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.

        Supporting this view of Old Testament theology is just the starting point of serious trouble. As a matter of fact, there are different biblical canons with different perceptions of truth promoted by different communities of faith. The problem is very delicate, as the relation of the Jewish to the Christian Bible is concerned. It is of vital importance to be clear on the canonical basis which is to be interpreted. By using the term ‘Old Testament’ the intention is indicated to practice Old Testament theology as a segmentary field of a theology of the Christian Bible³. The Old Testament is neither identical with the Jewish Bible nor are Hebrew Bible and Old Testament interchangeable terms. The Old Testament owes both its name and the realization of its truth to the second part of the Christian Bible, the New Testament, or at least to the predominant subject of the New Testament scriptures, the witness of Jesus Christ. Old Testament theology necessarily depends on New Testament theology and on the Bible in which the realization of Christ has been perceived, namely in the Greek version of the Old Testament, roughly speaking, in the Septuagint⁴. Originally a Jewish Bible as well, it is this version of the Old Testament with its Greek language, with its number and arrangement of biblical scriptures which prepared the way for the understanding of the life and death of Jesus Christ⁵.