84 GEORGE C. HEIDER two volumes. To be sure, one may argue, the very process of a community’s declaring any given work to be “Scripture” lends to that work a continuing relevance and authority. Yet with particular reference now to future usage, these two books — uniquely within the Torah or Gospels — explicitly and intentionally reach out via a variety of devices to address and draw in the people of God of all times and places. The fruit of both their content and their placement within their larger canons is the kind of enduring special status that both have enjoyed (and even seen exaggerated, both in modern scholarship, such as the so-called “pan-Deuteronomism”, and by more traditional voices, such as Luther on John). It is surely no accident that a young Galilean Jew got through his time of testing by quoting thrice from Deuteronomy (Matt 4,4//Luke 4,4 from Deut 8,3; Matt 4,7//Luke 4,12 from Deut 6,16; Matt 4,10//Luke 4,8 from Deut 6,13), nor that the Christian canon’s final, proleptic vision is deeply enough influenced by the Fourth Gospel as to have led the tradition to assign it to the same author. The upshot is that these books intentionally speak in a way that is rivaled only by the OT Psalms (with their own constant use of first/second person dialogue and their fascinating dialectic of human words now heard as Scripture) as the viva vox Dei to future generations of the faithful. Similarly, as the reader moves back and forth between explicit presentations of past event and present appropriation, both books create a sense of “now/not yet” that is unique — at least in degree, if not kind — within their sections of the canon (but certainly found also in the prophets of the OT and Pauline epistles in the NT; cf. Isa 43,18-21; Phil 3,13-14) 36. My claim is not that there is no sense of eschatology elsewhere (particularly in the Synoptic Gospels), only that the constant, explicit juxtaposition of past event, present call, and future promise combined with direct address creates a distinctive tension (and sense of openness) for the reader of Deuteronomy and John. Lastly, and at the risk of ending as we began (with a “firm grasp of the obvious”), in both their placement and in their content Deuteronomy and John are characterized by an emphasis on finality, in both a temporal and theological sense. If Deuteronomy is set historically as the capstone to the Pentateuch, then we know that John’s 36 With reference to Deuteronomy, CHILDS, Introduction to the Old Testa- ment as Scripture, 222, speaks of “a people caught in between the moment of election and realization”.