What's your through-line?

[Fervent]

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the overall task of interpretation, and one thing that keeps jumping out at me is how much the direction of the interpretation is taken. What I mean is, do we use the NT as the lens through which to read the OT? The OT as the lens to read the NT? Some combination of both? One book I think is seriously impacted by this is Romans, since if we read it in the light of the OT the dominant question is why God would be merciful to the people who had treated Israel so terribly, and how He could extend such mercy while remaining just and true to His promises. Yet if we instead move from the NT to the OT, the dominant question revolves around how guilty sinners could avoid punishment and how Christ delivers Jew and Gentile alike. So which should be our dominant approach, interpreting the OT in light of the NT or the NT in light of the OT?

 

[chevyontheriver]

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the overall task of interpretation, and one thing that keeps jumping out at me is how much the direction of the interpretation is taken. What I mean is, do we use the NT as the lens through which to read the OT? The OT as the lens to read the NT? Some combination of both? One book I think is seriously impacted by this is Romans, since if we read it in the light of the OT the dominant question is why God would be merciful to the people who had treated Israel so terribly, and how He could extend such mercy while remaining just and true to His promises. Yet if we instead move from the NT to the OT, the dominant question revolves around how guilty sinners could avoid punishment and how Christ delivers Jew and Gentile alike. So which should be our dominant approach, interpreting the OT in light of the NT or the NT in light of the OT?

The problem here is that you are trying to figure out which texts interpret which other texts. But the interpretive key is not a text but a community. You get clues of that community key in the NT but the NT isn't the whole key. The whole key is found in the community. Same with the OT and it's community. The Bible did not make the community, but the communities made their respective parts of the Bible. Jesus was part of the first community and originated out of it the second community. Interpretation has to be based on that community, sure with the texts of that community, but not by those texts alone. It needs the rest of that community, it's traditions, it's patterns of worship, it's history of prayer, and the involvement of the existing leadership of that community.

 

[B Griffin]

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the overall task of interpretation, and one thing that keeps jumping out at me is how much the direction of the interpretation is taken. What I mean is, do we use the NT as the lens through which to read the OT? The OT as the lens to read the NT? Some combination of both? One book I think is seriously impacted by this is Romans, since if we read it in the light of the OT the dominant question is why God would be merciful to the people who had treated Israel so terribly, and how He could extend such mercy while remaining just and true to His promises. Yet if we instead move from the NT to the OT, the dominant question revolves around how guilty sinners could avoid punishment and how Christ delivers Jew and Gentile alike. So which should be our dominant approach, interpreting the OT in light of the NT or the NT in light of the OT?

The NT is much different than the OT, as I discovered many years ago when I read through the Bible for the first time. The biggest difference to me as a novice Bible student was the fact that we had Jesus in mankind's physical presence explaining the mysteries of God in person. And looking back on those days now, the NT also differs from the OT in another similar way in that it tells us in detail about the Spirit of God's ministries that He still performs today "in person" from the depths of our own hearts. When "interpreting" Scriptures, there is no substitute for being sensitive to the Holy Spirit's guidance.

We call them "testaments", one old and the other new. But the Greek word for "testament" is the same Greek word for "covenant". So, it is not a stretch to say the OT presents the old covenant and the NT presents the new covenant. So, interpretation isn't so much trying to reconcile the OT and NT, it is trying to rightly understand the nature of the old covenant verses the nature of the new covenant. Since the NT was written later in time and has many references to the OT with commentary, it is certainly easier to use the NT to put the OT in proper perspective. But the OT does contain many prophesies about the new covenant, and those are instructive as well.

 

[Fervent]

The problem here is that you are trying to figure out which texts interpret which other texts. But the interpretive key is not a text but a community. You get clues of that community key in the NT but the NT isn't the whole key. The whole key is found in the community. Same with the OT and it's community. The Bible did not make the community, but the communities made their respective parts of the Bible. Jesus was part of the first community and originated out of it the second community. Interpretation has to be based on that community, sure with the texts of that community, but not by those texts alone. It needs the rest of that community, it's traditions, it's patterns of worship, it's history of prayer, and the involvement of the existing leadership of that community.

I agree that interpretation must be done in community, though I'd disagree as far as the leadership's role. In a time when books were expensive and out of reach of the common person, its only natural that there be some necessity for a leadership that is educated and able to maintain the documents. But in a world where information flows nearly freely, the only limitation is the individual's dedication to learning. We need no intermediary in the form of a magisterium, and we should be suspicious of tradition as much as we embrace it given the criticism of religious tradition that Jesus so often engaged in.

All that said, even within a community there is still the issue of whether to rely on the OT context the NT was written within as the primary lens to read the NT, or to embrace the radical re-orientation that Christ and the cross represent as primary when reading the OT.

