Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel. Barth's Theological Exegesis of Isaiah (Barth Studies)

Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Isaiah

Mark S. Gignilliat

Karl

Bar th and the Fi fth Gospel

Today’s biblical scholars and dogmaticians are giving a signi.cant amount of attention to the topic of theological exegesis. A resource turned to for guidance and insight in this discussion is the history of interpretation, and Karl Barth’s voice registers loudly as a helpful model for engaging Scripture and its subject matter. Most readers of Barth’s theological exegesis encounter him on the level of his New Testament exegesis. This is understandable from several different vantage points. Unfortunately, Barth’s theological exegesis of the Old Testament has not received the attention it deserves. This book seeks to fill this lacuna as it encounters Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah in the Church Dogmatics. From the Church’s inception, Isaiah has been understood as Christian Scripture. In the Church Dogmatics we find Barth reading Isaiah in multi-functional and multi-layered ways as he seeks to hear Isaiah as a living witness to God’s triune revelation of himself in Jesus Christ.

Barth Studies S eries E ditors John Webster, Professor of Theology, University of Aberdeen, UK George Hunsinger, Director of the Center for Barth Studies, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA Hans-Anton Drewes, Director of the Karl Barth Archive, Basel Switzerland The work of Barth is central to the history of modern western theology and remains a major voice in contemporary constructive theology. His writings have been the subject of intensive scrutiny and re-evaluation over the past two decades, notably on the part of English-language Barth scholars who have often been at the forefront of fresh interpretation and creative appropriation of his theology. Study of Barth, both by graduate students and by established scholars, is a significant enterprise; literature on him and conferences devoted to his work abound; the Karl Barth Archive in Switzerland and the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton give institutional profile to these interests. Barth’s work is also considered by many to be a significant resource for the intellectual life of the churches. Drawing from the wide pool of Barth scholarship, and including translations of Barth’s works, this series aims to function as a means by which writing on Barth, of the highest scholarly calibre, can find publication. The series builds upon and furthers the interest in Barth’s work in the theological academy and the church. Other titles in this series The Resurrection in Karl Barth R. Dale Dawson Barth, Israel, and Jesus Karl Barth’s Theology of Israel Mark R. Lindsay Barth’s Theology of Interpretation Donald Wood A S horter Commentary on R omans by Karl Barth With an Introductory Essay by Maico Michielin Maico M. Michielin

Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Isaiah

Mark S. Gignilliat Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, USA

© Mark S. Gignilliat 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Mark S. Gignilliat has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East Suite 420 Union Road 101 Cherry Street Farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405 England USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Gignilliat, Mark S. Karl Barth and the fifth gospel : Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah. – (Barth studies) 1. Barth, Karl, 1886–1968 2. Bible. O.T. Isaiah – Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title 224.1’06 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gignilliat, Mark S. Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel : Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah / Mark S. Gignilliat. p. cm. — (Barth studies) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7546-5856-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Barth, Karl, 1886–1968. 2. Bible. O.T. Isaiah—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Bible—Hermeneutics. 4. Bible—Theology. I. Title. BX4827.B3G54 2008 224’.106092—dc22 ISBN 978-0-7546-5856-6 eISBN 978-0-7546-8300-1

2008030841

For William and Martha Gignilliat honored parents and cherished friends

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Contents Preface   Acknowledgments   1 2 3 4 5

ix xiii

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology in the Early 20th Century   1 Die Zeit der Erwartung   25 Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Isaiah 1–39   63 Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Isaiah 40–66   103 Theological Exegetical Implications of Barth’s Isaianic Exegesis   137

Bibliography   General Index   Scripture Index  

153 163 167

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Preface This book is an exercise in listening. During my postgraduate days at the University of St. Andrews, I had the good fortune of participating in the Scripture and Theology seminar. I am not alone in saying that this seminar proved to be one of the most significant aspects of my postgraduate studies. In the seminar, we gave much attention and discussion to the relationship between dogmatics and exegesis, the failed promises of historical criticism and the very pertinent question: ‘How do we go about doing theological exegesis?’ I and many of my peers were looking for a method or at least something transferrable. Little did we know that matters were not quite so simple. In this process, I also became aware that too much attention in the discussion has been given to method with very little attention actually given to engaging the text of Scripture. In light of this neglect, the history of interpretation offers a more than helpful resource by providing models of theological exegetes actually engaging the Scriptures. I found myself during these postgraduate days more often than not turning to Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (hereafter CD) to see how he would engage a particular Scriptural text with which I was wrestling. My dissertation focused on Paul’s theological reading of Isaiah and the relationship of Paul’s reading to later practices of reading the Old Testament christianly. At that time, I was reading CD IV.1 with a group of theologians studying at St. Andrews. During this exercise I discovered Barth’s reading of Isaiah and was enthralled. I knew I wanted to pursue the subject more thoroughly and took to it after the publication of my dissertation, hence this volume. I primarily wanted to learn from Barth and this is why this book is first and foremost an exercise in listening. I wanted to see how he engaged a text like Isaiah as a theological witness. My findings did not leave me disappointed. As the reader will see, I do not find all of Barth’s readings persuasive, or even very good for that matter. As far as the standards of measurement go, the reader will have to adjudicate these matters. What I did find in Barth was a wonderfully rich resource of reading Isaiah theologically in differing theological contexts. Isaiah 6 can witness to the identity of our Triune God and is also a testimony to the contours of a Christian’s witness. Isaiah 53 speaks directly of Jesus Christ and in another context of the CD is relegated firstly to the history of Israel and then figurally extended to the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is why the book is centrally an act of listening to Barth. I do engage in the critical analysis of Barth’s reading here and there, but the reader will quickly find that my sympathies lie with Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah. The reader will also discover in the pages of this book my heavy indebtedness to Brevard Childs and his intellectual/theological progeny. My intention at the

Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel



outset of writing this book was not to place Barth and Childs in conversation, but, as the final chapter demonstrates, this has in fact occurred. In my estimation, Childs took Barth’s massive theological vision as it is firmly situated in the Reformer’s Scripture principle and worked it out in the context of Old and New Testament Introduction and Biblical Theology. It does not take much reading of Childs to see his vocabulary about witness, subject matter and his positive view of the dialectical relationship between exegesis and theology is influenced by Barth. Due to the ambitious and epoch-making character of Childs’ work, the relationship between him and Barth must be carefully weighed. Perhaps Childs is for the biblical side of the divide what Barth was for the theological side—both of them seeking to break down that divide as well. Both men had outstanding training and sought to think as widely as possible across disciplines threatening to become discrete. This makes the theological world of Barth and Childs’ canonical approach close relatives. In light of the passing of Brevard Childs in the fall of 2007, I am very happy to have him represented so much in this volume. The lion’s share of what I have learned about theological exegesis is indebted to the theological trajectory set by Barth and Childs. The first two chapters of this book are orienting in nature. The first chapter sets the context for the book and the context of Old Testament scholarship circa 1920–1940. This chapter, again, is orienting in nature, not comprehensive. The second chapter wrestles with Barth’s own formal theological engagement with the role of the Old Testament as a witness to revelation in CD I.2. It is meant to be a close reading of Barth’s location of the Old Testament in the context of the doctrine of revelation. Also, this chapter provides the theological framework for Barth’s actual theological exegesis of Isaiah. The third and fourth chapters are given to Barth’s actual engagement with the text of Isaiah. I will make hermeneutical statements in the final chapter, but my desire is for the reader to observe Barth’s actual engagement of the text. In this sense, the hermeneutical conclusions are meant to be seen and tested on the ground without much attachment to theory or methodological formulations. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. The final chapter brings Barth into conversation with Brevard Childs’ understanding of the christological witness of the Old Testament. I believe Childs’ formulations provide a helpful heuristic in evaluating what Barth does rather intuitively. I do hope those who care about the subject matter of this book will read and enjoy this volume (even critically so). At the end of the day, however, it has been my privilege to sit at the feet of a great ‘little’ theologian who sees the reading and engaging of the Bible as the central component of his theological task. I do not think Barth is to be imitated, necessarily. This might only lead to frustration for many. But I do hope those of us who care about the church and theology and who believe that the Bible is a unique means by which God communicates his own presence to the church will seek to go and do likewise. My reading of 

 ��������������������������������������� Thanks to Chris Seitz for this insight.

Preface

xi

Barth is not meant to be in support of repristination but of encouragement and inspiration to take seriously the exegesis of Scripture and, more importantly, the subject matter witnessed to by Holy Scripture. Mark S. Gignilliat Lent 2008

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Acknowledgments My gratitude is extended to many who have encouraged me during the writing of this monograph. So much of research and writing are done in isolation and for one who is social enough to be troubled by too much isolation, I have found great joy and encouragement in the personal and theological engagement from these people mentioned here. Special thanks to Thomes ‘Tee’ Gatewood, Matt Jenson, Jason Curtis, Chris Curtis, Jonathan Pennington, Don Collett, Steve Mason, Carl Beckwith, Ken Mathews and Gerald Bray. Several of these took time to read portions of the book and offered helpful critique. Terry Pickett of Samford University’s modern language department helpfully looked over my German translations. I would also like to thank my students at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University. Their eagerness to learn, hunger for the gospel and love for our Triune God is infectious and creates an exciting context for teaching theological studies. Special thanks go to my teaching assistants, David O’Dell and Colton Houston, who have offered much critical and editorial help during the writing process. I am also grateful for the help offered by Beeson’s faculty secretaries, Melissa Matthews and Debbie Simonetti. Beeson Divinity School’s Theological Librarian, Michael Garrett, has been an invaluable resource for me in my research, and, more importantly, has offered his friendship along the way. My appreciation is extended to my colleagues at Beeson as well. It is a pleasure to serve with them. Paul House, Beeson’s associate dean, offered much support and encouragement during my writing. He approved moneys for research and lightened my teaching load for the semester this project was due. Also, many thanks to Beeson’s dean, Timothy George, who also took a keen and supporting interest in this book. My doctoral supervisor, Christopher Seitz, continues to influence me positively in the direction of theological exegesis. He models a profoundness of thought and insight that comes from a God-given capacious mind and heart. I am indebted to him. John Webster has surprised me by his availability and encouragement as the editor of the Barth Studies Series. I would not have written this book if I could not have had his theological eyes on it. I am grateful to John for his help and critical eye during the writing and publication of this book. The problems that remain in the book are, of course, my own. I gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to cite the following: Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956). Reprinted with kind permission of Continuum International Publishing Group. All rights reserved. Special thanks are extended to my wife, Naomi, and my two, young sons, William and Jackson. Naomi was very patient with me during the writing of this volume (especially during Christmas break 2007). These three bring incalculable

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Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel

joy into my life. Books come and go, but these three do not. I dedicate this book to my parents, William and Martha Gignilliat. As I get older, I become more and more thankful for their gracious presence in my life. Their investment in my personal and spiritual development has left an enduring and intangible mark. In the end, relationships such as the ones mentioned here are of profound importance in the making of a life and a scholar. I and this book are the better for them.

Chapter 1

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology in the Early 20th Century

Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to understand the hermeneutical problem of the Old Testament as the problem of Christian theology, and not just one problem among others, seeing that all the other questions of theology are affected in one way or another by its resolution.

Introduction In a memorial colloquium held in 1969 at Yale Divinity School entitled Karl Barth and the Future of Theology, Brevard Childs recounts a pair of enlightening and humorous stories about Karl Barth and his approach to Scripture. Childs tells of the situation in which he found himself as a young doctoral student at the University of Basel. There was a ‘Biblical phalanx’ (to use Childs’ words) that would sit in the back of Barth’s lectures armed with their Hebrew and Greek texts to cross-check everything Barth would say. Childs recounts how Barth would occasionally look over at this phalanx and say, ‘Not that I don’t know all about J, E, D, and P,’ and then go on with his lecture as if he could care less. In Childs’ estimation at the time, one did biblical studies, and if you could not handle the Hebrew and Greek then you relinquished yourself to dogmatics. T his reveals the tension that existed in those days between the biblical people and Barth, with Childs firmly situated in the former. The second anecdote by Childs is revelatory of this tension. During the 1952 lectures by von Rad entitled ‘Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament’, Barth was among those in attendance. Childs sat near the back of the lectures feeling as if he were listening to some of the most glorious lectures he had ever heard. When von Rad concluded, Barth turned around in a half-sleepy way to the person next to him and said, ‘Ich habe ihn gar nicht verstanden.’ Childs found this appalling and felt like saying, ‘Herr Professor, I can explain it all to you.’  ����������������� A.H.J. Gunneweg, Understanding the Old Testament, trans. J. Bowden (London: SCM Press, 1978), 2.   ������������������������� David L. Dickerman, ed., Karl Barth and the Future of Theology: A Memorial Colloquium Held at Yale Divinity School, January 28, 1969 (New Haven: Yale Divinity School Association, 1969), 30.   ����������� Dickerman, Barth and the Future of Theology, 30.   �‘I have not understood him at all.’ 



Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel

In retrospect, Childs now understands the problems underlying von Rad’s appeal to typology. Von Rad’s wedding of typology to an overly historicist traditionhistory ultimately fails for Childs. Nevertheless, during Child’s student days his understanding was quite different. While Barth was not necessarily opposed to the historical-critical project, he was not paralyzed by it either. Nor did he feel von Rad’s need to proximate theological exegesis to the dominant patterns of historical-critical engagement of the Scriptures. The dogmatic nature of Scripture as the viva vox Dei allowed Barth freedom beyond the strictures of the historical -critical project and probably attests to the rationale behind Barth’s demurring from von Rad’s position. Childs concluded his talk at the Yale colloquium by stating admiringly, ‘The breadth and the scope of Barth’s use of all Scripture, Old and New together, is, again, something it seems to me that hasn’t been paralleled since Calvin.’ As recently as 1991, Paul McGlasson laments the relative lack of detailed attention given to Barth’s exegesis in the CD. He speculates that the reasons for this lack of attention are due to the bifurcation of the theological and biblical disciplines resulting in theologians who were unfit to deal with Barth’s exegesis, and biblical scholars who were unfit to deal with Barth’s theological reasoning. It is worth citing McGlasson in full: The result is that, for scholars of theology, the work is too ‘biblical,’ while for scholars of the Bible the work is too ‘theological.’ The resulting fate of Barth’s biblical exegesis is in a way not really surprising. At least part of Barth’s reason for doing extended biblical exegesis in the context of Christian theology was to wage a direct assault on the bifurcation of scholarly work into two such separated disciplines. Theology, for Barth, should again be biblical in a technical, disciplined sense, and likewise should study of the Bible be disciplined by confessional theological concerns. The immediate result of this assault on the bifurcation of theological disciplines was that at least this part of Barth’s work simply attracted no scholarly attention.    Dickerman, Barth and the Future of Theology, 30. See also, Christopher R. Seitz, Word without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 28–40. Childs states, ‘Whatever the weaknesses were in the debate of the 1920s and 1930s, it remains the enduring contribution of Barth, Vischer, and Hellbardt, among others, rightly to have insisted that the living, unfettered voice of God in Scripture cannot be held captive to the norms of human rationality.’ Brevard S. Childs, “On Reclaiming the Bible for Christian Theology,” in Reclaiming the Bible for the Church, ed. C.E. Braaten and R.W. Jenson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 4–5.   ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Bruce McCormack, “Historical-Criticism and Dogmatic Interests in Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of the New Testament,” Lutheran Quarterly 5 (1991): 211–25.   ����������� Dickerman, Barth and the Future of Theology, 35.   ���������������� Paul McGlasson, Jesus and Judas: Biblical Exegesis in Barth, American Academy of Religion Academy Series (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1991), 4.

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology



Resultantly, Barth’s biblical exegesis in the CD was of little consequence to both biblical scholars and theologians. Even during Barth’s day, Childs recounts that most biblical scholars did not take Barth’s exegesis seriously. ‘You read his theology with appreciation, but his Biblical work you might as well leave alone.’10 In this chapter, we will see this appreciation of Barth’s dogmatics and aversion to his exegesis to be the case with Barth’s Old Testament colleague, Walter Baumgartner. A decade after these comments by McGlasson the situation is a significantly different one. Several monographs have been given to Barth’s exegesis both in his commentaries and the CD which reveal a renewed interest in theological exegesis, biblical theology and the organic relationship between exegesis and the dogmatic enterprise. With prophetic insight, McGlasson’s final remarks in his work are, ‘When and if there comes a renewed attempt at the theological exegesis of biblical texts, an encounter with Holy Scripture beyond historical criticism and hermeneutics, Barth’s biblical exegesis will surely be there, ready to hand.’11 That ‘when and if’ is surely a ‘here and now’ in the current climate of renewed interest in reading the Bible theologically. Even with the affirmation of this renewed interest in theological exegesis and the significant role Barth plays in this enterprise, there is still a lacuna in the landscape. Barth’s reading of the Old Testament has not received the amount of attention it deserves. If one surveys the recent works on Barth’s theological reading of Scripture, it would become obvious that the majority of attention is given to Barth’s New Testament exegesis. This is somewhat understandable from one vantage point simply because the bulk of Barth’s written material that focuses primarily on exegesis, that is the Römerbrief and his biblical studies lectures, are New Testament. Whether it is Romans, Philippians, 1 Corinthians 15, John 1 and the other biblical lectures, our world is the New Testament canon.12 So, for example, when one looks at one of the more recent monographs given specifically to Barth’s exegesis, namely, Richard Burnett’s fine work, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis, one finds him or herself in the territory of the several Römerbrief prefaces. Burnett gives special attention to Barth’s hermeneutical principles that stand in contradistinction from the hermeneutical tradition of Schleiermacher and Dilthey as particularly found in Barth’s exegesis of Romans.13 More recently, Bruce McCormack and Francis Watson have both, in their own   ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Exceptions to this claim would include, for example, Childs, Jüngel, Frei, Baxter, Schlichtling, Ford, Marquardt and Bächli. 10  ����������� Dickerman, Barth and the Future of Theology, 31. 11  ����������� McGlasson, Jesus and Judas, 156. 12  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� It is certainly regrettable that Barth did not lecture on the Old Testament. One can only speculate why this is not the case. 13  ���������������������� Richard Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis, WUNT 2 145 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). See also, Mary Kathleen Cunningham, What is Theological Exegesis? Interpretation and Use of Scripture in Barth’s Doctrine of Election (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1995).



Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel

ways, engaged Barth’s theological exegesis in light of Barth’s commentary on Philippians.14 These examples serve to show the weight of reflection on Barth’s exegesis as primarily New Testament in orientation. The flip side to this coin is that Barth’s Old Testament exegesis has not received the proper attention it is worthy to receive. There are notable exceptions to the preceding claim. Kathryn Green-McCreight has explored the ways in which Barth reads the plain sense of Genesis 1–3 in CD III.1.15 She brings Barth into discussion with Augustine and Calvin regarding the nature of a ‘plain sense’ reading of the Genesis material. She states, for example, that: Unlike Augustine, Barth is not advocating a reading of different senses of scripture. Rather, he is saying that within the plain sense reading lies the figurative and prophetic reference to Christ. This figurative and prophetic reference is not added on or read into, but ingredient in the verbal sense ‘by reason of the fact that the Bible gives us God’s own witness to Himself’ and ‘its word in all words is this Word’.16

Greene-McCreight helpfully traces out Barth’s positive view of saga over-against myth as a proper descriptor of the kind of material one is dealing with in the primeval history. As saga, and not myth, the creation narratives demand to be read ad litteram (according to the letter) and in annexation to the forthcoming covenantal materials in the rest of the Pentateuch. Greene-McCreight has helpfully shown Barth’s appreciation of Old Testament scholars such as Delitzsch, Zimmerli, Jeremias and others, while at the same time showing Barth’s personal outworking of his call for the historical critic to be more critical. More is needed than historical-critical analysis when engaging the creation narratives, and Barth’s sense, according to Greene-McCreight, is ‘intratextual’.17 It is the text which governs the interpretive process rather than historical-critical reconstruction. One of the more salient aspects of Greene-McCreight’s analysis of Barth’s reading of Genesis 1–3 is her highlighting of Barth’s insistence on the priority of ‘the explanation given by the text itself’.18 Where Barth challenges various readings of Genesis in the history of interpretation, it is on the basis of the plain sense of the text itself. Greene-McCreight offers a very helpful reading of Barth’s theological exegesis of the plain senses of Genesis 1–3.

14  ������������ Karl Barth, Epistle to the Philippians: 40th Anniversary Edition, trans. J.W. Leitch (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). 15   K.E. Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, Issues in Systematic Theology 5 (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). 16  ����������������������������������� Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram, 175. 17  ����������������������������������� Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram, 202. 18  ����������������������������������� Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram, 216.

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology



The most significant work on Barth’s Old Testament reading is undoubtedly Otto Bächli’s.19 He has written a full length monograph on the Old Testament in Barth’s CD with special attention given to the ways in which Barth differed from the historical-critical milieu of his day. He engages Barth’s Old Testament interlocutors via the categories of Fathers, Brothers and Sons. These categories represent Barth’s Old Testament teachers, for example, Gunkel, his colleagues, such as Baumgartner and Vischer and those whom he taught, like Zimmerli. The second part of Bächli’s work is devoted to particular instances of Barth’s Old Testament exegesis in texts such as Genesis 4, Leviticus 16, 1 Kings 13, and Job, to name a few. Bächli’s final chapter makes claims about Barth’s hermeneutics in general and about the significant role the Old Testament plays for Barth’s ethic. Bächli’s work is an important contribution to this field of inquiry. Most recently, Matthias Büttner has written a monograph on the question of theological exegesis and the theological center of the Old Testament in light of Barth’s theology.20 Büttner’s work places Barth in conversation with Old Testament scholars as he seeks to understand how one reads the Old Testament as the first part of the Christian Bible. There is an impressive scope in Büttner’s work, and it is much more than an engagement with Barth’s thought. It is an attempt to establish a theological framework for reading the Old Testament theologically in light of its center: Jahweh is the God of the people of Israel; Israel is the people of God.21 Büttner finds much overlap between this theological center (Mitte) and Barth’s understanding of the Old Testament as the time of expectation. This particular understanding of the center of the Old Testament is, for Büttner, also related to Barth’s claim that the history of Israel is the only true type of Jesus Christ. Büttner’s monograph deserves more attention than is given here. It is an impressive piece concerned with the theological significance of the Old Testament, the relationship between Christian and Jewish claims of the same Hebrew canon and the significance of the fact that God spoke to Israel (diesem Volk) first. Barth is used as a ballast against other countervailing tendencies. The problem with many treatments of Barth’s exegesis, Bächli and GreeneMcCreight aside, is that they rarely give much detailed attention to the ways in 19  ������������� Otto Bächli, Das Alte Testament in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik von Karl Barth (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1987). 20  ������������������ Matthias Büttner, Das Alte Testament als erster Teil der christlichen Bibel: Zur Frage nach theologischer Auslegung und Mitte im Kontext der Theologie Karl Barths, Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 2002) See also Roger R. Keller, “Karl Barth’s Treatment of the Old Testament as Expectation,” Andrews University Seminary Journal 35 (1997): 165–79. 21  �������������������������������������������� For the source of this understanding of the Mitte of the Old Testament traced from Wellhausen and adopted and augmented by Smend see, Rudolf Smend, Die Mitte des Alten Testaments, Theologische Studien (Zürich: EVZ-Verlag, 1970). See also, Henning Graf Reventlow, Problems of Old Testament Theology in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 128–30.



Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel

which Barth actually reads Old Testament texts. For example, attention is given to Barth’s understanding of the Old Testament from his Christocentric or Christotelic perspective, or to Barth’s understanding of the Old Testament as the time of expectation (Die Zeit der Erwartung) or questions are raised about hermeneutics in abstraction from the actual engaging of the Biblical material. When one aims at a broad barn like ‘Barth’s Hermeneutics’, then engagement with the particularities of his exegesis becomes all the more difficult and problematic. Heavily philosophical questions like the relationship between history and revelation or Barth’s relationship to the hermeneutics of romanticism can stymie interaction with Barth’s reading of Biblical texts (the very thing Barth set out to do). These criticisms are not meant to nullify or attenuate the significance of these sorts of questions. This work will engage some of these questions as well, in due course, but with an eye toward Barth’s reading of Isaiah. In other words, his biblical exegesis is the lens through which his hermeneutics (very simply defined) will be explored.22 The sorts of criticisms mentioned are done so tentatively because the subject matter is vast. Whenever one gives themselves to ‘Barth’s interpretation of the Old Testament’ or, for that matter, the New Testament, one immediately senses the impressive scope of this field with the possible result of generalities which can unfortunately miss the genius of Barth’s exegesis of particular passages with all its nuance and hue.23 Barth’s own ghost reminds us of his antipathy to elongated debates about hermeneutics or method (the danger lurks in the generalities) and his clarion call to ‘exegesis, exegesis, exegesis’.24 So, if we are to really make headway with Barth’s theological reading of the Old Testament, exploration into Barth’s actual reading of texts is needed. Greene-McCreight has done this in her own way with the Genesis creation material. Bächli has done so as well. But the field is vast and this book seeks to fill in part of this gap by engaging Barth’s reading of Isaiah. 22   Bourgine’s massive work on Barth’s hermeneutical theology in CD IV is revelatory of the preceding raised concerns. Such a broad-ranging book, impressive as it is, rarely, if ever, wrestles with how Barth reads particular texts. Without wanting to down-play the significance of Bourgine’s work, the lack of attention to actual biblical exegesis is unfortunate given the subtitle of his volume: Exegesis and Dogmatics in the Fourth Volume of the Kirchliche Dogmatik. ����������������� Benoît Bourgine, L’Herméneutique Théologique de Karl Barth: Exégèse et dogmatique dans le quatrième volume de la Kirchliche Dogmatik, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003). Bourgine’s �������������������� taxonomy of recent interpreters of Barth’s exegesis and Scripture principle is worth noting. 23  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� Cunningham perceptively states, ‘Constructing a systematic hermeneutics from Barth’s remarks in CD I/1 and CD I/2 and then drawing conclusions about his exegesis on the grounds of these generalizations does not honor the pattern of Barth’s thinking and can lead one to distort his scriptural interpretation.’ Mary Kathleen Cunningham, “Karl Barth,” in Christian Theologies of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction, ed. J.S. Holbomb (New York: New York State University Press, 2006), 185. 24  ���������������� Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 349.

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology



A full-length study of Barth’s reading of a particular book of the Old Testament across large swaths of the CD has not of yet been undertaken. Explorations into various themes are definitely present, but full-length treatments of the way in which Barth appeals to a particular book in different theological contexts covering the whole gamut of the CD are lacking. This book is a first step toward that end. It seems that this type of exploration might be fruitful because it may give insight into the ways in which Scripture serves Barth’s theology in multifunctional ways in differing theological contexts (or better, the ways Barth’s theology serves Scripture). There are dangers in such an approach, and these will be mentioned at the beginning of the exegetical chapters per se. Theologians who study Barth are aware of the debate between synchronic and diachronic approaches to reading the CD. Such ‘hermeneutical’ approaches to Barth’s theology do advance different ways of engaging the material and have created a lively debate in the field. The current project does not necessarily lay claim to these approaches as its task is more modestly related to following Barth’s exegesis of Isaiah in the CD. In other words, there is not an identifiable core of Isaianic reading in the CD that functions to govern the other readings. As will be seen, Barth’s reading is too variegated for such schematizations. Also, at the front end of the current project let it be stated that a commentary on Isaiah in the CD is not being sought where there is none. Nor is Barth’s Isaianic reading being fitted into a neat and tidy mold of fixed readings in the ‘mind of Barth’ or even in the pages of the CD. Rather, the aims and intentions of this work are to see the exegetical instincts Barth brings to various Isaianic texts and the way his Christian reading of the Old Testament fits into what Brevard Childs, borrowing from Frei, who in turn borrowed from Wittgenstein, has called a ‘family resemblance’ of Christian Old Testament reading.25 Barth’s theological reading of Isaiah does not offer a definitive reading nor does it exhaust the potentiality of the text to speak beyond the ways Barth hears it. By way of analogy, the same thing could and should be said of the ways in which the New Testament reads the Old Testament. On the whole, this project aims at engaging Barth as a theological exegete of a text that has, from the inception of Christianity, been deemed Christian Scripture without compromise. It is the church’s book, and Barth reads it as such. Within the history of the church, Isaiah has been recognized as the ‘fifth gospel’, yet historical criticism’s conflation of the sensus literalis with the sensus historicus has tended to keep this ‘churchly’ understanding of Isaiah at arm’s length.26 It will be important to see the ways in which Barth, a theologian aware of historical-critical reasoning, appealed to and read Isaiah Christianly. How does  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). 26  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Regarding the complexity of the interpretation of Isaiah 53, Hermisson states, ‘[T]he historical and theological understanding of this great text will remain controversial until kingdom comes.’ Hans-Jürgen Hermisson, “The Fourth Servant Song in the Context 25



Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel

Barth recognize the problems related to the scholarly study of Isaiah, and how does his theological exegesis adjudicate or transcend these issues? This project is keen on pursuing Barth’s theological reading of this magnificently rich and complicated Old Testament text in light of such questions. We are a few steps shy of observing Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah. Before embarking on the bulk of this project, some contextualization of the matter is needed on two fronts. Firstly, we will briefly place Barth in the context of his Old Testament colleagues of the early to mid 20th century. Secondly, Barth’s formal theological construction regarding the Old Testament in CD I.2 will be examined at length in chapter two.

