Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Stanley N. Gundry is executive vice president and editor-in-chief for the Zondervan Corporation. He has been an influential figure in the Evangelical Theological Society, serving as president of ETS and on its executive committee, and is adjunct professor of Historical Theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. He is the author of seven books and has written many articles appearing in popular and academic periodicals.

Kenneth Berding (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is associate professor of New Testament at Talbot School of Theology of Biola University. He is the author of "Polycarp and Paul, "What are Spiritual Gifts" and "Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Ken and his family reside in La Mirada, California.

Walter C. Kaiser Jr. (PhD, Brandeis University) is distinguished professor emeritus of Old Testament and president emeritus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Dr. Kaiser has written over 40 books, including Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching; The Messiah in the Old Testament; and The Promise-Plan of God; and coauthored An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics: The Search for Meaning. Dr. Kaiser and his wife, Marge, currently reside at Kerith Farm in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin. Dr. Kaiser’s website is www.walterckaiserjr.com.

Darrell L. Bock (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is senior research professor of New Testament studies and Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at Dallas Theological Seminary. Known for his work in Luke-Acts, Dr. Bock is a Humboldt Scholar (Tubingen University in Germany), is on the editorial board for Christianity Today, and a past president of the Evangelical Theological Society (2000-2001). A New York Times bestselling author, Bock has written over forty books, including Luke in the NIV Application Commentary series.

 

Dr. Peter Enns (PhD. Harvard University) is a biblical scholar and teaches at Eastern University. He is author of several books including Exodus (NIV Application Commentary), Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, and The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins. 

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To read the New Testament is to meet the Old Testament at every turn. But exactly how do Old Testament texts relate to their New Testament references and allusions? Moreover, what fruitful interpretive methods do New Testament texts demonstrate? Leading biblical scholars Walter Kaiser, Darrel Bock and Peter Enns each present their answers to questions surrounding the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament.

Contributors address elements such as Divine and human authorial intent, the context of Old Testament references, and theological grounds for an interpretive method. Each author applies his framework to specific texts so that readers can see how their methods work out in practice. Each contributor also receives a thorough critique from the other two authors.

A one-stop reference for setting the scene and presenting approaches to the topic that respect the biblical text, Three Views on the New Testament Use of Old Testament gives readers the tools they need to develop their own views on this important subject.

The Counterpoints series provides a forum for comparison and critique of different views on issues important to Christians. Counterpoints books address two categories: Church Life and Bible & Theology. Complete your library with other books in the Counterpoints series.

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Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Zondervan

Copyright © 2007 Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-27333-2

Contents

An Introduction to Central Questions in the New Testament Use of the Old Testament JONATHAN LUNDE........................................................................71. SINGLE MEANING, UNIFIED REFERENTS: Accurate and Authoritative Citations of the Old Testament by the New Testament WALTER C. KAISER, JR................................45Response to Kaiser DARRELL L. BOCK.......................................................................................................................................90Response to Kaiser PETER ENNS............................................................................................................................................962. SINGLE MEANING, MULTIPLE CONTEXTS AND REFERENTS: The New Testament's Legitimate, Accurate, and Multifaceted Use of the Old DARRELL L. BOCK............................105Response to Bock WALTER C. KAISER, JR....................................................................................................................................152Response to Bock PETER ENNS..............................................................................................................................................1593. FULLER MEANING, SINGLE GOAL: A Christotelic Approach to the New Testament Use of the Old in Its First-Century Interpretive Environment PETER ENNS.....................167Response to Enns WALTER C. KAISER, JR....................................................................................................................................218Response to Enns DARRELL L. BOCK.........................................................................................................................................226An Analysis of Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament KENNETH BERDING.................................................................................233SCRIPTURE INDEX...........................................................................................................................................................244SUBJECT INDEX.............................................................................................................................................................250

Chapter One

SINGLE MEANING, UNIFIED REFERENTS

Accurate and Authoritative Citations of the Old Testament by the New Testament

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.

One of the key debates of the past four decades has been the problem of identifying the meaning of Scripture for our day and times. Should that meaning be limited to what the human writer of Scripture obtained as a result of standing in the revelatory counsel of God, or were there additional, or even alternative, meanings to be found that God somehow quietly incorporated into the text in some mysterious way, thus hiding them from the author, or perhaps even new meanings that the audience brought to the text on their own? This whole debate has been no small tempest in a teapot, for it is also tied in with several contemporary philosophical and literary movements of our own day and age, affecting the entire theological community, including, of course, many of the evangelical scholars.

Early in my career of teaching the Bible I ran across this assessment of the problem by Bishop J. C. Ryle (1818-1900):

I hold it to be a most dangerous mode of interpreting Scripture, to regard everything which its words may be tortured into meaning as a lawful interpretation of the words. I hold undoubtedly that there is a mighty depth in all Scripture, and that in this respect it stands alone. But I also hold that the words of Scripture were intended to have one definite sense, and that our first object should be to discover that sense, and adhere rigidly to it. I believe that, as a general rule, the words of Scripture are intended to have, like all other language, one plain definite meaning, and that to say words do mean a thing, merely because they can be tortured into meaning it, is a most dishonourable and dangerous way of handling Scripture.

I could not agree more heartily; for this has become the standard by which I not only interpret the text as a biblical teacher, but it is the same view I urgently press other evangelicals to adopt.

More frequently, however, there has emerged a strong consensus running in evangelical work in this area that tends to regard the majority of the OT quotations in the NT as "hav[ing] no semblance of predictive intention." Donald A. Hagner continued:

All of this leads us to the recognition of what has been called the sensus plenior, or "fuller sense," of the Old Testament Scripture. To be aware of sensus plenior is to realize that there is the possibility of more significance to an Old Testament passage than was consciously apparent to the original author, and more than can be gained by strict grammatico-historical exegesis. Such is the nature of divine inspiration that the authors of Scripture were themselves often not conscious of the fullest significance and final application of what they wrote. This fuller sense of the Old Testament can be seen only in retrospect and in the light of the New Testament fulfillment.

It is this wide acceptance of various versions of sensus plenior among contemporary evangelicals that renders this discussion so crucial for our day.

But there are several other important issues that relate in some way to this central question-issues such as (1) the extent to which the NT authors also used ancient Jewish exegetical and interpretive methods in their use of the OT; (2) the NT authors' awareness or disregard of the larger OT context of the passages they quote; (3) the appropriate understanding of the function of typology; and (4) the question of whether contemporary interpreters may replicate the NT writers' techniques of appropriating and applying the OT Scriptures. After an initial discussion of sensus plenior, therefore, I will move to discuss each of these related areas in turn. I will conclude with my perspective on the legitimacy of contemporary Christians employing the same interpretive approach to the OT as was employed by first-century Christians.

CAN WE APPEAL TO SENSUS PLENIOR?

Father Raymond E. Brown published his dissertation in 1955, in which he gave a fixed definition as to what a sensus plenior meaning was. Brown defined it this way:

The sensus plenior is that additional, deeper meaning, intended by God, but not clearly intended by the human author, which is seen to exist in the words of a biblical text (or group of texts, or even a whole book) when they are studied in the light of further revelation or development in the understanding of revelation

Later he clarified matters further by candidly instructing interpreters:

Let us apply the term sensus plenior ["fuller sense"] to that meaning of his [the author's] text which by the normal rules of exegesis would not have been within his clear awareness of intention, but which by other criteria we can determine as having been intended by God.

Since Brown takes it out of the hands of the human authors who stood in the counsel of God, the question is: In whose hands now does the final court...