According to the Scriptures: The Origins of the Gospel and of the Church's Old Testament

Front Cover
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998 - 147 pages
This book calls for a reevaluation of the Old Testament and its role in the Church. It is written out of the conviction that the church needs to claim the Old Testament as its own but also to grant the legitimacy of the Jewish claim on Israel's sacred Scriptures. The author is concerned to debunk several ideas, including the popular notions that Paul was the real inventor of Christianity; that a great gulf exists between the Old Testament and the New Testament; that the early Christians used the Old Testament to prove their already established belief in Jesus; and that Christianity is less credible or valuable if it is seen to depend on Jewish traditions. Van Buren's starting point is an exploration of the meaning and origin of the early Christian confession, "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures"-particularly the last part of the confession. Van Buren argues that the wording of this early, pre-Pauline gospel confession was the result of a creative application of early Jewish interpretations of scripture, especially of the Binding of Isaac story in Genesis 22. Christians need to affirm the legitimacy of their understanding Christ in light of the Old Testament, argues van Buren, but they also need to grant the legitimacy of the Jewish reading of scripture. The interpretive traditions of both religious communities-Judaism and Christianity-need to be respected. Clearly and elegantly written, this book represents a sensitive ecumenical effort at fostering Jewish-Christian dialogue: a book that both Jews and Christians can read with profit.
 

Contents

Introduction
3
The Gospel before Paul
10
The Context
23
According to the Scriptures
30
From the Depths of the Scriptures
38
The Gospel and Paul
51
The Gospel and the Gospels
60
THE SCRIPTURES OF THE GOSPEL
69
The Old Testament not Tanak or Hebrew Bible
83
On the Art of Reading the Old Testament
94
Who Then Is the Beloved Son and Whose?
105
The Gospel in a Dual Reading of Scripture
118
Our Irreplaceable Old Testament
129
Works Cited
136
Index of Names
142
Index of Scripture References
144

So What about the Scriptures?
71

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1998)

(1924-1998) Former professor emeritus of systematic theology at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Bibliographic information