DHARMARAM VIDYA KSHETRAM

Pontifical Athenaeum of Philosophy, Theology and Canon Law

THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE

FR JOBY MATHEW

Reg. No. 1702502

DIRECTOR
Prof. Dr Joy Kakkanattu CMI

An assignment Submitted
As the Partial Fulfillment of the Course on- Old Testament Biblical Theology

Bengaluru
20.12.2017
 THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE
The book “The Character of Christian Scripture” written by Christopher R. Seitz is a study in
theological interpretation that explains the significance of a Two-Testament Bible. This book is
published by Baker Academic from Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2011.
Purpose of the book: In the modern world, biblical studies have a very important role. In order
to comprehend the studies, there should be some theological emphasis. The studies in
Theological interpretation series seeks to appreciate the constructive theological contribution
made by Scripture when it is read in its canonical richness. The series is dedicated to the pursuit
of constructive theological interpretation of the Church’s inheritance of prophets and apostles in
a manner that is open to reconnection with the long history of theological reading in the Church.
In the light of shifting and often divergent methodologies, the series encourages studies in
theological interpretation that model clear and consistent methods in the pursuit of theologically
engaging readings. In order to explore a new and competent theological reflection on Christian
Scripture, this book shows a open sharing of the theological reflection.
Preface of the book: In the preface, the author speaks about the intention of the book and its
context. In the beginning of the part, he points out a question that helped him to find out some
answers: How does the Old Testament extend its horizon beyond and in conjunction with the
New Testament, as Christian Scripture and not as background literature for the New Testament
or as a resourceful document to be cited for a discrete subject? Then, he explained his biblical
background and his carrier. In this book, he deals with the form of the two testaments Bible and
to understand its unique character. The subject matter of Bible is God in Christ Jesus; but its
formal character as a two-testament account. Indeed, it is that form that enables its subject to
come to us , confront us, change our horizons forever, and show us a life hidden in him and
awakened as we read and reread the Scriptures that tell of his divine character in Israel and in the
Church, the one Lord God: the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. He suggests this book for the
newer specialist studies as a way of thinking through the hermeneutical issues and of attaching
the topic to the long history of interpretation in which the Old Testament is so central.
About the book: This book has an elegant getup with the cover page including the picture of
Transfiguration. The name of the book is the character of the Christian scripture: the
significance of a two testament Bible. This is a kind of studies in theological interpretation. It is
written by Christopher R. Seitz. He is a professor of biblical interpretation at Wycliffe College
and the University of Toronto. This book is published by Baker Academic in Grand Rapids,
Michigan in the year 2011. The contents of the book are series preface, preface, abbreviations,
introduction, and seven chapters. In the end, it gives the epilogue, subject Index, author index,
and scripture index.

INTRODUCTION
In the introduction, the author explains the relation between the Scripture and the Church. These
Scriptures taught the Church what to believe about God: who God was; how to understand God’s
relationship to creation, Israel and the nations; how to worship God; and what manner of life was
enjoined in grace and in judgment. The Old Testament is explained in the light of the New
Testament that is the work of God in Christ. The God sent his only true son, the received
scriptures revealed the Trinitarian God of Christian faith. The logos was active in the life of
Israel to final promise, because the only son was of one being with the Father. That is why in all
throughout the New Testament, there is a constant reference to the received Scriptures. To be
given the name that is above every name (Phi.2:9) requires that we know what that name is, what
that name means, and what it declares about God’s forbearing and desisting mercy and judgment.
Christ says “before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58). Christ is promised both prophetically and
figural. Israel is a type of the Church, in mercy and in judgment, the twelve tribes and twelve
prophets serving as types of the twelve apostles. The scriptures’ declarations of election and in
gathering are assumed and said to be on the point of fulfillment. So the Old Testament is read
through the lens of the New Testament that is the specific idiom used-the work of God in Christ.
Two respective testaments have got and integrity and dialectical relationship. The way Augustine
phrased: Jesus Christ latent in the Old and patent in the New.
Concern with the character of Christian scripture, against this present NT interest in use of the
OT in the NT1*, is concern that the OT retains its theological voice as a witness to the Triune
God. This theological voice may well map out against what one sees here and there in the
canonical presentation to the NT. The character of Christian scripture, Old and New, involves
thinking of their temporal relationship in terms other than salvation-historical only. The newer
studies lies a sincere concern to show how fundamental the role of the OT is in the formation of
the New Testament and in the way it makes its Christological, theological and ecclesiological
points. The Old Testament is used appreciatively by the New, and the New Testament sheds light

1
*Here after, OT is written for Old Testament and NT is written for New Testament.
on matters in the Old Testament. The old is not a temporal term only, but a term pointing to a
character understood only in relationship with a second witness. The second witness only gains
its character as scripture by its insistence that it is built upon the first and so its newness is not
novelty or progress but a drawing our of the intention of the first by a proper grasp of its own
literal sense.
