The "horizontal" and "vertical" nature of the Old Testament witness

Old Testament scholars, especially those influenced by Karl Barth (which seems to include most of the German post-war generation, such as von Rad, W.H. Schmidt, Zimmerli, perhaps Otto Kaiser; see this post), often talk of the "witness" of the Old Testament. In other words, they understood a central function of the Bible as being to point beyond itself to some kind of reality. How did the New Testament understand this reality?

On the one hand, this reality was obviously understood to be "the message of the Gospel." Yet how this witness was understood to be rendered is more complex. In the New Testament, this message is related to the Jewish scriptures both in terms of a historical sequence (i.e. Jesus appeared in the “fullness of time”, Gal. 4:4), as well as on an ontological plane. Brevard Childs cites John 1:1, Col. 1:15f, and Rev. 13: 8 as examples of “a mode of speech in relation to a subject matter which disregards or transcends temporal sequence.”[*] As Childs said in one of his first publications: the Old Testament is not just a preparation for Jesus Christ but a manifestation of him. [**] (See his discussion of Wilhelm Vischer's more "vertical" approach in contrast to von Rad's more "horizontal" Heilsgeschichte).

We thus have different ways of understanding the way in which Jesus is related to the Old Testament. On the one hand, we can take the now well-know heilsgeschichtliche approach, and talk about him fulfilling Israel's narrative. On the other hand, one can take a more "vertical" (rather than "horizontal") approach, and talk about Jesus as the ontological reality which the Scriptures point to at each stage of the way (see my post The need for ontological categories in Biblical exegesis). This kind of move leads to that type of move from "text to subject-matter" known as "allegory" (see my post, What is Christian allegory?).

Allegory is, of course, incredibly unfashionable at the moment in Biblical studies (though I sense the tide is changing). One criticism of this type of exegetical move is that when exegesis is loosed from the controls of historical critical exegesis it opens the path to uncontrolled flights of fancy. Another criticism (raised by Rolf Rendtorff, I believe, in response to Childs' Biblical Theology), is that such a hermeneutical approach undermines the canonical function of the Old Testament, which was to preserve Israel's Scripture according to its own integrity. I've responded to this issue already in terms of the hermeneutical circle and the literal sense in a previous thread dealing with Literal and Spiritual Senses of Scripture. In my following posts, I will focus on how a modern Christian interpreter can conscientiously practice a multiple level reading of Scripture.

[*] 1997: 60; i.e. Jesus was the eternal Word who was with God in the beginning, “the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation”, “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world”.

[**] 1962: 103, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament (SCM Press: London). Here the relationship between Old Testament and church is expressed in terms of the “New Israel” as witness to divine reality.

P.S. Considerations such as these inspired the name of my blog: Narrative and Ontology.

What is Christian allegory?

Here's what the Orthodox theologian Andrew Louth has to say from his excellent book Discerning the Mystery:

- "... allegory is a way of holding us before the mystery which is the ultimate 'difficulty' of the Scriptures - a difficulty, a mystery, which challenges us to revise our understanding of what might be meant by meaning; a difficulty, a mystery, which calls on us for a response of metanoia, change of mental perspective, repentance" (p. 110).

- Allegory "is an attempt to respond to the mira profundatis of Scripture, seen as the indespensible witness to the mystery of Christ" (p. 112)

- Allegory is not a technique for solving problems, but an art for discerning mystery (p. 113).

- Allegory is "a way of focusing on the mystery to which the Scriptures bear witness" (p. 114)

Note that on this account, allegory is less a matter of the Christian interpreter playfully exercising his or her interpretative freedom with the text and more a matter of a disciplined penetrating of the text to that which is is really all about. Allegory thus presupposes the existence of an real textual referent.

Louth emphasises this dimension of penetration when he talks about the relation between the allegorical (or mystical) sense of the text and its plain sense (which he, rather misleadingly it seems to me, also calls its historical sense) as being one of movement, a movement through the plain sense to the spiritual sense. Thus he can say:

the movement to allegory is not at all a movement away from history, but we might say a movement into history, into the significance of the sacred events that are the object of our faith. The literal sense is the object of faith: this is what we are to believe, to believe in, in a God who meets us in history, becomes man in Jesus of Nazareth. The allegorical sense represents our attempt to understand the mystery we discern here. It is a move from fides to intelligentia (p. 116)

There is no doubt a move back again, from spiritual sense to literal, but I haven't got that far yet.

