scripture.
The younger Luther recognized this and, beginning with his early commentaries on the Psalms (1513–1515) moved away from allegorical exegesis, insisting instead on the primacy of the sensus literalis. Nevertheless, he still interpreted the Psalms as having their ultimate reference in Christ.20 Holding these two aspects of the text of scripture together, Luther grasped what Wolfhart Pannenberg has in our present situation emphasized, that any study of any historical event must occur within an overall framework. In a similar vein, Pannenberg has noted, events take on meaning in light of what they later give rise to.21 For example, the meaning of the French Revolution can be more acutely realized in light of Soviet and Chinese revolutions than can be recognized merely by studying France in the late eighteenth century.22 N. T. Wright has similarly noted that a Roman citizen who heard about the resurrection of Jesus and was unfamiliar with the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures would doubtless have regarded him as being something like a Nero Redivivus.23 Not interpreting scripture in light of Christ ultimately leads to the application of an alien framework and context. It represents merely the imposition of a different framework on scripture, and not a neutral and scientific interpretation of scripture.
In point of fact, this is precisely what we are proposing that modern biblical scholars have done and continue to do. They impose an alien framework on scripture and thereby distort individual texts by interpreting them within that framework. One steeped in the history of modern biblical scholarship is bound to find this unsurprising in light of the fact that this tradition of interpretation begins with Baruch Spinoza and the revival of Epicurean thought in the early modern period.24 Part of Epicureanism was the denial of divine design within the world (Epicurus followed the atomism of Democritus) and the rejection of supernatural revelation (the gods, claimed Epicurus do not interact with the world).25
For this reason, scripture is seen as the patchwork of the different writings of those involved in “priestcraft” (as later Rationalists frequently called it) cut and pasted together and edited by one great imposter as the final redactor. Since different writing styles can obviously be used by the same author and because none of the intermediate or ur-documents that supposedly made up whole biblical books have ever been found, the supposition of modern liberal biblical scholars that the Bible was produced in this way is almost entirely based on discerning the power-play present in the rhetorical violence of the various invented authors of the theoretical documents (Q, JEDP, etc.). By reading the Bible this way, liberal critics of the Bible seek to free themselves from the heteronomous claims of these ancient authors and assert their autonomy against the text.26 This kind of freedom of course (as we shall see later) is not real freedom. It is a defensive action of a creature bent by sin. Such phony autonomy seeks a defense against the accusation of the law present in the supposedly heteronomous claims of the text. The only freedom that can be real freedom is in Christ. By accepting that the Bible is truthful and centers on Christ, believers gain the true freedom that modern liberal biblical scholars seek through the destruction of biblical authority.
Epicureanism also automatically rules out the supernatural. This again is merely an a prior hermeneutical decision, and not something necessitated by the material itself. Rather than offer any hard evidence that the Hebrew prophets did not predict Jesus, they merely interpret the scriptures within a framework that does not view reality as centering on the christological. Indeed, not only is predictive prophecy ruled out of court, but there can be no divinely designed melody of salvation history. Any subtle connection between one event in scripture and another must be manufactured afterwards out of thin air. Any fulfillment of predictive prophecy must have been redacted after the event to fit the prophecy.27 In reading modern biblical scholarship what one is amazed by time and again is how commentators get away with so much conjecture without offering a slightest bit of evidence. They also frequently present weak evidence or dismiss evidence devastating to their position.28 Since their audience has been acculturated into the Epicurean assumptions about divine agency, they can simply build conjecture on conjecture. Those who challenge such practices (within and outside the academic world) are dismissed as “Fundamentalists” who worship a “Paper Pope.” All this suggests that many exegetes are engaged in a covert theological agenda and not in neutral historical investigation as they attempt to claim. As was suggested at the beginning of this section, the theology they propose is one that needs scripture to be errant in order to bolster their religion of allegory (so that they might maintain their precious bourgeois autonomy against the peril of divine providence and miracle) and moralizing (so that in their autonomy they might continue their project of self-justification).
This being the case, we can observe that modern biblical scholarship with its supposed objectivity is simply another exegetical tradition with no more claims to neutral interpretation than that of traditional orthodox Christianity.29 In fact, as we have seen, it has less of a claim than traditional Reformation hermeneutics. Though it insists on a privileged status as more neutral and rational, there is no evidence to demonstrate this. Recent scholars (none of whom can be characterized as “Fundamentalists”) have argued that there is in fact a great deal of data that calls major aspects of the critical tradition into question.30 Ultimately, much of the critical tradition has accomplished little but to rip the biblical texts away from their proper framework of divine inspiration and centeredness on Christ, and imposed an alien, Epicurean framework upon them.
This being the case, Christian interpreters of scripture should feel no obligation to adopt this framework. The fact that so many creedally orthodox Christians (mainly in mainline Protestant institutions) think that they are under this obligation at the present time demonstrates not the wealth of data contradicting traditional christological interpretation, but rather a loss of nerve on the part of Christianity faced with the rather paltry challenge of modern and postmodern Epicureanism.
This does not mean that they should reject insights from all scholars who use such critical methods. Many modern techniques of biblical scholarship (most notably biblical archaeology) have yielded a great deal of information about the original context of scripture. In fact, as the late Kurt Marquart has helpfully noted, no modern form of biblical criticism is in itself morally wrong or anti-Christian, rather it is how the technique is used.31 When evaluating scholarship one should not ask whether the scholar uses these modern techniques, rather one should ask whether the scholar proceeds from orthodox Christian assumptions (truthfulness and Christ-centeredness of scripture) or from another framework (Epicurean, etc.).
To summarize our method and approach: Because this study works from the perspective of what the Bible says about itself (namely, that it is divinely inspired and centers on Jesus Christ) we will expound the whole Bible on the basis of its chief article, Jesus Christ and his redeeming work. This does not mean to ignore or smooth over the historical context of scripture, its variety of genres, or its diversity of theological vocabulary. What it means is to recognize the harmony and unity of the historical and theological meaning of scripture. Discovering and expounding the sensus literalis means correlating the historical, contextual, and grammatical meaning of texts with their overall center found in Christ. This is possible because God himself is the author of scripture and his intended meaning throughout his narration of the Bible is Jesus.
In terms of actual practice, our treatment of the Old Testament will recognize the analogical similitude between God’s saving acts within Israel and his final saving
