texts of the canon nor does it overlook tensions among the texts of the canon. As John Peckham, commenting on the canonical approach, remarks, “Where apparent tensions arise, they should be properly acknowledged rather than glossed over. However, it should be recognized that apparent tensions do not necessarily rule out undergirding theological consistency, especially if consistency is not improperly conflated with simplistic univocity.”174
A further question that is often raised in biblical scholarship is: which canon is authoritative? For example, there are variants of the Hebrew canon (Old Testament), namely, the Hebrew Version (notably the Masoretic text) and the Greek Version (the ‘Septuagint’ or the pre-Christian Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, often referred to as the ‘Alexandrian canon’). The two versions differ markedly in a number of texts; for example, the Septuagint edition of the book of Jeremiah is much shorter than the Hebrew version of the book and has a different ordering of its contents.175 There are also other collections of texts, the so-called deuterocanonical texts, notably the apocryphal texts, some of which are included in the canons of some Christian traditions but regarded as extra-canonical in other Christian traditions.176 Brevard Childs wades into the question of ‘which canon’ and argues that the Masoretic text (the Hebrew Bible version that was preserved by Jewish rabbinic scholars known as the Masoretes) should be the normative canon because it is what the Jews and Christians have in common.177 On the contrary, Albert Sundberg argues that the Greek canon (the Septuagint) has primacy over other Old Testament versions because it was the canon of the early church.178 The debate rages on, but as some critics have pointed out, the canonical controversy plausibly boils down to differences between inspired autographs and corrupt transmissions.179 Nonetheless, the Masoretic text, which was preserved by the Jewish rabbinic scholars, the Masoretes, has generally been accepted, both in the academy and the Church, as the canonical norm of the Hebrew Bible.180
Whereas Sanders’ canonical approach is essentially a holistic literary reading of the Bible in canonical context, Brevard Childs’ canonical approach is more nuanced and is, indeed, a canonical theology that harks back to Luther’s hermeneutica sacra. Childs readily embraces the historical-critical study of the texts of the Bible in a canonical context utilizing scientific exegetical tools. However, Childs’ canonical approach is more focused on the presuppositional-hermeneutical paradigm which guides the exegetical methods. His approach is, thus, not simply a technical method of biblical interpretation. Rather, it is a hermeneutical paradigm in which the Bible is read as the divinely inspired and authoritative Word of God. As Earle Ellis aptly points out, “Method is inherently a limited instrumentality, and, indeed, a secondary stage in the art of interpretation. More basic are the perspective and presuppositions with which the interpreter approaches the text.”181 Childs’ canonical approach is, indeed, hermeneutica sacra, or confessional hermeneutics. As he argues:
Biblical theology has, as its proper context, the canonical scriptures of the Christian Church . . . The Christian Church responded to this literature as the authoritative Word of God, and it remains existentially committed to an inquiry into its inner unity because of its confession of the one Gospel of Jesus Christ which it proclaims to the world. It was therefore a fatal methodological mistake when the nature of the Bible was described solely in categories of the history of religions.182
Childs’ confessional approach to biblical criticism is also noted by John Barton, who remarks that it “is currently the most influential” attempt to rescue biblical studies from “secular specialism.” John Barton goes on to observe that:
In the work of Brevard Childs (more properly called the canonical method or approach) it aims at a new, post-critical reading of the finished form of biblical texts; but unlike holistic literary readings with their addiction to modern literary theory, a ‘canonical’ reading is concerned with the religious meaning of the Bible. At the same time, it tries to help the critics themselves to be more theologically and religiously sensitive . . . It wants to bring the critics with their skills back into the fold of the Church; to enable them toshare with simpler believers the experience of finding again in the Bible the living word of God.183
Childs decries the historical-critical method’s tendency to disaggregate the texts of the Bible into hypothetical original or earlier sources, thus confining the Bible into the past. He also laments that the historical-critical methods not only fail to consider any dialectical relation between the biblical texts and their canonical context but also that, in their present form, the historical-critical methods fail to consider whether the canon of Scripture might have a coherent theological truth for the present community of faith, notwithstanding any biblical-textual tensions therein.184 As John Barton surmises, the apparent biblical-textual inconsistencies pointed out by the historical-critical scholars are plausibly subordinate to a higher unity. Barton grants that the texts of the Bible may not all speak with “a single voice, yet taken together, they witness to a unified truth . . . the scriptural texts have a unity of purpose and message which is more important than their mutual tensions and disagreements in detail.”185 It is the “more important” theological message arising from the canon as a whole that Brevard Childs’ hermeneutical paradigm seeks to rescue back for the communities of faith, both in the academy and the church.
Brevard Childs’ hermeneutical paradigm is, however, not a naïve attempt to harmonize apparently disparate or inconsistent texts of the Bible, as some of his detractors have argued.186 Rather, akin to Martin Luther’s hermeneutica sacra, it is a hermeneutical presupposition with which the reader approaches the texts of the Bible as the divinely inspired Word of God and the authoritative rule of faith.187 For Childs, the unifying factor in the canon is that it is sacred Scripture. Childs, much like Martin Luther, opposes the historical-critical or any other scientific critical methods of textual interpretation. His concern is that the method’s atomizing analysis of the texts of the Bible should not be an end in itself; a synthesizing attempt is necessary to discern the coherent message from the canon of Scripture. Dale Brueggemann aptly remarks that Childs’ confessional approach to biblical criticism is not a capitulation to literalistic biblicism; “literalists and fundamentalists can only take false comfort in what is happening in this regard; they should not be deceived into thinking that critical scholarship has come to its senses in repentance of its errant ways.”188 Brevard Childs’ embrace of scientific methods of textual interpretation is premised on the understanding that “interest in the sources from which the biblical books were composed, or the forms they use, or the skills with which they were assembled by redactors, is a natural consequence of attending to the givenness of the text, and of realizing that if the Bible does mediate knowledge of God, it does it through these means and not otherwise.”189
It is not just from the historical-critical scholarship’s “errant ways” that Childs’ hermeneutica sacra seeks to recover the Bible for the community of faith. It is also from the secular literary critics who read the Bible as a literary classic devoid of any divine authority. Thus, as John Barton remarks, Brevard Childs’ “canonical approach is a proposal about how Christians should read the Bible within the context of faith.”190 Nonetheless, Barton rightly cautions that “whereas biblical critics should be sensitive to the church’s call to be more theological, they should also reckon that the church is not best served by an academy that simply capitulates to the uncritical whims of the communities of faith.”191 Consistent with this caution, Brevard Childs adopts a centrist stance which, as Kathleen M. O’Connor notes, “seeks to preserve biblical studies from both the dogmatism of biblicizing conservatives and much more from the historicism of wide-eyed children of the Enlightenment.”192 Childs’ fiercest critic, James Barr, who often terms Childs’ theologies as “canonical fundamentalism” or “theological fundamentalism,” nonetheless, acknowledges that “Childs touches on aspects which for many are religiously very important, and these are likely to produce other expressions in the future.”193
The Reformation Legacy in Pneumatic Hermeneutics
Martin Luther (1483–1546), the monk of Wittenberg, has been credited with many theological, ecclesiological, and even political achievements. However, as Derek Wilson aptly cautions, “we have to resist the temptation to recreate him in our own image.”194 Nonetheless, Martin Luther is rightly
