Once again—the "center" of the Old Testament - Old Testament theology

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2001 by Roland E. Murphy

Perhaps the most striking element in Janowski's view is his insistence on a center of the Old Testament, described as appearing to be "as essential for Christian theology as it appears to be problematic for Judaism" (316). He accounts for the failure of scholars to find a center by dismissing the geometrical metaphor. Instead, the Old Testament in its theological themes witnesses to "the material and effective center of an event" that lies beyond the social, political, and religious diversity. This central biblical event is contained in the formula, "God's presence and activity in Israel" (319). More precisely, the covenant formula (YHWH the God of Israel; Israel the people of YHWH) "represents the central theme of the entire Old Testament" (320). Once more there is a fatal equivalence between center and theme, which has dominated previous research in this area.

Janowski concludes by returning to the twofold character of Scripture: it is both Christian and Jewish, and yet the unity of the two Testaments is to be maintained. He names this "a unity of contrast" (322); the Christian must read the Old Testament in a "dialectical" relationship to the New Testament. He concludes with a plea that theology be concerned with the twofold witness to the one God (324).

Steadfast Love

Hermann Spieckermann (Gottingen University professor of Old Testament) delivered a lecture on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, significantly titled God's Steadfast Love: Towards a New Conception of Old Testament Theology (2000). He is well aware of the risk in writing about Old Testament theology; he has participated in the more recent discussions of the subject (305, n. 1). He is not concerned precisely with the "center," but with the union between the Testaments. He offers a new conception of Old Testament theology by making the New Testament the starting point. Opposed to the more limited view of a history of religion approach to Old Testament theology (e.g., that of R. Albertz), he adds to this complicated subject two stubborn facts: the Septuagint translation was the Bible of the early Church, though differing in many ways from what was finalized as the MT; and within the Christian churches there exists a variety of canons.

These remarks are merely preliminary to his "new conception." He proceeds to develop the theology of hesed, "steadfast love," in Exodus 34:6-7 (God's "self-determination"), in the Psalter ("God's saving presence"), in the Prophets ("everlasting love"), and in the New Testament ("God's steadfast love in Jesus Christ"). Spieckermann's point is that the Christian Bible (the Septuagint and the New Testament) forms a preferred position from which to illumine a central theological issue, the divine hesed. He concludes (327): "It is the task of a Christian Bible's theology--and of an Old Testament theology being a part of it--to pay attention to this theme [God's steadfast love] in the manifold forms and situations witnessed in the scriptures."