For parallels between historical criticism and allegorical interpretation, see my post Historical Criticism and Medieval Allegory: Some Parallels.

For my whole thread on the issue of the spiritual and literal sense of Scripture, go here, in particular the post on the relation between the literal and spiritual senses.

More words of wisdom for Biblical exegetes

... though of a different sort. Provided via Tim Furry. This is explicated somewhat here. I must remember that name ... John David Dawson ...

Delitzsch on "narrative and ontology" in the Psalms

... if "narrative and ontology" is the right term. Perhaps the distinction between the immanent and economic Trinity would be more appropriate. Here's the quote:

Die Kirche, indem sie die Ps[almen] betet, feiert die Einheit der zwei Testamente, und die Wissenschaft, indem sie die Ps[almen] auslegt, gibt der Unterschiedenheit des alten und des neuen Testaments die Ehre. Sie sind beide in ihrem Rechte, jene indem sie die Ps[almen] im Lichte des Einen wesentlichen Heils betrachtet, diese indem sie die heilsgeschichtlichen Zeiten und Erkenntnisstufen auseinanderhält (Biblischer Kommentar über die Psalmen, Leipzig 1883, p. 64).

In the final analysis, the institutions of Church and Academy should not be completely separated from each other, and infact should not even be defined solely in terms of their focus on either the sensus literalis or spiritualis. Both institutions should be interested in both dimensions of the text. How can anyone be interested in particularity to the exclusion of unity, or vice versa?

Reading the letter or the spirit? A case study.

I've often argued on this blog that genuine exegesis needs to wrestle with more than the linguistic, historical, and authorial-intentional dimensions of text. It needs to get to grips with its subject matter, the reality it is talking about. In traditional Christian exegesis this is referred to as going through the literal sense to get to the spiritual (see my thread on the subject here).

This isn't as odd as it sounds. Getting to the "spirit" of a law, for example, rather than simply fulfilling its "letter," is a foundation for the implementation of justice in society - though extremely difficult to implement in practice. Here's an example from the Bible:

The third commandment forbids using the LORD's name in vain, as it would dishonour him:

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain (Exod 20:4).

What would it look like to keep the letter of this law but not the spirit, and thus bring disrepute on God's name in a far more subtle manner?

In his last days, King David confirmed a series of oaths by evoking the name of God (1 Kings 1:17; 2:8, 23, 42). It is characteristic of these stories that they are extremely ambiguous. For example, David swore by the LORD that he would not put his enemy Shimei to death by the sword. At his death, however, he commanded his son Solomon to carry out the deed.

Did David break the Third Commandment by bringing disrepute on God? Strictly speaking the oath is not broken. Nevertheless, David resorts to a form of deception in order to execute his vengeance.

I believe that the legal issue represented here represents the crux of genuine theological exegesis. It is not enough to remain at the descriptive level. We need wrestle with the true subject matter of the text, which cannot always be so easily read off the surface. The result of not doing so can have dire consequences.

[These thoughts are taken from Childs' Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context, 69.]

Photo of the Day: A Sea of Steps

This cathedral (Wells), is not too far from where my family lives!

The following is the commentary on the photo taken from Phaidon's The Photo Book. I particularly like the way the commentator interweaves allegorical and literal interpretation, grounding this even in the intention of the photographer!

This picture, of the stairs leading to the Chapter House in Wells Cathedral, was always meant to be understood in terms other than purely architectural ones. The steps themselves ripple and look increasingly like waves building in an ocean as they mount towards the lighted space beyond. The stairs seen rising to the right could be a great wave on the point of breaking, thus representing a danger to the traveller or pilgrim. In the middle is a cut block of stone, symbolizing a steadfast soul put in place by the Divine Architect. The point, though, is not just that the steps look oceanic but that they have been worn that way by generations of use, until their significance had been inscribed into the very fabric of the building. Evan's tendency was always to look for a meaning already present, making him very respectful of appearances as given and thus an early advocate of 'straight' photography (142; emphasis mine).

For details of this photo go here. For other images by Frederick Evans, go here.

