Table Of ContentOLD AND NEW IN
INTERPRETATION
SC M PRESS
OLD AND NEW IN INTERPRETATION
OLD AND NEW
IN INTERPRETATION
A Study of the Two Testaments
JAMES BARR
SCM PRESS LTD
TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER
©James Barr 1966, 1982
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the publisher, SGM Press Ltd.
334 01162 o
First published 1966 by
SGM Press Ltd
58 Bloomsbury Street, London wci
Second edition 1982
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd
Bungay, Suffolk
CONTENTS
Preface to the Second Edition 7
1 The Multiplex Nature of the Old Testament Tradition 15
2 Athens or Jerusalem?—The Question of Distinctiveness 34
3 The Concepts of History and Revelation 65
4 Typology and Allegory 103
5 Old and New Testaments in the Work of Salvation 149
6 Conclusions 171
Appendix: A Note on Fundamentalism 201
Abbreviations 207
Bibliography 208
Index 213
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
T he time when the material of this book was originally
delivered as lectures, the mid-1960s, was a time of considerable
uncertainty in the theological understanding of the Bible. The
older biblical theology, what Brevard Childs well described as
‘the American Biblical Theology Movement’—see the good
analysis in his Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: West
minster Press, 1970)—was coming under criticism. It was, in
his vivid phrase, the time of ‘The Cracking of the Walls’ (title
of his chapter 4). It was then, however, far from easy to see
exactly what would happen next. Tendencies which since that
time have become very noticeable, such as the influence of
structuralism, the exploration of the Bible as a reservoir of meta
phors (as exemplified by Paul Ricoeur), and the attempt through
canonical criticism to inaugurate a ‘new biblical theology’ based
on the centrality of the canon, still lay largely beyond the hori
zon of the future. It would have been possible therefore to con
sider rewriting the entire book to bring it more into line with
the present-day situation. However, it seemed better not to do
so. The situation and the questions of the recent past form the
basis for our understanding of the questions of today. Apart,
therefore, from very minor corrections and adjustments the text
of the book has been left unchanged. This preface, however, re
places the original preface, and seeks to orientate the reader,
with the advantage of hindsight, to the way in which I now see
the problems to have developed and, where appropriate, the
effects which the arguments of the book have had.
One of the central conceptions of the older biblical theology,
as it flourished from the end of the Second World War to about
i960 or later, was the centrality of history in the thought of the
Bible. This book, along with the earlier article in Interpretation
xvii, 1963, 193-205, was one of the main channels through
which there began to flow currents that questioned this belief.
The category of story, which is here preferred to that of history,
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Old and New in Interpretation
has come to be the subject of intensive discussion, and various
kinds of ‘narrative theology’ have experimented with these pos
sibilities. Many scholars have come to think that the paradigm
of literature comes closer to the needs of biblical interpretation
than the paradigm of history. For some further developments of
this theme cf. my articles ‘Biblical Theology’ and ‘Revelation in
History’ in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary
Volume (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), pp. 104-m, 746-9; my
Explorations in Theology 7 (London: SCM Press, 1980 = The
Scope and Authority of the Bible, Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1980), especially chapter 1; and A. E. Harvey (ed.), God Incar-
nate: Story and Belief (London: SPCK, 1981), especially my own
contribution ‘Some Thoughts on Narrative, Myth and Incarna
tion’, pp. 14-23, and Harvey’s own article, pp. 1-13. This shift
of interest from history to story should not, however, be taken
to mean that history is unimportant or irrelevant for Christian
faith. It seems to me that it is still true that Christianity in very
large measure does depend on historical persons and events and
that this marks it out as a religion of an unusual shape and kind.
History fits well with Christianity: what it does not fit well with
is the Bible. The Bible includes narratives that are not historical
and it includes non-narrative material. Moreover, contrary to
the ideas of the older biblical theology, the idea of divine action
in history is not unique to the Bible but was actually shared by
the Bible with much of the ancient world; cf. especially B.
Albrektson, History and the Gods (Lund: Gleerup, 1967).
