Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

OT in the NT

Theology on a Tightrope

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Ken Casillas, The Law and the Christian: God’s Light within God’s Limits (Biblical Discernment for Difficult Issues; Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 2007), 1–2, 24:

It’s funny what you remember from your childhood. Personally, I find it difficult to recall specific conversations, events, and experiences. But of all the positive things I would like to remember from my years as a missionary child in Puerto Rico, for some reason the sad story of Karl Wallenda has stayed with me. Wallenda was a German entertainer who became famous for doing extremely dangerous tightrope stunts without a safety net. His family act was dubbed the Flying Wallendas, and their signature performance was a seven-person pyramid topped by a woman standing on a chair. The Wallendas performed internationally through the middle of the twentieth century. Though the group survived catastrophes such as the 1944 Hartford circus fire, in 1962 Karl lost his son-in-law and nephew in a major fall in Detroit. Overcoming a cracked pelvis, Karl continued his death-defying stunts. At sixty-five he traversed a distance of 1200 feet above Georgia’s Tallulah Falls Gorge, doing two headstands some 700 feet in the air.

Wallenda walked for the last time at the age of seventy-three. For a promotional event, a wire was strung about 120 feet high between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Some believe the problem was the high ocean winds. The family says that some guy ropes were misconnected. Whatever the case, Karl Wallenda plunged to his death on March 22, 1978. The entertainer once said, “Life is being on the wire; everything else is just waiting.” [Read more…] about Theology on a Tightrope

Six Reasons to Preach from the OT

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Sidney Greidanus lists six “reasons for preaching from the Old Testament as well as the New” (Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 25–32):

  1. The Old Testament is part of the Christian canon.
  2. The Old Testament discloses the history of redemption leading to Christ.
  3. The Old Testament proclaims truths not found in the New Testament.
  4. The Old Testament helps us to understand the New Testament. [Understatement!]
  5. The Old Testament prevents misunderstanding the New Testament.
  6. The Old Testament provides a fuller understanding of Christ.

Extracanonical Jewish Literature That Is Significant for NT Studies

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I’ve recently begun researching the use of some OT passages in extracanonical Jewish literature for a dissertation chapter. Six primary bodies of literature are most significant for NT studies:

  1. OT Apocrypha
  2. OT Pseudepigrapha
  3. Dead Sea Scrolls
  4. Philo
  5. Josephus
  6. Rabbinic literature (i.e., Targums, Talmuds, and midrash)

This may raise two questions.

1. Why is extracanonical Jewish literature significant for NT studies?

G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson give five reasons (“Introduction,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament  [ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007], p. xxiv, bullet points added):

How is the OT quotation or source handled in the literature of Second Temple Judaism or (more broadly yet) of early Judaism? The reasons for asking this question and the possible answers that might be advanced are many. It is not that either Jewish or Christian authorities judge, say, Jubilees or 4 Ezra to be as authoritative as Genesis or Isaiah. But attentiveness to these and many other important Jewish sources may provide several different kinds of help. [Read more…] about Extracanonical Jewish Literature That Is Significant for NT Studies

Quoting to Borrow Language and Ethos: An Illustration of How the NT Sometimes Uses the OT

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Here’s an easy-to-understand illustration from Douglas J. Moo‘s Encountering the Book of Romans: A Theological Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002). It’s entitled “The Many Uses of Quotations” (p. 161):

We have encountered several places in Romans where Paul does not seem to apply the Old Testament in quite the way the original Old Testament context would seem to validate. This creates a theological problem. How can a New Testament writer use the Old Testament to claim that something is true when the Old Testament does not even teach what he claims it does? Such a procedure would be like our trying to prove a doctrine from a text that we have misunderstood. Understandably, we would convince few people. Answers to this problem, which theologians have discussed for years, are not simple. In fact, each of the texts has to be taken on its own, because they present different kinds of problems. But one part of the solution is to recognize that New Testament writers sometimes use the Old Testament not to prove a point but to borrow its language and ethos. An illustration will make the point.