Photo of the Day: Child with Toy Hand Grenade

I'm currently working my way through Phaidon's The Photo Book and was struck by this picture by Diane Arbus. The commentary to the photo helped me understand why:

The grenade, grimace and claw-like hand seem to point to a desperate future, hysterical and militarized. The picture works because the strangeness of the boy is staged within a kindly natural scene: there is even a rhyme between those paired tree trunks and the child's spindly legs. Arbus's subject, here and elsewhere, is the discrepancy between imagined and idealized worlds, represented here by the trees and the sunlight in the park, and the violence apparently promised by the child. She imagined dystopia, but always regarded it from the point of view of the Garden of Eden (23)

It's interesting to compare this interpretation from the unknom Phaidon commentator with that of Wikipedia's. The former tries to grasp the photo within some kind of wider symbolic context and perhaps manages to grasp to the heart of its message. The latter interpretation, in true "historical-critical" fashion, is content to describe the surface image and tell us how the photo was taken. The result is that the power of the photo is lost in irrelevant detail.

Or is it irrelevant?

Thread Summary: The Literal and Spiritual Sense of Scripture

The following is a summary of all my posts dealing with the literal and spiritual senses of Scripture:

1. The literal and spiritual sense of scripture

2. The Relation between the "spiritual" and the "literal" senses

3. Antiochenes and Alexandrians

4. The spiritual sense and exegetical integrity

5. Childs on the sensus literalis of Scripture

6. Literal sense and historical reference

7. Historical criticism and medieval allegory: Some parallels

8. What is the sensus literalis of Scripture?

God: literal and metaphorical

Time is short, so I've not been posting much lately. I do intend to start a thread on the regula fidei and the concept of truth in the early church. Till then, a beautiful quote from the seventeenth-century Anglican priest John Donne:

My God, my God, Thou art a direct God, may I not say a literall God, a God that wouldest bee understood literally, and according to the plaine sense of all that thou saiest? But thou art also (Lord I intend it to thy glory ....) thou art a figurative, a metaphoricall God too: A God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions ... such Curtaines of Allegories ... O, what words but thine, can express the inexpressible texture, and composition of thy Word.

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, XIX Expostulation

Quote of the Day: allegory and relevance

Without a form of allegory that at least allows for analogy, the biblical text can only be an object of archaeological interest.

Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, 3.

What is the Sensus Literalis of Scripture?

Well, here's B.S. Childs' take on the issue:

The literal sense of the text is the plain sense witnessed to by the community of faith. It makes no claim of being the original sense, or even of being the best. Rather, the literal sense of the canonical Scriptures offers a critical theological norm for the community of faith on how the tradition functions authoritatively for future generations of the faithful. [*]

As such, the hermeneutical move which tries to bridge the gap between past and present must take place in terms of the literal sense of the final form of the text. This literal sense is not in tension with the spiritual (or figurative) sense, but rather serves different functions within the community of faith. Indeed,

the literal sense of the text is the indispensable key for the hermeneutical task of actualizing the tradition because in its shaping of the tradition it has critically rendered the material into a form suitable for future accommodation. [**]

See also my posts here and here.

[*] Childs, “The Sensus Literalis of Scripture,” 92

[**] Ibid., 93

Historical Criticism and Medieval Allegory: Some Parallels

In a fascinating article from 1977 [*], Childs claimed that post-Enlightenment biblical study's exclusive focus on the historical referentiality of the text (i.e. on a particular understanding of the text’s subject matter; see here) finds its parallel in traditional allegorical attempts to push through the text to attain the text’s spiritual subject matter. The dangers of allegorical practice in drowning out the text’s plain sense find their correlate in historical criticism in the following four ways:

First, the medieval application of the various senses often threatened to destroy the significance of the literal sense. In the same way, historical criticism threatens to destroy the integrity of the literal sense, which now functions as a window to a historical reality behind the text.

Second, just as within (bad) medieval allegory all control of exegesis was lost through the abuse of the multiple senses, critical Biblical interpretation has became a speculative enterprise as the fixed literary parameters of the plain sense dissolve before hypothetical reconstructions.

Third, the canonical process which shaped the text to function as Scripture for a community of faith is denigrated, as it is now assumed that there are other avenues to truth beside the tradition. The medieval parallel is seen in the tension between text and tradition.

Finally, an insurmountable gap arises between the historical sense, now fully anchored in the past, and the search for its present relevance for the modern age. The medieval parallel is seen in that attempt by some Christian theologians to abandon all concern with the literal sense of the text in order to construct a relevant theology.

