Dunn. J - The Living Word

JAMES D.G.
DUNN
The Living Word
FORTRESS PRESS PHILADELPHIA

Copyright © 1987 By James D.G. Dunn
First Fortress Press Edition 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other¬
wise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Fortress Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dunn, James D. G., 1939-
The living word.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Bible. N.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2. Bible—Evidences, authority, etc. I. Title.
BS2361.2.D86 1987 225.6'01 87-27535
ISBN 0-8006-2097-6
3236J87 Printed in the United States of America 1-2097

CONTENTS
Preface vii
PART I
1. The Task of New Testament Interpretation 3
2. The Gospels as Oral Tradition 25
3. Was Jesus a Liberal? Was Paul a Heretic? 44
4. The Problem of Pseudonymity 65
PART II
5. The Authority of Scripture According to Scripture 89

Letter to Professor R. Nicole 136
6. Levels of Canonical Authority 141
Notes 175
Index of B iblical R eferences 193
PREFACE
In February 1987 I was privileged to deliver the W. H. Griffith

Thomas Lectures in Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. I am grateful to
the Principal for the invitation and to his colleagues, particu¬
larly Gordon and Sylvia Ogilvie, for the splendid hospitality
they provided.
The requested topic was something in the area of biblical
interpretation and since the question of scriptural authority
and interpretation is one which I consider of central import¬
ance within Christian theology, I was glad of the opportunity
to take further part in an ongoing debate to which I had
already attempted some previous contribution.
Unfortunately the pressures under which the British
University system is struggling today demand a vast amount
of time in administration and committee, with less and less
time available for creative work. Within the constraints of a
period of heavy responsibility it became impossible to write a
completely new set of lectures and I had perforce to draw on
some material already to hand. Since at that time I had not
contemplated publishing the lectures it seemed the most
sensible course to follow.
For the first lecture I was able to adapt the opening lecture
of my third year undergraduate ‘Theology of the New
Testament’ course at Durham. This is to be published in
its ‘Mark T form in a volume co-authored with Professor
Mackey of Edinburgh, under the title New Testament Theology
in Dialogue (SPCK). It was of considerable personal interest to
discover that the model offered for New Testament theology
proved so apposite for New Testament interpretation. But on
reflection, not so much of a surprise, since I see New Testa¬
ment theology as primarily a hermeneutical task.
VIII THE LIVING WORD
For the second lecture I was able to supplement a lecture

given to the international conference on ‘Jesus God and Man’
at Dallas in November 1986. I am grateful to Roy Varghese,
both for the invitation to that imaginative and very worth¬
while conference, and for permission to re-use the lecture
which was delivered there under the title ‘The Historicity of
the Synoptic Gospels’.
The third and fourth lectures were completely fresh,
though I am more than happy to acknowledge the debt I owe
to my Nottingham researcher, David Meade, for the insights
we shared during his period of research and which he has
now published in the volume mentioned in Chapter 4. By
drawing on it I was able to give Chapter 4 a greater solidity
than would otherwise have been possible in the time avail¬
able. If this little volume serves to draw wider attention to Dr
Meade’s most valuable work I hope he will find the quid pro
quo acceptable.
As the series progressed I was pleased to find that the
lectures seemed to hang well together and to develop a
reasonably coherent and rounded position. With some en¬
couragement from those who had heard them I began to
think of possible publication. With even stronger encourage¬
ment from John Bowden of SCM Press I decided to eo
ahead. 6
At first I thought about attempting extensive revision and
documentation. But that would have changed the style too
much. And I have always found it very difficult to recast a
text over which I had previously laboured to get it ‘right’ into
a new format where I say the same things in different words.
The choice between a style which makes for easy listening
(and reading) and a format which cross-references and
attempts to close off all loopholes is not always easy. But in
this case it was a choice of offering the lectures to a wider
audience as delivered, or not at all. And since I have never
attempted in my work to provide ‘the last word’ on a subject,
but merely to contribute to an ongoing debate, the choice was
not too difficult. I did attempt some recasting of Chapter 1,
to reduce the amount of overlap with the chapter in New
Testament Theology in Dialogue, but soon found that I was
moving too far from the lecture originally delivered, and so
THE TASK OF NEW TESTAMENT INTERPRETATION IX
gave up the attempt. It also occurred to me that the degree of

overlap served to illustrate one of the main points of the
series — the adaptability of pre-formed material to different
uses.
It also seemed sensible to use the opportunity of publica¬
tion to give wider access to the two other essays I have con¬
tributed to the current debates on scriptural authority: ‘The
Authority of Scripture According to Scripture’, Churchman 96
(1982), pp. 104—122, 201—225 (a lecture first delivered by
invitation to the 1981 Conference of the Anglican Evangelical
Association as an exposition of a ‘radical’ evangelical view of
scripture), together with my letter to Professor Nicole, pub¬
lished at the end of his response to the above in the same
journal — Churchman 98 (1984), pp. 208—212; and ‘Levels of
Canonical Authority’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 4 (1982),
pp. 13—60. They are in effect further variations on the same
theme and, having a different format, were able to interact
more fully with other views in detail and in footnote. I am
grateful to the editors of both these journals for permission
to reproduce this material.
The final product will, I hope, help to bring home more
fully the character of the scriptural tradition and of scriptural
authority as it comes to clear expression, or so it seems to me,
in the New Testament itself. A living tradition and a living
authority. Neither disregarded nor accepted uncritically, but
received with discernment as to what was its continuing force
and authority in the changing circumstances of faith. A
balance of continuity and discontinuity. A creative tension
between old revelation and new, between authoritative tra¬
dition and prophetic Spirit. To locate oneself, so far as that is
possible, within that process, is to gain invaluable insights on
how scriptural authority can still function today. To hear the
living word of God as it was heard in the beginnings of
Christianity, so far as that is possible by present day empa-
thetic exegesis, in an invaluable aid towards hearing the liv¬
ing word of God today. If this little volume helps even in
the smallest measure towards that end I will be more than
satisfied.
PART I
1
THE TASK OF NEW TESTAMENT
INTERPRETATION
1. Introduction
I begin by asking two starter questions.
(a) What is the New Testament? The immediate subject matter

of New Testament interpretation is obviously the New Testa¬
ment. But what is the New Testament? The nature of the
discipline is bound to be determined in large measure at least
by the character of the subject matter. Yet all too often the
question is not asked. The answer is simply taken for granted.
The question, after all, is a beginner’s question, and by the
time we are ready to tackle the larger subject of how we
should interpret the New Testament we have left such elemen¬
tary matters far behind us. But on this occasion at least we
must pause and be prepared to begin by asking the naively
fundamental question. For if the task is, in large part, deter¬
mined by its subject matter, we must have a clear grasp of the
dimensions of that subject matter. Otherwise we may end up
charting only the Atlantic and not the Pacific as well, only the
land and not the sea.
I normally begin my final year course on New Testament
theology by asking this question. After the initial surprise the
class’s scatter of answers can usually be grouped round two
aspects or perspectives.
1. The New Testament is a collection of historical documents
— in fact, most of the Christian writings from the first century
of our era. As such they are invaluable source documents for
any study of the beginnings of Christianity. Almost all our
4 THE LIVING WORD
knowledge regarding Jesus and the initial spread of Christ¬

ianity derives direcdy from them. Without them we would
lose all possibility of direct access to these foundational
events.
2. The New Testament is also scripture. The New Testa¬
ment writings have been regarded by the Christian churches
as their primary authority down through the centuries, and
still are today. Since the earliest centuries the New Testament
documents have functioned as ‘canon’, that is, as rule or
yardstick or norm for faith and life. They belong to the class
of sacred writings. For generations of Christians they have
been heard to speak as the word of God written.
As we shall soon see, there are controversial features about
both these ways of regarding the New Testament. But that
should not cause us to blank out one or other aspect from the
start. To do so would reduce our problems, but would not
help in their solution. For unless we begin by acknowledging
this two-fold historic character of the New Testament docu¬
ments we will run the risk of ignoring dimensions of our
subject matter and so of undermining our task from the
outset.
With this preliminary answer to our first question we can
go on to our second: ,
(b) What is New Testament Interpretation ? Of course we cannot

expect a complete or final answer right away. A good deal
more clarification and discussion will be necessary before we
can hope for that. But it is worth attempting a first approxi¬
mation to an answer at this stage since that will provide the
parameters for the rest of our discussion, or the broad out¬
line which we will hope to fill out as we proceed.
Unfortunately even at this stage we find ourselves caught
in a fundamental conflict. The disagreement arises from the
two answers given to our first question. For, as we would
expect, different views of New Testament interpretation
arise out of the different ways of regarding the New
Testament.
1. For some, interpretation of New Testament texts is a
purely descriptive exercise. It is the task of the historian, not of
the theologian. The concern should be to lay out the history
THE TASK OF NEW TESTAMENT INTERPRETATION 5
of early Christian religion and theology. The objective should

not be to derive observations of continuing theological sig¬
nificance from these writings, but simply to describe the
theologies of the New Testament writers, what was believed,
thought, taught, hoped, required and striven for in the earli¬
est period of Christianity. Wilhelm Wrede and Krister Stendahl
have provided classic statements of this understanding of the
task of New Testament scholarship.1
2. For others, interpretation of the New Testament will
inevitably have a prescriptive role within the larger discipline
of Christian or dogmatic theology. This arises not simply
from a dogma of canonical authority, but from the fact of
canonical authority. By this I mean the fact that the New
Testament has always determined the character and empha¬
ses of all subsequent Christian faith and theology in greater
or less degree. Even those theologians who have denied the
dogma of canonical authority have found it necessary to
appeal to the content of the New Testament (Jesus, Paul,
John, etc.) to justify their own theological reconstructions.
The fact is that the New Testament writings have served as a
crucial determinant for the whole of Christian faith and
life. From this perspective, then, the subject matter of New
Testament interpretation is not simply first-century ideas of
antiquarian interest but the convictions and experiences
which came to expression in the New Testament writings and
which can still speak directly to contemporary Christian con¬
cerns. New Testament interpretation means not merely des¬
cribing the theology of the New Testament but doing theology
through the New Testament. The classic response to Wrede
at this point is the essay of Adolf Schlatter.2
It would be all too easy to develop these two perspectives as
polar alternatives, to save ourselves further trouble by simply
labelling them respectively ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’. That
done, we could then each retreat safely into our own theo¬
logical and ecclesiastical traditions and either ignore the
other or snipe away at the other’s exposed flanks. The more
demanding task is to recognize that there is truth in both
ways of viewing the task of treating the New Testament.
Since the New Testament is both historical source and scrip¬
ture, we must take proper account of both aspects. Of course
6 THE LIVING WORD
there is a potential tension between these two aspects — seen

at its most extreme in the contrast between the academic
scholar with narrow historical interests on the one hand, and
the ‘simple believer’ on the other reading the Bible as God’s
voice speaking directly to him in the here and now. But the
task of New Testament interpretation is precisely to handle
that tension and to ensure that it is a creative rather than a
destructive tension.
2. New Testament interpretation as a dialogue
The most hopeful way forward is to begin a dialogue between

these two different perspectives on the task of New Testa¬
ment interpretation. In larger terms that will involve a dia¬
logue between past and present, between first century and
twentieth century, between the standpoints of the New
Testament writers and their readers on the one hand, and
that of the modern exegete on the other.
The descriptive aspect of the task of New Testament inter¬
pretation requires us to recognize that the New Testament
belongs to the first century, with all that that involves (a
subject to which we must return). But we cannot get far in the
dialogue until we as exegetes also recognize that we our¬
selves belong to the twentieth century, with all that that
involves. Apart from anything else, the understanding we
bring to the task of exegesis has been shaped by our upbring¬
ing and education, by our inherited culture and traditions —
including our own theological tradition in its particular
distinctiveness.
To cite a few examples. When British students first come
across the word kingdom’ in the biblical writings, their
understanding is bound to be influenced by the fact that they
belong to the United Kingdom, that their country is a mon¬
archy with an imperial past. Their history as Britons will give
shape and content to that word. Or again, their initial under¬
standing of the word ‘law’ may be influenced by the issue of
‘law and order’ or by their Reformation heritage. No one is
surprised when Roman Catholic and Protestant exegetes
come to different conclusions, for everyone knows that they
have come to the text from different starting points.
This is precisely why Rudolf Bultmann asked his famous

quesdon: Is presupposidonless exegesis possible?3 His
answer is clear and obvious No! Exegesis without presuppo¬
sitions is an impossibility. We all, whoever we are, bring to the
text our own ‘pre-understanding’ — our pre-understanding
not just of what its words mean but also of what we expect it
to say. To change the metaphor to one made more familiar
by the work of Anthony Thiselton:4 what we see in a text is
limited by the horizon of our, own understanding; when we
read the text we see only what lies within the horizon which
bounds our understanding; we can ‘cash’ the language of the
text only in the currency of our own linguistic heritage and
world.
Consequently, a crucial part of the dialogue of New Testa¬
ment interpretation is to recognize that we have presuppo-
sidons, that we have horizons — or more precisely, to recognize
that our perception will be limited by our presuppositions,
our vision limited by our horizons. And to recognize this not
simply as a first step which can then be left behind, but to
recognize that it will always be true. Our perception of what is
there in the text will always be shaped by the language or
experience ‘bank’ from which we draw to ‘cash’ the words
and phrases read. Our understanding will always be limited
by our horizons however much these horizons may have
expanded in the meantime. If initially we cannot recognize
what the limits of our horizons are, at least we can recognize
that they are limited.
And thus we will begin to realize that a sharp antithesis
between the alternatives posed above (descriptive versus pre¬
scriptive) is somewhat unrealistic. Even the descriptive exer¬
cise cannot escape a significant input from the exegete’s own
viewpoint. That is to say, whether we like it or not, some
element of dialogue is essential, if only because it is unavoid¬
able. Better then to engage in the dialogue in positive mood
rather than to waste time wishing it could be otherwise.
But is ‘dialogue’ the right word? For many the alternative
to ‘scientific objectivity’ is the despair of the ‘hermeneutical
circle’. If we see only what we are able tp see from our
twentieth-century perspective, or through our Protestant or
Catholic spectacles, then are we not simply staring in a
8 THE LIVING WORD
sequence of mirrors? If the starting point determines what

we find, if the presuppositions determine the conclusions, are
we not simply going round in circles? We find what we are
looking for, answers to our questions, and, surprise, surprise,
the answers as a rule tend to support our presuppositions.
The ‘hermeneutical circle’ looks to be too much like one of
those children’s trains at a fun fair, going round and round
and round always on the same track, and never getting any¬
where. Can we escape?
Yes! The simple answer is that we can correct or improve our
pre-understanding. We can broaden our horizons. For ex¬
ample, although a British student begins his New Testament
study with a particular idea of what a ‘kingdom’ is, there is
sufficient evidence of the way in which the Aramaic equiva¬
lent was used at the time of Jesus for him to develop a new
understanding of the word, one more informed by the first-
century material and less by his twentieth-century heritage.
Or again, someone may come to his study of the New Testa¬
ment with the presupposition of what the ‘gospel’ says, that
evangelistic preaching should always speak of repentance for
sms and of God’s provision of atonement for sins on the
cross. Such a person can check whether this was always so
within the New Testament writings. And when he recognizes
that Paul hardly speaks of repentance and John never, and
that the evangelistic sermons in Acts never present the
cross as an act of atonement, he may well find it necessary
to redefine his understanding of how the gospel may be
preached. 7
In other words, there is no need for us to keep going
round in a circle. We can alter our perspective, re-focus our
questions. The circle, if you like, can become more like a
spiral and in pursuing the line of questioning we may hope to
find ourselves spiralling in towards the centre.
Dialogue, however, is the more appropriate metaphor
Our initial questioning should lead to some clearer under-
standing of the subject matter and to some correction of our
initial viewpoint. This in turn should enable us to pose the
question afresh, or to pose the original question more sharply
At the same time we should remember that it is a dialogue
For we may well find that the New Testament writings do not
merely answer back to our questions. The New Testament

may put ns in question. And may do so in such a radical
manner that conversion is the only answer possible for us. So
Francis of Assisi found with regard to the words of Jesus:
‘Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven’ (Luke 18.22). Words which he had
no doubt heard before now came to him as the word of God
and called for total assent. The Reformation’s insistence on
‘scripture alone’ is an expression of the same experience
repeated many times over, when the words of scripture
were heard to speak in a way which challenged generally
accepted presuppositions and practices. Or we might re¬
flect on why it is that Liberation theology has arisen in
Latin America. For Liberation theology is itself an expres¬
sion of this same dialogue — where questions have been posed
to traditional authorities (including scripture) by the con¬
ditions in these countries, to be met by even sharper ques¬
tions posed in turn by an important strand of biblical
teaching.
To put it another way, New Testament interpretation is a
dialogue, simply because any twentieth-century attempt to
inquire into first-century writings is bound to be a dialogue.
A dialogue which starts by recognizing the inescapable dis¬
tance between the first century and the twentieth, which
begins with the recognition that a first-century text is bound
to be in some degree or other strange and foreign to us. For
if it is not, the likelihood is that we have assimilated the one to
the other too quickly; we have allowed the voice of the twenti¬
eth century to drown out the distinctive tones of the first
century; or the words of the first century to drown out the
questions of the twentieth. If the former is the temptation of
the too critical, the latter is the failing of the too uncritical.
But if we want to hear the distinctive voice of the New
Testament writings, whether in terms of what marks them
out from other first-century writings, or in terms of hearing
the otherliness of the word of God addressing us now, some
sort of dialogue is unavoidable. A dialogue ip which we find
our own questions being clarified and redefined and in which
we allow ourselves to be put in question.
10 THE LIVING WORD
3. The Complexity of the Dialogue
So far we have set out only the basic character of New Testa¬
ment interpretation as dialogue. Now we must begin to look
at it more carefully and at its complexity. What appears in
the initial statement as something fairly straightforward, on
closer examination quickly proves to be more complicated.
Here we can make use of two words which have proved
useful, if not indispensable in previous attempts to under¬
stand the process of New Testament interpretation. The
words ‘historical’ and ‘critical’. The dialogue of New Testa¬
ment interpretation must be both historical and critical.
(a) Historical. Under this heading I want simply to describe

more fully what is involved in the recognition of the first-
centuriness of the New Testament writings. Much can be said
on this subject, but I will confine myself to three main points.
1. The New Testament writings are all in greater or less
degree occasional writings: they contain particular emphases
because they were addressed to particular situations. It seems
to be a fair working assumption that the authors were not
composing ‘in the air’ but with a view to the needs of at least
some congregation(s). To what extent then were the lan¬
guage and emphases of each writer determined by the needs
and situations addressed?
The answer is clear enough in the case of most of Paul’s
letters. In particular, it is beyond dispute that I Corinthians
was written because there were a variety of problems troub¬
ling the infant congregation in Corinth. As has often been
noted, our knowledge of the role and importance of the
Lord s Supper in the first Gentile congregations is dependent
almost entirely on the ‘accidental’ fact that there was serious
abuse of the common meal at Corinth. What is less appreci¬
ated is that since the particular points and emphases Paul
makes were addressed to that abuse, we today will not be able
to appreciate their full force without a reasonably clear idea
of what the abuse consisted in.
To take another example, Paul’s letter to the Christians in
Rome has traditionally been regarded as much less tied to a
particular situation, in which case our understanding of it
would be less dependent on our knowledge of that situation.

But in recent years it has come to be recognized more and
more that here too is a letter which arises out of a particular
phase in Paul’s mission and whose theology reflects that stage
in his thinking. Even with Romans, therefore, it will be neces¬
sary to inquire into the particular context in Paul’s work and
thought if we are to appreciate all the various nuances and
overtones in the letter.
What about the other NeW Testament writings? Is the
Gospel of John quite so timeless as it has often seemed? Or do
we need here too to become aware of particular tendencies
and tensions in the Christian assemblies to which the Fourth
Evangelist belonged, or to which he was writing, before we
can properly tune in to the message he intended his readers
to hear? What about Acts? A history of Christian beginnings,
yes indeed. But a history with a purpose or a bias, like all
histories. So that if we miss the purpose or misconceive the
bias we read the text with blinkers, unaware of all that is
going on in the text. What indeed of Jesus’ words themselves?
Were they not addressed to particular individuals, often
making a point specific to that individual? Without some
appreciation of that particular context the words will be open
to misunderstanding. Even here, if we are to pursue the
dialogue responsibly, we must ask to what extent particular
words of Jesus were addressed to particular situations and
can be properly understood only in specific contexts.
There can be no escape then from the task of careful
historical exegesis. In particular, we must beware of abusing
the benefit of hindsight or the privilege of being able to set
these writings within a much broader horizon than was visible
to the writers themselves. Our evidence may be fragmentary
for the first-century Graeco-Roman world as a whole. But at
least we can set it all out before us. We can take note of what
was happening in Rome and in Jerusalem at the same time, in
a way which was quite impossible then. We can trace large
scale patterns and slow moving cultural transformations of
which those active in only one part would hardly have been
aware. We can see now how certain tendencies developed
into Gnostic sects on the one hand or into catholic Christ¬
ianity on the other. The danger of the hindsight perspective
12 THE LIVING WORD
or of too broad horizons is that we not only see the end from
the beginning, but we also see the end in the beginning. We
too readily assume that such developments were inevitable
and that the writers involved at the earlier stages of the
development must have been somehow aware of it and in¬
tended that it should be so. A properly historical exegesis will
ever recall how limited a particular author’s horizon must
have been and seek to respect that limitation when enquiring
what the author intended to say and what his first readers
heard him say.
The challenge of the word ‘historical’ in the task of inter¬
pretation, therefore, is for the exegete to locate himself as
firmly as possible within the historical context of the docu¬
ment or passage under study - both the broader context of
the culture and the time, which I perhaps need not go into
more fully here, and the particular context which called forth
the writing or to which it was addressed.
2. Historical conditionedness. This is another and larger
aspect of the same point. The issue here is the extent to which
biblical writings are expressions of their age. I do not say
simply expressions of their age. But it seems a fair working
assumption that the New Testament documents were written
to be understood by people with different frames of refer-
ence from ours — different history, politics and social con¬
ditions, different thought patterns, customs and symbols,
different education, language and idiom — everything, in
other words which shapes conceptuality and language refer¬
ence, everything which is involved in the difference of the
first century from the twentieth century. The question there¬
fore is: To what extent were the writings of the New Testa¬
ment conditioned by the times within which and for which
they were written?
The point has usually been taken well enough with regard
to much Old Testament writing. For example, the widespread
recognition of the opening chapters of Genesis as a kind of
myth — that is, an explanation for the perceived reality of
man and his world using simple symbolic narrative such as
would be understandable even to quite primitive societies. Or
again, the extent to which the law codes of the Pentateuch
reflect a nomadic or agrarian stage of civilization. Or how a
particular law like the lex talionis (‘eye for an eye, tooth for a
tooth’) has to be understood within the context of the conven¬
tions of the day. Equivalently in the New Testament we can
recognize that Jesus’ teaching bears the stamp of an itinerant
ministry among the villages and small towns of Galilee;
whereas Paul’s reflects an essentially urban mission in the
larger cities of the eastern Mediterranean. And like the
account of creation’s beginnings, so with the account of the
climax of human history, since Revelation has to be under¬
stood in the symbolism of apocalyptic rather than literally.
The point is perhaps most obvious with regard to various
ethical issues. For example, Paul’s counsel of complete sub¬
mission to the authority of the state in Romans 13 can easily
be misconceived and misapplied, unless we remember the
vast gulf between the political realities of the Roman state in
the first century and that of the ancient and developed
democracies of the twentieth. We who can exercise political
power through the ballot box and through pressure groups
need to make an effort of historical imagination to appreciate
the political powerlessness of the great mass of the populace
in Paul’s day. It simply did not lie within the bounds of
possibility for Paul to exercise political power. He did not
advocate a more pro-active political stance simply because
such a possibility would not have occurred to him; such a
possibility was not contained within the horizon of thinkable
thoughts for Paul.
Similarly with the issue of slavery. We need not wonder at
the earliest Christian assumption of slavery as an unavoidable
and therefore acceptable part of society. For that is what it
was — simply the lowest level of the socio-economic ladder.
The conviction that slavery is morally repulsive was a much
later growth within Christian consciousness, and if we are
rightly to appreciate what the New Testament says on the
subject we must avoid judging it by the standards of another
and later time. Otherwise the dialogue of New Testament
interpretation becomes merely a twentieth-century monologue.
The relevance of the same point has been recognized to at
least some extent on the still vexed question of the role of
women in the church - particularly with regard to Paul’s
counsel in I Corinthians that in praying or prophesying
14 THE LIVING WORD
women should wear a covering on their heads. Few Christian

women today feel bound by that counsel since it is generally
appreciated that this particular instruction was determined
by the social conventions relating to women in first-century
Corinth and therefore is of limited applicability.
3. At the same time we dare not forget the other dimension
of these writings — that they are scripture as well as historical
sources. It is the historical character of these writings which
forces us to recognize their occasional quality and context
conditionedness. But that is only one side of the picture. By
calling them scripture I do not refer merely to the fact that
generations of Christians have read them as the word of God
written. I refer much more to the fact that, however occa¬
sional and contingent these documents were in their compo¬
sition, they were also recognized as having greater and more
lasting significance than is implied by these two words.
The fact is that it was these and just these documents which
were preserved. Other letters of Paul and other first-century
Christian writings were not preserved. Why so? The obvious
answer is that they were preserved precisely because their
significance for faith was recognized as going beyond the
immediate situation which occasioned them. Other examples
of earliest Christian writing were allowed to disappear from
view because they were not used, because they did not outlast
the occasion or need for which they were written. But these
were preserved as having more than temporary importance.
And their later acceptance as canon was in most cases simply
an acknowledgment of the authority they had been increas¬
ingly accorded from the first. To that extent we can certainly
speak of a canonical authority attaching to these documents
from the first. Or in alternative terms, since these writings
were heard to speak with more than ordinary authority, and
with an authority which outlasted the occasionalness and
conditionedness of their origins, since the word of God was
heard in them from the beginning and beyond the circum¬
stances of their initial reception, to that extent they were
accorded the status of scripture from the first.
And this too, be it noted is a historical observation, as much
rooted in history and validated by historical study as the observ¬
ation of the same writings’ occasional and contingent character.
Thus we can begin to see just how complex is the dialogue
of New Testament interpretation. For here we have writings
which are limited in applicability by their historicalness, by
the fact that they belong firmly to the first century and to a
variety of particular contexts and circumstances. But at the
same time we have to recognize that these writings, the very
same writings, have been recognized to speak with the voice
of scriptural authority more or less from the first. The un¬
conditioned word of God expressed in words of man limited
in reference and scope.
This is why, of course, New Testament interpretation must
be a dialogue. The correlation between the word of God and
the words of the New Testament is not a simple one-to-one
correlation. We cannot simply read a text from the New
Testament and assume that it is the word of God for our¬
selves today. We must recognize that the limited scope of the
text may limit its applicability to the different circumstances
of our own time; that its scriptural authority functions by
showing us how the word of God was heard in particular
circumstances of the first century, not by having prescriptive
force for us today. Only by engaging in dialogue with the
text, a dialogue which takes full account of the historical
character of the text, will we be prevented from abusing the
text and from jumping to wrong conclusions.
This brings us to the other key word in describing the
dialogue of New Testament interpretation.
(b) Critical. The word ‘critical’ often has a negative tone, as

though it meant ‘looking for some fault in order to con¬
demn’. But of course it can have a much more positive note as
well — ‘looking for some weakness in order to improve’.
Writers often speak of their spouses as their ‘best critic’. A
teacher should be the typical critic in this sense. The word
itself then simply means a readiness to attempt an evaluation
of that being examined. Linked with the previous word it is
often used to describe the task of the historian - the ‘histori¬
cal critical method’. As such it need only mean a readiness to
question and evaluate all the data that comes before the
historian. It has, of course, been used in a still narrower sense
to include the criteria by which such an evaluation may pro-
16 THE LIVING WORD
ceed — in particular, the presupposition that all events should

be explained in terms of a closed sequence of cause and
effect. But here it is used in the more neutral sense of readi¬
ness to probe, question and evaluate.
1. In the first place that means being critical of the text.
That is to say, the New Testament critic must be willing to
treat the New Testament texts as products of the first cen¬
tury, and as such to analyse them in the same way as he would
other historical texts. Such an examination is not antithetical
or hostile to their further role as scripture. For its purpose is
to clarify the character of the documents which were to be
recognized as scripture, to cut through any mystique or dog¬
matic insistence regarding how things must have been, to
appreciate so far as possible the impact which they actually
had, without ignoring any features which may now raise an
eyebrow. To be properly critical is not to ignore or deny any
claims to inspiration on the part of the authors. On the
contrary, it is to gain a clearer understanding of how inspir¬
ation worked and what it produced. Since it is also a historical
fact that the New Testament writings were heard to speak
with more than occasional and contingent authority from the
first, it is also a properly critical concern to want to hear
again, so far as possible, the word of God which was heard
within and through the circumscribed and circumstantial
categories of the New Testament text. Indeed we might well
say that within the church the New Testament critic is simply
helping to carry out the churches’ continuing need to ‘test the
spirits, to evaluate and assess whatever claims to speak here
and now with authoritative voice as the word of God.
There are many aspects in a critical study of the New
Testament All that we put under the heads of ‘textual criti-
dsm, tradition criticism’, ‘source criticism’ and ‘redaction
criticism , for a start. But here I will take up only one example
of what is involved. I have in mind particularly the diversity o{
the New Testament writings. I take up this example not so
much because I have written on the subject, but rather be¬
cause what I have written has been so misunderstood - al¬
most wholly on the conservative side. And misunderstood
precisely because the sort of points I have been making above
have not been grasped, or at least not in their full extent
Permit me the indulgence of some self-defence.
In Unity and Diversity in the New Testament? one of the points

I tried to make is that the gospel is never expressed in the
New Testament in precisely the same terms. That when we
compare the gospel as presented by Jesus, by the sermons of
Acts, by Paul, and by John, it is not strictly speaking the same
gospel. There is what we might call a ‘core gospel’ — the
proclamation of Jesus as risen from the dead, the call for
faith in this Jesus, and the promise of God to that faith. But
no New Testament writer reduces his proclamation of the
gospel to quite so bare a skeleton. In each New Testament
writer that common core is expanded and elaborated. And it
is in these fuller proclamations that the difference and diver¬
sity comes. Why so? For the very reason which we have
already elaborated above — because each New Testament
writer has in view different circumstances and needs, and it is
these differences which are mirrored in their particular state¬
ments of the gospel. Different circumstances called forth
different emphases. Diverse and divergent needs were met
by elaborating the ‘core gospel’ in diverse and divergent pro¬
portions. The classic case is that of the strikingly different
emphases on the interplay of faith and works which we find
in Paul and James.
More than one conservative critic has immediately reached
for the word ‘contradiction’.6 ‘Dunn accuses the New Testa¬
ment of innumerable contradictions’, would be a fairly com¬
mon opinion. But such a comment shows that the reviewer
has missed the point and evidences a disturbing lack of his¬
torical consciousness. In that book I never used words like
‘contradiction’ or ‘error’, because that was not what I was
talking about. What I had in view was the historical con¬
ditionedness of the various proclamations of the gospel in the
New Testament - the different and divergent emphases
which arise between particular expanded statements of the
gospel because they are addressed to different circumstances
and divergent needs. What I had in mind was the fact that
there is no such thing in the New Testament as an absolute
and unchanging form of the gospel which is independent of
circumstance and occasion and which therefore can be ab¬
stracted from the New Testament for use in every and any
circumstance thereafter. We only ‘hear’ the gospel in the New
18 THE LIVING WORD
Testament when we hear it in its conditionedness and rela¬

tivity, in its different expressions. If we hear any particular
expression of the gospel as though it was wholly independent
of the historical circumstances for which it was spoken and
written, then we do not hear it as the New Testament author
intended it to be heard. We run the danger of imposing an
alien voice upon the voice of the New Testament and so of
distorting the hermeneutical dialogue.
In short, to recognize the diversity within the New Testa¬
ment is simply to take the historical relativity of the New
Testament documents seriously. It is to be properly critical,
since it takes proper account of the historical nature of the
words in which the word of God was heard. And by so doing,
by recognizing the conditioned and occasional character of
the word of God, it becomes more possible to hear that word
of God afresh.
2. In the second place New Testament critics must be
critical of themselves. This means, basically, being willing to
recognize the possibility that the text will speak with a different
voice and message from what they had presupposed - being
willing to take this seriously as a methodological possibility.
So if the New Testament critic is inclined to come to the text
from a ‘strictly historical’ viewpoint, or using the historical
critical method in the narrower sense, (s)he must be open to
the possibility that the texts do have an extra dimension,
whether described in terms of inspiration, revelation or word
of God. To be properly critical New Testament critics must
be critical of their own viewpoint, of their own historical
critical method. If, on the other hand, their inclination is to
come to scripture with an already established pattern of faith,
they must be open to the possibility that that pattern is in¬
adequately grounded in the text, that exegesis may point to
conclusions which call important aspects of that faith in
question.
In other words, an essential characteristic of the New
Testament critic (as of any critic) is openmindedness — a willing¬
ness to ask questions and to follow through the answers and
their corollaries. Openmindedness is not the same as empty
mindedness, though some teachers have made the mistake of
confusing them. Empty mindedness asks for the impossibility
of offering the mind as a blank sheet, on which new truths

may be imprinted with pristine freshness. Openmindedness
recognizes that presuppositionless enquiry is impossible,
takes into account that the New Testament critic will approach
his or her task with some sort of faith. Open-mindedness is
what makes a true dialogue possible — a dialogue between the
student of the New Testament, wherever he or she is, and the
text itself, whatever it is. An open dialogue, which allows all
questions to be asked, and which is ready to consider all
potential answers. An open dialogue, which allows answers to
react back on the starting point, to criticize the faith which
prompted the initial question, to correct or abandon presup¬
positions which the dialogue shows to be faulty.
For example, what if II Peter was not written by the apostle
Peter? What would that say about II Peter? about its canoni¬
cal status? about the canon? What if Matthew and Mark
actually do disagree about Jesus and the law? Is one more
‘right’ than the other? Or can both be ‘right’? What if there is
real estrangement and even some antagonism between Paul
and the law? What does that tell us about Paul? about the Old
Testament in relation to the New? What if, on the other
hand, we find that even after all our critical work Jesus does
not seem to fit any normal category? if after all rationalization
of various miracle stories there still seems to be something
more? if the resurrection faith of the first Christians makes
no sense without postulating that something had happened
to Jesus, ‘the resurrection of Jesus’. What if after the most
penetrating analysis of a text which sets it firmly in its first-
century context it still leaps from the page and addresses us
as God’s word?
To be properly critical, to be genuinely openminded can
make an interesting historical inquiry into a dialogue of dis¬
covery, where the discovery is as much about oneself as about
the text being questioned.
4. Partners in the dialogue
I have already stressed the complexity of the dialogue, but

there are two further dimensions to it which ought not to be
ignored, even though they make it still more complex.
20 THE LIVING WORD
(a) The first is the further historical fact that the dialogue
has already been in progress for nearly two thousand years.
This means, as I hardly need remind you again, that these
writings have functioned as scripture, and been heard
to speak with personal and canonical authority all down
through the centuries of our era. So we have other contri-
buters to the dialogue. The dialogue is not simply a matter of
our shouting from the twentieth century across a vast empty
canyon to the first century. We have many dialogue partners
on the way who can contribute to our own dialogue, and not
uncommonly provide cautionary tales of misunderstandings
and dialogues distorted.
These diverse partners also introduce a further diversity in
interpretation and insight. For the same New Testament
writings have been heard to speak with different emphasis
and effect, as the diversity of our different denominational
traditions makes clear beyond dispute. The diversity of God’s
word as originally spoken has been compounded by the
diversity of the interpretations which have been attached to
or read from the New Testament texts. And for the same
reason: the interpretations have been diverse in large part
because the questions addressed to the texts and the needs
to which they ministered were equally occasional and con¬
ditioned. Just as we operate in our turn within the relativities
of our different twentieth-century contexts. The dialogue is
complex because the various partners in it are all speaking in
the language of their own times and circumstances so that
communication is never perfect.
In drawing attention to this further dimension of the dia¬
logue I do not mean to imply that the whole dialogue is in
danger of collapsing into a cacophany of competing voices,
all with as much right to be heard as the other. There is a
surprisingly large measure of agreement between all the dif¬
ferent traditions on a number of key issues: one need only
think, for example, of the ecumenical creeds of the un¬
divided church, or the relative success of the WCC’s Lima
text, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. But more important for
our present purposes, I would wish to emphasize that within
the dialogue as a whole the original meaning as intended by
the author and heard by his first readers should have norma-
tive status. That is not to rule out other interpretations, other

expressions of the word of God as heard through these texts.
But it is to say that all interpretations should be able to justify
themselves in the face of the author’s original intention.
I am, of course, fully aware of the problems of speaking of
an author’s ‘original intention’; I have already outlined some
of them above, and will return to the subject in a later lecture.
But in any dispute as to a text’s meaning, the author of the
text must surely be given first claim to it - it is his text. And
that means also first claim to its meaning. His meaning is the
meaning. And if other meanings are to be read from the text,
they must always be measured against his meaning. The
further they are from the meaning he intended, the more
open to question are they. In the end of the day, it is the
author’s intended meaning which must serve as the norma¬
tive meaning, the check against imposing meaning on the
text, the check against using the text like a ventriloquist’s
dummy. Only exegesis can prevent eisegesis.
(b) If the historical tradition of the churches is a further

dimension in the dialogue of New Testament interpretation,
it is equally important to realize that New Testament inter¬
pretation is not a matter of you and I engaging in the dia¬
logue in isolation from each other. The task of New Testament
interpretation is a corporate one. The New Testament inter¬
preter operates within a double context, reflecting the two-
sided character of his primary subject matter — the community
of scholarship and the community of faith. He is responsible
to both - to share his insights and to accept their criticism.
Truth is seldom simple enough to be grasped fully by a
single mind. And when that truth is the truth of a particular
first-century context and meaning, of whose complexity we
cannot now be fully aware, it is of critical importance that
different individuals engaging in dialogue with that text
from all their different twentieth-century contexts engage
also in dialogue with one another. Insights gleaned by differ¬
ent viewpoints and different expertise will provide a stereo¬
scopic view of increased depth which would be impossible for
the individual working on his own. Of course, the individual
specialist naturally tends to honour his own discipline by
22 THE LIVING WORD
attributing as much significance to it as he can in explaining

the data under examination - this applies as much to the
theologian as to the psychologist or sociologist. But such
professional pride will almost certainly lead more often
than not to a distorted picture of the whole. The individual
specialist needs to bear in mind his own limited horizons, and
for the sake of truth needs to be open to the fuller view
provided by the diversity of specialisms and to the correc¬
tion to his own more limited perspective which they make
possible.
The same is true within the community of faith. The New
Testament interpreter has a responsibility to the community
of faith to speak the truth as he or she sees it, to unfold the
reality of the New Testament, its strangeness as historical
documentation as well as its claim on faith as scripture. And
since the meaning intended by original author should have
normative significance in all matters of interpretation, the
New Testament interpreter has the particular responsibility
constantly to recall the community of faith to that meaning
and to provide a lead in the task of re-expressing the faith of
the New Testament in words and ways more appropriate to
today. But that is only one gift and function within the com¬
munity of faith. And if the New Testament interpreter exalts
his or her role too highly the result will again be distortion
and imbalance. For theological truth, like all truth, is many
faceted. And it needs the different roles and gifts of the body
of Christ to bring that truth out in its fullness.
Moreover, no claim to make an authoritative pronounce¬
ment has ever been accepted at face value or been regarded
as self-authenticating within the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
The words of prophets were tested to eliminate false prophecy.
The words of Jesus have been subjected to interpretation
from the beginning. The word of God has to be heard as such
before it is obeyed or reckoned worthy of preservation. How
much more then the offering of exegete and teacher, of
interpreter and theologian. To function within the com¬
munity of faith the interpreter of the New Testament re¬
quires and depends on the evaluation and assent of the
community. The dialogue of New Testament interpretation
takes place within the community, with all the possibility of
correction and sharpened insight which this involves.
(c) This brings us to one final observation. What has been

described so far has been principally the task of the trained
interpreter. In relation to the community of faith that task
has just been circumscribed and qualified by pointing out
that it is only one gift or function within the community of
faith, which needs to be evaluated and complemented by
other gifts and roles if it is to make its proper contribution to
the upbuilding of faith.
But it has to be qualified in qt least one other way. For to
confine the task of New Testament interpretation to the pro¬
fessional scholar would be as unjustified and inaccurate as it
is to confine theology to the academic world. Of course the
professional has a special expertise and calling which is not
widely shared within the community of faith. That is why the
New Testament scholar and theologian must be willing to put
his or her historical and critical expertise at the service of the
community as a whole, to be one element in the community’s
theological dialogue, as I have just said. But everyone who tries
to bring the New Testament writings to bear on their own
thought and life and social context is doing New Testament
theology, whether they describe it as such or not. And that
applies to most if not all members of the Christian churches
at some time or other.
To discern an author’s meaning, to hear the New Testa¬
ment properly as scripture need not by any means depend on
a vast apparatus of scholarly expertise. On the contrary, the
scholar can often become so caught up in the complexity of
his analysis that he loses sight of the meaning clearly in¬
tended by the author. The faith which enters the dialogue or
New Testament interpretation uncluttered with details of
doubtful disputes can often hear what the text has to say with
a freshness and a simplicity which the professional scholar
has missed or forgotten. This too is part of the dialogue at a
community level.
The point here, however, is that whoever engages in
New Testament interpretation must recognize that New
Testament interpretation is a dialogue, involving the same
problems as were outlined above, needing the„sajne kind of
historical and critical involvement in one degree or other.
There is no virtue in simplicity for simplicity’s sake, if the
24 THE LIVING WORD
truth involved is in fact more complex. ‘Ordinary believers’

should by no means regard themselves as excluded from the
dialogue of New Testament interpretation. But they should
recognize that they are subject to the same dangers as the
professional theologian - of the dialogue becoming unbal¬
anced, of the bridge of New Testament interpretation losing
its footing in either first or twentieth centuries — or both.
Here again it needs to be said, the dialogue of New Testa¬
ment interpretation is a dialogue within the community of
faith. New Testament scholars can only offer their own in¬
sights and interpretations for evaluation by the whole com¬
munity. To do less is to arrogate claims of truth to oneself.
But this applies as much to the ‘lay’ theologian as to the
professional. The community needs to respect expertise
where that is present, and to be sensitive to the aspects of the
dialogue which the professional can provide. But it has also
to encourage all its members to engage in the daily dialogue
of New Testament interpretation, to be open to critical com¬
ments from all participants, and to play its own part in evalu¬
ating and assessing all claims on its attention. Only so can the
task of New Testament interpretation fulfil its proper role.
2
THE GOSPELS AS ORAL TRADITION
1. Introduction
In the first chapter I spoke of New Testament interpretation

as a dialogue. The point I want to develop in different ways
over the next three chapters is that this dialogue was already
happening within the biblical material itself, and not least
within the New Testament. First, what we might describe as
the dialogue between the historical concern of the Evangelists in
preserving the tradition of Jesus and their concern also to use and so
also to interpret that tradition for their own times.
Although New Testament scholarship is already well into
the second generation beyond Rudolf Bultmann, the study of
the Gospels continues to be largely influenced by the tre¬
mendous impact of his work - and particularly on the matter
under discussion, the historicity of the Gospels. Bultmann’s
impact is still felt at two points in particular — two points of
principle which largely governed his own analyses.
(a) The first can be summed up in the distinction between

the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. That is to say, the
conviction that the first Christians were not really concerned
with the earthly Jesus; the life and expression of faith focussed
rather on the exalted Christ. Jesus was not remembered as a
teacher of the past (even of the recent past), but as the living
Lord of the here and now. Only so can we make sense of the
fact that Paul and the other letter writers in the New Testa¬
ment show no interest whatsoever in the life of Jesus as such,
and bother to quote only a minimal handful of sayings
spoken by Jesus during his earthly ministry. As has often
26 THE LIVING WORD
been observed, if we had to depend on the letters of Paul for

our knowledge of Jesus’ life and ministry we could write it all
down on the back of a postcard — descended from David,
meek and gentle, two sayings about divorce and support for
evangelists, the institution of the Lord’s Supper, his suffering
and atoning death - and that’s about it.
(b) The second point of principle has become one of the

basic axioms of form-criticism - that the tradition preserved
in the Gospels reflects first and foremost the life-setting of
the early church rather than that of Jesus. The literary forms
in which the Jesus tradition is now set are the forms used by
the early churches in their worship, evangelism, catechetical
training and apologetic. So they reflect primarily these con¬
cerns, and not those of a merely historical or archival interest
in Jesus.
When these two principles are put together the almost
inevitable conclusion is that the Gospels cannot be taken as
immediate or direct evidence for the life and teaching of
Jesus. Despite appearances, the Gospels do not reflect a desire
to remember Jesus as he was and what he said while on earth.
The material they contain is testimony first and foremost to
the early Christian faith in Christ as crucified, risen and
ascended Lord. The traditions they contain have been
shaped by that faith and in accordance with the needs of the
believing communities. This does not mean that Gospel tra¬
dition cannot be traced back to ‘the historical Jesus’. But it
does mean that the traditions have almost certainly been
shaped and elaborated and added to - Bultmann would say,
considerably added to - in the light of the Easter faith and in
response to the changing needs of the Christian congregations.
The practical effect of this conclusion can be most simply
stated in ‘burden of proof terms. According to this logic the
burden of proof lies with those who want to maintain that
some particular tradition or saying goes back to Jesus. Given
the two principles just outlined, it can no longer be simply
assumed that a passage in any Gospel is historical until
proved otherwise. Rather it must be recognized primarily as
an expression of the faith of the early church. For it to be
accepted as evidence of something Jesus said or did a case has
THE GOSPELS AS ORAL TRADITION 27
to be argued. The burden of proof lies with those who want

