INTERPRETING DEUTERONOMY
Issues and approaches
Edited by David G. Firth and Philip S. Johnston. IVP (Apollos). 262 pages. £19.99
ISBN 978 1 844 745 975
This volume contains 11 stimulating essays on an important book of the Bible. Written by members of the Tyndale Fellowship Old Testament Study group they will be of benefit to those who are familiar with academic discourse. Each essay is heavily footnoted and related to author and Scripture indices.
The essays are grouped in three parts:
Part 1, ‘Approaching Deuteronomy’, sets the scene with two lengthy essays, one on its literary composition and the other its theological interpretation. The first upholds a Mosaic origin for much of the book (but not authorship). The second discusses the weighty themes of mission, election, war, grace and covenant and, of course, the solemn confession, ‘the LORD our God; the LORD is one’ — a declaration which (surprisingly) may not mean anything about God in himself (let alone the non-existence of other gods) but only the kind of single-minded devotion due to him by Israel!
Part 2 contains five stimulating essays on ‘Issues in Deuteronomy’: (i) how the Decalogue relates structurally to the other law codes; (ii) how worship was to have a central location but not exclusively so; (iii) how civil leadership had a democratic character in pre-monarchical days; (iv) how the faith was to be transmitted from one generation to another; and (v) Life and Death.
Part 3 is entitled ‘Reading Deuteronomy’ and its essays deal with how Deuteronomy was ‘received’ in the rest of the Old Testament. One of these deals with its ‘paratext’, that is its place in the Pentateuch, titles in Hebrew and Greek and its divisions. The other three treat intermarriage, the inclusion of the alien and the extermination of the Canaanites (emotively called ‘Genocide’). They can be associated because they deal with the covenant community in relation to outsiders and they have a bearing on ecclesiology, mission and ethics.
Working backwards?
This symposium acknowledges that Deuteronomy is ‘one of the most important books for biblical theology’ and makes numerous references to the New Testament — for example, Jesus quoted from it in relation to his messianic obedience and also the apostle Paul in connection with the gospel. This book, therefore, not only has a bearing on how Deuteronomy will be interpreted but the New Testament too. Could not a chapter have been added in the last part on how Deuteronomy was received in the Christian church? Or is it infra dig from a scholarly perspective to work backwards?
Hywel R. Jones PhD,
Professor of Practical Theology, Westminster Seminary, California