Barth and the Old Testament Theology Renaissance of the Early Twentieth Century The revival of Old Testament theology in Germany during the period between 1920–1950 is something of a phenomenon. An intense Auseinandersetzung (debate) over methodology raged during this period. Was Old Testament theology to be construed along religious-historical lines (the tradition observed from Vatke to Wellhausen to Baumgartner), as a dualistic approach preserving both the critical and theological as two distinct categories (Eissfeldt), according to the structure of the Old Testament itself in concert with its religious environment and the New Testament (Eichrodt), as a witness to Jesus Christ in light of Christian dogmatic categories (Vischer and Hellbardt), or via Israel’s faith construal of the heilgeschicthliche events in her tradition-history as these ‘lean toward’ the New Testament (von Rad)? One senses the fault-lines between these various positions were related to the thorny relationship between the Old Testament conceived via epistemological instincts of the religious-historical stripe and the renewed interest in theological exegesis of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. How did one navigate through these rough seas where so much was at stake? Brevard Childs describes this era as the searching for a new paradigm.27 T he religious-historical school’s hegemony was eroding as a new generation of Old Testament scholars sought to read the Old Testament along theological exegetical lines. For example, both Wilhelm Vischer and Otto Procksch begin their major works on the Old Testament with references to Christology. Vischer’s begins, ‘The Bible testifies beyond doubt, with the attestation of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. This is what makes it the Holy Scripture of the

of Second Isaiah,” in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, ed. B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher, trans. D.P. Bailey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 17. 27  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� Brevard S. Childs, “Old Testament in Germany 1920–1940: The Search for a New Paradigm,” in Altes Testament Forschung und Wirkung: Festschrift Für Henning Graf Reventlow, ed. P. Mommer and W. Thiel (New York: Peter Lang, 1994).

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology



Christian Church.’28 Procksch’s posthumously published Old Testament theology begins, ‘Alle Theologie is Christologie.’29 For Procksch (Eichrodt’s teacher), ‘alle Theologie’ without doubt includes the ‘Theologie des Alten Testaments’. Childs is careful to draw out the contributing factors leading to this search for a new paradigm. It is not, according to Childs, a ‘frontal assault’ on the historical critical method.30 It is a move away from the hegemony and reductionistic sensibilities of the historical-critical method, not the positives drawn from the methods per se. In this regard, the theological exegetical instincts of a Vischer and Hellbardt are not in direct continuity with the conservative instincts of Hengstenberg. In Hengstenberg’s extended debate with Vatke and de Wette in the mid to late nineteenth century, the authority of Scripture or its canonical/inspired status was founded on whether or not the critical conclusions of these scholars were proven to be true or false. Hengstenberg’s confessional orthodoxy was wed to a breed of epistemological foundationalism whereby the authority of Scripture was tied to whether or not Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch, Isaiah all of his 66 chapters, Zechariah is a unity, conjoined with a mechanistic understanding of Messianic prophecy and fulfillment.31 Both Vischer and Hellbardt defended the right of critical research and would not have shared Hengstenberg’s political instincts exemplified in his thwarting of Vatke’s appointment to a biblical studies chair.32 Their impulse toward theological exegesis had different influences than Hengstenberg’s, and their understanding of the theological significance of the Old Testament was grounded dogmatically in their Christology. Childs may overstate the matter, however, when he places a decisive break between Hengstenberg and Vischer or Hellbardt. Vischer, Hellbardt, Procksch and Barth certainly did not share the urgency of Hengstenberg in the defeating of critical detractors on their own epistemological playing-field. Historicalcritical conclusions were not necessarily a threat to the authority of Scripture and its canonical status, as Hengstenberg would have conceived the matter. At the same time, there is more continuity with Hengstenberg and his confessional presuppositions as a necessary pre-condition for one’s approach to reading Scripture than with Hengstenberg’s detractors. How this works itself out on the ground may differ with regard to what matters are deemed urgent or threatening. 28  ����������������� Wilhelm Vischer, The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ: Volume I, the Pentateuch, trans. A.B. Crabtree (London: Lutterworth Press, 1949), 5. 29  �‘All theology is Christology.’ Otto Procksch, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Gütersloh, 1950), 1. Whether or not Procksch works out the significance of this statement in his actual theology of the Old Testament is another matter. 30  ��������������������������������������������������� Brevard S. Childs, “Old Testament in Germany,” 234. 31  ��������������� John Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in Nineteenth Century German and England (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985), 87–9. 32  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Brevard S. Childs, “Old Testament in Germany,” 234. Again, on Hengstenberg see Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism, chapter five.

Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel

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Nevertheless, Vischer, Hellbardt, et al. have more in common with Hengstenberg and his tradition than with Vatke, de Wette and Wellhausen’s. For the latter’s approach to Scripture is driven by a methodology that is, in the language of Brian Daley, ‘methodologically atheistic’.33 To put the matter succinctly, dogmatic instincts should order the use of historical-critical tools and not vice-versa. A full length study will not be given to these issues. Rather, I will place Barth in brief conversation with two of his Altestamentlicher colleagues, namely, Walter Baumgartner and Wilhelm Vischer. These two figures will provide a window into Barth’s interaction with a detractor—Baumgartner—and a sympathizer with Barth’s Old Testament reading—Vischer.34 We turn firstly to Barth and Baumgartner. A Briefwechsel (correspondence) between Karl Barth and Walter Baumgartner took place between the years 1940–1955.35 The context of these letters is primarily Baumgartner’s taking issue with Barth’s exegesis of the Old Testament in various quadrants of the CD. These two were colleagues together at the University of Basel and esteemed one another. Despite his claim that Baumgartner offered up ‘dry bread’ to his students, Barth had high regard for his colleague’s historicalcritical skills.36 In fact, Barth’s son took Baumgartner as his Doktorvater at Basel. These letters reveal the stark epistemological and methodological contrast between a fully committed historical-critic from the religionsgeschichtliche Schule and a dogmatic theologian reading the Old Testament as a witness to revelation. Regarding Baumgartner, Marks states, ‘He strove to understand the Bible as a product of its contemporary historical and linguistic environment, a phenomenon of its own time and place.’37 These letters are revelatory of Marks’ description of Baumgartner and also show the significance of one’s presuppositions when it comes to engaging the subject matter of the Old Testament. What one understands these texts to be informs one’s reading. There are nine letters from Baumgartner to Barth in the collection and four responses from Barth. The disparity in the number of letters may reveal Barth’s hesitancy to engage his Old Testament colleague in a sustained debate. This is conjecture, but it should be observed that Baumgartner’s criticisms of Barth’s Old 33

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Brian E. Daley, “Is Patristic Exegesis Still Usable? Some Reflection on Early Christian Interpretation of the Psalms,” in The Art of Reading Scripture, ed. E.F. Davis and R.B. Hays (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 72. 34  ������������������������������������������������������������������������ For a fuller length treatment see John H. Hayes and Frederick Prussner, Old Testament Theology: Its History and Development (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985) and Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism. 35  ������������������������������������������������������������������������ Rudolf Smend, ed., “Karl Barth and Walter Baumgartner: Ein Briefwechsel über ����� das Alte Testament,” in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Beiheft 6: Zur Theologie Karl Barths Beiträge aus Anlass seines 100. Geburstags, ed. Eberhard Jüngel (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 240–71. 36  ������� Busch, Karl Barth, 268. 37   J.H. Marks, “Baumgartner, Walter,” in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation, Volume I, ed. J.H. Hayes (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 112.

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Testament reading were made after the fact and had no impact on the CD itself. Put in other terms, Barth did no revising of his Old Testament exegesis to suit his colleague. Nevertheless, they do provide insight into the tensions between Barth and his Altestamentlicher colleagues. A detailed exposition of these letters will not be offered. Rudolf Smend, who received these letters as a gift from Baumgartner’s widow, says, ‘Sie [the letters] sprechen für selbst.’38 I will simply highlight a few of the more salient points of this Auseinandersetzung as a window into the type of disagreement between a pure historical-critical exegete and a theological exegete. Baumgartner’s initial letter of 7 January 1940 was precipitated by his receiving a copy of CD II.1 from Barth. Baumgartner expresses his appreciation and then begins to make comments on Barth’s particular reading of Old Testament passages, for example, Isaiah 6, Deuteronomy 12 and Barth’s reading of the beauty of God in association with ‘messianic’ texts in the Psalter. According to Baumgartner, these Psalms do not have to do with the ‘messiah’ but with Israel’s king.39 Baumgartner states that all of the preceding comments lead to one primary observation: Systematic theologians (Systematiker) and Old Testament scholars (ATler) see something very different when reading the Old Testament. Baumgartner uses the language of ‘disparities’ and ‘altitude differences’. Baumgartner quickly states that such a state of affairs is to be expected. His major point of concern, however, is related to Barth’s earlier volume on Scripture (CD I.2), for in this volume, Baumgartner found no clear positive comment about Old Testament scholars and research. On the contrary, only ‘sehr scharf ablehnenden Äusserungen’ are to be found.40 Baumgartner warns Barth about the dangers of slipping back into the position of Hengstenberg, which is a task surely not in the purview of Barth’s project, so says Baumgartner. If he does not want to revert to Hengstenberg, then he must speak positively about the Old Testament research of his day, even if only for the sake of the students. According to Baumgartner, today’s Old Testament scholars have completely strayed from Hengstenberg and ‘nicht ohne Grund’.41 Baumgartner follows this letter with another dated 20 March 1940. In this letter Baumgartner raises two important points (zwei wichtigen Punkten) that he wishes to put to Barth. Firstly, Barth understands the theological task of interpreting the Old Testament as having to do with the finished whole. In today’s language, this would be Baumgartner’s concern about reading the ‘final form’ of the text.  �‘They speak for themselves.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 240.  ������������������������������������������� Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 242. 40  �‘very sharp, negative remarks.’ 41  �‘not without warrant.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 243. Interestingly enough, Barth never addresses Baumgartner’s politically loaded association of himself with Hengstenberg. It is possible that Barth did not feel the sting of the association, though this is conjecture. Undoubtedly, Barth did not have the resistance to historical-criticism that Hengstenberg did but, as is mentioned above, Barth shares more in common with Hengstenberg than de Wette and Wellhausen. 38 39

12

Karl Barth and the Fifth Gospel

Moreover, Baumgartner is concerned that Barth commends ‘final form’ reading to others (apparently including Old Testament scholars). The Old Testament cannot be interpreted as a final whole because it is not authored in the sense that ‘final form’ exegesis would demand. Exegesis of the final form of the text requires a single author, rather than a collection of writings derived from different historical contexts. Here, the relationship between form-criticism and redaction-criticism in the matrix of a very complicated compositional history of biblical books is highlighted. Initially, the layers of material within the canon were situated in a position in Israel’s history phenomenologically understood. Baumgartner’s work emphasizes this aspect of form-criticism. These materials are brought together later and finally by a redactor who alone is responsible for the meaning of the whole. The individual layers in the final form of the material are lost in this redactional move, and it is necessary to isolate these individual layers to understand the original, historical contexts from which these layers derive. Why would one give pride of place to only one aspect of the compositional history of Old Testament books, namely, the final redactor or tradent? Resultantly, Baumgartner says that final form exegesis of First and Second Isaiah, Samuel, Chronicles and Kings is not possible. Following this statement, Baumgartner says, ‘Das gilt dann füglich auch für das AT als ganzes ....’42 For Baumgartner, this is his view of the ‘flowers’ (Blumenstrauss) in the Old Testament, and he understands the canon to play the role of ‘vase’ holding these disparate flowers of tradition together. Baumgartner is concerned with the flowers, not the vase. It can safely be said that Barth is concerned with the vase, that is the canon, because it is the sanctified vehicle by which God communicates Himself to the church and the world today. It is the task of the Old Testament scholar, according to Baumgartner, to do exegesis in light of the historical particularity of the literature form-critically and redaction-critically understood. Christological readings, or readings that impose later significance on these texts ‘wie das allegorisierende Verfahren der alexandrinischen Homerauslegung’, are not the work of an Old Testament scholar.43 Rather, it is the work of practical theology to do this kind of ‘allegorical’ exegesis. These concerns raised by Baumgartner are his response to the second portion of this first concern, namely, the imposition on Old Testament scholars to read the Old Testament in the ways Barth suggests. Baumgartner rejects this call and fully imbibes the bifurcation of the theological disciplines. One can read between the lines as Baumgartner in effect says, allow theologians to do their work and Old Testament scholars theirs. Do not, however, bring down the iron curtain separating our tasks, methods and goals. Baumgartner’s second concern is Barth’s understanding of the theological significance of the Old Testament as a book.44 Baumgartner makes an analogy 42  �‘That applies then justi.ably for the whole Old Testament.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 244. 43  �‘as the allegorical method of Alexandrian interpretation of Homer.’ 44  ������������������������������������������� Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 245.

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between the New Testament and the Old Testament for Barth. As the New Testament is concerned with the message (Botschaft) of Jesus Christ in light of his person and work (historically understood), so too does the Old Testament concern itself with the ‘Volk Israel’ (people of Israel). Here, Baumgartner is playing text over against the events to which they refer. It is not the text one is concerned with per se, but the historical realities behind the text, whether it is the historical Jesus or the historical Israel. Baumgartner challenges Barth’s epistemological difficulties with the historical reconstruction of the people of Israel based on literary and archaeological sources.45 For Baumgartner, knowledge of the book is necessarily dependent on knowledge of the people of Israel, their ways, institutions and history. In other words, one must understand the historical layers behind the book that contribute to the book as we have it, if one is to understand the book at all. The major point Baumgartner is making is the necessary relationship between a theology of the Old Testament and the history of Israel’s religion. ‘Und ebenso ersteht hinter der T heologie des AT die Religion des Volkes Israel und damit die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von beidem.’46 A theology of the Old Testament, or theological exegesis of the Old Testament, cannot take place in isolation from the religious-historical questions that dominate the research agendas of Old Testament scholars like Baumgartner. Obviously, Baumgartner believes Barth leaves out a major component of this enterprise, if not even disparaging it when he denies the centrality of Baumgartner’s historicist concerns. Baumgartner confesses his understanding that these things are probably of little interest to theologians, ‘aber für uns sind sie wichtig genug ....’47 As it goes, the lines of the debate are drawn. Barth responds to Baumgartner on 23 March 1940. Once the platitudes of academic exchange are set aside, Barth quickly reveals the tension at hand as ultimately insurmountable. A clashing of worldviews is evident and this may be why Barth is hesitant to enter into an elongated exchange with Baumgartner. They share radically different epistemological and theological starting points. Barth understands Baumgartner’s position as one where the phenomenon of the Old Testament can and must be detached from the fact that the Old Testament is given through the Christian Church. In language reminiscent of Childs’ later canonical approach, or, one should say, in line with the family resemblance that holds Christian interpretation of the Old Testament together, Barth states that Baumgartner must have no use (in light of his presuppositions) for the interpretation of the Old Testament as a canonical book. Moreover, the request to interpret the Old Testament as canonical Scripture must surely be an odd request to the ear of Baumgartner. 45

 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 246. We will turn in the next chapter to Barth’s stated criticisms of the religionsgeschichtliche approach in CD I.2. These are the concerns to which Baumgartner is responding. 46  �‘And just as much the theology of the Old Testament arises after the religion of the people of Israel, and thereby the question concerns the unity of both.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 246. 47  �‘but for us they are important enough.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 246.

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Barth speaks directly to the issue of what constitutes a wissenschaftliche approach to the theological disciplines. He asks Baumgartner whether or not they can share a common understanding of the concept ‘theologische Wissenschaft’? Barth’s answer is rather tongue-in-cheek and is worth presenting in full: ‘Ja, wenn wir das könnten, wie schön würde das sein für unser Fakultät und besonders auch für unser gemeinsamen Schüler, die jetzt, von einam Hörsaal in den andern wandernd, so seltsam umschalten und manchmal mit so primitiven Kompromissen sich behelfen müssen ...!’48 The difference in Standpunkten is clearly stated. Over a year passes before the two correspond again. On 10 July 1941, Baumgartner sends Barth an address which he delivered in Zürich. The title of the address is, ‘Die Auslegung des Alten Testament im Streit der Gegenwart.’49 Barth is one of the interlocutors in Baumgartner’s address, and he believes he has found Barth’s position on the Old Testament in CD I.1 and I.2. In the address, Baumgartner aligns Barth with Vischer and Hellbardt. He also raises concerns that the dogmatic approach to these issues has multiple consequences for Barth’s students and the reception of scientific results. Baumgartner’s short letter concludes by emphasizing that this debate is in no way meant to be a critique upon Barth’s work as a whole, and the letter amicably ends as such. Barth responds to Baumgartner’s short letter with his most significant response of the four letters preserved from Barth to Baumgartner. We will examine this response closely. Barth’s letter is dated 12 July 1941, only two days after Baumgartner’s. Unlike the previous letter where the matter is stated tongue-in-cheek, Barth raises the stakes of the debate as he takes his conversation partner head-on. There is an urgency in this letter revealing the pathos of Barth’s theological sensibilities in this matter. He thanks Baumgartner for the address and assures him that he does not take it as an attack on his work as a whole. Barth also engages in an act of self-depreciation as he confesses his engagement with Old Testament matters as equivalent to the act of a ‘sniper’ or ‘buccaneer’.50 He then poses a pair of questions to Baumgartner. Firstly, Barth presses Baumgartner regarding a Christian reading of the Old Testament. In the address, Baumgartner says that he by no means wishes to deny his dogmatic friends (such as Barth, Vischer and Hellbardt) a ‘letzte Beziehung unserer Arbeit auf Christus’.51 Baumgartner points to the early church’s handling

 �‘Yes, we could do that, how nice it would be for our faculty and especially our shared students, who now are wandering from lecture hall to lecture hall, who must help themselves with so curious changes and much more, such primitive compromises ....’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 247. 49  �‘The Interpretation of the Old Testament in the Current Struggle.’ 50  ������������������������������������������� Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 249. 51  �‘last connection of our work upon Christ.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 249. 48

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology

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of the Old Testament and Luther’s hermeneutical dictum, ‘was Christum treibet’.52 Barth does not warm to these comments and reads this tipping of the hat to his dogmatic colleagues as platitudinous. The clear consequence of the preceding comments, according to Barth, is that Old Testament scholars can work with confidence in the Old Testament without any ultimate or penultimate consideration of Christ. Moreover, another implication of Baumgartner’s framing of the issue is that the early Church was fundamentally in error as it usurped the Old Testament for Christological reasons. In fact, the Old Testament pressures (treibe) anything but Christ. Barth does not take Baumgartner’s comments as a positive statement on Christian reading of the Old Testament but as an indictment on the field of Old Testament scholarship. Secondly, Barth is concerned about the implications of Baumgartner’s position for preaching. For Baumgartner, Christian reading of the Old Testament is an imposition onto its natural sense. Baumgartner’s positivistic sensibilities keep him from allowing the Old Testament outside of the historical contexts from which the material arose. Christians can read the Old Testament Christianly but must do so in the knowledge that this is beyond the natural sense of the texts. Barth demurs here strongly. It troubles Barth that preachers need to bury their heads in their bosoms as they learn from Old Testament scholars that they have to make do with a vain, pre-Christian text and should handle the Old Testament only in a natural sense. With what is the preacher left, Barth asks, allegory?53 The implications of Baumgartner’s position are far-reaching for Barth. If Baumgartner’s position is to be accepted, then three things should occur. Firstly, Barth’s students should be forbidden to attend instruction from a dogmatic standpoint regarding Old Testament preaching. Secondly, the Old Testament should be eliminated from the church. And, thirdly, the Old Testament professors should be transferred from the theology faculty to the philosophical-historical faculty. Barth then engages Baumgartner in ‘[n]ude crude gefragt.’54 What benefit is there in your Old Testament guidance for the poor devil of a student (armen Tröpfe von Studente), who learns today that the Old Testament is only a pre-Christian affair and then tomorrow should and must speak in the Christian church so blithely for the present? Barth believes the answer to this question is inevitably dark because the answer to his first question regarding the placement of Christian reading of the Old Testament is such as well.55 More letters are exchanged between these two. Baumgartner engages various aspects of Barth’s Old Testament exegesis, and they have an extended discussion about Barth’s work on angelology. In fact, these letters are worthy of fuller study,  �‘What drives to Christ.’  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ We will deal with Barth and figuration in due course. Allegory is not as bad a word today as it was in Barth’s, and one can safely say Barth engaged in allegory or figural reading in the best sense of these terms. 54  �‘bare, rough questioning.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 250. 55  ������������������������������������������� Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 250. 52

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but the salient points are observed in the preceding. Two giants in their field clash over the nature of Old Testament study and scholarship. For Baumgartner, the Old Testament is a product of the religious history of the people of Israel. As such, it is locked into this historical particularity, and the meaning of the Old Testament is found therein. He is willing to grant Christian reading, but this is a playful, willy-nilly imposition onto the text rather than a reading of its natural sense. Baumgartner, whose lexical work in Hebrew and comparative philology is monumental to this day, is fully enmeshed in the historicist move to relegate the Old Testament material to the history of Israel’s various traditions. It is the work of Old Testament scholars to remain in this field. Christian theological work is for another department; it is not for Old Testament scholars. Barth is willing to grant Baumgartner’s position as long as the Old Testament department is moved to the history faculty rather than the theology faculty. The point is, Barth’s understanding of the Old Testament as part of a two-testament canon received in the church as Christian Scripture is a constitutive part of its nature and role. Also, Protestant theology faculties bear some responsibility in the training of future pastors. One recalls Barth’s own crisis of preaching which ultimately lead to his monumental theological reform. In the second chapter, we will see more fully Barth’s rejection of the religionsgeschichtliche Schule and his positive presentation of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. Our attention is now given to Barth’s relationship with Wilhelm Vischer. Wilhelm Vischer (1895–1988) and Karl Barth had an affection for one another because they both shared a common Christological base in their theology and endeavored to stand against the tide of theological liberalism. Barth describes Vischer as a ‘free, childlike troubadour of the good God.’56 In 1936, Vischer moved to Basel and became Barth’s pastor, theological colleague and neighbor. Here in Basel their relationship was rekindled as their spheres of influence and work overlapped each other’s. Vischer was appointed assistant lecturer at the university and lived ‘only a few houses away’ from Barth.57 Vischer also became pastor of the historic St. James Church and ‘soon was one of the most popular preachers in town’.58 Barth attended St. James and had a high regard for Vischer’s preaching. At one point, Barth compared the preaching of Vischer to that of Thurneysen, who preached at the cathedral. According to Barth, Thurneysen attempted ‘to say everything about any text,’ while Vischer interpreted Scripture ‘much more narrowly than Thurneysen, that is, to present the quite special message which he heard and received from each particular text.’59 Barth understood Vischer to have ‘an innate gift for reinterpretation, and an astounding capacity for so to speak assimilating himself to a text, making himself its servant even down to its tone  ������� Busch, Karl Barth, 269.  ������� Busch, Karl Barth, 269. 58  �������������������������������������� Stefan Felber, “Vischer, Wilhelm,” in Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, ed. Donald McKim (Downers Grove: IVP, 2007), 1012. 59  ������� Busch, Karl Barth, 269. 56 57

Barth and the Renaissance of Old Testament Theology

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and mood, and thus allowing the biblical author to speak from his pulpit in modern words.’60 In Vischer, Barth found a theological colleague and friend who shared a similar vision. Barth happily aligned himself with Vischer. As observed in the correspondence between Barth and Baumgartner, the latter had grave concerns about Vischer’s Old Testament interpretation. Baumgartner associated Barth with Vischer (and Hellbardt as well). In the 12 July 1941 letter, Barth responds to Baumgartner’s association of himself with Vischer and Hellbardt. ‘Beiläufig gesagt: ich lasse mich bei Vischer gerne, bei Hellbardt dagegen nur von Fall zu Fall behaften.’61 Also in the preface to CD II.2, Barth celebrates the publications of his ‘two friends’, Thurneysen and Vischer. Thurneysen’s work was on the Epistle of James in preaching, and Vischer’s publication was the second volume of his Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments. Barth states that these three volumes had independent growth and form but ‘belong closely together in purpose and content’.62 With Vischer, alongside Thurneysen, Barth found ‘serious theological unity’.63 A detailed examination of Vischer’s contribution to the theological exegesis of the Old Testament will not be offered here. Only the contours of his project will be explored as it pertains to Barth’s theological exegetical sensibilities.64 T he theological conviction that both testaments share a common subject matter and a unified witness to Jesus Christ is fundamental to Vischer’s Old Testament reading. The first volume of his Christuszeugnis begins by stating that we learn from the O ld T estament what the Christ is and from the New Testament who he is.65 Felber describes Vischer’s understanding of the Old Testament’s ‘witness of Christ’ as both a genitivus objectivus and a genitivus subjectivus. It is the former because the Old Testament is ‘a testimony about the one who has not yet come’, and the latter because the Old Testament is the ‘self-testimony of the one who existed already with the patriarchs.’66 Vischer’s affirmation of the ‘eternal simultaneity’ of Jesus Christ is observed as an interpretive principle. Christ is the hermeneutical key to all of Scripture, because as the divine logos he precedes the Old Testament.

 ������� Busch, Karl Barth, 269.  �‘By the way, I gladly allow myself to be stuck with Vischer, with Hellbardt, however, only by case to case.’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 251. 62  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), x. 63  ������� Barth, CD II.2, x. 64   For a thorough examination of Vischer’s life and work, one is encouraged towards Stefan Felber’s fine and detailed treatment, Wilhelm Vischer als Ausleger der Heiligen Schrift. Stefan Felber, Wilhelm Vischer als Ausleger der Heiligen Schrift: Eine Untersuchung zum Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments, Forschungen Zur Systematischen und Ökumenischen Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1999). 65  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 7. 66  ������������������������ Felber, “Vischer,” 1013. 60

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Vischer’s work was not well received by the guild of Old Testament scholars, though it was popularly received by pastors and various church men.67 Childs states, ‘Again, the vehement rejection of W. Vischer’s book by British and American scholars in the post-World War II period, arose from the fear that historical critical scholarship was somehow being threatened by a form of traditional allegory.’68 In a response article to Childs concerning Vischer and the charge of allegory, Barr describes ‘Der Fall Vischer’ as ‘a remarkable episode in the history of scholarship’.69 Barr describes the situation more fully in the following: ‘Professors put pressure on publishers not to publish an English translation of his main work (in fact only the first volume appeared in English), librarians were told on no account to buy the book; if they did buy it they doubtless concealed it from their students, keeping it under the counter as if it were Lolita or Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Few works in these days have such honour paid to them.’70 That Vischer’s book was bitterly rejected is without doubt. As to the why of its rejection, Barr queries whether the charge of allegory is a fair one. We will return to Barr’s assessment. The preceding raises the question of methodology in Vischer. What were his interpretive principles, or, at least, what did Vischer believe he was doing? It is fair to say that Vischer’s exegesis of the Old Testament ‘do[es] not follow a strict pattern’.71 Vischer was not hostile to historical-criticism. In fact, he affirmed the very positive result of nineteenth century historical criticism in its discovery of the human dimension of Scripture.72 Vischer understood the Old Testament to be a historical document whose telos informed Jesus Christ. This is Vischer’s understanding of fulfillment in the New Testament.73 Fulfillment does not mean the dissolution of the Old Testament in the sense of a linear tradition-history where the New Testament fulfillment swallows and discards the Old Testament promise. Quite to the contrary, fulfillment ‘does not mean that the promise ceases and that which is promised takes its place, but that the promise itself is now complete, perfect, clear, and therefore powerful.’74 The unified relationship between the testaments allows the promises presented in the Old Testament’s various genres to be understood in 67  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Rendtorff rehearses the very positive impact and immediate success of Vischer’s Old Testament work for preachers in the church. Rolf Rendtorff, Canon and Theology: Overtures to an Old Testament Theology, trans. Margaret Kohl, Overtures to Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 78. 68  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� B.S. Childs, “Critical Reflections on James Barr’s Understanding of The Literal and the Allegorical,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 46 (1990): 5. 69  �������������������������������������������� J. Barr, “Wilhelm Vischer and Allegory,” in Understanding Poets and Prophets: Essays in Honour of George Wishart Anderson, ed. A. Graeme Auld (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1993), 39. 70  ��������������������������������� Barr, “Vischer and Allegory,” 39. 71  ������������������������ Felber, “Vischer,” 1013. 72  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 14. 73  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 22–4. 74  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 24.