to argue for historicity.
This outcome has some unfortunate consequences. For
one thing it tends to make a New Testament scholar uneasy
when he cites some text as evidence of what Jesus said or did,
lest he be thought to handle the text too simplistically or
superficially. So in order to justify his use of a text he has to
engage in an elaborate analysis and discussion. To the lay¬
person he appears to be devious and embarrassed about
something straightforward. This in turn increases the Christian
layperson’s suspicion of scholarship: it appears to be system¬
atically sceptical and unbelieving. Thus the breach between
the lectern and the pew becomes deeper and wider, with the
poor occupant of the pulpit often caught uncomfortably in
the middle. Such polarization between faith and scholarship
benefits no one.
But it need not be so! Insofar as both faith and scholarship
are concerned with truth they should be allies, not enemies.
And in fact there need be no such polarization over this issue.
Not by rejecting the Bultmann legacy wholesale. That would
simply create a new polarization. But by retaining the best
insights in the Bultmann legacy while eliminating the over¬
statements. We can do this most simply by developing two
main points - picking up only a few aspects in the time
available.
2. The probability that the first Christians were keen to retain and
to pass on memories of Jesus’ ministry.
(a) There is a basic plausibility in the assertion that the

earliest desciples must have been interested in stories about
Jesus and in what he said. Whatever we think of Jesus, it is
hardly open to question that he made a profound impact on
his immediate followers. We need not become involved in com¬
plex christological questions in order to recognize Jesus as the
founder of a new religious movement. In terms of human
nature as we know it today, it would have been very unusual in¬
deed if the followers of such a leader had not been concerned
to preserve memories of the exploits and utterances which first
drew them to him and sustained their loyalty to him.
28 THE LIVING WORD
The claim should not be exaggerated, of course. It is not

universally true. We see it borne out to some extent at least in
the case of other significant religious or philosophical figures
like Jeremiah or Socrates or Diogenes. But it is not true of the
mysterious Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls
about whom we know virtually nothing. On the other hand
there were two factors operative in the case of Jesus which
were not present in regard to the Teacher of Righteousness
and which would go a long way towards quickening the ele¬
ment of ‘human interest’ in Jesus.
The first is the degree to which Jesus himself featured as
part of the earliest Christian proclamation. Jesus was not
remembered merely as one who had provided a system of
teaching or a philosophy or a spirituality which could be
preserved and practised without reference to the original
teacher. It is true that the focus of evangelistic preaching
centred very strongly on the end events of his life on earth
(death and resurrection). Nevertheless, it would be surpris¬
ing indeed if the disciples had not looked to Jesus’ own
earlier ministry and pattern of teaching and life-style to pro¬
vide some kind of guidelines for their own life of faith.
The second is the fact that Christianity from the beginning
was an evangelistic faith. It did not withdraw into the desert
as a closed sect where all the members would know the facts
of its founding and there would be no need to record them.
From the first it sought to gain converts, and very soon
converts from further afield than Palestine, including Gentiles.
Human curiosity being what it is, most of these converts
would almost certainly have wanted to hear more about the
Jesus in whom they had believed.
In short, on a priori grounds it is more likely than not that
the first Christians were concerned to preserve memories of
Jesus and to inform their converts of them. Of course, an a
priori argument like this does not take us very far unless it is
backed up by actual evidence. But in this case there is such
evidence.
(b) It is clear that in the earliest Christian communities an

important role was filled by teachers and tradition. Luke charac¬
terizes the earliest Jerusalem church from Pentecost onwards
as devoting themselves to ‘the teaching of the apostles’ (Acts
2.42). And the importance of teachers is strongly attested
elsewhere. In the earliest church at Antioch the two most
prominent ministries were prophets and teachers (Acts 13.1).
In I Cor. 12.28 Paul takes it for granted that teachers are
next in importance in the life of the church to apostles and
prophets. And in one of the earliest documents in the New
Testament it is already assumed that the teacher must spend
so much time on his task that he will have to depend for
support on those he teaches (Gal.6.6).
The task of a teacher, almost by definition, would have
been to preserve and instruct in the matters regarded as
important by the community. It is in very large measure a
conserving function. In the case of the Christian congrega¬
tions the teaching in question would not simply have been
about the Torah. They would be responsible, no doubt, to
search the scriptures for prophecies regarding Jesus. But
instruction about Jesus, about what he said and did, must
have played a prominent part in their teaching. In sociologi¬
cal terms the teacher in a sect plays an absolutely crucial role
in consolidating and preserving the sect’s self identity, by
recalling the sect to its distinctive character and to the reasons
for its separate identity. Unless we wish to argue that Jesus’
life prior to his death was undistinctive (but then why was he
crucified?), we must accept the probability that the earliest
Christian teachers were charged with the task of preserving
and retelling the distinctive features of Jesus’ ministry which
first drew disciples to him.
This is confirmed by the prominence given to tradition
in the earliest churches. The earliest Christian writer, Paul,
speaks on a number of occasions about the traditions he
passed on to his churches (I Cor.11.2; 15.3; Col.2.6; I
Thess.4.1; II Thess.2.15; 3.6). He clearly saw this as an im¬
portant part of the task of an apostle - to ensure that the
congregations he founded were properly informed of the
traditions which characterized the Christian churches. These
must have included the founding traditions which all Christian
communities shared as part of their common heritage and
which marked them off from other sects and synagogues.
And since Paul was adamant that his understanding of the
30 THE LIVING WORD
gospel was received first and foremost from God and not
man (Gal.1.11-12), the traditions he refers to cannot simply
have been the proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection
itself, but must at least have included stories about the
teaching of Jesus.
This is further borne out by Paul’s own testimony that three
years after his conversion he went up to Jersualem ‘to visit
Peter’ (Gal. 1.18). The verb used means more precisely, ‘to get
to know, find out about’. Since Peter was best known as the
most prominent of Jesus’ disciples and as one of the ‘inner
circle’ (Peter, James and John) who evidently had been closest
to Jesus, getting to know him must have included learning
about his time with Jesus. And since ‘he stayed with Peter for
fifteen days’ he would certainly have been able to learn a
great deal - including stories of what Jesus did and said when
Peter was present. It is scarcely conceivable that such
traditions were not included by Paul among the traditions he
passed on to the churches he founded.
It would be odd indeed to imagine Christian congregations
meeting throughout the eastern Mediterranean, who in their
regular gatherings were concerned only with study of the
(Jewish) scriptures, with the message of Jesus’ death and
resurrection, and with waiting on the risen Lord - and who
were quite unconcerned to recall and reflect on the ministry
ahd teaching of Jesus while on earth. On the contrary, it was
precisely these memories and traditions which they were
most likely to want to share and celebrate together — the
founding traditions which gave them their distinctive identity.
(c) All this can be deduced without looking at the Gospels

themselves. When we do turn to them these plausible but still
provisional conclusions are confirmed. For the Synoptic
Gospels in particular contain just the sort of traditions about
Jesus which we would expect the early Christian teachers to
take responsibility for preserving and passing on. I refer, first
of all, to the nature of the Gospels as biographies of Jesus.
Bultmann himself was strongly of the view that the Gospels
should not be regarded as biographies. To understand why,
we must remember that he was in fact reacting strongly
against his own theological education. It was one of the
fashions in the heyday of Liberal Protestantism in the latter
decades of the nineteenth century to write lives of Jesus, with
the Gospels treated as sources for a modern biographical
study. That is to say, these Lives of Jesus felt free to recon¬
struct a fairly detailed chronological outline of his life and
ministry, to speculate about Jesus’ inner life and to discuss
the development of his self-consciousness. Bultmann saw this
as a complete misunderstanding of the character of the
Gospels. They were not biographies!
What he meant or should have said was that they are not
modern biographies. Unfortunately this qualification was not
recognized and the blanket dictum (the Gospels are not bio¬
graphies) became a basic axiom in most form-critical studies
for the next two generations. It seemed to confirm rather
neatly the two-fold assumption outlined at the beginning: the
earliest Christians were interested only in the exalted Christ
and their own contemporary needs. They had no biograph¬
ical interest in Jesus as he had been prior to his death and
resurrection.
In fact, however, the Synoptic Gospels conform quite
closely to the form and function of the ancient biography.
The nearest parallel in the Graeco-Roman world to the genre
of Gospel is the bios or vita (‘life’). Whereas modern bio¬
graphy has a central concern with personality development
and chronological framework within which it occurs, ancient
biography had a much more static concept of personality and
only rarely expressed interest in such development. On the
contrary, human personality was thought of as fixed and
unchanging. Moreover a deeply rooted assumption of the
ancients was that a person’s character was clearly revealed in
his actions and words. Consequently it was the principal task
of the biographer to portray his subject by relating things he
did and said and thus to depict his character.
But this is very much what we find in the Gospels. No
particular, or at least consistent concern with chronology.
And certainly no attempt to describe development in Jesus’
character or self-understanding. But a thoroughgoing attempt
to portray Jesus by means of what he said and what he did. In
terms of the categories of the time, therefore, the Gospels, or
the Synoptic Gospels in particular, can be described as bio-
32 THE LIVING WORD
graphics. And precisely as such they indicate a considerable

concern on the part of the Evangelists to recall and record
Jesus as his first disciples remembered him.
(d) Finally, we may reflect a little further on the character of

the Synoptic Gospels as collections of oral memories about Jesus.
This is one of the most positive features of the form-critical
approach. It has made us much more conscious of the period
of oral tradition which lies behind the written Gospels, the
tradition as it was being used before it was written down. Such
an awareness immediately relieves us from over dependence
on arguments about the precise dates of the Gospels. What¬
ever dates we determine for the Gospels it is hardly to be
disputed that the earliest Christian churches were oral com¬
munities before the Gospels were written. And, as already
noted, as with all oral societies then and since, they would
inevitably have sought to retain and express their founding
traditions, for it was these traditions which jusdfied and ex¬
plained (to themselves as to others) the reason for their
separate and distinctive existence. And not only to retain
these traditions, but to retell them too, to seek and create
opportunities to rehearse and celebrate their sacred tra¬
dition. So the Jews have celebrated the Passover for millen¬
nia. So the Qumran community preserved its Damascus
Document. And so the first Christians no doubt recalled and
relived the events of the last days of Jesus’ life in the memories
which now form the passion narratives in particular.
Equally important, the recognition of the oral character of
so much at least of the tradition used in the Gospels frees
us from an over dependence x)n arguments based soley on
literary dependence. Despite the recognition of an oral
period of the Jesus tradition, too many Gospel analysts have
continued their task as though the relationships between
the Gospels could be understood solely in terms of literary
sources - of a scissors and paste type of editing. As though
the traditions used by Mark, for example, ceased to exist as
oral tradidons all over the eastern Mediterranean, simply
because Mark writing in Rome, say, had written them down!
But of course Matthew and Luke, assuming they had copies
of Mark to hand, also had access to oral tradidon, including
oral versions of much of what Mark had recorded. When
churches in Syria, for example, received their copies of
Mark’s Gospel, that was hardly the first time they had heard
much or most of what Mark contains.
Being made thus alert to the oral background of the
Gospel traditions, it becomes fairly easy to spot characteristics
which were probably first oral before they were literary. For
example, the ‘pronouncement story’, where the episode re¬
lated builds up to a memorable saying of Jesus as its climax.
Or the account of some encounter, as between Jesus and the
centurion in Matthew 8, where the central focus is clearly the
snatch of dialogue between the centurion and Jesus, and the
other details are clearly subsidiary to that. Story tellers the
world over will recognize the basic rule of thumb of good
story telling - to get the punch-line right, whatever else.
Another example would be the use of link-words or linking
themes: for example, the words ‘fire’ and ‘salt’ which link
together the final verses of Mark 9; and the neat way Matthew
uses the theme of ‘following’ to tie together the sayings about
discipleship with the account of the disciples being caught in
a storm on Galilee - an effective way of illustrating what
‘following Jesus’ will mean for the would-be disciple.
Mark’s Gospel itself has many ‘oral’ features, and may be
fairly described as oral tradition written down. Indeed, bear¬
ing in mind that Mark would write his Gospel to be read out
loud, the Gospel itself can properly be regarded as an ex¬
tended oral presentation of the traditions of Jesus, little dif¬
ferent in character from the many celebrations of the new
movement’s ‘founding traditions’. I think in particular of
Mark 1.21—29, structured on the pattern of ‘twenty-four
hours in the ministry of Jesus’. Or 2.1—3.6, a collection of
controversy stories, charting the areas of disagreement
between Jesus and groups of Pharisees, and building up
dramatically to the climax of the complete breach between
them. Or chapter 4 on the theme of Jesus’ parables, illustrat¬
ing and expounding their rationale. Or 4.35—5.43, a collec¬
tion of miracle stories on and around the Sea of Galilee, and
linked together by the motif of crossing back and forth ‘to the
other side’. And not to forget Mark’s own characteristic
‘immediately’ — immediately Jesus did this, or immediately he
34 THE LIVING WORD
went there — which keeps the tale told by Mark moving along
at a brisk pace and never allows the listener’s attention to
wander.
The point is this. The Gospel traditions themselves show
that their present form is the outcome of a well established
practice of oral use. In other words, they bear witness to
a strong and widely prevalent concern among the first Christ¬
ians to remember Jesus, to celebrate their memories, to retain
them in appropriate forms, to structure their traditions for
easy recall, but above all to remember.
In short, the idea that the first Christians were not inter¬
ested in the pre-Easter Jesus is little short of ludicrous. On
the contrary, they would certainly have been concerned that
the memories of‘all that Jesus said and did’ should be passed
on to new converts and retold in new churches. The ‘bio¬
graphical’ interest of the Evangelists in portraying the
character of Jesus by recounting his words and deeds did not
begin first with them. In the concern of the new congrega¬
tions to formulate and celebrate their founding traditions, it
was no doubt there from the first. In burden of proof terms,
it is this recognition which should be the starting point of
investigation of the Synoptic traditions of Jesus’ ministry.
3. We can also see how the first Christians passed on the traditions
about Jesus and gain a clearer perspective on what their concern
to remember Jesus meant in terms of historicity.
In the first chapter of The Evidence for Jesus1 I have discussed

and documented this topic in some detail and so may be
permitted here to treat it more briefly. The point is this. The
recognition of the oral character of the Synoptic tradition
also involves recognition of a degree of freedom on the part
of the story teller to shape his material with a view to the
needs of his audience. Often and again the story teller or
teacher will have been concerned more with themes and high
points of the tradition being used, than with details he would
regard as subsidiary to these themes and high points. He will
have grouped his material in order to illustrate a theme
rather than to preserve a chronological sequence. He will
have told his story in a longer or shorter version depending
on time available. He will have slanted his account in detail or
tone so that it might better serve the needs of the group to
which he ministered.
None of this cuts across what has already been said. The
probability that the first Christians were concerned to retain
and pass on the memory of what Jesus said and did remains
undiminished. What we are now looking at is how they did
so. We can illustrate the character of these orally recounted
memories by simply comparing our own Synoptic Gospels,
since, as we have seen, their contents consist in large part of
oral traditions written down.
(a) For one thing they grouped the traditions in different

ways. As is well known, the material which makes up the
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5—7 is scattered through¬
out four or so of Luke’s chapters. And for the most part it is
clearly the same material. The most likely explanation of
this phenomenon is not that Luke broke up and scattered
Matthew’s Sermon, but that Matthew has constructed the
Sermon by grouping together elements of Jesus’ teaching
which were actually delivered at different points during his
ministry. This is simply good teaching technique - to group
coherent and complementary material together to make it
easier to remember. In fact, Matthew seems to have made
some attempt to group almost all of Jesus’ teaching into five
blocks, probably as a sort of echo of the five books of Moses.
If this is indeed the case, the point which bears upon us is that
the grouping of this material was determined by teaching
technique rather than by historical considerations.
In particular, it is unlikely that Matthew intended his
readers to think of the Sermon on the Mount as actually
delivered by Jesus on a single occasion. He has simply con¬
structed a framework in which to set these important memories
of what Jesus said - a quite understandable and acceptable
teaching device which would have misled no one. In short,
such an example confirms the earliest Christians’ concern to
preserve and pass on the memory of what Jesus had said by
grouping of in easily remembered forms. To insist that the
framework be accorded the same historical status as the con¬
tent of the Sermon is probably to misconceive the character
36 THE LIVING WORD
of the remembering process and to misunderstand the inten¬

tion of Matthew.
A similar conclusion would have to be drawn, for example,
from the collection of mini-parables in Mark 4.21—25. The
fact is that the four one-verse parables or wisdom sayings
occur at quite different places in Matthew, scattered through
Matthew’s Gospel. And Luke has evidently followed both
Mark and the Matthean source in using the sayings twice,
once in Mark’s grouping, the other scattered through the
Gospel like Matthew. The most obvious conclusion to draw is
that these sayings of Jesus were remembered both individ¬
ually, and as grouped together for convenience, by means of
linking devices.
(b) Secondly, we may note examples where the Evangelists

preserve the same account but in different lengths or with
different emphases. The account of Jesus’ disciples plucking
ears of grain on the sabbath is a case in point (Mark 2.23-28
pars). Matthew and Mark both have material in their versions
which is founded in neither of the other Gospels. It is clearly
the same incident in each case, but in each case the story teller
has either abbreviated a longer tale or expanded a briefer
tale. Another example is the story of Jairus’ daughter and the
woman with the haemorrhage (Mark 5.21—43 pars). Luke’s
version is twice as long as Matthew’s and Mark’s nearly three
times as long. Again either one has abbreviated a fuller
account, or another has lengthened a briefer account. This is
the art of story telling — not to reproduce an account always
in the same words and with parrot like precision, but as the
needs of occasion and audience may demand.
An example of an episode from Jesus’ life retold with
different emphases is the account of the healing of the cen¬
turion’s servant (Matt.8.5-13/Luke7.1-10). As already noted,
the focus is on the exchange between Jesus and the cen¬
turion, but the build up to that central section is rather
different in each case. In Matthew’s briefer version the cen¬
turion meets Jesus and addresses him personally; it would
appear from the rest of the account that this is partly because
Matthew wants to stress the immediacy of the centurion’s
faith. Luke however in his longer introduction emphasizes
the fact that the centurion did not come to Jesus personally
but sent others; and it is clear from the details Luke includes
that he wants to stress the centurion’s humility. It is certainly
the same event which is thus related in these two different
ways, but the accompanying details were evidently less im¬
portant than the central exchange and need not be recounted
with the same precision. As in all good story telling, the story
is lost if the main point is distorted or forgotten, but the
subsidiary details can be modified without spoiling the story
or misleading the listeners.
Another example would be the account of Peter’s denial of
Jesus (Mark 14.66—72 pars). What was important was the fact
that Peter denied Jesus no less than three times and that
when he heard the cock crow he remembered Jesus’ predic¬
tion and wept. The details which go to make up that vivid
story are less important — who it was who accused Peter,
whether the cock crowed once or twice. The accusers are
indicated with casual, vague descriptions which shows that it
was no part of the story teller’s purpose to identify the who
and the when with precision — ‘a maid’, ‘someone else’, ‘the
bystanders’. To insist that these details can be pressed to yield
firm historical facts is to misconceive the purpose of the
Evangelists and to distort their emphases. It is like insisting
that symbolic language be understood literally or a hymn be
read as prose.
(c) Thirdly, it is also clear that the words of Jesus could be

remembered in different versions. This, of course, would be
inevitable to some extent at least since translation was often
involved. Words of Jesus spoken in Aramaic would be trans¬
lated into Greek, and since no translation can produce a
complete set of precise equivalents, in word or idiom, it is
inevitable that different Greek renderings of Jesus’ words
would be in circulation. What was important was the sense of
what Jesus had said not a precision of verbal form. And in
order to express that sense the translation might need to be
longer than the original, with some explanatory expansion to
make an unfamiliar idiom clear. Anyone familiar with the
range of modem translations of the Bible will take the point
without difficulty.
38 THE LIVING WORD
We see something of this even with two of the most precious

and most used of Jesus’ words. As is well known, the Lord’s
Prayer comes to us in two versions — Matt. 6.9—15 and Luke
11.2—4. As the prayer taught by Jesus, to serve as the special
prayer and badge of Jesus’ disciples, we might have thought
great care would have been taken to keep the words the same
for all. But Matthew’s version has the longer address — ‘Our
Father, who art in heaven’ — whereas Luke simply has ‘Father’.
And Matthew has two more petitions than Luke, although
they seem chiefly to fill out the preceding petitions. Luke’s
version is generally thought to be closer to the original in
length, while Matthew is closer in idiom. What has probably
happened is that Luke’s translation has not been at pains to
reproduce the Aramaic idiom, while Matthew’s version has
been elaborated in the course of earliest Christian usage - to
make it more rounded and easier to say in congregational
worship. We see the same thing continuing thereafter with
the addition of the now familiar ending at a still later stage -
‘For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory.
Amen’. This is just the sort of polishing and refining we
would expect in liturgical usage. After all, Jesus had given
them the prayer to use, and use it they did. It was intended to
serve as their prayer, not just as a memory of something Jesus
had said. And in being thus used its details changed a little,
without changing the sense, in order to serve more effectively
as their prayer. The process is no different today. In a day
when there are three of four English versions of the Matthew
6 prayer we can understand and appreciate well enough the
concerns and priorities of the first bearers of the tradition.
The other example is the words of Jesus at the Last Supper
(Mark 14.22—25 pars; I Cor. 11.24—25). As is well known here
also the tradition comes to us in two main forms — a Matthew/
Mark version and a Paul/Luke version. One of the principle
differences comes in the word over the cup. According to
Matthew and Mark Jesus says, ‘This is my blood of the cove¬
nant’. According to Paul and Luke Jesus says, ‘This cup is the
new covenant in my blood’. The sense is more or less the
same, but the emphasis is slightly different. Here too, even in
what was probably one of the most precious words of Jesus,
there was no attempt to preserve strict conformity. The sense
was more important than the form. So too it is probably
significant that only Paul’s version adds the command, ‘Do
this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’. Prob¬
ably a further example of liturgical polishing — the spelling
out explicitly of what was understood to be implied in the
shorter formula.
In these cases what we see is tradition not merely being
remembered, but tradition used. And tradition valued not
simply because it was first given by Jesus, but because it
continued to provide a medium of encounter between the
divine and the human. Just so, we might say, with the psalms
of the Old Testament. They were treasured down through
the generations not simply because they were composed by
David or Asaph or whoever, but because they continued to
serve as an inspired means of worship and of grace.
(d) This insight probably helps provide an answer to the

problem mentioned at the beginning: the fact that the earli¬
est New Testament author (Paul) seems to have been so little
concerned to refer his readers to what Jesus said and did.
The fact is that there are a good many exhortations in Paul
where he is most probably echoing words originally given by
Jesus and remembered for that reason. Romans 12—14 and I
Thessalonians 5 contain a number of examples. The point is
that Paul used the Jesus tradition in this way presumably
because he saw it as living tradition, valued not merely be¬
cause it had spoken to them in the past, but because it still
spoke to them with the force of inspired authority. Paul
spoke it afresh, not because it had been heard as the word of
God twenty years earlier, but because he still heard and
experienced it as the living word of God there and then.
On this point we can see a parallel with the way the Old
Testament scriptures were heard and functioned as auth¬
ority. Of course there are very many instances where an Old
Testament scripture is cited as such, regularly with the
formula, ‘as it was written’ or equivalent. However, there are
very many more instances where there is no explicit citation
as such, but where the scripture has clearly influenced and
moulded the words and images used. In such cases, we may
say, the scripture has exercised its authority in shaping the
40 THE LIVING WORD
thought and language of the New Testament author. No

doubt in many cases without conscious intention. The scrip¬
ture has functioned authoritatively, and that authority stems
from the original inspiration, but it has been experienced as a
living authority and not as a casual echo of the dead past.
So with the memory of what Jesus said and did. We have
already noted how highly probable it is that the material
contained in the Synoptic Gospels was fairly widely known in
the earliest Christian congregations. The fact that Paul makes
so little explicit reference to it almost certainly means that he
could take knowledge of it for granted. Now we may add that
he could also make allusion to the Jesus tradition, just as he
often made allusion to Old Testament scripture, and for the
same reason. The words of Jesus were not merely remem¬
bered but experienced afresh as word of the Lord. This sense
of a living tradition is crucial for our understanding of the
earliest handing on and use of the corporate memories of
Jesus. For the first Christians the words of Jesus were not like
some dead corpse, with limbs stiffened and fixed by rigor
mortis, to be conveyed from place to place like some revered
relics, but a living voice which was heard again and again
speaking with ever new force and effect in a variety of fresh
situations.
(e) Finally, this helps us to begin to understand what is

almost certainly the most difficult case of all for Christians
who hold the Bible in high regard. I refer to the Fourth
Gospel. Here the matter is peculiarly sensitive, since so much
seems to depend on it. For if John’s Gospel is straightforward
history, then we have in it the most amazing and powerful
self-testimony of Jesus. If John’s Gospel is unvarnished his¬
tory then all that Christians need ever claim for Jesus is
clearly attested there, and by Jesus himself. If John is correct,
then the old apologetic-evangelistic question is unavoidable:
the one who makes such claims for himself is either mad, bad
or God.
But the very starkness and unequivocalness of these claims
is what begins to raise the nagging question in the mind. If
Jesus made such claims, why do the other Gospels make no
use of them? What Evangelist having among the traditions
which had been passed to him such wonderful sayings as the
‘I ams’ - ‘I am the resurrection and the life’; ‘I am the way,
the truth and the life’; ‘Before Abraham was, I am’; and so on
- what Evangelist having to hand such sayings could ignore
them completely? The question once raised, cannot be
squashed into silence, since the integrity of that whole
apologetic-evangelistic approach is at stake.
Once raised, that question leads to others. For we begin to
realize more clearly that the style of Jesus’ teaching in John’s
Gospel is very distinctive, and very different from that in the
other Gospels. There we have a Jesus who speaks in short,
pungent sayings, like the one-verse parables mentioned
above. Or whose longer, connected statements consist in
longer parables, or what look like collections of shorter say¬
ings, like the Sermon on the Mount. But in John’s Gospel we
have these lengthy discourses, which often seem to take a
theme and develop it in a sort of circular motion, as in the
Bread of Life discourse in chapter 6, returning more than
once to the earlier sub-themes and elaborating them afresh.
Rather in the way a theme like love is elaborated in the first
Epistle of John.
At the same time we recognize elements within these dis¬
courses which strongly recall particular sayings of Jesus
found in the Synoptics. The new birth discourse in chapter 3
echoes Jesus’ saying about entry into the kingdom being
possible only for one who becomes as a little child (Matt. 18.3
pars.). The Father-Son discourse of chapter 5 seems to build
on the way Jesus was remembered as addressing God as
Father in intimate terms (as in Mark 14.36). And the dis¬
course about Jesus as the good shepherd in chapter 10 seems
to be a natural and (in Christian perspective) inevitable de¬
duction from Jesus’ parable about the lost sheep and the
caring shepherd preserved in Luke 15. So the teaching of
the Johannine Jesus is not so far removed from that of the
Synoptic Jesus, at least in core sayings and themes.
These twin features in John seem at first puzzling - the
striking dw-similarity between the Johannine discourses in
boldness and style of statement and the teaching of Jesus in
the Synoptics, and the similarity provided by central elements
of these same discourses. The puzzle is resolved when we
42 THE LIVING WORD
realize that these Johannine discourses are probably just a

more developed example of the sort of thing we have already
seen in the Synoptics themselves. The Johannine discourses
are probably best understood as extended meditations or
reflections on the significance of various typical events in
Jesus’ ministry and sayings of Jesus remembered within the
communities from which John’s Gospel came. They are but a
further example of the oral tradition process and of how it
was a living process where the richness and significance of the
earlier tradition was spelt out, in story form, perhaps even
actual sermons, by one who had been present at such events
and perhaps even heard these sayings and who had medi¬
tated long and hard on them.
This seems to me to be a very fair understanding of what
John in effect claims for his own writing, when he describes
the task of the Paraclete — an inspired ‘re-proclamation’ of the
truth of Jesus (John 16.13—15), a recalling of the signs Jesus
performed (John 20.31), a spelling out of the significance of
what he had said (e.g. John 2.21), and a leading into the
fuller truth of things his disciples had not been able to hear
or understand when Jesus was with them (John 16.12—13).
Some Christians find such conclusions rather threatening,
because they seem to undermine the trustworthiness of
John’s Gospel. But that is to miss the point. That is to assume
that John’s intention was to provide straightforward, unvarn¬
ished history. Nothing that he says compels us to that con¬
clusion. That he is speaking about a historical person who
actually lived and ministered in Galilee and Judaea and who
died on a cross in Jerusalem is of course fundamental to his
message. But his concern seems to be to give us the truth
about Jesus, the reality now visible to the eye of faith but not
to those whose eyes were too blind to see. To make this truth
of Jesus dependent on whether Jesus actually said the words
ascribed to him in John’s Gospel or not is almost certainly to
misunderstand that truth, perhaps even to undermine that
truth. It is almost certainly to misunderstand John’s intention
and to make it harder for his message of Jesus to be heard.
Whereas, to recognize the character of John’s Gospel as a
reflective remembering enables us to appreciate the dynamic
impact made by Jesus on his disciples and the living quality of
their memory of him.
In all these areas illustrated above there are many other
and often more complex cases. But hopefully sufficient has
been said to give a clear enough flavour of the character of
the earliest Christian remembering of Jesus in his life and
ministry.
4. Conclusion
To sum up. It is clear from all this that the earliest Christians
were concerned to remember Jesus and to pass on these
memories to new converts and churches. But again and again
it is equally clear that they were more concerned with the
substance and meaning of what Jesus had said and done than
with a meticulous level of verbal precision or with a pedantic
level of historical detail. It is important to recognize the force
of both points. To underestimate the former is to cut Christ¬
ianity off from its historical foundation and fountainhead.
But to misplace the emphasis in the latter stands in equal
danger of distorting the concerns of the first Christians. The
Synoptic tradition as history — Yes indeed! But the Gospels
also as the living tradition of the earliest churches — that too.
We therefore can make the strong and confident affirm¬
ation that the Synoptic Gospels in particular are a source of
historical information about Jesus; the Evangelists were con¬
cerned with the historicity of what they remembered; in bur¬
den of proof terms we can start from the assumption that the
Synoptic tradition is a good witness to the historical Jesus
unless proved otherwise. But we must be careful not to over¬
state our case. To claim that the Evangelists had the same
level of historical concern in every phrase and sentence they
used runs counter to the evidence and almost certainly mis¬
understands their intention. Equally serious, such a claim
undermines the case for the historicity of the Gospels, since it
makes that case depend on a series of implausible harmoniz¬
ations. Properly to recognize the Evangelists’ concern for
historicity in their own terms, means recognizing also their
other concerns and above all the character of that earliest
remembering as a living word. ft /
3
WAS JESUS A LIBERAL? WAS PAUL A
HERETIC?
1. Introduction
In chapters 2-4 we are looking at the dialogue of theological

interpretation within scripture. In chapter 2 our concern was
to look at the dialogue between the Jesus-tradition and the
use made of it by the Evangelists. In this chapter we look at
the dialogue between Old Testament and New.
One of the most amazing features of Christianity is its
incorporation of the Old Testament within its collection of
sacred writings. The fact that it treats the Old Testament as
part of its scripture, its normative canon. For the Old Testa¬
ment is primarily Jewish scripture. It is only Christian scripture
in a derived and contested sense. It was not written by
Christians. It is pre-Christian. Of course Christians claim a
strong line of continuity between Old Testament and New —
the whole claim that Christ and Christianity are the fulfil¬
ment of the promises and prophecies which lie at the heart of
the Old Testament. But even if we maximize that claim, we
cannot shut our eyes to the also strong discontinuity between
Old and New Testaments. The fact, for example, that most
Jews did not recognize Christ and Christianity to be the
fulfilment of these promises and prophecies - and still do
not. The Christian argument that Christ is the expected ful¬
filment has evidently not been sufficiently clear-cut or com¬
pelling to convince the bulk of his own people. That should at
least give us pause in our too little examined assumption that
the Old Testament is Christian scripture clear and simple.
Or again, the fact that Christianity has, like it or not,
WAS JESUS A LIBERAL? WAS PAUL A HERETIC? 45
abandoned so much of the Old Testament. To take only the
most obvious example: we no longer regard the laws of sacri¬
fice as binding on us. There is a whole swathe of the law
which was fundamental to the faith of the Old Testament
which we dismiss as no longer relevant to us. Of course
Judaism itself no longer sacrifices, and has not done so since
the destruction of the Temple in ad 70. But that is a case of
Judaism having to rationalize an unexpected and unwelcome
development. And strong strands of Judaism would regard
the sacrificial laws as only in temporary suspension, force
majeure, ready to be re-enacted with all the old fervour when
the Temple is restored. Whereas Christianity regards it as a
matter of principle that the sacrifices are no longer to be
offered. To revive the law of sacrifice would be to cut at the
heart of Christianity’s distinctive claim that Christ by the
sacrifice of himself has made an end to all shedding of blood
in sacrifice.
The point is that we have here a set of laws which belong
very much to the essence of the Old Testament and the
religion it inculcates. The Torah, we should recall, is the
heart of the Old Testament. This is not simply the claim of
later Judaism, but is integral to the self-understanding of all
parts of the Old Testament. The prophets who call for a
deeper observance of the law, not for its abolition. The
Wisdom writers who see the law as the embodiment of divine
wisdom. And so on. None of these prepares us for this step
which the first Christians take of actually abandoning, count¬
ing as null and void, crucial elements of the law.
So clearly we have something of a problem in regard to the
Old Testament as Christian scripture. We cannot regard it as
Christian scripture tout simple. There is a fundamental
tension between Christianity and its Jewish roots and origins,
which lies very much at the heart of Christianity. And no¬
where does it come to clearer expression than at this point.
What does it mean to call Christian canonical scripture laws
and observances which Christianity no longer observes or
wants to observe?
Of course we can construct some kind of rational defence
by spiritualizing the Old Testament laws and observances in
question. Allegorizing has a long and well regarded history
46 THE LIVING WORD
within Christian circles. But it is also open to much abuse and

raises awkward questions about the ground and authority for
the allegorical meaning offered. And self evidently it is not
taking the Old Testament text in question at its most obvious
and intended meaning. The more we stress that the norma¬
tive meaning of a text is the meaning intended by its author,
as I certainly want to do in talking of the New Testament
writings, the more embarrassing becomes the device of
spiritualizing those laws we no longer want to obey. It
certainly introduces a nervous making precedent for any
hermeneutic since it actually locates the meaning of the text
outside the text, reads the allegorical meaning in varying
degrees by arbitrariness into the text. So the issue and
problem remains. What does it mean for Christianity that it
includes the Old Testament within its canon? What does this
say about the character and force of scriptural authority?
2. Jesus and the Old Testament

What then of Jesus? The question is particularly sensitive if
we want to see in Jesus’ use of the Old Testament a pattern
and norm for all Christian usage. This is certainly the case in
many attempts to argue for a strong sense of scriptural
authority - in terms of ‘infallibility’ or ‘inerrancy’.
The line here might well start with a text like John
10.34-36:
Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said,

you are gods”? If he called them gods to whom the word of
God came (and the scripture cannot be broken), do you say
of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the
world, “You are blaspheming,” because I said, “I am the
Son of God”?’
Here, it would be said, Jesus (or the Fourth Evangelist, if the

parenthesis is his addition) clearly takes a strong view of
scriptural authority: ‘the scripture cannot be broken’. That is,
its force cannot be set aside or nullified. Jesus (or John) here
proclaims that the binding character of a scriptural pro¬
nouncement cannot be loosed by human wish or weakened
by human interpretation.
Similarly with Matt.5.17—18:
Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the
prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil
them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass
away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all
is accomplished.
The conclusion is the same. Jesus sets himself under the

authority of the Old Testament. He affirms its continuing
force and validity. The argument would, of course, be much
elaborated. But this is the heart of it.
Yet how can we argue so? As we have already noted,
Christianity did abandon important parts of the Old Testa¬
ment. It did not regard the laws of sacrifice as a continuing
force and validity. It has broken the force of these scriptural
injunctions in the sense in which they were intended, and still
understood at the time of Jesus. If we insist on saying that
Jesus set himself under the authority of the Old Testament in
this undifferentiated way then we have to accept the unpalat¬
able corollary that the Christianity which subsequently
abandoned so much of the Old Testament was actually going
against Jesus. The more we argue for the continuity between
the Old Testament and Jesus, the more awkward the dis¬
continuity between Jesus and subsequent Christianity. The
more we press John 10.35 and Matthew 5.17—18 in terms of
infallibility and inerrancy, the more embarrassing the
Christian refusal to observe the laws of sacrihce becomes. Of
course we can argue a theology of fulfilment; but that is
simply another form of discontinuity which does not actually
resolve the problem. Or we can argue for a canonical co¬
herence which means that a clear principle enunciated in the
New Testament can be used to justify such a reinterpretation
of these Old Testament passages. But it still does not weaken
the basic fact that, whatever John 10 and Matthew 5 mean,
Christianity has abandoned the plain sense and prescriptive
force of Old Testament scripture.
Clearly then we cannot simply base our view of Jesus’
attitude to the authority of the Old Testament on a ‘strong’
reading of passages like John 10 and Matthew 5. We must
look more closely at how the Gospels show Jesus actually to
48 THE LIVING WORD
have used the Old Testament in practice. Unless we want to

drive a wedge between Jesus and subsequent Christianity we
cannot simply assume that such a ‘strong’ reading of John 10
and Matthew 5 is the only legitimate reading of these texts.
And the only way to check whether there are other legitimate
readings, or indeed other readings which come closer to their
intended sense, is to check the other evidence of how Jesus
used the Old Testament, not merely how he spoke about it.
(a) First we should note the way Jesus dealt with the issues
raised by the oral tradition, and oral Torah. According to
Mark Jesus fell foul of the Pharisees on a number of points.
Over the sabbath law he was heavily criticized for allowing his
disciples to pluck and eat grain on the sabbath (Mark 2.23—8)
and for healing a man with a withered hand on the sabbath
(Mark 3.1—6). In Mark 7 he is heavily criticized for failing to
encourage his disciples to observe the traditions of purity in
the case in point - eating food without first washing hands to
cleanse away any impurities which might have attached to the
hand while mixing with others in the open or in the market
place (Mark 7.1-5). In the same chapter Jesus himself attacks
the tradition of corban - the ruling which insisted that a vow
must be fulfilled, even if it was made in thoughtlessness or in
spite regarding one’s obligations to others (7.10-13). In each
case it is the Pharisaic interpretation of particular points of
the written Torah which he disputes.
The relevance of this sequence of evidence could be dis¬
puted. Precisely for that reason: because the issue here is not
the Torah, but a particular sequence of interpretations of the
Torah. Indeed, according to Mark 7.13, Jesus’ complaint
against the Pharisees is that they have made void a particular
written command (‘Honour your father and mother’) by this
interpretation of the law of vows.
This is certainly a fair point. But it only softens the issue to
some extent. For one thing, it underscores the fact that there
was a debate about how the law should be interpreted, and
that Jesus took part in that debate. And for another, the
Pharisees would not have accepted such a clear distinction
between the written law and the oral law. The oral law was
simply their exposition of the law. Their whole concern was
to show how the law written so many centuries before, in and
for rather different circumstances than their own, still
applied to their own day. These were simple examples of
case-law, rulings which had been made by previous legal
experts and as such had gained the weight of the law them¬
selves. So the Pharisees would certainly have regarded Jesus
as dangerously minimalist or reductionist with regard to the
law — too casual, by half. Dangerously liberal, in fact.
And if the Pharisees, so much more the Essenes, whose
particular interpretation of the law was even tighter and
more binding. In the eyes of two of the principal sects, the
most active theological schools within first-century Judaism,
Jesus was highly suspect.
(b) But what about Jesus’ attitude to the law as such — the
written Torah? We have seen Jesus in dispute with two of the
main theological groupings in first-century Judaism. Another
passage shows him in dispute with the third main body of
thinking opinion at that time — the Sadducees. According to
Mark 12.24-7 Jesus disputed with the Sadducees regarding
the resurrection from the dead. The Pharisees believed in
resurrection; they thought it a legitimate interpretation from
the scriptures. The Sadducees did not: it was nowhere clearly
attested in the Torah. In this dipute between Sadducees and
Pharisees it was the Sadducees who were being more funda¬
mentalist: only what was clearly written in the law should be
part of faith. But Jesus here sides with the Pharisees. On this
issue Jesus, like the Pharisees, would have been regarded by
the Bible loyalists as a dangerous innovator — someone who
read into the text he quoted (‘I am the God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ — 12.26) what was not
self-evidently there.
A sharper example is the lex talionis in Matthew 5.38—41.
The law said clearly, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth’. But Jesus sets this law aside as relativized by a higher
principle — that of love of neighbour. Judaism at the time of
Jesus was certainly not averse to the idea of summing up the
law in terms of first or basic principle. And love of neighbour
was an obvious choice for such a first principle. But not in
such a way as to set it in opposition or antithesis to other parts
50 THE LIVING WORD
of the law. To love the neighbour was to act towards him

within the terms of the law, or to bring him nigh to the law.
But in this and the following antithesis Jesus exalts the one
principle of love of neighbour in such a way as to limit the
applicability of another law and render it ineffective in its
prescriptive force. To select a particular law from within the
range of laws and to exalt it over the rest without scriptural
warrant would be regarded by many at the time of Jesus as
arbitrary. And to set it in opposition to another clearly stated
law would be regarded as dangerously liberal.
For a final example we might return to Mark 7 and the
word of Jesus about true cleanliness — Mark 7.18—19:
Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside
cannot defile him, since it enters, not his heart but his
stomach, and so passes on?
Here there is some disagreement between Mark and