The economic reality of the first testament is always also an ontological reality, because the
subject of the Scriptures is God himself. To speak of the character of Christian scripture is to
keep the character of its subject matter at the center and so to seek to honor the economic priority
of the first witness by allowing its literal sense to connect with what the first witness by allowing
its literal sense to connect with what the first witness strains to say more fully about the character
of the One God, confessed as revealed in the subject matter of the second: God in Christ Jesus.

CHAPTER 1
THE CANONICAL APPROACH AND THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION
The first chapter ‘The canonical approach and theological interpretation’ provides an excellent
opportunity to review reactions to the canonical approach and to organize a fresh assessment of
its strengths and of the horizons of the movement in theological interpretation. The coming
chapters explain the use of the OT in the NT, the relationship between Old and New testaments
in one Christian Scripture, and the rule of faith are discussed in more detail. It gives the notions
about the canonical approach by giving attention to its parameters and ongoing concerns, as well
as to the limits it believes are properly placed on theological reflection in light of the witness of
Old and New Testaments in on canon of Christian scripture. This chapter provides an overview
of the canonical approach as it has been associated with the work of Brevard Childs. The
canonical approach belongs to an age in which the questions of historicity and ostensive
reference are foreground ones and must be taken seriously for their own face value as well as
evaluated theologically. The canonical approach is a modern, historical approach, and it operates
in this mode in a self-conscious sense. It does not deny the historical dimension. It does not deny
the dimensions of the text that can only be explained by recourse to sources or authors. One of
the difficulties in canonical approach is the degree to which it is tied to one individual. Some of
the faults of this approach are insufficient attention to the facts of history, the failure to let the
God of the OT be a God without reference to the NT, confusion about the final form of the text,
and the same criticism made on the grounds of a theory of original inspiration and inerrancy
threatened by too many later hands at work. And they have given wrongful attention to the
discrete voice of the Old Testament and failure to let the God of the Old Testament is a God
without reference to the New.
The canonical approach occupies a meaningful location in our late-modern environment, where
anxiety over truth and meaning is high. It offers the most compelling, comprehensive account of
biblical interpretation and theology presently on offer. After explaining the importance of the
canonical approach, author tried to give the features and challenges of this approach. The
interpreter is to show that the Bible straightforwardly lodges historical claims and that
interpretation ought to move from text to reference at this level of concern. The other challenge
is the level of the literary presentation of the final form, introduces a kind of history at odds with
the concerns of modernity and its definition of history. It has been said that a canonical method
subsumes history into intra-textuality, or “the text’s own world.”
What the canonical approach has done is to use the findings of historical-critical methods and
then ask historical questions about what has in fat been discovered in light of the text’s final
presentation.
Then author tries to explain the superiority of the final form. It is a topic that deals with the
relationship between modern reconstructions of “tradition-history” and the fact of there being an
end point in that history, in the more or less stable final literary form , arrangement and
presentation. From the standpoint not of the sociology of religion, but of canonical method, is
Collins’s brief account the only way to describe what it means to give attention to the final form?
Collins points can nevertheless be used to tease out what might be meant by attention to the final
form, in relationship to earlier levels of tradition. The way to overview the process of
development in prophetic books is to withhold judgment until one actually tracks what is
happening, which may also look different from book to book. In OT every prophet is highly
critical of religious institutions; some have mixed attitudes (Hosea); some focus on the nations
(Obadiah); some require belief in a remnant or a superior plan of God for the king and people
(Isaiah); some preach forgiveness and undeserved grace (Deutero-Isaiah). So the starting point
may not be the same at all.
A canonical approach does not value the later over the earlier because the final form of the text
does not follow this kind of developmental logic: earlier levels of tradition may even be
highlighted by secondary and tertiary accumulations of tradition. Joel may well bring into
sharper focus the call for repentance issued at the end of Hosea. A canonical approach does not
value the later hands because of some moral superiority they possess. Rather, the later hands
have a greater historical perspective, due to the sheer range of their awareness of the past, which
is still unfolding at the time to early tradition –levels. History lies out in front of “the original
words of the prophets” because of what God is doing with them, under his providential guidance.
It is a legacy of romantic theories of “inspiration” and “origins” that has set much historical-
critical work off in the wrong foot.