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light of the New Testament fulfillment. In this sense, the New Testament can be read back into the Old Testament because it sheds light on what was anticipatory and forward looking. In language reminiscent of Barth’s, Vischer states, ‘To the witness of the old covenant Jesus is near as the Coming One; to those of the new covenant as the Returning One.’75 Vischer’s inheritance of the Reformation’s confession about the unity of the testaments is a governing interpretive principle. Which, in turn, raises the question, ‘Is this [the assumed unity of Old and New Testament] really true? Does our description accord with fact?’76 The answer to this question is of grave import for Vischer. ‘There is no doubt that a Christianity which confesses Christ Jesus stands or falls with the unity of the Testaments.’77 At first, Vischer affirms the necessity of faith and confession when answering this question. For example, Jews who read the Old Testament with no reference to Christ—and the Church do not and should not ‘rob’ the synagogue of the Old Testament; it is theirs first—must have a change of heart (metanoia) before they can understand the wealth of the Old Testament.78 At the same time, the answer, ‘“Faith alone can decide,” is an evasion.’79 Our ‘faith’ is faith in a book written by human words. ‘A careful reading of the book must be able to test whether what is maintained is really written or not.’ The following is worth repeating in full: And whilst a mere intellectual assent to the proof from scripture is not true faith in Jesus Christ, yet it remains true that the proof from scripture must be susceptible of verification by intellectual methods. If Jesus is really the hidden meaning of Old Testament scripture an honest philological exegesis cannot fail to stumble across this truth; not in the sense that it directly finds Jesus there, but in the sense that it would be led to affirm that the thoughts expressed and stories narrated in the Old Testament, as they are transmitted in the Bible, point towards the crucifixion of Jesus; that the Christ Jesus of the New Testament stands precisely at the vanishing point of Old Testament perspective.80

The preceding appears to affirm Vischer’s own understanding of his work as exegesis of the historical and philological kind. Vischer recognizes that his Christological reading of the Old Testament has been challenged as an eisegesis of the Old Testament by modern study of the Bible. Vischer responds by saying that an imposition of a modernist Weltenshauung onto the biblical texts is surely a reading into these texts as well. As a child of the Reformation, Vischer was openly  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 24.  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 25. 77  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 27. 78  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 26–7. 79  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 27. 80  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 28. 75

76

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hostile to allegory and affirmed the priority of the literal sense.81 ‘Die Heilige Schrift hat nur einen Sinn: Der Literalsinn ist der christologische und umgekehrt.’82 Moreover, ‘Reference to Christ in a text of the Old Testament, says Vischer, should not be forced by allegoresis or typology.’83 In light of the preceding, it is surely an irony of the history of interpretation that Vischer’s detractors vehemently accused him of the things he was opposed to: the downplaying of history and allegoresis. On this score, Barr’s assessment is correct. Vischer did not conceive of his project as allegory or typology. It was a particular type of historical exegesis that Vischer’s detractors accused him of transgressing. Baumgartner’s accusations were of the literarycritical and religious-historical type. Von Rad’s criticisms of Vischer, according to Childs, had to do with historical criticism rooted in the theories of Alt and Noth (tradition-criticism that takes into account strata and sources).84 Vischer’s ‘historical’ exegesis had to do with philological and contextual exegesis of the canonical type. He dealt with the text’s final form and was not interested in ‘scientific study’ of the Old Testament that had to do with reconstructing an ‘“original” context and meaning’.85 This sort of scientific exegesis ‘interprets the testimony backwards, in order to discover records of something which happened, instead of being ready to look forward to that which should come as the records indicate.’86 Vischer’s reaction to the dominant forms of historical-critical exegesis of the ‘behind the text’ type is that ‘it is characteristic of the Old Testament to look forwards and not backwards, that can be done only by a violent dissolution and reconstruction of the text.’87 In other words, ‘scientific’ exegesis, according to Vischer, does not do justice to the material being dealt with in the Old Testament. There one finds texts that are forward-looking or eschatological in nature. The final form of the text is not concerned with the process leading to its final shape (the concern von Rad raised about the final form of the text being a collection of very different sources).88 The Old Testament simply presents the final form, and this is the canonical scripture with which we have to deal. Moreover, this final 81  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ The nature of the literal sense or plain sense of Scripture and its relationship to figural reading will be addressed in the chapters to come. 82  �‘The Holy Scripture has only one sense: the literal sense is the christological and vice versa.’ Cited in Felber, Vischer als Ausleger, 150. 83  ������������������������ Felber, “Vischer,” 1013. 84  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� Brevard S. Childs, “Old Testament in Germany,” 241 See Gerhard von Rad, “Das Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Wilhelm Vischers gleichnamigen Buch,” Theologische Blätter 14 (1935): 250–54. See also, Rudolf Smend, From Astruc to Zimmerli: Old Testament Scholarship in Three Centuries, trans. M. Kohl (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 181. 85  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 30. 86  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 30. 87  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 30. 88  �������������� Rudolf Smend, From Astruc to Zimmerli, 181.

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form is eschatological in nature, with a forward-looking eye of hope. Philological and historical exegesis must deal with this reality. By way of illustration, one recalls Barth’s similar response to his detractors regarding his commentary on Romans. To the charge that Barth’s exegesis demonstrated non-historical sensibilities, Barth responds by saying in effect, I would be interested in the historical Paul if Paul were interested in the historical Paul, but he is not. Paul witnesses beyond himself to something other.89 McCormack states, ‘The difference between Barth’s view of Paul and that of critics was fundamental. The reigning biblical science saw him as an object of interest in his own right; Barth saw him as a witness.’90 Here, indeed, is the great divide between Vischer/ Barth and the guild of biblical scholars. For Vischer and Barth, the Scriptures are a witness. For many within the guild of historical-critical scholars, the Scriptures are a source for historical reconstruction of various kinds. James Barr denies that Vischer’s exegesis is allegorical (the charge made by most of Vischer’s detractors); rather, Vischer is doing literal/historical exegesis of the Christological, historical, literal stripe.91 We have seen this to be the case, at least according to Vischer’s own account. There are not multiple layers of interpretation for Vischer. There is only one layer, the literal, and the literal is the Christological. The problem, and probable difference between Barth and Vischer, is precisely this point. Vischer believes his Christological readings of the Old Testament to be supported and verified by ‘intellectual methods’.92 Vischer understands himself to be simply reading the texts. In other words, there is a naive epistemological realism at work for Vischer that one will search in vain to find in Barth. Barth’s theologically informed epistemology would resist the claim that his theologicalexegetical conclusions can be verified by ‘intellectual methods’. Barth’s christological understanding of the Old Testament is located in his theology of revelation, and, as a result, he is not surprised when first century Jews or modern Old Testament scholars miss this. In Barth words, the Old Testament’s witness to revelation is ‘not by way of a demonstration that can be carried out by experiment and logic. The expectation of revelation in the Old Testament is prophecy, not prediction to be controlled experimentally by logic. That is why it was and is possible to look past it.’93 We may assume that ultimately Vischer would concur with Barth on this score, but, at least in his early work, makes problematic claims about the relationship between verification by ‘intellectual methods’ and christological

89  ������������ Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. E.C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford Unversity Press, 1957), 6–8. 90  ��������������������������������������� McCormack, “Historical-Criticism,” 215. 91  ��������������������������������� Barr, “Vischer and Allegory,” 48. 92  ��������� Vischer, Witness, 28. 93  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 100.

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reading of the Old Testament. Barth’s account of the matter avoids this problem. We will see this to be the case, moreover, in the next chapter. Also, Barth is willing to be critical of Vischer. In one of the letters to Baumgartner, Barth distances his own reading of the historical materials of the O ld T estament in CD II.2 from Vischer’s reading. Barth takes the reader on a long journey through Israel’s history as he deals specifically with the issue of election and rejection in Israel’s canonical history. In this letter to Baumgartner, Barth claims to be doing something quite different than Vischer. Barth states, ‘Müssten Sie mir gegenüber nicht mindestens noch ein bischen ander argumentieren als W. Vischer gegenüber, dessen Verfahren ich bei aller sachlichen Übereinstimmung nun gerade nicht gefolgt bin? Ist das nicht schön von mir?’94 Another example of Barth disagreeing with Vischer is found in CD III.1. Barth places Bonhoeffer and Vischer in dialogue with one another regarding the nature of the imago Dei and finds Bonhoeffer’s reading more salient than Vischer’s. So, Barth can be critical of Vischer and seems to go his own way when it comes to the execution of a theological exegesis of the Old Testament. Again, Barth would also affirm more fully the sui generis character of reading the Old Testament Christianly and the necessary confessional posture one takes when doing such a thing. Barth’s theological exegesis claims to be realistic, true and necessary but in a self-contained and self-referencing way that requires certain confessional presuppositions about the centrality of revelation before beginning the task at all.95 Pure philological and contextual work might not lead to the exegetical conclusions Barth and Vischer do, and one should expect this to be the case. There is no Christological exegesis of the Old Testament of the bruta facta stripe, and the charge of allegory or figural reading does not carry with it the reproach and sting it did in Vischer’s day. Theological exegesis is located in a web of theological confessions that are all mutually informing one another. Barth is clearer on this score than Vischer as we will see in the next chapters. Though Barth and Vischer may differ when it comes to the execution of a theological exegesis of the Old Testament—a more thorough treatment of this issue is needed—they definitely share in the same overall theological concerns: the Old Testament is Christian Scripture and shares a fundamental unity with the New Testament regarding its subject matter. On this issue, Barth and Vischer join in solidarity.96

94  �‘Will you allow me to argue a different argument as compared with W. Vischer, whose method I have not exactly followed in all technical agreement? Is this not fair of me?’ Rudolf Smend, “Barth and Baumgartner,” 257. 95  ��������������������������������������������������������� See especially Barth’s comments in the following: Barth, CD I.2, 100. 96  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Bächli states, ‘Unterschiede zwischen Barth und Vischer gibt es zwar in Fragen der Ausfuhrung, kaum jedoch in bezug auf das Programm’ (There are admittedly differences between Barth and Vischer in questions of execution, hardly, however, with reference to program). Otto Bächli, Das Alten Testament in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik von Karl Barth (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1987), 45.

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Though Vischer’s approach may be regarded as too simplistic in its understanding of the multiple layers of significance and meaning in the Scriptures, he did offer to many the tools, freedom and courage to preach the Old Testament once again as Christian scriptures. This is surely one of the reasons Barth is so defensive of his friend and colleague. The guild of Old Testament scholars had neutered the Old Testament in the life of the church’s pulpit. As we have seen and will see again, Barth is unrelenting in his criticism of this particular problem. Vischer’s work entered a vacuum, offering hope for the preacher whose task was to preach the whole counsel of God. Little wonder then that Barth could make the following stinging comment regarding von Rad’s review of Vischer: ‘In reading this [Vischer’s Christuszeugnis], one should add the review by G.v. Rad ... as not unprofitable (a fruitful criticism of Vischer can, of course, be delivered only by one who is in a position to perform the same task better).’97 Apparently, Barth did not think von Rad was in this position. Quite possibly, Barth himself was in the position to offer a more fully formed theology of reading both testaments as a witness to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. How then did Barth conceive of the Old Testament theologically as a witness to Christ? Our attention will turn to this question in the following chapter.

Conclusion Baumgartner and Vischer serve as windows into the debate raging between scholars who believe the theology of the Old Testament can only be garnered by fastidious attention to the religious history of the people of Israel and those who believe the Old Testament’s theological witness is properly sought in relationship to Jesus Christ. In the latter approach Jesus Christ becomes Scripture’s external center. However, Barth distinguishes himself sharply from Baumgartner’s overly historicist approach to Scripture and happily aligns himself with Vischer’s christological exegesis. Barth does not slavishly follow Vischer. His theological exegesis of the Old Testament differs from Vischer’s when it comes to the actual engagement of texts. Barth’s allergy to the religious-historical approach represented in Baumgartner will be explored more fully in the next chapter. What one also senses from Barth and Baumgartner’s correspondence is Barth’s strongly protective instincts when it comes to his students. Possibly speaking from his own experience, Barth understood the deadly affect of Old Testament scholarship on the life of a preacher who must engage these texts as the word of God for the people of God. That Old Testament departments exist in the context of theology faculties results in certain responsibilities. If the training of ordinands is part and parcel of a theology faculty’s responsibilities, then it is incumbent upon the teachers in a theology faculty to take this context seriously. Otherwise, according to Barth, Old Testament departments should move into different faculties. This will be  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 80.

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observed more fully in due course, but suffice it to say, for Barth, one’s confession about the nature and role of Christian Scripture is a constitutive aspect of how one will engage in the interpretive process. This particular issue places Barth and Baumgartner at sharp odds with one another. In this work, Barth’s engagement of Isaiah will provide the biblical context for discussing the interpretive significance of one’s confessional commitments when engaging the task of exegesis. Before attention is given to Isaiah, Barth’s dogmatic understanding of the canonical role the Old Testament plays will be explored.

Chapter 2

Die Zeit der Erwartung

To say that Jesus Christ rules the Church is equivalent to saying that Holy Scripture rules the Church. The one explains the other, the one can be understood only through the other. The adoption of the Old Testament into the Canon of the Church really meant far more than a welcome confirmation of Christ as the fulfillment of ancient expectation and prophecy. It was because on the basis of Christ’s manifestation expectation and prophecy constituted the very element by which His Church lived, that it naturally had to claim and to read as its own the book of expectation and prophecy.

Introduction: No Mere Red Carpet For Karl Barth, the Old Testament is more than a red carpet rolled out to introduce the New Testament, that is, a corpus easily dispensed with once the New Testament has arrived. The Old Testament is, in fact, Christian Scripture and cannot be understood as anything else within the church. On this issue and others, the stakes were high for Barth at the University of Bonn (1933–35) when his work on the CD I was in progress. This is nowhere more apparent than in his theological work on Scripture, and especially the Old Testament. The ghost of Marcion haunted the German church. Key figures, such as Schleiermacher, Ritschl and Harnack questioned the validity of the Old Testament’s status as Christian Scripture. As Harnack rather infamously states, ‘[T]he rejection of the Old Testament in the second century was a mistake which the great church rightly avoided; to maintain it in the sixteenth century was a fate from which the Reformation was not yet able to escape; but still to preserve it in Protestantism as a canonical document since the nineteenth century is the consequence of a religious and ecclesiastical crippling.’ Marcion, according to Harnack, was correct in his deployment of a law/gospel hermeneutic and this necessarily lent itself to the  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 693.   ������� Barth, CD I.2, 117.   ���������������� See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 166–9.   ������������������� Adolf von Harnack, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God, trans. John E. Seeley and Lyle D. Bierma (Durham: The Labyrinth Press, 1990), 134. 

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divorcing of the Old Testament from its canonical status because of its law-tainted status and demiurge god. It is a lack of nerve in the modern church that keeps it from placing the Old Testament ‘at the head of the list of books “which are good and useful to be read”’ while stripping it of its canonical status. Harnack concludes this harrowing section of reflection with the following: ‘He was obliged to reject the Old Testament as a false, anti-godly book in order to preserve the gospel in its purity, but rejection is not in the picture today at all. Rather, this book will be everywhere esteemed and treasured in its distinctiveness and its significance (the prophets) only when the canonical authority to which it is not entitled is withdrawn from it.’ Commenting on this period, Kraus states, ‘ging es um die Frage der Geltung des Alten Testaments in der Kirche, also um ein innerkirchliches Problem von höchster Brisanz.’ Prominent theologians, such as Gerhard Kittel, advanced the notion of an ‘unübruckbarer Gegensatz’ (unbridgeable contrast) between the Hebrew/Jewish Bible and New Testament thought. Barth was aware of these German sentiments and was unguarded in his reproach. ‘We cannot eliminate the Old Testament or substitute for it the records of the early religious history of other peoples, as R. Wilhelm has suggested in the case of China, B. Gutmann in some sense in that of Africa, and many recent fools in the case of Germany.’ For Barth, the attack on the canonical validity of the Old Testament was an attack on ‘the very institution and existence of the Christian Church.’10 ‘Both in the early days and more recently there have been many proposals and attempts to shake off the so-called Old Testament altogether or to reduce it to the level of a deutero-canonical introduction to the real Bible (that is the New Testament), which is good and profitable for reading.’11 These sentiments were contrary both to the New Testament itself and the post-apostolic witness of the second century. For the early Christians, the New Testament writings are an extension of the assumed canon of the Old Testament and this order cannot be reversed. ‘The Old Testament is not an introduction to the real New Testament Bible, which we can dispense with or replace.’12 The urgency of the matter is sensed in the following from Barth:  ������������� von Harnack, Marcion, 137.  ������������� von Harnack, Marcion, 138.   �‘It was about the validity of the Old Testament in the church, it was also an innerchurchly problem [as opposed to just a debate in the academy] of the highest explosiveness.’ Hans-Joachim Kraus, “Neue Begegnung mit dem Alten Testament in Karl Barths Theologie,” Evangelische Theologie 49, no. 5 (1989): 435.   ����������������������������� Kraus, “Neue Begegnung,” 435.   ������� Barth, CD I.2, 488 (emphasis mine). 10  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 488. 11  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 488. 12  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 488. Von Campenhausen’s work on canon formation in the early church emphasizes the self-same reality. Hans von Campenhausen, The Formation of the  

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We are founding a new Church, which is not a Christian Church. For not only is the canonicity of the Old Testament no arbitrary expansion of the evangelicalapostolical witness to Christ. It existed before and when the first Church arose, even in the evangelical-apostolical witness to Christ, which as the witness of recollection has rightly been placed alongside the original Canon, the witness of expectation. It was so embedded in the New Testament Bible itself that only if we wanted to make the latter unreadable could we try to assess and understand it as the witness of divine revelation apart from the original Canon. Whether we like it or not, the Christ of the New Testament is the Christ of the Old Testament, the Christ of Israel. The man who will not accept this merely shows that in fact he has already substituted another Christ for the Christ of the New Testament.13

When one takes into account the political and theological climate of Barth’s day, the significance of the Scriptures of Israel as Christian Scripture is only highlighted. Church and synagogue, for Barth, share the same Old Testament/Hebrew Bible as canonical Scripture. It has always been this way.14 Church and synagogue diverge drastically in their understanding of the role of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible as witness to the expectation of Jesus Christ. Barth does not shy away from confessing this.15 Nevertheless, this sharing with the synagogue of the Old Testament as canonical Scripture is a sine qua non of the Christian church. On this confession, Barth is irretracting. This raises for us the question regarding Barth’s dogmatic formulations of the Old Testament as Scripture. What exactly is the Old Testament? Before answering this question, our attention must first be given to the dogmatic context of Barth’s formal interaction with the nature and role of the Old Testament. Moving on from this, we will trace Barth’s own line of thought on the Old Testament as the time of expectation. What is Barth’s warrant for his claims of the revelatory role the Old Testament plays? To what and to whom does he appeal? How does Barth differ from dominant competing methods, namely, the religionsgeschichtliche approach? What are the lines of unity and discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments? In due course we will come to these questions and others. Our attention is given firstly to the dogmatic context for Barth’s discussion of these matters.

Christian Bible, trans. J.A. Baker (Mifflintown: Sigler Press, 1997), 8–9. 13  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 488–9 (emphasis mine). 14  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Regarding the complexities associated with the scope of the canon alongside a theological rationale for the Scriptures held in common by Synagogue and Church see Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minnepolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 60–68. 15  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 489–90.

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The Time of Revelation The exigency of the Old Testament’s role as canonical Scripture has at least been touched upon in the previous section. What of Barth’s actual understanding of the nature of the Old Testament? Before addressing this question, it is important to recognize the context of Barth’s reflection on the nature and role of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. Barth’s detailed and formative discussion of the Old Testament is found within his larger discourse on the time of revelation or the dialectic between God’s time and our lost, human time (CD I.2, 45–121). As a result of the Fall, God’s originally created time remains hidden from the time experienced in our postlapsarian world. If, therefore, God has time for us in his revelation, it will be a different time from both God’s created time and our known and possessed time, that is our lost time. Herein lies a third category of time for Barth, the time of God’s revelation which exists alongside our time and the time originally created by God. ‘The time God has for us is constituted by His becoming present to us in Jesus Christ, as in Deus praesens [present God].’16 God discloses himself in Jesus Christ in the dialectic of humanity’s lost time and God’s time. God’s eternity, at this juncture, does not exclude the temporal; rather, it includes it.17 According to Barth, year, day and hour are not concepts foreign to the Bible.18 God reveals himself in real space and time. Meanwhile, although Jesus’ time belongs to our lost time, because it is his time it ‘became a different, a new time.’19 Or in the eschatological language of Paul, ‘Behold now (νũν) is the acceptable time’ (2 Cor. 6.2).20 In this revelatory sense, God has time for humankind in the event of Jesus Christ.21 In revelation God stands in for us entirely. And so also the time he creates for Himself in revelation, the genuine present, past and future of which we have been speaking, is presented to us entirely. It should, it can, it will become our time, since He directs His Word to us; we are to become contemporary with this time of His. His genuine time takes the place of the problematic, improper time we know and have. It replaces it in that, amid the years and ages of this time of ours, the time of Jesus Christ takes the place of our time, coming to us as a glad message presented  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 50.  ���������������� Eberhard Busch, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology, trans. Geoffery W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 270. 18  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 51 19  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 51 Earlier in this section Barth draws the distinction between the time we think we know and possess and the time God created (see Gen 1.14). Between these two times lies the Fall, and according to Barth, ‘(t)ime after the Fall is a different, a new time’ (CD I.2, 47). 20  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 52. 21  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 47–8, 52. See Colin E. Gunton, Becoming and Being: The Doctrine of God in Charles Hawthorne and Karl Barth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 177–85; Busch, The Great Passion, 268–72. 16 17

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as a promise to be seized and lived in by us. Just as a light in an otherwise dark space is a light for its own little area and has light for the whole space, so far, that is, as it is a bright open light and so far as there are open eyes in the space to behold it as a light, so is the Gospel.22 Barth is inching toward his formal discourse on the nature of Old and New Testaments at this point while seeking to clarify the reality of God’s time for us beyond the realm of abstraction. Drawing on biblical imagery (2 Corinthians 3), Barth speaks of the two-fold nature of the revelatory event in Jesus Christ—the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem—as both ‘the veiledness of the Word of God in Him and the breaking through of this veil in virtue of His self-unveiling.’23 The veil imagery, at least within this section of the CD, functions for Barth in much the same way as for Paul in 2 Corinthians 3. The era before the event of Christ’s unveiling is the veiled old age of general time or lost time. Jesus Christ assumes this time—our old, lost time—to make it his own time resulting in the removing of the veil. These concepts of old and new time do not exist abstractly or in isolation one from the other. The opposite is actually the case. The new time exists because it has triumphed over the old time, which also still exists. This overlapping of the ages, this transition from the old age ending in the cross and the new age beginning with the resurrection is, for Barth, the time of revelation. Barth continues to pursue his understanding of the time of revelation before he actually turns to the Old Testament properly; however, one can sense at this point the theological underpinnings of Barth’s approach to the material form of Christian Scripture as Old and New Testament, each with their own integrity and integral role as witnesses to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Both Old and New Testament witness to the veiled and unveiled revelation of God in Christ. One testament cannot be had without the other. ‘Again, this is why the Old Testament and the New Testament are so indissolubly linked together. That is why, in both, the revelation of the divine judgment and the revelation of the divine grace are nowhere to be abstracted from each other.’24 It follows quite naturally for Barth to address what he describes as the ‘modern problem of “revelation and history”.’25 The relationship between revelation and history is indeed a problem in modernity and has been addressed in various ways by those on the right (for example Cocceius and von Hoffman) and left (for example

 ������� Barth, CD I.2, 55.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 56. On the dialectical relationship between the veiling and unveiling of the Word, which surely undergirds Barth’s thought here, see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.1, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.W. Bromiley (London: T&T Clark, 1975), 162–86 and Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909–1936 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 423–4, 428–9, 464–5. 24  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 56. 25  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 56. 22

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Kant, Strauss, Bultmann) of the theological spectrum.26 Here, and elsewhere in the CD, Barth is uncomfortable with the ways in which both parties—if such a schematization actually works—address this particular issue. To put it in other terms, though the two parties reach very different conclusions about the relationship between revelation and history, they inhabit the same epistemological starting point and modernist Weltenschauung. It is the historical as received from modernity’s quest for unfettered ‘being-in-itself’ that tends to govern the revelational, rather than revelation shaping our understanding of history.27 For Barth, the central point of this modern problem resides in the misunderstanding of the nature of revelation itself. Firstly, one cannot begin with a general phenomenon of time or history as ‘the text’ by which one observes the phenomenon of revelation.28 Stated another way, and borrowing the illustration Barth adopts, for one to recognize the event of the cross in the New Testament as the passing away of the old eon and the beginning of the new is to recognize God’s revelation—here one notes the distinction between historicity (the event’s facticity) and historicality (the event’s substance). The recognition of the historicality of the cross, however, does not take place in terms of general or observable time or history reductively understood. Moreover, Barth affirms the ‘questionableness and uncertainty of history.’29 Such descriptors cannot be applied to God’s revelation, a revelation neither verified nor detracted from by the modern problems of history-telling. Following closely on the heels of Barth’s first observation is his appeal to a form of confessional circularity. ‘There has been failure to see that the event of Jesus Christ as God’s revelation can be found only when sought as such, that is when we are seeking what we have already found.’30 Barth is consistently A nselmian here in his theological epistemology and is rather lucid at this point concerning the matter at hand.31 It is faith that precedes understanding on this matter, because the object of study determines the approach one takes to the subject. On the surface, this type of approach may seem to ‘grossly contradict all honest investigations of

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 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For a sympathetic reading of the redemptive historical approach of figures such as von Hoffman and Cullman see Robert W. Yarbrough, The Salvation Historical Fallacy? Reassessing the History of New Testament Theology, History of Biblical Interpretation Series (Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2004). 27  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For a historical analysis of this development in Western thought see Thomas Albert Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. de Wette, Jacob Burckhardt, and the Theological Originas of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 28  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 56. 29  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 57. 30  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 57 31  ����������������������������������������������������� On fides quaerens intellectum see McCormack, Barth’s Critically Realistic, 421– 48; Gary Dorrien, The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology Without Weapons (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2000), 99–100; Busch, The Great Passion, 26–8.

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truth.’32 But for Barth, this contradiction is more apparent than real when one takes into account the nature of this particular question—namely, God’s revelation and its relationship to history. In a rather convoluted statement, Barth affirms the non-problematic nature of Holy Scripture’s attestation to God’s revelation in Christ. It is not hidden behind a wall of verifiable, historical truths needing to be propped up a priori so that its genuineness can be accepted. Rather, the real problem is quite the reverse and sits particularly on the noetic effects the old eon has even on its best of representatives such as John the Baptist.33 T his is demonstrated especially in the Baptist’s ability to witness to the passing away of the old eon in his confession of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Jn. 1.29). At the same time, he never fully grasps the genuine coming of the Messiah as demonstrated in the questions John puts to Jesus towards the end of John’s life.34 This noetic tension, typified in the figure of John the Baptist, is the real epistemological problem for Barth, which results in his insistence that we start where the New Testament itself starts. If one does not have this ‘turning point’ or recognition that the entirety of Scripture, both Old and New Testament, speaks about this overlapping of the ages (‘this turning-point of time’) then the possibility of answering the question concerning the relationship between history and revelation is lost. In the coming of the Messiah, the old eon is giving way to the new, and the entirety of Holy Scripture bears witness to this. An ‘honest investigation of the truth’ demands this epistemological starting point witnessed to in the New Testament. To attempt something other results in ‘nothing but abstraction.’35 The momentum is now built for Barth to take his third and final blow at the problem of ‘revelation and history.’ In short, if revelation is revelation and if God is the source of this revelation, then it is always God’s to give and never humanity’s to be ‘dug up’ in the realm of human history.36 Once again, Barth appeals to his analogy of the veil. General human history and time operate as the veil hiding revelation from us. As will be observed in our engagement with Isaiah, the canonical document is actually narrating a different history than the empirical one taking place in Israel’s political and social life. General human history and time is the post-lapsarian time of the Fall; for revelation to take place, the in-breaking of the Word must occur as event. The eventfullness of this event can never be accomplished by our skill or effectiveness as interpreters of general human history. Using Barth’s illustration again, we have no criterion within our skill as appraisers of human history by which to judge the eschatological significance of the cross. Its significance is only to be understood by the unveiling of revelation itself, namely, the resurrection. Pressing the illustration beyond Barth’s use, it is historically  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 57.  ���������������������� Similarly see Calvin, Institutes I. 9.5. 34  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 57. 35  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 57. 36  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 58. 32

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verifiable by modern standards of history telling that Jewish men were crucified in the first century. Without revelation, however, it is impossible by recourse to modern standards of history telling to verify Jesus of Nazareth’s taking away the sins of humanity on the cross resulting in the eschatological new day. For this type of affirmation to be made, revelation must be a constituent and determinative preunderstanding of one’s approach to the question. This necessity of revelation as sense-maker of history leads to Barth’s famous statement, ‘Offenbarung is nicht ein Prädikat der Geschichte, sondern Geschichte ein Prädikat der Offenbarung.’37 Barth displays his deep discomfort with the heirs of von Hoffman and the Erlangen Schule’s approach to Heilsgeschichte (redemptive history). Whether one uses terminology such as ‘redemptive history’ or ‘superhistory’ to describe revelation as the ‘ultimate, deepest content and meaning of history’ matters little to Barth.38 They all fall prey to the problem of predicating revelation on history, and for Barth, this is a gross reversal of theological logic. Barth clarifies his statement with the following: Of course, we can and must speak of revelation first of all in the principle statement, in order subsequently to speak of history by way of explanation. But we may not first of all speak of history in order subsequently or by epithet to speak with force and emphasis about revelation. When the latter happens, we betray the fact that we have gone our own way in interpreting, valuing, absolutising. We have not gone the only possible way, the way of obedience.39

These are indeed strong words from Barth betraying the significance and urgency of the matter at hand. It is the language of subsequence that reveals the dogmatic location and association of revelation and history. Speech about history is subsequent to speech about revelation, for revelation provides the possibility for speech about history. In Barth’s estimation this dogmatic ordering is lost in the history of redemption school associated with von Hoffman and his heirs. An especially pointed illustration of this is Barth’s answer to the following question at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1962: Question: ‘Does your theology give enough weight to history, to God’s work in history and the various manifestations of his redemptive purpose in the historical process? In this connection what do you think of the Heilsgeschichte emphasis in modern theology.’40  �‘Revelation is not a predicate of history, rather history is a predicate of revelation.’ Barth, CD I.2, 58, 64. See Kraus, “Neue Begegnung,” 436. 38  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 58. 39  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 58. 40  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� One can only guess at the source of this question. It certainly represents the critiques of Barth coming from a certain Reformed contingent in the U.S.A., typified in the writings of Cornelius van Til. 37