Matthew as to whether Jesus’ saying was really so radical.
Where Mark says, ‘Nothing from outside can defile ... ’,
Matthew has in effect, ‘Defilement comes not so much from
without as from within’. Without going into the issue of what
Jesus actually said, the point is that Mark can present the
saying of Jesus in such a sharply antithetical form. Indeed,
Mark can go on to add his interpretation: ‘Thus he declared
alf foods clean’. According to Mark, what Jesus said
amounted to a denial that there was such a thing as unclean
food - an abrogation of another whole segment of the Torah,
the very important laws on clean and unclean foods (par¬
ticularly Lev. 13; Deut. 14). Whether it was Jesus or Mark who
did it, the author of Mark 7 certainly intends his readers to
see Jesus as approving the abandonment of the law of un¬
clean foods. The issue was no slight matter of particular
dietary laws. Unclean foods had been at the heart of the
Maccabean crisis: observance of these food laws was a
mark of a loyal Jew, a faithful member of the covenant -
I Macc. 1.62—3:
Many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts

not to eat unclean food. They chose to die rather than to be
defiled by food or to profane the holy covenant; and they
did die.
Anyone who called on or encouraged Jews to abandon such
laws as these was being unfaithful, a dangerous subversive
and apostate. But this is evidently how Mark believes Jesus
should be understood.
So the issue of whether Jesus thought the law was eternal
and eternally valid cannot be settled by reference to John 10
and Matthew 5. He certainly seems to have thought that some
at least of the law was not so. And he is remembered as
encouraging others to sit loose to some laws and to abandon
others.
(c) The point becomes more complex still when we

remember that a strong characteristic of Jesus’ ministry was
his openness. He was remembered in both polemic and
admiration as ‘a friend of taxcolletors and sinners’
(Matt. 11.19 par.). His table-fellowship was notoriously open
to such disreputables (Mark 2.16). Here we have to recall
what was so shocking about such conduct. A taxcollector
would be widely regarded as a traitor, a collaborator with and
agent of the occupying armies of Rome, a quisling. A loyal
and faithful Jew could hardly help despising such a person,
and would certainly not want to welcome him into his com¬
pany. And ‘sinner’ was a favourite word used in the various
factions within Judaism at that time to describe those who
were outside their group, outside their boundaries, unaccept¬
able to the right thinking and right doing, the ‘righteous’. A
sinner was one who did not observe the law as the particular
group thought it should be observed. For the Pharisees the
non-Pharisee was a sinner, including the Sadducee. For the
Essenes the non-Essene was a sinner — including the
Pharisee!
What we see in Jesus’ ministry therefore is one who was
ready to cut across the conventions which governed the dif¬
ferent and dominant sub-groups within his society. He was
one who flouted the prevailing religious sentiment and con¬
ventions. The point should not be exaggerated of course. He
was not an anarchist. He should not be presented as a kind of
first-century hippie. Nevertheless, a flouter of cpnventions is
a dangerous figure in a situation where the rules of accept¬
able social conduct are so clearly drawn.
52 THE LIVING WORD
Or to put it in different terms, Jesus was a boundary

breaker. The religious society of his day had drawn clear
boundaries round it. The Essenes and Pharisees are simply
the clearest examples of such careful drawing of the bound¬
ary lines to mark out who is in and who is out. As modern
social anthropological studies have reminded us, ritual acts
and concern for ritual purity are one important way of draw¬
ing such boundaries - between acceptable and unacceptable,
righteous and sinner, the in and the out, us and them. Even
John the Baptist’s insistence on baptism was of this order — a
necessary boundary to be crossed for those who wanted to be
found faithful in the end.
But with Jesus there is none of that. He frequently crosses
the boundaries drawn by others. He refuses to draw any such
boundaries for himself: unlike John the Baptist he did not
even require baptism of his would-be disciples; and his table-
fellowship was in no sense a ritual act for the insiders from
which the outsiders were excluded. On the contrary, Jesus’
ministry was marked by an mclusiveness rather than an ex¬
clusiveness. To those who pressed the claims of family upon
him, he says, ‘My mother and brother and sister are whoever
does the will of God’ (Mark 3.35). To disciples who want him
to tell off an exorcist who exorcises in Jesus’ name but who
does not follow Jesus, he says, ‘Do not forbid him ... He that
is not against us is for us’ (Mark 9.38-40). The despised half-
breed heretic Samaritan is his model for the loving neigh¬
bour, rather than the priest or Levite (Luke 10.29-37). In
face of the austere purity of the Qumran sect who will not
allow any physical blemishment to render the eschatological
assembly of God less than perfect, Jesus says, ‘The messianic
banquet is precisely for the'maimed, the blind, the lame’
(Luke 14.12-24).
Once again we should not exaggerate the point. Jesus cer¬
tainly demanded commitment on the part of those he called
to follow him. His demands were high and in terms of priorities
uncompromising. But in his relations with wider circles with
whom he came in contact his attitude was remarkably relaxed
— or should we say ‘liberal’?
(d) What then of John 10.35 and Matthew 5.17-18? The

problem with John is less severe since the phrase translated
‘cannot be broken’ is not specific and may mean simply ‘can¬
not be nullified, rendered futile, emptied of its force and
significance’. Jesus, in other words, would be appealing to a
belief which he shared in common with his fellow Jews — that
no scripture was empty of significance. Since that is common
ground the question then becomes what its significance is — a
question of right interpretation. In the event the use made of
the text has a strong ad hominem emphasis: since scripture
speaks of men as ‘gods’, why should it be offensive to call
Jesus ‘the Son of God’. In short, the contribution of this text
to our current discussion becomes much less clear-cut.
With Matt.5 the position taken up seems more cut and
dried: not a jot or a tittle is to pass from the law until all has
been accomplished; Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfil.
Clearly the key to right understanding lies with the words
‘fulfil’ and ‘accomplish’. But whatever they might mean, it
seems that Matthew, no less Mark, wants to present Jesus
as interpreting the law, and indeed relativizing the law by the
principle of unselfish love. As in Mark, so in Matthew,
Leviticus 19.18 (‘Love your neighbour as yourself) provides a
governing principle by which such laws as the sabbath are to
be understood and obeyed. And even more than Mark,
Matthew brings this principle to prominence: in Mark
Leviticus 19.18 is cited in only one passage (Mark 12.31, 33);
Matthew cites it in no less than three passages (Matt.5.43;
19.19; 22.39). The command to love the neighbour as oneself
is evidently a ‘canon within the canon’ by which other laws are
to be interpreted. Likewise Matthew is the only Evangelist to
make explicit use of Hosea 6.6: ‘I desire mercy and not
sacrifice’ (Matt.9.13; 12.7). And t? - effect is the same - to
relativize in terms of applicability some commands of the law
by reference to a higher principle. So even in Matthew Jesus
himself provides a clear authority for the abandoning of
some actual laws of the Old Testament. At this point Matthew
and Mark or Matthew and Paul are not so far apart as is
sometimes argued.
What then of the question in the title. Was Jesus a liberal?
The answer which I think is appropriate will already be
obvious.
What, after all, is a ‘liberal’? It is a relative term. It has to be
54 THE LIVING WORD
defined in relation to some antonym by antithesis — liberal in

relation to some matters of dispute, liberal in contrast to
conservative. In the religious terms appropriate on this
occasion, a conservative is one who conserves, who wishes to
retain the tradition of his society or church with as little
change as possible, one who stresses continuity as a matter of
primary concern, one who wants to be as faithful to the great
truths of earlier days so far as possible. A liberal in contrast
will feel free from such a blanket obligation; he will want to
be free to make distinctions between what is more important
and what is less; he will not feel bound equally or bound in
the same way by all scriptures. The conservative will tend to
emphasize the wholeness and integrated character of the
revelation: to abandon one part can lead too easily to aban¬
doning all. The liberal will want to say that only by making
some distinction between essentials and non-essentials within
the whole can the essentials be defined and the whole re¬
tained. He will want to sit loose to some beliefs and formula¬
tions which the conservative regards as important, perhaps
even as fundamental.
If this is a fair characterization, it is hard to deny Jesus the
title ‘liberal’. Within the religious context, in relation to the
dominant traditions and beliefs of his day, Jesus was certainly
not conservative. The kind of readiness he showed to reduce
the criteria of acceptability to a simple principle - love of
neighbour, doing the will of God - is more the mark of a
liberal attitude than of a conservative attitude. His kind of
openness to the recognition that those whose commitment
differs from our own can be equally acceptable to God is too
threatening to the conservative who wants his boundaries to
be much more clearly defined. If some form of exclusiveness
is a prime mark of the conservative termperament, the sort of
inclusiveness preferred by Jesus is the mark more of what we
have to call a ‘liberal’ temperament.
Again the point must not be overstated. Jesus clearly was
nurtured in his own faith and self-understanding by the
scriptures we call the Old Testament. He used these scrip¬
tures in teaching and debate. He commends them to the rich
young man as a guide for living (Mark 10). To call Jesus a
‘liberal’ is not to consign him to the bottom of the slippery
slope of constantly slipping standards of faith and life. On

the contrary, he undermines the whole scenario of the
‘slippery slope’ threat and warning - that once the integrated
wholeness of the conservative system is breached at any
point, the collapse of all the rest of faith is inevitable. For he is
one who questioned some scriptures. He is one who put his
foot at the beginning of the slippery slope beloved of funda¬
mentalist polemic. And yet who is to say that he slid to the
bottom? — whatever the bottom might be in this case. No! The
example of Jesus is a clear indication that the ‘slippery slope’
polemic is basically flawed in approach and out of sympathy
with the mind of Jesus — a piece of scare-mongering which
betokens the insecurity of the more conservative tempera¬
ment more than the vulnerability of the truth or the liberty of
the Christian person.
3. Paul and the Old Testament
What then of Paul? If Jesus was a liberal in relation to the

authority of the Old Testament, what about Paul?
Even more clearly than Jesus, Paul was dependent on the
Old Testament. It is only necessary to glance at the pages of
Paul’s letters in the New Testament to see that when he gets
into a theological argument one of his first and primary
concerns is to validate his points from scripture. Despite the
fact that Marcion thought himself a good Paulinist, Paul
would have been absolutely horrified at Marcion’s attitude to
the Old Testament. For Paul it was a matter of fundamental
importance to be able to demonstrate, at least to his own
satisfaction, that his Christian faith and gospel were fully
consistent with the OT and indeed were the most appro¬
priate understanding of it. The formula ‘as it is written’ is no
mere concession to a belief in scriptural authority which he
has actually abandoned in favour of faith in Christ. It is a
genuine expression of his conviction that the gospel was
‘preached beforehand through the prophets in the sacred
writings’ (Rom. 1.1), and in Christ the promises of the Old
Testament have been fulfilled (Rom.4), that in the gospel of
faith the law has been properly understood and confirmed
(Rom.3.31). Many of the arguments made for a ‘strong’ view
56 THE LIVING WORD
of scripture from Paul are good: in Paul’s eyes, what scrip¬

ture said, God said. For Paul scripture was the word of God
written.
Yet at the same time, Paul it is, more than anyone else of
the New Testament writers, whose work has resulted in the
separation of Judaism and Christianity. Judaism would
certainly regard him as a heretic. The recent book by Hyam
Maccoby on The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of
Christianity1 in its outright attack on the dismissal of Paul is
simply an extreme version of a polemic which is an almost
inevitable consequence of what Paul did. We see such a
polemic already in the Pseudo-Clementine literature of the
second and third centuries, where Paul is depicted in the
guise of Simon Magus — a deluded visionary who is no match
for Peter. And the depth of hostility is already reflected in
Galatians, II Corinthians 10-13 and Philippians 3, not to
mention Acts 21. The Paul who in these passages dismisses so
passionately and scornfully those judaizing missionaries and
apostles who must have come from Palestine, if not from
James and Jerusalem as such, was certainly denounced in
turn in similar and perhaps even more virulent terms —
preacher of another Jesus, purveyor of another gospel,
peddler of another Spirit - a false aposde, a deceitful work¬
man, servant and dupe of Satan.
Paul certainly did not wish for the breach which has come
about between Judaism and Christianity. His hope was that
through the conversion of the Gentiles his fellow countrymen
would be provoked to jealousy and so come to accept Jesus as
Messiah (Rom.l 1). He laboured long and hard, as one of his
top priorities, to maintain a, strong bridge between the
Gentile mission and Jerusalem, putting his life at hazard in
his determination to take the collection of the Gentile
churches back to Jerusalem, come what may. But his hope
was not realized, and still has not been. The people of God is
still split into two streams - the ancient stream of Israel and
the newer stream of Christianity. And Paul’s part in the
coming about of that split was decisive.
So the question cannot be avoided. Was Paul faithful to his
Jewish heritage? or did he sell it for a mess of Christian
pottage? Did Christ so bowl him over on the Damascus road
that all his use of the Old Testament has to be judged in the
end of the day nothing more than an arbitrary attempt to
rationalize that experience? Is Christianity as he presents it
the true successor of the religion of the Old Testament, or in
the end of the day, an aberration? Who has the greater claim
to the Old Testament — the Christianity which takes its lead
from Paul, or rabbinic Judaism? To tackle these sort of ques¬
tions in the depth they require would take us well beyond the
space available. But at least the impact and measure of Paul
can be sampled and illustrated at three key points.
(a) As we have seen, the food laws were a matter of great

importance for the Jews of Paul’s day. The appeal to the
blood of the martyrs, the Maccabean martyrs in this case,
would have been as powerful then as the equivalent appeal
within the Protestant or Catholic traditions. In the days of the
Maccabees people were put to death because of their observ¬
ance of the food laws. This was no minor matter of idle
dispute and inconsequential disagreement. People had died
for these beliefs. Similarly the very popular hero and heroine
stories on which Jewish children were no doubt brought up
made the same point. Daniel, Tobit and Judith were all great
heroes, not least because they had been faithful in their
refusal to eat the food of Gentiles by which they would have
been rendered unclean. All these stories must have entered
deeply into the Jewish psyche of Paul’s day. A good reflection
of it, no doubt, is Peter’s reaction on the housetop in Joppa,
when he saw the vision of clean and unclean animals and was
told to ‘Rise, kill and eat’ - ‘I have never eaten anything
common or unclean’ (Acts 10.14).
But this was one of the issues where Paul believed the truth
of the gospel was at stake. As we see in the Antioch incident
in Gal.2.11ff. For Peter and Barnabas and the other Jewish
Christians to insist on observing the Jewish food laws was to
abandon the fundamental principle that God accepted Jew
and Gentile alike by faith, faith in Jesus Christ. In his later
treatment of the issue within his own congregations he was a
good deal more relaxed. In I Corinthians 8—10 and Romans
14 he wants the stronger members who have dispensed with
or disregard such food laws to be considerate for the weaker
58 THE LIVING WORD
brethren who still want to observe them. The strong should

be ready to limit their freedom for the sake of the weak. Paul
himself is still clearly of the opinion that all foods have been
provided by God richly to be enjoyed by his creatures (I
Cor. 10.25—6). To be sure, he does not insist that others must
share the same opinion. But he has certainly abandoned the
law of clean and unclean foods for himself: ‘I know and am
persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itselF
(Rom. 14.14, 20). Such an abandonment would certainly be
regarded as unfounded and treacherous by most of his fellow
Jews, and indeed by many of his fellow Jewish Christians.
(b) A second example would be the sabbath law. This was in

many ways even more fundamental for the devout Jew. It
was one of the ten commandments. It had been observed by
Yahweh himself in creating the world. In effect therefore it
was not merely a Jewish or covenant requirement; it was an
ordinance of creation. But it was also a particularly important
expression of Israel s obligation under the covenant — a per¬
petual covenant between Israel and God to be observed
throughout their generations (Ex. 31.16-17). And in the
much loved prophet Isaiah, more used by the Christians than
any other, it was precisely observance of the sabbath which
would be the great mark of the ingathering of the Gentiles -
a text which Paul could hardly ignore for that very reason —
Isaiah 56.6: foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to
keep the sabbath and not profane it, to hold fast the
covenant.
And yet it is in Paul that we have the clearest indication of
any new Testament writer that the sabbath was soon aban¬
doned or at least was being regarded as of little consequence
tor many of the first generation Christians - Paul himself
included, no doubt. In the same passage already referred to
Romans 14, Paul speaks of those Christians who regard all
days alike, no day as special - an attitude which no devout
Jew could espouse. Here was a clear commandment of the
u- /restarJiejlt’ one °f the Ten Commandments no less,
which was being treated as though it had never been said.
How could a loyal Jew justify this? What criterion external to
the scriptures could he use to discount so completely such an
explicit word of scripture?
The problem is not his alone, we might add. For there is
actually no clear word in the New Testament which validates
the abandonment of the sabbath law or transformation of it
into a Sunday celebration. Here is an interesting test case for
the Reformation principle of the perspicacity of scripture —
the rule that the unclear must be interpreted by clear. For in
this case it is the Christian observance of Sunday co¬
ordinated with the disregard for the sabbath which is less
than explicit, that is, less than clear. Whereas the scriptural
command to keep the seventh day holy is clear beyond dis¬
pute. And yet we follow the unclear New Testament and
disregard the clear Torah.
(c) Above all there was the test case of circumcision. Here if
anywhere the scriptural authorization was clear cut and un¬
equivocal beyond peradventure. Not simply as a command¬
ment of the Sinai covenant which might be relativized by an
argument which places the Abrahamic covenant earlier. The
problem for Paul’s interpretation is that circumcision is so
clearly affixed to the promise to Abraham. I refer of course
to Genesis 17.9—14:
And God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you shall keep my
covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout
their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall
keep, between me and you and your descendants after
you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall
be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be
a sign of the covenant between me and you ... So shall my
covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any
uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of
his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken
my covenant.’
Here, one might think, is a command whose lasting authority

is beyond doubt - Abraham’s seed to observe it ‘throughout
their generations’, ‘an everlasting covenant’. But we know
very well that Paul resisted in this issue more fiercely than in
any other. How can you foolish Galatians want to be circum¬
cised. Don’t you see that if you receive circumcision you
destroy your faith in Christ? You are cut off from Christ!
60 THE LIVING WORD
Circumcision now means nothing for the person in Christ. ‘I

wish those who are trying to have you circumcised would go
the whole way and castrate themselves!’ (Gal.5.2—12).
How could any good Jew who heard Paul speak like this
doubt that Paul had ‘gone off the rails’? The law was the great
mark of God’s electing love of his people Israel. It marked
Israel out as his peculiar people. And the boundary was most
clearly marked by these distinctive Jewish rituals and customs
- circumcision, sabbath, particular food laws. Yet here was
Paul calling in effect for an abandoning of all three. It had
been bad enough that Jesus broke down boundaries between
factions within the chosen people. But Paul was now breaking
down the boundaries round the chosen people, breaching the
walls of the covenant which distinguished and protected
Israel as God’s special people. Clearly Paul was being unfaith¬
ful to his Jewish heritage. He was rejecting Israel’s election,
whatever he might say. In the view of many of Paul’s Jewish
contemporaries Paul was a renegade and apostate. His re¬
interpretation was not simply a ^-interpretation but an
abandoning of the law, of clear, indisputable and funda¬
mental commands of scripture. He was a heretic! No wonder
Marcion thought he was simply following the logic of Paul’s
position.
4. Conclusions
We began by asking the questions: Was Jesus a liberal?

Was Paul a heretic? To both questions the answer has clearly
been, Yes! Does that seem to some a disturbing conclusion?
perhaps even a shocking conclusion? Or just bizarre? If so,
that is only because we see these issues from our own per¬
spective. From the perspective of nearly 2,000 years of
Christianity, the questions are, of course, ridiculous. Jesus
and Paul provide the norm, the ideal, the definition of divine
revelation, that from which others depart, not the model of
different degrees of departure from the norm. But this is
true, of course, only if we see the issue from our perspective.
Within their own contexts these questions as they relate to
Jesus and Paul are quite respectable and the answers valid.
Over against the current religiosity and system of faith and
religion, Jesus was liberal, and Paul was a heretic. And that is
the only contemporary context we can set them within.
In other words, we cannot assume that Jesus and Paul
would have been ‘conservative’ and ‘orthodox’ thereafter,
however these words might be defined subsequently, simply
because various stripes of conservative theology claim Paul
for themselves and simply because the several orthodoxies of
Christian history have set Jesus at the centre. The fact is that
Jesus and Paul were disturbing presences in their own time.
And the disturbing character was an integral part of their
ministry and witness - the unnerving unexpectedness of
claiming that the kingdom of God is here, of claiming that
Christ alone is the seed of Abraham. Jesus and Paul were
nothing if they were not non-conformists. The probability is
that to see them as a model for a new conformity is to
misperceive them. For example, to take Jesus’ actions with
regard to the sabbath law as in effect a new law (what may
and what may not be done on the Sunday) is to set oneself at
odds with the spirit of Jesus’ ministry and to corrupt Jesus’
liberty into a new form of Pharisaism. Or to set Paul’s gospel
into a fixed and unyielding outline which must be followed if
the gospel is to be properly preached is to have Paul erect
again the same sorts of rules and restrictions on the liberty of
the Christian man which Christ had broken down for him. If
Jesus and Paul provide a model, it is of a surprising, disturb¬
ing, boundary crossing, breaking down or disregarding of
religious conventions; and to lose that is to lose something
very much at the heart of their respective ministries.
The fact is that Jesus and Paul were themselves on the
boundary. They both stand at the interface and overlap
between two great religions — Judaism and Christianity. They
are the fulcrum points on which salvation-history turns into a
new course. They were ‘outsiders’, people who did not fit
neatly into the pigeon holes and categories of their time,
people who challenge and break an old paradigm and round
which a new paradigm coheres. Jesus was a disturber of false
peace; and we may assume he would still be the same were he
to come again as he did before, in whatever context of
religious faith and practice he found himself. Of Paul it was
said fifteen centuries before Luther, ‘Are you alone right and
62 THE LIVING WORD
a thousand years wrong?’ For like Luther, Paul was one who
stood for what had grasped him as divine truth even if that
meant standing in the face of certainties of centuries old
truth and revelation.
The questions we ask in this chapter are still relevant. And
the answers more so than we may realize.
But let me in closing simply sketch out some of the impor¬
tant points which arise for our theme of the living word.
(a) The effects are clearest with regard to the Old Testa¬
ment. For on the one hand we have the Old Testament as
part of holy scripture. On the other we have a Jesus and a
Paul who prevent us from taking these same scriptures as still
having prescriptive force for us. We must hold the two to¬
gether. We cannot ‘do a Marcion’ and reject the Old Testa¬
ment. But we cannot treat the Old Testament as though what
Jesus and Paul did and said was irrelevant to the question of
how we understand and use the Old Testament. Can we still
speak of the Old Testament commandments which Jesus and
Paul disregarded and discarded as the word of God? There is
no reason why not. So long as we tie it into what I said before
about the historical conditionedness of all scripture, includ-
ing these commands. In this case that means recognizing that
the description of them as word of God is itself a historical
description. They were the word of God to millions of
Israelites down through many centuries. But they no longer
are so for us - certainly not in their obvious and intended
sense. We honour these passages as God’s word in a historic
sense, invaluable as ways of understanding how God dealt
with his people in times past.. We do not honour them by
calling them God’s word in the same sense today.
What is true with regard to these particular command¬
ments shows us how we must evaluate the Old Testament as a
whole. The Old Testament does not stand for us as word of
God independent of the New Testament and of Jesus. As
Christians the Old Testament continues to exercise norma¬
tive authority for us only when we read it in the light of the
revelation of Christ. And that means being ready to recog¬
nize that some teaching and some requirements laid down in
the Old Testament are no longer of prescriptive authority for
us. Of course the Old Testament remains indispensable for
our understanding of the New; it is the foundation of the
New. But for us it takes its significance from the superstruc¬
ture which Jesus, Paul and the others built on it. In a word,
the New Testament relativizes the old.
This also means that the Christian operates with a canon
within the canon, like it or not. The canon within the canon
for him is, of course, the New Testament, or more precisely
the revelation of Christ as presented in the New Testament.
We read the Old Testament through the New. We interpret
the Old Testament in the light of Christ. He is the clear by
which the now unclear Old Testament must be understood.
For Paul and Christians then and since, the brilliance of the
light of Christ has cast the Old Testament into shadow. The
new revelation has relativized the old and so also relativized
the authority of the old.
(b) But is this true only of the Old Testament? Is the New
Testament a once-for-all revision of the old revelation which
now serves as itself the finished and final paradigm? Is there
any sense in which the New Testament’s relativizing of the
Old becomes a paradigm for the way in which new revelation
might relativize the authority of the New Testament? Here
we must take care lest we erode the definitive role of the New
Testament for Christianity. But we can give a cautious Yes at
two points. Part of what the paradigm of the New Testa¬
ment’s relativizing of the Old teaches us is that the message of
God’s saving grace can be too easily obscured and rendered
less effective by an over-evaluation of certain scriptures; that
good and authoritative scriptures can be so understood as to
narrow and misdirect God’s grace. For example, circumcision
was not abandoned simply because Christians believed they
had received the circumcision of the heart. As well might
they have left baptism behind with John the Baptist since
they had experienced the Coming One’s baptism in Spirit.
Nor was there any reason within scripture for the food laws
to be abandoned. In both cases it was the historical circum¬
stance that these rules and practices had become too much
identified with a narrow inward looking Israel-centred faith,
which relativized them and rendered them obsolete for the
new covenant.
64 THE LIVING WORD
The obvious corollary is that it must be entirely possible

that certain New Testament requirements, good words of
God in their time, in the same way become restrictive and
corruptive of the grace of God today. As did slavery. And as
many today would say, as does the scriptural subordination
of women to men. If we define the canon within the canon
not just as the New Testament as a whole but the revelation
of Christ to which the New Testament bears normative and
definitive witness, we must allow that canon to exercise a
similar sifting and evaluating function of our faith and lives,
our proclamation of the gospel and our ordering of our
common lives today.
Was Jesus a liberal? Was Paul a heretic? We answer Yes to
these questions not least because we wish to highlight and
maintain the character of God’s revelation as ‘the living
word’. We wish to say that God spoke with a specificity of
reference to his people in the past. With such a specificity that
often the word spoken has reference only to that past and not
to the present. Only so can we continue to claim that God
speaks with specificity of reference to us today, and at the
same time, save ourselves from the old mistake of erecting
what has been the word of God to us into a restrictive and
stultifying dogma for others. Only so can we rejoice in ‘the
living word’.
THE PROBLEM OF PSEUDONYMITY
1. Introduction
The problem of pseudonymity refers to the problem of

pseudonymous literature. Pseudonymous literature is usually
understood to mean writings whose authorship has been
concealed for one reason or another by a fictitious name. The
problem is that such a practice almost inevitably seems to. us
to have a motive of insincerity and falsehood. When used of
biblical literature pseudonymity raises the question of an
author’s integrity. Does pseudonymity not imply the inten¬
tion to pass off one’s work as the work of someone else? Does
it not therefore necessarily imply an intention to deceive? It is
this implication that pseudonymity involves deception which
causes the problem. How can one attribute such a motive to a
biblical author? What would the acceptance of the presence
of pseudonymous writings within the canon mean for our
understanding of scripture and for the authority of the writ¬
ing in question? Is the status of scripture compatible with
such an immoral motivation?
There have been various attempts to defuse the problem.
(a) Some have tried to deny that there is a problem. The

problem does not exist, because there are no examples of
pseudepigraphy in the Bible. Every book which claims to be
by a particular author was written by that author or at least
dictated by him. Here the issue is transposed into a different
problem — the problem of the gap between the conservative
and the rest of New Testament scholarship. Since almost all
66 THE LIVING WORD
New Testament scholars would dispute the Petrine author¬

ship of II Peter, and most accept that the Pastorals are post-
Pauline, the insistence of the conservative scholar that these
documents are nevertheless written by the person named
tends to isolate such conservatives towards one end of the
critical spectrum and to make the resultant dialogue more
difficult. Here I cannot go into questions of authorship of
individual books. What I want to do is to ask for an open-
mindedness to the possibility that there may be pseudo¬
nymous writings in the New Testament, to examine what that
would mean within the historical context of the times, and to
think through a little of what it would mean for our under¬
standing of these scriptures and for our whole understand¬
ing of the living word.
(b) A second approach to the problem of pseudonymity in

biblical writings is the attempt to alleviate it. The problem is
not so serious, since there is very litde in the Bible which
might properly fall under the head of pseudepigraphy. The
problem has been perceived as serious because pseudonymity
has been confused so much with anonymity. There are many
anonymous writings in the Bible, more than the alleged
pseudonymous writings. We simply do not know who was
responsible for many biblical texts. This is quite true. But it
does not help us very much. For one thing, there is still the
problem, on the conservative side, that Jesus and Paul do
ascribe authorship to various passages which might be
regarded critically as from the hand of an unknown author.
For example, they attribute Deuteronomic passages to Moses
and various Psalms to David.' And for another, the recog¬
nition that much of the Bible is anonymous in terms of
human authorship does not help with the problem of
pseudonymity if and where it does actually occur.
(c) There have also been many attempts to resolve the prob¬
lem. The most common one has involved what we might call
a psychological-mystical approach. The unknown author felt
himself to be one with the author named. Since pseudonym¬
ity usually means attribution to someone of a past generation,
someone now dead, the suggestion is that the actual author
THE PROBLEM OF PSEUDONYMITY 67
believed himself to be inspired by the spirit of this person,
caught up in ecstatic inspiration into a mystical identity with
the person named. The flaw in this thesis is that it seems to
have no hard evidence in its favour. It generalizes a theory of
ecstatic mysticism from Graeco-Roman literature, especially
the orphic, hermetic and sibylline material, and imposes it on
the dissimilar Jewish material. Jewish writers thought them¬
selves inspired by God, but never as identified with God. And
there is no evidence whatsoever, outside the data which the
hypothesis is trying to explain, that a Jewish pseudepi-
grapher thought he was possessed by the spirit of some other
and long dead person. Despite its popularity this attempt to
explain the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy in biblical writ¬
ing must be regarded as a failure for lack of supporting
evidence.
The weakness of most discussions of pseudonymity in the
Bible is that they have focussed the discussion too much on
Graeco-Roman parallels. They have not paid enough atten¬
tion to the Jewish nature of these writings or to the Jewish
context from which they came. Here in particular we need to
take account of the tradition process which lies behind so
many biblical documents - and not least its character as living
tradition. Hence the importance of the subject for these
lectures. Fortunately we are in a position to draw on an
important new monograph by David G. Meade, Pseudonymity
and Canon,1 a thesis which it was my privilege to supervise
during my time at Nottingham, and which has made an
important breakthrough in the study of biblical pseudepi¬
graphy.
2. Pseudepigraphy and Apocrypha

We can start with the obvious fact that within the Jewish
tradition at the time of Jesus and Paul there was a clearly
established pattern of pseudepigraphy. It is seen most clearly
in the apocalyptic writings — the cycles attributed to Enoch,
Ezra and Baruch. These are clearly pseudonymous at least in
the sense that despite their claim to contain and express the
words of those just named, they were clearly written long
after the time of these persons’ sojourn on earth. The Enoch
68 THE LIVING WORD
cycle may start well back before the New Testament period,
even in the third century BC, but can hardly be attributed to
the pre-deluvian patriarch himself. IV Ezra and II Baruch
clearly reflect the situation following the fall of Jerusalem
and the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, and so can
hardly have been written by those who lived five or six
centuries earlier.
But would anyone think they were? Would not most if not
all readers of such works recognize what is patently an artistic
device? A revelation of the mysteries of heaven attributed to
the famous patriarch who had been translated to heaven
without seeing death. Visions arising out of the fall of Jeru¬
salem attributed to two famous figures, especially remembered
for two things - their divinely commissioned ministries
associated with the fall and restoration of Jerusalem the time
before (sixth century BC), and for their activity as scribes. At
the very least this would be recognized as a literary technique,
with an underlying message in the case of the last two: Jeru¬
salem had fallen and the temple been destroyed before, in
accordance with the will of God; but it was not long before
both Jerusalem and temple had been restored, by the same
divine will. The attribution to Ezra and Baruch was as much
as anything an attestation of faith — one of the means used by
the actual authors to express the conviction that God had not
firlally and completely abandoned Israel on this occasion either.
Such reflections immediately raise the question as to
whether pseudepigraphy is the right word - particularly if
the word contains any implication of deliberate deceit and
forgery. If that is what pseudonymity necessarily implied,
then these writings should almost certainly not be called
pseudonymous. Because they would have fooled nobody!
But if pseudonymity means attribution for the purpose of
making a theological point - in the case of IV Ezra and II
Baruch, the affirmation of the continuity of God’s purpose,
of the continuing faithfulness of God, despite appearances -
then that forces us to regard pseudonymity in a different
light. As an acceptable practice, not intended to deceive, but a
means of affirming the continuity of God’s purpose between
the circumstances of the named author and the circum¬
stances of the actual author.
Someone might say: But these are not biblical books. They
provide no precedent for a concept of scriptural pseudonym-
ity. And that may be a fair point. Although they do seem to
point us to a certain technique and understanding of
pseudepigraphy within the same Jewish context from which
the New Testament writings emerged. And that cannot be
without relevance when we look at the New Testament
writings themselves.
But of course the phenomenon is not confined to the so-
called Jewish pseudepigrapha. Something not too dissimilar
is also present within the Apocrypha. And when we speak of
the Apocrypha it is well to recall that this was part of the Bible
used by Greek speaking Jews. Take, for example, the
Wisdom of Solomon. Written in Greek, almost certainly in
Alexandria, it is the classic expression of Hellenistic Jewish
wisdom. To be sure, it does not claim to have been written by
Solomon in so many words. But the autobiographical section
in chapters 6—9 is clearly intended as a first person account of
Solomon’s own experiences. Here again there would be little
chance of deception, even if that had been the intention: the
whole is too much pervaded by the spirit of hellenistic
thought, even if transposed into a Jewish matrix. But decep¬
tion is hardly the point. What the author is presumably
attempting to convey by his pseudonymous technique is that
this expression of Jewish wisdom is fully in line with the
wisdom tradition with which Solomon was identified in
Jewish memory. Even when transposed into hellenistic lan¬
guage and form it is coherent and continuous with the
wisdom of Solomon. It is, as those who first gave the book its
present name rightly perceived, the Wisdom of Solomon.
Equally interesting and relevant is the phenomenon of
septuagintal expansions. The fact that in the LXX there are
expanded versions of Esther and Daniel; also the Letter of
Jeremiah (= Baruch 6); and not to mention the reordering of
the chapters of Jeremiah. Here we see a willingness to make
substantial additions to earlier writings. There was evidently
no sense that a document once written was complete and
closed, that additions to it would violate its character or the
integrity of the original author. And certainly talk of decep¬
tion and forgery would be inappropriate. What we have
70 THE LIVING WORD
rather is a sense that earlier traditions can be expanded and

elaborated in a way wholly appropriate to that tradition, so
that the elaborations and expansions can be retained within
that tradition, continuous with it, part of a larger integrated
whole which can be regarded as belonging to the original
author’s corpus without impropriety.
If we make the point in terms of canon, then we have the
interesting fact that the canon of the Greek speaking Jew and
of the Greek speaking Jewish Christian was larger than the
canon of the Hebrew Bible. This does not diminish any sense
of canonical authority: we could still speak, if we so wished, of
the canonical authority of both the Hebrew version and the
Greek version. What it does put in question is the idea that
‘canon’ always meant ‘closed canon’ — that the recognition of
a particular writing as having what we may fairly call
canonical authority, meant thereby that it could be neither
added to nor abstracted from. On the contrary, we have a
concept of what we might better call open canon, or open-
ended canonical authority. A writing, an oracle, which could
be regarded as speaking with word of God authority, but whose
content could be developed or elaborated without loss of can¬
onical authority, presumably to adapt the earlier word to differ¬
ent circumstances or help retain its continuing force, or simply
because the new material was coherent with the earlier.
, Here, in other words, we have a variation on the idea of
living word, living tradition. Open-ended canonical authority
is just another way of saying the same thing.
But what about the scriptures themselves, those scriptures
which actually do belong to the Christian, or at least Pro¬
testant canon of Old and New Testaments? The question still
arises: are they not of a different order from what we have
been looking at? Does any of this apply to or throw light on
our sacred writings and on the problem of canonical
pseudepigraphy in particular? I will look first at some Old
Testament examples before turning to the New Testament.
3. The Old Testament
The simplest procedure is to take three examples - from the

three main sections of the Old Testament - the law, the
prophets and the writings.
(a) The Law It is now widely agreed that the Pentateuch is
the end product of a quite lengthy tradition process. We do
not need to argue over particular points. The consensus of
modern scholarship would include recognition that the
earliest level of tradition goes back before the Mosaic period,
and that there is no good reason to rule out the hand of
Moses in the earliest stages of the Pentateuch itself. But the
importance of Deuteronomy and of a Deuteronomic school
in the Josianic reformation is also a matter of widespread
consensus, and likewise the role of Ezra in establishing the
Pentateuch in more or less its present form in the post-exilic
period.
The point is that whatever might be the result of disputes
over innumerable details, it would be flying in the face of too
much evidence and good scholarship to deny the basic
affirmation: that the Pentateuch is the product of a lengthy
process of tradition.
But if this is accepted, notice what it means. Once again we
have an example of a tradition which grew and developed.
Indeed we can speak quite properly of a canonical tradition
which grew and developed. For the earliest forms of the
tradition were obviously cherished and passed down because
of their importance in explaining the community which pre¬
served them to itself, because they served to express the self-
identity of the community. And the influence of Moses in
putting his stamp on the earliest stages of the law gave these
formulations an abiding authority for the life, social and
religious structures of the community. But once again not a
closed authority, but a living authority which could be and
was expanded and elaborated as new insights emerged and
which could be and evidently was adapted and modified as
circumstances changed. Deuteronomy could become a com¬
plete and distinct block within the whole, with its material, be
it noted, set out in terms of addresses given by Moses at the
time of Israel’s entry into the promised land. And the whole
complex reworked and rewritten in a final, or sequence of
final editings.
How did those who made such elaborations, additions,
editings regard their role? Not as something inadmissible, to
be sure. This was simply the way in which canonical tradition
72 THE LIVING WORD
functioned. Not as a fixed deposit from the past to be relayed

with meticulous scrupulosity to the next generation, almost
certainly. But as a living interaction of older tradition and
newer insight into that tradition and fresh revelation co¬
herent with that tradition. Unknown, anonymous scribes and
teachers have played an important part in that process - but
not with contributions which they would regard as distinct¬
ively theirs, for which they should be honoured by sub¬
sequent history. They would see their role simply in terms of
filling out what had not been clearly enough said in the
earlier tradition, or what had not been envisaged at the
earlier stage, or saying again in different form and more
appropriate mode what had always been part of the tradition.
It was still the law of Moses. The continuum of tradition,
coherence with what Moses had been the first to put together
formally, that was the criterion. Such workers with the
tradition would no doubt regard themselves as inspired, but
it was not a finish revelation which might run at cross pur¬
poses to the revelation given through Moses, not a different
revelation which required to be validated by that scribe’s own
claim to inspiration, to be set down like a prophet’s call
narrative. It was validated by the community indeed, not as
the work of some specific sqribe, but simply as the com¬
munity’s recognition that this elaboration or addition still
spoke with the authoritative voice of Moses.
There were, of course, other inspired utterances all during
this period, which were not simply filling out the older
tradition and where the continuity with the law of Moses was
not so immediate or of a different nature. These were pro¬
phetic oracles, wisdom sayings, psalms, etc., remembered as
such, and often attributed to the one who spoke them. But
the same logic did not apply to the elaboration of the Moses
tradition, simply because it was not regarded as theirs, but as
still the law of Moses.
Of course, the time came when that particular canon was
regarded as closed, when the Pentateuch took its more or less
final form, and could no longer be added to. That happened,
as we have already noted, almost certainly in the period
immediately following the exile. Presumably the continuum
was seen to be becoming too stretched out, the continuity too
thin. The tradition had solidified into a single, normative
form. That is not to say, however, that the sense of living
tradition had ceased, or that the need to interpret the earlier
tradition was any less. It simply took a different form. As the
Pharisees demonstrate. The sense of a living tradition is still
there, as the Pharisees attempted to fill out and clarify, to
develop and adapt the now written Torah. The dynamics are
only different in degree. In the earlier stages the interaction
between old revelation and new was more fluid, since the old
revelation was itself not in final form. In the hands of the
Pharisees the only difference is that the old revelation was in
a more fixed form. But the need to interpret and re-express
it was just the same. And just the same was the clear sense
that this was still the law of Moses, not merely a secondary
explanation of it, inferior and dispensable. The early
Pharisees are not much remembered in the early stages of the
rabbinic traditions, and even in the period of Jesus there
were many more wnattributed sayings than attributed. For
the same reason. The authority of these Pharisaic rulings lay
much more in the tradition being interpreted and in the
continuity of the interpretation with the earlier words of
Moses, than with the inspiration of the particular teacher
who gave the ruling.
Here again then we have the same clear sense of a living
word which once spoken can be heard to speak again in
different circumstances and with different variations and
where the elaborators of that word saw themselves as that,
spokesmen for the living tradition which bears the name of
Moses.
(b) The Prophets Here we have space to take only one ex¬
ample - the case of Isaiah. As with the Pentateuch, so here,
and perhaps even more so here, we can speak of an over¬
whelming consensus of biblical scholarship that the present
Isaiah is not the work of a single author. While much of
chapters 1-39 can be referred back to the eighth-century
Isaiah of Jerusalem, there is widespread agreement that
chapters 40-55 come from the hand of an unknown prophet
of the exilic period, and that chapters 56-66 are probably a
collection of multi-authored oracles. Even more conservative
74 THE LIVING WORD
scholarship today would not necessarily find it essential to

argue for a single eighth-century authorship. It is not simply
a question of whether predictive prophecy is possible or not.
It is rather that the message of Second Isaiah would have
been largely meaningless to an eighth-century Jerusalem
audience. It is so clearly directed to the situation of exile.
Consequently, had it been delivered a century and a half
before the exile, it would be unlike the rest of Jewish pro¬
phecy, marked out as that is by the relevance of what is said to
the speaker’s present. A more typical modern conservative
line, therefore, would be to argue that the core of chapters
40-66 goes back to the original Isaiah, but has been con¬
siderably^) worked over by disciples of the great prophet
who felt what they were doing was done in the spirit of
Isaiah.
Such a step towards ‘critical orthodoxy’ would be quite
sufficient for my present purpose. For my main point would
again be illustrated. A cqre original which has been expanded
and elaborated, over a period of one and a half, two or more
centuries, but within the tradition of the original Isaiah and
so attributed to him, reworking and all, without any sense of
impropriety, and certainly without any intention to deceive.
And if we follow the majority line of critical consensus, the
point becomes even clearer. For it looks as though the case
just mentioned for chapters 40-66 was actually true of
chapters 1—39. Oracles of the original Isaiah seem to have
been worked up and redacted in the light of Second Isaiah.
Chapters 36-39 have been borrowed from II Kings 18-20 to
provide a bridge to chapters 40—66. Moreover, the continuity
between first and second Isaiah is clear. For Isaiah had pro¬
phesied in the face of a military threat to Jerusalem, and his
warnings had been fulfilled in the tragic events of 587. More
important, there is a fundamental identity of religious per¬
spective between the two - particularly with regard to the
holiness and power of Yahweh and his election of Israel.
Second Isaiah can be regarded quite properly as a creative
reinterpretation of the oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem. The
points previously put forward in favour of the unity of
authorship are probably better understood as indicating a
consciousness of continuity, of a standing within the authori-
tative tradition begun by Isaiah of Jerusalem and identified

by his name.
Similarly with chapters 55—66. Only here, as in the case of
the post-exilic treatment of the Pentateuch, the earlier
tradition seems to have become more fixed. So-called Third
Isaiah is full of near or complete citations from the two
earlier works, and the reworking of the tradition now seems
to take the form of a sort of midrashic exegesis of texts. The
maleability and flexibility of the tradition is not infinite in
either character or time. Only what stands in direct line of
continuity can be reckoned as part of that tradition. And the
longer the period intervening between the original fountain¬
head of the tradition the more the process of reworking it
becomes interpretation of fixed texts and less the expansion
of the texts themselves.
For all this Meade uses the helpful German word,
Vergegenwartigung, ‘making present, contemporizing’. This is
a helpful key to the character of living tradition — its con¬
temporaneity, its applicability to new and different situations,
achieved by the re-expression of the earlier tradition or its
emphases in new forms which demonstrate that relevance. In
the case in point, whatever the dispute on points of detail,
there would be widespread agreement that in canonical
Isaiah we see the process of such living tradition — a tradition
which was no less authoritative because it was being inter¬
preted, or because the interpretation was itself becoming part
of that tradition — a tradition which because it took its origin
and essential character from the great figure of Isaiah of
Jerusalem, continued to be thought of as his, without im¬
propriety or deception.
(c) The Writings The third section of the Old Testament

canon proffers various different kinds of Vergegenwartigung.
For example, the two books of Chronicles. These are gener¬
ally recognized to be in essence a revision of the earlier works
which we know as Samuel and Kings. Some of the material
has been taken over virtually unchanged; some modified, or
replaced by an alternative version; sometimes old and new
material have been meshed together: sometimes quite new
material has been inserted. Here is another case of old
76 THE LIVING WORD
tradition renewed, with the basic form maintained but the

content elaborated, to give expression to a fresh perspective
on the past.
A different example would be provided by the Psalms,
since it is now clear from the finds at Qumran, and elsewhere,
that the Psalter was by no means thought of as closed. We
know of at least five other psalms, three of them attributed to
David, which were also used in the worship of Jewish com¬
munities at the time of Jesus. As we might expect, the reality
of a living tradition was most vigorous in the practice of
liturgy - old and new expressions of praise used together in
the vitality of worship, just as today in our own worship. Of
course we are quite some distance here from the problem of
pseudepigraphy. I mention these instances simply to make
the point that there is a consistent attitude clearly evident
behind all this - a powerful interaction between older
tradition and immediate experience of inspiration, with the
same result of a tradition which can be elaborated and ex¬
tended without any sense of disloyalty to or of abuse done to
the older forms. This consistent breadth of attitude is of vital
importance if we are to appreciate the milieu within which
the issue of pseudonymity should be viewed.
The only other example I will cite is that of Ecclesiastes, or
Qoheleth. Here the issue hangs principally on what are
generally regarded as the two main redactions of what other¬
wise is the work of a single author. These come at the begin-
ning and the end, the prologue (1.1—12) and the epilogue
(12.8-14). The point is that the introduction seems intent to
portray the author of Qoheleth as a king, and specifically
Solomon. As in the case of the Wisdom of Solomon this
identification would not be intended to mislead or to claim an
authority for the work which it did not deserve. On the
contrary, the identification is made because the redactor saw
the sentiments of Qoheleth as a proper extension of the
wisdom tradition begun by Solomon, a proper corrective of
possible abuse of the wisdom tradition itself, but a corrective
provided by and from within the wisdom tradition which
bears the name of Solomon. And the community in accepting
Qoheleth into the canon testifies not to its gullibility at being
deceived on the question of authorship, but its acceptance of
the redactor’s claim: that Qoheleth is what the redactor
claims, a legitimate expression of the Solomonic wisdom
tradition.
The most interesting feature of the epilogue is the asser¬
tion of 12.11 - ‘the sayings of the wise are sharp as goads, like
nails driven home: they lead the assembled people, for they
come from one shepherd’. The meaning is not entirely clear,
but clear enough for our purposes. Here is a claim to the
unity of the tradition of wisdom, a claim that the sayings of
Qoheleth, like all ‘the sayings of the wise’ come from the ‘one
shepherd’.
What is particularly worthy of note in the case of Ecclesi¬
astes is that the claim to stand in the authoritative tradition of
Solomonic wisdom is made not for a redaction of some
earlier wisdom writing, for some expanded and reworked
version of an older book, but for an entirely new work. Here
is a clear case of pseudonymity, if you like — the wisdom of
Qoheleth put forward under the authority of Solomon. But if
pseudonymity is the appropriate word we should note what it
means — not any intention to deceive or success in so doing,
but the claim to belong within the living tradition of
Solomon’s wisdom, even though a new and distinct literary
work — a claim which the community of faith evidently
accepted.
I have spent some time on the background of the Old
Testament in order to build up a picture in some depth of the
way in which authoritative tradition was regarded and the
way in which it was handled. Hopefully enough has been said
to make at least three points clear. (1) Authoritative tradition
was not regarded as something fixed and static. It was living
tradition, and as such was lived in and through, by means of
elaboration and reworking, redaction and expansion. (2) The
criterion for recognizing such reworking as acceptable,
whether the criterion was explicit or implicit, was continuity
and coherence of the newer expressions with the older. This
criterion was flexible enough to allow quite new material
under the old heading, even material with fresh emphases
and distinctive characteristics, and even new books. (3) The
claim that this newer material had the same authorship as the
original material within the tradition was not intended to
78 THE LIVING WORD
deceive and probably never did, at the time at least. Rather it

