The unity of Scripture in its diverse transmission

Despite the Jewish people’s role as tradents of the Old Testament witness, the Christian church received the Jewish Scriptures largely through Greek translations. A hermeneutical problem thus arose when it was perceived that the Hebrew text and the Greek Septuagint did not always agree. Over the years, various hermeneutical attempts have been offered by which to address the issue, such as allegory, various forms of harmonization, the subjugation of the Old Testament to its New Testament reception, dismissal of the issue by reference to history-of-religions categories, or post-modern appeals to the freedom of the creative imagination. (See Childs, Struggle, 311-312)

The purpose of my next few posts is to look at how Childs' canonical approach deals with this issue. Stay tuned!