 

[Fervent]

We call them "testaments", one old and the other new. But the Greek word for "testament" is the same Greek word for "covenant". So, it is not a stretch to say the OT presents the old covenant and the NT presents the new covenant. So, interpretation isn't so much trying to reconcile the OT and NT, it is trying to rightly understand the nature of the old covenant verses the nature of the new covenant. Since the NT was written later in time and has many references to the OT with commentary, it is certainly easier to use the NT to put the OT in proper perspective. But the OT does contain many prophesies about the new covenant, and those are instructive as well.

Your last couple of sentences brings out the question I'm asking, because understanding what's in the NT depends on how the OT passages that are used would have been understood by those who the letters were originally written. What you suggest seems to be that the NT interprets the OT, as you say it puts the OT in the proper perspective. I'm not sure it's that simple, since the NT is dependent on the OT especially in Paul's writings where his view is dominated by his Pharisaical upbringing.

 

[B Griffin]

Your last couple of sentences brings out the question I'm asking, because understanding what's in the NT depends on how the OT passages that are used would have been understood by those who the letters were originally written. What you suggest seems to be that the NT interprets the OT, as you say it puts the OT in the proper perspective. I'm not sure it's that simple, since the NT is dependent on the OT especially in Paul's writings where his view is dominated by his Pharisaical upbringing.

Let's take Jeremiah's prorophesy of the New Covenant as an example (Jeremiah 31:33-34). There was no way Jeremiah or any others could forsee all that this prophesy would entail: God coming to live in our hearts, writing His laws there, creating an intimate personal relationship with those He calls His own, and Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, God raising Him from the dead, and giving us His life. But the NT clears all this up. That's the main thing I'm saying.

 

[Fervent]

Let's take Jeremiah's prorophesy of the New Covenant as an example (Jeremiah 31:33-34). There was no way Jeremiah or any others could forsee all that this prophesy would entail: God coming to live in our hearts, writing His laws there, creating an intimate personal relationship with those He calls His own, and Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, God raising Him from the dead, and giving us His life. But the NT clears all this up. That's the main thing I'm saying

The NT certainly reveals the fullness of the OT, but I'm not sure that speaks to my question. At least not fully. Returning to my example of Romans, consider Romans 9 which is steeped in OT imagery and allusions. Do we first wrestle with the passages Paul refers to and understand their meaning and what they would have meant to the believers in Rome in the 1st century before deciphering Paul's argument, or do we do our best to understand Paul's argument separately and then look to the OT passages to see if they can support our understanding of Paul?

Or another example. When we try to understand the atonement, do we first build a picture purely from NT texts that explain what the atonement accomplished and how it accomplished it and then interpret the OT sacrificial system in that light, or do we endeavor to understand the Levitical sacrifices purely by their OT contexts and then see how the NT authors apply those sacrifices to Jesus?

 

[B Griffin]

The NT certainly reveals the fullness of the OT, but I'm not sure that speaks to my question. At least not fully. Returning to my example of Romans, consider Romans 9 which is steeped in OT imagery and allusions. Do we first wrestle with the passages Paul refers to and understand their meaning and what they would have meant to the believers in Rome in the 1st century before deciphering Paul's argument, or do we do our best to understand Paul's argument separately and then look to the OT passages to see if they can support our understanding of Paul?

Or another example. When we try to understand the atonement, do we first build a picture purely from NT texts that explain what the atonement accomplished and how it accomplished it and then interpret the OT sacrificial system in that light, or do we endeavor to understand the Levitical sacrifices purely by their OT contexts and then see how the NT authors apply those sacrifices to Jesus?

Personally, I start with the NT and try to understand the OT from the NT perspective. I think that paradigm is found in the NT also. Take Colossians 2:16-17 as an example: "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance (literally, "body") is of Christ." The OT practices were just shaddows, but Jesus is the body which casts that shaddow. Another example is Galatians 4:21-31 which is the story of Abraham and his two sons. And Paul explains how we need to understand how that story contrasts the OT law and NT liberty.

 

[Fervent]

Personally, I start with the NT and try to understand the OT from the NT perspective. I think that paradigm is found in the NT also. Take Colossians 2:16-17 as an example: "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance (literally, "body") is of Christ." The OT practices were just shaddows, but Jesus is the body which casts that shaddow. Another example is Galatians 4:21-31 which is the story of Abraham and his two sons. And Paul explains how we need to understand how that story contrasts the OT law and NT liberty.

I can see some merit to that, but at the same time I wonder if it might introduce modern misconceptions since the orriginal audiences would have been well versed in the OT and traditions concerning it that Paul uses to illuminte points that may be missed when we read it from our own cultural background.

 

[B Griffin]

I can see some merit to that, but at the same time I wonder if it might introduce modern misconceptions since the orriginal audiences would have been well versed in the OT and traditions concerning it that Paul uses to illuminte points that may be missed when we read it from our own cultural background.

I believe there is merit to that concern. But I also think closely paying attention to God's Spirit as He guides our learning is the best approach to avoiding false impressions of Scripture (and it is the best approach for unwinding false impressions of Scripture that we've already adopted).