Enns on Apostolic (Christotelic) HermeneuticsPublished by Cynthia R. Nielsen May 27th, 2006 in Biblical Hermeneutics, Hermeneutics, Pete Enns, Scripture
Below are selected passages (with minimal commentary here and there) from Peter Enns’ article, “Apostolic Hermeneutics and an Evangelical Doctrine of Scripture: Moving beyond a Modernist Impasse.” (The article originally appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of the Westminster Theological Journal).
Personally, I found the article extremely helpful and would recommend it, as well as Enns’ book, Inspiration And Incarnation: Evangelicals And The Problem Of The Old Testament, to those interested in engaging hermeneutical issues from a distinctively Christian point of view. (Because I am citing the passages from an electronic copy of the article, there are no “page numbers” to cite. My copy of the original article as published in the WTJ is packed in a box, as we are preparing to move into our first home this week!) Lastly, if anyone wants an electronic copy of the article in its entirety, email me and I’ll be happy to send it your way.*******In his article, Enns argues that “the Apostles’ hermeneutical goal (or agenda), the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ, must be also ours by virtue of the fact that we share the same eschatological moment. This is why we must follow them precisely with respect to their Christotelic hermeneutic.” Consequently, if we employ a Christotelic hermeneutic, we cannot simply treat the OT primarily literally (a “first reading”), as this does not lead to a Christotelic reading (a “second reading”).
Rather, “a Christian understanding of the OT should begin with what God revealed to the Apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for OT interpretation. We, too, are living at the end of the story; we are engaged in the second reading by virtue of our eschatological moment, which is now as it was for the Apostles the last days, the inauguration of the eschaton. We bring the death and resurrection of Christ to bear on the OT. Again, this is not a call to flatten out the OT, so that every psalm or proverb speaks directly and explicitly of Jesus. It is, however, to ask oneself, ‘What difference does the death and resurrection of Christ make for how I understand this proverb?’ It is the recognition of our privileged status to be living in the post-resurrection cosmos that must be reflected in our understanding of the OT. Therefore, if what claims to be Christian proclamation of the OT simply remains in the pre-eschatological moment—simply reads the OT ‘on its own terms’—such is not a Christian proclamation in the apostolic sense.”
Enns then asks, “Just how far do we follow the exegetical methods used by the Apostles?” Given that we did not live in the Second Temple period, we cannot follow the Apostles in toto, i.e., we do not have the authority to omit, add or change words as the Apostles often freely did. However, this is not to endorse a strict grammatico-historical approach (GH), because that approach will not yield a Christotelic reading. So is a Christotelic approach just a better “method” than the GH orientation? Here Enns is instructive and asks, “what if ‘method,’ so understood, is not as central a concept as we might think? What if biblical interpretation is not guided so much by method but by an intuitive, Spirit-led engagement of Scripture with the anchor being not what the author intended but by how Christ gives the OT its final coherence?” It is not “method” per se that serves as the impetus of apostolic hermeneutics, rather the arrival of Christ necessitates new exegetical horizons. Thus, speaking in terms of Apostolic exegetical “methods,” is likely to lead us astray.
Enns goes on to say that this is in part why he has been attracted to Biblical Theology (BT) of the Vosian flavor. By BT, Enns has in mind the sense in which Vos used the term, viz., as the “self-revelation of God” as recorded in the Bible. [1]. Further explicating Vos’ notion, Enns writes, “Inherent in Vos’s conception of Biblical Theology are such notions as the progress of redemption culminating in the person and work of Christ in whom Scripture coheres, while also showing a respect for theological diversity as a function of the historical situatedness of revelation. Both of these dimensions of Biblical Theology are central to the thoughts I have outlined here. Such an approach to biblical interpretation is not a “method” that assures a stable exegetical result, but a spiritual exercise wherein a Christian looks at Scripture from the point of view of what she/he knows to be true—Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again—and reads the OT with the expectation that it somehow coheres in that fact. Perhaps Biblical Theology is as much about where one starts as it is about where one finishes. From a more explicitly ‘methodological’ point of view, I have tended to focus on such things as links (both on the lexical and larger syntactical levels) between various portions of Scripture as well as larger OT themes that either explicitly or subvocally come to completion in Christ. But these ‘methods’ do not determine the Christotelic conclusion. Rather, they are employed with the end result already in mind. This is also true for those portions of the OT that have been resistant (and for good reason) to typology, namely, Wisdom Literature. And again, this is why I find the term “Christocentric” unhelpful. Christ is not the ‘center’ of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, but he is the ‘end.’ As in-Christ beings participating in the last days, we are obliged to think of how that status impinges upon what a proverb or Ecclesiastes ‘means.’ And the ‘method’ by which these horizons are bridged is a creative, intentional, purposeful exploration that moves back and forth between the words on the page and the eschatological context that we share with the Apostles but that the OT authors did not.”
Notes[1] Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 5.
