complete rethinking that is required, allied with the kind of openness to literary criticism which Childs himself professes in his response to Landes on Jonah in “Response to Reviewers,” pp. 59–60.

81 The real value of past historical-critical work for those pursuing the kind of programme I am outlining here will lie, not in its provision of any so-called “depth dimension,” but in its alerting them to interesting puzzles in the text which must be taken into account in offering a final form reading. Thus, for example, the strangeness of the “psalm” on the lips ofjonah (Jonah 2; see above), rightly noted by historical critics, will form part of the data which must be accounted for in the construal of the whole in its present form. The multiplication of plausible readings of this kind is, in fact, the only thing which in the long run will bring to an end the wearisome habit among scholars of responding to Childs' whole programme in terms of individual favourite examples which “prove” that the historical critical approach is absolutely indispensable if we are to understand the OT, and therefore “prove” that Childs cannot be wholly right in his approach. Thus, for example, if Barr, Holy Scripture, p. 82, claims that the use of Ps. 82 in John 10:34 shows that the NT did not read the OT “canonically,” because the canonical shape of Ps. 82 “… makes it plain that the reference is not to men hearing the Word of God, but to gods …,” it would be helpful to show that there is nothing “plain” about this reading of Ps. 82 at all, especially when it is read in its canonical context within the Psalter, where the divinity of kings is presupposed (e.g. Pss. 2, 45). We may note that Ps. 82:2–4 refers precisely to the responsibilitites of kings (cf., for example, Ps. 72).

82 Childs, unfortunately, is not so aware of this as he should be, and he thus gives standard text-critical positions just as much excessive respect as standard historical critical positions. In doing so he gets himself into some difficulty, insisting that even a “mutilated” text like MT 1 Sam. 1:24 should be preferred as the canonical text over against a better reading attested elsewhere (Childs. Introduction, p. 105; cf. Murphy, “The Old Testament,” pp. 40–41). A more fruitful line of argument would have begun by pursuing a little further than Childs does the question of how much “objectivity” attaches to the text-critical task, noting how the most casual of glances at any critical commentary or textual apparatus reveals the extent to which text-critical decisions are no more “objective” than those of historical critics, are indeed entirely bound up with numerous presuppositions about the text that “ought” to be there (e.g., the text ought to be one that makes immediate sense to me) and about the people who “failed” to deliver it (e.g. they, being pre-critical, could and did live with nonsense; cf. Barr, “Childs' Introduction,” p. 17). It is a mistake, therefore, simply to concede that a text like 1 Sam. 1:24 contains “an obvious textual error” and to invite the implication that to read this text as the canonical text is to allow nonsense to prevail. There is nothing “obvious” about it — the text makes perfectly good sense as “the boy was only a lad” or as “the child became a servant” (of Samuel). It is in fact the common experience of those who come to the MT prepared to think about it for more than a few moments that it “makes sense,” even where it has generally been dismissed as “corrupt.” It is one of the tasks of the canonical exegete to spend time thus thinking about the text, rather than conceding too readily that some other text should be read instead, on the entirely reasonable assumption that the Masoretes “… saw their task as one of handing down a meaningful text” (Sawyer, J. F. A., Semantics in Biblical Research [SCM; London, 1972], p. 14Google Scholar; cf. to the contrary Barr, Holy Scripture, p. 86 n. 11, on grounds unstated, other than “it seems to me”).

83 Provan, 1 and 2 Kings.

84 Childs, , Old Testament Theology, p. 17.Google Scholar

85 Childs, , Old Testament Theology, p. 17.Google Scholar

86 That is, the only things worth knowing about are what you can think about; the only things worth thinking about are what you can see, touch, handle etc.; and the proper way in which to pursue understanding is to take things to pieces.

87 Watson, , Text, pp. 58–59, has nicely captured the sense of disillusionment felt by many.Google Scholar

88 Cf. Watson, , Text, pp. 124–136, for a number of examples.Google Scholar

89 As Barr (Holy Scripture, p. III) rightly points out, “To perceive that the Bible is canonical Christian scripture, or canonical Jewish scripture, is an insight attainable by anyone, with or without any personal involvement in the Jewish or Christian religions.”

90 At the very least it might be possible to persuade others to change their starting point, to begin with the final form of the text, in order to see which of the various historical-critical hypotheses are any longer perceived to be really necessary, and which are redundant. It might then be possible to suggest (with Childs) that even if they are necessary, perhaps we should not dwell on hypothetical reconstructions for too long a time, but still focus on texts that we actually have.