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Answer: ‘Have I really not given enough weight to history? I think in every one of these lectures which I have given in this place I mentioned the context of God’s word as God’s work. To speak of God’s word as God’s work is to speak of the history, the story, the context of the Biblical message and witness. What more? I don’t think we are invited by the Biblical witness to speak of the general process of world history, but we must think and speak about that very special, very particular history of reconciliation and of revelation. That history was of course in the context of general world history, but the sacredness of that history is in the fact of God’s word becoming flesh. As history of salvation and revelation, it is in one word Heilsgeschichte. The Lord in the flesh, the history of Jesus Christ, together with the foreshadowing promise to Israel and followed by its justification in the Church over against the world—this whole as such can be called Heilsgeschichte. Are we to think of a kind of special history within this history, of a historical process, so to say? Some theologians have thought so. The Dutch theologian Cocceius who was the founder of a big, important school of theology, and also Bengel, thought in terms of events following one another on a line and so this became for them a kind of philosophy of sacred history. I personally cannot follow this way because the history in question is a “history” which not only happened but happens and will happen in all times as the same history. It should not be divided into different steps and phases; it is one history. We are always at one with the prophets of the Old Testament; we are always invited to be witnesses of Christ’s presence in this life; and in history we are always called to live in and with them as secondary witnesses.’41

Barth’s affirmation of Jesus’ place in real time and space is not lost in such a framework. In other words (and borrowing from McCormack) Barth is not ‘anti-historical.’42 Jesus

 ����������������������������������������� Karl Barth, ‘A Theological Dialogue,’ in Theology Today 19 (1962): 174–5.  ����������� McCormack, Barth’s Critically Realistic, 233. McCormack’s use of this phrase is located in his discussion of Barth’s discovery of Overbeck in the period between the publication of Romans I and the re-write of Romans II. McCormack states, ‘Barth was still seeking to find a way to speak of revelation in history, but not of history.’ In this section of the CD, Barth’s mature formulations of the matter are apparent. Equally important in this regard is the work of McCormack’s student, Richard Burnett. Richard Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis, WUNT 2 145 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). Burnett (104) points out that already in the der Römerbrief period Barth uses the term das Unhistorische to describe revelation. Burnett (104) explains, ‘This never meant for Barth that God had not acted in human history, only that historians qua historians could not know this as an act of God apart from revelation.’ Similarly, yet in another context, Barth (CD I.1, 325) makes clear the Bible’s understanding of revelation as always ‘a concrete relation to concrete men.’ In a very telling statement, Barth (326) states: A ll this [the genuinely historical nature of the Bible, e.g., Ancient Egypt and Babylon in the experience of Israel, Cyrenius as governor of Syria, Pontius Pilate’s place in the creed] signifies that when the Bible gives an account of revelation it means to narrate history, i.e., not to tell of a relation between God and man that exists generally in every time and that is 41 42

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really inhabited the time and space of the years 1–30.43 The point being made is: God’s revelation in Jesus Christ witnessed to in Holy Scripture provides the epistemic possibility for recognition of the unique and revelatory events of the years 1–30 and not vice versa. Revelation is grounded in God’s own self-disclosure in the person of Jesus Christ witnessed to in Holy Scripture and not in the pursuit of general human history with all its uncertainty, unverifiability and hubris. God has time for us in Jesus Christ and his time for us is real. Our access to this time, however, is only through the unveiling of his revelation in the veiled time of human existence. Coming full circle and preceding Barth’s specific attention given to the Old T estament per se, Barth rounds off his discussion of ‘our time’ and its relation to ‘fulfilled time.’44 Firstly, fulfilled time takes the place of our ‘non-genuine time’ as ‘proper time.’ There is no philosophical slight of hand here for Barth. God’s time is real time. The fulfilled time of Christ is mediated to us by the witness of the apostles and prophets of Holy Scripture making Christ contemporaneous to us. The coming of the Kingdom and the passing away of this world are presented to us in God’s revelation in Christ as ‘in truth our time.’ Secondly, revelation destroys the concept of our time that we think we know and possess. The thing we think we possess, time, is really not a possession of ours at all. ‘We are quite right to be shocked to death when revelation confronts us; for it is actually the end of our time, and also of everything that is real in our time, and it announces itself as immediately imminent.’45 Thirdly, fulfilled time is genuinely presented to us in Jesus Christ; nevertheless, we are caught in the tension of our possessed time and the consummation of fulfilled time. The Kingdom of God is presented to us as ‘at hand’ or ‘not yet always in process, but to tell of an event that takes place there and only there, then and only then, between God and certain very specific men. I n the small print section to follow Barth (327) acknowledges the genuine hearing of this biblical history as taking place not in the decided hearing of general history but in its, the Bible’s, special history. One observes the two-front battle Barth is waging here. On his left flank, he denies the abstracting of eternal content from its historical vehicle found in the figures of the Enlightenment such as Lessing, Kant, Herder, Fichte and Hegel (CD I.1, 329). While on his right flank, Barth denies the positivistic approach of modernist historytelling, or general history, as the realm in which biblical history resides and is discovered (cf. CD IV.2, 478–9). Especially helpful on this score is the distinction drawn between sui generis historicality and sui generis historicity in Neil B. MacDonald, Karl Barth and the Strange New World Within the Bible: Barth, Wittgenstein, and the Metadilemmas of the Enlightenment, Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000), 107–12. 43  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ ‘To put it quite concretely, the statement, “God reveals Himself” must signify that the fulfilled time is the time of the years 1–30. But it must not signify that the time of the years 1–30 is the fulfilled time. It must signify that revelation becomes history, but not that history becomes revelation.’ Barth, CD I.2, 58. 44  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 66–71. 45  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 67.

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redemption.’46 So there is a ‘parallelism’ between our time and fulfilled time. Or, to use the current language of Pauline studies, we are caught in the tension of the already and the not yet. Interestingly enough, this tension between our time and fulfilled time presented to us in Jesus Christ is for Barth an act of God’s graciousness in which he leaves us time, our time, to repent and believe.47 Fourthly, and finally, Barth emphasizes the limited nature of our time. It is not infinite time. ‘The myth of infinite or endless time is shattered by revelation.’48 The Church is in large measure defined by those who ‘wait’ and ‘hasten’ the coming of the Judge who has already concluded our time. God has time for humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. This time, caught in the tension between our lost time and God’s time, is for us the time of revelation. The revelation of God in Jesus Christ creates the necessary space between this temporal tension as our lost time is overtaken by his time in both the eschatological now and eschatological future. This exposition of our time and its relationship to fulfilled time provides the context for Barth’s formal discussion of the Old Testament as Die Zeit der Erwartung (the time of expectation) or the time ante Christum natum (before Christ’s birth).

The Time of Expectation Barth’s formal discourse on the Old Testament is not without a contextual home. It is embedded within his theological reflection on the time of revelation. This is an important point to observe because it exposes the theological relationship between Barth’s understanding of revelation and his understanding of the material form of Christian Scripture, both Old and New Testaments. It also serves to link Barth’s actual exegetical practices in the CD with his explicit bibliological reflection found especially in CD I.2. Barth’s understanding of the nature of Scripture informs his actual approach to exegesis itself, or what the Bible is, in large measure, determines the ways in which it is to be interpreted.49 For the purposes of this work, it will be important to observe the links between Barth’s bibliological  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 68.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 68. 48  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 69. 49  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� On the significance of the nature of Scripture for Barth’s actual exegesis, see John Webster, “Karl Barth,” in Reading Romans Through the Centuries, ed. Jeffrey P. Greenman and Timothy Larsen (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), 206–7. Webster (205) helpfully cuts through the fray of approaches to Barth’s Scriptural interpretation in der Römerbrief, whether it be an over-theorized approach to his hermeneutics or a reading of the commentary to expose the particular theological position Barth inhabited at the time, by stating rather matter of factly that Barth’s commentary is just that, ‘a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.’ Other approaches to der Römberbrief are legitimate but often executed at the expense of this most obvious fact. 46 47

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reflections on the nature of the Old Testament in CD I.2 and his actual exegesis or reading of certain key passages in Isaiah. Before this, our attention turns to Barth’s theological reflection on the nature and function of the Old Testament as the time of expectation. For Barth, the Old Testament is the sui generis pre-time to the fulfilled time of revelation.50 In this particular history ante Christum natum, Israel resides in the anticipation of the unique fulfillment of revelation in God’s self-disclosure in his Son. Resultantly, this pre-time is differentiated from fulfilled time, while at the same time it is inextricably bound up with the fulfilled time it anticipates. One cannot speak of the fulfilled time of revelation without speaking of its pre-time or ‘the time of expecting revelation.’51 Understood in this way, the Old Testament is, properly speaking, ‘revelation-time’ in that its posture is one of expectation or anticipation. The point Barth stresses is the unique role the Old Testament plays as God’s revelatory vehicle. The Old Testament’s revelatory character is as a voice of expectation, and as expectation ‘revelation is also present to it.’52 Because the Old Testament is a ‘previous’ voice does not mean it is a ‘not yet’ voice in regard to revelation. Whereas the Old Testament is a time of genuine expectation and the New Testament is a time of genuine recollection, they both join in solidarity around a single content, object and thing attested.53 Therefore, the Old Testament as a time of expectation and the New Testament as the time of recollection are not merely ‘future’ and ‘past.’ Rather, as ‘future’ and ‘past’ they are present witnesses to revelation.

Contra Religionsgeschichte The nature of the Old Testament as a genuine witness to the expectation of revelation raises its time above other times as the specifically ante Christum natum. In light of this, the Old Testament’s historical uniqueness, whether the religious or national history of Israel, is ‘another matter’ when specifically dealing with the revelatory character of the Old Testament.54 This is not to deny the unique character of Israel’s religious history. For this uniqueness is indeed the case, as may be said for the religious history of the Babylonians, Persians or even the Germans. Reverting back to the notion of the inability to predicate revelation with  ����������������������������������������������������������������������� I am gratefully borrowing Neil MacDonald’s descriptor here. MacDonald, Barth and the Strange New World. 51  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 70. 52  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 70. 53  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 70. 54  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 71 See also Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, Volume Three, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 219. 50

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history, one senses Barth’s discomfort with aligning revelation with the history of Israel or the piety of Israel. What makes the Old Testament a unique witness to revelation is not its unique history, rather, its sui generis quality is located in the fact that this particular corpus is anticipating something greater than the sum of its stories can tell. Using apocalyptic imagery, Barth states, ‘Revelation in the Old Testament is really the expectation of revelation or expected revelation. Revelation itself takes place from beyond the peculiar context and content of the Old Testament. It breaks into the peculiar context and content of the Old Testament from an exalted height which has not the slightest connexion with a peak point in the history of early oriental religion or the like.’55 The latter part of this statement reveals the front on which Barth is fighting. If one does not take into account the uniqueness of the revelatory role the Old Testament plays, namely, a uniqueness that breaks in on it extra nos, then one is consigned to the study of Ancient Near Eastern history or religion, not the Old Testament of the Christian church. And, if this is the approach one takes without taking into account this annexing of revelation with the material witness itself, it would be best not to use the language of revelation at all when dealing with this corpus. Only from the side of revelation, specifically the singular authority of Jesus Christ, can the Old Testament’s witness to revelation be asserted and affirmed. T he religionsgeschichtliche Schule was in full bloom at the time of Barth’s theological reflection on the nature and role of the Old Testament in CD I. During Barth’s student days at the University of Berlin his fondness for Gunkel came second only to Harnack. Barth attended Gunkel’s lectures on Old Testament theology, stating, ‘It was thanks to Gunkel that it first began to dawn on me that the Old Testament might be a real option.’56 Barth was thoroughly trained in the history of religions school having sat under one of its chief proponents. The school for the history of religions was interested in drawing analogical relations between the religious life of ancient Israel and/or the early church with the surrounding religions of their neighboring cultures (Gunkel’s primary interest was related to Israel’s oral history form-critically understood). This project helped to confirm historically their own faith as a faith rooted in a commonly held religiosity amidst a general anthropology.57 It could be safely argued that this approach to the Old Testament dominated the landscape during the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Key figures such as Wilhelm M.L. de Wette, at the beginning of the 19th century, and Herman Gunkel, at the beginning of the 20th century, loomed large. Barth recognized the difficulties spawned by the newer approaches to Old Testament research. Old Testament scholars had availed themselves of the ‘host of textual, literary, historical and in particular religio-historical problems’ resulting in  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 71.  ���������������� Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 39. 57  ������������������������������������� ‘Religionsgeschichtliche Schule,’ in DBI I:385. For example, W. Bousset’s Kyrios Christos. 55

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exegesis ‘more fluid, varied, and concrete and much more conservative than those of all the Early Church.’58 These approaches to the Old Testament, though positive from one angle, held captive Christian Old Testament scholars whose approach to the material of the Old Testament, according to Barth, should in large measure be commensurate with the nature of the texts themselves. ‘Research in the Old Testament texts from the theological standpoint appropriate to these very texts has not remotely kept pace with the multiplication, so promising in itself, of material serviceable to such research, material, linguistic, literary and historical.’59 In other words, theological exegesis of the Old Testament rooted in the church’s confession about the nature of this corpus was keeping at a snail’s pace alongside other approaches vastly more enticing at the time (despite the efforts of Hengstenberg, von Hofmann and Delitzsch to the contrary). Barth, rejecting both Harnack’s call to remove the canonical status of the Old Testament and the history of religions school’s reduction of the Old Testament to the piety of the Ancient Near East, held firm his ground on the central role revelation plays for a theological understanding of the Old Testament. ‘However brilliantly and happily conceived, the “history of Israelite religion” is not the “biblical theology of the Old Testament”.’60 Even so, Barth quickly followed this statement with a negative appraisal of the results of the history of religions school, whose aim was to prove that the piety of the Old Testament adumbrated the piety of the New Testament. According to Barth, this adumbration, or historical homogeneity between religions, had not been proven at all by the history of religions school and the attempts at proving it had been feeble. Barth found this project methodologically specious, and believed the theological program of Schleiermacher lurked behind the impetus to make connections between the piety of ‘Judaism’ and Christianity. The highlighting of Schleiermacher’s low view of the Old Testament is no novum. For Schleiermacher, the Old Testament’s real significance, which might be tolerable at best, is in its relation to ‘Judaism.’ The historical significance of the connection between ‘Judaism’ (note: not the Old Testament) and Christianity is primarily related to the fact that Jesus was born of the Jews.61 Even here, however, the matter should not be pressed too hard, for the Judaism of Jesus’ day was an amalgamation of disparate ‘non-Jewish’ elements picked up especially in the Babylonian exile. Therefore, Christianity’s relationship to Judaism and Heathenism are about the same. The leap to Christianity from the latter may be  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 78.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 78–79. 60  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 79. 61  �������������������������� Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, trans. H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 60. See Barth’s reaction to §12 of Schleiermacher’s The Christian Faith in Karl Barth, The Theology of Schleiermacher: Lectures at Göttingen, Winter Semester 1923/23, ed. Dietrich Ritschl, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 239–40. 58

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greater than the former because of the former’s monotheistic claims; nevertheless, a leap is involved in both.62 Regarding matters of doctrine, the Old Testament has no claim on Schleiermacher’s project except for the matters clearly attested in the New Testament. All propositions claiming doctrinal status are rooted firstly in Evangelical confessions and secondly in the New Testament Scriptures.63 T he appeal to the former involves an implicit appeal to the latter because Protestant confessions are rooted in Scripture. The point, however, is to highlight Schleiermacher’s insistence that ‘Our proposition mentions only the New Testament Scriptures, not the Bible in general.’64 Because of the priority of the New Testament over against the Old Testament, Schleiermacher can conclude the following: ‘Hence the Old Testament appears simply a superfluous authority for Dogmatics.’65 Whatever one makes of Schleiermacher’s claims regarding the canonical role of the Old Testament, his appeal to the religion of the day, Judaism, over against the canonical role of the Old Testament Scriptures is obvious. The history of religions school coalesces with the impulses found in Schleiermacher. It is the history of Israel’s religion or the Judaism of the day, pure or impure in its form, that is the controlling factor in Christian dogmatics and Old Testament exegesis. It is this fundamental misstep regarding the nature of the material itself which draws Barth’s strong reaction against the religionsgeschicthliche Schule, whether in the exegesis of Gunkel or the dogmatics of Schleiermacher. The ‘point of contact’, if such language can be used responsibly, between the Old Testament and the New Testament is not ‘Judaism’ or ‘Christianity’, for that matter. It is neither Old Testament nor New Testament piety. Rather, ‘the whole concern is Jesus Christ as the object of the Old Testament and the New Testament witness.’66 T he essential connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament is the revelation of Jesus Christ. The history of religions school and its progenitors from the last 200 years of Old Testament scholarship have left the proclamation of the Church and its dogmatics in a perilous state. Barth affirms some of the ‘scientific’ results of New Testament scholarship but is condemnatory of the New Testament’s sister  ���������������� Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 61.  ���������������� Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 112. 64  ���������������� Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 115. 65  ���������������� Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 115 Schleiermacher’s doctrinal propositions §130–31 affirm the inspiration and sufficiency of the New Testament Scriptures for Christian doctrine. Following on the heals of this affirmation is proposition §132: ‘Postscript to this Doctrine.–The Old Testament Scriptures owe their place in our Bible partly to the appeals the New Testament Scriptures make to them, partly to the historical connexion of Christian worship with the Jewish Synagogue; but the Old Testament Scriptures do not on that account share the normative dignity or the inspiration of the New.’ Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 608. 66  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 79. 62

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discipline. Old Testament scholarship has left the church to her own way, and Barth laments this. ‘The unconcern with which the layman must proceed is the parlous result of the unconcern shown by Old Testament experts for the last 200 years or so to their main theological task.’67 A poignant example of this is seen in the following confession from Wellhausen: Only gradually did I come to understand that a professor of theology also has the practical task of preparing the students for service in the Protestant Church, and that I am not adequate to this practical task, but that instead despite all caution on my own part I make hearers unfit for their office. Since then my theological professorship has been weighing heavily on my conscience.68

Barth happily refers to several who have not imbibed the intellectual culture of the history of religions school such as Eichrodt and Vischer.69 Still, Old Testament scholarship and its potential for service in the church was tenuous at best, whereas the religionsgeschichtliche Schule was at the center of the map. For Barth, the nature and role of the Old Testament as expectation of revelation—and specifically revelation as expectation—can only be confirmed in itself because it confirms itself. Any explanations of this fact are an a posteriori explanation grounded in the self-manifestation of Jesus Christ and the witness to him in the New Testament. In other words, and in contradistinction from the evidentialist appeal to bruta facta, the historicist appeal to proximity to historical reality or even Vischer’s quasi-apologetic project, the recognition of the Old Testament as an expecting voice follows one’s confession of Jesus Christ as God’s revelatory Word and can only be confirmed by the sole authoritative witness to him, Holy Scripture. Resultantly, Barth turns firstly to the New Testament and secondly to the history of interpretation.

The New Testament’s Witness to the Old Testament’s Expectation of Jesus Christ Barth’s appeal to the New Testament understanding of the Old Testament’s anticipation of Jesus Christ has this fundamental axiom under girding his reading: The New Testament does not appeal to the Old Testament alongside other aspects of the proclamation, doctrine or narratives concerning Jesus. In fact, ‘it is taken for granted as their universal and uniform presupposition.’70 The history of religions school was operative in New Testament studies as well with key figures such  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 79.  ��������������������������� Quoted in Jon D. Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 97. 69  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 79. 70  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 72. 67

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as Diesmann and Bousett, for example, placing Paul in the midst of Hellenistic mystery religion or cults as an explanation for Paul’s new-found religion.71 Though in time the history of religions school was challenged by figures such as Schweizer, most of the Pauline approaches rooted Paul’s ‘religion’ in his particular historical context without giving necessary attention to the ways in which Israel’s Scripture informed and constrained Paul’s theologizing. On the other hand, and anticipating a very interesting enterprise in New Testament scholarship today, Barth recognized the New Testament writers as a solitary witness to the central role that the Old Testament’s canonical voice played for their theological reflection regarding God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.72 It was neither the Judaism of the day (or its antecedents) nor was it the Hellenistic context that provided the primary substructure of the New Testament’s theological reflection. Though both of these ‘background’ questions may provide helpful ‘background’ material, they are not the substantial clarifying voice or the hermeneutical key to unlocking the New Testament. It was and is the Scriptures of Israel.73 As one would expect from Barth, he turns to the Scriptures to confirm his case. He refers to the more obvious examples where the Old Testament’s promisory voice is heard, for example Matthew, James, and particularly, Hebrews. But even the ‘Greek’ gospel of John is littered with appeals and allusions to the Old Testament, alongside ‘Marcion’s favourite writer’—a not so subtle jab from Barth—Luke. Lastly, Barth turns to the Hellenistic Jew Paul.74 All to say, the entirety of the New Testament, whether the writers are rooted in ‘Judaism’ or ‘Hellenism’ or a combination of the two, witnesses to the anticipatory role of the Old Testament’s canonical voice. On this score, the New Testament writers are 71

 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� The taxonomy of Herman Ridderbos, though dated, is particularly helpful on this matter. Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. John Richard De Witt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975). See also, William Baird, History of New Testament Research Volume Two: From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). 72  ������������������������������� See, for example Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004). 73  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘But the New Testament writers are utterly unanimous in seeing, not in Judaism— not one of them was concerned with that—but in the history of Israel attested in the Old Testament Canon the connecting point for their proclamation, doctrine and narrative of Christ; and vice versa, in seeing in their proclamation, doctrine and narrative the truth of the history of Israel, the fulfilment of the Holy Scripture read in the synagogue.’ Barth, CD I.2, 72. From a biblical theological standpoint, which differs somewhat from an appeal to the ways in which the New Testament reads the Old Testament, Christopher Seitz makes a similar claim: ‘It is precisely here—reading the Old in light of the New and the New in light of the Old—that combustion takes place and fresh theological hearing, in a modern context under the influence of the Holy Spirit, occurs.’ Christopher R. Seitz, Word with End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 105. 74  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Whether or not this is a fairly accurate description of Paul is beside the point here.

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in complete solidarity. Barth transitions from the New Testament witness to the history of interpretation as he engages four representative figures of the Church’s tradition of Old Testament valuation.

Four Representative Figures Though Marcion in the 2nd century and Socinius in the 16th century opposed the Old Testament, the whole of the church from the 2nd century to the Reformation understood these positions to be heretical and counterintuitive to Christian faith. The move within the Aufklärung toward a revivification, mutatis mutandis, of Marcion’s understanding of the Old Testament is outside the purview of the church, according to Barth. Having established the New Testament case, which is primary for Barth, he turns secondly to key figures within the history of interpretation to substantiate further his claim. These figures are Irenaeus, Augustine, Calvin and Luther.75 Irenaeus As one of the most ‘outspoken representatives’ of the fundamental unity of the Old and New Testaments as the revelation of Jesus Christ, Irenaeus stands as a very early witness to this catholic claim of the church. Barth refers solely to Book IV of Adversus Haereses in a single paragraph of reflection. In actuality, Barth allows Irenaeus to do the talking himself. The basic point elicited from Irenaeus’ work is, despite the novitas (newness) of the incarnation and the particularity of this event as the muneratio gratiae (gift of grace), the Old Testament fathers recognized and anticipated the coming of Christ. In their doing so, they revelationem acceperunt ab ipso Filio.76 The Old Testament fathers were the recipients of the same forgiveness of sins as those who bore a closer proximity historically to Jesus.77 According to Irenaeus, Jesus Christ did not come only for those in the time of ‘Tiberius Caeser.’78 Rather, both those who sowed—the Old Testament fathers—and those who reaped—those within the New Testament and early church—simul gaudeat in Christi regno.79 They are all recipients of the same Word of God. One can observe the theological and conceptual overlap between Irenaeus and Barth.80 The Old Testament, though  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 74–78.   ‘They received the revelation by the Son himself.’ Adversus Haereses, Book IV: 7, 2. 77   Adversus Haeresus, Book IV: 27, 2. 78   Adversus Haeresus, Book IV: 22, 2. 79  �‘At the same time they rejoiced in the kingdom of Christ.’ Adversus Haeresus, Book IV: 25, 3. 80  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� It should be noted that Irenaeus’ appeal to the Old Testament is in some sense a progenitor of the redemptive historical approach to interpretation because it is not the texts themselves that are primarily the means of revelation but the actual historical 75 76

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in an expecting and anticipating posture, is a genuine expectation of the revelation of Jesus Christ. As recipients of the revelation of Jesus Christ post Christum natum, it is a legitimate enterprise to retroject this understanding into the Old Testament. This can and should be done as long as one does not flatten out its unique canonical position as a voice of expectation.81 Augustine Secondly, Augustine stands as one who testifies to the substantial and subjective overlap between Old and New Testaments. ‘The Israelite res publica was a prophetatio et praenuntiato of the City of God to be gathered out of all nations (De civ. Dei, X, 32).’82 Like a child’s hand may come forth first from the mother’s womb before the entire body appears, so too does Israel appear as a forerunner of the fullness of the kingdom manifest in Christ. Even in the state of prophetatio et praenuntiato (prophecy and foretelling) Israel was not devoid of grace, though it was veiled and hidden, and this grace ‘was not outside the fides Christi (Enchir. 118).’83 events. This reveals in some sense Irenaeus’ ‘pre-critical’ assurance of the one-to-one correspondence between narrated event or person and the event or person in themselves. There is no tension for Irenaeus between the historical event and its textual mediation. Again, see Neil B. MacDonald, “Illocutionary Stance in Hans Frei’s The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: An Exercise in Conceptual Redescription and Normative Analysis,” in After Pentecost: Language & Biblical Interpretation; Scripture & Hermeneutics Series Vol 2, ed. Bartholomew Craig, Colin Greene, and Karl Möller (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 312–28. One should observe, however, Barth’s use of this type of language: ‘... in the history of Israel attested in the Old Testament Canon ...’ Barth, CD I.2, 72. The Canon of Scripture is the vehicle for divine revelation and its take on the events and figures of Israel’s history mediates to us their narrative significance. While one may argue for a level of correspondence between narrated event and historical event, they are not identical and the former is canonical. 81  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� There is a renewed interest in Patristic Exegesis via figures such as Irenaeus today. See, for example, James L. Kugel and Rowan A. Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, Library of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 171–6; Manlio Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis, trans. John A. Hughes (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 21–4; John J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 2005); von Campenhausen, Formation of the Christian Bible, 62–102; Brevard S. Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 45–55; Robert Louis Wilkin, “Cyril of Alexandria as Interpreter of the Old Testament,” in The Theology of St Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy and Daniel A. Keating (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 1–21. On the role of the regula fidei and its significance for Christian interpretation of the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament, see Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology, 30–33. 82  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 75. 83  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 75.

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Ecclesiological language, for Augustine, is applied to figures such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses. The church bore such figures in the ante Christum natum, and ‘it also bore post adventum Domini the apostles and the martyrs and all good Christians (De bapt. I 16).’84 ‘And the relation between the Old Testament and the New Testament was such that the Old Testament is the occultatio novi [concealement of the new], the New Testament the veteris revelatio [revelation of the old] (De cat. rud. 4). Or in veteri novum latet, in novo vetus patet (ib. 5).’85 What one observes with Augustine is the perception of a fundamental unity of the Old and New Testaments in relation to its subject matter. To reiterate a point already made, the Old Testament and the New Testament both have unique places within the economy of God. In other words, it is a poor theological move to flatten out the Old Testament’s particular role as a promissory voice of expectation.86 There was grace before Christ, but it was veiled and hidden. At the same time, the veiled and hidden grace of the Old Testament was the grace of Christ. Calvin Barth takes a sizeable historical leap from Augustine to Calvin as he rehearses Calvin’s emphasis in expressed language what the church fathers took for granted.87 Barth’s basic approach to Calvin in this small section is to quote various  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 75.  �‘The new is latent in the old, the old is unveiled in the new.’ Barth, CD I.2, 75. On this theme see especially Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis Volume I: The Fourfold Senses of Scripture, trans. Mark Sebanc (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 237–45. 86  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Whether or not Augustine had a tendency to flatten the Old Testament’s promissory role is another question. Even here, however, this does not get at the different notion of ‘meaning’ operating for one like Augustine. Where the hegemony of historical-criticism reigns, its governing ideas will limit Augustine’s approach to the literal sense while keeping his figural capacity at bay. This does not mean all of Augustine’s figural or literal readings will be found salient today. Nevertheless, the fundamental approach to the text and its role as Christian Scripture found in a figure such as Augustine is still quite at odds with modern conflation of the sensus literalis and the sensus historicus. Though aspects of Frei’s project can be challenged (for example the relationship between story and their ability to witness beyond themselves), modern biblical scholars still have much to learn from Frei. Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974). See K.E. Greene-McCreight, Ad L itteram: How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the “Plain Sense” of Genesis 1–3, Issues in Systematic Theology 5 (New York: Peter Lang, 1999); O’Keefe and Reno, Sanctified Vision, 7–10; Greene-McCreight, Ad Litteram; Frances Young, “Augustine’s Hermeneutic and Postmodern Criticism,” Interpretation 58 (2004): 42–55. 87  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� On the continuity between Calvin and medieval biblical interpretation see Richard A. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation: The View from the Middle Ages,” in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation, ed. Richard A. Muller 84

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key phrases from his Institutes II, chapters 9–11. Calvin’s understanding of the unity of the Old and New Testaments can be summarized as follows: the Old and New Testament are two sides of a right angle centering on one subject matter and one covenant relation between God and his people. The Old Testament is promise, while the New Testament is fulfillment. The covenant God made with Israel, now manifest to the church in Christ, is one with a fundamental unitas.88 This is not to deny discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. ‘[T]he promise in the Old Testament has sensible, figurative, legal, literal, particular form, which later falls away in the New Testament (II, 1–12).’89 This difference amounts to a difference in administratio not substantia.90 T he movement of God in his election of Israel had a centrifugal motion to it and was, at the same time, a movement of grace.91 ‘They had but a slight taste of it; we can more richly enjoy it.’92 Therefore, the Heidelberg Catechism Qu. 19 reflects the substantial overlap between Irenaeus, Augustine, and the Reformed Tradition: ‘the Holy Gospel which God Himself revealed at the beginning in Paradise, next and John L. Thompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 8. Muller advances the idea of Calvin’s inhabitance in the trajectory set by medieval biblical interpretation over against the overly emphasized notion of Calvin as a progenitor of ‘critical exegesis.’ ‘Although often dismissed by modern exegetes as a form of excessive allegorism when understood in terms of its logic and its intentions rather than in terms of its abuses, the fourfold exegesis is not entirely discontinuous with the logic and the intentions of Reformation-era biblical interpretation.’ Hans Frei has stressed a similar idea when he highlights the organic relationship between the literal sense and its figural capacity in Calvin. Frei, Eclipse, 18–37. Though Calvin vocally detested the fanciful and arbitrary exegesis of medieval exegetes, he was in practice fully involved in figural interpretation of Old Testament texts. Again, this follows from Calvin’s understanding of the nature of Scripture and its ultimate subject matter. Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah as Christian Scripture, 214. 88  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� On this particular issue and much more related to the question of Calvin as interpreter of history and texts see Stephen Edmondson, “Christ and History: Hermeneutical Convergence in Calvin and Its Challenge to Biblical Theology,” Modern Theology 21, no. 1 (2005): 3–35. Of course mention should be made of T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Louisville: Westminster /John Knox Press, 1986). 89  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 76 On further differences between the Old and New Testaments see David L. Puckett, John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament, Columbia Series in Reformed Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 40–43. 90  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘Let us, therefore, boldly establish a principle unassailable by any stratagems of the devil: the Old Testament or Covenant that the Lord had made with the Israelites had not been limited to earthly things, but contained a promise of spiritual and eternal life. The expectation of this must have been impressed upon the hearts of all who truly consented to the covenant.’ Institutes II, 10: 23. 91  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� On Calvin’s understanding of Israel’s eternal election, see Hans-Joachim Kraus, “The Contemporary Relevance of Calvin’s Theology,” in Toward the Future of Reformed Theology: Tasks, Topics, Traditions, ed. David Willis and Michael Welker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 327–31. 92   Institutes, II, 9: 1.

