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The Character of Christian Scripture (Part 1)
Preface and Introduction
This blog represents the first in a series of posts summarizing and interacting with Christopher Seitz’s book, The Character of Christian Scripture: The Significance of a Two-Testament Bible. My hope is that posts like this will introduce readers who don’t normally tackle academic books on the Bible to the insights and benefits of scholarly research for the life of faith.
If you’re interested in reading this book, you can pick up a copy of it here:
SUMMARY
Preface
In the Preface, Seitz identifies the central question he explores in the book: “How does the Old Testament (OT) extend its horizon beyond and in conjunction with the New Testament (NT) or as a resourceful document to be cited for a discrete subject?” (Seitz, 11)
As Seitz notes, the Bible is a unique collection in world literature. For example: It contains two major juxtaposed parts. Christians believe they constitute one book, but how this works in reality remains ambiguous. The two parts of the Bible (i.e., Old and New Testament) do not represent one long, uninterrupted story. Nor do they constitute a clearly defined two-part play. However, the second part (i.e., the New Testament) routinely refers to and interacts with the first part (i.e., the Old Testament) in numerous ways.
The “Two-Testament Bible,” according to Seitz raises important questions. The following are just a few:
- What does it mean for the OT to be Christian Scripture?
- How does the NT use the OT as Scripture?
- Are we supposed to imitate interpretive approaches modeled by the NT authors?
- In what sense can Christian interpreters move “beyond” the NT’s use of the OT?
- How can the OT retain its own voice and theological emphases?
These questions are complex and they are the direct result of the “Character of Christian Scripture” (i.e., its two-testament structure).
Introduction
Seitz begins his book with the simple observation that the “Two-Testament Bible” is the product of Christianity’s historical development. In its earliest phases, the Church was a thoroughly Jewish movement that unequivocally recognized the Old Testament as Scripture (Note: Old Testament is a Christian term for the First Testament.)
When a collection of documents that came to be known as the New Testament developed, the Church did not discard the Old Testament. Instead, they affirmed both testaments as witnesses to the same God. As Seitz writes, Christians believed “the Logos (i.e., Jesus) was active in the life of Israel from creation to election to law-giving to cult to prayer and praise to prophetic word to final promise, because the only Son was of one being with the Father” (Seitz, 17).
This foundational belief that God and Jesus are one and the same informed an interpretive approach in the early Church often referred to as “the rule of faith.” The rule of faith guided the interpretation of the Old Testament so that one could see the various ways it pointed toward Christ. As Seitz writes, “The point is that the rule of faith opened the Scriptures to a reading of extended senses, which were argued to be embedded in the literal sense of the OT in its given form and in its historical life, in order to clarify the most basic theological and trinitarian confession” (Seitz, 19).
According to Setiz, the rule of faith raises an important question for Christian interpreters of the Old Testament.
- Are we limited to the interpretive techniques or results of the New Testament authors?
- Or, are we permitted to explore the various ways the Old Testament speaks of God in Christ that were not explored by the New Testament?
Seitz argues that we can and should explore lines of interpretation that are not explicitly modeled by the New Testament. He writes, “The witness of the OT is far more manifold, far more theologically ambitious, far more temporally challenging than can be comprehended by recourse to Vetus Testamentum in Novo receptum (Translation: the Old Testament received in the New). At most the NT points toward a rich potential, yet untapped, and in that sense, its material use of the OT is always a threshold and not the hearth” (Seitz, 23).
The rest of the book will wrestle with the implications of this last statement. Seitz will explore what it means for the Old Testament to retain its own voice as it reveals the Triune God Christians claim to know through Christ.
Reflection
As you can see, Seitz’s book tackles a fundamental question often taken for granted: what should Christians do with the Bible and, more specifically, the Old Testament?
Here are a few questions for you to ponder:
- Have you ever explored the relationship between the Old and New Testaments? Why or why not?
- Do you think we can or should imitate early Christian interpretive practices?
- Can or should we interpret the Old Testament in ways that are not modeled by the New Testament authors?
- How would you describe the relationship between the Old and New Testaments?
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