was a claim to belong to that tradition, to be a re-expression
of the essential message of the original fountainhead of the
tradition to meet the needs of a different day and situation.
And as such it was probably accepted as bearing the same
canonical authority.
This I would suggest is the proper and most illuminating
background against which to attempt to make sense of the
problem of pseudonymity in the New Testament.
4. The New Testament
It should cause little surprise that all that has been said so far
coheres so well with the points and emphases of the earlier
chapters. For it is precisely the same sense of a living tradition
which lies behind Jesus dispute with the Sadducees regarding
the resurrection; in this, it will be recalled, he sides with the
Pharisees. But also in his disputes with the Pharisees them¬
selves. For though they recognized the need to interpret the
sacred text, recognized that tradition was not something
fixed and closed, their own interpretations were in danger of
stifling that very tradition, by narrowing the legitimate range
of interpretation too far, by pre-empting the possibility that
the Spirit might prompt an obedience to the Torah which
was significantly different from their own rulings. And Paul,
no less than his fellow Pharisees, regarded his own exposition
of scripture as wholly expressive of the main thrust of the
Mosaic and prophetic tradition, even when it meant a radical
revision of particular parts of that tradition.
And in chapter 2 we saw that just the same sort of process
of Vergegenwartigung is what makes the best sense of the
Christian handling of the Jesus tradition itself. The same
sense of a tradition which is like molten metal, not yet solidi¬
fied into final shape, still able to be moulded into different
forms, still capable of having fresh material assimilated. To
underline the point we can add a few more examples which
may help to bring out the parallel with the Old Testament
instances cited above.
One interesting parallel is between the Chronicler’s hand¬
ling of the Samuel-Kings material and Matthew and Luke’s
use of Mark. The parallel is so close because in both cases we
have the earlier versions retained within the canon, as well as
the later versions. In both instances this fact, that both earlier
and later versions have been preserved, enables us to witness
the process and character of the living tradition. The way in
which it was passed down, added to, subracted from, re¬
minted and redacted. Yet still authoritative tradition, and in
the case of the Gospels, still the gospel (singular) of Jesus
Christ. /
Another example is the tradition of the sending out of the
twelve by Jesus (Mark 6 pars). Conservative scholars have
long been perplexed by the puzzling variation of detail -
what seems indeed to be outright contradiction between the
Evangelists. ‘Only a staff and sandals’, says Mark. ‘Nothing’,
says Matthew, ‘not even shoes or a staff (Mark 6.8—9; Matt.
10.10). The most obvious explanation is not that one or other
has got it wrong, or that some subtle harmonization is neces¬
sary and probable. In the light of what we have seen above, it
is much more natural to see here a further example of
traditions being used. Jesus gave them these instructions not
as an example of a particular mission carried out during his
time in Galilee, and of no greater interest than that, but as
instructions for mission. So they would be remembered and
so used. And as the character and circumstances of the
mission changed, as change they did, they would interpret
and adapt that instruction accordingly. Not with any sense of
cheating, or of accusing Jesus for being short-sighted, or
anything like that. But simply with the recognition that the
words appropriate for one kind of mission were less appro¬
priate for another, and that the words of the commission
could be adapted to reflect this fact and still express the same
commission. So, in this case, Matthew’s version seems to re¬
flect the conditions of a limited mileage mission as was
appropriate in the conditions of Galilee. Whereas Mark’s
version seems to reflect the circumstances of the Gentile
mission, where to venture forth without a staff and shoes
would have been foolhardy. Here again then is a case where
words can be altered without being unfaithful to the tradition
or to the original speaker, simply because the tradition has
that degree of flexibility and adaptability to changing circum-
80 THE LIVING WORD
stances, so that it retains its applicability and authority pre¬

cisely by being changed!
Another minor example. Matthew’s retelling of the parable
of the royal wedding feast includes the improbable detail of
the invited guests attacking and killing the servants sent to
call them to the feast, and of the king’s furious response in
sending troops to kill them and set their town on fire (Matt.
22.6-7). It would be very hard to avoid the conclusion that
this retelling reflects the events of ad 70, the destruction of
Jerusalem and death of many of its inhabitants. Here is a
straightforward case of a parable of Jesus retold with details
added to increase the impact of the parable on a post-70
audience. The point is more or less the same: it is the same
parable: Jesus can still be presented as its author without
straining belief. But it has been developed and reworked. It is
a piece of living tradition.
What we see in small degree in the case of the Synoptics we
see in larger degree in John’s Gospel - no essential difference
in kind, but only in degree. Against the context of the Jewish
tradition process and practice of Vergegenwartigung, so clear
in the Old Testament, what the Fourth Evangelist was doing
makes perfect sense. For John, we might say, was simply
doing what Deuteronomy did before him - presenting the
founding tradition of his community in first person sermon
form as delivered by the authoritative founder and fountain¬
head of that tradition. In both cases a form of pseudonymy is
involved. In neither case would it have been thought deceit¬
ful or improper. It was simply a way of expressing the con¬
tinuity, continuing vitality, and fuller significance of the
revelation which came through that person of normative
authority. In other terms, John was simply doing what
Second Isaiah had done before him — presenting a further
exposition of the great prophet’s message for the new situa¬
tion of a later generation. Not words actually spoken by the
one in whose name they were now given, but sufficiently
continuous and coherent with them as to bear his name
without impropriety or falsehood or likelihood to deceive.
John’s Gospel lies well within the bounds of the Vergegen¬
wartigung we saw attested in the Old Testament.
What then of the problem of pseudonymity as such in the
New Testament. It will occasion no surprise if I say that I see
in the process of living tradition sketched out above the key
to the solution of this problem. Let me attempt to demon¬
strate my point with reference to the two best examples of
this sort of pseudonymity in the New Testament — the
Pastoral epistles and II Peter.
(a) The Pastorals Here again there is no need to rehearse the

arguments for and against the post-Pauline authorship of the
Pastorals. It will serve my purpose sufficiently if pseudo¬
nymity is taken as a real possibility and the issue examined
within the context of the present discussion. Suffice it to
recall the clear differences of style as between the Pastorals
and the undisputed Paulines; also the developed pattern of
church order clearly reflected in the Pastorals, evidencing a
degree of institutionalization beyond anything visible in the
earlier Paulines.
Of the more conservative solutions, the most attractive and
most plausible is the suggestion that Paul was dependent on
different secretaries in writing his various letters. But on this
occasion that suggestion does not appear to offer sufficient
explanation, and in fact concedes more than most conserva¬
tives would consider wise. For the style of the undisputed
Paulines is characteristically uniform, despite the use of
secretaries; as is the style of the Pastorals. And the two groups
are characteristically different from each other in style. To
resolve this problem by attributing to the secretary or secre¬
taries who penned the Pastorals much greater freedom in
transcribing what Paul had commissioned them to say pro¬
vides only a partial resolution of the problem. Not only so,
but this resolution of the problem has already gone more
than half way towards the solution offered by the recognition of
the living quality of the tradition process. A secretary who creat¬
ively shapes the words of the living Paul into his own style and
with his own emphases is little different from a disciple who
works with the tradition stemming from the now dead Paul to
re-express it in his own style with the different emphases
which the changed situation of his own time calls for. Both
could be classified as examples of Vergegenwartigung, of actu¬
alizing or contemporizing a particular stream of tradition.
82 THE LIVING WORD
In fact, however, against the background of the tradition-

ing process examined above, there are several characteristics
of the Pastorals which point more strongly towards a post-
Pauline authorship than has usually been recognized. In
particular the emphasis on tradition itself, and on the estab¬
lished or fixed character of the tradition - ‘the faith’, ‘sound
teaching’, ‘that which has been entrusted’, etc. And even
more so the emphasis on the continuity of the teaching of the
Pastorals themselves with the earlier tradition. The role of
the church hierarchy is to preserve, cling to, protect the
tradition. Timothy is to take care to pass on the teaching to
trustworthy men, capable of teaching others also. It is pre¬
cisely this emphasis on the continuity of tradition which is the
mark of what we might now call legitimate or canonical
pseudepigraphy. The claim to stand within, to be continuous
with, part of the authoritative tradition - the claim of a
second generation disciple to belong to the authentic line of
tradition which he has inherited from the past.
Equally striking is the depiction of Paul within the
Pastorals. Using a word which occurs only in the Pastorals,
Paul is described as the ‘prototype’ of future disciples (I Tim.
1.16) and his teaching likewise, ‘the sound teaching which
you heard from me’ (II Tim. 1.13). Paul is the fountainhead
of the Pastorals tradition. Paul himself in his teaching is
archetypal for the communities addressed. Moreover, the
gospel with which he is identified was entrusted to him (I
Tim. 1.11; Titus 1.3). He is the prototype of the faithful
teacher. All this underlines the continuity between Paul and
his teaching on the one hand and the teaching of the
Pastorals on the other. The writer of the Pastorals has
deliberately patterned his teaching and responsibility as a
teacher on Paul. The teaching given in the Pastorals is Paul’s.
The personal notes which are a feature of the letter are
probably the last few notes that Paul was able to send out
from his last imprisonment, woven round with older
tradition re-worked and re-expressed for the later situation
reflected in the Pastorals to serve as the voice of the Pauline
tradition for a new day.
Within the tradition of Jewish contemporizing of the
authoritative tradition stemming from a revered figure this
THE PROBLEM OF PSEUDONIMITY 83
procedure would be wholly acceptable and unlikely to consti¬
tute any ‘problem of pseudonymity’. So far as we can tell,
assuming a date for the Pastorals in the last decade of the first
century, give or take ten years or so, the presence of the
Pastorals within the Pauline tradition went unremarked for a
further two or three generations. It was only when the ques¬
tion of canonicity came formally to the agenda, and the chief
criterion fixed on was that of apostolicity, that the assessment
of the Pastorals probably changed. The older style of legiti¬
mate pseudepigraphy as understood within a Jewish context
had probably been more and more lost sight of in the increas¬
ingly dominant Gentile church, and the criterion of canon¬
icity required that the personal references in the Pastorals
had to be understood as claims to authorship as such. And so
the pattern became set which has dominated the understand¬
ing of the church since. But if I am right, it was not so in the
beginning: the Pastorals made their first impact and took the
first step towards formal canonicity by being acknowledged
as appropriate and authentic re-expression of the Pauline
heritage and tradition and not as the products of Paul’s pen
as such.
(b) II Peter There is no need to elaborate the case of II Peter

at length. If any document in the New Testament is pseudo¬
nymous it is this one. Its language and style is so very dif¬
ferent from that of I Peter. It is clearly post-Pauline and
reflects an anxiety over the delay of the parousia which would
be unlikely were Peter himself still alive. And its difficulty in
gaining acceptance into the canon points firmly to the same
conclusion.
More to the point, however, the epistle reflects just the sort
of emphases which we have now grown to expect within the
Jewish traditioning process. A major reason for its being
written is the danger of false interpretation of older revela¬
tion, particularly of scripture and of Paul (1.20; 3.15—16). In
the face of false teachers and prophets (2.1) a stronger con¬
tinuity and coherence with the older revelation is necessary.
Hence the appeal back to I Peter; this is the second letter
from Peter (3.1). Hence the reuse of the theme of I Peter
1.3-9 in II Peter 1.3-11. And hence the deliberate appeal
84 THE LIVING WORD
back to the tradition of the transfiguration in 1.16-18 and the

appeal to ‘the commands given by the Lord and Saviour
through your apostles’ (3.2). Particularly interesting is 1.12—
15. It asserts that the truth taught here is simply a reminder
and memory refresher of what they already knew. But also
implies that this is Peter’s last testament and that he will make
provision for its teaching to be remembered after he is gone.
All this smacks strongly of the tradition of legitimate
pseudonymity outlined above. Here is the appeal to authori¬
tative tradition and the claim to be not only continuous with
that tradition but the authentic voice and bearer of it. Within
a Jewish context it was quite legitimate and acceptable to
express this claim by using the name of the originator or
fountainhead of that tradition. The test was whether the
church would accept that claim: and the criterion would be
not so much the inspiration of the actual author but the
degree to which his writing could be regarded as the voice of
the one named. In this case II Peter passed the test - but only
just.
5. Conclusion
Canonical pseudepigraphy is best seen as an example of the

Jewish understanding and practice of tradition as a living
force. That practice consisted essentially in the reworking
and contemporizing of authoritative tradition which stemmed
from a recognized spokesman for God and channel of divine
revelation. A later disciple standing within that tradition and
intent to re-express its message or to develop its emphases for
a new day and situation saw himself as the mouthpiece of that
tradition, speaking words congruent with the earlier revelation.
He could present his message as the message of the originator
of that stream of tradition, because in his eyes that is what it
was. Actual use of the name of the original lawgiver, prophet,
sage, scribe or apostle was simply a literary device consistent
with that practice. There was no intention to deceive, and
almost certainly the final readers were not in fact deceived.
Canonical pseudepigraphy was thus legitimate and ceases to
be a problem.
‘The living word’ is thus a fitting expression for the vitality
of the traditioning process within earliest Judaism and
Christianity. The phrase makes it clear that revelation was
conceived not as a static once-for-all speaking of particular
words which thereby immediately became fixed and petri¬
fied. The medium through which the revelation came was
conceived of in a much more fluid way. The words and style
and idiom could be reworked and indeed transformed into a
different form, with enlarged scope and emphasis and
adapted to changed circumstances.
In fact our study enables us to distinguish two stages in this
traditioning process: a first stage which consists in a rework¬
ing of the tradition itself; and a second stage at which the
tradition has become largely fixed and the contemporizing
process proceeds by interpretation of the authoritative text
without altering the text as such. But in each case we see the
same basic understanding of revelation and of the process by
which revelation from the past can still speak to the present.
In both stages we can speak quite properly and accurately of
‘the living word’.
PART II
THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE
ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURE
I
The issue
1. What is the issue concerning scripture which seems to be

dividing and confusing evangelicals today? It is not, I believe,
the question of inspiration as such: of whether and how the
Bible was inspired. No evangelical that I know of would wish
to deny that the biblical writers were inspired by God in what
they wrote, or to dispute the basic assertions of II Timothy
3.16 and II Peter 1.21. Nor is it, I believe, the question of
authority as such: of whether the Bible is authoritative for
Christians. All evangelicals are united in affirming that the
Bible is the word of God unto salvation, the constitutional
authority for the church’s faith and life.
Where evangelicals begin to disagree is over the implica¬
tions and corollaries of these basic affirmations of the Bible’s
inspiration and authority. When we begin to unpack these
basic affirmations, how much more is involved in them? How
much more is necessarily involved in them? The disagreement,
it is worth noting right away, depends partly on theological
considerations (what is the theological logic of affirming the
inspiration of scripture?), and partly on apologetic and
pastoral concerns (what cannot we yield concerning the
Bible’s authority without endangering the whole faith, centre
as well as circumference?). In order to maintain these
affirmations (inspiration and authority) with consistency of
faith and logic, in order to safeguard these affirmations from
being undermined or weakened — what more precisely must
90 THE LIVING WORD
we define and defend? What does the assertion of the Bible’s

inspiration require us to affirm about the content of the Bible
and of its constituent parts? What does the assertion of the
Bible’s authority require us to affirm about the continuing
authority of any particular word or passage of scripture?
2. There was a time (in the seventeenth century) when the

defenders of the Bible thought that the inspiration of the
Bible could be understood only in terms of what we now call
‘the mechanical dictation theory’, with the writers described
as ‘living and writing pens’.1 There were even those at this
period of scholastic Protestantism who found it necessary to
maintain that the pointing of the Massoretic text of the Old
Testament belonged to the original autographs;2 and that the
Greek of the New Testament must be pure, free of the
vulgarisms of the spoken Greek of the time and of Hebraisms
in construction, otherwise God’s credit as an author would be
compromised.3 Thankfully I know of no evangelical today
who would wish to pitch his first line of defence at such an
indefensible position. Evangelicals today are united in believ-
ing that such a fuller definition is both unnecessary and
unfounded.4
Nevertheless, evangelicals do still disagree on where that
first line of defence should be pitched. In particular, for a
hundred years now there has been disagreement among
evangelicals on whether it can or should be pitched at the line
called ‘inerrancy’. A century ago, A. A. Hodge and B. B.
Warfield were the most doughty proponents of the view
that the line could be drawn nowhere else. Thus, for ex¬
ample, in 1881 they made the following claim:
The historical faith of the Church has always been, that all
the affirmations of Scripture of all kinds, whether of
spiritual doctrine or duty, or of physical or historical fact,
or of psychological or philosophical principle, are without
any error, when the ipsissima verba of the original auto¬
graphs are ascertained and interpreted in their natural
and intended sense.5
In cordial disagreement was James Orr, another evangelical

stalwart, who evidently was just as strongly of the opinion
THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE 91
that the ‘inerrancy’ line of defence was no more defensible or
worth trying to defend than the mechanical dictation theory
of scholastic Protestantism.
It is urged, for example, that unless we can demonstrate

what is called the ‘inerrancy’ of the biblical record, down
even to its minutest details, the whole edifice of belief in
revealed religion falls to the ground. This, on the face of it,
is a most suicidal position for any defender of revelation to
take up.7
Thus was the range of disagreement within evangelical ranks

on the question of inerrancy clearly outlined almost from the
start.
For a lengthy period in the middle of this last hundred
years, it looked as though the word ‘infallible’ would provide
a better ground of defence on which almost all evangelicals
could unite. This was in part, at least because the word ‘infall¬
ible’ was more flexible than the word ‘inerrant’: a fact we
should not ignore. On the one hand were those who inter¬
preted it in terms of the classic Protestant formulation: ‘an
infallible rule of faith and life’.8 On the other hand were
those who consciously took their stand within the particular
tradition of the great Princeton theologians and interpreted
it as ‘infallible full stop’. An example of the latter is E. J.
Young:
In all parts, in its very entirety, the Bible, if we are to accept
its witness to itself, is utterly infallible. It is not only that
each book given the name of Scripture is infallible but,
more than that, the content of each such book is itself
Scripture, the Word of God written and, hence, infallible,
free entirely from the errors which adhere to mere human
compositions. Not alone to moral and ethical truths, but to
all statements of fact does this inspiration extend.9
But there were also those who would have preferred to echo
the words of James Denney:
The infallibility of the Scriptures is not a mere verbal
inerrancy or historical accuracy, but an infallibility of
power to save. The Word of God infallibly carries God’s
power to save men’s souls. If a man submit his heart and
92 THE LIVING WORD
mind to the Spirit of God speaking in it, he will infallibly

become a new creature in Christ Jesus. That is the only
kind of infallibility I believe in. For a mere verbal inerrancy
I care not one straw. It is worth nothing to me; it would be
worth nothing if it were there, and it is not.10
Unfortunately that period of relative calm and consensus has

been broken. In the last few years those who see themselves
as the heirs of Warfield have begun to insist that the line must
be held at inerrancy. They sincerely believe that those
evangelicals who do not hold to inerrancy are on the slippery
slope which leads to unfaith, that inerrancy is only the first of
a long line of dominoes whose fall will bring the whole line of
Christian beliefs tumbling down. The storm broke in
America with the publication of Harold Lindsell’s book, The
Battle for the Bible (Zondervan), in 1976, with its forthright
insistence that only the Warfield position on scripture is valid
and orthodox, and its fierce attack on those evangelicals and
evangelical institutions who, in Lindsell’s view, have aposta-
sized by abandoning the inerrancy line - a particular case in
point being Fuller Seminary where Lindsell had previously
been vice-president.11
The inerrancy wing of evangelicalism has continued to
make the running in this renewed debate. In 1977 the Inter¬
national Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) was founded in
North America, its objective being to provide a rallying-point
for evangelicals based on ‘a Bible that is true in whatever it
touches’, ‘not merely in matters of faith and practice but also
in other matters such as statements relating to history and
science. Or as James Boice, ICBI’s first chairman, puts it
more concisely, ‘What Scripture says, God says - through
human agents and without error.’13 One of the signs of the
times is that someone of the stature of J. I. Packer feels it no
longer enough to affirm the Bible’s inspiration and authority
no longer enough to affirm even its infallibility. These have
become ‘weasel words’ through having some of their mean¬
ing rubbed off, so that inerrancy’ it has to be, despite the
negative form of the word.14
3. The issues raised by these developments are serious and

cannot be ignored. Are only those who affirm ‘inerrancy’ to
be permitted to rejoice in the description ‘evangelical’? Are
those who think ‘inerrancy’ a misguided and unhelpful word
in this context - as indefensible a line of defence as Orr
thought, as incapacitating a line of attack as Denney saw it -
are they to be dubbed apostates and renegades, as grievous
offenders against the holy majesty of God? Should ‘in¬
errancy’ be the watchword for today, the banner under which
all those who acknowledge the inspiration and authority of
scripture unite?
How to answer such questions? At least we can agree that
all evangelicals would want to give the first priority to listen¬
ing to the voice of scripture itself. We may need to dispute
with non-evangelicals as to whether in so doing we are argu¬
ing in a circle. With other evangelicals we can assume a
common willingness to submit such issues to scripture.
But how to marshal the testimony of scripture? Here at
once the differences begin to appear within the ranks of
evangelicals. The standard Warfield approach is to appeal,
not unnaturally, to the passages which contain explicit or
implicit teaching on scripture as such. These are understood
as requiring nothing short of the full inerrancy position.
Other passages which may seem to contradict that con¬
clusion, or to put it under strain, can usually be harmonized
without overstraining the bounds of possibility, or if still
intractable can be set aside until fuller illumination is given
us. On the other hand, those less happy with the inerrancy
line are less happy not because they wish to resist a clearly
stated teaching of scripture, but because they do not think
this in fact is what scripture teaches. They do not find the
teaching passages pointing to such a thoroughgoing con¬
clusion. To clarify what precisely they do teach about scrip¬
ture’s inspiration and authority, it is necessary to listen to the
fuller testimony of scripture: necessary, that is, to observe not
only what scripture teaches about scripture, but also how
scripture uses scripture.
Since my brief is to expound the more ‘radical’ evangelical
position on this issue, the rest of this chapter will be devoted
to exploring what I see to be (a) the weaknesses of the
Warfield position, and (b) the strengths and implications of
the alternative, also scriptural, also evangelical. As the title of
94 THE LIVING WORD
the chapter indicates, I am concerned here above all with the

authority of scripture: to ascertain what is involved in asserting
scripture’s authority, how its authority ‘works’, and whether, in
particular, inerrancy is a necessary condition of its authority.15
II
The weakness of the Warfield position
4. The passages which contain the strongest teaching about

scripture are II Timothy 3.16 and II Peter 1.21 (already
mentioned at the beginning), and in addition two Gospel
passages, John 10.35 and Matthew 5.18.16
(a) II Timothy 3.16
All scripture is inspired (theopneustos) by God and profitable

(■ophelimos) for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for
training in righteousness.
It is difficult to see how this verse requires inerrancy. The
word ‘inspired’ (theopneustos) is certainly a word rich in sig¬
nificance, which Warfield not unfairly translates ‘God-
breathed , but the quality which it affirms of scripture is
that of having been given by divine inspiration. There is no
indication that the author wanted to be more precise than
that. And the consequence he himself draws is that since it is
God-breathed, therefore it is ‘profitable, useful, beneficial,
advantageous’18 in the matters of salvation (3.15), sanctifica¬
tion and moral education (3.17). If anything, the most
natural interpretation of the verse would seem to support the
distinction which some evangelicals have urged between what
scripture teaches concerning the believer’s faith and life19
and what it touches beyond that (scientific and historical
detail). At any rate it is hard to see how the verse can be
used to justify extending the scope of biblical authority be¬
yond that of ‘teaching, reproof, correction and training in
righteousness’ (see further below p.98).
(b) II Peter 1.20—21
No prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own (or the

prophet’s own) interpretation, because no prophecy ever
came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy
Spirit spoke from God.
Here again the talk is of inspiration, and the metaphor is

even more vigorous — of the prophecy as uttered by one
borne along by the Spirit. But it says nothing more about the
character of the prophecy, as to whether, for example, the
words, descriptions or historical references used therein
must therefore be error-free in all points of fact. Verse 20
probably draws attention to the dangers of subsequent inter¬
pretation (RSV, NEB, JB): the interpreter can mistake the
meaning of the prophet, unless he is as dependent on the
Spirit to understand the prophecy as the original author was
in his writing. But some maintain that the reference is to the
prophet’s own interpretation (NIV): a thought perhaps
parallel to that in I Peter 1.10-12.
(c) John 10.35
The scripture cannot be broken.

The context is Jesus’ response to the charge that he was
making himself God. Jesus replies by citing Psalm 82.6, ‘I
said, You are gods’, where those referred to were probably
thought to be judges.21 If men can be called ‘gods’ (and
scripture cannot be broken), how much more the Son of God.
The parenthetical phrase is open to a strong interpretation.
For example, Leon Morris:
The term ‘broken’ is not defined ... But it is perfectly
intelligible. It means that Scripture cannot be emptied of
its force by being shown to be erroneous.22
But the point is not whether the psalmist was in error when
he called judges ‘gods’. It is rather that the psalmist’s words
cannot be without significance: that is, cannot be emptied of
the significance they obviously contain, and which sig¬
nificance Jesus proceeds to draw out in the typical Jewish a
fortiori or a minori ad mains argument. So the first half of
Morris’s last sentence catches the sense well (‘scripture cannot
be emptied of its force’), whereas the latter half (‘by being
shown to be erroneous’) is his own corollary rather than that
of Jesus or John.23
96 THE LIVING WORD
Warfield also makes much of the casual nature of the

clause in Psalm 82.6:
In the Saviour’s view the indefectible authority of Scrip¬

ture attaches to the very form of expression of its most
casual clauses. It belongs to Scripture through and
through, down to its minutest particulars, that it is of in¬
defectible authority.24.
Whether that is an appropriate categorization of the original

passage (‘casual clause’) may well be doubted, but in any case
there is sufficient evidence that, in the first century ad, Psalm
82 (including v.6) was a focus of considerable interest, both
among the rabbis and at Qumran: to whom did the descrip¬
tion ‘God’ and ‘gods’ refer in vv. 1 and 6?25 No one doubted
that the use of these words was significant; it was their refer¬
ence that was uncertain. John therefore represents Jesus as
drawing on a passage of contemporary interest whose force
would be accepted (that men are called ‘gods’), and as build¬
ing his argument on that significance in good rabbinic style.
(d) Matthew 5.18
Truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an
iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accom¬
plished (genetai).
\
One of the interesting and puzzling features of this saying is

that the very strong middle clause (‘not one iota ... will pass
from the law’) is qualified by two temporal clauses (‘until
heaven and earth pass away’ and ‘until all is accomplished’). It
is clearly possible to take the first clause as asserting the law’s
eternal validity. As Boice does:
Jesus Christ not only assumed the Bible’s (sic) authority; he

taught it, going so far as to teach that it is entirely without
error and is eternal, being the Word of God [Matt. 5.18 is
then quoted].26
The problem which that interpretation leaves us is to explain

how the early churches could nevertheless abandon various
important requirements of the law (more than just iotas and
dots): animal sacrifice, the distinction between clean and un¬
clean foods, and the sabbath.
The last clause is more ambiguous: it could be interpreted
as referring to the end of the age, and understood as a
reaffirmation of the law’s eternal validity - in which case the
same problem arises. Alternatively, it could refer to the fulfil¬
ment of the law (d the Old Testament scriptures?) in the
person and work of Christ; and the first clause could then be
taken as a hyperbolic affirmation of the law’s continuing
force (cf. Luke 16.17).27 But if that durability of the law was
only until it had been fulfilled iu Christ, then we can hardly
say that either Jesus or Matthew thought of the Old Testa¬
ment as of eternally binding authority. The answer is most
probably somewhere in between: Matthew probably thinks of
the law here as the law reinterpreted through the life and
teaching of Jesus, and not just in v. 18 but throughout these
four verses (5.17—20).28 In which case, the force of the iota/
dot affirmation has to be understood accordingly and cannot
be taken as asserting the unconditional authority of the law.
Either way, it is the authority of the law which is in view
here: the extent to which, and the way in which, its claim to
complete authority still binds the believer. If that is what
‘without error’ means in this context (of continuing binding
authority), then Matthew 5.18 can be interpreted only doubt¬
fully and improbably as an unqualified affirmation of the
law’s lack of error — an interpretation which leaves larger
problems than it resolves. And if ‘without error’ extends to
points of history and science, then it need hardly be said that
such a question lies not at all within the scope of the thought.
There is other biblical material which the followers of
Warfield use to reinforce their stand on the inerrancy line,
and some of it we will allude to later. But these four verses
can justifiably be called the four corner pillars of the in¬
errancy stronghold. What a closer examination of them has
revealed is the weakness rather than the strength of these
four pillars (when treated as assertions of inerrancy). This
weakness can be further clarified by reference to two key
words: intention and interpretation.
5. The supporters of inerrancy have not paid sufficient

heed to the question of the biblical author’s intention.29 To be
sure, they recognize that the scriptural writer’s intention must
98 THE LIVING WORD
be taken into account,30 but the point seems to serve primar¬

ily as a convenient explanation of a good deal of the phen¬
omena of scripture which clashes with an unqualified
assertion of inerrancy (‘lack of modern technical precision,
irregularities of grammer or spelling, observational descrip¬
tions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyper¬
bole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of
material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or
the use of free citations’).31 Where it was not the author’s
intention to give precise details - so the argument runs, quite
rightly — it is unjustified to count his imprecision as error.32
Unfortunately, however, the question of author’s intention
too often ceases to have bearing beyond the resolution of
‘problem passages’. In the case of the four pillar passages
reviewed above, for example, it is a question often not really
posed at all - or else answered far too casually. But what was
the intention of each of the authors of these four passages?
In each case the proponents of inerrancy tend simply to
assume that the utterance embraces the thought of inerrancy.
But (as we have seen) in no case can it be shown with any
probability that such was the author’s intention. In particular,
the conclusion which II Timothy 3.16 draws from the ‘God-
breathed’ character of scripture is its value for doctrinal and
ethical instruction, which hardly amounts to an assertion or
assumption of scripture’s lack of error.33
In point of fact, the conclusion drawn by the proponents of
inerrancy (that these passages teach inerrancy) is not an ex-
egetical conclusion at all. It is a dogmatic deduction drawn
from their concept of God. ‘God’s character demands in¬
errancy ... If every utterancedn the Bible is from God and if
God is a God of truth ... then the Bible must be wholly
truthful or inerrant.’34 But here again the question of divine
intention has been totally ignored. What, after all, if it was not
God’s intention to preserve the writers of scripture from the
sort of scientific and historical inaccuracy, to admit the pre¬
sence of which in the Bible would be a slight on the divine
honour (in view of the ICBI)?35 What if God’s rule of faith
and life never was intended to be confused with, or depend
on, the possibility of harmonizing the variant accounts, for
example, of Judas’s death (Matt. 27.3-8; Acts 1.18-19)?
What if it was God’s intention that, for example, sayings of
the exalted Christ through an inspired prophet or inter¬
preter should be given a place in the tradition of Jesus’
teachings and accorded the same authority?36 Such questions
cannot be answered (or dismissed) simply on the basis of a
dogmatic premise. They are real and legitimate questions,
and can only be answered, if answers can be achieved, by
means of exegesis.
Consider two more cases which illustrate well the import¬
ance of taking the question of divine intention more seriously
and some of the wider ramifications: the historicity of Jesus’
utterances in the Fourth Gospel, and the acceptability of
pseudonymous letters within the New Testament. Here too
we must ask, in the first case: What if it never was the fourth
evangelist’s intention that the extended discourses of the
Fourth Gospel should be understood as uttered by Jesus
during his ministry on earth? What if it was quite clearly
understood, by author and first readers alike, that these were
sermons or meditations on some particular saying or episode
or facet of Jesus’ ministry? Reference to the repeated phrase
‘Jesus said’, and its equivalents, cannot be assumed to settle
the matter, as any preacher who has elaborated a Gospel
incident in order to make it more vivid or to bring out its
point more clearly for his hearers, must acknowledge. What
the intention of the author or inspiring Spirit was on this
point cannot be prejudged.37 Such an issue can only be
settled, if at all, by exegesis: by an exegesis which gives
sufficient attention to historical context of meaning and
genre; an exegesis which in this case must take proper
account of the differences between John and the Synoptics,
and of the midrashic character of the Johannine discourses.38
And if, the exegesis points to the answer that the Johannine
discourses are sermons or meditations on particular words or
events from Jesus’ life, then the most probable conclusion is
that this is precisely what John intended them to be. With
such a conclusion, it should be noted, the inspiration and
authority of John as inspired scripture is in no way
threatened, but only properly understood; whereas the
attempt to insist that John must have intended his readers to
understand that the historical Jesus said every word while on
100 THE LIVING WORD
earth, detracts from the authority of John as scripture by

making it teach something the author probably never
intended.
Likewise on the issue of pseudonymity: What if pseudepi-
graphy was at least in some instances in the first century AD a
recognized and acceptable form of literature? What if, for
example, a disciple of Paul wrote one of the New Testament
letters in the name of Paul, and the letter was received in the
same spirit by the addressees? Here, too, the issue cannot be
assumed to be settled by appeal to the opening words of a
disputed letter, without reference to the wider historical con¬
text of literary practice and form.39 B. M. Metzger, in his
valuable review of this evidence, at one point cites
Tertullian’s comment that ‘it is allowable that that which
disciples publish should be regarded as their master’s
work.’40 He subsequently concludes quite fairly:
Since the use of the literary form of pseudepigraphy need

not be regarded as necessarily involving fraudulent intent,
it cannot be argued that the character of inspiration ex¬
cludes the possibility of pseudepigraphy among the
canonical writings.41
In both these instances the question of intention has not been

given sufficient scope, and the inerrancy line has been drawn
much too restrictively. By insisting on a particular under¬
standing of the text which pays too litde attention to a
properly historical exegesis, the authority of scripture has
been more abused than defended.
The fact is, then, that once the question of intention is
given wider scope (as above), the inerrancy line ceases to have
the firmness and solidity which its proponents assume when
they insist on building their defence on it. For not only does it
have to be relaxed to allow for all sorts of inexactitudes and
casualness (as above, p.98 and n.31), but it has always to be
subordinated to the issue of intended meaning. And each
time exegesis points to the conclusion that an author’s in¬
tended meaning does not depend on the inerrancy or other¬
wise of ‘whatever he touches’,42 then the inevitable corollary
is that the inerrancy claim has missed the point. In other
words, when the question of divine intention in scripture is
taken seriously, the idea of inerrancy at best becomes more
problematic and obscure than helpful. To say that a biblical
author is true and reliable in the meaning he intends, is a
statement which makes good sense. To insist that he is more
than that — inerrant in all he says — confuses more than
clarifies, and, worse still, directs attention as often as not away
from the force of the biblical statement on to subordinate
issues of factual detail.43
6. The other key word is interpretation: a word which opens

up what is really another facet of the same broader issue.
Interpretation is more demanding than exegesis. Exegesis, I
take to be the task of trying to understand the biblical writing
in its original meaning, within its own terms, within its own
context.44 Interpretation, on the other hand, can be defined,
for the moment, as the task of trying to translate that
meaning into the language, thought-forms and idioms of the
interpreter’s day, as far as possible without adding to or
subtracting from that original meaning. No one doubts that
interpretation is necessary. We cannot expect all Christians to
operate directly out of the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek in
which the Bible was originally written. But as soon as we say
translation, we are caught up in interpretation, and when
translation becomes exposition, then interpretation is the
name of the game.
The point is that interpretation inevitably involves un¬
certainty. Interpretation is the art of weighing probability
against possibility. Again and again we cannot be certain as to
what the biblical author intended to say and teach, and must
settle for the most probable interpretation. We have seen this
already in the case of the four pillar passages examined
above. The same uncertainty affects even the most central
elements in New Testament teaching. What, after call, did
Jesus mean by ‘the kingdom of God’? The fairly broad con¬
sensus on this one has been recently called in sharp question
by Bruce Chilton.45 What does Paul mean by justification
through faith? Here, too, the Protestant consensus has
similarly been called in question by the work, of Krister
Stendahl and Ed Sanders. 6 Is the Living Bible justified in its
interpretative translation of John 1.1, ‘Before anything else
102 THE LIVING WORD
existed, there was Christ with God’? I for one take leave to
doubt it.47
Of course, in most cases we can be sufficiently confident of
the substance of the sense intended - of the author’s main
emphasis. There is no doubt, for example, that the Bible
consistently presents God as Creator, even if the ‘technical
details’ remain unclear. Again, there is no doubt that the New
Testament consistently teaches that the resurrection of Jesus
is something which happened to Jesus and not simply to his
disciples, even though there remains uncertainty as to
whether we are talking about a physical resurrection (Luke
24.39) or of his resurrection as a spiritual body (I Cor. 15.44—
50). And in its overall instruction ‘unto salvation’ (II Tim.
3.15) the message of the Bible is quite clear enough and
consistent, even when emphases differ in different con¬
texts.48 The trouble is that the assertion of inerrancy wants to
say more, and to be meaningful needs to be able to claim
more. To be ‘sufficiently confident of the substance of the
sense intended, of the author’s main emphasis’ is not enough.
It is inerrancy which is being asserted, not merely authority.
It is inerrancy in point of detail, not merely authority of the
main point of teaching (even if, it would appear, the author
only intended to teach that one main point, to instruct unto
salvation: see the discussion above, pp.97ff.).
. To cry ‘inerrancy’ on all that the Bible touches, when we
have to live with such uncertainty, is to promote a kind of
double-think which cannot be healthy. Here it seems to me
that Denney s point gains force. The authority of scripture is
not the kind which essentially depends on rational argument
and logical demonstration of detailed inerrancy; it is rather a
power which grasps the hearer, so that conscience, mind and
will cry out, This is the word of God’. Was it not just such a
contrast Paul had in mind when he reminded the Corinthians
that ‘my speech and my message were not in plausible words
of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power’
(I Cor.2.4)?49
When we move beyond particular texts to larger patterns
and beliefs more broadly based in scripture, the question of
interpretation becomes even more important. Of course, cen¬
tral affirmations and insights of faith, consistently expressed
throughout scripture, become more firmly established: the
one God’s redemptive love, man’s pride and selfish grasping,
etc. But beyond such essentials, the simple fact is that different
schemes and systems of faith and practice can be drawn from
scripture and claim legitimate grounding in scripture. Here
the important principle of interpretation, the perspicuity of
scripture, must be handled with great self-critical circum¬
spection; otherwise it can quickly degenerate into little more
than a confidence trick. For what it usually boils down to, in
application, is the rule of thumb whereby I interpret the
unclear passages of scripture to conform to the clear pas¬
sages. What I can too easily forget, or conveniently ignore, is
that what is clear to me may not be clear to you, and what is
unclear to me may be quite obvious to you. Consequently the
same hermeneutical principle quickly leads to different
patterns of faith and life. Why is it, for example, that almost
all Christians have abandoned the sabbath as their holy day?
The awkward answer is that they have conformed the very
clear teaching of Exodus 20.8—11 to what is at best an implica¬
tion drawn from the New Testament. Another awkward ex¬
ample: Reformed tradition (including not least Princeton
theology) has developed a form of worship which gives pride
of place to the sermon, where the model of the Christian
preacher, as like as not, is the Old Testament prophet. Yet
the same tradition has managed to ignore (or discount) al¬
most completely what is after all the most clear guidance in
the New Testament on what should take place in Christian
worship (I Cor. 14.26).50
The fact is, like it or not, that we each one individually, and
as part of a particular tradition, work with what amounts to a
canon within the canon in order to justify the distinctive
emphases of that tradition. For example: for the Lutheran it
is Paul’s teaching on justification through faith to which every¬
thing else is conformed; for the Pentecostal it is the pneu-
matology of Acts and I Corinthians 12—14 which is the ‘clear’
which enables him to interpret the ‘unclear’.51 Indeed all
Christians must work with a canon within the canon, otherwise
we would not be Christians. For we all interpret the Old Testa¬
ment in the light of the revelation of Jesus Christ. We can
only justify the abandoning of clear scriptural commands
104 THE LIVING WORD
- for example, regarding the sabbath and sacrifices — by

appealing to our canon within the canon. Whether we call it
the principle of progressive revelation or not, the fact re¬
mains that we allow one scripture to reduce the force of
another, to set aside another. But notice what this means. If
we take the point about interpretation seriously - the inevit¬
able necessity of interpretation and the character of inter¬
pretation — we cannot simply affirm ‘What the Bible says, God
says’ as meaning that each word of scripture is of continuing
and irreversible authority, calling forth from us unquestion¬
ing obedience. In which case inerrancy, in the sense of in¬
defectible authority, becomes a concept requiring still more
qualification and causing still more confusion. And if we take
seriously the diversity of legitimate interpretations, we can¬
not simply assert that problems will be resolved by harmoniz¬
ing52 without justifying the point of view from which we
engage in the harmonizing; without justifying the exegetical
clarity of the ‘clear’ to accord with which we interpret the
‘unclear’; without justifying the canon within the canon by
which we in effect render the rest of the canon of only
deutero-canonical authority. But as soon as we recognize and
admit that, at least in some instances, we have to choose
between scriptures, the blanket assertion of inerrancy becomes
inappropriate and indefensible.
In particular, the dogma of inerrancy is itself a particular
interpretation of particular scriptural passages; an interpre¬
tation which, as we have already seen, is by no means self-
evident. The Warfield line Princeton theology, is itself a par¬
ticular tradition within evangelical Christianity which is by no
means clear to other evangelicals, let alone to other
Christians.53 To insist on this' tradition as the only legitimate
way of understanding the New Testament is to ignore the
hermeneutical process altogether. It ignores the fact that the
inerrancy line is built on at best doubtful exegetical founda¬
tions. It ignores the hermeneutical uncertainty as to the
divine intention in not a few passages of scripture.54 It
ignores the fact that we all in effect ignore the teaching of
many passages of scripture because we find others more clear
or more conducive.55 In short, it seems to me to be a very
dangerous kind of unselfcritical blinkeredness which makes
it possible for some Christians to take an interpretation of
scripture whose hermeneutical justification from within
scripture is weaker than other interpretations, to exalt it
above all other alternative views of scripture, and to use it to
deny validity to those others, even when they have at least as
strong an exegetical base.
7. It will be clear by now that I have grave reservations

about the legitimacy of the inerrancy position as an interpre¬
tation of scripture — both of scripture in its teaching on
scripture and of scripture as a whole - and a deep disquiet at
the attempt of the ICBI to persuade all evangelicals that the
inerrancy line is the only sound line for the defence of scrip¬
ture’s inspiration and authority. I fully recognize that for the
proponents of inerrancy there are even bigger issues at stake
- no less than the honour and trustworthiness of God.56 I
respect that concern, even when I believe they have jumped
too quickly from ‘God says’ to ‘without error’, and have
missed out the absolutely crucial intermediate questions —
‘How has he said? With respect to what? With what intention?
— questions whose answers in terms of exegesis and interpre¬
tation point up the inaccuracy and inadequacy of ‘inerrancy’
as a scriptural concept applicable to scripture.57
I, too, think that the issues go beyond the confines of
debate over hermeneutical principles and procedures. At
three points in particular I believe the proponents of in¬
errancy are in considerable spiritual peril and are putting the
faith of their disciples seriously at risk - I would not be so
bold were it not that the issues are so grave.
(a) In all seriousness, I fear that the ICBI, in its position on

scripture, cannot escape the charge of Pharisaic legalism. The
Pharisees believed that the Torah must be clarified by their
oral tradition. The oral law, they sincerely believed, was
simply an explanation of the written law, and therefore of
equal force. By means of their hermeneutical techniques,
they were able to develop a tradition which made a consistent
whole of the teaching of the law and the prophets. But Jesus
criticized the Pharisees severely because their traditions were
actually nullifying the clear teaching of scripture - which
106 THE LIVING WORD
of course they had incorporated into their systematized

tradition, but with lesser force (Mark 7.9—13). From the critic¬
isms levelled earlier against the inerrancy line, it will be
apparent that it too is a tradition: a tradition based more on a
systematized dogma than on scripture itself; a tradition
which ignores or harmonizes into conformity too much in
scripture which points away from inerrancy. Speaking per¬
sonally, it is the harmonizing expedients of the proponents of
inerrancy58 which have reminded me most strongly of the
rabbinic casuistry which drew such outspoken condemnation
from Jesus. It is possible, is it not, as Paul warned us (Rom.
7.6; II Cor. 3.6, 14—17), to be so concerned for the letter of
scripture that we actually miss what the Spirit seeks to say to
us through it; to stifle the life of the Spirit by concentrating
on the incidental forms through which he speaks? That is the
danger which I fear the ICBI is courting.
(b) The second point is linked with the first. It is the fear
that the heirs of Princeton theology are in grave danger of
bibliolatry.59 By asserting of the Bible an indefectible author¬
ity, they are attributing to it an authority proper only to God
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If we say the biblical authors
wrote without error, we attribute to their writing what we
otherwise recognize to be true only of Christ. We do for the
Bible what Roman Catholic dogma has done for Mary the
mother of Jesus; and if the charge of Mariolatry is appro¬
priate against Catholic dogma, then the charge of bibliolatry
is no less appropriate against the inerrancy dogma. We can¬
not argue for a precise analogy between the divine and
human in Christ (effecting sinlessness) and the divine and
human in scripture (effecting inerrancy) without making the
Bible worthy of the same honour as Christ - and that is
bibliolatry.60
(c) The third charge is even more serious, since it involves

