Abstract
Few scholars working today have thought as deeply, and for as long, about the hermeneutical and theological issues involved in biblical interpretation over the last century as Christopher Seitz. His previous books are essential reading for understanding the canonical approach to Scripture and how it developed in the latter half of the twentieth century. While the present work is intelligible on its own, it functions particularly well as a complement to some of his other works. This is because it arose during an extended stay in France in which S. encountered the work of the Catholic scholar Paul Beauchamp, and realized some remarkable parallels between his work of biblical interpretation and that of some German and Anglophone scholars associated with the canonical approach. Strangely, although Beauchamp’s career largely coincided with that of Brevard Childs, the two do not seem to have engaged each other. The present work, therefore, has a twofold purpose: first, to show instances of “convergence” in post-World War II biblical interpretation that cut across academic, ecclesial, and cultural lines; and second, to probe the implications of appreciating these lines of convergence.
In seven chapters S. explores interrelated aspects of convergence. In this respect, the chapters do not quite constitute a linear progression (though the order does matter), but are more like lines of approach on interpretive issues in modern scholarship that themselves converge on S.’s thesis about convergence. Keeping this in mind will help the reader to appreciate S.’s accomplishment better. S. begins by observing that several mid-century German critical scholars such as Gerhard von Rad and Martin Noth began to move beyond merely identifying and isolating Pentateuchal sources by asking questions about how the sources were assembled and how the compositional growth and redaction of the biblical corpus (rather than, e.g., the discarding of earlier works in favor of newer ones) reflect the ongoing theological thinking of the community of Israel. This, observes S., necessitates viewing the growth and then crystallization of the text into a “final form” as essential to questions of meaning, a concern that coincides with the canonical approach set forth by Childs and others. As might be expected, viewing the biblical texts in this way opens up the possibility of a more complex, layered understanding of “authorial intention” and “inspiration.”
These observations naturally lead to what strikes me as the conceptual linchpin of S.’s argument. If the biblical authors did not discard earlier works, but instead supplemented and reworked them in light of new realities, then this implies that they saw a kind of figural resemblance between earlier traditions (or events) and later ones. In turn, a canonical approach becomes inseparable from issues of typology/figuration, and this provides a point of connection between the modern concern with “the literal [historicized] sense” and the premodern concern with typological, theological, and spiritual readings. Further, S. shows, this provides a way for Beauchamp and Childs to hold together the Old Testament and the New Testament as constituting one Christian Scripture without compromising the integrity of either. It is precisely because both testaments are discrete witnesses, held together by the one God of Israel, that one can speak of a biblical theology that neither rewrites nor sets aside the Old Testament in favor of the New (nor, for that matter, implies supersessionism). Similarly, this conviction provides a way to hold together different theological perspectives within each testament. One can see over the last several decades a renewed interest, for example, in reintegrating creation and wisdom on the one hand and “salvation history” and prophecy on the other.
A final convergence S. considers, which helps to synthesize the others, is the way the realization of the canonical importance of Scripture and the resulting richness of interpretation among Protestant scholars converges in important ways with Catholic hermeneutics since Divino afflante Spiritu (1943) and likewise is reflected in the creation of the Common Lectionary. By way of conclusion, S. explores the work of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) as an example of the kind of canonical, theologically informed interpretation he has been advocating throughout the book.
As one would expect from S., this book is thoughtful and rich and above all thought-provoking. While he notes the potential of these convergences for ecumenism and Jewish–Christian relations, these could be explored more. Further, although S., an Anglican, is optimistic about this potential and irenic in his approach to Catholic interpretation, it seems likely that commitments to ecclesiologies that in important respects remain partially incommensurable naturally necessitate different appraisals of what the “living tradition” of the church is and its relation to scriptural interpretation. Nevertheless, even if there cannot yet be a complete convergence in theological approaches to Scripture, S. has provided an enormously helpful, sophisticated treatment that considerably moves the discussion forward.