Further, and contrary to the current of the older biblical
theology, history is much more a Greek concept and much more
rooted in Greek culture than had been believed. This brings us
to the idea of the conflict between Greek thought and Hebrew
thought, which was so important an element in much thinking
about the Bible. The linguistic arguments used to support that
idea had been much criticized in my Semantics of Biblical Langu
age (London: Oxford University Press, 1961) and the present
book looked at the question in terms of content and historical
interaction. These arguments have had great effect, and much
less is heard about the contrast between these two mentalities in
the biblical scholarship of the last two decades; cf. again Inter
preter’s Dictionary, Supplementary Volume, p. 107. For the
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Preface to the Second Edition
interpretation of the New Testament this means in particular:
the reader can no longer be forced to impose upon it the abstract
pattern of‘Hebrew thought’, and is free to consider, on the basis
of the actual evidence, the degree of Greek influence, influence
from the Hellenistic environment, intermixture of Greek and
Jewish ideas, and possibly original Christian thoughts that can
not be traced to an origin in either. Not that Greeks and Jews
were at peace or in harmony throughout our period: for much
of it they were not. But the antagonism that certainly existed
has to be traced to the forms and causes that historically existed,
and cannot be read off from a simple philosophical difference.
The question of typology and allegory had been much dis
cussed in the period just before this book was written. It was
connected with the points already made. Typology was con
sidered to be of importance because it could be associated with
historical persons and events; allegory was thought of as supra-
historical, philosophical and Greek. The question was impor
tant because it seemed to offer a way towards connecting the
Old Testament with the New; and, if such a bridge could be
built, it might also serve as a means of linking the ancient mean
ing of the Bible with the modern needs of the church. Today I
suspect that the attempt to set typology entirely apart from
allegory has abated; but allegory remains a subject of interest
and enquiry because of its relations with the literary interpreta
tion of the Bible and with patristics. It may indeed be possible
to consider that the allegorical approach is the real alternative
to modern biblical criticism; at least this is a stimulating subject
of discussion.
Many of the questions discussed here can be helpfully related
to the two great theologians who are frequently mentioned,
Barth and Bultmann, both now dead. Most biblical theology in
the English-speaking world had, one might say, a Barth side
and a Bultmann side. Something of what Barth asserted as a
dogmatic assumption, the total distinctiveness of revelation,
biblical theology undertook to prove on the basis of cultural
evidence, consisting in the different content of the Bible in ideas
and presuppositions. It is the breaking down of that structure
that this book observes and advances. On the other side the
Bultmannian influence fitted in well with the enthusiasm for
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Old and New in Interpretation
hermeneutics, in the sense of a mode by which the ancient
message might be translated into the needs of the modern world.
This current of thought was anti-objectivist. It tended to say
that no one could look impartially and objectively at the biblical
evidence; one was necessarily involved from the beginning, and
the interpreter studying past texts and events was by the very
nature of the process involving himself and his own needs and
decisions in his work. As against those who thought that there
should be a purely historical and descriptive study of the biblical
material, followed by a quite different process that would lead
to the meaning for today, many of those touched by the herme
neutic currents tended to insist that, though the discovery of
meaning for today was urgently necessary, even the discovery of
the ancient meaning was not impartial and objective but de
manded commitment. There was in this sense no exegesis
without presuppositions. Actually, as I show, these arguments
contain many muddles; but they have continued to have much
effect and much of the modern movement of ‘canonical criti
cism’ depends upon them; on this see my forthcoming Holy
Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism (London: Oxford University
Press, 1983).
These questions involve the matter of biblical criticism and
its relation to theology. This had, as a matter of fact, been a
rather muted question throughout the reign of the older biblical
theology. The historical results of criticism were generally
accepted but no one thought any longer that they, or the his
torical views of scripture that emerged from them, were the
essential of biblical knowledge. Comparativism and ideas of
religious development were very much opposed. The influence
of philosophy was thought of as more deleterious than that of
so-called historical criticism. But with the shaking of the
foundations of the accepted biblical theology we can see the
question of the rights and freedoms of biblical criticism begin
ning to emerge again.
Very few people in the relevant period had thought that his
torical criticism was either the dominant or the most creative
force in the understanding of scripture. Throughout the period
up to the writing of this book, it was the concepts of biblical
theology, and not those of biblical criticism, that dominated the
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