the spiritual health of others. It is that the inerrancy line is
pastorally disastrous. Integral to the inerrancy position is the
all-or-nothing argument, the slippery slope mentality, the
repeated reasoning that if we cannot trust the Bible in all, we
cannot trust it at all.61 That may be an argument which
appeals to the over-simplifications of spiritual infancy; but it
is hardly an appropriate expression of the spiritual maturity
defined by Paul as the enabling to discern the things which
really matter, to approve what is essential (Phil. 1. 10).62 To
make, for example, Jesus’ teaching on love of God and love
of neighbour dependent on the historicity of the fact that
Jesus cursed the fig tree on the day after the cleansing of the
temple (Matt. 21.12—19) — or was it the same day (Mark
11.12—15)? — is neither discriminating nor brave. In my ex¬
perience of teaching theology, the student who is most at risk
as regards faith is precisely the one who has been previously
instructed in this logic. When such a student finds that some
such peripheral matters cannot be harmonized without doing
some exegetical violence to the text, he/she is forced by this
logic to abandon all. The worst thing about the slippery-slope
imagery is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy in far too many
cases. And the fault, be it noted, lies not with those who seek
to train the student in exegesis, to develop his theological
awareness and expertise, to enable him to discriminate
between the primary and the secondary, and to handle the
big questions confronting faith in today’s world. The fault
lies rather with those who have taught the student that it is all
or nothing. And even those who cling firmly to the top of the
slope — what a burden of (subconscious) fear they carry: fear
of finding even one error in the biblical record, fear of what
the archaeologist’s spade might turn up, fear of engaging in
open-ended discussion, fear of asking searching questions in
case the answer does not fit into the system. The top of that
slippery slope looks to me too much like that state of spiritual
immaturity which Paul was delighted to have left behind,
where the spirit of slavery to fear and bondage to the letter is
more noticeable than the liberty and life of the Spirit of
sonship (Rom. 8.14f.; II Cor. 3.6, 17; Gal. 4.1—7). After all,
the Pharisees were as convinced as the ICBI that their under¬
standing and elaboration of the law was the only way to
remain faithful to scripture.
In short, if I had to sum up my criticism of the Warfield
position it would be that it is exegetically improbable,
hermeneutically defective, theologically dangerous, and edu¬
cationally disastrous.
108 THE LIVING WORD
III
According to scripture
8. What then is the alternative to inerrancy? Not, of course,

an assumption of wholesale error or complete untrust¬
worthiness. That is the alternative suggested by the ‘all or
nothing’ slippery slope argument — appropriate perhaps
when the discussion has to be simplified to the level of a lower
school debating society, but not at the level of exegesis and
interpretation. So what is implied in the assertion of the
Bible’s inspiration and authority? What does that assertion
say about the continuing authority of any particular passage
in its intended meaning?
How can we answer this question? The biblical passages
which express or imply a doctrine of inspired scriptural
authority take us so far, as we have seen (‘inspired and there¬
fore profitable’, etc.). The trouble is that on their own they
are not sufficiently explicit for our purposes. What then?
What is too often forgotten in such discussions is that in
scripture we have not only passages which teach an ‘in prin¬
ciple’ view of scriptural authority, but also passages where
scripture is actually used — where scripture functioned as
authority in practice. Here obviously is our best hope of a
clearer answer to our question: an examination of how scrip¬
ture is actually handled by and within scripture. If we assume
a consistency of inspiration, and a consistency in the divine
will expressed through inspiration, then this presumably will
be reflected in the inspired writer’s attitude to, and use of,
earlier inspired writings. Thus we will learn how scripture
worked as scripture; how its authority was actually perceived
and regarded by scripture. Thus we will learn what the bib¬
lical writers themselves meant when they elsewhere asserted
scripture’s inspiration and authority.63 In other words, a
properly critical method of hermeneutics need not be im¬
posed on scripture,64 but can be derived from scripture itself.
Scripture can indeed show us how to interpret scripture.
This procedure, it should be noted, will avoid the weakness
of Warfield’s famous essay, “‘It says”: “Scripture says”: “God
says . Warfield points quite properly to the fact that these
phrases can be used interchangeably in the New Testament -
scriptural passages being attributed to God where God was
not represented in that passage as the actual speaker (Matt.
19.4f.; Acts 13.34), or attributed to scripture where the
original was actually a message from God (Rom. 9.17; Gal.
3.8). He also notes, not unfairly, that in some instances the
formula is used in the present tense (‘says’, not ‘said’), the
thought being of scripture as ‘the ever-present and ever-
speaking Word of God’ (e.g. Acts 13.35; Rom. 9.17; Heb.
3.7).66 The weakness of Warfield’s study is that he focusses
exclusively on the formula introducing the scriptural quota¬
tion. But the question for us is, What was the precise force of
that formula? How did the scripture quoted actually function
as authority — as word of God? And this question can be
answered only by looking at the quotations themselves, and at
how they were handled by the New Testament writers in
question. To build a case simply on the introductory
formulae is to run the risk of unjustified generalizations —
and Warfield is certainly vulnerable to that criticism.
For example, it is not enough simply to quote the formula
‘God said’ in Matthew 19.4f., for the whole point of that
passage is that one scripture is being used to interpret (and in
some sense to discount?) another, as we shall see (below, p.
115). In other words, the function of the passage cited as
authoritative scripture is more complex than the simple
appeal to the introductory formula allows. Similarly, the in¬
troductory formula of Galatians 3.8 should not be used as the
basis of a wider generalization regarding the authority of the
scriptural promise to Abraham, without taking cognisance of
the way Paul interprets the other strand of the same
promise67 a few verses later. For, as is well known, in
Galatians 3.16 Paul interprets the promise to Abraham and
his descendants (‘seed’, collective singular) as fulfilled in
Christ (‘seed’, single individual). In other words, he adapts
the clear reference of the original and gives the scripture a
different sense from that which was obviously intended in the
original.68 That, of course, is not to say his interpretation was
without justification. It was an interpretation which by the
canons of that time would have been wholly acceptable,65 and
from the Christian perspective was wholly on target. The
point is that the scripture which is recognized as authoritative
110 THE LIVING WORD
is not the scripture in its original and originally intended and

understood meaning. The authoritative scripture is scripture
interpreted, scripture understood in a sense which consti¬
tuted a significant variation or development or departure or
difference from the original sense.70
Such examples strongly suggest that Warfield’s conclusions
from his study of the formulae introducing Old Testament
quotations must be received with a good deal more caution
than, say, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy
would acknowledge.71 These formulae certainly show that at
least these scriptures quoted were regarded as having con¬
tinuing authority. But is it right to generalize from these
particular instances and conclude that every sentence in the
Old Testament was regarded by Jesus and the New Testa¬
ment authors as having the same continuing authority? And
even if the answer to that question was ‘Yes’ (but see below,
pp. 114f.), it would still leave unanswered the question, How
did that authority function? Was the authoritative utterance
that meaning of the scripture as established by grammatico-
historical investigation (then Paul is to be censured in Gal.
3.16)? And if the answer is ‘No, not always’, then the issue of
interpretation and the canons of interpretation is back on the
agenda with reinforced significance.
Our task then is to explore the way in which scripture
actually uses scripture. As we observe how the authority of
scripture was understood by Jesus and his first followers, how
the authority of the Old Testament actually functioned in the
New Testament, we should hopefully gain a clearer grasp of
how the inspiration and authority of scripture should be
received and expressed today. We will look first at Jesus’
attitude to, and use of, scripture; and then at the earliest
churches’ attitude to, and use of, scripture. Inevitably it will
be a too sketchy treatment, but sufficient, I trust, to achieve a
positive and properly scriptural formulation of our theme,
‘The Authority of Scripture According to Scripture’.
9. Jesus attitude to and use of scripture It cannot be disputed

.that Jesus regarded the writings of the Old Testament as
inspired and authoritative.72 We need only to think of a
passage like Mark 12.35ff. (‘David, inspired by the Holy
Spirit, declares’) and the repeated ‘it is written’ (e.g. Mark
11.17 pars.; 14.21 pars.; Matt. 11.10/Luke 7.27). On more
than one occasion he met queries and disputatious questions
by referring to scripture (Mark 10.18f. pars.; 12.24-27 pars.;
12.29—31 pars.).73 He clearly applied at least some passages
of the Old Testament to himself, and drew his understanding
of his mission from them - most noticeably Isaiah 61.If.
(Luke 4.18f.; Matt. 5.3f./Luke 6.20f.; Matt. 11.5/Luke
7.22),74 and probably at least also the vision of Daniel 7.13f.75
But once again we must ask, How did this authority work for
Jesus? Was every passage of the then scriptures of equal
authority and of equally binding authority — inerrant in that
sense? To gain a clearer picture we should also consider the
following passages.
(a) The first is Jesus’ use of Isaiah 61. If. I have just pointed
out that if any passage of the Old Testament informed Jesus
as to his mission, it was this one. But at once we have to note a
striking feature of his use of that passage, explicitly in Luke
4.18f. and implicitly in the other references: viz., his use of it
stopped short in the middle of a sentence — ‘to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favour’ — whereas Isaiah continues ‘and the
day of vengeance of our God’. Indeed, if we can take it that
the very next clauses (‘to comfort all who mourn ...’) influ¬
enced Jesus’ formulation of the beatitudes (Matt. 5.4/Luke
6.20b), it would appear that Jesus deliberately set aside or
ignored the single phrase about the day of vengeance. This is
borne out by his reply to the disciples of the Baptist in
Matthew 11.5/Luke 7.22. Where the Baptist had clearly ex¬
pected a fire-dispensing figure of judgment (Matt. 3.7—12/
Luke 3.7—9, 15—17) Jesus evidently saw his mission in dif¬
ferent terms.76 Thus, in his reply to the Baptist he alluded
deliberately to three Isaianic passages; all three of which, as
Jeremias has pointed out, contain warning of judgment as
well as promise of blessing (Isa. 29.18—20; 35.4—6; 61.1—2).77
But Jesus picked out only the promise of blessing.
How was it that Jesus could be so selective in his use of
Isaiah? There was nothing in Isaiah itself which even sug¬
gested that two separate pictures were in view, or that a time
scale was intended for the warning different from that of the
112 THE LIVING WORD
promise - particularly in Isaiah 61.2, where the threat of

vengeance is an integral part of the one prophecy. We cannot
say, therefore, that Jesus simply set himself under the
authority of the Old Testament, or that all parts and words of
these scriptures were of equal, and equally binding, author¬
ity. Evidently he approached these prophecies in a way, or
from a perspective, or with an insight, which enabled him, or
made it necessary for him, to interpret these passages some¬
what selectively. Was it that other scriptures gave him the
clue on how to read these Isaiah passages? Then the same
point arises: What was it about these other scriptures which
provided the authoritative interpretation of the Isaiah pas¬
sages? Why, for example, did he not conversely take the
Baptist’s preaching as confirmation that it was the judg¬
mental strand of these scriptures which should inform his
mission? We still have to explain a certain degree of picking
or choosing whereby one scripture, or one part of a single
scripture, was found to be more authoritative for Jesus’
understanding of his mission at that point than another. Was
it his own conviction as to what God’s will was for his mission
- a conviction derived from his intimacy with the Father, and
only partly drawn from, or informed by, scripture? If so,
then we cannot say that scripture was Jesus’ sole authority.
And since it was his own immediate knowledge of God’s will
which enabled him to see that some passages or parts of
scripture were more relevant to his mission than others,
again we are forced to deny that all scripture was of equal,
and of equally binding, authority for him.
Consequently we cannot conclude that the authority of
scripture for Jesus was simply a matter of being obedient
to the words of scripture dn their grammatico-historical
sense. The authority of scripture for Jesus was a more
complex interaction of finding and being found by particu¬
lar scriptures, of personal conviction and knowledge of
God’s will - partly informed from scripture and partly
informing his understanding of scripture and his under¬
standing of its particular relevance to him and his mission.
This complexity of the hermeneutical process in the matter
of Jesus self-understanding must not be ignored or over¬
simplified.
(b) Consider, secondly, three passages where Jesus had

something to say about the relevance and authority of Old
Testament scriptures on particular issues: Matthew 5.38-9,
Mark 7 and Mark 10.2-12.
1. Matthew 5.38—9 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. But I say to you, ‘Do not
resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right
cheek, turn to him the other also ...’. Jesus refers here ex¬
plicitly to an Old Testament principle of retribution, as
expressed in Exodus 21.24, Leviticus 24.20 and Deuter¬
onomy 19.21. And it is difficult to avoid the straightforward
conclusion that Jesus was thereby abrogating part of the
Mosaic law.78 I would prefer to express the point more care¬
fully. Jesus does not deny that this was an inspired word
from God when it was given. We can quite fairly argue,
indeed, that Jesus recognized the purpose of the original
legislation — to limit and restrict the destructiveness of private
revenge and family feud79 — and that his own words were
intended as an extension of the same healthy trend. On the
other hand, it is of doubtful validity to argue that Jesus’
words implied a distinction between the public morality of
the law court (where the lex talionis legislation was still valid)
and the private morality of personal relations (to which Jesus’
words were solely directed).80 There is no evidence of such a
dichotomy in Jesus’ own mission, either his life or his teach¬
ing, and no indication that such a distinction was intended or
would even make sense in the illustrations used in Matthew
5.38—42. More likely, Jesus was saying simply that this rule of
the Torah is not to serve as the rule of life of those who
belong to, or look for, the kingdom. In other words, here we
have scriptures which Jesus did not regard as giving authori¬
tative guidance for the situation he was addressing. He did
not dispute that they were the word of God for their own
time. He did in effect deny that they were the word of God
for his time. These were authoritative words, but their
authority was relative to the particular historical period for
which God intended them. In the new situation introduced
by Jesus’ ministry they were no longer of the same relevance,
no longer of the same authority.
2. Mark 7. 1-23 The context is the discussion about ritual
114 THE LIVING WORD
cleanliness, where the principal object of attack was clearly

the Pharisaic multiplication of rules governing ritual
purity.81 But in the course of this attack, Jesus formulated a
very important principle. ‘There is nothing outside a man
which by going into him can defile him; but the things which
come out of a man are what defile him’ (7.15); ‘whatever goes
into a man from outside cannot defile him ... what comes out
of a man is what defiles a man’ (7.18, 20). As stated, this
principle does not mention any specific Old Testament
regulation. But, as stated, it nevertheless undermines the
whole distinction between clean and unclean foods - a dis¬
tinction clearly promulgated in the Torah (Lev. 11.1-23;
Deut. 14.3-21), and an absolutely fundamental ruling for the
Pharisees upon which they were even then building their
whole elaborate system of halakhoth (see n.81). He who denies
so unequivocally that food can make a man ‘unclean’, can
hardly be said to regard the Torah’s ruling on clean and
unclean foods as of continuing and binding authority. On the
contrary, the clear implication is that that law no longer has
relevance - is no longer to have authority for his disciples - so
Mark so clearly saw when he highlighted the point by adding
the note to 7.19, ‘Thus he declared all foods clean’; which is
the same as saying, ‘Thus he repealed the law classifying
some foods as unclean and declared it void for his
disciples.’82
v 3. Mark 10.2-12. The striking feature of this passage for
us is that Jesus seems to play off one Old Testament passage
against another, or rather, he uses one Old Testament pass-
age to determine the relevance of another. One was the
Deuteronomic permission of divorce (Deut. 24.1-4) whereby
the husband could put away his wife by writing a certificate of
divorce (Mark 10.4). The other was the creation narrative’s
institution of marriage (Gen. 2.24), legitimating the man
leaving his parents to unite in one flesh with his wife (Mark
10-7f.). The implication which Jesus drew from the latter, at
least as we have it in Mark, is that the oneness of marriage is
something God-given and that man should not tamper with it
(10.8f.). As further explained in 10.1 If., it is hard to dispute
that Jesus was denying the validity of divorce altogether:
‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits
adultery against her.’ That seems to allow of no exception — if
it was intended to, Mark has been astonishingly careless.83 In
other words, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Jesus
was once again denying the continuing authority of a par¬
ticular Mosaic ruling: no situation is envisaged where a
certihcate of divorce would constitute a separation of what
God had joined and so validate a second marriage.84
Of course it is true that Jesus does not dispute the divine
origin of the Deuteronomic law - it would be a highly ques¬
tionable argument to press the distinction between ‘Moses
commanded you’ and the ‘he (God) said’ of the Matthean
parallel (Matt. 19.4f.). And of course we need to say no more
than that Jesus regarded the Mosaic permission of divorce as
a divinely given law appropriate to its times (‘for the hardness
of your hearts’) but no longer appropriate for the people of
the kingdom.85 But once again the key point for us is that
Jesus treated a particular scripture as no longer of authority
for his followers. He did not deny that Deuteronomy 24.If.
was a word of God to Israel. But he did clearly imply that it
was a word to a particular situation, a word whose authority
was contextually conditioned, a word whose authority was
relative for the time for which it was spoken, a word which
could be interpreted only with reference to these condition¬
ing factors. Even as scripture, it did not have an absolute
authority, an indefectible authority — certainly not the same
continuing authority as Genesis 2.24. Even as scripture, it was
no longer the living word of God for Jesus’ followers.
In each case, then, we can see that Jesus did not regard the
Old Testament text in question as having an absolute, infall¬
ible (= unrefusable) authority.86 Rather, he understood these
texts in their relation and relevance to the historical situations
to which they were originally spoken. He did not deny that
these scriptures were the word of God to these situations. He
did say or imply that they were no longer God’s word to the
situation he had brought about. In other words, their author¬
ity as word of God was relative to the particular situation to
which they were addressed, for which they were intended to
be the word of God. This recognition of the historical relativ¬
ity of at least some scriptures must indicate an important
hermeneutical principle which can in no way be overthrown
116 THE LIVING WORD
or set aside by simple appeals to introductory formulae or by

sweeping generalizations drawn from II Timothy 3.16.
10. The earliest churches’ attitude to and use of scripture We have

already noted the New Testament passages which demon¬
strate most clearly early Christianity’s affirmation of the Old
Testament’s inspiration and authority. If someone should
point out that II Timothy 3.16 and II Peter 1.21 most prob¬
ably belong to the later parts of the New Testament, that
would not alter the overall judgment. The very frequency
with which Old Testament passages are cited and echoed
throughout the New Testament shows that II Timothy 3.16
and II Peter 1.21 are not expressing a view which only
emerged after the first generation of Christians had already
left the stage. On the contrary, the claim that scripture has
been fulfilled is as important for the early speeches in Acts,
and for Paul (note particularly Rom. 9-11), as it is for
Matthew and John. And a glance at a Nestle Greek text shows
that on almost every page (apart from the Johannine epistles)
there are direct scriptural references (indicated by heavier
type).87 But, once again, the fact that the New Testament
writers believed the Old Testament writings to be inspired
and authoritative is not the issue. The key question is once
again, How did the New Testament writers actually use the
Old Testament? How did the authority of the Old Testament
actually function in practice? To help us find the answer, we
should observe three features.
(a) The first is the point, already made, that within the
earliest churches we soon find important elements in the Old
Testament law being abandoned: circumcision and the sab¬
bath law, the law requiring a „distinction between clean and
unclean foods, and the practice of animal sacrifice. These
developments are so well known that we hardly need to pause
to document them: the refusal of Paul to allow Gentile con¬
verts to be circumcised (particularly Gal. 2.3-5), even though
he claimed that they were heirs of Abraham (Gal. 3) and
shared the faith and righteousness whose sign and seal in
Abraham’s case was circumcision (Rom. 4.11); the way in
which the new weekly festival of the Christian Sunday soon
superseded the Jewish festival of the sabbath in the Pauline
churches at least (I Cor. 16.2; Acts 20.7).88 As for the law
on clean and unclean foods, whatever we make of Mark 7
(above, p. 114), it is quite clear that the Gentile mission
involved a complete abandonment of such distinctions more
or less from the first (particularly Acts 10.10—16; Rom.
14.20).89 And the letter to the Hebrews is a powerful ex¬
position of the Christian belief that the old law was obsolete,
and in particular that the law of sacrifice was abolished (par¬
ticularly Heb. 8.13; 10.9).
We should not underestimate the significance of these
developments. These were among the most cherished
features of Israel’s faith and life, and it was the challenge to
them in the second century bc which had led to the Macca-
bean revolt (see e.g. I Macc. 1.41—50, 62f.). These were
clearly enunciated rules in scripture, unequivocal commands
of God. Their continuing, binding authority on the earliest
Christians was at first simply taken for granted, as Peter’s
reaction to the vision in Joppa well shows: ‘I have never eaten
anything that is common or unclean’ (Acts 10.14). And yet
they were abandoned. As soon as the ‘how’ of Gentile conver¬
sions and acceptance became an issue, so soon were these
cherished requirements of scripture questioned and quickly
abandoned, outside Palestine at any rate. Why? Because in
these issues a greater revelatory authority was attached to the
vision of Peter, the conviction of Paul, and what was recog¬
nized as the manifest work of the Spirit (e.g. Acts 10.44-48;
Gal. 3.2-5). In the light of their own (inspired) understand¬
ing of what God was doing in their own time, they were
willing to take an astounding step - to set aside the authority
of many scriptures and the traditions of a thousand years! In
this light they saw the fulfilment of Jeremiah 31.31—34 taking
place in their own ranks, and interpreted it as rendering
obsolete the old covenant (II Cor. 3.3—6; Heb. 10.11—18). In
this light Mark, at least, understood Jesus’ words about true
cleanliness as an abrogation of the law distinguishing clean
and unclean foods (Mark 7.19). Here, at any rate, whole
tracts of scripture in their obvious and intended sense were
regarded as no longer of binding authority, no longer a
word of God which could be disregarded only at the greatest
spiritual peril.
118 THE LIVING WORD
(b) The scripture which the New Testament writers re¬

garded as of continuing authority was scripture interpreted.
We have seen this already in the case of Galatians 3.16
(above, pp. 109f.). Two other passages in Paul illustrate the
same point equally well: Romans 1.17 and 10.6-10. In
Romans 1.17 Paul quotes from Habakk.uk 2.4; but his quota¬
tion is significantly different from either the Hebrew or the
LXX.
Habakkuk 2.4, ‘the righteous shall live by his faith/faithful¬

ness’;
LXX, ‘He that is righteous shall live by my faith)’ (i.e.
probably, God’s faithfulness);
Romans 1.17, ‘he that is righteous by faith shall live’.
Most commentators agree that ‘by faith’ is intended by Paul

to go with ‘he that is righteous’, as the rest of the letter
certainly implies (Rom. 3.26, 30; 4.16; 5.1; 9.30, 32; 10.6). In
which case, the scripture which provides Paul with his text in
Romans is a scripture interpreted - interpreted in a way
acceptable to his own Jewish contemporaries, but in a sense
different from that most probably intended by Habakkuk.
Even more striking is his use of Deuteronomy 30.11-14 in
Romans 10.6-10. For where Deuteronomy speaks of the law
as something close to hand arid heart, and so relatively easy to
keep, Paul transforms the meaning into a reference to Christ
and the gospel. Again it is obvious from parallels in Baruch
3.29f. and Targum Neofiti that this sort of interpretation was
quite acceptable for Paul’s own day and purpose.91 But once
again it is clear that the authoritative scripture is scripture
interpreted, and interpreted in a sense significantly different
from the original: what Deuteronomy referred to the law as
such, Paul referred to (the law fulfilled in) Christ and the
gospel.
Here again the principle of interpretation seems to be not
to re-express and apply the meaning intended by the original
author, but to understand and interpret scripture in the light
of the revelation of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, it must
be stressed that this did not involve a wholesale abandoning
of, or disregard for, the Old Testament scriptures. It was
important for these New Testament authors that they could
show, by using acceptable canons of interpretation, that
scripture had been fulfilled in Christ and in the gospel. The
point is this: that the authoritative word of God for them was
not scripture tout simple; nor was it their own immediate per¬
ception of the will and purpose of God. The authoritative
word of God was heard through the interaction of both,
through the coming together of revelation from their past
and revelation in their present. If I may repeat the point for
the sake of clarity — their interpretation of a particular scrip¬
ture did not have to accord with the originally intended
meaning of that scripture. But it had to be an acceptable
interpretation of that scripture, and to accord more immedi¬
ately with other scriptures (like Gen. 15.6 and Jer. 31.31—34).
Likewise, their perception of God’s will was often immediate,
through the Spirit, and not simply through the Old Testa¬
ment scriptures as though the Spirit could not speak directly
(cf. e.g. Gal. 1.12 with I Cor. 15.3f.; Gal. 2.2; 5.16, 18, 25);
though, at the same time, their overall perception of God’s
will was informed by scripture and had to be shown to be
conformable to scripture. It was the fact that the revelation of
Jesus Christ and the revelation of scripture could marry and
did marry so fittingly, which made (and still makes) it possible
for Christianity to claim to be the proper heir of the Old
Testament. But it was this marriage which was for the first
Christians the authoritative word of God.
(c) A third observation concerns the evident freedom the

New Testament writers exercised in their choice or adapta¬
tion of the form of the authoritative text quoted. It is possible
that Paul, for example, knew variant forms of several texts,
and chose to quote the form most appropriate for his render¬
ing (as a modern preacher may choose between RSV, NEB,
JB, NIV, etc.). Cases in point may be Romans 10.6—8 (above,
p. 118), Ephesians 4.8, and possibly Romans 1.17 (above, p.
118). The point would then be that Paul’s aim in such cita¬
tions was not to uncover and use the originally intended
meaning, but to use the version which made his own inter¬
pretation most acceptable and which, to be sure, had perhaps
sparked off his interpretation.94 The authoritative text was
an already modified text: that is, a text already altered to give
120 THE LIVING WORD
a different sense from that of the original. Here we may

simply recall in addition that the LXX itself, the authoritative
scriptures for all Greek-speaking Christians in the early days
of Christianity, was in part at least a tendentious translation
of the Hebrew, incorporating alterations designed to im¬
prove (i.e. change, for the better) the sense of the original.95
Other Old Testament citations which differ from all known
texts of the Old Testament are best explained as deliberate
adaptations to demonstrate a closer ‘fit’ between the pro¬
phecy and its fulfilment. The best examples here are
Matthew 2.23, where the scripture cited does not exist as
such, but was probably formed by a combination of Judges
13.5 and Isaiah 11.1; and Matthew 27.9-10, where the
details have clearly (and awkwardly) been modified to fit
more precisely the tradition of Judas’s fate.96 Here again it is
evident that the authoritative scripture for Matthew was not a
text in its original meaning, as determined by grammatico-
historical exegesis, but the text in a form which can be seen
(without resorting to unacceptable modification) to express
most clearly the Christian understanding of it.
In all these cases, it should again be stressed, the choice of
text was not arbitrary, the emendation was not arbitrary, and
the interpretation was by no means completely divorced from
the original intention of the author (as was the case, for
example, in the allegorizing of Philo). Nevertheless, the texts
used were often significantly different in sense from the
original - whether the difference had been introduced by
earlier translations and versions, or by the New Testament
writers themselves in furthering their own interpretation.97
This willingness to use variant versions, and readiness to
adapt the text oneself, must 'be put in the balance and
weighed together with passages like Matthew 5.18 and John
10.35. For it certainly indicates that the New Testament
authors were not concerned with the iota and dot level of a
text in the way that Princeton theology so readily assumes.
On the contrary, their concern for the deeper meaning
revealed in a text by the light of the revelation of Christ,
made them often sit loose precisely to such iotas and dots.98
(d) One further observation may be appropriate. It is that the

New Testament writers appear to have treated the Jesus-
tradition with something of the same combination of respect
and freedom. We can see this, for example, in the case of two
of the passages already discussed above (pp. 113-15): Mark
7.1—23 and Mark 10.2—12. The point is that Matthew, in his
use of Mark," seems to soften the sharpness of both passages.
He omits not only Mark’s interpretative addition in Mark
7.19 (‘Thus he declared all foods clean’), but also the element
in the saying itself which provided strongest justification for
Mark’s interpretation. That is to say, whereas in Mark Jesus
affirmed twice that what goes into a man cannot defile him
(7.15, ‘there is nothing outside a man which by going into
him can defile him’; 7.18, ‘whatever goes into a man from
outside cannot defile him’), in Matthew the first saying is
softened (Matt. 15.11, ‘not what goes into the mouth defiles a
man, but what comes out of the mouth ... ’) and its repetition
omitted (Matt. 15.17). It is difficult to avoid the conclusion
that Matthew was less than happy with the suggestion that
Jesus’ words amounted to an abrogation of the law on clean
and unclean foods — an implication not hard to recognize
within the Markan form of the saying, as Mark himself
shows, but one less easy to argue for once Matthew had done
his editing. Such editing can fairly be said to be concerned
with the main thrust of the passage at the expense of some of
its iotas and dots.
Similarly, it is now widely recognized100 that Matthew’s
modification of Mark 10.2 transforms a general question
about divorce and sets it within the rabbinic debate between
the schools of Hillel and Shammai: Mark 10.2, ‘Can a man
divorce his wife?’; Matthew 19.3, ‘Can a man divorce his wife
for any cause?’ The Matthean formulation goes on to show
Jesus rejecting the then dominant Hillelite position (divorce
permissible for any cause) and advocating the more rigorous
position of Shammai (divorce possible only in cases of un¬
chastity). That is to say, the ideal promulaged by Jesus in
Mark (denying the possibility of a valid divorce - see above,
pp. 114f.) is softened by its application to the particular
situation of Matthew’s time, and understood, and so rendered,
as supporting the stricter of the two current options. Once
again, be it noted, it is the adapted form of Jesus’ saying
122 THE LIVING WORD
which serves as the authoritative utterance of Jesus. A similar

willingness to apply Jesus’ original words in a more flexible
way is evident in I Corinthians 7.10-15.101
If we have understood correctly what Matthew was doing,
then it is clear that Matthew interpreted the sayings of Jesus
in a way which made them speak more directly to the situation
in which Jewish Christians found themselves in the second
half of the first century. It was with the teaching of Jesus that
he was concerned; it was that which had authority for him (cf.
I Cor. 7.10). There is no suggestion that he would even have
thought of creating or inventing sayings de novo and putting
them in Jesus’ mouth. Nor, if his treatments of these sayings
is characteristic, did he attempt to alter the meaning of Jesus’
sayings in an arbitrary or dramatic way. But neither can we
say that he treated these sayings as unyielding dogma whose
words (including iotas and dots) could not on any account be
altered. Rather we see a concern to show the words of Jesus
speaking to his own time and to the issues of his own time.
And where we might have felt it more proper to leave the
saying in its original form and to add our interpretative gloss
after it, it was evidently quite an acceptable procedure in
Matthew’s time to incorporate the interpretation into the saying
itself by modifying the form of the saying. Not surprisingly,
since this is precisely how he and other interpreters of his
time (including Qumran and other New Testament writers)
evidently handled the Old Testament, as we have seen
(above, p. 115).102 At this point, the gap between the synop¬
tics’ handling of the Jesus-tradition and John’s handling of
the Jesus-tradition is not so wide as is sometimes asserted.103
11. The significance of all that has been said under section
III can be summed up in the key phrase, historical relativity.
What we have seen again and again in the attitude of Jesus,
and of the first Christians, to scripture is their recognition
and assertion of its authority; but recognition also of the fact
that that authority is relative. To understand the word of
God properly, it had to be related to the historical situation to
which these words of God were first spoken, and related also
to the situation of the interpreter. Let me try to elaborate a
little on these two sides of the hermeneutical circle.
This recognition of historical relativity with respect to
original context was obviously one of the hermeneutical prin¬
ciples which determined Jesus’ and the first Christians’ inter¬
pretation of the law. The fact cannot be denied that the
words of various scriptures, enunciating specific laws, were
seen as having authority for the time preceding Jesus, but as
no longer authoritative in their originally intended sense. It
was not a matter of saying, for example, that the intention of
the laws on clean and unclean foods or divorce had always
been simply and solely to point to their fulfilment in Christ —
that would have been to deny their authority in the time
before Christ. It was rather that their authority was recog¬
nized as being relevant to, and relative to the time of the old
covenant. To affirm that the laws on sacrifice, circumcision,
sabbath, etc., were the word of God only and always in the
sense, and with the force, with which Christianity understood
them, is in fact to deny that the Torah was the word of God
before Christ came. Even a doctrine of progressive revelation
cannot escape this corollary, if it affirms that now the only
acceptable interpretation of the law is that given by the New
Testament. For it still implies that scriptural injunctions were
once the word of God in a sense which Christians no longer
recognize as authoritative. If, for example, the sabbath law is
to be interpreted in a sense other than its obvious sense, and
if the Christian interpretation is the only proper interpretation,
then in effect we deny that the fourth commandment ever
was the word of God prior to the resurrection of Jesus. And
since most Christians do not in fact observe the fourth com¬
mandment, that in effect amounts to a complete denial of the
fourth commandment’s authority as word of God (in other
than some very spiritualized sense). To assert the historical
relativity of God’s word in the fourth commandment is surely
preferable to affirming that it never was God’s word (as
understood for centuries) and still is not!
If recognition of relativity with respect to original context
is as it were the more negative side of the hermeneutical
circle, the recognition of relativity with respect to the inter¬
preter’s context is the more positive side of the same circle.
The authoritative word of God for Jesus was that under¬
standing of scripture which emerged from the interaction of
124 THE LIVING WORD
particular scriptures with his own consciousness of sonship

and sense of mission. The one did not ride roughshod over
the other; each informed the other, each interpreted the
other. The result was, however, an interpretation of some
scriptures which involved pronouncing them as no longer
of binding authority on his followers, and of others an inter¬
pretation which involved affirming the immediate relevance
(and so authority) of one part but not of another. Likewise,
the revelation given immediately to Peter and to Paul, led
them to judge various scriptures to be no longer a word of
God whose authority still bound them. The revelation did not
come through scripture in these cases, but its meaning was
not a complete departure from scripture. Here again, it was
the interaction of particular scriptures (like Jer. 31.31-34)
with their own consciousness of being led by God’s Spirit
which provided the hermeneutical key. The point is that the
result was the same as in the case of Jesus: the rendering of
some scriptures in a sense somewhat different from the
original, and the affirmation that other scriptures were no
longer of binding authority on Christians. Such scriptures
had fulfilled their role as word of God in their obvious sense;
now that sense had been transcended by the fuller revelation
of Christ and absorbed into it, with the effect that their
obvious meaning was no longer relevant to, and so no longer
of authority for, believers.
We saw this same interplay of historical relativities in the
way Matthew quoted both the Old Testament and sayings of
Jesus — quoted in a way which incorporated his interpretation
of them into the words quoted. A good case in point is his
handling of Jesus words on divorce. Here again we see an
interpretation which recognized the context of Jesus’ original
utterance, but which recognized also that these words had a
different foice when applied to Matthew’s context. What we
see, in fact, is Matthew softening the ideal expressed origin-
aHy by Jesus, in the very same way that Deuteronomy 24. If.
softened in practice the principle enunciated in Genesis 2 24
In both cases the word that God actually spoke (through
Deut. 24.If., through Matt. 19.9) was a word which took
account of the circumstances being addressed - making
allowance for the hardness of men’s hearts. In the same way
Paul interpreted the same command of the Lord (that the
wife should not separate from her husband) in a way which
took account of the particular circumstances he was address¬
ing (I Cor. 7.10-15). No more than the words of the Old
Testament, were the words of Jesus unyielding dogma to be
observed to the letter whatever the circumstances, but prin¬
ciples whose statement and application could vary in the light
of the circumstances. In other words, we might say that the
New Testament writers recognized that hearing and under¬
standing the word of God in scripture and in the Jesus-
tradition, involved the two-sided process of recognizing the
original inspiration behind a particular saying but also of
interpreting that saying in dependence upon the same Spirit
(following II Peter 1.20f. in its more probable sense — see
above, p. 95).104
It must be stressed that this recognition of the historical
relativity of the word of God does not diminish its authority
as word of God. Precisely to the contrary, it sets scripture
free to function as word of God in the way intended. If we
insist, with the logic of the inerrancy school, that scripture
must always say precisely the same thing in every historical
context, then we muzzle scripture: we filter the word of God
through a systematizing and harmonizing process which
filters out much that God would say to particular situations,
and lets through a message which soon becomes predictably
repetitive, whatever the scripture consulted. Why should it be
so hard to accept that God speaks different words to dif¬
ferent situations (because different situations require
different words)? In Jesus Christ, God committed his word
to all the relativities of historical existence in first-century
Palestine. Paul did not hesitate to express the gospel in dif¬
ferent terms in different contexts, terms which no doubt
would sound contradictory if they were abstracted from these
contexts into some system and harmony which paid no heed
to these contexts (I Cor. 9.20f.) — hence the apparent conflict
between Paul and James (cf. Rom. 3.28, ‘justified by faith
apart from works’; James 2.26, ‘faith without works is dead’).
Mark did not hesitate to press the implication of Jesus’ words
about true cleanliness with a view presumably to the Gentile
mission (Mark 7.19); whereas Matthew softened the force of
126 THE LIVING WORD
the same words, since he had the Jewish mission in view

(Matt. 15.17). If we ignore such differentiation of the word of
God in and to different situations, we rob scripture of its
power to speak to different situations. It is only when we
properly recognize the historical relativity of scripture that
our ears can be properly attuned to hear the authoritative
word which God speaks to us in the words of scripture here
and now.
IV
Towards an evangelical hermeneutic
12. We may conclude by drawing together some of our find¬

ings, by reflecting further on them, and by highlighting their
implications for our own understanding of, and response to,
the authority of scripture in the present. Two basic assertions
provide the starting-point for an evangelical hermeneutic.
(a) An evangelical hermeneutic starts, as this chapter started,

from the assertion of the inspiration and authority of scrip¬
ture. That starting-point has been validated from scripture,
since Jesus and the New Testament writers clearly taught and
based their teaching on the inspiration and authority of the
Old Testament scriptures. It is true that many evangelicals
want to go further and to demand a much more precise
definition of scripture’s inspiration and authority as the
starting-point; in particular, a definition spelled out in terms
of inerrancy: that is, a definition of scripture as consisting of
statements whose freedom from error gives them an in¬
defectible authority. It must be stated quite firmly, however,
that such a definition is not validated from scripture: while
the New Testament passages which teach or imply a doctrine
of scripture certainly affirm its inspiration and authority, it
cannot be shown with any probability that the intention of
their authors was to teach inerrancy. On the contrary, to
assume such inerrancy as the starting-point for an evangelical
hermeneutic is to go beyond scripture, to out-scripture
scripture. That is another way of saying that this inerrancy
signpost points not to a scriptural hermeneutic but rather to
the legalism of the Pharisees and the bibliolatry of scholastic
Protestantism. It is precisely because some evangelicals pitch
their starting-point too high, that the only way to progress in
knowledge of God and of his truth for some of their disciples
is down what they regard as the ‘slippery slope’ - a slippery
slope which has been created more by their elevation of their
interpretation of scripture above scripture (human tradition
above the word of God) than by anything else.
(b) An evangelical hermeneutic stafts from the assumption

that the New Testament attitude to, and use of, scripture
provides a pattern and norm for all subsequent Christian
attitude to, and use of, scripture. By this I do not meant that
Christians in the twentieth century should reproduce the
hermeneutical techniques of the first century — as we have
seen, these techniques were themselves also relative to their
time and are often unacceptable for modern exegesis. What I
do mean is that Christians should show the same respect for
scripture in their attitude to, and use of, scripture as that
shown by the first Christians; as that demonstrated by their
first-century hermeneutical techniques when we see them
within their historical context. Nor do I mean that Christians
today can necessarily treat the scriptures (New as well as Old
Testament) with the same sovreign freedom exercised by
Jesus and Paul. There is a certain once-for-allness in the
impact made by the revelation of Christ upon the status and
authority of the Old Testament — the only scripture for Jesus
and the first Christians. Nevertheless, that being said, the way
in which Jesus and the first Christians handled the authorita¬
tive word from God in their historical contexts does give us
guide-lines for our handling of scripture in the present.
This latter point is so fundamental that we must pause to
clarify it before we move on.106 The simplest way to do so is
to subdivide the point about historical relativity (above, para.
11) into two subcategories, which we may designate ‘covenant
relativity’ and ‘cultural relativity’.
Most of the points at which the revelation of the Old Test¬
ament was abrogated are examples of covenant relativity. They
were abrogated because they belonged to the old covenant:
sacrifice, circumcision, clean and unclean. They had been
superseded by the new covenant, the revelation through
128 THE LIVING WORD
Christ, the revelation of Christ. Here the twentieth-century