[*] B. S. Childs, “The Sensus Literalis of Scripture: An Ancient and Modern Problem,” in Beiträge zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie: Festschrift für Walther Zimmerli zum 70 Geburtstag (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1977)

Literal Sense and Historical Reference

In my last post on the sensus literalis, I pointed out how the text of the Bible itself functions as an essential part of the "theological data" of the church/synagogue, rather than the referent alone independent of the text. Confusion concerning the relationship between the two - text and referent - arose in the 18th century, whereby the term "literal sense" underwent a subtle shift in meaning. With the rise of historical criticism in this period, the identity of the explicative sense of the text with its historical reference was attacked. The plain sense was separated from the historical sense, so that a number of interpretive options were opened up. Increasingly both conservative and liberal scholars grew to assume that the meaning of the Biblical text lay in its historical reference rather than in its own literary presentation, so that the issue of historical factuality came to dominate the discussion. According to Childs,

“The task of exegesis lay in working out the true historical reference since revelation no longer consisted in the words, but exclusively in the subject matter to which the words referred" ("The Sensus Literalis of Scripture," 89; italics my own)

As a result,the aim of the interpreter was to reconstruct the original occasion of the historical reference on the basis of which the truth of the biblical text could be determined. In sum, the sensus literalis had become sensus originalis (ibid.).

NB: In the quote I highlight the word exclusively as I am conscious of my previous thread on the text's "spiritual sense," which I identified with the text's ultimate referent (regardless of its nature, i.e. historical, theological, or whatever). The crux for theological interpretation lies not in focussing either exclusively on the text (literal sense) or on its referent (spiritual sense, historical sense), but on the interelation of the two. To identify the plain sense with the historical sense (i.e. to collapse textual meaning with a certain understanding of its referent), as classic historical criticism does, is to prejudice interpretation from the outset, as it already assumes what the nature of the text's referent is.

Next I will post on the fascinating parallels between historical criticism and medieval allegory!

Childs on the Sensus Literalis of Scripture

Childs' view on this issue changed with time. In an early article from 1964 ("Interpretation in Faith") he believed that the sensus literalis referred to the biblical text in all its diachronic and synchronic dimensions. This meant that in order to understand the literal sense, one had to sort out the various stages of literary development, indentify the genre and functions of the texts as well as their possible cultural contexts, both originally and more importantly within the developing tradition of Israel.

This approach to the sensus literalis was consonant with his view that “the reality with which the Old Testament is concerned is anchored to the totality of Israel,” whereby the task of historical criticism was to reconstruct “the total life of historical Israel.” (Myth and Reality in the Old Testament, 103). However, Childs' later focus on the phenomenon of canon led him to see that the “reception of the text by the community now constitutes an integral part of the theological 'data' of Scripture and cannot be separated from the text" (“A Response,” 190). He came to see that

“the concept of canon involves many basic hermeneutical implications which make clear why the church’s task of interpreting the Scriptures cannot be simply identified with, or be an elaboration of, the historical-critical method" (“The Old Testament as Scripture of the Church,” 714).

This process of reception involved a Sachkritik (criticism according to content) in which judgements were made concerning who the faithful tradents of divine revelation were (Moses not Korah, Jeremiah not Hananiah), in which various voices were subordinated, omitted or highlighted. In short,

“Israel shaped its literature confessionally to bear testimony to what it received as containing an established range of witness" (“Walter Brueggemann’s Theology of the Old Testament," 230)

It is the text as shaped by the community of faith which serves the church as the sensus literalis.

My next post will look at how the meaning of the term "literal sense" developed in the post-Enlightenment period. There are some interesting parallels between critical methodology and medieval allegorical interpretation!

Canonical Process and the Text as "Witness"

In my posts on Brevard Childs' so-called "canonical approach" I have often used the category of "witness" (see here for a first definition). This category was used by Childs before his development of the canonical idea and remained determinative for him throughout his career (see, e.g., my summary of an article from 1967 here). It is significant to grasp this as his commitment to the concept and value of “canonical process” is derivative of his understanding of these texts as a historical witness for a concrete people to concrete reality in time. The concept of “witness” in its first instance is not tied to the final form of the text, but rather emphasises the particularity of the text in all its dimensions. More primary then “final form” is a commitment to the particular form in which the prophets and apostles bore witness to God. Israel's concern to pass on its witness in a new form so that God's revelation would be accessible to a new generation is everywhere evident in his earlier historical-critical works.

