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New Testament Perspectives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
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In recent years Biblical criticism has been assuming a new shape, or perhaps rather an old shape encompassing new contents. The contents are the data revealed by researches undertaken according to scientific method, and the shape is formed according to a desire to regain unity in place of diversity, theological understanding in place of a disconnected series of critical facts. It is felt, and felt rightly, that while our ancestors were led through ignorance into arbitrary, and even incorrect ways of regarding the Bible as a whole, at least it must be laid to their credit that they did set out to see it as a whole; moreover that we after their example should attempt to move from analysis to synthesis, from piecemeal examination of detail to a synoptic view of that structure into which the details will be seen to fit. Such a movement is in full flow, being assisted by many an able hand.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1951
References
page 337 note 1 How this determination to see a unified sequence in both Testaments involves a change in the focus of attention has been well illustrated by Tasker, R. V. G., The Old Testament in the New Testament, p. 16Google Scholar. For a general discussion of this interrelation see Richardson, Christian Apologetics, pp. 188–201.
page 340 note 1 See the interesting evidence collected in the Westminster Historical Atlas, p.86.
page 341 note 1 The reason why the pre-existent activity of the Son is somewhat rarely mentioned in this connexion is suggested by Filson, Floyd V., The New Testament against its Environment, pp. 62–63Google Scholar
page 342 note 1 A well substantiated meaning for πλμρóω is “to make full, complete”. (See the references given to classical and Koine sources in L. & S. Ed. Stuart Jones.) This idea of making complete what would otherwise be deficient is clearly present in Matt. 3.15 and especially 5.17 with which compare Rom. 13.10.
page 343 note 1 Cullman, , Christ et le Temps, p. 97Google Scholar. For an interesting account of the contrasting attitude found in Barnabas see pp. 94–5.
page 344 note 1 Coppens, , Les Harmonies des deux Testaments, pp. 44–45.Google Scholar
page 344 note 2 So when the author of Hebrews applies Platonic vocabulary to the sequence of God's historical revelation he is not constructing an unnatural alliance between philosophy and religion, since the perspectives he wants to express are essentially those of an historicised Platonism.
page 347 note 1 See, e.g. Daniélou, , Sacramentum Futuri, p. 138Google Scholar, and Ramsey, A. M., The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ, pp. 112–123.Google Scholar
page 349 note 1 The contrasts light-darkness, life-death, etc., which recur in the New Testament as stock themes in Christian didache are specifications of the essential contrast new-old.
page 351 note 1 This was the belief of Alexandrian Exegetes. The Old Testament had only to be analysed ingeniously enough and Christian truths would emerge, much as conclusions in mathematics can be deduced from a given set of axioms and postulates; the new could be demonstrated from the old. Bigg's terse criticism of this attitude is one which the author of Hebrews would have endorsed: “But the shadow is not a demonstration, for the very reason that it is a shadow” (The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 149).
page 352 note 1 Similarly with the record of Paul's Kerygma in Acts. In the very first account of his preaching after conversion he is said to have “confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ” (9.22). The verbs here used are strong. Was Paul attempting too much ? Fresh adherents to a faith are wont to forget how much arguments they consider convincing gain conviction only because of certain presuppositions. The new power of these presuppositions makes them temporarily blind to this fact. Paul used the Old Testament as apologetic material until the end. We leave him doing so at Rome, but we note two things: he seeks now not to “demonstrate” but to “persuade” and he prefaces his exposition of the old with a bold declaration of the new (28.23).
page 353 note 1 “The significance of the pre-Christian events is not really clear until their unity with the decisive central action is discerned” (Floyd V. Filson, op. cit., p. 56).