Christian has a norm and pattern for his own handling of the
Old Testament: he must read the Old Testament in the light
of the fuller revelation of Christ - the New Testament wit¬
ness to Christ serves as the primary norm by which all other
revelation is to be understood.107 It is this recognition of the
covenant relativity of so much of the Old Testament which
makes inevitable a certain choosing between scriptures
(above, pp. 11 If.), which means unavoidably that the New
Testament functions as a canon within the canon by which to
measure and interpret the rest of the canon - the Old Testa¬
ment (above, pp. 103f.).108 But clearly the same cannot be
said of the New Testament. We cannot treat the scriptures of
the new covenant as Jesus and the first Christians treated the
scriptures of the old covenant. There has been a once-for-all
shift in the movement of salvation-history, and the revelation
of Christ which brought about that shift becomes the yard¬
stick by which we judge everything that claims revelatory
authority both before and after that shift took place. The
church of the new covenant may follow Jesus’ footsteps and
declare many rulings of the Old Testament no longer rele¬
vant and binding because they belong to the old covenant.
But such considerations can never weaken or detract from
the authority of the New Testament, since that provides the
primary norm by which all other authority claims are to be
judged - the charter of the new covenant itself.109
On the other hand, several of the rulings of the Old Testa¬
ment were declared abrogated not so much because they
were covenant-relative, but primarily because they were
culture-relative. This would apply to the Mosaic ruling about
divorce, and the lex talionis (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth),
both examples of what some would classify as the moral law
as distinct from the ceremonial law (above, pp. 113-15). Here,
too, Jesus handling of the Old Testament scriptures can
serve as a model and norm for our own response to the Old
Testament. But at this point the similarity between covenant
relativity and culture relativity ceases. For the consideration
of culture relativity has to be a factor in our response to the
New Testament as well as the Old Testament. The validation
for this claim can be seen in the way Matthew and Paul adapt
Jesus’ words about divorce to the situations of their time, or
the way in which James denounces as inappropriate in his
context a slogan highly appropriate in Paul’s (above, p. 125).
Culture relativity applies not only to Old Testament regula¬
tions, but to traditions and sayings within the New Testament
itself. Just so, we must recognize that what was word of God
in and to a culture and time very different from ours (New
Testament as well as Old Testament) may well no longer be
the word of God to our culture and time. In such cases, the
normative force of the scripture will lie more in how God
spoke to their situation and context than in what he said.110
In short, whereas in terms of covenant relativity the New
Testament’s use of the Old Testament provides us a norm
and pattern only for our handling of the Old Testament, in
terms of culture relativity, scripture’s use of scripture pro¬
vides us a norm and pattern for our handling of New Testa¬
ment as well as Old.
(c) If these are the basic presuppositions of an evangelical

hermeneutic, then the first step in an evangelical hermen¬
eutic is to discover what was being said in the passage under
study. The primary task of exegesis must be to uncover the historical
sense of the text: what it was that the writer intended his readers
to hear and understand. To assert the inspiration of that
scripture is to assert primarily that the text thus understood
was the authoritative word of God to these readers. The
more clearly we can uncover the historical context of that text
— by whom it was written, to whom it was written, to what
situation it was addressed — the more clearly we will hear it as
it was intended to be heard, the more clearly we will hear it
with its original force and authority. That is to say, recog¬
nition of the historical conditionedness of a text (written for a
particular purpose to a particular historical situation) means
also recognition of its historical conditionedness as word of
God (it was God’s word to that situation).
But that also means that the reference of a text may be so
closely tied in to that original situation for which it was
written, that it cannot have the same reference and meaning
outside that situation, or abstracted from that situation. In
particular, it would be unwise to assume that a word spoken
130 THE LIVING WORD
to Israel at some stage in its history before Christ, must have

the same reference and relevance or force for us today. On
the contrary, we should accept that there will be texts which
cannot function for us as word of God in the sense in which
they were written (because of their covenant conditioned¬
ness, or culture conditionedness, or both). We can affirm of
such a text that it is God’s word in the sense that what it says,
God said. We can affirm of such a text that it played a con¬
stitutive role in God’s purpose for Israel and the world, in the
history of salvation (that is why it was preserved). What God
said to his people at a particular stage in their development
remains of crucial value for our understanding of that
development, as a development planned and shaped by God.
But if we want to say, in addition, that what it says God says, in
the sense that that word (interpreted to conform with some
other scripture) is still of binding authority on our faith and
conscience, to be neglected only at grave spiritual peril, then
we must recognize that in so doing it is functioning as word of
God in a sense different from its originally intended sense.
(d) The second stage is to recognize that God still speaks

through scripture; that throughout the Christian era
believers (and unbelievers) have experienced scripture as
God’s Word addressed to them, convicting and converting,
breaking down and building up, comforting and commis¬
sioning, tutoring and challenging. This includes, of course,
scriptures understood in their intended sense, parables of
Jesus, exhortations of Paul, etc. But it includes also scriptures
where the word which is heard is at some remove from the
sense originally intended - as when C. T. Studd heard Psalm
2.8 as a word of God addres'sed to him,110 without any sense
of impropriety in applying a messianic prophecy to someone
other than the son of David. Here we must recognize that a
scripture can function as word of God with a sense or appli
ation different from that intended. Here we must recognize
that a word spoken with one force to a particular historical
situation, can still function as word of God with a different
force in a different situation. To recognize this is simply to
confess faith in the Spirit, as the living power of God still
abroad, in the church and in the believer - to confess faith in
the interpreter Spirit whose work it is precisely to bring home
that scripture as a word of God directly to the soul.
What is important for evangelicals is the exegetical recog¬
nition that there is plenty of precedent for such a hermen¬
eutic in scripture itself, precisely in the sort of passages and
instances examined above in section III. The levitical regula¬
tions governing ritual cleanliness can still be heard as God’s
command to spiritual cleanliness, but no longer as an attitude
of heart which should accompany the ritual ablution, rather
as a spiritual act which renders the ritual act unnecessary,
despite Leviticus.112 The call for circumcision was clearly
heard by Paul and the others in the Gentile mission as a call
for the circumcision of the heart; but now no longer seen as
complementing the circumcision of the flesh as in Deutero¬
nomy and Jeremiah, rather as replacing the circumcision of
the flesh. So, too, Matthew’s softening of the words of Jesus
regarding true cleanliness and divorce should not be
regarded as a denial that the Torah ever was the word of
God, or as a denial that Mark’s version was the word of God;
rather as a de facto recognition that God speaks with different
force to different times (old and new covenant) and to dif¬
ferent situations (Mark to Gentile Christians, Matthew to
Jewish Christians). It is only by recognizing this diversity of
the word of God (its historical relativity, different words to
different times) that evangelicals can effectively shut the door
to legalism and bibliolatry; for it is precisely recognition of
this diversity which removes the necessity of imposing a dog¬
matic uniformity on such differences, which saves us from a
casuistic harmonization. It is precisely recognition of this
diversity which exalts the Spirit above the Bible, which pre¬
vents us shutting the Spirit up in the book, which opens us to
the freedom of the Spirit rather than constricting us to the
narrowness of the letter.
(e) It is of absolutely crucial importance that these two steps

are not taken in isolation from each other. In a proper
hermeneutic — a properly scriptural hermeneutic — the two
are closely conjoined, two sides of one and the same coin (to
change the metaphor). As soon as the two come apart - are
treated in isolation - we have lost the word of God. If, on the
132 THE LIVING WORD
one hand, we confine the hermeneutical task to discovering

the original intention and meaning of a text, we run the
serious risk of relegating the word of God to a remote past,
where all our textual and exegetical skill can only uncover
what the word of God was, where the Word of God is shut
up in the letter. If, on the other hand, we ignore the original
intention and message of a text and seek to understand it
differently, or listen for the voice of God speaking through it
without regard to the author’s intention and meaning, we
run the equally serious risk of courting a spirit of enthusiasm,
of opening the door to an uncontrolled prophetism, of aban¬
doning the word of God for the inspiration of the moment.
It is only the interaction of a strictly historical exegesis with a
prophetic openness to the Spirit now, where each acts as
stimulus and check to the other, which can count as a truly
scriptural hermeneutic.
It is such a hermeneutic which we saw at work in the New
Testament use of (Old Testament) scripture. Generalizing
from these particular instances, we can say that there will be
some scriptures which speak with more or less the same force
in the twentieth century as when they were first written (the
human condition addressed being basically the same); that
there will be others whose authoritative message has to be
understood from a different context or perspective, which
qualifies the original sense in some significant but not sweep¬
ing way (men’s hearts still being hard);113 that there will be
some texts where we see the original scripture as expressing a
principle in a way which is no longer necessary or possible for
us, but which lays upon us the task of expressing the same
principle in a different way (the same word of God coming
to diverse expression in diveVse situations);114 that there will
be others where the particular text can have continuing
authoritative meaning only within a much broader frame¬
work and not as an individual unit on its own (individual
commandments within a law understood from the perspec¬
tive of its fulfilment in Christ). This two-sided hermeneutical
process may often function in a very simple, even uncon¬
scious way, in the believer’s reading of scripture. But it
should not be simplified, and certainly cannot be reduced to a
set of rules applicable to every text which will ensure that the
interpreter has unfailing and automatic access to the word of
God. There is a certain elusiveness in the word of God in its
relation to any text, and in those texts which are closely tied
to a particular historical context now very different from our
own, the interaction between scriptural text and word of
God can be very subtle.115 This is why the interpreter can
never depend simply upon lexicon and commentary, but
must work in constant dependence on the Spirit who gave the
text being studied.
The character of the hermeneutical process, and its bear¬
ing upon the question of authority in particular, may become
a little clearer if we make a distinction between normative
authority and directive authority. The Bible, that is primarily
the New Testament, functions as a normative authority, a
definition of what Christianity is and should be, a yardstick by
which to test all subsequent definitions of Christianity, all
other claims to revelatory authority. But for directive
authority, in order to learn what to do in any particular
situation (the kind of theological, ethical, ecumenical,
political, etc. questions facing individuals, churches and
denominations today), we must look to the Spirit of God,
whether he speaks through or apart from the Bible. Since the
Spirit speaks now presumably with the same character as he
spoke previously, the New Testament will provide a check on
any word or policy claiming directive authority today. But
since, also presumably, he speaks to particular situations, and
since our situations are usually different in significant degree
from those of the New Testament, we cannot depend solely
on the normative authority of scripture but must depend on
the directive authority of the Spi L revealing the mind of
God here and now. It is in this interaction between the
Spirit’s inspiration then, and the mind of Christ now, that the
authoritative word of God is to be heard speaking to par¬
ticular situations today.
(f) When the hermeneutical process is thus understood and

followed through, it becomes increasingly clear that the
traditional evangelical dichotomy between scripture, reason
and tradition as the source and measure of revelatory
authority has often been too sharply drawn.116 For, as we
134 THE LIVING WORD
have now seen, the authoritative word of God in scripture is

not so objective that it can always be found by grammatico-
historical technique designed to uncover the original mean¬
ing of a text. As soon as we utter the word ‘interpretation’, we
recognize the interpreter’s involvement in the hermeneutical
process: his own historical relativity which conditions his
capacity to understand the original text, his own verbal and
cultural frame of reference, his own tradition of what is the
‘clear’ teaching of scripture, his own experience of God’s
grace (or lack of it). The hermeneutical process is a dialectic,
an interaction between the text in all its historical relativity
and the interpreter in all his historical relativity. In other
words, scripture and reason are not two clearly distinct ele¬
ments which can be neatly separated and opposed to each
other. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous/17 If we take
Jesus and Paul (to mention no others) as our models here,
then we cannot but speak of an understanding of scripture as
the authoritative word of God which comes about through
an interplay between the inspired text and the (still) inspiring
Spirit.
I might simply add that, at the end of the day, we cannot
neatly separate off the other factor usually set over against
scripture and reason at this point - church, or tradition. For
church and tradition are also inevitably bound up in the
hermeneutical process. The Protestant, for all his protest
against the authority attributed to catholic tradition, for all
his individualism, is just as dependent on his own tradition in
his understanding of scripture as any other Christian - the
less he is conscious of the way his tradition has shaped his
standpoint and understanding, the more firmly bound he is
within that tradition.118 An'd the evangelical of all people
should take seriously Paul’s understanding of the church as
the body of Christ, where grace is experienced through
mutual interdependence, and a right understanding of the
prophetic word is a matter of corporate discernment. He who
always relies on his own hermeneutic alone will inevitably
confuse the word of God with his own aspirations and pre¬
dispositions as often as not. He needs the check not only of
historical exegesis, but also of the mind of the faithful. The
hermeneutical process is in fact a three-sided process;
authority is a stool balanced on three legs, not just two, far
less just one.
(g) To sum up: We can give the Bible too much honour; we
can exalt the letter above the Spirit. And that, in my judg¬
ment, I have to say with sorrow, is what the proponents of
Princeton theology are doing. They have read their in¬
errancy dogma into the teaching of Jesus and of the New
Testament. But in fact their position with regard to scripture
is closer to that of the Pharisees condemned by Jesus, and of
the Judaizers attacked by Paul. Inerrancy is a less than scrip¬
tural teaching, because its proponents cannot show that the
biblical authors intended to teach it; even in the pillar
passages (above, pp. 94—7) such a meaning has to be pressed
upon the words rather than read out by grammatico-historical
exegesis. The more scriptural way, derived from scripture
itself, recognizes the historical relativity of the word of God,
recognizes the need to engage in the interpretative process,
recognizes that the Spirit may speak a word through the
words of some Bible passages which is not wholly in accord
with its originally intended meaning.
Thus to engage in the hermeneutical process is to leave the
comfortable securities of a systematized exegesis which
harmonizes everything into a legalistic conformity. It allows
greater diversity, leaves more questions open, lets faith be
faith in face of greater uncertainties. Not, let it be stressed,
that we are talking here of ‘those things which are necessary
to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation’, which are
clearly and consistently taught throughout the New Testa¬
ment. Indeed, the more timeless the truth, the clearer and
more consistent the teaching on it in scripture. But not a few
words of scriptural teaching were more conditioned to situa¬
tion and context-addressed — a properly scriptural exegesis
has to acknowledge that - and a properly historical exegesis
will usually be able to determine the extent of the contextual
conditioning. Consequently, in many secondary matters of
belief and conduct, what we mean by ‘the infallible rule of
faith and life’ is not scripture per se, scripture in its
grammatico-historical sense as such, but the Spirit speaking
through scripture as understood by the faithful. And this is just as it
136 THE LIVING WORD
should be, for it was as an authority functioning in this way

that Jesus, Paul and the other New Testament writers
honoured the Old Testament. Such, in a word, is the
authority of scripture according to scripture.
Letter to Professor R. Nicole
Professor R. Nicole
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Dear Dr Nicole,
It was kind of you to send me a copy of your article, ‘The

Inspiration and Authority of Scripture: Prof. Dunn versus
Warfield , which you are submitting to Churchman in response
to my earlier piece. It is an act of courtesy which is insuf¬
ficiently practised in the circles within which we move and I
have greatly appreciated it. Although I am under consider¬
able pressure in my new post (having only now been able to
move house from Nottingham to Durham, while I’m still
learning the ropes), I do feel the matters you raise are of such
importance that I have tried to squeeze in time to reply.
T here are various points where I felt your criticisms were
unnecessary, which smacked somewhat of point-scoring, and
there were also quite a number of other sections of your
response in which I felt you had missed my point or not taken
its full force.
But the chief value of your response for me was that it
helped bring into sharper focus several key points on which
our disagreement really turns. These are the fulcrum points
on which I suggest further discussion should focus. Indeed, I
would strongly recommend that if the evangelical constitu¬
ency wants to take this present debate forward in a positive
the form which the unadulterated affirmation of the divine is
spirit (rather than retreating into the carping, point-scoring,
sniping-from-fixed-positions arguments which too often
dominate), it is precisely on the following points that it should
concentrate.
1 How valid is the proposition that inerrancy is the necessary

implication of scripture being God’s word?: God is without
error; therefore his spoken word is without error; therefore
the Bible is without error. In your words: ‘Inerrancy is simply
bound to take’ (Churchman, 97, p.209). I note how often you
appealed, in effect or explicitly, to this key principle, what I
shall call briefly ‘the inerrancy proposition’. But is it so secure
as you seem to think? For myself the inerrancy proposition is
too simplistic: it is compelling on neither logical, nor theo¬
logical nor scriptural grounds.
(a) We cannot exclude on a priori grounds the possibility or
probability that the limitation which God imposes upon his
word by speaking it through the limitations of human mind
and voice extend to the sort of detail which inerrantists feel
so sensitive about (‘all scripture touches’).
(b) The proposition cannot stand without reference to the
question of intention. Which is sounder — to say that God
ensured that the meaning he intended was clearly enough
expressed in what was written, or to say that God’s perfection
extends to every aspect of the spoken or written words which
he inspired? The latter is nearer the logic of the inerrantists,
but even they do not press their primary proposition so far
(divine perfection has not extended to grammar and syntax!)
The former would seem to me the sounder proposition — one
which can be maintained fully without pressing for the in¬
errancy position, and without damaging the honour of God.
(c) The inerrancy proposition cannot be posed without ask¬
ing the exegetical question: How has God spoken in the event?
If scripture is God’s word, what does scripture show us about
the way God’s word actually was spoken? I remain of the
firm opinion that the inerrancy position only appears to
respect the text of scripture; it does not, however, properly
subordinate itself to the text, i.e. by letting the text speak for
itself, by acknowledging the priority of exegesis over the a
priori logic of the inerrancy proposition, or the priority of
138 THE LIVING WORD
exegesis in determing the scope of biblical statements about

inspiration in the event of scripture itself.
There is surely space here for a proper debate, where we
examine the meaning and propriety even of basic axioms
without feeling threatened by it all. I hope you will agree.
2. The issue of how one determines the extent to which the

logic of the inerrancy proposition must be qualified. In-
errantists seem willing to recognize several qualifications: (a)
diversity of interpretation is acceptable in such areas as
baptism and the second coming - we cannot achieve agreed
certainty on what God’s will is, even on such important ele¬
ments in New Testament teaching; (b) the perfection of scrip¬
ture (‘the absolute character of revealed truth’ is your phrase)
does not extend to such features as imprecise quotations,
rounded numbers, grammatical irregularities; (c) the his¬
torical relativity of various scriptural instructions (which you
acknowledge in your comment on I Cor. 14.26), and the
covenant relativity of much of the Old Testament Law, par¬
ticularly the regulations in Leviticus.
The question to be debated is this: How do these qualifica¬
tions emerge? How can their validity be tested and demon¬
strated? The answer surely is, by studying scripture itself. It is
the recognition of what scripture actually consists of which makes
such qualifications of the inerrancy proposition necessary. But once
you grant this methodological principle (the character of
scripture determining the meaning of our definition of scrip¬
ture as God s word), you must surely also recognize that my
position emerges from an application of that same principle.
What needs to be debated is, why inerrantists stop at the
qualifications listed in ICBI’s'Article XIII, and why the status
of scripture as God s word should be threatened if we recog¬
nize the further qualification that scriptural writers were not
always concerned with the historical accuracy of details in all
that scripture touches. The need for some qualification of the
inerrancy proposition is evidently not in dispute. So a crucial
area for clarification in further discussion is, how we deter¬
mine the extent of legitimate qualifications.
3. The significance of the fact that Jesus and/or the first

Christians abandoned some key prescriptions in the law, set
aside dearly formulated scriptural instructions. In what
proper sense, e.g., can we speak of the law of clean and
unclean foods as having ‘perennial validity’ (Churchman, 97,
p. 204)? It is certainly no longer binding for Christians, and
so no longer valid as an expression of God’s will for today in
what was its most obviously intended meaning. If you reply
that it is still authoritative in that it was fulfilled in Christ,
then I have to ask: In what sense can we speak of the law of
dean and unclean foods as ‘literacy “fulfilled” in Jesus Christ’
('Churchman, 98, p. 13)? My historical and covenant-relativity
point has the merit at least of recognizing the full word-of-
God force of such a prescription as such, up until it was
abrogated for Christians. And you may not like my talk of a
‘canon within the canon’, viz., the revelation of Jesus Christ.
But you really do operate with it yourself. How could we call
the commands of Genesis 17.9—14 ‘provisional’ on any
other grounds, or abandon the clear command regarding the
sabbath without any explicit New Testament justification?
Just how all this bears upon our doctrine of scripture does
need clarification in the current debate.
4. The problem posed by any historical method in the study of scrip¬

ture. How legitimate is it to demand ‘proven error’? In his¬
torical reconstruction we can only deal in probabilities; you
recognize this to the extent that you acknowledge that your
interpretation of a passage like II Timothy 3.16 can only
claim acceptance as ‘most probable’. The demand that
‘errors’ be ‘proven’ is inconsistent with this. And it is precisely
this demand which sets up the tension for many students
when they are instructed in the techniques of historical study.
Please note, I do not refer here to the ‘historical-critical
method’ as such, but to any historical method. The ramifica¬
tions of historical study on this issue need further ex¬
ploration: both the tension the demand for proven error sets
up for anyone concerned with the study of history at a
scholarly level; and the pastoral problem of the evangelical
student who is asked to deal with historical difficulties in
scripture using a different methodology, often resulting in a
kind of intellectual schizophrenia.
5. Do inerrantists take with sufficient seriousness even the most

140 THE LIVING WORD
basic exegetical findings, particularly with regard to the Synop¬

tic Gospels? I refer here not to any particular theory of the
relation between these Gospels, on which there is dispute, but
to the fact of literary dependence between the material within
these Gospels when that material was already in Greek, on
which there is no dispute as far as I am aware. Where literary
dependence at the level of the tradition in Greek is so clear,
the sort of harmonizations which depend on postulating
several incidents/sayings rather than different versions of the
one incident/saying become increasingly improbable. Insis¬
tence on such harmonizations is one of the ways in which the
character and text of scripture is not taken with sufficient
seriousness. More important, it is one of the factors which
cause greatest stress to students from an inerrancy back¬
ground, when they find that the most self-evident character
of the text is being ignored and denied as a way of escaping a
‘difficulty’ or ‘error’.
I hope you will agree that these are all points worthy and
deserving of further discussion, and that you will encourage
such discussion. Perhaps you will be willing also to support
the suggestion that a moratorium be called on evangelical in¬
fighting on the issue of scripture until such time as these
issues have been properly ventilated in appropriate forums.
With greetings and all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
James D.G. Dunn

University of Durham 5 October 83
LEVELS OF CANONICAL AUTHORITY
In 1970 a volume appeared, edited by Ernst Kasemann,

under the title The New Testament as Canon.1 It consisted of a
collection of published material spanning the preceding
thirty years, with Kasemann’s own critique of each item at the
end. The range of discussion showed clearly that the subject
matter is one which in the second half of the twentieth
century still provokes lively debate. The old questions first
asked in the early centuries are still on the agenda: by what
process and on what grounds did the New Testament
documents come to be regarded as canonical and as together
constituting a closed canon.2 Should we today, in the light of
our modern (we would like to claim) fuller knowledge of
these documents, reassess those old decisions and redraw the
content and boundary of the canon afresh? Some would ask,
more radically, not just whether this canon is necessary, but
whether any canon is necessary, whether Christianity needs a
canon in the first place? The old debate between Protestants
and Catholics on the relation of scripture and tradition also
still rumbles on, revitalized not least by the Protestant
exegetical recognition that New Testament writers
themselves set considerable store on tradition, and that the
Gospels in particular are a deposit of church traditions about
Jesus: is then the New Testament itself simply a selection of
various developing traditions frozen in writing at particular
points in their development as they were Set down in
response to particular needs?3
In addition there are more modern questions, particularly
142 THE LIVING WORD
the two most sharply posed in the past generation by

Kasemann himself: the problem of the diversity among the
writings contained within the New Testament canon,4 and
the related issue of whether it is necessary to speak in terms
of canon within the canon.5 Does the canon in fact provide a
foundation of the church’s unity? or is it rather the case, as
Kasemann claims, that the canon ‘provides the basis for the
multiplicity of the confessions’, that the canon indeed
legitimizes ‘all sects and false teaching’?6 And given such
diversity, do we not need some means of evaluating these
various possibilities, a criterion by which to judge these claims
to canonical authentication, a canon within the canon? —
whether it be, for example, ‘justification by faith’, as
Kasemann true to his Lutheran heritage insists,7 or ‘the
earliest traditions of the Christian witness ... “the Jesus-
kerygma’”, as others would argue.8
In the years since Kasemann’s volume was published,
however, the most vigorous debate on canonical questions
has hardly touched the New Testament or New Testament
scholarship. The debate in which the names of B. S. Childs
and J. A. Sanders figure most prominently has focussed
almost exlusively on the Old Testament,9 Childs with his
initial call for an Old Testament exegesis oriented primarily
with reference to the ‘canonical context’ of a text and not its
pre-canonical history,10 and Sanders with his call for a
‘canonical criticism’ which recognizes that a text functioned
as authoritative ‘scripture’ at different stages of its
development and to different historical communities.11 As a
Neutestamentler and Christian I must confess that I find it
somewhat surprising (and just a little disturbing) that there
has not been more interaction at this point between Old
1 estament and New Testament specialists (at least so far as I
have been aware). Childs in his Introduction and Sanders give
the New Testament only passing attention, even though it is
prima facie obvious that a canonical interpretation or criticism
of the Old Testament as Jewish scripture will be different
from a canonical interpretation or criticism of it as the Old
Testament part of the Christian canon. Particularly if the
demand is to respect the canonical context, then it is not
enough simply to assert that the Christians took over the
LEVELS OF CANONICAL AUTHORITY 143
Jewish canon (even if we leave aside the question of whether

it was the Hebrew Bible or the LXX they treated
‘wholistically’), or merely to describe the New Testament’s
use of the Old.12 There are crucial questions which cannot be
avoided: How does the Old Testament stand or function as
canon in the light of the New Testament and of the new
revelation to which the New Testament lays claim and bears
witness?13 Can the same case be made for ‘canonical criticism’
or for respect for ‘canonical context’ in the case of the New
T estamentr' and how does the answer to this question affect
the theses of Sanders and Childs with regard to the Old
Testament?14
At the same time Neutestamentlers with concerns in this area
cannot escape an equivalent criticism. For they too have been
largely content to confine themselves to various aspects of the
New Testament’s use of the Old, either to illuminate
particular New Testament texts or to trace hermeneutical
patterns or to examine various hermeneutical techniques.15
Bolder attempts to gain a more systematic view of the relation
of the two Testaments — in terms particularly of typology, the
motif of promise-fulfilment, or salvation-history16 - have not
only tended inevitably to impose a New Testament
perspective on the Old but have also to greater or less degree
failed to take sufficient account of the diversity within the
Old Testament.17 And even those who insist on the need to
continue speaking in terms of a biblical theology have been
content in effect to follow the older models, though in a more
modest version which takes at least some account of the
conclusions and uncertainties of a critically historical exegesis
— what may be loosely described as a biblical theology which
consists in tracing thematic links and continuities.18 In
neither case is there any real coming to terms with the kind of
questions discussed by Childs and Sanders and posed by
them for biblical hermeneutics as a whole.
It is of course wholly understandable that there should be a
divergence of interest and motivation at this point between
Alttestamentlers and Neutestamentlers. Childs’ concern for the
canonical context is a natural reaction to the overwhelming
complexities of tracing a tradition-history which extends over
hundreds of years. The New Testament exegete is faced with
144 THE LIVING WORD
nothing so daunting in his tradition-history analysis. In most

of the letters we can take the present text as sufficiently close
to what was originally written and so can speak of an ‘original
author’ and inquire directly into his intention in writing the
letter. And even when we turn to the complexities of Gospel
criticism we are dealing with a process of development which
lasted at most a few decades, and a process which we can
often trace with greater confidence since we have two or even
three versions of the same tradition. Moreover, where the
great salvation-history events on which Israel saw itself
founded as a nation lie far back at the beginning of that long
process of tradition (the exodus and the Sinai covenant), so
that ‘God’s saving acts’ become as much a problem for
historical exegesis as a key to biblical theology, the equivalent
events on which Christianity is founded (the ‘Christ-event’)
lie within one generation of the earliest New Testament
documents, and many at least of the Gospel traditions take
us back into the Christ-event itself and give us a con¬
temporaneity with Jesus of Nazareth which the student of
Israel s origins can never hope to enjoy. In some ways most
frustrating of all is the Alttestamentler's difficulty in
determining which texts it is that he should be endeavouring
to work from - the Masoretic text which was not finally
stabilized until well into the Christian era, one or other of the
divergent texts which seem to have been current at the time
of Jesus, the text of the LXX, or the Samaritan text, or some
original autograph, or what? — can he speak of a normative or
canonical text without specifying to whom, where and
when?19 Whereas the Neutestamentler can be confident that
apart from a few significant textual variants he is dealing with
the text more or less as it left Matthew, Mark, Luke, and so
on. It is just these differences between the New Testament
and the Old and different possibilities and tasks confronting
Old and New Testament exegesis which make it all the more
imperative that discussions on the canon and on the
canonical relation of Jewish scriptures to Old Testament to
New Testament, and on the canonical authority of their
constituent documents do not continue in isolation from one
another.
The issue I wish to focus on in the present chapter is that of
canonical authority. Both Sanders and Childs are saying some¬

thing which Neutestamentlers need to be reminded of — the fact
that the documents we are dealing with did in fact exercise a
crucially significant influence in shaping the self-understanding
of Christian churches from the first. But what do we mean by
‘canonical authority’ and how did the biblical writings func¬
tion as ‘canonical authorities’? When and how did they exer¬
cise that function? Is canonical authority a timeless attribute
or always circumscribed by reference to particular historical
contexts, attributable only to the complete document or also
to its parts independently of the whole, attributable only to a
document as part of the whole canon or also to the document
independently of the whole? Does ‘canonical authority’ mean
that all canonical documents must be heard to speak with one
voice, or can they disagree and conflict and still be recognized
as canonically authoritative? And what does ‘canonical auth¬
ority’ say regarding the possibility of continuing revelation in
the present? Not least the Christian must ask, Does canonical
authority adhere to the Hebrew Bible as such or to the LXX
as such or to either or both only when juxtaposed with the
New Testament within the Christian Bible? These are the
sort of questions which lie behind the following discussion
and which hopefully will gain some clarification in the
process.
II
In what ways then can we properly speak of the Bible, as a

whole or in its constituent elements, functioning canonically?
If there is anything in the view that present day hermenuetics
must respect the canonical character of a text, what is this
canonical force of the text which commentators must keep in
mind? The answer given to this question will depend in part
on the definition of ‘canon’ used. But it would be fairest to at
least begin with a broader definition as Sanders encourages
us to do - ‘canon’ as referring to any formulation(s) or writ¬
ing^) which a community of faith treats as its rule of faith, as
constitutive or normative for its self-understanding. In which
case it becomes possible to distinguish no less than four broad
levels of canonical authority, each level with different levels
contained within it.20
146 THE LIVING WORD
(a) Tradition-history level. Tradition-history analysis in both

Old and New Testaments has revealed that behind the
present form of a text there often lie several stages of that
text’s pre-history, both oral and written. In the case of the
Old Testament, we may for example distinguish within the
Pentateuch units like the Song of Moses in Exodus 15, or ‘the
Book of the Covenant’ (Ex. 21-23), or the credo in Deuter¬
onomy 26.5—9, as well as the different redactional stages of J
and E, the Deuteronomist and Priestly writer, the Hexateuch
or Tetrateuch and the Torah (Pentateuch). In the case of the
prophets we are accustomed now to attempts to distinguish
an earliest stage of particular (brief) prophetic oracles, from
early groupings and elaborations by their disciples, from the
fuller written text with its possible further redactions. In the
case of the Synoptic Gospels we can think of various sayings
of Jesus put into particular forms and grouped in different
ways before being gathered into the fuller sources used by
our present Evangelists. Or again New Testament criticism is
now well accustomed to thinking in terms of pre-Pauline
formulae, kerygmatic, credal and liturgical, lying behind
Paul’s letters and used by Paul often with redactional
additions (e.g. Rom. 1.3-4; I Cor 15.3-8; Phil. 2.6-11).21
The point is, and in this I follow Sanders completely, that
at each of these levels the traditions in question functioned as con¬
stitutive and normative for the self-understanding of the communities
which used them. From the very fact that these traditions were
preserved in recognizable form we can fairly conclude that at
each stage these statements or fuller writings were heard as
the word of God by the community of faith to which they
were addressed, or which treasured or made use of them. We
know that there were gatherings from ancient times at which
the ‘saving deeds’ of the Lord were recited (Sanders refers
particularly to I Sam. 12.7—8)22 — it is pnma facie fitting to
associate these early units of the Pentateuch with such occa¬
sions, or particular psalms like Psalms 105 and 106.23 The
Josianic reformation based on the impact and authority of
the rediscovered book of Deuteronomy is one of the basic
postulates in Old Testament scholarship. Most clearly of all,
the authoritative weight of ‘the words of the law’ under
the reform of Ezra, four centuries before Christ, is clearly
attested in Nehemiah 8. As for the prophets, it is sufficiently
clear that from the earliest stages the utterances were treas¬
ured as the word of God, even if at first only among a
relatively small group of disciples, and were preserved and
written up because they continued to speak with the force
of divine authority. Likewise in the New Testament. Jesus’
words were heard by his first disciples as words of unsur¬
passed authority, were preserved and used because of their
continuing authority and relevance. At no stage prior to the
present form of the Gospels would they have been regarded
as less than divinely authoritative, an assessment which
naturally would include whatever editing and redacting took
place in each case. So too in the epistles: even in cases like the
individual words ‘abba’ and ‘maranatha’ we can be sure that
they were preserved into the Greek speaking churches pre¬
cisely because they were fundamentally constitutive of each
church’s self-understanding and faith.
Whether or not we wish to use the term ‘canonical authority’
to describe the functioning of these various tradition-history
levels underlying our present texts is a matter of secondary
importance. The fact is that these writings, at each stage of
their pre-history, exercised the sort of influence and were
held in the sort of regard which Christians have thought
proper to attribute only to scripture; they were seen as
normative and determinative of the life and faith of the
communities at each stage in a way that can properly be
described as canonical. Not least of importance is it to recog¬
nize that such traditions were utilized by the biblical authors
precisely because they were already functioning as word of
God in one or more communities of faith: as ‘canonical auth¬
ority’ was not a status first accorded to the Old Testament
books by Ezra and Jamnia or to the New Testament books by
the church of the second and third centuries, but a recog¬
nition of status already demonstrated, so ‘word of God’ was
not an attribute first attached to these older traditions by
virtue of the biblical writers’ use of them, rather the biblical
writers’ use of them is a testimony to the power with which
these traditional forms and materials had already proved
themselves to be word of God.24
148 THE LIVING WORD
(b) Final author or final composition level. At this level we think

primarily of the individual books of the Old and New Testa¬
ments, where the task of exegesis is to uncover the meaning
intended when the material was finally put into its present
shape, that is into the form in which it has endured since that
time. So for example with the Pentateuch, any reconstruction
of the work of J or E or P is better seen as part of the
Pentateuch’s tradition-history and exegesis at this level
should be directed towards uncovering the function and
meaning of these traditions in their present form and position
within the Pentateuch.25 Or in the case of the Synoptic
Gospels, the source usually called ‘Q’ should be regarded as
part of Matthew’s and Luke’s tradition-history, since we can¬
not reconstruct the source as a whole with sufficient confi¬
dence (however coherently particular ‘Q’ material hangs
together), and exegesis at this level should be oriented to¬
wards uncovering the meaning intended by Matthew and
Luke in their use of this material.
Here in fact we are talking about Childs’ concept of the
‘canonical shape’ or ‘final form’ of a biblical writing.26 The
main differences are, first, that I would want to focus atten¬
tion on the editorial/literary final form whereas Child argues
more for the textual final form stabilized by the end of the
first century ad 27 and second, that I would want to speak of
a final composition level also with respect to any work which
is now only part of a larger whole within the Bible but which
originally stood on its own as an independent work and
which can still be recognized as a coherent composition
whose form has remained substantially unmodified by its
incorporation into the larger whole. In the Old Testament I
am thinking particularly of Deuteronomy and the work of
Second Isaiah (40-55).28 In the New Testament a case
in point might be the elements of II Corinthians: if it can
be demonstrated that, for example, chapters 8 and 9 were
originally composed by Paul as independent letters,29 exege¬
sis at this level can ask both what was the meaning and pur¬
pose of chapters 8 and 9 as independent entities, and what
was their meaning and purpose within the final form of II
Corinthians. In both these Old and New Testament examples
we have to reckon with at least two levels of ‘final author’ - on
one level the Deuteronomist, Second Isaiah and Paul, on the
other the force of these works as incorporated within the
larger wholes of the Pentateuch, Isaiah 1-66 and II Corinthians
respectively.
It is at this level that we see one of the clearest differences
between the canons of Old and New Testaments and between
the challenges which they pose to the students of each. In the
case of the New Testament we can speak very meaningfully
of a ‘final author’, or indeed of an ‘original author’, since in
the majority of cases the document as we have it is still
substantially what was written or dictated by the evangelist or
letter writer; the ‘canonical shape’ was given by ‘Matthew’, by
Luke, by Paul, and so on; in the case of the letters in particu¬
lar the meaning intended when the words were first com¬
posed is the meaning preserved by the final form. But in the
Old Testament there is regularly a considerable gap between
first utterance and final form, not least in the case of the
prophets, so that again and again there is plenty of scope for
argument about whether a final redactor whose editorial
work may have been quite limited should be regarded as the
‘final author’ or whether the substantially similar penultimate
edition should be taken as ‘final’. There are probably ex¬
ceptions in both Testaments. In the New Testament, for
example, the concept of a ‘final author’ runs into some diffi¬
culty in the case of the Fourth Gospel; from this aspect, in
other words, the Fourth Gospel is closer in character to the
majority of the Old Testament prophetic books than any
other New Testament document. That is to say, we cannot
confidently remove a final redactorial layer from the Gospel
(except probably John 21) so as to uncover a sufficiently
agreed earlier form whose coherence would enable us to
designate it as ‘final composition’ instead of or alongside
the canonical John.30 Whereas in the Old Testament ‘final
author’ might be a more meaningful concept in relation to
Ezekiel. That is to say, it is at least arguable that the bulk of
Ezekiel is sufficiently close to what emanated from Ezekiel
himself, that it was Ezekiel who impressed the most coherent
‘shape’ on the canonical material,3'and that consequently we
can speak of Ezekiel himself as a final author.32 Nevertheless,
these exceptions apart, the contrast between Old and New
150 THE LIVING WORD
Testaments remains: in the case of the Old Testament the

complexities of disentangling levels of composition and re¬
daction in most cases are such that it is advisable to direct
exegesis in the first instance to the final composition level, the
canonical shape, and to regard the earlier levels, including
that of the eponymous prophet, as levels of tradition-history;
whereas in the case of the New Testament original author
Cper se) and final author are usually one and the same, and
exegesis of the canonical shape can inquire into the historical
context of Matthew or I Corinthians from the first.
At the level of the final author or final composition it can
simply be assumed that the form put on the material at that level
was so decisive and endured so successfully precisely because in that
form it made a lasting and continuing impact. In each case the
document was recognized to have normative authority in that
form, so that substantial redaction either was thought un¬
necessary or did not find favour in the community of faith,
and even if its material was substantially re-used by a later
author (Mark by Matthew, Jude by II Peter) it itself was still
treasured and preserved in the form put upon it by the final
hand. At this level, even more clearly than in the former, we
can recognize writings functioning as the word of God, exer¬
cising a formative and normative influence on communities
of faith, doing the job of‘canon’.
(c) Canonical level. By canonical level I mean the level pro¬

vided by the canon itself. At this level the primary context of
an individual document is the larger group of documents to
which it belongs and which together have been declared or
are being treated as a canon of scripture. It is the level where
the meaning which carries canonical authority is the meaning
of the individual writing as seen within the context of the
whole canon (Childs’ ‘canonical context’). If at the level of
final composition’ individual passages of a particular book
have to be interpreted only as incorporated within that final
composition, so to work at the canonical level means inter¬
preting individual books as part of the complete canon It
could well be argued that only this level properly warrants
the attribution canonical authority’, since from very early cen¬
turies of the common era it is only as a part of a canon of scripture
that individual biblical documents have functioned as authority for
faith and life.
At this level questions of historical context whether of
original author or of final composition become more distant
and less significant; it is the authority which the document
had at the stage of formal canonization which counts for
more. At this level law has to be held in tension with proph¬
ecy; a particular Gospel becomes important as one of the four
Gospels. At this level we can handle Ecclesiastes more easily
in the light of the rest of the Hebrew scriptures; the polemi¬
cal Paul of the major Pauline epistles becomes a more amen¬
able figure when these epistles are set within the frame of
Acts and the Pastorals as provided by the larger canonical
context. At this level we can ignore the obscure fumblings of
the early Jewish speculation about life after death and speak
of the Judaeo-Christian, the canonical teaching on the sub¬
ject. At this level indeed the ideal of a biblical theology becomes
meaningful for the first time and can be pursued with some
hope of success and in a way not possible at the earlier
levels33 — precisely because we can abstract from the ques¬
tions of historical context of each writing, precisely because
we are working at the level of the Bible as such.
Yet here too we must use the plural, ‘levels’, and speak of
different levels, simply because the larger group of writings
within which the individual document is seen to belong
has differed in scope, depending on what historical period
and what community of faith is in view. For most Jews the
Pentateuch would have had primary canonical status more or
less from Ezra onwards, even when the prophets were also
already regarded as scripture. In diaspora Judaism the
greater extent of the LXX gave scope for wider hermeneuti¬
cal possibilities, as both Philo and the hellenistic Christians
demonstrate. The canon of the Hebrew Bible is obviously not
the same as the canon of the Christian Bible, despite the
synonymity of Hebrew Bible with Protestant Old Testament.
And we need only mention the further diversities of Catholic
and Coptic and Ethiopic canons. We cannot therefore avoid
the necessity of reckoning with different levels of canonical
authority even in this narrower sense of the term. For ex¬
ample, the canonical significance and authority of Leviticus
will be different depending on whether the canonical context
152 THE LIVING WORD
is seen as the Pentateuch, the Hebrew Bible, the LXX, or the

Christian Bible.
In more general terms, so long as the concept of canon as
closed canon has not yet been reached, so long as communities
of faith are open to the possibility of including new writings
within their collections of authoritative scripture, the canoni¬
cal level will be a rather shifting base for interpretation. Here
again we cannot ignore the strains which are brought into the
discussion as soon as Alttestamentler and Neutestamentler
attempt to take account of each other’s perspective on the
question. It is all very well for Childs to settle on the Hebrew
text of the Old Testament towards the end of the first cen¬
tury ad as the primary canonical text (above n. 27). But the
Neutestamentler cannot ignore the fact that for most New
Testament authors the LXX was the determinative (should we
not say canonical) form of the Jewish scriptures,34 nor can he
ignore the fact that at that very period the process of moving
towards a New Testament canon was only just beginning.
The canonical level far from freeing hermeneutics for a truly
biblical theology may in the end tie the interpreter more
firmly to the theology of the Jamnian and post-Jamnian rabbis
or of the Greek and Latin Fathers than he at first realized.35
(d) Ecclesiastical level,36 We must mark off this further level

for the simple reason that churches have in fact always distin¬
guished what the Bible means from what it meant, that dog¬
matic theology, not least in the creeds and confessions it has
produced, has always gone beyond biblical theology in con¬
tent as well as in structure and aim. If we allow any sort of
‘sensus plenior’ hermeneutic37'to apply to New Testament as
well as Old, if we allow any possibility of fresh revelation
through scripture, if we allow that God can speak through
the words of the Bible with a meaning having existential
authority different from the text’s historical meaning then
we must distinguish an ecclesiastical level of canonical auth¬
ority from the level authorized by the canon as such. As
Pharisee and rabbi saw the need for an oral tradition to
interpret the written Torah to the different circumstances
ol later ages, with the consequence for example that the
traditions relating to ritual purity went far beyond what was
envisaged even at the canonical level of the Torah, so catholic
Christianity developed its oral traditions in order to validate a
role for Mary far beyond what could be achieved by exegesis
of scripture and to claim a normativeness for the three-fold
order of ministry and for apostolic succession far beyond
anything that could be justified from scripture. In all periods
of Judaeo-Christian history, at least from the first wisdom
writers onwards, contemporary philosophies and social pat¬
terns have been used to find in canonical literature meanings
which none of the previous levels would have recognized,
meanings which nevertheless were claimed to bear canonical
authority.38
Here too it is patently obvious that we have to speak of
different levels (plural) of canonical authority. The diversity
within the canon has allowed significantly different patterns
of theology to emerge. The process of achieving a canonical
meaning of scripture can begin at several different points,
different ‘unclear’ scriptures can be interpreted by different
‘clear’ scriptures, with the inevitable result that different and
even contradictory theologies and ecclesiologies can all claim canoni¬
cal authority. History has certainly proved that Kasemann’s
thesis is well founded — the canon has been the basis as much
for Christianity’s diversity of denomination as for its unity.
It is clear then that the term ‘canonical authority’ can be
used with sufficient meaningfulness and validity at all four
levels outlined above. As a matter of historical fact each bibli¬
cal text can be shown to have different levels of meaning and signifi¬
cance, in some cases stretching back before the meaning
of the final composition, in some cases stretching forward
beyond its meaning within the canonical context, in some
cases stretching both ways, but at every level exercising an
authority recognized as normative by the community which
treasured the text.
Ill
Out of these basic observations about the different levels of

canonical authority arise various other considerations.
(a) For the sake of analysis I have distinguished four differ-