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preached by the holy patriarchs and prophets and continued by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the Law, but finally fulfilled by His beloved Son.’ In the current administration of God’s covenant of grace, our understanding and taste of the grace of God may be fuller than the fathers and prophets of the Old Testament. The grace shared between us differs only in degree of experience and understanding but not in kind.93 This particular understanding of the Old Testament and its relation to the covenant of grace instructs Calvin in his approach to Old Testament exegesis itself. Resultantly, the Old Testament text is both fixed within its historical particularity and concurrently has the potential to speak a promissory voice beyond this fixity.94 Barth’s collocation, the time of expectation, resides in the center of the Church Fathers’ and the Reformed Tradition’s emphasis on the Old Testament as an anticipating witness to the One coming.95 Luther Barth spends very little time with Calvin in this small print section. This is probably due to the fact that Calvin’s high view of the Old Testament is a secured reality without much need for argumentation. Luther, on the other hand, with his supposed Law/Gospel hermeneutic, does in fact pose a problem, or at least provides fodder for potential misunderstanding. Therefore, Barth gives a significant amount of attention to Luther, allowing Luther himself to clarify matters.96  ������������� See Puckett, Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament, 37–44.  ���������������������������������� On Calvin’s use of synecdoche and complexus in his approach to O ld T estament prophecy with special attention given to promise and fulfillment in Calvin’s exegesis see Richard A. Muller, “The Hermeneutic of Promise and Fulfillment in Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament Prophecies of the Kingdom,” in The Bible in the Sixteenth Century, ed. David C. Steinmetz (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 68–82. 95  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Because of this understanding of the Old Testament as a witness to the coming Incarnate One, Calvin’s understanding of the literal sense of the text and its figural capacity are actually joined together in a plain sense reading. Calvin is careful not to read Christ unnaturally into the Old Testament as his famous reading of Gen 3.15 attests. Nevertheless, Christ is the ‘scope of Scripture’ and to understand the Old Testament on the level of promise and fulfillment is not an alien imposition on the text but a reading grounded in the subject matter of Scripture. Hans-Joachim Kraus, “Calvin’s Exegetical Principles,” Interpretation 31 (1977): 17–18. Or as Richard Burnett has stated, ‘Calvin was not a literalist.’ Richard Burnett, “John Calvin and the Sensus Literalis,” Scottish Journal of Theology 57, no. 1 (2004): 12. 96  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Bornkamm states, ‘If one could divide Luther’s professorship of the Bible, in his time united, into two fields as now done, one would have to call Luther a professor of Old Testament rather than of New Testament exegesis.’ Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament, trans. Eric W. Gritsch, Ruth C. Gritsch (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 7. On Luther’s Old Testament exegesis and Trinitarian faith and how the two informed one another see, Christine Helmer, “Luther’s Trinitarian Hermeneutic and the Old Testament,” Modern Theology 18, no. 1 (2002): 49–73. 93

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Barth quotes a long portion from Luther’s commentary on Romans—in particular, Rom 13.11ff. ‘[F]or now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed’ (Rom 13.11). For Luther, the reference to ‘first belief’ should be associated with the faith of Abraham and the prophets of the Old Testament. The promise made to Abraham and the Old Testament fathers is now fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In a very important turn of phrase, Luther, as quoted by Barth, states, ‘But thereby is faith not done away but rather established, for like as they believed beforehand in the promise of God, that it would be fulfilled, so we believe in the same promise, that it is fulfilled now, as promise and fulfillment follow each other.’97 In other words, the faith of the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets is not differentiated in substance from the faith of the New Testament.98 Brevard Childs has highlighted the hermeneutical shift that took place for Luther in his understanding of law and gospel. Whereas in Luther’s early exegesis he may have followed the Christian tradition’s simple association of the law with the Old Testament and the gospel with the New, later a transition took place resulting in the law/gospel contrast as an overarching hermeneutic for both testaments. As a result, he finds gospel in the Old Testament—Abraham’s faith—and law in the New Testament.99 Though Luther’s hermeneutical schema is capable and probably deserving of critique, Barth does not do so in this instance because Luther’s hermeneutic is not the primary issue. What is of central importance is Luther’s— and Lutheran orthodoxy’s—solidarity with the Reformed tradition in his insistence regarding one faith, one way of salvation, one promise, and the revelation of Christ proclaimed in the Old Testament.100 Surely matters of dispute arose between the Reformed and Lutheran traditions, especially with regard to the analogy drawn in the Reformed tradition between the Old Testament’s external and visible signs of representation and the New Testament sacrament.101 These are no small issues; nevertheless, Barth has different theological concerns in this section. ‘To a more than formal difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament (say in the contrast between them from the standpoint of Law and Gospel), no one within the sphere of early Protestantism ever actually gave serious thought.’102 Luther rounds off Barth’s appeal to the doctors of the church. One does not find Barth critically analytical at this point in the discussion. Rather, he appeals  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 76.  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ‘For, as he [Luther] never tired of pointing out in his commentaries on the Old Testament, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the covenant, was the RedeemerGod of the New Testament.’ Jaroslav Pelikan, Luther the Expositor: Introduction to the Reformer’s Exegetical Writings (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), 57. 99  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah as Christian Scripture, 189–90 See also Jans Zimmerman, Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press, 2004), 47–77. 100  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 79. 101  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 78. 102  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 78. 97

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to a litany of voices which form a unified chorus singing the same song. The Old Testament is Christian Scripture. Though it is the time ante Christum natum, it is still the time before Christ. And in our privileged position as heirs of a twofold canon, we know more fully their anticipation, though veiled and hidden, was precisely an anticipation of Jesus Christ. Their faith in God’s future eschatological deliverance was a faith, again, though veiled and hidden, in Jesus Christ. This is the New Testament’s, the Early Church’s, the Reformation’s and Barth’s confessional approach to the nature of the Old Testament. Admittedly, differences in interpretation abound with various interpreter’s approach to the texts at hand— Luther and Calvin’s approach to Gen. 3.15 for example. These differences in interpretation, however, are embedded within a confession of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture and the viva vox Dei. To borrow the language of Childs, this is the ‘family resemblance’ holding the various Christian traditions together.103 Three Lines of Unity Between the Old and New Testament Having called on various witnesses in the classical tradition who understand the Old Testament as a witness of expectation, Barth turns to positive theological formulation. He does so by naming and expounding three lines of unity between the Old Testament and the New Testament regarding their roles as witnesses to revelation. Our attention is now given to these ‘three lines.’ The Free, Once-For-All, Concrete Action of God: The Covenant Both Old and New Testament witness to the free, once-for-all, concrete action of God in his revelation to humankind. Barth is quick to insist what this confession does not entail. It is not an object or idea to be pursued outside revelation; neither is it an appeal to natural theology where the givenness of God is observed in the spatio-temporal world, nor in transcendental truths known once for all. In these negative statements Barth takes aim at approaches to revelation grounded in various philosophical abstractions (for example Aquinas and Kant). At the same time, the cross-hairs fall on the religious-historical approach which would root revelation in Israel’s national experience or in select individuals. In Barth’s language, ‘God’s presence is not bound up with the national existence, unity and peculiarity of the people Israel, nor yet with the individuality of this or that religious person.’104 Abstract philosophical or speculative religious-historical approaches all impugn the freedom and sovereignty of God in his self-revelation. Yes, God does at various times reveal himself to Israel as well as to certain religious individuals. But God’s revelation is a self-disclosure occurring at various concrete moments at the good pleasure and will of God. God’s self-disclosure is ‘a

 ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah as Christian Scripture, 299.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 80.

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self-relation of the one, only God out of his own untrammelled [unbeschränkter] initiative in the sheer Now of His decision [Entscheidung].’105 This free-act of self-disclosure occurring in the now of the divine decision is, for Barth, the berith, or the covenant.106 On the front end of Barth’s discussion of the covenant is his identification of the covenant of the Old Testament with the unique event in Israel’s history. In this canonically ordered history, God calls Israel out of Egypt, elects her as God’s nation and seals the covenant with the ‘oncefor-all covenant sacrifice at Sinai.’107 Barth emphasizes God’s election of Israel as occurring when she did not exist as a nation. God’s covenant movement toward Israel constituted her as a nation. As such, Israel is first of all qahal (assembly) and edah (congregation) before she is a nation. In other words, Israel’s national status was never an independent one—its national status was determined and effected by God’s calling of her by his covenant graces.108 Barth describes God’s covenant with humanity, as particularized in God’s covenant dealings with Israel, as unilateral. It is God’s one-sided movement toward and arresting of humanity. Even the Torah with all of its prescriptions should not be understood as an instrument in the hand of humanity by which they can ‘get control of God and dispose of his goodness and succour.’109 Rather, the Torah is a divine instrument of compassion achieving existentially ‘the liberating “thou art mine” upon man.’110 This can lead to Barth’s following characterization: ‘As law, the covenant is grace, exactly as qua grace it is law.’111 Resultantly, all of Israel’s obedience to the Torah and the cultic requirements there-within are no incident. It is, in fact, nothing more than Israel living out the covenant reality that God has chosen them as his own. In this covenant God freely and graciously punishes and forgives sin. Israel’s obedience to Torah is Israel’s manifestation of God’s prior claim on her. Moreover, the covenant establishes the context for Israel’s obedience and faithfulness to God and not vice versa. T his is the theological priority for Barth as witnessed to in Israel’s Scripture and is why grace precedes law even in the Old Testament’s own discrete voice.112

 ������� Barth, CD I.2, 80.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 81. 107  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 80–81. 108  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� A close reading of Eichrodt’s theology will possibly reveal Barth’s heavy reliance on Eichrodt for his own formulations about God’s covenant with Israel in this section. See especially Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament I, trans. J.A. Baker (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 40–41. As will be shown, Barth theological approach to the covenant differs from Eichrodt. 109  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 81. 110  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 81. 111  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 81. 112  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� This is self-conscious borrowing of Childs’ ‘discrete witness’ language. Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology. 105 106

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Barth adjudicates the particularity and universality of God’s covenant by his recourse to the title of this section: the time of expectation. The Old Testament covenant with Israel is revelatory because of its anticipation of Jesus Christ. As God’s covenant with Israel is concrete and free in Israel’s particular history, so too does Jesus Christ become history in all of his particularity. As the telos of God’s particular covenant with Israel, it is quite proper from a retrospective stance to understand Jesus as the ‘content and theme of this prehistory, of the Old Testament covenant.’113 As will be observed in certain sections of Barth’s Old Testament exegesis, the Old Testament’s own unfulfilled status creates the space for a christological reading which makes sense of the whole. Barth does not flatten out the Old Testament by finding Christ preexistent in various proof texts. His sensibilities do not lean this way as he differs from Vischer precisely at this point. Rather, the major themes and movements of the Old Testament’s own complex and idiom both anticipate the coming Christ and leave room in its unfulfilled status for such a reading. But what is precisely meant by the appeal to covenant in the Old Testament? Barth outlines the complexity of the situation by showing the polyvalence of the term in the Old Testament canon. Does one appeal to the covenant with Noah or Abraham, Sinai or the priestly tribe of Levi, David or the future covenant attested in the prophets (for example Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah) as the covenant by which all others are measured? From one angle, the answer to this complex issue is ‘all of them.’ In the particularity of their institution, they all witness to the covenant. The flip side answer to the selfsame question is, ‘none of them.’ None of these covenants in and of themselves are the standard measurement of the others, nor do they witness to the totality of God’s covenant with Israel or humanity. Barth states, ‘Or rather the covenant seems to lie without any of these forms; it seems in each of them to be a promise, and so and only so to be present in each of these forms.’114 T his lends itself quite nicely to Barth’s understanding of all of these particular covenants in the Old Testament as in some incomplete measure witnessing to and expecting ‘the revelation of Jesus Christ as the covenant between God and man.’115 Here Barth distances himself from most biblical scholars in his approach to the question of covenant in the Old Testament. Even Eichrodt, whose entire Old Testament theology builds on the covenant as the Mitte of the Old Testament, understands God’s covenant with Israel at Sinai as the fundamental covenantal concept which reveals the historical causation for the other covenant concepts in Israel’s history.116 Eichrodt’s etiological move is fully enmeshed in the historical ������� Barth, CD I.2, 82.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 82. 115  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 82. 116  ���������� Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament I, 36–69 See also D.G. Spriggs, Two Old Testament Theologies: A Comparative Evaluation of the Contributions of Eichrodt and von Rad to Our Understanding of the Nature of Old Testament Theology, Studies in Biblical Theology (London: SCM Press, 1974), 12–17. 113

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critical nexus of source, cause and effect, even though, and despite, Eichrodt’s following claim: ‘It is high time that the tyranny of historicism in OT studies was broken and the proper approach to our task rediscovered.’117 Eichrodt did seek to take seriously the literature of the Old Testament itself and its relationship with the New Testament. At the same time, he protects himself from making what Jon Levenson deems to be the unpardonable sin of the historical-critical project, namely, anachronism.118 For Eichrodt, the covenant concept is rooted in Israel’s history alone and this is prior to any discussion of covenant from a biblical theological perspective. Eichrodt believed his confessional claims about the synchronic unity of the two testaments situated itself comfortably with the diachronic conclusions of his Old Testament scholarship without taking into account multiple-senses or, in Hans Frei’s terminology, the figural witness of the Old Testament. Barth, on the other hand, worked his idea of covenant from fulfillment to promise. Jesus Christ stands as the central defining reality of the covenant between God and humanity. Now, one must take care not to charge Barth with flattening out the Old Testament witness as nothing other than an arrow shot to Jesus. Barth respects the covenant concept of the Old Testament as particular and anticipatory. In its anticipatory function it witnesses to the fullness of God’s covenant with humanity in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, the theological concept of covenant for Barth is not conceived along a historically developmental plot-line but functions from a christological center and is then moved outward. Apart from this formal theological description is a more direct figural relationship between the Old Testament covenants and Jesus. Throughout the entirety of Israel’s covenantal history there are human ‘instruments’ who act as God’s mediators of the covenant between God and humanity. One observes the actions and identity of Moses as a mediator of the covenant, or Abraham as ‘our father.’ David and Solomon are respectively vehicles of victory and glory in God’s covenantal economy. Isaiah’s servant reverses this direction and mediates God’s covenant in lowliness and suffering. Beyond these, and exemplary of all these, are the kings of Israel, the priests, and finally, and most prominently, the prophets who are the guardians of the covenant.119 The entirety of Israel’s history as attested in the canonical documents witness to and anticipate God’s ultimate revelation of himself in one Man. Jesus as the final and supreme ‘upholder and proclaimer of the covenant’ will do so as prophet, priest and king.120 Retrospectively understood, Jesus is the Old Testament’s ‘content and theme.’121 These figures, kings, priests and prophets witness beyond themselves to something greater in God’s covenant of grace.  ���������� Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament I, 31.  ����������������� Jon D. Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993). 119  ������������������ Cf. Hos. 6.7; 8.1. 120  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 83. 121  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 84. 117 118

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Israel’s kings never fully carried out Yahweh’s law as their own or exercised the power of Yahweh on their own. The priests never actually had the power to forgive sins or create reconciliation between God and humanity. The prophets transmitted God’s Word but never actually became God’s Word. These all witness to the incomplete nature of their identity and work and anticipate one who would genuinely ‘fulfill’ these activities beyond that which with they could have been conceived. They are the signs; Jesus is the reality. ‘The covenant of God with His people through the incarnation is in truth the mysterium, the true mysterium of the Old Testament.’122 Or to use the language of Hebrews: ‘Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.’ The Revelation of the Hidden God, The Judgment It Entails, Covenantal Sin, and The Necessity of the Christmas/Cross Event Some of Barth’s more robust theological reflection on the Old Testament as a Christian witness is found in these eleven densely packed pages of the CD (pp. 84– 94). Barth maintains the unity of both Old and New Testament in their witnessing to the hiddenness of the God who reveals himself. Entailed in this revelation of the hidden God is a judgment upon humanity and its apparent attempts to create gods in their own image or to possess the divine presence. Israel’s intrusion into the Canaanite land of Palestine was, in effect, the ‘dedivinisation of nature, history and culture—a remorseless denial of any other divine presence save the one in the event of drawing up the covenant.’123 The stakes for Israel were high as she settled in amidst her neighbors. ‘[E]ither surrender the covenant with consequent loss of the presence and help of God, or a complete break with any supposed presence of God in the nature, history or culture of the country, even involving the physical elimination of its inhabitants.’124 Barth describes this situation as the fixed polarity between Yahweh and the baalim of the surrounding nations.125 From one vantage point, it is surely understandable that Israel would acclimate herself to the surrounding cultures. But Israel was not left to her own way to decide the matter. God’s claims on her were total and exclusive. At the same time, God’s pronounced judgment was upon the nations and their baalim. The earlier prophets, such as Amos, may have directed their injunctions at the neighboring civilizations alone. By the end of the prophetic literature, God’s judgment was pronounced on the nations as far away as the Euphrates and Nile rivers. For Barth, this universal judgment foreshadowed  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 84.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 85. 124  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 85. 125  ������������������������ KBL (I:143) defines the baalim as ‘the nameless, numinous beings which are know to appear at wells, trees, rocks etc. as the owners of the place, and whose influence was initially limited to the place itself.’ See also Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament I, 200–203. 122

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in the Old Testament anticipates God’s final eschatological judgment in the cross of Christ.126 Barth jumps ahead of himself here as he is wont to do and, in light of his theology, as he must do. The key aspect of Barth’s argument at this point is as follows: Israel as the recipient of God’s revelation means impending doom for the surrounding nations. At the same time, Israel, as God’s covenant partner, is not immune from the judgment which falls on those who pursue the divine presence outside the revelation of Yahweh in the baalim. As Barth states, ‘Its [Israel’s] covenant with God does not in any sense guarantee that things go well with it.’127 T he prophets of Israel actually stand as covenant emissaries reminding Israel of God’s covenant with her and the covenant obligations entailed in that relationship. He explains, ‘The prophets’ desire was not for Israel to be a nation, but for it at any price, even at the literal cost of its natural nationhood, to be God’s nation.’128 God’s covenant claims on Israel are total and exclusive, allowing for no recourse to or compromise with the gods of the surrounding cultures. It is this struggle between Israel as a nation and God’s covenant claims on her that defines the fundamental story of Israel’s history with her God as attested in the canon of the Old Testament. Inherent in this struggle between Israel and her God, much like the wrestling match at Peniel, is the consistent deferment of the covenant’s fulfillment. This is typified in Israel’s heroes and prophets. Moses saw from afar, but never entered the promised land. Jeremiah ends his days in the lament of Israel’s sin and destruction. Archetypical for Barth on this score is the ‘servant’ of Isaiah 40–55 who suffers and has no inherent beauty. All of these witness to the necessity of suffering and struggle on the way to the fulfillment of the covenant. One meets Job, the Psalmist or Solomon in Ecclesiastes and is brought face to face with relentless ‘clinging to’ nature of the Old Testament’s greatest figures. They clung to the hidden God. From this Barth makes a figural appeal to the Old Testament’s anticipation of Jesus Christ. Barth is quick to state that suffering Israel, the suffering prophet or the suffering righteous man are not Christ per se. Barth respects the discrete witness of the Old Testament at this point without making the all-too-hasty move to identify Old Testament figures with Jesus. Again, the Old Testament’s revelatory character is found in its unique role as an anticipating voice. With this stated, it is in the figures of Jacob, Jeremiah, Job, the suffering servant—who is the pinnacle figure for Barth—that Christ as the suffering one is typified. He is anticipated in but not conflated with these events and figures. The reverse of this scenario is found from the vantage point of the New Testament witness itself. The Old Testament is a voice of figuration, typification or anticipation. One needs to respect this voice while at the same time recognizing that from the perspective of the New Testament, the problem created by the Old Testament is solved in the New. ‘[T]o that extent Christ was indeed suffering Israel,  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 86.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 87. 128  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 87. 126 127

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the suffering prophet, the suffering righteous man. Not an idea of Christ, but the real, historical Christ qui passus est sub Pontio Pilato.’129 Jesus’ cry of deriliction, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ creates a cavernous roar in which all of suffering Israel is found in Jesus and actually so. For Barth, the Old Testament’s own discrete voice, which is a voice to be honored and listened to on its own account without too quickly heaping realized Christian doctrine onto it, creates a problem that is not solved on its own accord. Its own witness is one of anticipation. This is a key aspect of Barth’s figural reading of the Old Testament. Israel’s history of covenant failure before her God is a history of Israel’s sin. It is important to recognize Israel’s sin as sin within the confines of the covenant, or sin directed against God. It is not general vice or immorality but breaches of the covenant relationship. All to say, Israel’s entire history witnesses to the devastating results of sin. The result of this loud divine ‘No’ in the Old Testament is the superior necessity of God’s final triumphing ‘Yes.’ The Old Testament anticipates this ‘Yes’ but does not see it ultimately realized. The human resistance to the hidden God typified in Israel’s judgment and suffering is inextricably linked to the overarching divine plan in which God’s ‘Yes’ triumphs. In short, the Old Testament’s own witness creates the necessity of Christmas. In light of Israel’s history of struggling with and against the covenant of God, the Old Testament itself reveals the necessity of Christ’s crucifixion. In fact, the world stage created by the history of Israel attested in the canon of the Old Testament could have lead to no other conclusion than the Golgotha event. Barth draws upon the imagery of the stage—a stage that has been carefully crafted with roles played out in which God acts as God and man as man. In God’s acting as God, he reveals himself as the hidden One in the enigmatic being and actions of the suffering servant; man’s acting as man is revealed in the ‘rebellion and desertion’ at the foot of the cross.130 These pre-figurements work themselves out on the stage of world events as Jesus, by necessity, goes up to Jerusalem, and the high priests, scribes and people deliver him over to the cross. The disciples had to leave him. ‘Judas had to betray him.’131 The necessity of these events does not render humanity excusable. On the contrary, ‘[m]an unveils himself here as really and finally guilty.’132 All of this had to happen in the assertion of God’s lordship and can only be understood retrospectively from the viewpoint of ‘Easter to Good Friday; we might also say, in prospect of Christmas to Good Friday.’133 Illustratively and with no reference, Barth quotes, ‘Our chastisement was upon him, that we might have peace.’134 It is at the cross with its attendant necessity that humanity meets God as the Hidden,  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology, 89.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 92. 131  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 92. 132  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 92. 133  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93. 134  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93. 129 130

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and humanity acts out its role as rebel. At the cross-section of these two realities stands reconciliation. In this light, Barth makes a crucial move in his theological exposition of the Old Testament’s nature and witness. It is important to recognize the direction Barth takes here. He moves from the revelation at Easter or Christmas, that is, the revelation disclosing the ‘had to’ nature of God’s reconciling activity on the cross, back to the Old Testament itself. The Old Testament’s own discrete voice is caught up in the tension of God’s revelation as hiddenness and humanity’s rebellious posture. It is the cross that acts as the denouement of this pre-figured reality attested in the Old Testament. Therefore, the events of the Old Testament attesting the reality fulfilled in the cross are ‘prophecy of the revelation of Jesus Christ.’135 ‘So, in view of the terrible encounter of God and humanity in the Old Testament, we shall have to say that here, too, we already have the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh and the life everlasting.’136 Committing the unpardonable sin of historical-criticism, namely, ‘anachronism’, Barth allows the full revelation of God’s reconciling activity in Jesus Christ to be read back into the Old Testament itself.137 The fathers of the Old Testament in their expectation of Jesus Christ, when in the posture of faith and anticipation for something greater in God’s eschatological reconciliation, were, in fact, anticipating Jesus Christ. They were not anticipating an abstraction of Jesus or even a logos asarkos unidentified with Jesus of Nazareth. They were anticipating, and in this posture of anticipation, partaking fully in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of history. The hermeneutical move from Easter back to Christmas leads faithfully and ontologically back to the Old Testament itself. This reading of the Old Testament via the lens of God’s concrete revelation in the person of Jesus Christ separates the church’s reading of the Old Testament from what Barth calls the Synagogue. Barth actually identifies the Synagogue with the O ld T estament per se or in abstracto. In this reading, Israel’s canonically attested struggle with the hidden God of the covenant remains unfulfilled or ‘stiffened into petrification.’138 But as such, it is not revelation. ‘Who possesses, who reads the real Old Testament?’139 A ccording to Barth, this particular question still divides Church and Synagogue today. To adjudicate matters, Barth appeals to the New Testament authors, stating that their understanding of Jesus Christ did not take place in a vacuum but was understood in light of the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. The issues for the early church were not necessarily scientific, or we might say, hermeneutical alone. They

 ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93. 137  ����������������������������������������������������������������������� Levenson has described the unpardonable sin of historical-criticism as ‘anachronism.’ See Levenson, The Hebrew Bible. 138  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93. 139  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93. 135

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were the ‘burning, vital question of faith and revelation.’140 Put in other terms, the necessity imposed on them by the revelation of Jesus Christ was conjoined with the necessity imposed on them by the Word of God in the Old Testament.141 Our confession of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is mirrored in our confession of the Old Testament as a witness to that self-same revelation. If this were not the case, ‘the Church would be believing in a different Christ from the New Testament witnesses.’142 If one confesses the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as a necessary consequence of Old Testament revelation, the question is then settled as to who possesses the real Old Testament.143 An import result of this is a view of the Old Testament that is equally high to our view of the New Testament. They each witness to the revelation of Jesus Christ from differing, but necessary, vantage points. The God of the Old Testament as Both the Present and Coming One The third ‘line of unity’ between the Old Testament and New Testament for Barth is the presentation of God as the one who is present and the one who is coming. This is the ‘eschatological thread’ Barth sees as fully operative within the Old Testament’s own presentation of itself. The covenant God has made with humanity witnesses beyond itself to something other, something grander in God’s redemptive  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 93. 142  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 94. 143  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� Barth’s language regarding the Church and the Synagogue has come under fire. Soulen describes Barth’s approach to Israel as a form of ‘economic supersessionism’, that is, Israel’s election in the economy of salvation had its telos in Jesus Christ resulting in the replacement of Israel with the church. Kendall R. Soulen, “Karl Barth and the Future of the God of Israel,” Pro Ecclesia 6 (1997): 415. Soulen’s appreciative critique of Barth has within it a critique of the classical, Iranaeun reading of the Old Testament that, in the estimate of Soulen, flattens Israel’s Scriptures in the appeal to Christological exegesis. One wonders what is gained by such an approach to the Old Testament, a claim described by van Buren as ‘reading someone else’s mail.’ Jon Levenson, a Jewish Old Testament scholar, recognizes that one’s theological/faith commitments to the reading of the Old Testament, whether Christian or Jewish, cannot be set aside in the process. Of course this brings up a very lengthy debate that is very much on the Christian theological table today. See Levenson, The Hebrew Bible; Seitz, Word Without End. Soulen’s description should be read alongside Busch’s portrayal of Barth’s understanding of Israel and the Church, an understanding which cannot be described as ‘economic supersessionism.’ See Busch, The Great Passion, 82–105. Alongside this see Mark R. Lindsay, Barth, Israel, and Jesus: Karl Barth’s Theology of Israel, Barth Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Katherine Sonderegger, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s “Doctrine of Israel” (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); Dieter Kraft, “Israel in der Theologie Karl Barths,” Communio Viatorum 27 (1984): 59–72; Robert W. Jenson, “Toward a Christian Theology of Israel,” Pro Ecclesia 9 (2000): 43–56; Angus Paddison, “Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9–11 in the Light of Jewish-Christian Understanding,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28 (2006): 469–88. 140

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economy. The actual revelation of God in the events of the Old Testament is future in orientation. The danger to be avoided in such a schematization is a downplaying of the significant present for the eschatological future. Barth deploys an illustration to serve as a window on this complex. If one hears someone knocking at their door, the person knocking is present to the one on the inside of the door. This presence is a future presence because in the moment between the knocking and the answering, the one on the inside is still alone. But this aloneness is in full anticipation that this ‘alone time’ is shortly to come to an end. This illustration of Barth’s serves quite well as a depiction of the urgency of the anticipation found in the Old Testament. It is in the intensity of expectation that God is really present and revealed to figures such as Abraham, Moses and the prophets. Jesus of Nazareth is knocking on the door of the Old Testament. Insight is gained into Barth’s reading of the Old Testament witness as a whole in this section because Barth presents these figures of the Old Testament as fully aware of the incompleteness of their particular moment and the need for fulfillment. This is the ‘eschatological thread’ traced in the entirety of the Old Testament. In other words, the Old Testament’s eschatological anticipation is not a constitutive part of its witness standing alongside other aspects. Rather, the whole of the Old Testament has an ‘inward necessity’, or a constraining voice that presses the reader to understand this witness as anticipating its fulfillment—its eschatological other. There is hermeneutical significance here for Barth revealing some insight into his ‘multiple level’ interpretation of the Old Testament.144 Many of the significant events, ideas or factors in the Old Testament must be understood from two different vantage points. From one side, the issue is to be understood as an aspect of God’s covenant ‘in a definite present of historical time.’145 Here Barth would affirm the necessity of wrestling with Old Testament texts in all their historical particularity. This is but one side of the issue, however, and, left to itself, it would remain attenuated because it does not take into account the intrinsic eschatological pressure the Old Testament’s own voice is constraining on the reader. The second aspect of this multiple level interpretation is to relate these historically particular realities with their corresponding aspects in fulfilled time. Several Old Testament themes are rehearsed by Barth to illustrate the matter at hand, namely, the people of God, the land, the temple, the lordship of God, judgment and the king. All of these significant themes within the Old Testament have a dialectical relationship between their particularity and their eschatological 144

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ I am self-consciously borrowing this term from Childs. This particular article will be turned to again in chapter 5. See Brevard Childs, “Does the Old Testament Witness to Jesus Christ,” in Evangelium Schriftauslegung Kirche: Festschrift für Peter Stuhlmacher zum 65. Geburstag, ed. Jostein Adna, Scott J. Hafemann, and Otfried Hofius (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 57–64. 145  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 95.