The final editors do not have any moral superiority, and it is not for their reason that a canonical
approach values the final form of the text. The final form of the text is a canonical-historical
portrayal, and the final editors have never ceased hearing the Word of God as a word spoken
through history.
After explaining these things, author tries to explain the relationship between biblical theology
and canonical approach. Biblical theology is an appreciation of the theological use made by the
New of the Old. Following these statements, he discussed the issues in New Testament biblical
theology and Old Testament theology and tried to give clarifications. He concludes that both
New Testament and Old Testament witnesses function in a complementary way for the purpose
of Christian biblical theological reflection.
At the end of the chapter, the character of the final form of the text is explained. The literature
itself is different from the initial form. It is to do with what it means to seek to hear the subject
matter or sacred scripture through the medium of two discrete, witnesses. The first witness has a
stable and more or less objective final form. The final form is neither a single narrative line nor a
series of kindred genres, all lined up in a tidy way. A canonical method does not seek to
diminish the challenge or change the subject, but it does insist that the “literal sense” can make
its force felt all the same, even under the shadow of our awareness of the complex historical
development of the text before us. Together with this, author tries to give the answer for
historical and theological parameters pertaining to canonicity.
Jerome rather famously revised the Old Latin and Greek translations available to him by recourse
to the Hebrew text. The role of Hebrew text is very important to the canon of Bible. It has a
distinctive role to fix the canon of the Bible. While canonical approach will call for significant
attention to the Masoretic Tradition, it does this on a combination of grounds and not for
ecumenical reasons only. These grounds include (1) historical reasons, (2) theological reasons,
(3) the history of the OT’s reception and (4) conceptual grounds. Internal order and arrangement
can well be important indices in a canonical approach, but one must approach the matter with
discretion and care. The NT declares the authority of the Old, and the apostolic witness to
Christ is authoritative precisely because it is “in accordance with the scriptures”. The authority of
both the NT and the Christian Scripture as a twofold witness is derived from the claims of the
OT –claims presupposed in the NT and asserting themselves in the milieu form which its own
composition, as the “apostles” half of “prophets and apostles,” is coming about. Following
Augustine, a canonical approach will acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s activity in both Hebrew and
Greek canons, which guide and constrain the Church’s reflection and confession.
With the rise of modernity, the more compelling region of complexity was human authorship. A
canonical approach has detached itself from a view of human or authorial intentionality. Isaiah
“authored” the book associated with him, or as we shall prefer to say, the Holy Spirit “inspired”
through Isaiah an intended word. The canonical approach has not released itself from the
historical dimension of inspiration. It has broadened this considerably to include the entire
process and especially the consolidation of that process consisting in the “final form of the text”.
The historical dimension of God’s real speech with real men and woman is not eliminated. A
canonical approach wishes to understand this inspired speech in all its historical and human
particularity. Human authorship was always tied up with divine authorship and with the
providentiality of the Holy Spirit’s knowledge and work. A canonical approach retains a specific
concern with historicality. It insists that the inspired witness is building a bridge to us. Its
character is precisely that it overcomes one account of past-present-future and so anticipates the
reader and seeks to situate the reader in its own account of time. We are not prophets or apostles,
but the canon appreciates this reality with all its witnessing majesty, as we are brought fully into
the range of the Holy Spirit’s work by virtue of the canon’s shape and character as witness.
In this chapter, author gave an account of the canonical approach. The canonical approach entails
very specific concerns regarding interpretation, but these concerns have been at the service of
Christian theology at the most basic and the most comprehensive levels. Canonical approach is
an effort to read texts in a fresh way, to engage in questions of historical, theological, a practical,
and conceptual significance, and to keep the lines of communication between the testaments ,
between the Bible and theology, and between them both and the Church, open and responsive.
 CHAPTER 2
THE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRISTIAN
SCRIPTURE
Second chapter describes about the biblical theology and identification with Christian scripture.
This chapter will look at the question of identification by the Christian Church with the NT and
OT. It seeks to raise basic introductory questions and to provoke general reflection on
assumptions about the specifically two testament witness of Christian and scripture and how we
relate to this material given the character and form of the witness. It questions whether it is too
simple a matter to say that the Church identifies with the more naturally than the OT. The
chapter also questions whether identification is properly made with apostolic witnesses in the
NT, especially at the level of their use of the antecedent witness of the OT. Finally it urges that
use of the OT by the NT is not a substitute for Christian theological reflects on the OT in its own
formal integrity.