154 THE LIVING WORD
ent levels. But it should be stressed that each level cannot

usually be sharply or clearly marked off from the next - as
has already been obvious in some of the previous discussion.
Hence the difficulty of distinguishing tradition-history from
final composition from redaction in most of the prophets or
in the case of the Fourth Gospel. Hence the need to recognize
that some of our material was already functioning at a
canonical level (the law and the prophets) even before some
of our other material was written (the New Testament); or
the nicer problem of deciding between different canonical
forms - which is the final composition and which the canon¬
ical form in the cases of Daniel and Ezra, the Hebrew and
Aramaic versions (Hebrew Bible) or the Greek version
(LXX)? Hence too the problem of determining whether a
particular ecclesiology (such as the doctrine of the three-fold
ministry) or a particular doctrine of the atonement is derived
properly speaking from the canonical level of authority or
rather from the ecclesiastical level. In fact, what we actually
see is a considerable continuity between all these different
levels, or more precisely, a considerable continuity of form,
content and meaning in a text as it is passed from one histori¬
cal community context to the next. We are witnessing, in
other words, the continuity of living tradition,39 To this extent S.
Sandmel’s much quoted dictum carries weight: ‘Canon is an
incident, and no more than that’.40
We can of course recognize particular moments within this
continuity, it is not a wholly even flow of tradition. The
writing down of oral traditions would have been one.41 The
relative stabilization in the text of the final author/composition
is another. Above all, the concept of a closed canon enables
us to distinguish the ecclesiastical levels from what went be¬
fore, however diverse the actual content of the closed canon,
the texts in use and the subsequent hermeneutical methods
and results. But none of these stages can be treated as abso¬
lutes. The freezing of tradition in particular forms which
retained normative authority beyond the immediate context
certainly lifts these forms above the complete relativization of
a constantly changing, never settled tradition. But even so the
freezing process is not a freezing of the whole stream of
tradition into a final unmovable, unchangeable block. It
is more like a freezing which results in a relatively stable
ice flow being carried down the still moving stream. So the
Chronicler can rework the already stabilized and authorita¬
tive traditions of the former prophets, and both blocks of
material are retained in the canon.43 Matthew can reword the
already stabilized and authoritative traditions of Mark, and
both attain canonical authority (whereas ‘Q’ is more like an
ice flow which disintegrated and was reabsorbed in different
sized pieces into larger flows). The de facto canonical auth¬
ority of some credal statements or church orders is in effect
a reworking of the supposedly more weighty canonical auth¬
ority of the scriptures. To recognize different levels of
canonical authority therefore is to recognize not just the
continuity of living tradition but the elements within that
living tradition which attained greater fixity of form.
(b) In recognizing the continuity between the different

canonical levels we are not thinking in terms of a river of
tradition which follows a completely straight path, as though
each stage flowed from what went before in complete har¬
mony with it, as though each stage led directly into the next
in a straightforward progressive development. Rather we are
confronted with a river which twists and turns, sometimes
apparently doubling back on itself, where there is discon¬
tinuity as well as continuity in the tradition. Or perhaps more
accurately, we are often confronted with different streams of
tradition whose courses sometimes diverge quite markedly.
For example, if Sanders is correct, the separation of the
Pentateuch from the former prophets marks a significantly
different self-understanding of Judah from that contained in
the early recitals, in the Hexateuch or in Isaiah of Jerusalem
— the period of Moses, of the exodus, Sinai and the wilder¬
ness wanderings is separated from the conquest of Canaan,
the establishment of Jerusalem as the unified capital, the
Davidic succession, and is given a normative authority which
markedly qualifies the significance of the later periods.44
Similarly Matthew and James not only differ from Mark and
Paul in their expression of Christianity’s relation to the law,
but do so by deliberately diverting and indeed reversing
particular tendencies in Mark and Paul.45 Or again, the
156 THE LIVING WORD
ecclesiology of Acts and the Pastorals constitutes some sort of

qualification of the ecclesiology of the early letters of the
Pauline corpus.46 Most striking of all, of course, the New
Testament in effect decanonizes much of the Old Testament
law for Christians, abolishing as it does not least the funda¬
mental Mosaic distinction between clean and unclean foods,
so that the Pentateuch can never function as canon for a
Christian with the same effect as it does for a Jew. This can all
be summed up as the diversity of canonical authority, the diver¬
sity between traditions used and evaluated in different ways
at different periods of their canonical history.
All this involves the recognition that God was heard to
speak differently at different periods. Often one generation
heard the same tradition as the word of God in a sense
different from that heard by preceding generations; or a new
word of revelatory authority gained recognition even though
it qualified an older word of revelatory authority. Whatever
unity we may legitimately detect running through all the
levels of canonical authority - unity of salvation-history, con¬
tinuity of faith in the one God, and so on - the element of
diversity is equally if not more important in any attempt to
achieve a canonical hermeneutic. Not least in importance is
the fact that even when an earlier tradition was qualified or
superceded, it was often evidently retained; this retention
attests as much to the canonical authority already attributed
to the earlier tradition as to the revelatory authority which
caused it to be reassessed. To retain such a tradition even
when literally ‘out of date’ (continuity of Davidic succession,
imminence of the parousia) shows that the communities of
faith both recognized the diversity of canonical authority and
canonized it. Moreover, by retaining a tradition even when
qualified by their own perception of God’s will, they made it
possible for their own and future generations both to under¬
stand that perception and to correct it where necessary. To
recognize the different levels of canonical authority and their
diversity is to accept that God may well speak differently
from one generation to another, one historical situation to
another, is to accept a larger canon than simply what speaks
to my generation or situation, is to accept the possibility of my
perception of God’s will being corrected in turn by others.
(c) We can thus see more dearly what it was that has given
certain texts normative authority. It was not simply the fact
that they were inspired, far less simply that they claimed to be
inspired. We can be quite certain that there were many in¬
spired utterances which did not attain to any level of canoni¬
cal authority — prophecies which were never retained, words
and deeds of Jesus which have been forgotten (cf. John
21.25). We know of documents which were apparently no
different in kind from those which achieved canonical status
— source documents, lost letters of Paul, as well as those
normally described as apocryphal or pseudepigraphal, and
so on — many of them claiming an inspiration no different
from that of prophet or apostle;47 yet they either were never
regarded as authoritative or achieved only a limited sway,
limited both temporally and geographically. However much
inspiration is to be regarded as a necessary qualification for
a text to become canonical, it is clearly not a sufficient con¬
dition.48
What marked off some materials as possessed of canonical
authority from others was both their inspiration and particular
communities’ recognition of that inspiration. It was those ancient
recitals of Israel’s election, the various prophecies, the
traditions of Jesus, etc., which in the event were heard as
words of divine revelation, with which we have to deal at the
various levels — texts which informed and shaped the self¬
understanding of successive communities of faith, which
were treasured for that reason, and which in this way exer¬
cised normative authority even before they were formally
recognized as scripture. Other texts, even inspired texts, do
not enter our consideration because either they were never
heard as words of God at all, or heard as God’s word in such a
limited way that they never secured a lasting place in the
wider consciousness of any community. Both inspiration and
recognition of inspiration therefore are equally crucial in any
definition of canonical authority.
A further corollary to the recognition of various levels of
canonical authority and of the continuity between them is
that it becomes impossible to attribute a particular degree of
inspiration to any one level, to distinguish say the final com¬
position level as qualitatively distinct in inspiration from any
158 THE LIVING WORD
of the others. If anyone was ‘more inspired’ than others it

would presumably have been Moses who ‘talked with God’
and Jesus who alone ‘knows the Father’. Yet we only have
their revelations at one or more remove, through the inspir¬
ation of lesser men - do we have to say through the quali¬
tatively lesser inspiration of lesser men? Or again, is the
inspiration which recognized the canon and framed the
creeds qualitatively different from that of the final authors of
the scriptures? The fact is that none of the earlier forms
would have survived and been treasured had they not been
seen to carry authority as word of God, that is to be inspired,
by the communities which treasured them. At each level of
canonical authority we are dealing with texts whose inspira¬
tion was taken for granted, whose inspiration was attested by
the impact of their revelatory authority.
(d) Furthermore, we can also see more clearly that the

whole process discussed in section II involves a continuing
interaction between what had already been accorded canonical auth¬
ority and new revelation,50 The effective authority of canon did
not depend on the belief that there had been a once for all
burst of revelation over a short piece of time - Moses as sole
and final author of the Pentateuch, the LXX as the identical
translation of the seventy-two working independently, or
whatever. The very fact that we have had to talk of the
continuity of living tradition involves the recognition that
what constituted established revelation was again and again
being expanded by new revelation. The very fact that we
have had to talk of the diversity of canonical authority in¬
volves the recognition that at not a few points in the whole
process established revelation was adjudged to have been
qualified by new revelation.
This we might note is one of the most significant differ¬
ences between the situations confronting us today and say
Christian Jews of the first century, the difference caused by
closure of the canon. In the first century, believers could hold
hrmly to the idea of already normative writings while treating
other writings in such a similar way that they became recog
mzed as canonical too. Whereas Christians today have been
conditioned by the centuries-old presupposition that the
canon is firmly closed. The difference is not so great as that
bold contrast might imply. For as already pointed out (lid)
our hermeneutical methods and dogmatic syntheses drawn
from canonical material have again and again become a de
facto modification of the Bible’s effective canonical function.
Nevertheless there is a difference between a mind-set open to
the possibility of a fresh word from God which should be
accorded canonical authority, and one which understands
the functioning of canonical authority simply in terms of
expounding or interpreting the word of God from previous
centuries. If we are to appreciate how canonical authority
functioned all through the most formative period of Judaism
and Christianity we must give weight to this interaction be¬
tween old word and new word of God — something which is
all the more important if the functioning of canonical auth¬
ority during this period is itself to have any kind of canonical
weight in our own evaluation of canonical authority.
The point is that a concept of canonical authority which
recognizes that the process of canonization is not complete is
bound to be more flexible than one which begins from the
assertion that the canon is closed. Any community of faith
which begins from the recognition that the authoritative
word of God in a particular instance involves the interaction
of accepted canon and proffered new revelation will inevit¬
ably be much more sensitive and circumspect in its judgment
as to the will of God — the authority of canon will neither be
appealed to nor applied in a wooden or mechanical way,
‘scripture’ is less likely to become ‘letter’. How else can a
community of faith decide between a Jeremiah who claims a
new word of God and a Hananiah who appeals to the older
certainties (Jer. 28)? How else was it possible for the first
Christians to accept a revelation claimed by Peter or Paul that
the gospel should go to Gentiles without requiring circum¬
cision (despite Gen. 17.9-14), that the law of clean and un¬
clean foods was no longer binding (despite Lev. 11.1-23;
Deut. 14.3—21)? For a faith which professes belief in the Holy
Spirit the perception and exercise of canonical authority can
never rest solely on the assertion ‘The Bible says’.
(e) It follows that we have to allow also for the historical

160 THE LIVING WORD
relativity of canonical authority — the recognition that the de facto

authority of canonical texts is not some idealized postulate
suspended from heaven and never actually interacting with
historical reality. Canonical authority in practice is what God
was heard to say in this or that particular situation, usually by
direct appeal to what had been already recognized as canoni¬
cal, but sufficiently often also by appeal to what was perceived
as a new word from God which qualified the old, which made
it necessary to read some canonical text differently because the
historical context was different. Thus the exile forced the
Judaeans to hear the same older promises afresh and with
different meaning; the advent of Christ caused more and
more Christians to hear the same Torah but with different
significance; in the different situation of his Hellenistic
Jewish context Matthew presented the Jesus-tradition differ¬
ently from Mark writing with a view to the Gentile mission;
the institutionalized church justified an order of priesthood
despite obvious lack of justification within the New Testa¬
ment. It is only by recognizing that God was heard to speak
differently in different historical contexts that we can cope
with the growth and development of canonical texts (Ilia) or
the diversity within that development and subsequently en¬
shrined within the canon (Illb).51 It is only by recogniz-
ing that an immediacy of revelation in a particular situation
could be accorded normative authority over against the
hitherto regulative canonical authority, because it spoke to
that situation in a way that the older canonical authority did
not, that we can make canonical sense of the fact of different
levels of canonical authority (II).52
What this means in practice is that we cannot ask after the
canonical authority of any text at any level without having regard to
the historical context of that level,53 The exegete of any text who
wants to take the issue of canonical authority seriously will
be concerned to reconstruct the historical context of each
level.54 By having due regard for the differences and diver¬
sity of historical contexts he will find some canonical guid¬
ance on how to cope with the differences and diversity of
canonical authority, on how to relate canonical documents to
the different situations of his own day. In this way he will
hope to hear afresh the word of God as it came to different
generations and situations. In this way he will come to see
how canonical authority actually functioned in practice. In
this way he will be able to feed valuable material to the
systematic theologian in his inquiry into how God speaks now
and how revelation in the present is to be related to what has
been canonized as the revelation of the past.55
IV
All this poses more sharply the issue of whether within all
these different levels of canonical authority there is one level
which should be regarded as possessing primacy of canonical
authority, as normative — normative for the exegete, or for
contemporary faith, or indeed for all time and all issues.
Given the continuity between these different levels, the con¬
tinuity of living tradition (Ilia), is the very idea of canon
wholly relativized, or can we treat one level as more regula¬
tive than the others? Given the diversity between these levels,
the diversity of and within our present canons (Illb), can we
in fact locate a canon within the canon, can we isolate a
primary criterion of canonicity by which to judge all claims to
canonical authority, as Kasemann has urged? Given that
immediate perception of God’s will in a particular situation,
whether designated as revelation or not, can be appealed to
as a reason for qualifying or even setting aside the most
obvious meaning of a canonical text, what means have we for
‘testing the spirits’, for discerning the false prophecy which
ought to be rejected as against the genuine insight into God’s
will which can legitimately claim its own weight of ‘canonical
authority’.56 If the freezing of tradition in any particular
form is so incidental in the living flow of tradition, so contin¬
gent on the peculiarities of particular historical circum¬
stances, so open to qualification and correction subsequently,
can we give any weight to the idea of canon as a rule for faith
and life of lasting significance, can we regard any level of
canonical authority as having more than passing significance?
(a) If we ask these questions first with respect to the task of

exegesis, I believe a clear answer can be given. In exegesis,
whatever the level of the text’s history and meaning that is
162 THE LIVING WORD
being investigated, the level of the final composition (final author,

canonical form) has to be regarded as normative — normative in
the sense of exercising a control over or check on the lines of
investigation and any hypotheses or results which emerge.57
It has to be the level of the final composition for the simple
reason that as a rule we gain a clearer grasp of the meaning
and function of any particular text as that level than at any
other. Especially when we are dealing with a text of several
(or many) chapters in length we can gain a clearer picture of
the characteristic features, motifs and concerns at the level of
the final composition, than is possible at any other level. In a
word, at the level of the final composition we have the best
hope of ascertaining the intended meaning of the text within
its most durative context. In contrast, any attempt to pene¬
trate back to one or other of the tradition-history levels is
bound to be more speculative, both as to the form of the text
and as to its function and meaning. Likewise, the more coher¬
ent the text as a unified composition the clearer its meaning
and function is likely to be, whereas the diversities within a
larger canon are bound to make its significance at the canon¬
ical level less clear. It is this handle on a text’s meaning which the
relative coherence of the final composition level provides which makes
it both possible and necessary for this level to serve as control over our
exegesis at other levels.
v All this does not mean of course that it is only the final
composition level which should be subjected to investigation.
On the contrary, investigation of other levels, particularly of
course the tradition-history levels, will often throw more light
on the meaning of the final composition. It does mean how¬
ever that all attempts to inquire into a text’s tradition-history
have to make sufficient sense of that text’s function and
meaning at the level of the final composition; the more diffi¬
cult it is to explain the transition from a hypothesized earlier
form and meaning to the form and meaning of the final
composition, the less likely is that hypothesis to be correct;
and vice-versa - the more light the hypothesized tradition-
history of a text sheds on that text’s meaning at the final
composition level, the more likely is that hypothesis to be
correct. So too any exegesis directed to the canonical level of
a text, its function and meaning within the canon, will have to
explain how that function and meaning developed from the
function and meaning provided by the final composition, for
the greater the divergence of the canonical meaning from
that given by the final composition the more ambiguous with¬
in the diversity of the canon that canonical meaning is liable
to be. In every case the clearer ‘known’ is the level of the final
composition, which consequently can and must provide a
control and check over investigations into the less clear ‘un¬
knowns’ of the other levels.
As will be obvious from the earlier discussion (lib) the case
argued here is much more easily justified with regard to the
bulk of the New Testament writings where we can usually
speak with confidence both of final author (or original
author) and of the meaning he intended. So for example, I
am arguing that in terms of exegesis the meaning intended
by Matthew at any point in his Gospel must be the starting
point for and check on investigations into the pre-Matthean
history of the tradition, and any hypothesis regarding that
tradition-history must include a sufficient explanation of how
Matthew used it as he did. So too with Paul the primary
exegetical task must be to explain Paul’s letters as far as
possible in their own terms, and so far as exegesis of Paul is
concerned the question of how they square with the Acts of
the Apostles (or with the Pastorals) is a secondary issue;
moreover, any hypothesis regarding the canonical Paul must
‘fit’ individually with the exegetical results of the Pauline
epistles, Acts and the Pastorals respectively. The normative
level as the control level is the level of the final author.
However, I would like to argue for the same principle of
exegetical control with regard to the Old Testament docu¬
ments as well. And here in effect I side with Childs by appeal¬
ing to the control provided by the ‘canonical shape’ of an Old
Testament book as a check on the inevitably more speculative
reconstructions of the levels of tradition-history, to the
canonical shape of Amos or Micah as a control on attempts to
reconstruct the original form and force of Amos’ and Micah’s
prophetic utterances, to the canonical shape of the Pentateuch
as a check on any attempt to reconstruct the form of J or E or
the redactional editing of P. Any hypothesis regarding the
historical Amos or the historical Micah or regarding J or E
164 THE LIVING WORD
or P must include within it a sufficient explanation of the

present canonical shapes of Amos, Micah and the Pentateuch.
In addition, I would wish to appeal to the final composition
form of Deuteronomy or Second Isaiah or to the Hebrew
texts of Jeremiah and Kings as checks and controls on any
assessment of their meaning within the Hebrew Bible, or the
LXX or the Christian Bible.
In short, so far as the task of exegesis of both Old and New
Testaments is concerned the level of final composition must
be regarded as primary and normative in relation to all other
levels.
(b) What then about the canon in the sense of rule for faith
and life? Can any of the different levels of canonical auth¬
ority be given priority over the rest as defining more authori¬
tatively what the faith is, as more regulative for Christianity’s
self-understanding than any other, as providing a more ade¬
quate test for any further claims to prophetic inspiration or
revelatory authority? A case can be made for each of the four
levels already distinguished, but once again I would wish to
argue that the final composition level must carry greatest
weight.
The ecclesiastical level is in fact the level which in prac¬
tice carries greatest influence. This remains the force of
Kasemann’s assertion that the canon legitimizes different
denominations and teachings. Every branch of the church,
every theological tradition in practice operates with its own
canon, its own selection of legitimizing texts, its own patterns
of interpretation as much read into the text as read out of it.
Not the canonical texts per se but the interpretation of the
canonical texts becomes the starting point for all ecumenical
dialogue, and it is the insistence on the authority of these
diverse patterns, not any diversity regarding the authority of
the canon itself, which repeatedly proves the stumbling block
in ecumenical discussions. Yet no one would actually seek
to justify this level as the primary canonical level; even in
Roman Catholic circles scripture per se still has primacy,
is normative for the subsequent tradition, even when the
tradition is understood as an interpretation of scripture.^ So
whatever the actual practice of canonical authority, for all
branches of Christianity the theology of the canon at least in
theory puts the weight on the canonical level rather than the
ecclesiastical level.
The canonical level certainly has the most impressive prima
facie claim to be the normative level for faith and life.59 In
terms of the canon the canonical level is the real watershed.
Prior to the recognition of just these and not other docu¬
ments as canonical the range of texts which could be re¬
garded as canonical was open. The content of the canon, as
well as the text form and possible interpretations of these
texts, was still fluid. Particularly in the first century ad the
canon of Jewish scripture was still open, and for Christians,
including Christian Jews, the possibility of the range of
canonical documents being extended could hardly be ig¬
nored (even if it was not put in just these terms). But since
then, and certainly for the past eighteen centuries or so,
there has been no real possibility for the vast majority of Jews
and Christians of further documents being included within
their canons. Whatever the inspiration claimed for subse¬
quent credal statements, for particular mystics or works
of devotion, whatever disagreement about Old Testament
apocrypha or the canonical status of documents like James or
Revelation, there has been more or less universal accord for
all these centuries that the canon or canons of holy scripture
are now fixed. In that sense these canons of scripture have in
fact exercised a normative authority over both Jewish and
Christian communities for centuries which would certainly
seem to give them first claim to primacy in terms of normative
authority.
On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that this has
been a theoretical primacy, that in practice, as already noted,
the real canon is some pattern of interpretation imposed
upon the canonical writings. Moreover, this diversity of inter¬
pretation simply reinforces the fact of diversity within the
canon itself — a diversity which an exegesis directed to the
historical context of each writing is bound to confirm. Conse¬
quently we either have to accept the fact that the canon as
now constituted actually canonizes diversity, and a greater
diversity than most seem willing to contemplate - and this
will force us back to the final composition level as we attempt
to clarify the precise scope of the diversity. Or if we want a
166 THE LIVING WORD
more unified picture of faith and life to emerge from the

canon, we will have to accept the necessity of selecting or
importing some organizing concept or of imposing some
arbitrary pattern on the diversity - which effectively drives us
back to the ecclesiastical level. The point is, that the canon does
not of itself provide any single unifying key. There is nothing in
the Jewish canon which requires the interpreter to see in
Jesus the unifying factor,60 nothing in the New Testament to
say whether Mark’s or Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ atti¬
tude to the law is normative. In fact the canon as canon
cannot provide sufficient control on the potential vagaries of
interpretation claiming canonical authority. The stronger
any claim that the canon as such offers a single unifying
pattern, the more sure we can be that it is a pattern abstracted
without due regard for a properly historical exegesis or for
the diversity of ecclesiastical traditions which all claim auth¬
entication from the canon.61
It is the final composition level which once again in the event
gives greatest promise of providing a normative control.62
However the message of any document may have been quali¬
fied by its being included within a larger canon, the crucial
fact remains that it was this document which was preserved in
this form because it was heard as God’s word addressed to the
community of God’s people. It was the impact of this message
in this form which resulted eventually in its being formally
canonized. So the primary canonical force of any canonical
writing is not the force it had at the time it was declared
canonical, but the force which initially lifted it out of the run
of every day communication, caused it to be cherished and
preserved until question of formal canonical status arose.63
Moreover, it is this primary canonical force on which properly
critical historical exegesis can shed most light. For particu¬
larly with New Testament writings we can usually discern the
historical life-setting of a document with some broad detail
by means of historical critical exegesis, both the situation
addressed and the meaningfulness of the address to that
situation, so that we are enabled to hear with some clarity
how the word of God worked, how the author spoke to
particular situations and how he would have been heard in
these situations. And even with Old Testament writings the
meaning of any text at or within the final composition is
always liable to be clearer than its meaning at any other level,
so that we can usually hear that text in its force as the word of
God at that level more clearly and more definitively than at
any other level. It is the handle on this level of canonical
authority which exegesis affords us which once again makes
it possible for this level to provide the norm, the test and
check on the more ambiguous results both of the diversity of
the canonical level and of the speculative investigations of the
tradition-history levels. The charge that to focus attention on
the meaning intended at the original author or final compo¬
sition level results in ‘a fragmentizing exegesis’ because it
treats the biblical writers ‘as isolated individuals’,64 misses the
point that the historical context of the final composition and
of the community’s recognition of its canonical authority
cannot be ‘isolated’ from Israel’s history of faith, and the
point that God was heard to speak in different ways to differ¬
ent situations in history so that removal of the text from that
context prevents ns hearing that text with the force which gave it its
determinative canonical shape — just as setting it within that context
enables us to delimit its canonical authority more precisely.
What then of the tradition-history level? Here particularly the
Neutestamentler is in a different position from the Alttestament-
ler. However much the Alttestamentler may want to hear the
word of God as it was heard at each level of tradition-history,
a desirable objective as I have argued, the process of unravel¬
ling the tradition-history may be so complex and speculative
that he has to eschew any attempt to recover the historical
Abraham, that he has to labour inordinately to uncover the
teaching of the historical Moses and has to strain unbearably
to hear it with the ears of the first Israelites, though he may
entertain higher hopes with regard to the historical Isaiah of
Jerusalem. But the Christian Neutestamentler cannot be con¬
tent merely to hear Jesus as delivered to us by Matthew or
Mark or Luke or John. It is not simply that historical exegesis
points to the conclusion that each has slanted and/or devel¬
oped the Jesus-tradition in his own way. More important for
him is the Christian assertion of Jesus’ significance. If Jesus is
indeed the Word of God incarnate, then he has a normative¬
ness for faith which is unequalled and certainly unsurpassed
168 THE LIVING WORD
by scripture. If we are indeed to think in terms of a canon

within a canon, where else should we look but Christ himself?
After all, it was the revelation of Christ which constituted the
first Christians’ canon, in the light of which they interpreted
the Old Testament (not least as Old Testament), by means of
which they evaluated its continuing significance. And ideally
we in turn should like to be able to check the gospel of
Matthew or of Paul or of John or of James against the mes¬
sage and canonical authority of Jesus himself. So the Christian
scholar cannot but want to get back as far as possible to the
historical context of Jesus’ own ministry and proclamation, to
hear it in its own terms, to hear how the (for him) most
authoritative actions and utterances of all time spoke to par¬
ticular situations and produced the faith of the first disciples.
Yet in the end the same difficulty confronts the Neutesta-
mentler as confronts the Alttestamentler, by no means so com¬
plex a difficulty, but one which must make him properly
cautious about any reconstruction of particular contexts and
situations in the life of Jesus. However much the Christian
Neutestamentler might want to check for example Matthew’s
Jesus against the historical Jesus, it is never quite so simple as
that. He cannot simply assume that the Markan or recon¬
structed ‘Q’ source of any text is closer to the message of the
historical Jesus; and even when he can mark out a character¬
istic or fairly distinctive Matthean motif he cannot take it for
granted that this a redactional addition to the tradition which
moves away from the message of the historical Jesus. Again
and again it will be the case that the more Matthew is said to
have diverged from the teaching of the historical Jesus the
more speculative will be the reconstruction of that original
teaching, so that it must be the level of Matthew which pro¬
vides the norm and check. That is by no means to deny that a
word of Jesus at the level of the tradition-history behind
Matthew may well speak to present day hearing of faith with
greater force than Matthew’s version, but inevitably the control
against the danger of an imaginative reconstruction of the level of the
historical Jesus (as in the nineteenth-century Lives of Jesus)
must be the canonical form of the Gospels themselves. Moreover, it
is at least arguable that the chief impact of Christ for faith
was the impact of the whole Christ-event, and particular
sayings and actions of the historical Jesus only gain and only
gained their full impact within the context of the Christ-
event. It was actually the first Christians’ memory of Christ
and their appreciation of his life, death and resurrection
which determined for them the meaning of the Old Testa¬
ment. So arguably the real canon within the canon is not
Christ as such but the remembered Christ, the geschichtliche
Christus, Jesus as he was presented to enquirers and young
Christians in the years following his death and resurrection.
The value of uncovering the different tradition-history
levels then is not that they provide a canonical authority
distinct from or independent of the final author. Rather the
value of tradition-history investigation is that it enables us to recog¬
nize more clearly the relativity of the final composition level, the
degree to which earlier tradition has been shaped so as to
function as the word of God to different or new situations
confronting particular communities of faith at particular
periods in history. This recognition of the limitation of the
canonical authority of the final author level is not to subtract
from or diminish the canonical authority of the text, rather it
allows the text to be heard with its full force as addressed to a
particular context within history.
To sum up then, investigation of all the levels of canonical
authority must be important both for exegesis and particu¬
larly for faith. Men of faith will always want to hear how
Isaiah or Jeremiah spoke to their day, and the Christian will
certainly want to hear Jesus for himself, always recognizing
that God may speak his earlier word with renewed power.
Naturally also the men of faith will want to look for some
organizing principles in biblical theology or to some system of
dogmatic theology which provides a framework for a fuller
understanding of his faith. But in terms of a check and
control on meanings which are heard as coming from par¬
ticular texts, the final composition level provides the best
norm. Especially where someone within the community of
faith is open to the possibility of new revelation, or hears
unusual meanings from a particular text, or offers strange
systems of theology, the need for some check and norm
becomes increasingly important; the community of faith
which may have to judge the significance or respond to the
170 THE LIVING WORD
challenge offered by such claims to speak with prescriptive

authority will need some norm. The more clearly the histori¬
cal context of each level of canonical authority can be recon¬
structed the more valuable it will be as such a check, for they
will then be able to see how God’s word was heard and how it
functioned in previous situations like theirs. And as the level
of final composition is the one which usually provides the
clearest meaning at this point, so it will also provide the
clearest example of how canonical authority functioned at
particular periods in the history of faith. As a rule therefore
the level of final author, final composition is best able to
provide the norm and check which the community of faith
needs.
V
There are of course other issues which have only been
touched on in the preceding discussion, and though I have
concentrated on the theme of canonical authority the treat¬
ment is still only sketchy; in particular, all the while I have
been conscious of my lack of familiarity with current Old
Testament research. But despite its limitations the discussion
does seem to point up some useful and some familiar, but all
I hope valuable conclusions.
(a) We have seen something of the importance of canonical

authority as a factor both in exegesis and in faith. The epic of
Gilgamesh, the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, the letter of
Aristeas, the ‘Q’ source, the epistle of Barnabas - none of
them carry the same weight as the biblical texts, simply be¬
cause in the history of Judaeo-Christian faith they never have
carried that sort of weight, that level of canonical authority.
As illustration we need simply note the fact that all World
Council of Churches papers on faith and order matters start
from the recognition of a need to justify themselves at some
level of canonical authority of the biblical texts. Above all,
for the Christian the New Testament provides a normative
definition of what Christianity is, a definition which inevit¬
ably must control to greater or less degree all subsequent
definitions and expositions. Too often however, the import-
ance of canonical authority has gone unrecognized, or has
been exercised uncritically, or the appeal to canonical auth¬
ority has itself been insufficiently controlled by a historical
awareness of how canonical authority has functioned in the
past and can function today. A more careful analysis of what
canonical authority actually has been and is has thus become
increasingly desirable.
(b) The identification of four different levels of canonical auth¬

ority may help to clarify some of the confusion and even
resolve some of the difficulties which have confronted biblical
scholars since J. P. Gabler first distinguished biblical theology
— in particular, the relation between exegesis and interpreta¬
tion, and between biblical theology as a purely descriptive
exercise and biblical theology as a way of doing theology
today, not to mention the ambiguities of Childs’ ‘canonical
process’, ‘canonical shape’ and ‘canonical context’. By distin¬
guishing the level of final composition from, on the one
hand, the tradition-history level, and on the other, the
canonical level (the proper domain of biblical theology) and
the ecclesiastical level (the proper domain of dogmatic the¬
ology), particular issues as they affect individual texts become
clearer and a greater refinement of analysis becomes pos¬
sible. More important, the recognition that the texts in question
functioned as canonical authority makes possible a much more posi¬
tive interaction between a properly historical exegesis and faith
seeking instruction than many scholars over the past century have
thought possibleThe point is, that once we recognize the
dimension of the canonical authority of a text, and recognize
that this text exercised its canonical force at different histori¬
cal levels, then the elucidation of that dimension, of that
force becomes a legitimate object of critical enquiry. The
concern of faith does not need to distance itself as a concern
from the concern of critically historical description. For faith
will want, with the historian, to illuminate as sharply as pos¬
sible the actual canonical authority of a text at whatever level.
Without denying for a moment the conflict that can arise
between a properly critical historical methodology and a faith
which seeks to be open to the Vergegenwartigung of a text as
the word of God, the very fact that the historical functioning
of a text as canonical authority is the subject matter of investi-
172 THE LIVING WORD
gation allows a positive interaction of self-critical faith and

historical analysis which can be very beneficial to both.
(c) In particular, we have been able to see how canonical

authority functioned - not only by highlighting the four differ¬
ent levels of canonical authority, and the continuity between
them, but by showing how again and again the hearing of the
word of God involved an interaction of canonical tradition,
immediate perception of the will of God and community recognition.
The implication is that Christians today will not be able to
hear the word of God as it was heard in these situations of the
past unless we take into account the historical context of that
word. Moreover, there will be many instances where it will
become evident, on exegetical grounds, that the text which
was heard as God s word was so closely tied to the particular
context that its prescriptive authority will be limited to that context
(so many would judge to be the case not only with regard to
the Old Testament laws on clean and unclean food but also
with regard to the New Testament restrictions on women’s
participation in the worship and order of the church). That is
to say, the canonical authority of any text at any level is not
independent of the historical context at each level. So too,
faith s hearing of the word of God today will inevitably in¬
volve the same interaction,J with the community of faith
prayerfully considering both its canonical precedents and
any claim to a prophetic perception of God’s will in relation
to whatever issue requires a decision.
(d) Moreover, we have seen good reason to pick out the level
of final composition as the one which provides the clearest norm
both for exegesis and for faith. This will be a more limited canon¬
ical authority than has often been asserted for the Bible —
precisely because it does not claim or depend on certain
access to the historical level of the exodus or of the historical
Jesus, precisely because it takes seriously the historical con¬
text of the final author or composition, takes seriously the
inspiration of the Spirit at that level speaking a word of God
in a form which made clear and lasting impact on faith. But
precisely because it is the clearest norm it will be able to
provide a crucial check against the dangers both of over-
speculative exegesis in the task of hearing the word of God
from the past and of false prophecy in the task of hearing the
word of God in the present. Not least of the importance of
focussing particular attention on this level is that it is the level
on which the great bulk of believers can most easily work and
where meaning can be most easily demonstrated - so that it
provides a united basis for the wider community of faith,
more so than the complex tradition-history investigations of
the scholar or the diverse patterns of biblical and dogmatic
theology. At the level of final composition we can recognize
most clearly the force of a text’s canonical authority and so
enable it to function most forcefully as norm, as canon for us
today.
(e) One of the most striking features which has come to the
fore repeatedly in this analysis is the differences between the
Old Testament and the New Testament in this area of discussion,
not least the difference made to the functioning of each as
canonical authority by having to take account of the other’s
canonical authority. It is not simply that the issue is so much
more complex in the case of the Old Testament (length of the
tradition-history process, difficulty of defining ‘final author’,
etc.). It is also the fact that the canonical force of an Old
Testament text at the final composition level will often be
different from its significance when read in the light of Christ
and the New Testament. It is the fact that a New Testament
author will often be able to claim canonical backing from the
Old Testament only by using hermeneutical techniques (as in
Gal. 3.16) which, however legitimate in his own day, can
hardly claim the same weight today — the fact, in other words,
that the New Testament canonizes interpretations of Old
Testament texts which an exegesis directed to final compo¬
sition level of these texts would find hard to justify. Like¬
wise the salvation-history and other patterns read in the Old
Testament by biblical and dogmatic theologians are equally
arbitrary at the canonical level of the Old Testament itself,
equally predetermined by the Christian assessment of the
significance of Jesus of Nazareth. However, the Christian,
including the Christian Alttestamentler, has no choice: he must
affirm the exegetically arbitrary axiom of his faith, that the
174 THE LIVING WORD
advent of Christ has set the historical contexts of all earlier

canonical texts in an epoch that is passed {Old, Testament),
and that the New Testament which bears the most definitive
witness to Christ and to the revelatory significance of the
Christ-event has therefore a weight of canonical authority
which the Old Testament texts as such cannot fully share. In
other words, the Christian has no choice but to affirm that
Christ is the norm of all norms, that the New Testament is the canon
within the canon of the Christian Bible.
In short, to recognize the historical fact of a text’s canonical
authority, the different levels of canonical authority, and the
normativeness of the final composition level within the four,
as well as of the New Testament within the Christian Bible, is
both to inform and liberate our hearing of scripture as the
word of God and to make it more meaningful and more
possible for scripture to continue exercising its proper role as
canonical authority.67
NOTES
1 .The Task of New Testament Interpretation
1. W. Wrede, ‘The Task and Methods of “New Testament

Theology’”, in R. Morgan, The Nature of New Testament Theology, SCM
Press 1973, pp. 68—116; K. Stendahl, ‘Biblical Theology’, The
Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon, 1962, Vol. 1, pp. 418-432.
2. A. Schlatter, ‘The Theology of the New Testament and
Dogmatics’, in Morgan, Nature, pp. 117-166.
3. R. Bultmann, ‘Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?’,
Existence and, Faith, Collins, Fontana 1964, pp 342—351.
4. A. C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons, (Paternoster 1980.).
5. J. D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, SCM Press 1977.
6. For example, D. A. Carson, ‘Unity and Diversity in the New
Testament: The Possibility of Systematic Theology’, in Scripture and
Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and J. D. Woodbridge, Zondervan, 1983, p. 79;
R. Nicole, ‘The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture: J. D. G. Dunn
versus B. B. Warfield’, Churchman 98 (1984), p. 200 (‘a jarring
multiplicity of irreconcilable accounts and teachings’); and even the
more sensitive treatment of C. H. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle,
Hodder and Stoughton 1985, p. 71. Regretably also B.S. Childs, The
New Testament as Canon: An Introduction, SCM Press 1984, pp. 20, 29.
2. The Gospels as Oral Tradition

1. J. D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus, SCM Press and Westminster
Press 1985.
3. Was Jesus a Liberal ? Was Paul a Heretic ?

1. Hyam Maccoby, The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1986.
4. The Problem of Pseudonymity «■ /

1. David G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon, Tubingen, J. B. Mohr
1986.
176 THE LIVING WORD
5. The Authority of Scripture According to Scripture
1. F. W. Farrar, History of Interpretation, Macmillan 1886, p. 373.

2. Helvetic Consensus 1675.
3. Farrar, op. cit., pp. 374f.; A. B. Bruce, Inspiration and Inerrancy
James Clarke 1891, pp. 19—20; J. Rogers, ‘The Church Doctrine of
Biblical Authority’, in J. Rogers (ed). Biblical Authority, Word Books
1977, p. 31 (see also p. 36).
4- Though G. Maier, The End of the Historical-Critical Method, 1974,
ET, Concordia 1977, pp. 68f., speaks almost with regret of the
abandoning of this view as ‘the first break in the dam’, the highest point
of ‘the slippery slope’ (see below p. 107).
5. ‘Inspiration’, The Presbyterian Review, April 1881, p. 238. In another
statement Warfield affirmed ‘the complete trustworthiness of Scripture
in all elements, even circumstantial statements ...’ (‘Recent Theological
Literature’, The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, 4, 1893, p. 499).
6. Orr edited the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (5 vols.,
1930) and was a contributor to The Fundamentals.
7. J. Orr, Revelation and Inspiration, Duckworth 1910, pp. 197—8.
8. E.g. Fuller Theological Seminary modified its earlier statement of
faith (which affirmed the Bible’s freedom ‘from all error in the whole
and in the part’) in the early 1960s to one which affirmed the Bible as
‘the only infallible rule of faith and practice’.
9. E. J. Young, Thy Word is Truth, Eerdmans 1957, p. 48.
10. Quoted by Bruce, Inspiration, p. 4. In a similar vein to Orr’s protest
(above p. 91) is G. C. Berkouwer’s comment that when error in the sense
of incorrectness is used on the same level as error in the biblical sense of
sin and deception, ‘we are quite far removed from the serious manner
in which error is dealt with in Scripture’. ‘In the end it (the postulate of
biblical inerrancy) will damage reverence for Scripture more than it will
further it’ (Holy Scripture, Eerdmans 1975, pp. 181, 183, cited by
Rogers, Biblical Authority, p. 44).
11. Fuller has responded with a special issue of its Theology, News and
Notes on The Authority of Scripture at Fuller (1976), which includes several
important corrections and clarifications on points of fact cited by
Lindsell. Lindsell has responded in The Bible in the Balance, Zondervan
1979, ch. 5.
r*!rr> ^ (ed.). The Foundation of Biblical Authority, Zondervan
Piclceijng & Inglis 1979, p. 10. The Chicago Statement, signed by
250 evangelical scholars and leaders in October 1978, is more carefully
phrased: Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without
error or fault m all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts
in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary
origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in
individual lives’. But the insistence is still strong that ‘Holy Scripture
is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches’ (the
full statement is printed in Lindsell, Balance, pp. 366-71, and in N L
Geisler (ed). Inerrancy, Zondervan 1980, pp. 493-502). See also P D
Lemberg, The Meaning of Inerrancy’, ibid., pp. 267-304.
NOTES 177
13. J. M. Boice (ed.), Does Inerrancy Matter?, ICBI Foundation Series

1, 1979, p. 13.
14. Ibid., preface, p. 3. Contrast those evangelicals who continue to
affirm infallibility without inerrancy - see, e.g., S. T. Davis, The Debate
about the Bible: Inerrancy versus Infallibility, Westminister 1977, and those
attacked by Lindsell, particularly in his second volume (above n.l 1).
!5- The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total
divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded ...’ (Chicago Short
Statement). ‘It is clear that for the conservative understanding,
inerrancy is the total basis for the authority of Scripture. To deny
inerrancy ... is to deny any authority of any kind to the Bible’ (P. J.
Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture, Westminster 1980, pp. 54f.).
16. See, e.g., G. L. Archer, ‘The Witness of the Bible to Its Own
Inerrancy’, Boice, (ed), Foundation, pp. 94f.; Lindsell, Balance, pp. 12f.
cf. D. Hubbard, ‘The Current Tensions: Is There a Way Out?’, in
Rogers (ed), Biblical Authority, pp. 172—5.
17. B. B. Warfield, ‘God-inspired Scripture’, The Presbyterian and
Reformed Review 11, 1900, pp. 89—130; reprinted in The Inspiration and
Authority of the Bible, Marshall Morgan & Scott 1951, pp. 245-96. He is
followed by the NIV.
18. Arndt and Gingrich, Lexicon, ophelimos.
19. Cf. D. Guthrie, The Pastoral Epistles, Tyndale Press 1957, p. 164. In
response to Lindsell’s repeated insistence that ‘error cannot be
profitable’, therefore ‘profitable’ here means inerrant (Balance, e.g.
pp. 12, 217), it must simply be repeated that that is not exegesis. For it to
qualify as exegesis, it would have to be demonstrated that any New
Testament writer regarded what Lindsell calls error (e.g. whether or
not the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds) to be unprofitable,
disadvantageous to salvation. Such a demonstration has not been
forthcoming.
20. A distinction denounced in Article XII of the Chicago Statement
on Biblical Inerrancy. Is it so difficult to distinguish between matters
pertaining to faith and conduct, and matters of science and history, as
Lindsell repeatedly asserts (e.g. Balance, pp. 53, 214)?
21. The argument in John 10.34—6 is most obviously understood as
assuming that at the time of Jesus (or John) the words had been
addressed to men (those to whom the word of God came) — whatever
the original reference might have been (Yahweh’s heavenly host?).
22. L. Morris, John, New London Commentary, Marshall Morgan &
Scott 1972, p. 527. Lindsell repeatedly asserts that inerrancy was clearly
taught by Christ (Balance, pp. 44, 83, 91, 209—11) — even that Jesus
taught ‘the view of error-free autographs’ (p. 122)!
23. R. E. Brown notes that ‘in reference to Scripture lyein is
contrasted to pleroun, the passive of which means “to be fulfilled”, and
that therefore lyein means “to keep from being fulfilled”. In rabbinic
usage, battel, which seems to be the Aramaic equivalent of lyein, means
“to nullify, fender futile” ...’ (John, Anchor Bible, Chapman, and
Doubleday 1966 p. 404).
178 THE LIVING WORD
24. Warfield, Inspiration and Authority, p. 140

