The Hebrews’ Book

It seems that so much of biblical interpretation in the early church was an attempt by Christians to find themselves in the Hebrew Bible. To prove it a mirror in which their reflection was clear, a prophecy of self, a validation of their belonging. What does a relationship with this text look like if that’s not your attempt? Do you still belong if you allow it to be only itself? Can you have a friendship with someone and still let them have their own life? Must you continue to tell them that only in having become your friend have they fulfilled their identity in this world?

I am interested in a friendship of freedom.

Whose Scriptures Are They?

Reading this article – “Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church” (Oxford Study Bible, pages 129-140) – I’m struck by how hard these particular early Christians were working to justify the cognitive dissonance engendered by the fact that they had appropriated the heritage of the Jews without actually converting, submitting, to Judaism. The points that get me are these:

New v. Old

“…in the early second century, some Christians believed that if you could not find a teaching in the ‘charters’ of the Old Testament, you should not believe it in the gospel” (Oxford Study Bible, page 129).

Funny, because in my undergrad class on hermeneutics, I remember them saying the exact opposite. The culture of interpretation has changed such that if you can’t find it in the New, you can or should discount it in the Old. (Or at least, take it with a large grain of salt.) What a transformation. What a revolution, in the literal sense.