The Ethical Authority Of The Old Testament: A Survey OF Approaches. Part I -- By: Christopher J. H. Wright

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 43:1 (NA 1992)
Article: The Ethical Authority Of The Old Testament: A Survey OF Approaches. Part I
Author: Christopher J. H. Wright


The Ethical Authority Of The Old Testament:
A Survey OF Approaches. Part I1

Christopher J.H. Wright

The question of what authority the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible have for Christians and how they should be used for ethics is, and always has been, difficult and divisive. The purpose of Part I of this article is primarily to survey some approaches to the problem, both ancient and modern, examining assumptions and methods. In Part II it is proposed to evaluate some contemporary evangelical attempts to answer these questions: viz. dispensationalism, theonomism, messianic Judaism and relationism of the Jubilee Centre, Cambridge and to suggest ways of furthering the discussion on the ethical authority of the Old Testament.2

I. The Early Church

In a brief but stimulating article, Richard Longenecker suggested that there were three major positions or traditions of biblical hermeneutics (specifically on handling the Old Testament) in the early centuries and that these three approaches have continued to be influential all through Christian history.3 His classification provides a useful starting point and grid for our survey.

1. Marcion

No writings of Marcion have survived so he is known only through those who opposed him, especially Irenaeus and Tertullian. Writing in the mid 2nd century AD, his starting point was Galatians, which he understood as directed against Judaism and all things Jewish. The revelation of God in Jesus was totally different from the

work of the Jewish creator God. He thus saw a radical discontinuity between the Jewish scriptures and the Christian New Testament. The Hebrew Bible had no relevance or authority for Christians and should be regarded as having no place in Christian scripture—along with several parts of the New Testament which he judged to be seriously infected with Jewish concerns. Not surprisingly, any ethical authority of the Old Testament for Christians is rejected a priori. Marcion’s radical rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures was itself rejected by the church. His attack, however, was indirectly one of the factors which led to the clarification and defining of the canon of Christian scripture, with the Old Testament firmly included.

2. The Alexandrian Fathers

Christian scholarship at Alexandria flourished from the late 2nd to mid 3rd century. The most notable figures there were Clement and Origen, Origen being the more prolific and influential. Origen distinguished between the ‘letter’ and the ‘spirit’...

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