When I was young, and my sons were even younger, we often played basketball out on the driveway together. Then I, and they, grew. I became weaker and slower; they became bigger, stronger, and faster. Foolishly, I kept trying to compete. One day, I was playing one-on-one with my third son, Lukas. He had grown to about six feet six inches and 240 pounds, and was a very strong, highly skilled basketball player. I warned him, “Watch out, Luke, I’m going to take the ball to the basket on you!” He shot back, “Go ahead, Dad, make my day.” He was “quoting” the lines of the character Dirty Harry from the movie starring Clint Eastwood. Eastwood, portraying a cop, uses these words to dare a criminal to draw his gun on him. Luke did not have a gun; he was not threatening to shoot me. He did not intend to quote the author’s “original intention,” nor did I think that he was doing so. The language was a striking way of making a point: if I was foolish enough to try to take the ball to the basket on Luke, I could very well suffer the violence that Dirty Harry’s bad guy suffered in the movie. The quotation worked because we both knew the movie; it therefore communicated the point very well. So Paul and other New Testament writers often use Old Testament language. They know that their readers will understand it, and the application of the language often helps them to perceive a situation in a new light. Thus, in Romans 10:18, for instance, Paul quotes Psalm 19:4 not because he thinks that this text speaks directly about the preaching of the gospel to Israel; rather, he quotes it because the words would awaken echoes in his readers’ minds that would lend force to his assertion.

Related: See G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., “Introduction,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), pp. xxiv–xxvi. (Cf. my post on this volume.)

Carson: “Mystery and Fulfillment”

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I just read s-l-o-w-l-y through a 44-page article for the third time. (The last time I read it was fall 2006.) In my view this is the most brilliant academic article that D. A. Carson has written:

D. A. Carson. “Mystery and Fulfillment: Toward a More Comprehensive Paradigm of Paul’s Understanding of the Old and New.” Pages 393–436 in The Paradoxes of Paul. Vol. 2 of Justification and Variegated Nomism. Edited by D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 181. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004.

It richly repays repeated, thorough readings. But be warned: it’s dense. What follows is an uneven summary that doesn’t do it justice. (Read the whole thing. It’s worth the price of the book, which amount to a little less than $1 per page.) Understanding this article will help one make connections between the OT and the NT more richly.

Note: Italics in quotations are in the original. [Read more…] about Carson: “Mystery and Fulfillment”

Three Views on the NT Use of the OT

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I’m planning to write my second dissertation on the use of the OT in a passage in Romans, so I am particularly grateful that Zondervan is publishing this volume:

Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde, eds. Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Counterpoints. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008. 256 pp.

Structure

(The table of contents and an excerpt from chapter 1 is available as a 10-page PDF here.) [Read more…] about Three Views on the NT Use of the OT

Beale and Carson’s Commentary on the NT’s Use of the OT

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This uniquely useful volume was published in November 2007:

CNTUOT

Beale, G. K. and D. A. Carson, eds. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007.

  1. Last year I spent two or three hundred hours proofing it, so I am fairly familiar with it. It is not always scintillating reading, but it is a thoughtful, first-class reference that I will continue to consult often (especially since I am planning to write my dissertation on the use of the OT in a NT passage). I anticipate that many theological journals will publish reviews of this book that will unanimously praise it as uniquely useful. Many reviews may point out minor areas of disagreement, but this is inevitable given the eclectic theological perspectives of the contributors. (E.g., I. Howard Marshall’s Arminian perspective comes through more than once in his comments on Acts.)
  2. The first paragraph of the preface explains some of this project’s background:
    • “When the two editors of this volume began the project almost a decade ago, neither of us anticipated that it would take this long to bring it to completion. Unrealistic expectations, illness among the contributors and their families, and shifting and competing obligations all conspired to delay the project. We are profoundly grateful for the patience of the contributors who managed to submit their work in a timely manner, some of whom updated their work later, and of Baker Academic, whose editorial staff encouraged and even cajoled editors and contributors alike, but never nagged” (p. vii).
  3. The PDF excerpt here includes the table of contents and introduction.
  4. Craig Blomberg weighed in on a blog post that questioned the volume’s value.
  5. Today Collin Hansen’s bi-weekly “Theology in the News” column at Christianity Today is entitled “Two Testaments, One Story: Top evangelical scholars team up for landmark commentary on New Testament use of Old Testament.” Hansen interview interacts with both Greg Beale and Don Carson.

Review of “Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament,” ed. Porter

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Stanley E. Porter, ed. Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament. McMaster New Testament Studies 8. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.316 pp. $29.00.

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In fall 2006 I reviewed the above book, and the review—now available here—was published in spring 2007:

Review of Stanley E. Porter, ed., Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament. Trinity Journal 28 (2007): 153–54.