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.

God has not recreated everything, but something crucial — caused by his eternal love for Israel. Here, an immense hope is born.

        The Septuagint situates the revival of God’s eternal love in the last but one position within the prophetic book (Jer 38 LXX [Jer 31 MT] as part of the section Jer 37–42 LXX [Jer 30–35 MT]) followed by the story of Jeremiah’s suffering which makes up the end of the prophet’s book (43–51 LXX [36–45 MT]). Although the sequence of the sections is already the same in MT, the Greek version of Jeremiah emphasizes the unsettled tension between the promise and the prophet’s suffering even more by situating the latter in the final position. The relation of promise and suffering remains unresolved.

        The Book of Deuteroisaiah (Isa 40–55) theologically intensifies the relation of promising love and suffering. In this respect, two texts can be regarded as a theological climax: the fourth song of God’s Servant in Isa 52,13–53,12²⁹ and the following passage in 54,1-10 which gives a promise to the woman Zion, a woman with a history, who is addressed by her divine husband³⁰. Both passages are referring to one another. In the central portion of the Servant’s fourth song (Isa 53,1-11aa), a group says what the unidentified Servant’s suffering means to them. Here, suffering does not only imply representation³¹, but substitution. What the Servant does is give up his life for others: ‘But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed’ (Isa 53,5). The possibility of taking fatal