In order to understand how the scriptures of Israel functioned when the canonical NT was still
information, there is a chapter to the rule of the faith in the early Church in the conclusion. The
character of the authority of the scriptures of Israel, the “Law and the prophets” was played an
important roles for the formation of basic Christian belief. Biblical theology in the modern
period has had a specific concern for the way the Church appreciates the character of Christian
scripture as two fold in its witness. So this chapter gives a view on the Church’s relationship to
scripture through the efforts of biblical theology.
The author tries to give clarity to biblical theology as a term by speaking of a canonical approach
to discipline and will seek to distinguish this kind of approach from others that want to think
theological about the NT, OT or both together. For him, Christian theological reflection on the
canon of scripture as twofold in essence is the main task of biblical theology. By pointing out the
views of some other authors, Christopher brings the attention to understand the new uses of
biblical theology. Biblical theology is defined as an attempt to live together both testaments as
one Bible; and to seek the unity within it. The author tries to give an explanation of biblical-it is
including both OT and NT. It tries to give a historical description and theological significance
and an assessment of how the voice of the OT actually does Christian theological work.
The author, Christopher, tells that the Church stands in a more direct relationship to the NT than
the OT. He explains the distance of the Church’s relationship to both testaments. He tries to give
a terminological clarity through the study. The particular expression- “we are not prophets or
about the Paul’s interpretation of OT and its authenticity. The question of the status of the canon
and the effect and the identification with scripture is answered. Here, the explanation of the OT
given by Paul is highlighted and authors narrates the simple replication is not enough in the
modern biblical exegesis.
Again New Testament canon is discussed in the context of apostolic circle. Here St. Paul’s
exegesis is the matter of discussion. Paul is an apostle among other apostles. Paul’s readings of
the OT must be set alongside all that can be taught of Christ. Paul’s apostolic reading can never
exist apart from the prophetic witness to Christ. So, his readings inhered in his apostolic office,
and in this he was a true follower, with the other apostles of Jesus Christ himself. The Church
will and does observe the use of the OT in NT canon more broadly, and the patterns of basic
Christian appropriation of the OT for the purpose of commending Christ in accordance with the
Scriptures. The Church’s reading of Scripture would not be imitation of the NT only, but would
take on its own life as the entirely of the OT.
The Church has a twofold canonical witness, but Paul had only the scriptures of Israel. The
Church would not understand its status outside the canon as requiring a strict imitation of Paul on
the matter of the reading of the OT because it was neither in the place of apostolic witness nor
did it have the same scriptural inheritance on the same terms as did Paul: apart from Paul, the
Church had the apostolic witness in the fullness of its account of Christ and it had a prophetic
witness whose richness had only begun to be mined and which would never cease delivering up
its riches. It also encouraged an awareness that in the light of a new Christian scripture, OT and
NT , new ways of hearing the witness to God were to be the central work of Christian application
of the Bible in its entirety, providential ordering of the self same God, inspiring the developing
canon and the Church.

CHAPTER 3
AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE CHALLENGE
The third chapter named “An illustration of the challenge” takes into consideration relationship
the letter to the Hebrews, biblical theology and entification. In order to explain the questions
regarding Paul identification and this relationship with the Old Testament, the letter to the
Hebrews is put forward by the author. In the beginning, the reasons why he selected the letter
Hebrew, is explained. The first reason is that the exegetical freedom toward the OT modeled by
Paul. It raises a problem-of what is meant by freedom what is the constraint on this freedom.
Secondly, the exegetical freedom manifested in Hebrews does not occur outside the canon, in the
“community of the faith”, but inside, this raises the canonical questions of apostolic and Church
by witness. Thirdly, Hebrews focuses the canonical and hermeneutical issue in a sharp manner.
Letter to the Hebrews has evoked a critical perspective through the exegesis. And finally,
Hebrews is a good choice for evaluation of the question of the Church and identification.
Then, the author put forward the view of Andrew Lincoln in the title- “Hebrews as exemplary
biblical theology”. He gives a study of Hebrews and biblical theology. Hebrew is unique by
doing a kind of biblical theological handling of the Old Testament, and in that uniqueness it can
claim a priority for biblical theology. For Lineoln, Hebrew is considered the biblical theology in
a special manner- That means scripture and the relation of Old and New in revelation permeate
the structure and rhetoric of Hebrews. After the explanation of these ideas, author brings forward
the ideas of Otfried Hofius about Hebrews and biblical theology. He notes the radical character
of the author’s critical theological appropriation of the Old Testament. He wishes to have a
transfer from ancient setting to modern setting for the purpose of hermeneutical application.
