The Character of Christian Scripture: The Significance of a Two-Testament Bible

by Christopher R. Seitz

Publisher:

Baker Academic

, 2011

Overview

Christopher Seitz illuminates the two-testament character of Scripture and examines its significance for the contemporary church. He explicates the canonical interpretation project of Brevard Childs, interacts critically with current interest in the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament, and addresses an issue of perennial concern: how to hear both testaments as Christian witness. This volume will be useful for biblical studies scholars and grad students, and will be utilized by professors and students in biblical studies, theological interpretation of Scripture, and hermeneutics courses.

The Logos Bible Software edition of The Character of Christian Scripture: The Significance of a Two-Testament Bible is designed to encourage and stimulate your study and understanding of the Bible. Scripture passages link directly to your English translations and original-language texts, and important theological concepts link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. In addition, you can perform powerful searches by topic and find what other authors, scholars, and theologians have to say about interpreting the Bible.

Key Features

• Wrestles with the form of the two-testament Bible
• Examines the significance of the two-testament character of Scripture
• Addresses how the Old Testament extends beyond and in conjunction with the New Testament

Contents

• The Canonical Approach and Theological Interpretation
• Biblical Theology and Identification with Christian Scripture: “We Are Not Prophets or Apostles”
• An Illustration of the Challenge: The Letter to the Hebrews, Biblical Theology, and Identification
• Theological Use of the Old Testament: Recent New Testament Scholarship and the Psalms as Christian Scripture
• Old and New in Canonical Interpretation
• “Be Ye Sure That the Lord He Is God”—Crisis in Interpretation and the Two-Testament Voice of Christian Scripture
• The Rule of Faith, Hermeneutics, and the Character of Christian Scripture

Top Highlights

“The turn to the history of interpretation does not show us how to read the OT in our day, any more than the NT does. Rather, it helps us observe how earlier interpreters allowed each respective Testament to sound its theological notes, each as Christian Scripture, each equidistant and at once proximate to the subject matter they both share.” (Page 171)

“The NT cannot speak of these events—final as they are—without constant reference to the received Scriptures. It is not possible to speak of Christ without speaking of him ‘in accordance with the Scriptures.” (Page 18)

“First, it is interpretation appropriate to the singularity of his office and so not a matter of general Christian hermeneutics (even of the most imitative sort one might presumably imagine).” (Page 110)

“The ‘canonical approach’ is a modern, historical approach, and it operates in this mode in a self-conscious sense.” (Page 31)

“narrative world,’⁶¹ the literary potentiality,⁶² or the final form of the OT functions in the NT,^{63” (Page 54)}

Praise for the Print Edition

In this learned, astute, and graceful study, Seitz reflects on the significance of the two-testament form of the Bible for understanding the character of Christian Scripture. It is a commanding account of the matter from a master of biblical theology.

—John Webster, chair of systematic theology, University of Aberdeen

Beginning with the Bible’s unique character as a two-testament book, Seitz traces a theocentric path through issues of historicity, the final form of the canon, the providential location of the church’s exegetical task, the distinctiveness of the Old Testament’s voice, the rule of faith, contemporary Anglican debates, and more. A work of maturity and grace, this is Seitz’s best book yet—necessary reading both for its answers and, equally important, its questions.

—Matthew Levering, professor of religious studies, University of Dayton

What does it mean for the Christian Bible to have two testaments? Christopher Seitz, the foremost proponent of the canonical approach today, demonstrates how this deceptively simple question leads us to the heart of the challenge of reading the Bible theologically. Incisive in its criticisms, sound in its proposals, and ecclesial in its concerns, this is an exhilarating contribution to biblical theology. Required reading for anyone trying to think clearly about how to read Scripture in and for the church.

—Nathan MacDonald, reader in Old Testament, University of St. Andrews

In The Character of Christian Scripture, Seitz carries forward the work of Brevard Childs and his canonical approach to the theological interpretation of Scripture. In contrast to some recent hermeneutical proposals that read the Old Testament in a restricted way only through the lens of the New Testament, Seitz argues that the rich, diverse, and unique theological resources of the Old Testament should be allowed their own integrity in dialogue with the witness of the New Testament. Seitz rightly argues that the Christian Bible is unique in its bi-testamentality and thus requires a correspondingly unique theological hermeneutic as it testifies to the Triune God of Christian faith.

—Dennis Olson, Charles T. Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary

Seitz has long been blazing an exciting trail in thinking through the theological reality of a single, two-testament Bible. Here—in vigorous, challenging, and learned argumentation—he brings his reflections to a magnificent maturity and shows a way beyond the too-facile formulae of relating Old and New that have ultimately stripped the Old Testament of its power and substance as God’s living Word. Among the volume’s many gifts is Seitz’s convincing reassessment of the character of the early church’s ‘rule of faith’ in reading Israel’s Scriptures and the emerging New Testament—a key demonstration of how the peculiarity of maintaining a Bible of two distinct witnesses held ‘in accord’ can open up and guard a complexity and richness of Scriptural meaning. Seitz’s rigorous book constitutes a major contribution to both theological and practical hermeneutics that should fruitfully reorient the church’s reading of the Bible.

—Ephraim Radner, professor of historical theology, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

Product Details

• Title: The Character of Christian Scripture: The Significance of a Two-Testament Bible
• Author: Christopher R. Seitz
• Series: Studies in Theological Interpretation
• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Publication Date: 2011
• Pages: 224

About Christopher R. Seitz

Christopher R. Seitz is an ordained Episcopal Priest and has served parishes in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Germany and Scotland. He is also the President of the Anglican Communion Institute and has been involved in recent work on behalf of Communion life. He is the editor of Studies in Theological Interpretation and is on the Advisory Board of the Scripture and Hermeneutics Consultation. He has supervised numerous PhD students and has published over a dozen books on the interpretation of Old and New Testaments, and in the area of theological hermeneutics. He will serve as Sunday evening preacher at St Matthew’s Anglican Church in the Riverdale area of Toronto.