Failure to grasp this point has characterised critique of Childs' position throughout his career, so that in his final pre-mortem book in 2004 he once again had to set the record straight. In response to accusations of a-historicism or an arbitrary privileging of the final form Childs says:

“The truth is that I agree with von Rad's position that no stage in the Old Testament's long history of growth is obsolete, and that something of each phase has been conserved until its final form. The confusion arises from a disagreement on the nature of the exegetical task being undertaken. It is one thing to attempt to understand the Old Testament as the sacred scriptures of the church. It is quite another to understand the study of the Bible in history-of-religions categories. Both tasks are legitimate, but they are different in goal and procedure. The hermeneutical issue at stake does not lie in an alleged contrast between historical process and scripture's final form. To understand the Bible as scripture means to reflect on the witnesses of the text transmitted through the testimony of the prophets and apostles. It involves an understanding of biblical history as the activity of God testified to in scripture. In contrast, a history-of-religions approach attempts to reconstruct a history according to the widely accepted categories of the Enlightenment, as a scientifically objective analysis according to the rules of critical research prescribed by common human experience. ... [T]he two approaches are different in goals, assumptions and results. Yet the complexity is manifest in that the two are to be neither fused nor separated from each other. There is a subtle interrelationship that must be maintained. ... The confusion respecting the final form of the canonical text arises because of the failure to recognize that two different approaches to exegesis are involved that do not share a common understanding of history. To speak of the privileged state of the canonical form is not to disregard Israel's past history. However, it refuses to fuse the canonical process of the shaping of the witness of the prophets and apostles with an allegedly objective scientific reconstruction that uses a critical filter to eliminate those very features that constitute its witness, namely, the presence of God in the history of Israel and the church” (2004: 321)[*]

[*] Childs attributes such misconstrual first to J. Barr (1983), which was then picked up by J. Barton (1984) and continued by Nicholson (1998) and a host of others. In his review of the canon in recent Biblical Studies Childs praises recent German work for not making the mistake of their Anglo-Saxon colleagues , namely that of posing the hermeneutical problem of the growth of the canon in terms of canonical process or final form interpretation. Instead, the focus has been on the nature of the process and the nature of the final form (2006: 52). Though see his warnings on p. 52!

The Spiritual Sense and Exegetical Integrity

Continuing my "spiritual/literal sense" thread, I want to counter the criticism that "pushing through" the text to its spiritual meaning (as argued here) necessarily entails subordinating the text to dogma.

The "outward thrust" to the text's spiritual meaning does not obviate the need for a second move, in which the particular text is re-heard in light of the full reality of God in Jesus Christ. Childs claims that biblical language has the ability

“to resonate in a new and creative fashion when read from the vantage point of a fuller understanding of Christian truth. Such a reading is not intended to threaten the sensus literalis of the text, but to extend through figuration a reality which has only been partially heard. It is for this reason that allegory or typology, when properly understood and practised, remains an essential part of Christian interpretation and reflects a different understanding of how biblical reality is rendered than, say, midrash does within Judaism.” (1992: 87, 88).

The central role of the literal or plain sense as witness to the spiritual obliges the Christian exegete to preserve the integrity of the literal sense, which means that there must be the descriptive task associated with traditional academic exegesis. Indeed, Childs claims, this function of the literal sense as “witness” to an external truth creates the very possibility of genuine exegesis, in which the text can be confronted in all its dimensions (1964: 438)!

Here are some examples taken from Childs before he developed his canonical approach (1964):

If biblical authority functions at the level of the interpretive framework within which the literal sense takes shape, then the need for a theory of sacred language and text is obviated. This creates space for precise textual description.

The confession that the unity of scripture is theological and exists at the level of its spiritual and not literal sense abrogates the need for arbitrary harmonization of literary sources as well as the need to privilege a particular historical layer.

A functional understanding of the Bible as witness for a concrete, historically situated people allows for form critical analysis which highlights the particular forms of this witness, all of which point to a single truth.

The fact that this truth does not lie immediately at the level of the literal sense of the witness frees the interpreter from the need to read dogmatic laws into the literal sense, such as theories of universal development or of existential self-understanding.