What Hebrews does with the Old Testament needs reexamination in the light of the Old
Testament’s own plain sense and its own potential for Christian theology? From the basis of
Ps.8, Hofius gives Christological interpretation for Heb.2:9. And he says that Hebrews must be
read theologically not only according to its own discreet logic, but according to theological
judgments that are rendered more broadly. Hofius is able to exercise theological discretions that
judge the readings of Hebrews as it diverges from the Old Testament’s plain sense and also
presumably Brevard Childs on Hebrews and biblical Theology. He gives a caution about using as
a central category for biblical theological reflection the use of the Old Testament in the New
Testament. Childs wanted to model a form of biblical theology that took seriously the exegesis of
the Old Testament, where this occurred in the New Testament.
This stand point was only from the history of religious and into theologically. But later, he
emphasizes the need for more than historical clarity or methodological rigor. The Old
Testament’s focus is on humanity and creation. No starting point of identification can simply be
assumed for interpretation. The Church does into live in the Old Testament by the man Jesus
Christ, whose own incarnation is both a means of access and of measurement. By using Psalms
Hebrews does not correct the Psalm but, using a Greek-language rendering of it, seeks to
understand how Jesus Christ has brought about the proper subjection of creation that was the
subject of praise of God in the psalm to begin with. The focus on the particular challenge
presented by the letter to the Hebrews helps illustrate the problems of hermeneutical application
shorn of proper canonical or wider theological constraints.
In the end of this chapter, the author tries to explain the relationship of Hebrews and the New
Testament ca use of then. We noted various reasons why an evaluation of Hebrew’s use of the
Old Testament might sharpen the question of identification by bringing proportion to an account
that was more narrowly concerned with Paul as exegete. He puts forward many questions about
the letter to Hebrews and tries to give answers from different aspects. Here, the canonical
location is not that of prophet or apostle; the relationship of the Church to scripture, in view of its
material division into OT and NT, contains similar and continuous features as well as
distinguishing ones.

CHAPTER 4
THEOLOGICAL USE OF THE OLD TESAMENT
The fourth chapter, ‘theological use of the OT’, explains about the recent New Testament
scholarship and the psalms as Christian scripture. Christian scripture is unique in content but also
especially in form. The fact that the account it gives is comprised of two testaments is a matter of
considerable importance and challenge. The second testament does not give record of what it
seeks to tell in a detached idiom, even as its language and structure depart from that of the first
testament. It speaks of a special action in time, but it can only describe this action with reference
to prior acts recorded in the first testament. The first testament because of its obvious interioty
does not use the second testaments language on any analogy. Any proper biblical theology would
be about letting each mature witness do its specific work as scripture, a bend then as a co-
ordinated witness of both testaments together.
The relationship between the testaments for the purposes of basic theological work is different in
kind and is not a matter of unidirectional reception-history. The OT retained its specific form and
construction as discrete witness and that canonical reality is crucial. The New Testament itself
speaks of the capacity of the sole scripture to instruct, through its own literal sense. That
instructing takes places at a wide variety of levels, precisely because of the way its potential as a
Christian scripture is opened up. There is an objection to focusing on the NT use of the old as a
primary theological category. Instead of canonical investigation of the varieties of use of the OT
in the new, we find the accounts that focus the key figure of NT. So “Paul’s use of the OT” turns
out to be “consensus NT scholarship’s accounts of who Paul is” and not the actual letters of the
NT canon associated with him. The problem is that a historical account of how Paul is doing this
with an OT text is hindered by a failure to account for the NT as canon. In the NT as canon,
Paul’s individual exegetical decisions form part of a canonical witness and need to be understood
within the canon’s understanding of the apostolic office and how the parts of the NT relate to one
another.
Lk.24 is revealing the relationship between NT and OT. Clearly the account asserts that the
Church of the risen Christ receives from him the scriptures of Israel and is taught how to see in
them all the things that pertain to Christ. “Christian reading” is available across the witness of
the Old Testament from the Old witness. The things about Christ are really there in Moses and
all the prophets and Christ can point to them. But nowhere does t he gospel of Luke feel to offer
specific examples of just how the Church of the risen Christ is meant exhaustively to know how
the plain sense of the old will yield up its treasures. This gives a general picture of what is at
stake in Christian handling of a scripture in a two-testament form- a form in which the 2 nd
Testament makes widespread material use of the first. Its intention has been perspective and
orientation realm.
After this discussion, the author tries to give a note on recent New Testament scholarship and the
Old Testament. In order to make this idea clearer, he brings three examples of scholars. For N.T.