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anticipation. Who are the people of God, for example, in the Old Testament? Are they the sum total of Jacob’s descendants? In some scenarios, yes, in others, no. Are they the remnant? Again, yes and no. Barth concludes, ‘The people within the people, the genuine Israel, is obviously not identical either with the sum-total of Jacob’s descendants or with any section of this sum. But the genuine Israel, elect, called and finally blessed by Yahweh, is merely typified in both, and remains a goal beyond the history of either. In the strictest sense this people is ahead of itself in time. It has still to be seen what this people really is.’146 The identity of the people of God is an eschatologically ordered reality. Another way of putting the matter is to stress that the Old Testament’s own unique voice within the two-testament canon called Holy Scripture creates such a distanciation on issues, such as the ones listed by Barth, that they urgently anticipate and demand future clarification or fulfillment. Again, in Barth’s masterful handling of the themes of election and rejection in Israel’s history in CD II.2 354–409, one observes his attendance to the plain sense of Israel’s history creating space and demanding a future denouement understood fully by an ‘apostolic exegesis.’ In this posture of anticipation, revelation is genuinely present as the one knocking on the door about to be opened. This is no more evident, in Barth’s estimation, than with the figure of the king in the Old Testament. The king is a unique vehicle for God’s maintenance of the covenant. At the same time, the king reveals in poignant ways the hiddenness of God as a figure pointing beyond himself. The kings of Israel born out of the political existence of the nation anticipate a future messianic king who transcends the present, earthly nature of these kings. In fact, the coming Messiah anticipated in the Old Testament is not merely an intensification of the current political experience but is a transcendence of this experience. Resultantly, the anticipation of the coming Messiah is not fully typified in the figure of the king. A more fully orbed anticipation is required and observed in figures such as the ‘servant’ of Deutero-Isaiah, the son of David in Ps. 110, the son of man in Dan. 7 and the list continues. All of these ideas and figurations anticipate the coming of the Messiah as a figure who enjoys ‘a rule of peace without end, the rooting out of sin, the judgment of the world, the supreme sway not only over human spirits but also over a renewed world of nature.’147 Barth makes it clear that all of these ideas do fall under the concept of rule, ‘but only in such a way that the functions of an earthly king obviously fall very far behind, having really become a mere parable.’148 In other words, the kings of Israel do have a figural role to play in the anticipation of the coming One, but in such a way as to pale in comparison when the Messianic fulfillment appears. For Barth, this messianic expectation in the Old Testament ‘indirectly’ exhausts the eschatological anticipation found therein. All of the key ideas listed  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 96.  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 98. 148  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 98. 146 147

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(for example, nation, land, temple, lordship of God, judgment) are linked up with and culminate in this One who is expected at the end, namely, ‘the king of the end of time.’149 In the present but coming reality of the Old Testament all of the above mentioned anticipations find their genuine fulfillment in the coming One who will be God’s ruler, and whose rule is different from what comes before it. Land, judgment, and so on will, with the arrival of the coming One, find their fulfillment, and this fulfillment will occur in ways that are in concurrence with and difference from the figures and events which anticipate the reality. To borrow the language of Isaiah, ‘Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it’ (43.18–19).

Conclusion Having sought to examine closely Barth’s own theological reflection on the nature of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, our attention is now given to some concluding lines of analysis from the material at hand. Firstly, Barth’s understanding of the nature of the Old Testament is both confessional and classical. It is confessional because one’s understanding of the nature of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture is an a posteriori commitment grounded in one’s confession of Jesus Christ as the object and subject of canonical Scripture. This profoundly basic point removes Barth from the religionsgeschichtliche Schule, certain apologetic approaches or redemptive-historical approaches that ground the Scripture’s authority on a priori categories of historical verifiability, proximity to historical reality and the canons of modernity’s truth-standards. The Old Testament is what it is because the self-communicative God has deemed it to be so in relation to God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ. To seek verifiability outside this realm is to abstract the discussion into philosophical categories foreign to God’s revelation of himself. From this, Barth’s confessional understanding of the Old Testament is classically orthodox. At least from Barth’s own estimation of the matter, his view of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture is none other than the view held by Matthew, Paul, Irenaeus, Luther or Calvin. This by no means removes the interpretive nuance found among these various churchmen, for example Calvin and Luther on the protoeuangelion. They, however, all understood the Old Testament to be a revelatory witness anticipating the One to arrive. Barth was fully aware of the dominant landscape of Old Testament scholarship during his day and was also fully aware that this approach was endemic to the life of the church. Barth did not shy away from this fight but refused to allow the rules of the game to be determined by the questions plaguing Old Testament scholars. Barth’s theological commitments rooted his interlocution with this guild on the playing  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 98.

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field of revelation. If Marcion’s ghost was to be exorcised from the church, then it must take place on confessional and classical grounds. Secondly, for Barth, the nature of Scripture determines the way in which it is to be interpreted. The confession that the Old Testament witnesses to the expectation of revelation in Jesus Christ requires Old Testament interpretation to be commensurate with what it, in fact, is. For example, Barth resists the etiological move to identify God’s covenant with Israel with a particular covenant within Israel’s national existence, such as Sinai. All of the covenants of the Old Testament are incomplete signum witnessing to the res of God’s concrete and definitive covenant with Israel/humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. The historical covenants of Israel are particular expressions of that one covenant of God with Israel but are not individually identified each as the definitive covenant. This is in large measure attested to in the incomplete nature of the covenant’s fulfillment within the Old Testament’s own voice concerning the matter. Thirdly, Barth respects the discrete voice of the Old Testament. He does not flatten out its voice with the New Testament, nor are his instincts to root the Christuszeugnis of the Old Testament in proof-texting the preexistence of Christ in various Old Testament texts or by appealing to arrow-shot prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ (contra Hengstenberg). Rather, Barth allows the Old Testament’s own voice to open up the possibilities for an apostolic exegesis that retrospectively makes sense of the incomplete nature of the Old Testament in light of Jesus Christ. The divine ‘Yes’ promised in the Old Testament is incomplete, creating the necessity of the Christmas event. A classic example of this is Barth’s exposition of election and rejection in the O ld T estament narratives in CD II.2, 354–409. Without describing this in detail (me that is, Barth is replete with detail), Barth allows the Old Testament’s own voice to create a necessary space for an apostolic understanding of these texts without which they could not be fully understood. After rehearsing the history of the elect king in the book of Samuel, Barth states rather matter-of-factly, ‘And if there are those who for any reason cannot accept our “if” i.e., the presupposition of the apostolic exegesis of these passages—very well, then, let them show us a better key to the problem of the elect king of the Books of Samuel!’150 Resultantly, Barth does not seem to root the witness to Christ in the Old Testament in Christophonies or in an apologetically oriented prophecy and fulfillment paradigm. Rather, his Christological reading of the Old Testament is thick and overarching, allowing larger patterns within the Old Testament’s narratives and prophetic literature to function figurally as witnesses to Christ. Following from this is a fourth observation; Barth respects the discrete voice of the Old Testament and at the same time allows the full revelation of God’s  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 393. See especially the very fine article on Barth’s figural reading in this section of CD II.2 by Mike Higton, “The Fulfillment of History in Barth, Frei, Auerbach and Dante,” in Conversing with Barth, ed. John C. McDowell and Mike Higton (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 120–41. 150

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action in Jesus Christ to be read back into these overarching structures and patterns within the Old Testament. There is a multi-level aspect of Barth’s Old Testament reading where he allows the Old Testament’s own voice and narrative/prophetic movements their say, then allows for a Christological or figural reading of these texts as legitimately anticipating Jesus of Nazareth. The Old Testament is a voice of anticipation and functions as such in the divine economy. From our perspective in the divine economy, however, we know fully that their anticipation was an expecting of Jesus Christ. Reading the Old Testament anachronistically, with full Christian doctrine in mind, is not only allowable in this frame of reading but necessary because of the confessional nature of what the Old Testament is. Herein lies a reading of the Old Testament that is multi-leveled or multi-perspectival with each level or perspective speaking truthfully, though not exhaustively, about the subject matter at hand. One hears the Old Testament’s own discrete voice, recognizing its anticipatory role, then relates this reading by organic extension to its figural or theological relationship to Scripture’s subject matter, Christ. This type of Old Testament reading differs significantly from the apologetic impulse to prove the existence of Christ by finding his presence embedded in various Old Testament texts. Barth’s theological reading of the Old Testament respects the entirety of the witness in its proper economical and dogmatic placement as understood from the proper standpoint of the revelation of Jesus Christ. A sharp distinction is found in Hengstenberg’s apologetic project and Barth’s multi-layered reading of the Old Testament.151 In the final chapter the multi-layered reading of the Old Testament will be addressed more fully. This chapter has placed the Old Testament in theological context for Barth. We move now from Barth’s general understanding of the Old Testament to a particular case-in-point. Admittedly, Isaiah is a narrow slice of the pie. Barth’s engagement with the Old Testament is broad and sweeping. Nevertheless, Barth’s engagement with the Isaianic text will illustrate well Barth’s theological instincts regarding Isaiah as Christian Scripture and the relationship between his dogmatic commitments and his actual reading practices.

151  ��������������� John Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in Nineteenth Century German and England (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985), 110.

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Chapter 3

Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Isaiah 1–39

But the time does not yet seem to have arrived when the dogmatician can accept with a good conscience and confidence the findings of his colleagues in Old and New Testament studies because it is clearly recognised again on both sides that the dogmatician has also an exegetical and the exegete a dogmatic responsibility. So long as so many exegetes have not better learned or practised their part in this common task; so long as so many still seem to pride themselves on being utterly unconcerned as to the dogmatic presuppositions and consequences of their notions, while unwittingly reading them into the picture, the dogmatician is forced to run the same risk as the non-expert and work out his own proof from Scripture. Yet for all the trouble entailed I personally found particular joy in this part of my task, in which I was only a substitute for others.

Introduction The previous chapter dealt primarily with the theological framework for Barth’s understanding of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture under the title, Die Zeit der Erwartung. This provides a theological context or dogmatic location for Barth’s broader theological sensibilities and commitment to the O ld T estament corpus. It will also provide a helpful backdrop to Barth’s actual exegesis of the Isaianic text itself. How and in what ways does Barth’s understanding of the nature and role of the Old Testament in the divine economy actually inform or determine the way he handles the Isaianic text, especially those texts that have proven their juggernaut status in the more recent historical-critical readings of them? What of the Emmanuel figure? How does the role and figure of Isaiah’s servant play itself out? Does Barth appeal to Isaiah in its entirety, even the oracles against the nations in chapters 13–27? These sorts of questions, questions that nag at modern interpreters, will be explored. For as we have seen in the previous two chapters, Barth was well aware of the cutting edge of Old Testament scholarship in Germany and doubly aware of its impact on the life of the church. A statement should be made about the way in which the following material will be organized. For the sake of convenience, the chapters given to Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah will be split along lines with which we have become   ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.2, trans. Harold Knight, et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), ix.

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all too familiar. This chapter will be given to some key texts from Isaiah 1–39 and the next chapter to Isaiah 40–66. Barth probably accepted the historical-critical conclusion that eighth-century Isaiah was not the author of the entire corpus that bears his name. This is evident in his appeal to language such as ‘Deutero-Isaiah’ and aside comments that attribute certain portions of Isaiah to the eighth-century prophet. With this said, Barth’s acceptance of this historical-critical demarcation did not, in essence, detract from his commitment to reading the entirety of Isaiah as the one word of the Lord or as a unified witness. The Scriptures cannot be treated merely as sources for historical reconstruction. Theologians must give themselves to the texts as we have them in the canonical Scriptures, that is, in their canonical final form. Barth states: The real decision whether in this field we are going to make a move for the better will depend on two things. The first is whether there will be a rekindling of a similar interest in Old Testament scholarship. But the second is whether in both fields the time has not passed when we can select arbitrary themes, whether the exegesis of canonical Scripture as such, the coherent exposition of Genesis, Isaiah, the Gospel of Matthew, etc., according to their present status and compass is again recognized and undertaken as in the last resort the only possible goal of biblical scholarship.

Though Barth does not use this language, one can surmise from his broad appeal to Isaiah as a unified whole that he would be comfortable with the later language of Brevard Childs or Christopher Seitz: God spoke an intended word to Isaiah the prophet that, under the providential moving of the Spirit of God, had a life of its own after Isaiah had passed off the scene. As will be seen, a primary example of this is Barth’s appeal to Isaiah’s witness to the covenant concept in CD IV.1, 28–32. Here Barth sees all of Isaiah witnessing to a unified reality. All to say, the demarcation between 1–39 and 40–66 is more for convenience than revelatory of any particular critical commitments. A word should also be said regarding the selection of passages. Barth’s appeal to the Scriptures in the CD is vast and variegated. It is no understatement to describe Barth’s appeal to tota Scriptura as breathtaking. He is a master of associating texts together and rarely exegetes passages in isolation from others within the canonical witness. In this sense, Barth’s tight webbing of biblical material across large swaths of the canonical Scriptures makes him a ‘biblical theologian’ par excellence. Resultantly, dealing with a biblical book like Isaiah alone presents us with certain challenges, primarily, the challenge to avoid an artificial reading not taking into account Barth’s larger dogmatic concerns. For example, in the section entitled, ‘The Veracity of Man’s Knowledge of God’ (CD II.1), Barth states that a necessary result of our participation in the knowledge of   ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 494.

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God is a posture of thanksgiving and wondering awe (220–23). As is typical of Barth, in the small print section he begins supporting his thought with an appeal to Scripture. How is it that the lips of humankind can ‘become the instruments by which God and His truth and righteousness and glory are praised, and His Word is proclaimed.’ From this, Barth begins his masterful association of texts. He moves from Moses’ confession about his inadequacy in Exod 4.10, to the cleansing of the mouth of Isaiah the prophet in Isa 6.5, to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and various other canonical voices, including Baalim’s ass and the New Testament witness. What one observes from this example is Barth’s wide-ranging appeal to Scripture and Isaiah’s position in the midst of this larger movement and cross-referencing association. This is probably a case-in-point of what Childs refers to as Barth’s ‘virtuoso performance’ in his biblical exegesis and association of texts. Our investigation into Barth’s exegesis of Isaiah will, at times, involve Isaianic texts found within this type of broad-sweeping biblical theological reflection. For the most part, this is unavoidable. Where this is the case, the focus will remain limited and modest with attention given to the Isaianic texts alone. At the same time, a certain selectivity will be involved in the passages considered. Barth can appeal to Scripture in more illustrative ways (as seen in the previous example), and he can appeal to Scripture in more substantial ways as he provides biblical warrant for the point he is making. For sake of time and space, our attention will be given to the latter, and selectively with these as well. It is hoped that one can gain a sense of Barth’s reading of Isaiah with some of its key passages addressed. As will be seen, Barth can appeal to the same passage from Isaiah in different ways, at different times and for different purposes. This probably witnesses to Barth’s multi-level approach to interpretation, but this is jumping ahead of the argument.

Isaiah 1.2–4; 30.1,9: Isaiah’s Witness to the Recalcitrance of Israel as ‘Son of God’ Nestled within Barth’s larger discourse on the ‘The Way of the Son into the Far Country’ (CD IV.1, 157–210) is Barth’s interaction with the Old Testament concept of Israel as Son of God. Barth’s well-known dictum, ‘The atonement is history,’ is a statement that grounds God’s definitive action in the person and work of Jesus Christ within the ‘very special history of God with man, the very special history of man with God.’ Here, Barth roots God’s work of condescension in the unique historical events attested in the canonical documents, both Old and New Testaments. Again, this unique and special history is not grounded within the   ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.1, trans. �������������������������������������� T.H.L. Parker, et al. (Edinburgh: ���������������� T&T Clark, 1957), 221.   ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 157.

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general sphere of neutrally observed historical events; rather, the confession that ‘[t]he atonement takes precedence over all other history’ is a revealed confession, a confession grounded in God’s own Triune self-disclosure. T he atonement is the history of Jesus Christ both noetically (objective genitive) and ontically (subjective genitive) conceived. This confession results in the following understanding: ‘The Word did not simply become any “flesh,” any man humbled and suffering. It became Jewish flesh.’ Here, one observes the importance of the Scriptural witness in Barth’s theological interaction with the church’s dogma of the atonement. The atonement is the sui generis history of God’s interaction with humanity, and the canonical document’s witnessing to this history has pride of place. Any theological construal not rooted in the Scripture’s own self-presentation and subject matter is destined to loose the genuinely historical nature of the atonement with flights of fancy into abstract categories foreign to the Biblical material. This is of special import for Barth regarding the continuing significance of the Old Testament as a witness to Christ. ‘The New Testament witness to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, stands on the soil of the Old Testament and cannot be separated from it.’ If the New Testament is loosed from its Old Testament moorings, Jesus Christ will be reduced to ‘a kind of ideal-picture of human existence,’ rather than the Nazarene fully rooted in Israel’s history of redemption. The detachment of the New Testament from the necessary commentary of the Old Testament ultimately results in Docetism. In other words, the Father who has elected to himself the small, strange people of Israel is the self-same God who has elected Jesus Christ as reconciler of humanity born within Israel’s particular context. Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem was no fortuitous event. ‘The act of God which takes place in this man for us takes place contingently on earth and in time, as the creeds have emphasized with their mention of Mary and Pilate.’ When Jesus proceeds into the far country, he does so in the particularity of the one elect people of Israel.10 What is observed in Barth’s reflections here is the safeguarding against Docetism assured by the continuing canonical validity of the Old Testament as a Christian witness. Therefore, and by way of example, when the title ‘Son of God’ is predicated on Jesus Christ it is not an abstract descriptor that can be analogously explained outside the divine economy. It is firmly rooted within the concrete particularity of God’s election of Israel. Barth states, ‘Under the name of Son of God Jesus took the very place which in the Old Testament had often enough been allotted to

 ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 157–8.  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 166.   ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 166.   ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 167.   ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 168. 10   See Katherine Sonderegger, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s “Doctrine of Israel” (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 53.  

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the “children” of Israel in their relation to God.’11 Jesus as Son of God takes on the unique role of Israel within the Old Testament economy, especially Israel’s priests (Mal 1.6) and membrum praecipuum [advanced member], the king (2 Sam 7. Psalm 2.7). The figural role Israel plays as a prophetic pre-figurement of Jesus Christ is a central aspect of Barth’s theological reading of the Old Testament in general and Isaiah in particular. We will see this theme surface again in our study of Isaiah in the CD. By way of anticipation, this particular reading of the entirety of Israel’s existence coram Deo as a figural anticipation of Jesus Christ is one of the more salient and promising aspects of Barth’s theological reading of Isaiah. For Barth, the two testament canon witnesses to the organic relationship between Israel, especially Israel’s king, and Jesus Christ. Where one sees the former in the Old Testament, one sees the latter in the New. This figural connection between Israel and Jesus Christ is located specifically in the realm of the electing will and grace of the Creator. God is the electing Creator in the Old Testament economy of Israel’s election and redemption. God makes a graciously divine move towards the lowliness of Israel in the Old Testament. With the revelation of Jesus Christ, the electing Creator actually becomes the elect creature.12 T he movement towards becomes in Jesus Christ a movement of becoming. Jesus Christ actually becomes lowly in his move to the far country. As such, he becomes the Son of God in lowliness. Barth states, ‘And Israel and its kings and priests were only the provisional representatives of this incomparable Son.’13 Barth’s reading of Israel’s prophetic existence reveals an important dimension to his overall understanding of the relationship between Old and New Testaments. God’s election of Israel in general and Israel’s kings in particular is a mysterious revelation that can only be unlocked from within the Old Testament’s own schema and the trajectory which it sets. In the Old Testament we find these representatives: priests, kings and prophets, and their representational or figural role should not be underestimated. At the same time, their placement and identity within the Old Testament creates a certain provisionality demanding fulfillment. The revelation of Jesus Christ has an apocalyptic force to it. In other words, a neat and tight linear movement within the history of Israel’s redemption to Jesus Christ may not be as readily available as some might wish. God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ is surprising and unique. At the same time, the New Testament’s connection to the Old Testament reveals that God’s revelation of himself in the person of Jesus Christ is not an accident or ‘the arbitrary action of a Deus ex machina.’14 It is fulfillment, namely, the fulfillment of the one revealed will of God who has manifested himself as One who reaches out to the lowly. The revelation of Jesus Christ fulfills – in Barth’s language, ‘superabundant fulfillment’ – the gracious election of Israel in the Old Testament. Barth’s phraseology here serves  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 169.  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 170. 13  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 170. 14  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 170. 11

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the point well. The revelation of Jesus is ‘superabundant’ (we might say the surprising and unexpected apocalyptic, breaking in) and ‘fulfillment’ (brings about the hopes witnessed to in the idiom of the Old Testament’s plain sense). The revelation of God in the Old Testament as a God who elects discloses the humiliation and lowliness involved in the electing act. The movement toward in election is a condescending movement. Beyond this general principle observed in the Old Testament is the specific insistence on the unworthiness of the recipients of God’s electing grace. Jesus’ move into the far country begins with God’s electing of an unfaithful and unworthy people who can only be sustained by His electing faithfulness. Isaiah’s canonical voice is called on by Barth as a witness to Israel’s recalcitrant and unfaithful ways before her God. Contextually, it should be remembered that Barth is here discussing the figural relationship between Israel in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ in the New. Both are revealed as Sons of God. Jesus’ going into the far country to reconcile humanity to himself takes place within the specific context of God’s election of Israel. Israel as the Son of God is elected to ‘obedience’ and ‘service’ to God.15 In the New Testament Jesus takes on this commission as his own. It is important to observe the language of ‘place-taking’ here. Why? Because Jesus’ going into the far country and the humiliation and lowliness involved in this act is specifically grounded in his taking on Israel’s identity: both its commission to obedience and service (calling) and its recalcitrance and disobedience (ontic status). Isaiah witnesses to the type of sonship Israel actually embodies within the Old Testament economy. In association with texts from Jeremiah, Hosea, Malachi, 2 Samuel and Psalms, Barth strings together several verses from Isaiah that witness to Israel’s sonship (Isa 1.2, 4; 30:1, 9). Within this small-print section, Isaiah’s voice is the loudest as it speaks unequivocally about the children of Israel as a ‘corrupt children.’ Representative of these verses is Isaiah 1.2: ‘Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: I reared up children and brought them up, but they rebelled against me’ (NRSV). Barth allows these texts within Isaiah’s corpus to witness ontologically to the nature of Israel before her God in the Old Testament. They serve to show the type of place-taking occurring when Jesus the true Israelite takes on the obedience/service of Israel as well as Israel’s faithlessness. Barth concludes, ‘The place taken by the one Israelite Jesus according to the New Testament is, according to the Old Testament, the place of this disobedient son, this faithless people and its faithless priests and kings.’16 What is of special interest in Barth’s appeal to Isaiah is, firstly and negatively, what Barth does not say regarding the Biblical texts. Secondly, and positively, is the purpose for which Barth deploys these particular texts. Admittedly, the exegesis in this small-print section is not expansive. Neither is Barth very explicative about the texts. From one angle, he lets their plain sense be heard with the point being prima facie obvious. At the same time, and knowing the setting in which Barth  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 171.  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 171.

15 16

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resided as a biblical theologian, it is of interest to observe his lack of attention to issues of structure, genre/form, setting or even context basically understood. Barth is not interested here in the form-critical identification of the prophetic utterance. For example, the fact that Isa 1.2–3 can be identified as an accusation, whereas vv. 4–9 can be identified as an invective matters nothing to Barth here.17 Additionally, the fact that these ‘disparate’ oracles may be traced to their prehistory is not of consequence to Barth. Their final form and the reality they witness to in their final form is of significance for Barth. Similarly, Barth shows little concern for the types of questions modern commentators might put to Isaiah 30. For example, the fact that 30.1–17 shows signs of redactional activity with bridging devices connecting the dots is also of little importance for Barth. Redactional shaping, which we may safely assume Barth affirms in general, does not come into play in the actual appeal to these texts. At least here, Barth does not find hermeneutical significance in the redactional shaping of the Isaianic witness. Rather, the text’s final form witnesses to the nature and role of Israel in a unified way. Israel’s ontology in the Isaianic witness is of significance for Barth. The fact that Barth pays little attention to redactional activity in Isaiah 30 will probably come as no surprise. We recall Childs’s recounting of Barth’s statement about J E D and P in his lectures on Genesis. He let the Biblical scholars know he was aware of the issues and then moved on as if he did not care. This is probably case-in-point of Barth’s lack of interest. What is more surprising, and possibly disturbing, is Barth’s lack of attention to the literary context of the text itself. Israel’s recalcitrance is revealed in their alignment with Egypt and their trust in Pharoah, rather than in Yahweh (Isa 30.1–4). The historical context of Isaiah 30.1– 17 on the surface seems to reflect Hezekiah’s move against the Assyrians via his alliance with Egypt. On the other hand, there are problems with this historical reading as well. Firstly, Hezekiah is not mentioned in this text; neither is Assyria, though the Assyrian crisis is assumed throughout Isaiah 1–39. We note how odd it is that neither Hezekiah nor his palace are mentioned in this text. There seems to be some sort of restraint at work within the text by not mentioning Hezekiah directly.18 Childs sidelines some of these concerns by his understanding of an implicit criticism of Hezekiah in 30.1–17 that is not at odds with his later portrayal as a faithful king in Isaiah 36–39. Hezekiah as a faithful king in 36–39 is set over against the faithlessness of Ahaz in 7–8. Wherever one lands on the historical question about this text, the textual fact remains that Israel’s recalcitrance is revealed in the particularity of their trust in Egypt and not Yahweh. In this small-print section, Barth seems unaware or at least uninterested in this contextual question. 17  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, The Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 2001), 16. 18  ���������������������� Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 216–17.

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The point in all of this is Barth’s lack of interest in the historical particularity of the text as revealed in the text as well as in the form-critical questions. Admittedly, Barth is limited by space and time and must be discriminating in his use of the Biblical material. He could possibly be chided for not giving more attention to the textual context of Isaiah 30. In this light, he seems to be breaking the three most important rules of exegesis: context, context and context. The case can be made, however, that this breech is only so at a first glance. In fact, Barth may actually be heeding the text’s own claims regarding its significance more than is observed in this first glance. Moreover, Barth’s reading may be revelatory of the different exegetical instincts operating for theologians versus biblical scholars. Again, Barth is concerned with the subject matter or the witnessing potentiality of the text and does not bring his reader into the exegetical woodshop, so to speak. He allows the reader to see the final product, the res of the matter at hand. When one speaks of historical particularity with the Biblical texts, usually this refers to the original situation out of which the text arose. For example, and as has already been mentioned, with Isaiah 30 this situation is possibly Hezekiah’s political alignment with Egypt in the face of the Assyrian crisis or more basically, Israel’s political alignment with Egypt. But the oracle serves a larger role in Isaiah’s prophecy than revealing the historical situation out of which it arose.19 A s has been mentioned above, the historical particularity of this oracle in Isaiah 30 is actually rather opaque without much of the historical dimension being revealed. One can argue that this is part of the text’s canonical intentionality. For in Isa 30.8 the prophet is called to write down the events in a tablet or in a book as a witness for future generations. ‘Go now, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, so that it may for the time to come as a witness forever.’ What exactly is entailed in this witness for future generations? It is not the historical particularity out of which the text arose. The text itself seems uninterested in this issue, or has at least relativized its historical particularity for the sake of future generations. The historically particular situation out of which this oracle arose is accidental to its continuing canonical message found in the following verse: ‘They are a rebellious people, faithless children, children who will not hear the instruction of the Lord’ (Isa 30.9). Alongside this is the intertextual allusion to Isa 1.2–4 in Isa 30:1.20 Isaiah 1.2–4 resonates with the message of Isa 30.1 creating a textured and textually embedded witness to the self-same reality. Again, at first glance, Barth’s reading and association of Isa 1.2–4 and 30.1 may seem more rhetorical or homiletical than substantial. Nevertheless, Barth’s 19

 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Zimmerli observes the important relationship of prophecies born out of historical situations to their continuing function as the Word of God beyond those particularities. Walther Zimmerli, “From Prophetic Word to Prophetic Hope,” in The Fiery Throne: The Prophets and Old Testament Theology, in The Fiery Throne: The Prophets and Old Testament Theology, ed. K.C. Hanson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 23. 20  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 225.