25. See Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar, 2,p. 543; M. de Jonge and A. S.
van der Woude, ‘11Q Melchizedek and the New Testament’, New
Testament Studies (NTS) 12, 1965-66, pp. 301-26.
26. Boice, ‘The Preacher and God’s Word’, in Boice (ed), Foundation,
p. 135; cf. the earlier statement of Archer, ‘Witness’, in Boice (ed.), op.
cit.,p. 94.
27. See e.g. the discussion in R. Banks,/cms and the Law in the Synoptic
Tradition, CUP 1975, pp. 213—20. In Matt. 5.17 Jesus says, ‘I came not to
destroy but to fulfil’. That is, he spoke of a fulfilling which is not a
destroying, but is evidently not a leaving unchanged either. Rather it is
a transforming which involves an abandoning of particular injunctions
given to regulate worship and life in specific ways; a fulfilling which is a
bringing to completion of the law so that part at least of its earlier role is
left behind.
28. See further Banks, op. cit., with summary statement on p. 234.
29. I am aware of the literary critical discussion of intentionality and the
intentional fallacy (cf. E. D. Hirch, Validity in Interpretation, Yale UP
1967; also The Aims of Interpretation, Chicago UP, 1976) but would wish
to argue that uncovering the author’s intended meaning is the primary
goal of New Testament exegesis, whatever significance later interpreters
might recognize in his words within some wider hermeneutical context.
30. See B. B. Warfield, ‘Inspiration and Criticism’, Revelation and
Inspiration, OUP 1927, p. 420. Packer puts the point well: ‘The question
which the interpreter must constantly ask is: What is being asserted in
this passage? The infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture are relative to
the intended scope of the word of God ... The concepts of inerrancy
and infallibility ... are not hermeneutical concepts, and carry no impli¬
cation as to the character or range of biblical teachings’ (‘Fundamental¬
ist and the Word of God, IVF 1958, pp. 97-8). Contrast e.g. the Exposition
of the Chicago Statement: ‘We affirm that canonical Scripture should
always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant’
(Geisler, Inerrancy,p. 500). The charge is thus entirely justified that ‘the
hermeneutical principle of conservative exegesis is Scriptural iner¬
rancy, and no method or conclusion may be tolerated which would
conflict with the principle’; ‘any interpretation that might threaten
inerrancy must be ruled out in advance’ (Achtemeier, Inspiration,
pp. 581.; see also J. Barr, Fundamentalism, SCM Press 1977, pp. 40-55).
3 Y The Chicago Statement, Article XIII. Having recognized that
Cod s honour is not compromised by use of irregular grammar etc
why is it so difficult to accept that his honour can be equally unaffected
‘j he; chooses to use equivalent irregularities in historical and scientific
detail?
32 . The resulting confusion in the definition of‘error’ (‘incorrectness’
or sin and deception’?) makes the concept ‘inerrancy’ at best unclear
<md unhelpful and m most cases dangerously misleading. See further
C. Pinnock Three Views of the Bible in Contemporary Theology’, in
Rogers (ed.) Biblical Authority, pp. 64f.; Achtemeier, Inspiration, pp. 61ff.
NOTES 179
33. See above n.19. cf. Pinnock, in Rogers (ed.), Biblical Authority,
pp. 63f., who describes himself as ‘a defender of biblical inerrancy’ but
who makes a similar point.
34. Boice, Does Inerrancy Matter?, p. 20. See also Barr, Fundamentalism,
pp. 84f.; Achtemeier, Inspiration, pp. 50, 54.
35. ‘God uses fallible spokesmen all the time to deliver his word, and
it does not follow that the Bible must be otherwise’ (Pinnock, in Rogers
(ed.), Biblical Authority, p. 64.
36. See my discussion of this issue in ‘Prophetic “I”-Sayings and the
Jesus Tradition: the Importance of Testing Prophetic Utterances with¬
in Early Christianity’, NTS, 24, 1977-78, pp. 175-98.
37. Cf. J. Goldingay, ‘Inspiration, Infallibility and Criticism’, Church¬
man, 90, 1976, p. 13.
38. See e.g. P. Borgen, Bread from Heaven, Supp. to Nov. Test, X. E. J.
Brill, Leiden 1965. See also above pp. 41 and 80.
39. Contrast the Chicago Statement, Article XVIII: ‘We deny the
legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind
it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching,
or rejecting its claims to authorship. ’
40. Tertullian, adv. Marcionem 4.5 (with reference to Mark’s gospel
being regarded as Peter’s, and Luke’s narrative being ascribed to Paul).
41. B. M. Metzger, ‘Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepi-
grapha’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 91, 1972,p. 22 (Tertullian quotation
on p. 14). See further above Ch. 4.
42. E.g., God is creator, whether in six days or not. Jesus is the good
shepherd, whether he said these words or not during his life on earth.
43. See further Pinnock, in Rogers (ed.), Biblical Authority, pp. 65—7:
‘Minute inerrancy may be a central issue for the telephone book but not
for psalms, proverbs, apocalyptic and parables. Inerrancy just does
not focus attention correctly where the Bible is concerned’ (p. 67);
Achtemeier, Inspiration: ‘Diversion of attention from the Bible’s witness
about God’s saving acts to questions about the precise accuracy of minor
details is, in the end, perhaps the most serious defect in the conservative
equation of Scripture with its supposed inerrancy’ (p. 74).
44. The point is expressed here in terms most appropriate to New
Testament exegesis. For a more careful statement see my ‘Levels of
Canonical Authority’, Horizons in Biblical Theology, 4, 1982 (here Ch. 6).
45. B. D. Chilton, God in Strength: Jesus’ Announcement of the Kingdom,
F. Plochal, Freistadt/JSOT, 1979.
46. K. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, SCM Press 1977; E. P.
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, SCM Press 1977.
47. See my Christology in the Making, SCM Press 1980, ch. 7.
48. Cf. the Westminster Confession I.VII: ‘All things in Scripture are
not alike plain in themselves nor alike clear unto all; yet those things
which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation,
are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or
other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the
ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.’
180 THE LIVING WORD
49. ‘Particularly interesting is Paul’s use of the word apodeixis, the sole
occurrence in the New Testament. It is a more or less technical term in
rhetoric and denotes a compelling conclusion drawn out from accepted
premises. But Paul’s point is precisely that the apodeixis of his message was
nothing to do with his skill as a rhetorician, nothing to do with argu¬
ments and proofs; it was apodeixis of Spirit and power. That is to say,
their experience was not so much of intellectual persuasion, but rather
of being grasped by divine power, of being compelled with a whole¬
hearted conviction to accept and affirm Paul’s message, despite Paul’s
obvious deficiencies as rhetorician!’ (J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit,
SCM Press 1975, pp. 226f.).
50. Hence the slightly naughty question in my review of Boice (ed),
Foundation in Expository Times, 91, 1979-80, p. 312: ‘Does Jim Packer
worship in accordance with 1 Cor. 14:26?’
51. See further J. D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament,
SCM Press 1977, pp. 374f. Maier, Historical-Critical Method, protests
vigorously against the idea of a canon within the canon: ‘Scripture itself
does not offer a canon in the canon, but the latter is exacted forcibly
and against its will’ (p. 49). But later on he readily acknowledges that
every interpreter establishes for himself a more or less conscious total
impression of Scripture, which in this or that manner usually comes
through when he interprets individual portions’ (p. 88). Since this ‘total
impression of Scripture’ will differ from individual to individual, or at
least from tradition to tradition, it is in effect just another name for a
‘canon within the canon’.
52. ‘The confession of inerrancy ... does make a full and faithful
articulation of biblical Christianity possible in principle ... it commits us
in advance to harmonize and integrate all that we find Scripture teach-
mg, without remainder ...’ (Packer, ‘Encountering Present-Day Views
of Scripture , in Boice (ed), Foundation, pp. 78f. my emphasis) — the
claim I would have to say of the systematic theologian, not of the
exegete. In similar vein Maier, Historical-Critical Method, p. 71.
53. Cf. Barr: ‘The “evangelical doctrine of scripture” is largely a
hction miposed upon the Bible by human tradition’ (Fundamentalism,
SCM Press 1981% p. xvm).
54. Note again the criticisms of Barr and Achtemeier mentioned in
n.30 above.
55. To this extent at any rate, James Barr’s earlier criticism of
Eundamentahsm still seems to be on target: ‘There is no more severe
sell-indictment of fundamentalism than that it has produced no really
interesting discussion of biblical interpretation’ (Old and New in Inter¬
pretation: A Study of the Two Testaments, SCM Press 1966, p. 203).
,J' êrstner criticizes Berkouwer’s willingness to allow that
, m '‘Sumay contf,n errors ^ the sense of ‘incorrectness’ (see above
n.10). This can only mean that if the Bible is the Word of God, then
Cod can be incorrect, can err, can make mistakes, though he cannot
deceive. This does more than “damage reverence for Scripture” This
damages reverence for God’ (The Church’s Doctrine of Biblical Inspir¬
ation , in Boice (ed), Foundation, pp. 49f.). “
NOTES 181
57. Maier completely ignores or misunderstands this unavoidable
character of the hermeneutical task when he repeats too simplistically
that ‘the correlative or counterpart to revelation is not critique but
obedience’ (Historical-Critical Method, pp. 19, 23, 53f.; followed by J. B.
Payne, ‘Higher Criticism and Biblical Inerrancy’, in Geisler (ed.).
Inerrancy, p. 95). The necessary middle term between revelation
and obedience is interpretation. See also the criticism of Maier by P.
Stuhlmacher, Historical Criticism and Theological Interpretation of Scripture,
1975, ET, Fortress 1977; SPCK 1979, pp. 66-71.
58. A classic example is Lindsell’s assertion that Peter actually denied
Christ not just three times but six times in all (The Battle for the Bible,
pp. 174—6). Achtemeier’s comment at this point should not be ignored:
‘If what he (Lindsell) has constructed is the actual course of events, then
none of the Gospels has given a true picture of objective reality. He has
thus convincingly demonstrated that none of the four is inerrant, since
none of them know what really happened, i.e. six denials. All claim
three’ (Inspiration, p. 67).
59. Cf. Pinnock, in Rogers (ed.). Biblical Authority, pp. 60—2, who notes
that ‘a false piety has grown up which would seek to protect the Bible
from its own humanity’, and who warns against ‘an excessive veneration
and overbelief about the Bible ... an almost superstitious regard for
every detail of it’ (p. 62). Cf. also B. Ramm, ‘Is “Scripture Alone” the
Essence of Christianity?’, in Rogers (ed.). Biblical Authority, p. 112. G. R.
Lewis, ‘The Human Authorship of Inspired Scripture’, in Geisler, ed.,
Inerrancy, admits Pinnock’s charge that conservative scholars have not
paid enough attention to the human side of Scripture (pp. 229f.).
60. The danger was brought home to me in my student days when I
read Adolph Saphir, Christ and the Scriptures, Morgan 8c Scott, n.d.
pp. 151-66 (a section entitled ‘Bibliolatryj. For example, he comments
on the phrase ‘The Bible is the religion of Protestants’: ‘Paul never
would have said that the Scripture was the religion of the Christian.
Christ was his Light and Life’ (pp. 157f.). And again, ‘The Holy Ghost is
above Scripture. Not that there is anything in the Scripture which is not
in accordance with the Spirit’s teaching, for all Scripture is inspired of
God, but the Church is in danger of ignoring the existence of the Holy
Ghost and her constant dependence on Him, and of substituting for the
Spirit the Book. And now commences the reign of interpreters and
commentaries, of compendiums and catechisms; for if we have the
Spirit’s teaching in the Book instead of the Spirit’s teaching by the
Book, men wish to have it extracted, simplified, reduced to a system,
methodised. And then practically speaking, the creed is above the Bible
(pp. 158f.).
61. This argument recurs for example in the essays of Packer, Archer
and Sproul in Boice (ed.), Foundation pp. 66, 92, 116; cf. p. 18.
62. See Arndt and Gingrich, Lexicon, diaphero, dokimazp.
63. One response to an early outline of this paper posed as alterna¬
tives the New Testament doctrine of Scripture and New Testament
phenomena (how the New Testament handled the Old Testament), and
182 THE LIVING WORD
objected that I was preferring possible inferences drawn from the latter
to the (presumably clear) teaching of the former. My point is precisely:
1) that the New Testament doctrine is not as clear as such an objection
presupposes, and that, in particular, the idea of inerrancy is itself at best
a possible inference drawn from these passages; and 2) that in order to
clarify what the doctrinal passages mean, we must observe how Jesus
and the New Testament authors used the Old Testament. To character¬
ize this approach as ‘perverse and essentially unbelieving’ is surely
unjustified, on scriptural grounds to mention no other.
64. As Maier argues (The End of the Historical-Critical Method, p. 11).
65. The Presbyterian and Reformed Review 10, 1899, pp. 472-510, re¬
printed in Inspiration and Authority, pp. 299—348.
66. Inspiration and Authority, p. 316.
67. Note how the two strands separate in Gen. 12.3, 7, are woven
together in Gen. 18.18; 23.17f.; and 28.13f.
68. Note how Paul elsewhere understands ‘seed’ (singular) in similar
contexts in its usual collective sense, viz. Rom. 4.13, 16, 18; 9.7; II Cor
11.22; Gal. 3.29.
69. See particularly D. Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism,
Athlone 1956, pp. 438-44.
70. Since the Warfield school tends to make much of the fact that
Paul counted the individual word of scripture (seed) as of authoritative
significance here (cf. above, p. 96), we should perhaps just point out
the corollary: to build an argument for inerrancy on that fact here gives
indefectible validity to a particular style of rabbinic exegesis which we
no longer regard as acceptable exegesis.
71 . Does Inerrancy Matter? quotes Warfield with unqualified approval
at this point. There is a similar weakness in the Warfield school’s
presentation of the views of Luther, Calvin and other Christian leaders
of .earlier centuries. A fully rounded appreciation of Luther’s views, for
example, must take into account his comment in his preface to the
Revelation of St John: ‘I can in nothing detect that it was provided by
the Holy Spirit... I stick to the books which give me Christ clearly and
purely ... If anyone can harmonize these sayings (of Paul and lames)
I 11 put my doctor’s cap on him and let him call me fool’ (quoted in W. G.
1 Q^rT The Htstory °fthe Investigation of its Problems,
1970, ET SCM Press 1973, p. 26J. What on earth can it mean that
Luther believed the whole Bible to be inerrant, when he could say such
things about books historically held to be part of the New Testament?
72. This remains true, even if talk of the Old Testament at this stage
is rather imprecise (see my Unity and Diversity, p. 81).
73 êeâlso J. W. Wenham, Christ and the Bible, Tyndale Press, 1972,
74.Dunn, Jesus and Spirit, pp. 53-62.

75.See discussion in Dunn, Unity and Diversity, pp. 35-40; also Christ-
0 °gy, PP- 82 I- Jesus use of, and dependence on, further Old Testa¬
ment figures and material is discussed by R. T. France, Jesus and the Old
Testament His Application of Old Testament Passages to Himself and His
Mission, Tyndale Press 1971. 1
NOTES 183
76. See further my ‘The Birth of a Metaphor - Baptized in Spirit’,
Exp. Times 89, 1977—78, pp. 135—8.
77- J- Jeremias, Jesus’ Promise to the Nations, 1956, ET, SCM Press
1958, p. 46.
78. So e.g. H. McArthur, Understanding the Sermon on the Mount,
Epworth 1961; pp. 45-8; J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology: Vol. One:
The Proclamation of Jesus, 1971, ET, SCM Press 1971, pp. 206f.
79. Wenham, Christ and the Bible, p. 35.
80. Cf. N. B. Stonehouse, The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ,
Tyndale Press 1944, p. 208.
81. See particularly J. Neusner,'From Politics to Piety: the Emergence of
Rabbinic Judaism, Prentice-Hall, 1973, pp. 78-80, 82—90; A. Oppen-
heimer, The Am Ha-aretz E. J. Brill, Leiden 1977, pp. 51—66, 83-96,
121-4; Emil Schurer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus
Christ, Vol. 2, T. & T. Clark 1979, pp. 475-8.
82. As Wenham points out, there is ‘no denial of the divine origin of
the law that is now repealed’ (Christ and the Bible, p. 31); similarly
Wenham, ‘Christ’s View of Scripture’, Geisler (ed.) Inerrancy, p. 25. But
the point remains that the law is ‘repealed’.
83. In Mark’s version we can defend the continuing authority of
Deut. 24: If. only by criticizing and qualifying the authority of Mark’s
rendering of Jesus’ words.
84. He denies the continuing force of Deut. 24.1 itself, not just of‘the
traditional interpretation of Deut. 24:1, as Wenham puts it (Geisler, op.
cit., p. 28).
85. Cf. Wenham, Christ and the Bible, p. 34. ‘The commandment was
contingent, not absolute; it was temporary and positive rather than
permanent as an expression of God’s moral will’ (Stonehouse, Witness,
p. 205).
86. Cf. Barr, Fundamentalism: ‘It is in the defensive apologetic
situation, where opposition to critical scholarship becomes the one
supreme goal, that conservative writers find themselves forced to deny
the critical character of Jesus’ use of the Old Testament, in order to
make the Old Testament, and through it the New Testament also,
absolutely and unqualifiably authoritative in all respects for the church’
(pp. 82f.).
87. D. Hay reckons that the New Testament contains over 1600
citations of the Old Testament (Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supp.
Vol., 1976,p. 443).
88. See the full treatment of W. Rordorf, Sunday: the History of the Day
of Rest and Worship in the Earliest Centuries of the Christian Church, 1962,
ET, SCM Press 1968.
89. See, e.g., F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, New London Commen¬
tary, Marshall Morgan & Scott 1954, pp. 218f.
90. See, e.g., F. F. Bruce, Romans, Tyndale Press 1963, pp. 79-81: C.
E. B. Cranfield, Romans, International Critical Commentary, T. & T.
Clark 1975, Vol. 1, pp. 100-2. See also the briefer argument in Gal. 3
(Hab. 2.4 cited at 3.11).
184 THE LIVING WORD
91.See further my Christology, pp. 184—6.

92. Not only is the interpretation different from that intended by
Deut. 30, but it is also somewhat at odds with the original; for part of his
apologetic against Jewish understanding of the law is that the Jews had
not found it easy to keep the law (e.g. Rom. 2.21—4).
93. R. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, Eerdmans
1975, pp. 123, 125.
94- Since Paul shows himself to be such a sharp exegete elsewhere, it
would be unwise to assume that in the above cases it was only the
Targumic rendering of the texts he knew, and not also the Massoretic
and LXX forms. Longenecker’s thesis is that Paul may have selected
one variant form out of more than one known to him (n.93 above).
95. See, e.g., S. Jellicoe’s reference to the studies of D. W. Gooding on
the LXX text of Samuel-Kings: ‘LXX reflecting “disquieting features”
and a very questionable methodology, and at times making “factual
nonsense” as in 3 Kings 6:17—21’ (The Septuagint and Modem Study,
Clarendon Press 1968, p. 285).
96.See further my Unity and Diversity, pp. 92-3.
97. See further Unity and Diversity, pp. 94-6 with bibliography in n.24.
98. Cf. Longenecker s conclusion: ‘... they looked to Jesus’ own use
of the Old Testament as the source and paradigm for their own em¬
ployment of Scripture ... All treated the biblical text with some degree
of freedom ... What was distinctive in the exegesis of the apostolic
witness to Christ was a pesher approach to Scripture which felt both
compelled to reproduce Jesus’ own understanding of the Old Testa¬
ment and at liberty to develop it further along the lines he laid out’
{Biblical Exegesis, pp. 207-12). Cf. also G. Hughes, Hebrews and Herme¬
neutics, CUP 1979, pp. 47-53: ‘the Old Testament text must be made
present as logos usually through the creative, interpretative, reflective
activity of one member of the congregation for the others ... the way in
which the logion becomes logos when it is brought into relationship with
Christ...’(p. 51).
99. I assume Markan priority, with the majority of New Testament
scholarship. For slightly fuller treatment of the following passages, see
my Unity and Diversity, pp. 247f.
100. See, e.g., D. Hill, Matthew, New Century Bible, Oliphants 1972,
p. 279; D. R. Catchpole, ‘The Synoptic Divorce Material as a Traditio-
historical Problem’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 57, 1974-75
pp. 92-127 (particularly 93-102); J. A. Fitzmyer, ‘The Matthean
SV"^TeXtS a"d some New Pa>estinian Evidence’, Theological Studies
37, 1976, pp. 197—226.
1 *01 • Cf- C- K Barrett, 1 Corinthians, A. & C. Black 1968, pp. 162f.,
166; D. L. Dungan, The Sayings of Jesus in the Churches of Paul, Blackwell
1971, pp. 92f.
t02.fe.g-, E. E. Ellis finds nearlv twenty Old Testament citations in
Paul which seem to be ‘a deliberate adaptation to the New Testament
context’ {Paul’s Use of the Old Testament, Eerdmans 1957, p. 144)- see also
n.98 above.
NOTES 185
103. For further examples of the way the Gospels handle the tra¬
ditions of Jesus’ words and deeds, see my Unity and Diversity, pp. 70-6.
104. We might well compare the fact that Luke records a word
inspired by the Spirit to Paul through others (Acts 21.4), which Paul
nevertheless did not regard as of binding authority on himself (cf. Acts
20.22). Even here the link between an utterance’s inspiration and its
authority in a particular situation can never be simply assumed: a word
may be inspired by God’s Spirit and yet be judged irrelevant to the
decision made in a particular situation!
105. See also Achtemeier, Inspiration, pp. 112—4: ‘Scripture itself
apparently thinks it can be inspired as witness to God’s saving deeds
without having to be regarded as inerrant in matters not central to that
witness’ (pp. 113f.).
106. The necessity for fuller exposition of this point became clear at the
consultation to which this paper was delivered - the 1981 Anglican
Evangelical Association in London. The following paragraphs and the
final paragraph in section (d) below (pp. 130f.), are the only substantial
modifications to the text of the original paper.
107. Only so can the Christian abandonment of the sabbath and its
replacement by Sunday as the Christian holy day be justified in the face
of a clear Old Testament (including prophetic) commandment and a
New Testament which leaves the position unclear.
108. Maier recognizes the point about covenant relativity (Historical-
Critical Method, pp. 56, 84—6) but, like most of those who overplay the
significance of Matt. 5:18 (see above, pp. 96—7), fails to inquire into,
or to spell out, what this must mean for the ‘indefectible authority’ of
the Old Testament, and for the slogan that ‘revelation requires nothing
but obedience’ (above, n.57).
109. The only exception to this rule would be New Testament pas¬
sages which remained within the limitations of the old covenant as
judged in the light of the overall New Testament witness to Christ - a
case in point very arguably being Paul’s (pre-Christian?) argument
about the relative status of man and woman in I Cor. 11 (cf. P. K.
Jewett, Man as Male and Female, Eerdmans, 1975, pp. 111—19).
110. Cf. N. T. Wright, Evangelical Anglican Indentity: The Connection
Between Bible, Gospel and Church Latimer Studies 8, Latimer House,
Oxford 1980, p. 26: ‘All the Bible is “culturally conditioned” ... Look¬
ing for “timeless truths” is in fact part of an attempt to distil ideas and
principles out of their original contexts and reapply(ing) them in the
present day — analogous, in fact, to the allegorical method and to
Bultmann’s demythologization,’
111. N. P. Grubb, C. T. Studd: Cricketer and. Pioneer, Lutterworth 1933,
p. 40.
112. Cf. F. Hauck, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, III, pp.
423-5: ‘It is of the essence of New Testament religion that the older,
ritual concept of purity is not merely transcended, bdt rejected as non-
obligatory. The idea of material impurity drops way .. The purity of
the New Testament community is personal and moral by nature.’
186 THE LIVING WORD
113. Remarriage of divorced Christians can be given properly scrip¬

tural legitimacy once this point is recognized.
114. Those arguing for the ordination of women can develop a
properly scriptural case along such lines, particularly in view of Jesus’
attitude to women and of the prominent roles filled by many women in
Paul’s churches. It is difficult, however, to see how a similar case for
the acceptance of homosexual practice can be made, since the biblical
position is so uniform, and was maintained despite homosexuality’s
cultural acceptability in the Hellenistic world.
115. See further the valuable study of A. C. Thiselton, The Two
Horizons, Paternoster 1980, particularly pp. 10-23, 103-14, 304-9.
116. As in E. M. B. Green, The Authority of Scripture, Falcon Booklet
1963; more carefully, Packer, ‘Fundamentalism pp. 46—51.
117. Since inerrancy is not an exegetical conclusion, but a logical
deduction drawn from a particular understanding of God (above, p.
98), the inerrancy school itself cannot escape the charge of putting
reason above Scripture at this fundamental point (cf. Achtemeier,
Inspiration pp. 69, 73f.). Maier does at least recognize the inevitable
‘subjectivity which necessarily attaches to every theology, “For we know
in part ... (1 Cor. 13:9)’, while justifiably warning against a ‘high¬
handed subjectivity’ {Historical-Critical Method, p. 56).
118. Cf. Wright, Evangelical Anglican Identity. ‘We all in fact do read
the Bible in the context of our traditions, and evangelicals who fail to
realize this are therefore peculiarly in danger of failing to re-check their
traditions in the light of Scripture, and of hearing the voice of tradition
imagining it to be the voice of the Word itself (p. 27).
6. Levels of Canonical Authority
1: Das Neue Testament als Kanon, hrsg. E. Kasemann, Gottingen-

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1970.
2. See also particularly H. von Campenhasen, The Formation of the
Christian Bible, 1968; ET, A. & C. Black 1972.
3. See also particularly W. Marxsen, The New Testament as the Church’s
Book, 1966; ET, Fortress 1972; E. Best, ‘Scripture, Tradition and the
Canon of the New Testament’, BJRL*61 (1979), pp. 258-89.
4. See also J. D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, SCM
Press, and Westminster 1977.
5. Among Old Testament scholars G. E. Wright in particular has
posed the issue in the same terms - The Old Testament and Theology
Harper & Row 1969, pp. 179-83. 6y’
6. Kasemann, ‘The New Testament Canon and the Unity of the
Church’ (1951), ET Essays on New Testament Themes, SCM Press 1964
pp. 103; also Kanon p. 402.
, 5 6 7 8cIâs5n?ann’ Kanon, p. 405; see also particularly S. Schulz, Die Mitte
derSchnft, Stuttgart: Kreuz-Verlag 1976, pp. 429ff.
8. S. M. Ogden, ‘The Authority of Scripture for Theoloev’ Inter¬
pretation 30 (1976), p. 258, quoting Marxsen (see n. 3 above).
NOTES 187
9. Particular mention should also be made of J. Blenkinsopp, Prophecy
and Canon, University of Notre Dame 1977.
10. See particularly B. S. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, West¬
minster Press 1970; also Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture,
Fortress, and SCM Press 1979. Childs replies to a series of reviews of
his Introduction both in HBT 2 (1980) and in JSOT 16 (1980).
11. J. A. Sanders, Torah and Canon, Fortress 1972; also ‘Adaptable
for Life: The Nature and Function of Canon’, Magnolia Dei: The Mighty
Acts of God. Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. E. Wright,
Doubleday 1976, pp. 531—60; also ‘Text and Canon: Concepts and
Method’, JBL 98 (1979) pp. 5—29; also ‘Canonical Context and
Canonical Criticisin’, HBT 2 (1980) pp. 173—97.
12. In Biblical Theology and Exodus (SCM Press 1974) Childs does
illustrate the use of Old Testament by New Testament authors, but in
the latter the treatment is surprisingly selective (e.g. there is no discus¬
sion of John 19.36’s use of Ex. 12.46), and in the former his assertion of
a ‘dialectical relationship’ between the two Testaments (pp. 111-14)
describes rather than addresses the problem (e.g. can the canon of the
Old Testament and the canon of the New Testament or of the Christian
Bible both be ‘normative’ for the interpretation of Ps 8?). In his brief
response to Sanders’ review of his Introduction he makes some very
sweeping assertions about the early church and the role of the Holy
Spirit, which only serve to sharpen the issue — HBT 2 (1980) p. 202.
13. Cf. J. Barr, ‘Childs’ Introduction to the Old Testament as Scrip¬
ture’, JSOT 16 (1980) p. 22.
14. Sanders’ conception of ‘canonical criticism’ with its regard both
for the historical depth of a text and its canonical authority at the
various historical levels is more able to handle the additional level of the
New Testament than Childs’ much more limited conception of a single
canonical context. So too H. Gese’s method of biblical theology by
examining the process of tradition-building (see n. 18 below).
15. See e.g. the bibliography in D. L. Baker, Two Testaments, One Bible,
Inter-Varsity Press 1976, pp. 34—40.
16. See particularly L. Goppelt, Typos: die typologische Deutung des Alten
Testaments im Neuen, 1939; reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft 1969; R. Bultmann, ‘Prophecy and Fulfilment’ (1949),
ET Essays on Old Testament Interpretation, ed. C. Westermann, ET SCM
Press 1963) pp. 50—75; O. Cullmann, Salvation in History (1965); ET
SCM Press 1967.
17. See e.g. the discussion in G. Hasel, Old Testament Theology: Issues in
the Current Debate, Eerdmans 1975.
18. I think here particularly of the new Tubingen Biblical Theology
movement (or interaction) of H. Gese and P. Stuhlmacher — H. Gese,
Vom Sinai zum Zion: Alttestamentliche Beitrage zur biblischen Theologie,
Munchen: Kaiser 1974; also Zur biblischen Theologie: Alttestamentliche
Vortrage, Munchen: Kaiser 1977; also ‘Tradition and Biblical Theology ,
Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament, ed., D. A. Knight, SPCK 1977
pp. 301—26; P. Stuhlmacher, Schriftauslegung auf dem Wege zur biblischen
188 THE LIVING WORD
Theologie, Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1975; also ‘Das Gesetz

als Thema biblischer Theologie’, ZTK 75 (1978) pp. 251-80; also ‘The
Gospel of Reconciliation in Christ - Basic Features and Issues of a
Biblical Theology of the New Testament’, HBT 1 (1979) pp. 161-90;
also Vom Verstehen des Neuen Testaments: Eine Hermeneutik, Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1979, ‘Diese Sache einer biblischen
Theologie des Neuen Testaments ist mit dem Evangelium von der
Versohnung identisch’ (p. 246). See also K. Haacker, et al., Biblische
Theologie heute, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener 1977; K. Haacker,
Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft: Eine Einfiihrung in Fragestellungen und
Methoden, Wuppertal: Brockhaus 1981, pp. 87-97. Other literature in
H. Hubner, ‘Biblische Theologie und Theologie des Neuen Testa¬
ments’, KuD 27 (1981), pp. 1-19, particularly 1-5.
19- B. Kittel, Brevard Childs Development of the Canonical
Approach’, JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 2—11, draws attention to the difficulty
this problem poses for Childs’ concept of a normative canonical form.
20. Cf. R. E. Brown, “‘And the Lord Said”? Biblical Reflections on
Scripture as the Word of God’, Theological Studies 42 (1981), pp. 3-19,
who distinguishes literal meaning (what a passage meant to the author
who wrote it), from canonical meaning (what it meant to those who first
accepted it into a normative collection), from what it means today in the
context of the Christian Church (pp. 17-18).
21. The debate among Alttestamentlers has been recently reviewed by
B. W. Anderson, Tradition and Scripture in the Community of Faith’,
JBL 100 (1981), pp. 5—21, with a strong plea for recognition of the
continued importance and priority of tradition-history analysis. See also
the plea, more sympathetic to Childs, of R. Smend, ‘Questions about the
importance of the Canon in an Old Testament Introduction ’ 1SOT 16
(1980), pp. 45-51. J
22. Sanders, Torah and Canon pp. 16—17.
23. Sanders, Torah and Canon, p. 20.
24. I am not of course implying that the use of material by biblical
writers ipso facto demonstrates its previous canonical authority — no
more than quotations attributed to Satan in Job or quotations from
secular writings by Paul have canonical authority per se. My point
is simply that with the present documents we can recognize earlier
materia1 which in its earlier form had'been treasured by the community
ol laith, that is, had already exercised canonical authority in its earlier
25. There would be dispute as to whether P provides a coherent

sequential narrative which can stand on its own without reference to 1
pp 147-8)* CSSentially 3 redaction of J and E (see Childs, Introduction,
Childs, Introduction, particularly chapter III. Unfortunately

Childs does not clarify the confusion between his earlier ‘canonical
context (.Biblical Theology, pp. 99-100 = our ‘canonical level’, below 1(c),
an lus later canonical shape’ (Introduction); and the confusion is only
made worse by his talk both of ‘canonical process’ (which merges into
NOTES 189
our ‘tradition-history level’) and of ‘canonical intentionality’ (which
poses the problem of ‘final author/redactor’ discussed below). See also
Barr, who accuses Childs of ‘lumping together all sorts of process under
the vague heading of canon’ (‘Childs’ Introduction’, pp. 13-14, 17).
The confusion is not much clarified by Childs’ response - JSOT 16
(1980), pp. 52-5.
27. Childs’ Introduction, pp. 97, 100—1. The point is made by Kittel
(above n. 19) 5.
28. See also Barr, ‘Childs’ Introduction, p. 18.
29. I am thinking particularly of the current research of H. D. Betz in
this area which he shared with the New Testament Seminar at
Nottingham in November 1981.
30. Bultmann’s postulated ‘ecclesiastical redactor’ would have pro¬
vided a coherent final redaction which could be stripped away more
confidently, but the hypothesis has found no favour outside the
Bultmann school. R. E. Brown, John (Anchor Bible 29; Doubleday, and
Chapman 1966) also allows a substantial role for a redactor, but the
problematic character of the hypothesis is shown by the fact that he
allows that much of the redaction material actually stemmed from the
Evangelist himself (pp. xxxvi—xxxvii).
31. Childs, Introduction, p. 361.
32. G. M. Landes, ‘The Canonical Approach to Introducing the Old
Testament: Prodigy and Problems’, JSOT 16 (1980), pp. 32-39, cites
Jonah and Lamentations as the only Old Testament documents where it
can be maintained that ‘the original author and the final canonical
editor were virtually the same’ (p. 38).
33. In Biblical Theology Childs proposed ‘a form of Biblical Theology
that takes as its primary task the disciplined theological reflection of the
Bible in the context of the canon’ (p. 122).
34. Childs’ brief discussion of the relation between Hebrew scriptures
and Old Testament simply fails to grapple with this point (Introduction,
pp. 664—6) — as when he asserts that ‘the theological issue at stake is the
maintenance of a common scripture, between church and synagogue as
witness to Jesus Christ, which is threatened if the Hebrew text is
abandoned as the normative Old Testament text by the church’ (p.
665).
35. See also Barr’s criticism (‘Childs’ Introduction’, p. 21).
36. I do not find it necessary or helpful to distinguish a futher level —
the intentio textus ipsius, what the text itself communicates — see e.g. D.
Patte, What is Structural Exegesis'?, Fortress 1976; G. O’Collins, Funda¬
mental Theology, Darton Longman & Todd 1981, pp. 251-9. Where such
‘synchronic exegesis’ illuminates the final composition level, well and
good; otherwise the meanings discovered at the ‘deep structures’ of the
text are better classed among the ecclesiastical levels, since they can
claim as much, or as little justification as other post-Englightenment
hermeneutical techniques. Despite Gadamer, I still wish to regard in¬
tended meaning as the proper goal of exegesis - cf. particularly E. D.
Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, Yale University Press, 1967.
190 THE LIVING WORD
37- See R. E. Brown, Jerome Biblical Commentary Chapman 1968,

71:56-70.
38. See also the valuable discussion of R. E. Brown, ‘The Meaning of
the Bible’, Theology Digest 28 (1980), pp. 305-20, particularly pp. 311-8.
39. Cf. Childs, Introduction, p. 41: ‘It is constitutive of Israel’s history
that the literature formed the identity of the religious community which
in turn shaped the literature’. Cf. also the discussion by D. A. Knight,
‘Revelation through Tradition’, Tradition and Theology in the Old Testa¬
ment, ed., D. A. Knight, SPCK 1977, pp. 143-80.
40. Sandmel, ‘On Canon’, CBQ 28 (1966) 207. See also R. B. Laurin,
Tradition and Canon , Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament, ed., D.
A. Knight, pp. 261-74, with his distinction between a legitimate ‘canon¬
izing of tradition’ and ‘canonization’ as ‘an unfortunate freezing of
traditional growth’ (p. 271); Best, ‘Scripture, Tradition and the Canon’,
p. 277 — ‘a decision within the fourth century represents a freezing in
the fourth century at that point, but it cannot claim an absolute position
as over against other freezings of the tradition at other points’.
41. On the significance of the ‘qualitative jump’ from spoken to
written word see e.g. the discussion of R. Lapointe, ‘Tradition and
Language: The impact of Oral Expression’, Tradition and Theology in the
Old Testament, ed., D. A. Knight, pp. 125—42.
42. Cf. G. M. Tucker, ‘Prophetic Superscriptions and the Growth of a
Canon’, Canon and Authority, ed., G. W. Coats and B. O. Long, Fortress
1977, pp. 56-70: ‘While the superscriptions to the prophetic books do
not represent the stage of canonization, they do reveal the decisive
turning point when - at least for certain circles in Israel - the spoken
prophetic words had become scripture’ (p. 70).
43. G. T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct (BZAW 15 L
Berlin: De Gruyter 1980) claims that Sirach and Baruch interpret
Torah consciously as ‘canonical’ (pp. 109-16).
44. Sanders, Torah and Canon; see also e.g. W. Zimmerli, ‘Prophetic
Proclamation and Reinterpretation’, Tradition and Theology in the Old
Testament, ed., D. A. Knight, pp. 69-100; Laurin (as in n. 40 above).
45. Dunn, Unity and Diversity, pp. 247—8, 251.
46. Dunn, Unity and Diversity, pp. 109-16, 352-6.
47- Cf. particularly A. C. Sundherg, ‘The Bible Canon and the
Christian Doctrine of Inspiration’, Interpretation 29 (1975), pp. 364-71
48. For recent discussion on what ‘the inspiration of scripture’ means
J‘ Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture, Westminster Press
1981; Brown (n. 20 above); W. J. Abraham, The Divine Inspiration of Holy
Scripture, Oxford University Press 1981).
49. Both Childs and Sanders have rightly emphasized the role of
the community in ‘the canonical process’ (see particularly Sanders
Canonical Context’, pp 181-6). Cf. Gese, ‘Tradition and Biblical
Theology , p 317: Only preaching which was heard, understood
Israel^6061^^ constltutes truth which sustained the life of
50. Cf. Blenkinsopp s thesis that the tension between normative order
NOTES 191
(Torah) and prophecy is ‘a constituent dement in the origins of

Judaism’ (Prophecy and Canon, p. 2).
51. Sanders makes much the same point when he emphasizes ‘adapt¬
ability’ as ‘the primary characteristic of canon’ (see his ‘Adaptable for
Life’, particularly pp. 539-52).
52. Cf. also J. A. Sanders, ‘Hermeneutics in True and False Prophecy’,
Canon and Authority, ed., G. W. Coats and B. O. Long, (Fortress 1977,
pp. 21-41.
53. This rule of course will be least applicable where a text was
deliberately intended to have a more timeless character, as is the case
particularly with so much of the wisdom material.
54. Cf. Anderson, ‘Tradition and Scripture’, p. 21: ‘To separate the
prophecy from its historical moorings not only leaves us with language
that would make no sense, or would make whatever sense the reader
cares to bring to the text, but blunts the cutting edge of the word that
the prophet spoke in the name of God’. K. Stendahl has repeatedly
insisted that in biblical hermeneutics we can never ask ‘What does it
mean?’ without adding ‘... to whom?’
55. See further ‘The Authority of Scripture according to Scripture’,
Ch. 5 above.
56.It is surprising the Alttestamentlers’ discussions of the problem of
false prophecy have not paid more attention to the New Testament,
particularly Paul, whose treatment of the problem is the most percep¬
tive and valuable within the Bible as a whole - a theme if ever there was
one for a ‘biblical theology’ study; cf. J. D. G. Dunn, ‘Prophetic “I”-
Sayings and the Jesus Tradition: the importance of testing prophetic
utterances within early Christianity’, NTS 24 (1977-78), pp. 175—98.
57. Cf. again Childs’ Introduction Ch. Ill — ‘the normative status of the
final form of the text’ (p. 75).
58. Cf. also O. Cullmann, ‘The Tradition’, The Early Church, ET SCM
Press 1956, pp. 75—87.
59. Childs, Biblical Theology, pp. 99-101, argues that this level is
normative for biblical theology — a case which is certainly more arguable
for biblical theology. But to the extent that biblical theology ignores
diversity within the canon and abstracts from the historical contexts of
the final compositions, to that extent the biblical theology itself must
become less normative for either exegesis or faith. Cf. Barr’s criticism:
‘The basic fault ... is that Childs reads into the minds of the redactors
and canonizers his own passionate hermeneutical interest’ (‘Childs’
Introduction’, p. 17).
60. We may speak of the New Testament as ‘the goal and end, the
telos of the path of biblical tradition;’ (as does Gese, ‘Tradition and
Biblical Theology’, p. 322), but can the same phrase be used simpliciter if
we substitute ‘Old Testament’ for ‘biblical’?
61. See also Barr, ‘Childs’ Introduction’, pp. 17-19.
62. Cf. Brown, ‘Meaning of Bible’: ‘Even when the quest of a larger
sense has uncovered spiritual and theological possibilities that go be¬
yond the literal sense and those possibilities have been accepted in
192 THE LIVING WORD
Christian thought, the literal sense (= my final composition level) re¬

mains a conscience and a control’ (p. 311).
63. Contrast G. T. Sheppard’s exposition of Childs’ earlier views: ‘To
the degree that historical-grammatical or historical-critical exegesis is
successful in reviving a “lost” historical context, it effectively de-
canonizes the literature by putting it in some other context than the
canonical’ - ‘Canon Criticism: the Proposal of Brevard Childs and an
Assessment for Evangelical Hermeneutics’, Studia Biblica et Theologica
IV. 2 (October 1974), p. 13.
64. J. D. Smart, The Past, Present and Future of Biblical Theology,
Westminster Press 1979, p. 151.
65. Cf. and contrast the views of Anderson who asserts forcefully,
‘The “canonical Isaiah” is no subsititute for the“historical” Second
Isaiah or the “historical” Isaiah of Jerusalem’ (‘Tradition and Scripture’,
p. 19); and Gese, ‘Biblical theology must also see that the biblical Isaiah
is not the historical Isaiah but the dynamic force, the Isaiah tradition
which stems from Isaiah and achieves its effect traditio-historically,
stretching from the first redaction all the way to the New Testament
view of “fulfilment”’ (‘Tradition and Biblical Theology’, p. 325).
66. E.g. W. Wrede, The Task and Methods of “New Testament
Theology (1897), ET in R. Morgan, The Nature of New Testament
Theology SCM Press 1973, pp. 68-116; W. Wink, The Bible in Human
Transformation, Fortress 1973.
67. I wish to express my gratitude to members of our New Testament
post-graduate seminar at Nottingham (particularly the Alttestamentlers)
for helpful criticism of an earlier draft of this paper. The defects that
remain are entirely my own work!
INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES
Old Testament II Kings

18-20 74
Genesis
Chronicles 75, 78
2.24 114-5
12.3, 7 182 n.67 Ezra 154
12.46 187 n.12 Nehemiah
15.6 119 8 147
17.9-14 59, 139, 159 Esther 69
18.18 182 n.67 Psalms 76
23.l7f. 182 n.67 2.8 130
28.13f. 182 n.67 8 187 n.12
Exodus 82.1,6 96
15 146 105, 106 146
20.8-11 103 Ecclesiastes 76-7
21-23 146 1.1-12 76
21.24 113 12.8-14 76
31.16-7 58 12.11 77
Leviticus Isaiah 73-5, 149
11.1- 23 114,159 1-39 73-4
13 50 11.1 120
19.18 53 29.18-20 111
35.4-6 111
24.20 113
36-9 74
Deuteronomy 71—2, 80, 146, 164 40-66 74
14 50 40-55 73.148, 164
14.3-21 114,159 55-66 75
19.21 113 56.6 58
24.1— 4 114 61.If. 111
24. If. 115,124 61.2 112
24.1 183 n.84
Jeremiah
26.5-9 146
28 159
30.11-14 118
31.31-4 117,119,124
Judges
13.5 120 Ezekiel 149
I Samuel Daniel 69, 154

12.7-8 146 7.13f. 111
I Kings Hosea
6.17-21 184 n.95 6.6 53
194 THE LIVING WORD
Amos 163 15.17 121,126

Micah 163 18.3 41
19.3 121
Habakkuk
19.4f. 109,115
2.4 118, 183n.90
19.9 124
19.19 53
21.12-19 107
Apocrypha 22.6-7 80
22.39 53
Wisdom of Solomon 27.3-8 98
6-9 69 27.9-10 120
Baruch f ark 19, 33-4, 78-9, 144,
3.29f. 118 150, 155, 160, 166
Letter of Jeremiah 1.21-9 33
69 2.1-3.6 33
2.16 51
I Maccabees
2.23-8 36.48
1.41-50 117
3.1-6 48
1.62-3 50,117
3.35 52
4 33
4.21-5 36
New Testament 4.35-5.43 33
5.21-43 36
Matthew 19, 36, 78-9, 144, 6 79
150, 155, 160, 163, 6.8-9 79
166,167-8 7 48, 50, 113, 117
2.23 120 7.1-23 113-4,121
3.7-12 111 7.1-5 48
5-7 35-6 7.9-13 106
5.3f. 111 7.10-13 48
5.17-20 97 7.15 114,121
5.17-8 47-8, 51, 52-3 7.18-19 50
5.17 178 n.27 7.18 114-121
5.18 94, 96-7, 120, 185 7.19 114, 117, 121, 125
n. 108 7.20 114
9 33
5.38-42 113
5.38-41 9.38-40 52
49-50
10 54
5.38-9 113
10.2-12 113,114-5, 121
5.43 53
10.2 121
6.9-15 38
10.4, 7f. 114
8 33
10.8f., Ilf. 114
8.5-13 36-7 10.18f. 111
9.13 53 11.12-15 107
11.5 111 11.17 111
11.10 111 12.24-7 49, 111
11.19 51 12.29-31 111
10.10 79 12.31, 33 53
12.7 53 12.35ff. 110
15.11 121 14.22-5 38
INDEX 195
14.36 41 1.3-4 146
14.66-72 37 1.17 118,119
Luke 35, 36, 78-9, 144 2.21-4 184 n.92
3.7-9 111 3.26 118
3.15-17 111 3.28 125
4.18f. 111 3.30 118
6.20f. 111 3.31 55
7.1-10 36-7 4 55
7.22 111 4.11 116
7.27 111 4.13 182 n.68
10.29-37 52 4.16 118, 182 n.68
11.2-4 38 4.18 182 n.68
14.12-24 52 5.1 118
15 41 7.6 106
16.17 97 8.14f. 107
24.39 102 9-11 116
9.7 182 n.68
John 11, 40-2, 80, 149
9.17 109
1.1 101-2
9.30, 32 118
2.21 42
10.6-10 118
3 41
10.6-8 119
5 41
10.6 118
6 41
11 56
10 41
12-14 39
10.34-6 46-8, 51, 52-3,
13 13
177 n.21
14 57, 58
10.35 94, 95-6, 120
14.14 58
16.12-3 42
14.20 58, 117
16.13-5 42
19.36 187 n.12 Corinthians 10,13-4, 150
20.31 42 2.4 102
21 149 7.10-15 122,125
21.25 7.10 122
157 8-10 57
9.20f. 125
Acts 103,155,163
10.25-6 58
1.18-19 98
11 185 n.109
2.42 29
10.10-6 117 11.2 29
10.14 57, 117 11.24-5 38-9
10.44-8 117 12-14 103
13.1 29 12.28 29
13.34-5 109 13.9 186 n.l 17
20.7 117 14.26 103
20.22 185 n. 104 15.3-8 146
21 56 15.3f. 119
21.4 185 n. 104 15.3 29
Romans 10-11 15.44-50 102
1.1 55 162 117
196 THE LIVING WORD
II Corinthians 149 3.6 29

3.3-6 117
Pastorals 66, 81-3, 155, 163
3.6, 14-17 106, 107
8,9 148 I Timothy
10-13 56 1.11 82
11.22 182 n.68 1.16 82
Galatians II Timothy
1.11-2 30 1.13 82
1.12 119 3.15 102
1.18 30 3.16 89, 94, 98, 116, 139
2.2 119 Titus
2.3-5 116 1.3 82
2.1 Iff. 57
3 Hebrews
116, 183 n.90
3.2-5 117 3.7 109
3.8 109 8.13 117
3.11 183 n.90 10.9 117
3.16 109-10, 118, 173 10.11-18 117
3.29 182 n.68 James
4.1-7 107 2.26 125, 155, 165
5.2-12 60
I Peter
5.16, 18,
25 119 1.3-9 83
6.6 29 1.10-12 95
Ephesians II Peter 19, 66, 83-4, 150
4.8 119 1.3-11 83
Philippians 1.12-15 84
1.10 107 1.16-18 84
2.6-11 146 1.20-1 94-5, 125
3 56 1.20 83
Colossians 1.21 89,116
2.6 29 2.1 83
I Thessalonians 3.1 83
4.1 29 3.2 84
5 39 . 3.15-16 83
II Thessalonians Jude 150
2.15 29 Revelation 165

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JAMES D.G.

The Living Word

FORTRESS PRESS PHILADELPHIA

First Fortress Press Edition 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

3236J87 Printed in the United States of America 1-2097

1. The Task of New Testament Interpretation 3

2. The Gospels as Oral Tradition 25

3. Was Jesus a Liberal? Was Paul a Heretic? 44

4. The Problem of Pseudonymity 65

5. The Authority of Scripture According to Scripture 89

6. Levels of Canonical Authority 141

In February 1987 I was privileged to deliver the W. H. Griffith

For the second lecture I was able to supplement a lecture

gave up the attempt. It also occurred to me that the degree of

I begin by asking two starter questions.

(a) What is the New Testament? The immediate subject matter

knowledge regarding Jesus and the initial spread of Christ¬

(b) What is New Testament Interpretation ? Of course we cannot

of early Christian religion and theology. The objective should

there is a potential tension between these two aspects — seen

2. New Testament interpretation as a dialogue

The most hopeful way forward is to begin a dialogue between

This is precisely why Rudolf Bultmann asked his famous

sequence of mirrors? If the starting point determines what

merely answer back to our questions. The New Testament

3. The Complexity of the Dialogue

(a) Historical. Under this heading I want simply to describe

would be less dependent on our knowledge of that situation.

women should wear a covering on their heads. Few Christian

(b) Critical. The word ‘critical’ often has a negative tone, as

ceed — in particular, the presupposition that all events should

In Unity and Diversity in the New Testament? one of the points

Testament when we hear it in its conditionedness and rela¬

of offering the mind as a blank sheet, on which new truths

4. Partners in the dialogue

I have already stressed the complexity of the dialogue, but

tive status. That is not to rule out other interpretations, other

(b) If the historical tradition of the churches is a further

attributing as much significance to it as he can in explaining

(c) This brings us to one final observation. What has been

truth involved is in fact more complex. ‘Ordinary believers’

In the first chapter I spoke of New Testament interpretation

(a) The first can be summed up in the distinction between

been observed, if we had to depend on the letters of Paul for

(b) The second point of principle has become one of the

to be argued. The burden of proof lies with those who want

(a) There is a basic plausibility in the assertion that the

The claim should not be exaggerated, of course. It is not

(b) It is clear that in the earliest Christian communities an

(c) All this can be deduced without looking at the Gospels

graphics. And precisely as such they indicate a considerable

(d) Finally, we may reflect a little further on the character of

In the first chapter of The Evidence for Jesus1 I have discussed

(a) For one thing they grouped the traditions in different

of the remembering process and to misunderstand the inten¬

(b) Secondly, we may note examples where the Evangelists

(c) Thirdly, it is also clear that the words of Jesus could be

We see something of this even with two of the most precious