David L. Baker, Two Testaments, One Bible: The Theological Relationship Between the Old
and New Testaments, Third Edition, Downers Grove,
Illinois/Nottingham, U.K.: IVP-USA/ Apollos, 2010. Pp. 376. Paper. $29,--. ISBN
9780830814213
The relevance and meaning of the Old Testament and its
relation to the New Testament is the most important question in the field of
hermeneutics. The answers we give to this question, deter-mines the character of
our faith. Do we think that we can build our faith only on the New Testament or
are we convinced of the fact that true Christianity is unthinkable when we do
not accept to Old Testament just as the New Testament as the permanent revelation
of God?
In the thoroughly revised, updated and expanded
version of Two Testaments, One Bible
David L. Barker, Senior Lecturer in Old Testament at Trinity Theological
College in Western Australia and formerly Deputy Warden of Tyndale House in
Cambridge investi-gates the theological basis for the continual acceptance of
the Old Testament through a study of its relationship to the New Testament.
Two
Testaments, One Bible
consists of four parts. In the first part the problem is stated and a quite
extensive review of the different views in church history on the Old Testament
and its explanation is given. In the second part four modern solutions on the
relation-ship between the Old and New Testament are described and evaluated. In
the third part the following important themes with regard to this relationship
are handled; typology, promise and fulfilment, continuity and discontinuity
and covenant. The last part consists of an evaluation.
In this part the author shows how Marcion in the
second century rejected the Old Testament as the book of the inferior creator
god whom he distinguished from to god of love of the New Testament. The Church
affirmed that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the same as the
Creator of heaven and earth. She retained the Old Testament not in the last
place by using the allegorical method of explanation.
The difference between the typology we find in the New
Testament itself and which as the author show is completely legitimate is that
in the allegorical no justice is done to salvation history. The typological
meaning is in distinction to allegory related to the historical meaning.
Both Luther and Calvin affirmed the authority of the
Old Testament. They both rejected the apocryphal books being a part of the Old
Testament. Luther did not equate completely the Old Testament with the law and
the New Testament with the gospel but he went to a great degree in that
direction. Calvin stressed the fundamental unity of the Old and New Testament.
Scheiermacher, the father of modern theology, saw the
Old Testament as the book of a bypassed religion. In his often quoted work on
Marcion (1921) Von Harnack stated: ‘To reject the Old Testament in the second
century was a mistake which the church rightly rejected, to keep it in the
sixteenth century was a fate which the Reformation could not yet avoid, but to
retain it after the nineteenth century as a canonical document in Protestantism
results from paralysis of religion and the church.’ From the nineteenth century
and onwards not only conservative scholars but also scholars who accepted the
historical-critical method stressed the abiding value of the Old Testament.
With regard to modern solutions the author reviews the views
of four theologians. For the famous critical New Testament scholar Bultmann the
New Testament was the essential Bible. According to Bultmann we need the Old
Testament only as its pre-supposition that shows us the failure of Israel to be
saved by the Mosaic covenant. Wilhelm Visscher, a scholar who influenced by
the christomonism of Barth although being more conservative, stressed that’s
Old and New Testament are equally Christian Scripture. We must read the Old
Testament christologically.
For the Dutch theologian Van Ruler the Old Testament was
the real Bible. The New Testament is only its interpretative glossary.
According to Van Ruler the Old Testament shows us that the real issue of
revelation is the creation and the kingdom of God in this world. The redemption
wrought by Christ is only an emergency measure. The American Old Testament
scholars Brueggemann and Goldingay each in their own way agree with Van Ruler
in his view that the Old Testament is the real Bible of the church.
The last view, defended among others by the German Old
Testament scholar Von Rad, is that Old and New Testament are connected to each
other by the one history of salvation. He points to the fact that Von Rad does
not see salvation history as real history but only as Israel perception of
history in faith. The disagreement with this view ought to be formulated more
strongly than the author does.
Baker especially criticizes the views of Bultmann and
Von Ruler although acknowledging that there are elements of truth in it.
Against Van Ruler he points to the fact that also the Old Testament takes human
sin very seriously and its ultimate goal is communion with God and not enjoying
this (redeemed) creation as such. He agrees with the view of Visscher, a view
that has prevailed during the centuries, but points to the fact that is must be
completed with the view that in salvation history the New Testament surpasses
to Old.
This book is an important and well written book. Much
can be learned form it. It is an academic and not a devotional book. The book
would have been stronger when in the last chapter more emphasis was given to
the importance of all what has been said for the worship of and devotion to the
living God. Although I can agree with the author that by understanding the Old
Testament we must not limit ourselves to what the New Testament authors wrote about
the Old Testament, as a Christian I am not altogether happy with the remark of
the author that the New Testament authors are no norm for us in their exegesis
of the Old Testament. Certainly they used for the contemporary methods of
explanation, but also this aspect is part of God’s revelation.