Presence, power and promise

Bad assumptions

PRESENCE, POWER AND PROMISE
The role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament
Edited by David G. Firth & Paul D. Wegner
Apollos. 414 pages. £19.99
ISBN 978 1 844 745 340

No one who is involved in serious study of the Old Testament should overlook this collection of scholarly essays.

They contain a vast amount of useful information on a subject that has not been given sufficient attention. The pieces are well footnoted and the symposium is completed with Author, Scripture and Ancient Source indices.

The focus of this study is on those Old Testament passages in which the Hebrew term ‘ruach’ (‘spirit’) is explicitly connected with either ‘God’ or ‘the Lord’. The primary question involves determining whether a particular text refers to ‘spirit’ (human) or ‘Spirit’ (divine) and then how the latter should be understood, whether as influence from God or his active presence. The basic approach set out by the editors is: ‘At least we must admit that the human author could not have intended in his or her message what we know only from subsequent revelation’. The Spirit is therefore referred to consistently as ‘it’ not ‘he’ (although there is no neuter gender in Hebrew) and any possibility that the pronoun ‘us’ in Genesis 1.26 might point to a plurality in God is dismissed in spite of its being ‘without parallel elsewhere’ in the Old Testament.

The treatment is divided into eight parts. The first examines the several terms for ‘spirit’ in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near Eastern World and the last (which strictly speaking should be an appendix) reflects on material in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The other six focus on aspects of the Spirit’s role, namely ‘creation, wisdom, creativity, prophecy, leadership and the future’. This is usually done by way of a general essay followed by exegetical studies of related texts — a valuable approach to the material.

Failure to complete

By and large, the essays are more ready to anticipate New Testament teaching than do the individual exegetical studies. The essays on Creation, Wisdom and Prophecy cover the usual sections of Old Testament literature and the one on Leadership treats the historical books, including the Pentateuch. The last two focus on ‘the future’ — a bland title, surely! Why not something like ‘The Spirit and the Messianic Age’ as this part provides the great opportunity to make clear that the New Testament completes the Old Testament on everything it says. There is nothing anti-scholarly about this and many Old Testament scholars, some of whom are disagreed with by way of footnote references, have not been reluctant to use this language.

A greater concentration on immediate context is, of course, called for in studies of individual passages, but here again, in the studies on Psalm 51, Isaiah 11 and 48.16, and Joel 2, an effort is made to close down possible connections with the New Testament rather than leave them open. It would at least be helpful and proper to make it perfectly clear that the fuller picture in the New is not an alien imposition on the Old — however difficult it might be to line up the texts exegetically.

To assert that an Old Testament text can only be properly interpreted in terms of what the original recipients would have understood and not what the language will bear is bound to result in a curtailment of its divinely intended meaning.

Hywel R. Jones PhD,
Professor of Practical Theology, Westminster Seminary, California;
member of Cwmavon Evangelical Church, Port Talbot

The role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament

Bad assumptions

Failure to complete

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