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association of these two texts is picking up the larger narrative movement of Isaiah’s portrayal of Israel. To use the today’s language, there is an intertextual association between these two texts. Also, Barth’s lack of interest in historical particularity, reconstructed or contextual, may in fact be pardonable when one takes into account that the point Barth seizes—Israel’s recalcitrance as the Son of God—is actually the enduring message of Isaiah’s witness for future generations. This ontological claim about who Israel actually is before her God is what is to be written down for future generations to observe (Isa 30.9). It would not be pressing things too far to say Barth as a member of this ‘future generation’ heard the continuing canonical claims of these Isaianic texts rather well. Jesus’ descent into the far country, his becoming flesh, receives its shape from Israel’s Scriptures. The continuing canonical validity of the Old Testament guarantees our understanding of Jesus taking on flesh as the taking on of Jewish flesh. His identity as Son of God is commensurate with Israel’s identity as the Son of God in the Old Testament. Jesus’ becoming Israel incarnate involves his taking on Israel’s unfulfilled positive role and negative identity embodied in Israel’s covenantal recalcitrance. Barth states, ‘The place taken by the one Israelite according to the New Testament is, according to the Old Testament, the place of this disobedient son, this faithless people and its faithless priests and kings.’21 Jesus as Son of God is in solidarity with the sinfulness and faithlessness of Israel whose portrayal in Isaiah is poignant. Barth stresses that all the prophet’s invectives against disobedient Israel are now directed to the One Israelite taking their place. The communal guilt is now an individual’s guilt. We will return to this theme again in our investigation of Barth’s reading of Isaiah 53.

The Holiness of the Triune God and Call of Isaiah: Isaiah 6 What Barth does not say about the biblical texts he calls on is often as interesting as what he does indeed say. What are the kinds of questions Barth puts to the Isaianic text he is reading? Barth’s appeal to Isaiah 6 in the CD will help flesh out this question. Isaiah 6 serves Barth’s theology at several different junctures: firstly, it witnesses to the ontological identity of the Triune God whose identity cannot by nature be unveiled to humankind (CD I.2, 320); secondly, Isaiah 6 reveals the kind of space occupied by the omnipresent God (CD II.1, 477); and thirdly, Isaiah 6 reveals the character of a Christian witness and calling pre-figured in the prophetic calling of Isaiah the prophet (CD IV.3.2). The first two of the aforementioned appeals to Isaiah 6 can be dealt with together. They both hover around Barth’s wrestling with the nature and identity of the Church’s Triune God. Much ink has been spilt on Barth’s doctrine of the

 ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 171.

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Trinity.22 Therefore, our reflections will be cursory, moving to his textual appeal. Barth wrestles in CD I.1 with the warrant both revelational and biblical for the doctrine of the Trinity. Barth is fully aware of the charge of ‘non-Biblicism’ launched against the early church’s doctrine of the Trinity with its language of ‘essence’ and ‘person.’ No concordance search will reveal the early church’s Trinitarian language in the Bible. Barth does not dodge this particular query as he recognizes the doctrine of the Trinity as indirectly linked to revelation, that is, the doctrine of the Trinity is denotatively related to the biblical witness to revelation. It is the product of translation and exegesis of the biblical text itself.23 Trinitarian language is the church’s wrestling with the language of the Bible and its incorporation into the idiom of the time. The attack against the doctrine of the Trinity because ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible is necessarily an attack against the task of Christian dogmatics and preaching as well, for the latter is not content with a mere reading of the text of Scripture. It must move to explanation and application. The task of Christian dogmatics is the explanation of the Bible by means of analogic speech into the current situation.24 In Barth’s language: Inaccurate explanations of the Bible, made in the speech of a later period, had to be countered in the speech of the same period. There thus arose in every age the task of dogma and dogmatics. This is what gives dogma and dogmatics their own special character as distinct from the Bible. But they are not necessarily on this account unbiblical or contrary to the Bible. As we must admit at once, they find themselves in the same dangerous sphere as the errors which they must repel. But this is no other sphere than that of the ecclesia militans which seeks to listen to the prophets and apostles but seeks to understand their word in the language of the later periods, to understand it aright even at the risk of misunderstanding.25

For Barth, the Bible’s witness to the doctrine of the Trinity is an implicit witness. Having been born out of the history of God’s interaction with Israel and the early church, the Bible does not address all the specificities of the later heresies that will trouble the church. It is the task of dogmatics to call on the canonical Scriptures to speak via the Spirit (‘being revealed’) to the current crisis within the church. Barth warns against the simplistic equation of the doctrine of the Trinity with the biblical

 ������������������������������������ See, for example, Alan J. Torrance, Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation with Special Reference to Volume One of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996). 23  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.1, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.W. Bromiley (London: T&T Clark, 1975), 308. 24  ������������������������ See Thomas F. Torrance, Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 374–91. 25  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 309. 22

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witness itself. At the same time he, alongside the church’s creedal testimony, sees ‘an authentic and well-established connexion between the two.’26 As Barth warns against the simplistic identification of Trinitarian theology with the biblical witness, he also speaks of the organic relationship between Trinitarian theology and the Bible’s witness to revelation. Because, and this is the point Barth is driving home, revelation itself is the root of the doctrine of the Trinity. Question 25 of the Heidelberg Catechism serves Barth well here. Question: ‘Since there is but one divine Being, why namest thou three, Father, Son and Holy Ghost?’ Answer: ‘Because that God hath thus revealed Himself in His Word, that these three distinct persons are the one true eternal God.’ Much more can and should be said here about Barth’s grounding the doctrine of the Trinity in revelation, especially regarding the Trinitarian formulation of Revealer, Revelation and Being Revealed. But our attention now turns to the way in which Isaiah 6 functions as biblical warrant for the following dogmatic formulation: ‘Revelation in the Bible means the self-unveiling, imparted to men, of the God who by nature cannot be unveiled to men.’27 Embracing the Kantian dilemma about knowledge of God in the phenomenological world, Barth appeals to the necessity of the Triune God making knowledge of himself possible by revelation.28 Humanity does not have the ability or wherewithal to construct such knowledge. If knowledge of God is possible, it is possible on Triune terms alone as God moves toward humanity in revelation. Inscrutability and hiddenness, according to Barth, are of the essence of the Bible’s portrayal of God. The Creator-creature distinction, or God’s otherness to his creation, keeps God outside the sphere of humanity’s direct or intuitable knowledge.29 Concomitant with this understanding of God’s veiledness is the equally important understanding of the sovereign freedom associated with God’s unveiling. When God assumes a form for the sake of revealing himself, he may or may not reveal himself even in this sanctified form. ‘God’s presence is always God’s decision to be present.’30 The vehicle by which God reveals himself may be to one person the means of his self-unveiling while to another person the means of his concealment. Barth’s concluding point in his reflection on the dialectic between veiling/concealment and unveiling/disclosure is the confession that ‘God is always a mystery.’31 His perpetual mysteriousness demands our understanding  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 310–11 See David Yeago, “The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma,” Pro Ecclesia III (1994): 152–78. 27  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 315. 28  ����������������������������������� See especially, Neil B. MacDonald, Karl Barth and the Strange New World Within the Bible: Barth, Wittgenstein, and the Metadilemmas of the Enlightenment, Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000). 29  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 320. 30  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 321. 31  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 321. 26

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of revelation as the sovereign and gracious self-disclosure of God. It is his alone to give whatever the form in which he decides to give it.32 Barth’s calling on Isaiah 6 is nestled within the context described above. He makes an appeal to the holiness of God as a concept within the Old Testament that does not have to do with speculation about the transcendent or his ethical qualities per se.33 God’s holiness in the Old Testament has to do with ‘His immanence, that is to His revelation, His name.’34 Holiness has to do with God’s otherness and is also a predicate of the forms by which God reveals himself in the Old Testament. These forms are the unique and sanctified means by which he reveals himself to his people within the profane world of man’s existence.35 Barth comes back to point here, however: even in God’s revelation of himself by means of sanctified forms, the very opposite of revelation may occur as well. God remains hidden in his revealedness and is free to disclose himself on his own terms. Isaiah 6 is called on as a biblical witness to this reality. The portrayal of the revelation of God in Isaiah 6 is of God high and lifted— ‫רוּם ונשׂא‬, important descriptors of Yahweh within the book of Isaiah, see Isa 52.13.36 Yahweh is revealed as transcendently other as it is the train or hem of his garment alone that fills the temple. What one observes in this description of Yahweh is both his transcendence or otherness and the overlap of his transcendence with his immanence. His robe does not fill the temple; merely the hem of his robe fills the temple. For Barth, Yahweh’s description as high and lifted up reveals his incomprehensibility even in the revelatory event. God is holy and everything associated with him is holy. What Isaiah 6 attests is the holy boundaries set by Yahweh even when he chooses to disclose himself. ‘Holiness is the separation in which God is God and in which, as God, He goes His own way even and precisely as He is “God with us”.’37 The divine self-disclosure witnessed to in Isaiah 6 reveals Yahweh as one who indeed does enter into the sphere of humanity’s existence and concerns. At the 32  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Previously and at the beginning of this small print section, Barth’s reading of Exodus 3 emphasizes the revelation of the divine name as God’s refusal to actually give a name. Hence the dialectic of veiledness and unveiledness. He also quotes Jer. 23.23, ‘Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not (also) a God afar off?’ 33  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 55. 34  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 322 For a succinct, dogmatic account of God’s holiness see John Webster, Holiness (London: SCM Press, 2003). 35   For a dogmatic application of Sanctification to our understanding of the nature and role of Scripture in the divine economy see, John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch, Current Issues in Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 17–30. 36  ������������������� H.G.M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 30–56. 37  ������� Barth, CD I.1, 322 Brevard Childs makes a similar point in his appeal to Isaiah 6 and the train filling the temple in Brevard S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 41.

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same time, Yahweh’s holiness confessed by the Seraphim in Isa 6.3 and described in the throne-room scene of 6.1 entails within it a particular sphere ‘which is proper to Him and to Him alone.’38 Barth makes a similar appeal to Isaiah 6.1 in CD II.1 in his theological reflection on the unity and omnipresence of God.39 God has space for himself first and foremost which allows him as Creator to create space for others. Therefore, Isa 6.1 witnesses positively to God’s holiness and glory. Equally so, it witnesses to the space which is God’s own, namely, his throne room.40 Admittedly, Barth’s appeal to Isaiah 6 is surprisingly scant in his reflection on the revelation of God and his holiness. Barth is selective in the exegetical/ theological point he draws out from Isaiah 6 here, and despite the selectivity seizes on a if not the central theme of God’s revelation of himself to Isaiah the prophet in Isa 6.1–3. Again, Barth does not concern himself with historical particularities. It is inconsequential for Barth that Isaiah’s revelation was in the year that King Uzziah died. Within Isaiah’s own voice the reference to Uzziah’s death is significant to what follows in the Syro-Ephraimite debacle described in Isa 7.1–9.7. Barth’s impulse exegetically is that of a theologian. He is concerned about the witnessing of the text to the divine reality. His concern is again ontological. Isaiah 6 reveals Yahweh as one who is transcendent and holy, which entails his own uniqueness from the created order. This is so even when he determines himself to be intimately involved with his creation. He is immanently transcendent. He inhabits his own space while at the same time creating space for others. It is not a question for Barth whether or not Isaiah 6 is locked within the religious-historical milieu of the Ancient Near East and competing religious depictions of the divine council.41 Based on the work of Neil MacDonald, one can safely assume Barth was aware of the continuity and discontinuity between Israel and her religious-historical context.42 But these are inconsequential for Barth because the Scriptures of Israel are a unique form by which God reveals himself to his people. They speak truthfully, even if analogically, about God’s nature and identity. Isaiah 6 is not a fanciful tale locked in the imagination of Israel’s religious experience. It is a faithful witness to the identity of our Triune God who remains holy and other even when he reveals himself. Whereas Isaiah 6 is not a very prominent voice in Barth’s theology proper, the opposite is the case in his doctrine of the Christian’s calling and vocation as witness in CD IV.3.2. Here, Barth is wrestling with what he calls the common denominator or basis of the Christian existence in light of the fact that each Christian’s calling

 ������� Barth, CD I.1, 322.  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 474. 40  ������������������������������������������������������������������������ See the very interesting discussion of this issue in Neil B. MacDonald, Metaphysics and the God of Israel: Systematic Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). 41  ���������������� See Williamson, Book Called Isaiah. 42  ����������� MacDonald, Barth and the Strange New World, 135–62. 38

39

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and vocation is ‘particular.’43 Barth rehearses some of the prominent options in the history of the church’s reflection on Christian identity. The options Barth rehearses are: Christian identity as the eschatological tension between this world and the world to come, Christian moralism (Kant’s categorical imperative tied to the formal authority of Jesus Christ), or Christian piety, which all too often elides into ‘egocentricity’ (humanity becomes the measure of all things).44 The first of these, though true, does not have the Scriptural support to sustain it as the ‘decisive characteristic’ of Christian identity.45 The second, again, though important when properly placed dogmatically, cannot be the common denominator of Christian identity, either, for Christianity cannot claim exclusive religious rights to morality. Here one thinks of the morality of Buddhists and other competing religions. The last option, that of piety, surely ranks as the most dominant of the themes in Christian history. For Barth, piety runs dangerously toward egocentricity and the grounding of the soteric event in the subjective assurance of the recipient rather than on Jesus Christ alone and his gracious act.46 None of these are denied their place, and at the same time none of these are allowed to reign supreme in the defining of the Christian existence and calling. Where does Barth turn to advance the matter? He moves straightforwardly to his ‘primary concern,’ namely, ‘the answer which is given in Holy Scripture.’47 Barth takes special aim at pietism’s grounding the Christian existence in conversion or personal experience of one’s state of grace. His rationale is simply as follows: the centering of the Christian existence on conversion or personal experience is not attested to in the Scriptures.48 We see it in the confessions of Augustine and the call of Luther. But whence is such a thing in the Bible? To read pietism’s chief concern ‘with the establishment of their personal well-being in their relationship with God’ into the stories of Abraham, Moses, the prophets or Paul is special pleading of the eisegetical sort.49 Barth states confidently, ‘In no story of calling in either the Old or New Testament does it stand in the foreground or center. Strangely enough, it plays no part even in the accounts of the calling of Paul.’50 Pietism’s classic expression of the center of Christian identity is in the end ‘contrary to Scripture.’51

43  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.3.2, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1962), 555. 44  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 555–71. 45  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 558. 46  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 566–71. 47  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 571. 48  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 572. 49  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 572. 50  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 573. 51  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 573.

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In its description of what makes a Christian a Christian, this answer gives to the element of his personal experience of grace and salvation, to his reception and enjoyment of the beneficia Christi, an abstract significance and weight which it does not have in the thinking and utterance of the Old and New Testaments. It allows itself to make an emphasis which necessarily means that the picture of Christian existence visible in Holy Scripture can be recognised only in obscure and distorted form.52

In place of Barth’s negative appraisal of pietism’s assessment is his positive portrayal of the biblical description of calling. To be called is to be given a task.53 The task given, their vocational calling, is God making them witnesses of himself. ‘He makes them witnesses of His being in His past, present and future action in the world and in history, of His being in His acts among and upon men. They are witnesses of the God who was who He was, is who He is and will be who He will be in these acts of His. They are witnesses of the God who in these acts of His, and therefore as God, as God with us, Emmanuel, was, is and will be with His creation, the world and all men.’54 Those who are called in the biblical narratives become verbi divini ministri, and this is their reason for existence. And, as we expect Barth to do, he turns his attentions to the Scriptures as warrant. Isaiah 6 plays a significant role in Barth’s biblical description of Christian vocation and calling.55 Isaiah 6 is placed within a larger network of readings and is nestled between Barth’s rehearsal of the calls of Moses, Gideon, and Samuel on the one hand and Jeremiah, Ezekiel and into the New Testament on the other. Barth does not have to work very hard with Isaiah 6 because the narrative portrayal of the story speaks for itself and confirms Barth’s larger point. In other words, Barth steps back from the text and allows the narrative itself to do the ‘witnessing.’ Isaiah is called in the midst of a ‘divine theophany’ similar to Moses. He is surrounded by the seraphim who declare the thrice-fold Sanctus. The extension of the Sanctus is important in Barth’s reading because it presses beyond anything seen before in the call narratives of Scripture. The extent of the glory of God rushes beyond the temple and the borders of Israel to the whole earth. ‘The whole earth is full of your glory.’ Barth picks up here on the centrifugal motion of Israel’s election and the universal concerns of Israel’s God. This overtly centrifugal motion is a novum in the calling of Isaiah, and a point Isaiah (and Barth) will return to again in Isaiah 40–66. Another interesting aspect of Barth’s reading here is his description of Yahweh as ‘King Yahweh.’ The one Isaiah sees on the throne is Yahweh in his kingly role. The throne he dons is his kingly throne and his kingship extends to the whole  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 573.  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 573. 54  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 575. 55  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 579–81. 52

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earth. Barth stresses that this is the Yahweh Isaiah sees. The thrice holy one is sitting on his throne as a king whose claim is universal. This vision of Isaiah’s is not the defining feature of his calling. Barth calls on his readers to wait because the text itself requires the reader to wait. Isaiah must be dealt with personally before his commissioning can take place. Barth picks up on Isaiah’s ‘woe is me’ statement in Isa 6.5 as central to Isaiah’s calling and vocational task. He does not, according to Barth, claim ‘woe’ for himself because of his unclean heart—a not-so-slight jab at pietistic rhetoric—but because of his unclean lips. Barth understands the implications of Isaiah’s woe as his own initial understanding that what he saw in his vision demands to be ‘expressed and proclaimed.’56 He cries out ‘woe’ because Isaiah knows his human lips are unworthy and incapable of expressing verbally what he has seen. This is the plight addressed by the angels as they clean Isaiah’s lips. Barth reminds the reader, bolstering his larger argument about the center of Christian identity and calling, that whatever significance the purging of his lips may have had for him existentially or personally, its primary significance is Isaiah’s vocational enablement and ‘his being made worthy, for a service of his lips which is not yet but obviously will be required.’57 After the cleansing, then the calling. After the calling, then Isaiah’s historic response: ‘Here am I; send me.’ Barth’s reading of Isaiah’s call narrative is careful and allows the movement of the narrative itself to create the theological space needed to further the particular point Barth is making. The significance of Isaiah 6’s literary placement within the book is of little interest for Barth. Questions such as, ‘Why the call narrative in chapter 6 rather than chapter 1?’ matter little to Barth. Whereas for Barth’s contemporaries, like Procksch and Eichrodt, there was a tendency to reposition Isaiah 6 to the beginning of the book on the basis of historicalcritical reconstruction.58 Here, one observes Barth’s respect for the final form of the text itself and his lack of interest in redactional issues, psycho-analysis or romanticist notions of Isaiah’s call narrative. The psycho-analytical or romanticist understanding of Isaiah is observed in certain commentators understanding that the actual commission in Isaiah 6 is a later intrusion from Isaiah himself or a tradent, because who could withstand the psychological pressure of a calling that on the front end promised misery and defeat?59 Barth is actually more minimalistic in his reading of Isaiah 6, keeping at bay these sorts of questions as he allows the text itself with its odd literary placement and perplexing commission to have pride of place in the theological shaping of Barth’s ideas concerning Christian calling as a vocation of witness. Barth allows the plain sense of the text its own voice as he positions it in a larger network of readings witnessing to a common  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 580.  ������� Barth, CD IV.3.2, 580. 58  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 52. 59  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� One sees this sort of move in the 19th century commentator G.A. Smith. See Childs, Isaiah, 53. 56

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subject matter. We will observe a similar hermeneutical sensibility in Barth’s engagement with the Emmanuel material of Isaiah 7–8.

Isaiah 7.14; 8.6; 8.9: Emmanuel, God With Us As one of the more venerated texts within the Christian exegetical tradition, Isa 7.14 provides us with an especially important example of Barth’s wrestling with the book of Isaiah and its Christian witness. Barth makes mention of Isa 7.14 in his exposition of the virgin birth in CD I.2, but only in passing.60 It functions here as the assumed backdrop for his sustained interaction with the virgin birth traditions of Matthew and Luke. A similar sort of ad hoc appeal to Isa 7.14 is made in CD III.1. Here Barth expounds with verve the central subject matter of Scripture as God’s Triune revelation of himself in Jesus Christ. Nestled within Barth’s interaction with the subject matter of Scripture is a small print warning against betraying the ‘right and necessary and central biblicism’ with ‘scattered and peripheral’ biblicism (for example, the Bible as a repository of pious knowledge).61 For Barth, it is biblically necessary to begin the doctrine of creation with an insistence that we take the Bible’s portrayal of the identity of God with utmost seriousness. In this context, Isa 7.14 is called on in homiletical fashion as a witness to God’s identity with Emmanuel. In Jesus Christ, God is with us. None of these, however, are a sustained exegesis of the text. It is in CD IV.1 where Barth gives detailed attention to Isa 7.14. Unlike any of the Isaianic texts we have seen up to this point, Barth gives an entire small print section to Isaiah in this context with only the briefest mention of the New Testament. When he does move to the New Testament, it is with Isaiah’s own construal of the matter in mind. Also, the placement of this small print section at the beginning of CD IV.1 reveals how fundamental to the theological task at hand Isa 7.14 is for Barth. Moreover, the doctrine of reconciliation is at the heart and center of Christian theology.62 The atonement has to do with God’s encountering of humanity on the basis of his own Triune identity, and the Christian message has to do with this God who is with us as God. Barth states, ‘The title “God with us” is meant as a most general description of the whole complex of Christian understanding and doctrine which here confronts us.’63 Therefore, this reading of Isaiah’s Emmanuel material will prove itself important in the broader landscape of Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation and in this work as we seek to plot Barth’s engagement of Isaiah. Barth is aware of the difficulties associated with this passage. Within the literary context of Isaiah itself, the identification of the Emmanuel figure is an  ������� Barth, CD I.2, 174.  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.1, trans. J.W. Edwards, O. Bussey, and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 24. 62  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 1. 63  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 4. 60

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elusive enterprise. Historical-critical instincts tend to proximate the figure to some identifiable person or entity within Israel’s own history. Barth uncritically refers to Martin Noth’s The History of Israel at the beginning of this small-print section and Noth’s ascribing these three independent oracles to the Syro-Ephraimite debacle in Israel’s life.64 Barth affirms without reservation the result of Noth’s traditionhistorical and redaction-critical instincts.65 Upon closer examination of Barth’s reading, however, this appeal to Noth and redaction-criticism’s handling of these oracular traditions holds little material significance for Barth’s exegesis of the text other than showing an awareness that the Isaianic texts he associates together originated outside the context in which they are now found. In other words, Barth recognizes the biblical text’s referent in Isaiah, now canonically portrayed, is not ostensibly the political and religious life of Israel’s history ‘behind the text.’ In fact, Isaiah’s account of these ‘historical’ events subverts the political and religious life of Israel by relaying a different narrative than the one proffered within Israel’s historical mileu of the time. What is also observed here is Barth’s canonical instincts to allow the final form of the text the privileged adjudicatory role in deciphering the answer to the question—who is Emmanuel? Again, Barth reveals his awareness of the form-critical tendency toward atomization or lighting upon seams within the text for the sake of assigning them to the Sitz im Leben from which the text arose. He grants to Noth that these various Emmanuel texts did come from different situations and have now been brought together in the text’s final form (the redaction-critical move). This final form creates its own network of associations beyond historical description alone, and the question raised in 7.14 about the identity of the Emmanuel figure cannot be answered without an appeal to the surrounding context of chapter 8 as well. Negatively, this means that the identification of the Emmanuel figure cannot be finally solved by appeals to historical proximity or ‘behind the text’ approaches. Put simply, the final form of the text keeps the historical situation obscured in details and is also associated now with other texts in its literary placement in Isaiah’s canonical voice. Barth’s instincts are to honor the canonical form. The Emmanuel passages are related to the changed dynamic between God and Israel. This is defined by Barth as the movement from the divine ‘yes’ to the divine ‘no.’66 Ahaz has aligned himself with Pekah and Rezin to deflect the onslaught of 64

 ���������������������������������������������������������������� On Barth’s relationship to Martin Noth, a leading figure of the überlieferungsgeschichtliche approach to Israel’s canonical history, see Eberhard Busch, The Great Passion: An Introduction to Karl Barth’s Theology, trans. Geoffery W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 334. Noth was at Bonn during the two summer semesters Barth guest lectured there after WWII. See also, Rolf Rendtorff, “Martin Noth and Tradition Criticism,” in The History of Israel’s Traditions: The Heritage of Martin Noth; JSOTSupp 182, ed. S.L. McKenzie and M.P. Graham (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994). 65  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 5. Barth cites, Martin Noth, The History of Israel, Second ed., trans. P.R. Ackroyd (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1958), 259ff. 66  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 5.

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the Assyrians. Ahaz’s failure to respond in faith to Yahweh is, according to Barth, the final form of Israel’s unfaithfulness and opposition to Yahweh. Here again, one sees Isaiah rehearsing a different narrative of the events than the one taking place within Israel’s observable political history. Similarly, and in a different theological context, Barth appeals to Isa 8.11 in his engagement of the relationship of providence to various competing philosophies of history. After Barth rehearses in truncated form various approaches to history, for example Lessing, Hegel, Marx, he makes a categorical distinction between these various philosophies (which may have good and important things to say, falling themselves under God’s providence) and God’s providence. Paradigmatic in this distanciation between philosophy of history and God’s providence are the Old Testament prophets. What makes them prophets is not that they can rightly perceive and publicly appraise past and present and future history, but that the hand of the Lord seizes them (cf. Isa 8.11), that He says something to them which in relation to the thoughts of their contemporaries and even their own is always new and strange and unexpected and even unwanted, a “burden” laid upon them (Hab. 1.1), a fire kindled and burning in them (Jer. 20.9), even a superabounding joy filling them (Jer. 15.16).67

The prophets understood God’s providence underlying the historical situation they inhabited not by intuition, insight or an immanent law. Quite to the contrary, it was revealed to them. In the context of Isaiah 7–9, the prophet weaves a different narrative than the one found on the surface of Israel’s political history conceived in abstraction from God’s providence. The Word of God via the prophet constructs these events on a different plane than observable political philosophy or an abstract philosophy of history. Isaiah’s prophetic reference is the divine move from ‘yes’ to ‘no.’ Within the Isaianic context, Isa 7.14 arises as both a word of hope and a word of judgment. It is a word of hope because before the year is over, the threat of Pekah and Rezin will be abrogated. God will be with them. It is a word of judgment because the greater threat, Assyria, will confront Judah before this child knows the difference between good and evil. In a short time, the child of promise will be eating curds and honey, the diet of the nomad. The duality of grace and judgment is the central subject-matter of this passage in Barth’s exegesis. He makes a passing statement in his exegesis that the controversy over the translation of ‫ עלמה‬bears little weight on the ‘real sense’ of the text.68 What one observes in this passing comment is Barth’s attentiveness to the plain sense of Isaiah’s own canonical voice regarding the matter at hand. The sign given in Isa 7.14 is not the virginity of the woman giving birth. This is, by the way, without an 67  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.3, trans. G.W. Bromily and R.J. Ehrlich (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), 24. 68  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 5.

