Hermann Spieckermann, «God's Steadfast Love Towards a New Conception of Old Testament Theology», Vol. 81 (2000) 305-327

This article argues in favour of a conception of Old Testament theology that is aware of the different hermeneutical presuppositions due to the different canonical shapes of the Jewish and the Christian Bible, respectively. An Old Testament Theology based on the canon of the Christian Bible has to do equal justice to the Hebrew and to the Greek version of the Old Testament, acknowledging that the Greek version, the Septuagint, is a dominant factor for the emergence of Christian faith. Perceiving the Old Testament from a Christian point of view sheds new light on a central theological issue thus far underestimated in scholarly research: God's steadfast love. The contribution tries to show how this characteristic insight into God's true being is reflected and interpreted in the different parts of the Old Testament.

restricting theological limitations which become inevitable if you are to interpret a fixed canon of scriptures as Old Testament theology does. The historian of Israel’s religion is obliged to give priority to all literary sources available and to the relics of the material culture. For him, the biblical canon is only one collection of sources among others, and by no means the most important. Is not the historian of Israel’s religion in the better position to reconstruct and describe the religion’s development more objectively? This has to be admitted in a purely historical respect. The task of an Old Testament theologian, however, is different. The Old Testament theologian has to accept the biblical canon as the basis of his task. The idea of the biblical canon is aimed at conveying and preserving the voice of truth among the manifold voices of the witnesses. You cannot write a theology of the Old Testament without being aware of the obligation towards the truth of Scripture within the scriptures of the canon. While a history of Israel’s religion is a purely historical undertaking, a theology of the Old Testament has to do justice to the normative collection of the biblical canon. While a historian of Israel’s religion may consider whether the monotheism of the biblical scriptures is a regrettable restriction compared with the options of polytheism a theologian of the Old Testament has to argue in favour of monotheism and to make clear why the witnesses of the biblical canon are so determined in this respect.

        Thus, each discipline, the history of Israel’s religion and the theology of the Old Testament, has its own right, respectively. They can be clearly distinguished and are of mutual benefit. On the one hand, the Old Testament theologian will accept the history of Israel’s religion as a critical reconstruction of the past and will apply it productively. On the other hand, the historian of Israel’s religion will accept that the variety of religious documents he has critically described represents various claims of truth. The criteria promoting the one claim of truth within the biblical canon are of purely theological nature. They are the subject of Old Testament theology. One cannot prove with historical arguments that monotheism is a higher form of religion than polytheism. This is a normative decision made by metahistorical arguments. Old Testament theology is the discipline for promoting these arguments as convincingly as the biblical scriptures did.