Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bruce Gardner <b.gardner AT abdn.ac.uk>]

Dear Dan and Harold,
                                 
The arguments for NT interpretation of the OT/HB are very like the
arguments surrounding the anthropomorphic principle in Creation. One
says: the universe is created by God because it is designed to produce
Man. The other: the universe produces Man who sees that fact as
central.

Here it is, in this case:
 
 EITHER:

(a) The OT is designed to be fulfillled by the NT.

OR:

(b) The NT is designed to fulfil the OT.

Since the NT is a product of reflection on the HB tradition, of
course it looks like the solution.

It is obvious that the NT makes a habit (e.g., Isa 7:14; 11:1f) of
reinterpreting texts in a very Jewish way. But then the Qumranians and
the Rabbis both saw themselves as the fulfillers of past hope too. As a
result, you find tree stumps growing again outside the Holocaust memorial
at Yad Vashem, to commemorate not the Christian Messiah but the miracle
of Israel for whom that application of the HB text is (equally
self-evidently) about Israel's ethno-religious survival. 

Also, while I do set aside the J/E debate as too inconclusive, and prefer
the D(euteronomistic tradition followed by P(riestly Writer) and then the
C(hronicler) I cannot ignore there is growth and development in the HB/OT
corrresponding to D, P and C, for to reject that is to reject the
evidence in favour of a fiction that the ancient Hebrew scriptures are
exactly historical. Only the person who has not actually read the Bible
can claim that with confidence. The holding of that opinion in the face
of facts as simply 'things not yet understood' can seem a self-deception,
and most of all give Christians a bad name as people who think they can
afford to be irrational.

Consider, for example, two views of a plague on Jerusalem: 2 Samual 24
and 1 Chronicles 21. Is there NO sign of development there?  Are
there no fresh perspectives to be noted at all? 

Bruce Gardner.

------------

Bruce Gardner

b.gardner AT abdn.ac.uk