Finally, the nature of the historically particular text as “witness” necessitates attention to the text's historical minutiae. On the other hand, this witness opposes the assumptions of historicism that “these tools open the true avenue to 'what really happened' and provide a means of bypassing the biblical witness to God's redemptive purpose with Israel." [*]

[*] Examples taken from Childs, “Interpretation in Faith: The Theological Responsibility of an Old Testament Commentary” Interpretation 18 no 40 pp. 432 – 449.

Antiochenes and Alexandrians

"During much of the church's history, enormous energy, reflection, and debate has gone into the effort to understand exactly the relation between the literal and the spiritual dimensions of the biblical text. Usually the extravagant development of the allegorical method within Christianity has been assigned to Origen, whose influence of course has been enormous. Nevertheless, ... the interpretation of Origen has undergone serious revision during the last decades, and the earlier attempts to describe allegory as a Gnostic innovation, basically alien to Christianity, have not been sustained. A more balanced way of understanding the hermeneutical issues involved emerged from an analysis of the historic tensions between the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools. The earlier misconstrual of the relationship, as if the Alexandrians were fanciful allegorists while the Antiochenes adumbrated modern historical criticism in stressing the historical context, has been replaced by careful study of both the similarities and differences regarding the issue of multiple textual meanings. Both schools fully agreed in recognizing both a literal and spiritual dimension, and both sought to develop subtle strategies by which to guide and control the interrelationship of the two. The great variation in the hermeneutical terminology - theoria, allegoria, skopus, nous - reflects the continuing struggle for exegetical precision. the Alexandrians were passionate in believing that the literal sense apart from the spiritual killed is meaning. However, the Antiochenes feared the biblical historical sequence could be lost in timeless symbolism. It is important to note that by the fifth century elements of the best from each exegetical tradition had been appropriated by Christian expositors (Jerome, Theodoret, Cyril)."

(B.S. Childs, The Struggle to Read Isaiah as Christian Scripture, 303).

The Relation Between the "Spiritual" and "Literal" Senses

I argued here that Christian exegesis requires a distinction between the text's literal and spiritual sense. As Childs argues, the question of the existence of a “spiritual” dimension to the text goes back to the New Testament (cf. John 3:14; Matt. 16:4; 1 Cor. 9:9; Romans 3:31ff; etc.[2004: 302]). The issue for the Church has not been the existence of a spiritual sense, but rather the nature of the relationship between the literal and spiritual dimensions.

Childs' own proposal draws on the logic of “faith seeking knowledge.” In other words, the desire to understand the divine reality requires a starting point from within a position of faith: Christians confess “Christ [while] struggling to understand the nature and will of the One who has already been revealed as Lord”(1992: 86). This entails what in general hermeneutics is called the “hermeneutical circle.” Childs also draws on Dilthey's distinction between erklären (explanation) and verstehen (understanding) in order to help him explain the dialectical move from the particular (the literal sense) to the general (the spiritual sense) and back again. In other words, one

“comes to exegesis already with certain theological [i.e. 'spiritual'] assumptions and the task of good exegesis is to penetrate so deeply into the biblical text [i.e. in its literal sense] that even these assumptions are called into question, are tested and revised by the subject matter itself” (1997: 60).

In more theological terms, the basic thrust of Christian exegesis can be described as a move from

“the partial grasp of fragmentary reality found in both testaments to the full reality which the Christian church confesses to have found in Jesus Christ, in the combined witness of the two testaments.”(1992: 85)

The Literal and Spiritual Sense of Scripture

This post inaugurates the second section of my overarching thread dealing with the theological exegesis of Brevard S. Childs. An overview of the total structure can be seen in my programmatic statement here.

I have already established here that a theological approach to Scripture must first classify the text as a “witness” to divine truth. This introduces a distinction between the mere verbal sense of the individual texts and the reality to which they give partial access. When the verbal sense of the text is provisionally relabelled the literal sense and the ultimate referent the spiritual sense, we can see the continuity of Childs' approach with traditional Christian exegesis. Theological reflection must ultimately be on the text's subject matter, so that the basic thrust of theological interpretation is from the literal to the spiritual. This move also gives the concept of allegory a new currency, as long as allegory is understood to be a means of moving to the text's ultimate subject matter while respecting the literal sense of text itself (i.e. its “integrity” or its “own voice,” what Seitz calls its “per se witness”). For how these two dimensions of the text relate to each other, stay tuned!