Wright interest in the OT has to do with the narrative world said to be influencing the intentions
and purpose of “historical Jesus”, as Wright seeks to reconstruct these. For Francis Watson, the
OT in its canonical form helps formulate for Paul key convictions concerning law and
justification by faith.
In N.T.Wright’s popular publications, the significance of the OT would appear to lie in how
Jesus used it to conceptualize and direct his mission. Through these discussions, author intends
to exhaust what can be said about the OT as Christian Scripture or about the task of biblical
theology. Then, the importance of the Psalms in Christian interpretation is put forward. Like the
book of Isaiah, the Psalms are widely received in the NT and all pre modern interpreters register
this awareness and comment on it. In order to show the theological density of the testaments, the
diet work of interpretation should be done. They study of the testaments leads straight into an
account of who God is and how his will is made known in Israel, his son and the Church. When
we study the Bible the Bible, we have to take into consideration (1) paying attention to the
dialogue as such and not to the discrete voice of the Old as itself doing Christian theological
work, (2) focusing on what latter voice is saying about the former and how it uses this to make
its arguments. NT scholarship is the one doing the asking to be sure. The history of interpretation
is how such an inquiry classically fit within the larger task of Christian interpretation of OT.
Voices in the earlier history of interpretation also have taken into consideration. The NT does not
tell us how to read the old. It shows us how the NT renders freely when it relates the subject
matter that is proper to the presentation of its testament. Here, Calvin’s idea is giver for the
explanation. The Hebrew canons maintain its own specific integrity, even where he is aware that
a Greek version of the OT may have a variant reading. The plain sense of the Hebrew text
remains the focus of his theological attention even where the NT’s rendering of the OT goes its
own way. Calvin’s reading of the Psalms is resolutely connected to Jesus Christ and his Church.
Luther also wrote commentary on the book of Psalms. He often uses the NT to provide a clue as
to how to read David in the Psalms as prophet. David spoke about Christ and the NT confirms
this when it says that David did so speak (as in acts).
Aquinas keeps in fine balance inquiry into the referentiality of the Psalms in Israel’s own carnal
history, but finds the literal sense at work here as well as immediately in reference to Christ. It is
useful to consider Aquinas’s remarks about history and literal sense given modern preoccupation
with historical reference. For Aquinas, the literal sense of the Psalms must be able to attach to
the subject matter Jesus Christ, which referent is revealed in a second testament, but which exists
under a sign in the first. For Watson, the subject matter of OT stories is God himself: in his work
as creator, redeemer, and sanctifier, witnessed to from the OT’s plain sense. In short, the NT’s
literal sense is not a land of restricted historical shot in which the Old appears in the photo.
Author concluded this chapter by explain what is history. He distinguishes the difference
between canonical and historical sense. The canonical sense is in no way a sense to be contrasted
with the historical sense. Any account of history must be able to understand the providential
working of the Triune God within the people of Israel as well as for the Church on the other side
of a two testament canonical stabilization. The history of interpretation helps us to observe how
interpreters allowed each respective testament to sound its theological notes.
 CHAPTER 5
THE OLD AND NEW IN CANONICAL INTERPRETATION
Fifth chapter deals with the old and new in canonical interpretation. It explains the canonical
concerns of the scripture. Author gives the Old Testament example for New Testament canonical
interpretation. OT frequently gives prominence in its final form presentation to the question of
how the relationship between original proclamation and subsequent reception is to be
understood. OT frequently works with an understanding of original authorial intention. OT
interpretation has sharpened to a very high degree our capacity for appreciating a wide range of
what might be called intra textual associations. There is no direct analogy between the use of the
OT and the NT and what characterizes the OT’s own internal development. The author calls our
attention to three different places where the canonical shaping of OT books offers us a glimpse at
methods of editing and affiliation that might be useful for understanding the canonical shape of
the NT canon especially in the area of hermeneutics and identification. By comparing the text of
Jeremiah and Isaiah, author says about the deuteronomistic influence. It takes us to read the
books in canonical aspect.
In order to understand the canonical process, author brought the prophets account. Those
accounts show this in a kind of detail that allows us to see where and how a comparison with
canonical shaping in the NT is possible and potentially illuminating. Then the book says about
the scripture and tradition in the light for biblical tradition –history. Hermeneutical limitations
are discussed here. How much OT influenced in the formation of NT is a real question. The use
of the OT in the NT is a classic example of the danger of confusing historical – critical and
canonical –historical categories. The result is a diminishment of the effect of the NT canonical
form on the interpretation of individual witnesses in the NT.
