Throughout the history of Biblical interpretation, alarms have been ringing throughout history concerning the deterioration of Biblical interpretation. You might say Luther was one. Brevard Childs was one such alarm bell who raised a warning when he introduced his canonical approach to interpretation as a means to return to theological interpretation of the Bible.
However, even he could not remove himself from the historical critical methodologies that held sway, holding to a complex redaction model of transmission. Yet, it is refreshing to see Childs interact with the final form of the text. At the very least, through Childs’s canonical approach, a theological unity across books of the Bible is once again accessible. One of Childs’s own students, Christopher Seitz, moved further away from the higher historical methods as he engaged in his own figural interpretation.
Ben Collett another scholar who has called for Biblical interpretation to take a page from the early church and return to a Christological reading of Scripture. As he dedicates his book, Figural Reading the Old Testament, he expresses the hope that figural reading will spring forth again in the land of Origen.
Collett takes the importance of history seriously. However, one needs to understand how he speaks of history, especially when it comes to creation. Collett speaks of a difference between scriptural days and human days. He writes, “Contrary to popular stereotypes of modernity, figural reading is not a non-historical strategy for reading Scripture but a species of historical reading rooted in Scripture’s literal sense.” (Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament, 2) He also argues through the book that “Scripture’s literal sense is not merely an authorial or historical sense but fully embedded within a creational and providential ‘rule’ for reading Scripture’s canonical, final or ‘full’ form.”(Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament, 3).
Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO
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