The author has rightly cautioned about the problems of Biblicism and he says that theological
appropriation of the OT and NT would best proceed by asking whether and how the canonical
shaping has sought to anticipate questions of identification and has provided an answer at the
formal level of the canon. Historical criticism has sharpened our eye in join the enormously
productive ways in terms for appreciating the historically situated character of OT and NT. In the
end of the chapter, we see the Roman Catholic considerations in the light of scripture and
tradition. In Roman Catholic circle, the question of identification with scripture has been tied up
with ecclesial realities in a fairly immediate sense. Pointing the ideas of Kertege, the idea of
tradition and history is explained. History is the living application of the scripture and this will
lead to the new understandings.
The OT would teach the Church about its historical past to be sure, but also primarily about its
moral life; the figural adumbration of its liturgical practices; basic doctrinal insights due to the
expanse of its theophanic range and the theological density of talk about God; and about the
Christian’s and final eschatological purpose and hope. But the main contribution of the OT was
seen to be in its articulation of God’s identity, pressuring the Trinitarian claims as basic to its
own literal sense. In short, the turn to the history of interpretation does not show us how to read
the OT in our day, any more than the NT does. Rather, it helps us observe how earlier
interpreters allowed each respective testament to sound its theological notes, each as Christian
scripture, each equidistant and at once proximate to the subject matter they both share.

CHAPTER 6
CRISIS IN INTERPRETATION AND THE TWO TESTAMENT VOICE OF
CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE
The sixth chapter looks at the two testament character of Christian scripture form the standpoint
of a contemporary crisis in the Church. It tries to fives a practical example of the rule of faith by
attention to the role of worship and liturgy as a lens on hermeneutics and theological
appropriation of the canon, especially the OT as Christian scripture. It is hoped that by providing
a concrete example of the breakdown of the rule of faith, it will be easier to understand the
methodological and conceptual argument.
In the introductory part, the author points out the crisis of interpretation. By explaining context
of American Churches where the same sex crisis is more, clear vision about the interpretation of
scripture. In order to explain the crisis of interpretation of scripture generally, he moves with
three phases-historical critical method misinterpreted the concept of homo sexuality in Bible, the
negotiation of the religious principles with changing times; Bible does not have the idea of same
sex in our day. He gives the answers for this aspect. Some people argue that the Bible cannot
speak a word directly into our day on the issue of same sex behavior; the developmental context
is outside of two testaments. Bible becomes stories or resources. It has no legislative, exhortative
sense. There is not internal progressivism in Bible. That is the interpretative conclusion. On other
side, people want to say that the Bible has authority and a plain sense. Here, he brings about the
cultural injustice to our discussion. It is crucial that there is in one side as freedom of the spirit
and other side hearing the word of God in a plain sense. For the answer of this problem, the
author says that the Bible was understood developing internally. For at the heart of the internal
movement of a two-testament scripture is a collateral conviction: that God is one, and
unchanging-God speaks to Israel and then to the world in Christ Jesus. The two testaments speak
of the same God in Christ, though in different dispensations and in different figural directions.
The Holy Spirit worked in the prophets and with the scriptures is with the OT’s own plain
delivery of God and his ways in reality and in promise.
In the end of the chapter, the book brings forth the rule of faith that is the Lord he is God. The
Holy Spirit teaches new truths outside the range of scripture’s literal and spiritual sense. The
basic convictions about the way the Bible speaks of the Triune God are not sophisticated or
theologically complicated ones. Rather they emerge in the rhythms of worship: in baptismal
confession and catechetical incorporation; in the specific selection and ordering of scripture in
lectionary presentation. The rule of faith made certain threshold claims about the character of
God in that time before the formation of a second testament of scripture. The rule of faith
insisted that the risen Lord of Christian worship, Jesus Christ, was one with the named Lord of
the scriptures. This Lord and Creator had given his name, the name above every name, to Jesus,
so that at his name, every knee would bow, to the glory of the father. The triune God was the
Lord of Israel in reality and in promise both. The rule of faith is the basis of the prayers of
Christian life. The prayer “glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be” is logically explained through the prayers of same
ordered worship, addressed to the Father, in the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ is the OT’s true interpreter only because the OT is everywhere, finally, about Him
(Lk 24:27). Only the eternal Son of God can see the true hearty and intention of the OT’s abiding
word, because the OT is a word delivered by him from all eternity. The author tries to give the
explanation of gay marriage and its deviated consequences in the Church, from the scriptural
perspective. Though the NT is silent about the homo sexuality, NT teaches and upholds the view
of moral life from the basis of OT. Both testaments give us a new word to guide our sexual lives
under God. With the explanations of the challenges in the Church from the basis of the scripture,
the chapter was concluded.
 CHAPTER 7
THE RULE OF FAITH, HERMENEUTICS AND THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIAN
SCRIPTURE
The final chapter will look more closely at the appeal to the rule of faith in the ante-Nicene
period, in order to determine the theological and exegetical claims to which the rule points. The
rule focuses on the ontological realities of God in Christ through the various economies of the
OT. This chapter explains the rule of faith, hermeneutics and the character of Christian scripture.
To appreciate the character of Christian Scripture and its relationship, we should have a proper
understanding of the significance of a critical period of early Church history.
The various challenges to catholic Christian ruled reading, we read of in the ante-Nicene fathers
imply that the scriptures are insufficient, misleading or useful only to show a wrong theological
way, in need of further testimony privately given to special teachers, and positive in range and
potential but really only because they can be aligned with all kinds of new revelations. NT canon
will serve to describe the apostolic limits and public character of Christian claims as a
comprehensive matter. When the exegetical and hermeneutical challenges are being confronted,
the subject of scripture emerges into clear light. The subject is the creator God, with whom the
son is eternally related, and the scriptures allow the Holy Spirit scope and opportunity for
declaring this through the economies and episodes of God’s ways in and with Israel. With the
clear understanding of Christ , author makes the external apostolic confession-Christ is who he is
apprehended to be in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension is capable of articulation and
delimitation without reference to the one who sent him, with whom he is in eternity as
begotten ,to whom he speaks, whose spirit rested on him and gave him strength and purpose,
who raised him from the dead, and at whose right hand he sits, returning where he was before,
and who will return because appointed by God so to do, for judgment.
The rule of faith is the scripturally grounded articulation, based upon a proper perception of
hypothesis of Scripture. Jesus Christ is one with the God who sent him and who is active in the
Scriptures inherited, The Holy Spirit being the means of testifying to his active life in the OT. On
the mount of transfiguration Jesus is speaking face to face with Moses and Elijah. Jesus wants to
be sure they get now. “Before Abraham was, I am” is the way John describes this ontological
reality. The rule of faith is the statement in the ante-Nicene fathers that articulates this
fundamental correlative truth based upon a proper apprehension of how the Scriptures of Israel
“deliver” this ontological claim about Christ, YHWH (the name above every name), and the
Holy Spirit(who spoke by the prophets).
Statements about the work and mission of Jesus Christ are of course circulating as the NT begins
to take form and as it takes form as mature canonical witness. In the lived life of the Church and
especially in its worship, these statements and this confession find articulation. It is hard to
imagine in apostolic preaching and in the memory of Jesus just how central the witness of the
scriptures was to the original proclamation; the gospels and other apostolic writings give every
indication of this centrality. The eventual canonization for the NT and the appearance of a two
testament witness runs the danger in the modern period, absent proper appreciation of the status
of the Scriptures at the time of Christ and in the earliest apostolic period, of improper
historicization and develepmentalism. It opens the possibilities that the older witness will
function at best as crucial background for the second witness and at worst as a phase in the
history of religion.
In sum the use of the rule of faith become an older testament, should serve a limiting function,
guarding against an account of the two testaments of Scripture. Rightly understood, the early
appeal to the rule of faith is a guard against this precisely because the Scriptures of Israel make
their Christian notes sound within the literal sense of their own stable deliverances and are seen
to be decisive.

EVALUATION AS CONCLUSION
The book ‘The Character of Christian Scripture’ brings forth the basic understanding of the two
testaments Bible. He explained the matter in a detailed way with the help of other writings. It is a
scholarly work and it gives the nuances in the theological realm in its wider sense. When I went
through the text, one thing I noticed that it gives the meaning of the relation between the two
testaments. This book is well structured and inter connected. This interconnection makes the
book more beautiful. The book explains the canonical approach and interpretation and also the
importance of biblical theology in the basis of scripture.
Seitz work is commanding account for biblical theology. He rightly argues that the Christian
Bible is unique in its bi-testmentality. This work constitutes a major contribution to both
theological and practical hermeneutics that should fruitfully reorient the Church’s reading of the
Bible. But one thing I like to point out that some themes are not discussed in a proper manner
and it loses the clarity of ideas.
The author tries to discuss the theological and the canonical matter in critical way. He points the
pros and cons of the subject of discussion. In the end of the chapter where he discusses the
challenges of modern interpretation especially with the basis of the American Anglican
Churches, the author brings the challenges to face by modern interpreters. I recommend this
book for the all the theologians those who are doing their biblical study. It helps them to
understand the real relationship of Old Testament and New Testament.