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appeal to an elongated word-study on the differentiation between ‫ עלמה‬and ‫בתלה‬ and the LXX translation παρθένος. The particular word choice, Barth states, is inconsequential to the main issue of the text. The sign given is the birth of the child who witnesses both to the grace and the impending judgment of God. From this, Barth pursues his identification of Emmanuel by placing Isa 7.14 in concert with the Emmanuel passages of Isa 8.6–10. Barth does not make an appeal to the ongoing wrestling of the tradition with the Emmanuel mysteries of 7.14.69 This is the tradition-historical move most often associated with Noth and von Rad. He simply places these texts together as a collective witness to the Emmanuel idea in Isaiah. In Isa 8.6 the judgment side of the Emmanuel mysteries are present—Assyria will sweep over your banks—while 8.9–10 presents the word of grace and hope. Even though Assyria’s onslaught will be swift and destructive, Assyria is nothing other than a means of judgment in the hand of God. In the end, Assryia’s destruction will not stand because Emmanuel (‘God is with us’). Judah will survive the Assyrian threat not because of her political prowess, but because God’s presence is promised in their midst. Again, Emmanuel. Taking the larger Emmanuel context into account, Barth now asks, ‘Who is “Emmanuel”?’ When Isa 7.14 is juxtaposed to 8.6–10, the answer to this question, according to Barth is, ‘Hardly a historical figure of the period.’70 The elusory historical nature of the text and the development of the Emmanuel material into chapter 8 keeps attempts at identifying the figure historically as necessarily prefaced with ‘perhaps.’ Here are the ‘perhaps’ options given by Barth: Emmanuel could be a traditional name or a novum selected by the prophet as a descriptor of the Redemptor-King of the last days.71 Or it could be a descriptor of the remnant of Judah’s understanding of their God’s nature and consequently their own nature. Perhaps it is both at the same time. Barth describes the mysterious nature of God’s relationship to Israel in that he is present with them both in prosperity and in the days of adversity. Emmanuel is always true despite the historical contingency in which Israel finds herself. These are the ‘perhaps’ options kept somewhat at bay because of the elusive nature of the text. Barth follows these thoughts with a move we will see him make later in his discussion of the identity of the servant in Isaiah 53. Barth relativizes the question of historical proximity or precision in identifying the Emmanuel figure by moving to the larger theological implication of the canonical material before him. ‘No matter who or what is concretely envisaged in these passages, they obviously mean this: Emmanuel is the content of the recognition in which the God of Israel reveals himself in all His acts and dispositions; He is the God who does not work and act without His people, but who is with His people as their God and therefore as their hope.’72 Barth’s interest is the privileged canonical text. Though he is  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 73–4.  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 5. 71  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 6. 72  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 6. 69

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willing to try his hand at identifying the figure historically, he does so only with the preface ‘perhaps.’ Nor does his speculation about the historical possibilities of Emmanuel’s identification bear any material weight on his exegesis of the text itself. The point of the Emmanuel tradition in Isaiah 7–8 is: God is with his people and reveals himself to them in all his gracious and judgmental acts. This is their hope. One observes here Barth’s canonical sensibilities. He allows the literary fixity of the text itself the adjudicatory role in the exegesis of the biblical material. It is at least interesting that Barth does not entertain the notion that Emmanuel in 7.14 is a possible reference to Hezekiah.73 This is a popular idea for some interpreters who base their identification on historical or literary grounds.74 Even if Barth was unaware of this option, one can safely surmise that this type of historical appeal would not have suited Barth. Precise, historical identification is not allowed by the text itself. One could estimate that an identification with Hezekiah would be allowable by Barth, but it would have to remain in the ‘perhaps’ category. Here we see Barth’s tendency to relativize the historical ‘perhaps’ while lighting on the theological ‘therefore.’ Also, it can be argued that Barth’s canonical sensibilities did not go far enough. That is, he only allows the interpretation of Emmanuel to be framed in the context of Isaiah 7 and 8 with no recourse to Isaiah 9. At this point, one might see Barth possibly falling prey to the problems associated with a concordance approach to interpretation. That is, Barth seizes on the verses where the lexeme ‘Emmanuel’ is visible rather than extending the Emmanuel idea into chapter 9’s ‘child being born’ context. In Isaiah 9, the language of a child being born—‘Unto us a child is born’, Isa 9.6—is contextually identified with the promised child of 7.14. This literary association between the ‘child’ concept in Isaiah 7–9 and its literary association with 36–39 have led Seitz, et al. to conclude that historically the child born is Hezekiah.75 The language is royal in connotation, possibly reflecting formcritically ‘a traditional accession piece.’76 Alt’s historical work on this passage 73  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� One can observe two canonical interpreters of Isaiah who have differed on their conclusion regarding this. Seitz argues for the identification historically of Emmanuel with Hezekiah; Childs finds this reading overly historicist and beyond the sense left by the final tradents of this material. Barth would land with Childs on this score. 74  ���������������������� Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39. Seitz’s identification of Emmanuel with Hezekiah has to do with the literary comparison between the negative presentation of Ahaz in Isaiah 7–9 and the positive portrayal of Hezekiah in 36–39. In other words, Seitz’s move toward identifying Emmanuel with Hezekiah is not because of historical-critical sensibilities per se, for example proximity to historical reality. Rather, Seitz, with Clements and Ackroyd, sees a literary indicator within the final form of the text pressuring a Hezekiah reading of the Emmanuel material. 75  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For the historical complexities associated with this reading alongside the difficult literary fixity questions of Isaiah 7–9 see Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 84–7. 76  ���������������������� Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 86.

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reveals the child-birth language of Isa 9.6 as not literally the birth of a child but the accession of a king. The language is intentionally hyperbolic as the ANE was wont to do in royal accession pieces.77 Seitz is somewhat tentative about Alt’s historical reading. Even if it were originally a royal accession oracle, chronologically it cannot be understood as such in this particular context. Hezekiah’s reign is still awaited (9.7–10.34; 36– 39). What Seitz does see to be the case is the promised son in 7.14 fulfilled in 9.1–7. ‘The promise related to his maturation awaits their fulfillment.’78 Seitz still sees the royal oracle of 9.1–6 identified historically with Hezekiah. At the same time, he resists the chronological and literary problems of Alt’s appeal to ANE royal, accession literature. Isaiah 9.1–6 is the fulfillment of the promised child in 7.14 and is not yet to be read as Hezekiah’s enthronement rite. Canonically, this comes later (Isaiah 36–39). Childs is not inclined to find much merit either in the attempt to identify 9.1–6 with Hezekiah, nor does he find much help with Alt’s theory as it relates to the final form of the text. ‘Yet at this juncture it is crucial to distinguish between the conventional language of the oracle and its biblical function within the book of Isaiah.’79 Childs does not allow attenuated claims based on ANE parallels in any hermeneutical priority when addressing 9.6 regarding this new-born child on the basis of ANE hyperbole. This would overly historicize the material and overlook its literary context.80 Childs, with Seitz, associates Isa 9.6 with the Emmanuel material of chapters 7 and 8. And for Childs, the descriptions (Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace) of the promised child of 7.14 now fulfilled in 9.6 ‘make it absolutely clear that his role is messianic.’81 Childs has thoroughly eschatologized the material, or we might say, Childs has read the canonical intentionality of the text as eschatological. As such, ‘The language is not just wishful thinking for a better time, but the confession of Israel’s belief in a divine ruler who will replace once and for all the unfaithful reign of kings like Ahaz.’82 Special note should be made of the phrase ‘kings like Ahaz’, for here Childs states again the eschatological/messianic implications of his reading. It is not merely Ahaz who is replaced by Hezekiah as the promised child. Why? One can surmise the answer as follows: wicked kings came after Ahaz too. This 77  ��������������������� See Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12: A Commentary, Continental Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 398–407. 78   Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 87 See especially, C.R. Seitz, “Fixity and Potential in Isaiah,” in The Multivalence of Biblical Texts and Theological Meanings, SBL Symposium Series 37, ed. Christine Helmer (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 37–45. 79  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 80. 80  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 80. 81  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 81. 82  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 81. Elsewhere Childs states, ‘Increasingly the righteous king of the line of David took on roles which transcended human qualities (Isa. 9.6).’ Childs, Old Testament Theology, 242.

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is an eschatological hope for the day when God’s royal child will rule and reign replacing all kings like Ahaz. Barth does not associate 7.14 and 8.8–10 with 9.6. In fact, Barth does not appeal to Isa 9.6 substantially at all in the CD.83 This is unfortunate, because the move to Isa 9.6 would have furthered Barth’s case. God’s promise to be with his people in their moments of bounty and judgment is fulfilled in the royal promise of Isa 9.6. In Isaiah’s final form, this text is best understood eschatologically. The coming royal figure is the unique means by which God will be ‘Emmanuel.’ In fairness to Barth, he does turn to the royal imagery of the coming messianic figure in his engagement with Isaiah 11. We will come to this in due course. Barth makes an important hermeneutical move in the final paragraph of this small-print section. Here, his attention is drawn to the New Testament’s adoption of the Emmanuel material in Isaiah. Whereas in Ahaz’s day the promise of Emmanuel is located in the change of direction from the divine ‘yes’ to the divine ‘no’, in Matthew, for example, the change of direction between God and his people is the opposite case—from ‘no’ to ‘yes.’ At this juncture Barth allows Isaiah’s construal of the Emmanuel material (even though attenuated because of Barth’s failure to move to chapter 9) a coercive, pressuring voice in his reading of the New Testament material. Points of comparison are drawn between the Emmanuel-sign and Jesus. For in the person and name of Jesus, both ‘the deepest extremity imposed by God (as in Is. 8.6f.) and also of the uttermost preservation and salvation ordained by God (as in Is. 8.9f)’ are found.84 Jesus is found in both of these and as such, Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the Emmanuel material in Isaiah. Jesus is the concrete reality of God’s promise to be with his people both in their dejection and salvation. What is of special interest at this juncture is Barth’s allowing of the Isaiah material itself to create the contours for his New Testament discussion of the issue. The elusive Emmanuel material of Isaiah, precisely because of the difficulty of ostensive identification, creates a space and resonance which now can be understood retrospectively in the person and work of Jesus. Jesus is the figural fulfillment of the presentation of Emmanuel in Isaiah 7–9. Jesus is Emmanuel. Barth’s reading of the Emmanuel material of Isaiah is faithful to the canonical material, not allowing historical reconstruction or speculation to cloud the res of the text at hand. Our attention is now given to Barth’s theologically creative engagement with this portion of Isaiah from chapter 8. The same material contextually is deployed in a different theological context. Barth’s broad-ranging interpretation of the six days of creation as their themes extend throughout the rest of the two-fold canon will be exemplified in his reading of the separation of the water from the land.

83  ��������������������������������������������������������������������� In association with other texts, Barth makes reference to Isa 9.6 in CD II.1, 606 as messianic in anticipation. 84  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 6.

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Isaiah 8.5–8: Creation Imagery of Water Figurally Applied As has been repeatedly mentioned, Barth was very apt at associating texts together in his biblical expositions. This is observed again in his exegesis of Gen 1.9–10. On the third day of creation, God moves by his Word on the terrestrial waters of the universe in their tohu wabohu state. God assigns them their place in the cosmic ordering of the chaos as he separates water from land. The crucial point Barth observes here is: it is the sea that is acted on by the divine Word. Barth makes a linguistic argument by appealing to the passive sense of the verb yiqqawu at the beginning of verse 9.85 The sea does not move itself, neither is the Spirit of Gen 1.1–3 the acting agent. It is the Word of God speaking which separates the water from the land. In this creation act, the Word of God assigns the waters to their place, leaving the terra firma for humanity’s existence. Here the water is a threatening presence which is not completely alleviated in the act of creation. Similarly, in the separation of the light from the darkness, the darkness is not completely dispensed with in the creation of light.86 The water’s threatening presence is placed under divine limitation as the land gives a place for humanity’s thriving. It is the Word of God that keeps the seas from engulfing the land. From his exposition of the first creation narrative’s witness to the third day of creation, Barth traces the significance of the land and water themes as presented in the rest of the Old Testament. Barth moves from the Psalms to Proverbs to Job to the Prophets to expand on this creation theme in Genesis 1.9–10. An important hermeneutical or theological exegetical move is observed in Barth’s reading of the final form of the creation history of Genesis 1. Barth follows the Reformational principle: Scripture interprets Scripture (Scripturam ex Scriptura explicandam esse) and allows the rest of the Old Testament to function as a commentary on the creation history of Genesis 1 and 2. As he states earlier in CD III.1, ‘The decisive commentary on the biblical histories of creation is the rest of the Old Testament.’87 The move toward metaphysical (for example Augustine and Aquinas) or historical (Gunkel’s form-criticism) abstraction which isolates the creation narratives of Genesis 1–2 from their canonical placement results in a forced reading of these 85  ����������������������������������������������������������������� Barth does not use the technical, Hebrew terminology, that is the niphal. Barth, CD III.1, 145. 86  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� In a similar way, Barth makes reference to Isa 21.11–12 in his exposition of the first act of creation, the separation of light from darkness. ‘Sentinel, what of the night? Sentinel, what of the night? The Sentinel says, ‘Morning comes, and also the night.’ As Barth does above in his expansion of the theme of water and land into the rest of the two-fold canon, so too does he expand the theme of light and darkness. Isa 21.11 is referred to because it substantiates the notion that light and darkness are intertwined in the creation, and the latter is understood as a menacing force. This juxtaposition of light and darkness will be eliminated in the new creation. ‘And there will be no more night’ (Rev 21.25; 22.5). 87  ������� Barth, CD III.1, 65 For a fuller and illuminating treatment see, MacDonald, Barth and the Strange New World, 135–62, esp. 161.

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texts going beyond their own final form and plain sense (as a side-note, Barth’s canonical sensibilities are acute here). The creation narratives are found at the beginning of the Pentateuch, and as such, they function as the pre-history of God’s soteric activity with the people of Israel. As Barth states, ‘They [the creation narratives] do not speak of the work of any creator of the world, but—like all that follows—of the words and acts of the very One who later made Himself known and attached Himself to the people of Israel as Yahweh-Elohim.’88 Faithful reading of the creation narratives will take into account their canonical placement and intentionality. Barth’s allying of creation and redemption on the basis of the canonical placement of the creation narratives within the Pentateuchal traditions anticipates von Rad’s later work, “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation.”89 Working within his überlieferungsgeschichtliche approach, von Rad views the Genesis creation narratives through the lens of the Psalter’s and Deutero-Isaiah’s deployment of creation themes. What one observes is that in Israel’s own redemptive history, the doctrine of creation was a subservient theme to the doctrine of redemption. In other words, the doctrine of creation served the doctrine of redemption and not vice-versa. There is no evenness between Israel’s understanding of these traditions. Creation serves redemption. ‘We do not hesitate, in fact,’ states von Rad, ‘that we regard this soteriological interpretation of the work of creation as the most primitive expression of Yahwistic belief concerning Yahweh as creator of the world.’90 Moreover, Israel’s construal of cosmology and cosmogony in Genesis 1 never had an independent status. It always served Israel’s soteriological concerns. Our point here is not to engage von Rad head-on regarding his claims. Childs’s judicious reading of von Rad highlights the salient and enduring point of von Rad’s piece, namely, the Old Testament’s own voice understands creation and redemption as ‘correlatives.’91 Childs concludes that ‘it is highly questionable whether creation was subordinated in principle.’92 Von Rad’s keen observation of the interplay between creation and redemption in Israel’s traditional recording of her faith may claim too much when subordinationist language is applied. Nevertheless, the tendency to abstract Israel’s doctrine of creation from its canonical placement in the Pentateuch and from the overwhelming intertextual appeals to creation imagery in Israel’s soteriological construal (for example Isa 40.1–3) is successfully challenged by von Rad. One can see von Rad’s sensibilities, though without the tradition-historical mechanisms fully engaged, present in Barth’s reading of the  ������� Barth, CD III.1, 65.   Gerhard von Rad, “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” in From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology, trans. E.W.T. Dickens (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 177–86 Originally published in 1936. 90  ����������������������������������� Rad, “OT Doctrine of Creaton,” 183. 91  �������� Childs, Old Testament Theology, 33. 92  �������� Childs, Old Testament Theology, 33 See also MacDonald, God of Israel, 139–59. 88 89

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creation story. Creation is understood within the Old Testament’s own idiom as a correlative of redemption. The two mutually inform one another. Coming full circle to Gen 1.9–10, Barth traces the theme of water in the Old Testament as a pernicious presence in Israel’s life. God’s ‘apotropaic’ act against the water serves as the basis for God’s ‘constitution and preservation’ of his people Israel.93 As God holds back the terrestrial waters from engulfing the land, so too does God hold back hostile forces from engulfing Israel. The water of Gen 1.9–10 ‘is a representative of all the evil powers which oppose and resist the salvation intended for the people of Israel, thus trying to resist God Himself, but finding themselves unable to do so because God who is also their transcendent Lord Himself fights against them, checking their arrogance and confining them to their place.’94 The Genesis account of creation, and here especially the separation of the water from the dry land, not only serves questions of cosmology and cosmogony, they also function as an architectonic for God’s soteric movement toward his covenant people Israel. Therefore, and in conjunction with a litany of other passages rehearsing the same theme, when Assyria is described in Isa 8.6–8 and Isa 17.12–14 as the waters of the river unleashed on Judah, it is not a fortuitous clamoring for imagery by the prophet.95 It is the intentional deploying of creation imagery where one sees the mutual informing of God’s initial creation in Genesis 1 with his soteric movement to be the God of Israel no matter the stakes. It is Israel’s covenant-keeping God who holds the waters in place, creating space for humanity’s existence. It is also Israel’s covenant-keeping God who keeps the seas of Israel’s enemies from engulfing her. When the dam of God’s protecting grace is removed, the waters (in this case the Assyrians) are unleashed as God’s divine ‘yes’ elides into his ‘no.’ One must recall, however, that the momentary ‘no’ of God’s judgment serves his final ‘yes.’ In Barth’s reading of Isa 8.6–8 he consistently applies the Reformation instinct that Scripture is its best interpreter. This text serves as an interpretive gloss on the creation imagery of Genesis that continues to reverberate throughout the Old Testament as the relationship between redemption and creation are organically related. Such a reading is textured and figural as various texts are brought together to reveal their mutual informing of one another. Our attention turns now to Barth’s handling of Isaiah 11’s messianic hopes.

 ������� Barth, CD III.1, 147.  ������� Barth, CD III.1, 147. 95  ���� Cf. CD III.1, 279. One can pursue the theme of water, for example brooks, springs and rivers, in Isaiah’s imagery (12.3; 30.25; 35.6; 43.19; 44.3; 49.10; 58.11). 93

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Isaiah 11: Messianic Anticipation and the Wholeness of Jesus Christ’s Humanity Isaiah’s own prophetic movement presses toward chapter 11 as central to and defining of the eschatological hope of Israel. What one observes with Isaiah 11’s placement in the canonical shaping of the material is the culmination and interpretation of the preceding Emmanuel promises beginning in chapter 7 with the sign proffered to Ahaz moving into chapter 9 and the promised child (7.1–9.6). The material has been thoroughly eschatologized as Israel’s hope is forward-looking. Isaiah 11’s portrayal of the coming King and his reign of peace heightens the eschatological anticipation in this portion of Isaiah and rounds off the Emmanuel material preceding it. Isaiah 11.1 states, ‘A shoot shall come from the stock of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of its roots.’ How is one to understand Isa 11.1 in light of its textual context? Is Isaiah 11.1 a negative statement about judgment following closely on the heels of 10.33–34 (for example Eichrodt) where the fall of the Davidic dynasty is heralded? Why the appeal to the stump of Jesse and not the stump of David? Immediately one encounters a morass of interpretive difficulties associated with this portion of Isaianic hope. Williamson’s work on these issues helpfully charts one through these interpretive waters. His redaction-critical work understands Isa 11.1 in a more positive and hopeful light where the future hope of Israel is in a second David figure (thus the appeal to the stump of Jesse instead of David per se) after Israel’s non-descript judgment had passed.96 The stump and root language of 11.1 cuts against any notions of an ‘unbroken continuity’ between the house of David and the coming royal figure.97 The negative description of Ahaz in Isaiah 7 prevents this ‘unbroken continuity’ and places Israel’s hope in a second Davidic figure who brings something new from what has been cut down. Whether or not Isa 11.1–9 can be properly called ‘messianic’ has been the source of some debate. The reasons for this debate hinge on what Childs has called ‘the crucial hermeneutical debate’ about this passage, namely, what is the proper context for interpretation.98 Historical-critical sensibilities have tended to view ostensive referentiality of the historical type as the hermeneutical key. One can see this even in Williamson’s fine treatment of Isaiah 11, where the question of the Isaianic authenticity of 11.1–10 is viewed as redaction-critically provable and important. Somewhat, though not equally, problematic is the basic lack of the term ‘messiah’ in the text, alongside the tradition-historical problems associated with the non-eschatological character of the messiah in the Second Temple literature

96  ������������������� H.G.M. Williamson, Variations on a Theme: King, Messiah and Servant in the Book of Isaiah, The Didsbury Lectures (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1998), 54–5. 97  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 102. 98  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 99.

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and the New Testament.99 Returning to Childs’s ‘crucial hermeneutical debate’, the options for the genesis of this material have ranged from Isaiah himself (Duhm, Williamson) to post-exilic redaction (Clements) to a bifurcated reading where 11.1–5 is Isaianic and 11.6–9 is a post-exilic redactional glosses (Becker, H. Barth).100 Apart from the redaction-critical question, and still hovering toward historical identification, have been those who have argued for direct identification of the shoot of Jesse with Hezekiah (Seitz)—whose multi-level reading can identify the eschatological figure of Isaiah 11 as both Hezekiah and Hezekiah’s figural anticipation of another—or Josiah (Sweeney).101 The exegetical issues are dense with a text like this one, and the conclusions drawn by interpreters tends to be revelatory of aims, intentions and exegetical priorities for those who undertake such a project. In his own way, Beuken has challenged the tradition-historical approach to the concept of messiahship by allowing the Old Testament’s own intertextual cross-referencing to play the primary interpretive role regarding the concept overagainst Inter-Testamental or New Testament construals of the matter.102 As we will see, Barth did allow the New Testament to function as a commentary on this Old Testament passage, but only in light of a promise/fulfillment paradigm. That Isaiah 11 is ultimately messianic is understood for Barth without the traditionhistorical mechanisms needed for such a claim. Returning to Beuken, he defines messiahship according to Isaiah 11’s own discrete voice and the intertextual referents associated with it in the following way: ‘It implies that the messiah is the anointed king who will bring God’s plan for Israel and the nations to completion, and not that his origins are transcendent and that his coming spells the end of the world and its history.’103 What one observes from Beuken’s succinct definition, concomitant with the thought of Childs, Seitz, Williamson, Sweeney and despite their different conclusions about particular referentiality, is that the royal nature of this eschatological figure is central to his definition. The one who comes will be a second David whose rule will establish justice and righteousness for Israel and the nations (11.1–10). Barth does not hesitate to affirm Isaiah 11.1–10 as messianic. In fact, Barth does not entertain any other possibility. For example, in CD IV.3, in the context of Jesus as Victor and humanity’s non-neutral encounter with him, Isaiah 11 is the depiction

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 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Willem A.M. Beuken, “The ‘Messianic’ Character of Isaiah Chapter 11: East and West: Alien Perspectives?” in Das Alte Testament als christliche Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht, ed. I.Z. Dimitrov, et al. (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2004), 347. 100  �������� Childs, Isaiah, 99–100. 101  ���������������������������������������������������������������� C.R. Seitz, “Fixty and Potential,” 43 Cf. Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 75 Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39 with an Introduction to the Prophetic Literature, The Forms of the Old Testament Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 198–211. 102  ����������������������������������� Beuken, “Messianic Character,” 348. 103  ����������������������������������� Beuken, “Messianic Character,” 348.

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of ‘the coming Messianic reign of peace.’104 There is actually no strain in Barth’s appeal to the messianic character of Isaiah 11. It is not argued for in any exegetical fashion or anything closely resembling the kind of exegetical labor hinted at in the preceding paragraphs. Barth’s reading of Isaiah 11 is a straightforward reading that flies close to the ground, and he understands this coming son of David (more on this particular collocation below) as an eschatological, messianic figure.105 H is most extended reflection on Isaiah 11 is situated in his Christological-Anthropology of CD III.2. Our attention will focus on this corpus alone. As one might expect with Barth’s theology, when he addresses the question of what it means to be human or a person he does not turn firstly to humankind in general. The reaction to the philosophical impulses found in the proverbial, ‘Know thyself,’ of ancient Greek philosophy is, for Barth, a turn away from the self to the true human, Jesus Christ. Krötke’s analysis of Barth’s anthropology suggests Barth’s appreciation of the empirical sciences and the turn to the phenomenology of human existence past and present and what can be ‘brought to light’ from such. Nevertheless, these enterprises are empty shadows when seeking theological grounds for ordering an account of what it means to be human. Krötke states, ‘We are not to learn who and what the human being is by observing human beings and their history in general, but rather to do so in the concrete human person to whom, according to Christian faith, God bound himself and entered into human history.’106 In this sense, to know what real humanity is, one must turn to the really humanizing human, Jesus Christ. Isaiah 11 is appealed to in a small-print section where Barth has turned firstly to the wholeness of the human Jesus Christ. There is an orderliness and structure to the wholeness of Jesus Christ, or, as Barth puts it, ‘The interconnexion of the soul and body and Word and act of Jesus is not a chaos but a cosmos, a formed and ordered totality.’107 As a law unto himself and constrained by no exterior forces, Jesus Christ is both soul and body at once. The soul is prior to the body, or the soul dominates the dominated body as Word is prior to act in Jesus Christ. This ordering, however, takes place in fundamental unity and wholeness so that they are not at odds with one another. They are brought together as Jesus is both dominating soul and dominated body at the same time and in wholeness. As such, Jesus Christ is sovereign over his own existence. It is worth quoting Barth in full here:

 ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.3.1, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961), 184. See also, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.4, trans. A.T. Mackay, et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961), 353. 105  ������� Barth, CD III.2, 333. 106  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Wolf Krötke, “The Humanity of the Human Person in Karl Barth’s Anthropology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 159. 107  ������� Barth, CD III.2, 332. 104

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This oneness and wholeness of the human person, Jesus Christ, is for Barth the way in which the New Testament describes him. Moreover, this oneness and wholeness of humanity in Jesus Christ is a derivative of his unique relation with the Holy Spirit. This is the point where Barth begins to engage Isaiah 11 as the central prophecy fulfilled in Jesus Christ as it has to do with his unique relation with the Holy Spirit. Before Barth actually addresses the Biblical texts he makes an interesting claim regarding the ontological priority of Jesus Christ’s Messiahship and status as Son of God as that which grounds his relation with the Holy Spirit and not vice-versa. In other words, it is not because Jesus Christ has a unique relationship with the Holy Spirit that he is thus Messiah and Son of God. Rather, because he is the Messiah and Son of God he has this unique relationship with the Holy Spirit. For Barth, Isaiah 11.1–9—though Barth only quotes 11.1–2—is the ‘central prophecy of the coming son of David’ understood by the New Testament writers to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.109 Barth rightly notes the royal associations taking place in Isaiah 11. When Isaiah 11.2 describes the Spirit of the Lord (‫ )רוח יהוה‬as resting upon this coming shoot of Jesse, the Jesse imagery and context of Isaiah 7–10 demands a royal understanding of this figure. As Barth states, ‘In a word, it is the Spirit of the true king that will be the Spirit of this man.’110 A s a gloss on this statement, Barth refers to the prayer of Solomon in 1 Kgs 3.6–9. Solomon’s prayer reflects the tenor and character of this coming Messianic figure in prototypical fashion. ‘But according to Is. 11, this kingly Spirit is to rest on the Messiah (in contrast to Solomon, to David himself, and to all who in greater or less measure partake of his line). He is to be a man who is pervasively and constantly, intensively and totally filled and governed by this kingly Spirit.’111 From this, Barth moves to the New Testament as an explanation of what this in fact looks like in the person of Jesus Christ. There are some incongruities and possible questions begging about Barth’s explanation and comments concerning Isa 11.1–2. Admittedly, he is lighting upon 108  ������� Barth, CD III.2, 332. Again, see Krötke’s exposition of Barth’s thought here, Krötke, “Humanity,” 169–71. 109  ������� Barth, CD III.2, 333. 110  ������� Barth, CD III.2, 333. 111  ������� Barth, CD III.2, 333.

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Isa 11.2 in particular and the significance of the Holy Spirit in relation to Jesus Christ. Resultantly, and in line with most of Barth’s appeals to Isaiah, one does not expect a fully throttled exegesis of the passage. Isaiah 11 serves Barth’s purposes well here and is a faithful hearing of the text retrospectively understood in light of the person of Jesus Christ. That Barth appeals to Solomon instead of David (compare with 1 Sam 16.13) is misplaced, though innocuous at the end of the day. This is probably due to the fact that Barth constructs his entry to Isaiah 11 by referring to the coming of the Messiah as ‘the coming son of David.’112 Again, not much is lost here, but it cannot be called a careful reading of the text, for Isa 11.1 refers to the coming one as from the root of Jesse. How one understands the significance of the reference to Jesse instead of David is contested. As we saw previously, this can be construed as a word of judgment primarily, presupposing the destruction of the Davidic line, or positively, as a word of hope. Williamson has argued persuasively for the latter. He states, ‘The point of referring to Jesse seems to be not so much negatively to dwell on the nature of judgment which has fallen, as positively to make the point that the new ruler will be a second David.’113 Again, not much is lost here and Barth redeems himself with his parenthetic clause that contrasts the coming Messiah to Solomon, David or any from this line. At the same time, Barth’s exegesis of Isaiah 11 is not necessarily very penetrating. Barth also begs the question when he states that the New Testament writers understood Jesus to fulfill the central prophecy of Isa 11.1–2. There are not many quotations of Isa 11.1–10 in the New Testament, and where quotations or demonstrable allusions occur, Barth does not refer to them in his New Testament exposition of Isa 11.1–2. In Rom 15.10, Paul quotes Isa 11.10 in the context of the eschatological worship of God by Gentiles and Jews. Richard Bauckham demonstrates the prominence of Davidic Messianism in Revelation and the role Isaiah 11 plays in this eschatological configuration.114 In his own way, N.T. Wright places the narratives of Jesus’ baptism by John with the Spirit descending on him like a dove as a ‘deliberate allusion’ to Isaiah 11.115 But Wright has to appeal to the category of allusion, and the connectedness of these texts has to do with

 ������� Barth, CD III.2, 333.  ������������ Williamson, Variations, 55. 114  ������������������ Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, New Testament Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 68–9. 115  ������������� N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 536–7 See also Martin Hengel, Studies in Early Christology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 38, 57, and Richard Bauckham’s very interesting study of Mark 1.13’s statement, ‘and Jesus was with the wild beasts,’ and its association with the messianic vision of Isaiah 11, Richard Bauckham, “Jesus and the Wild Animals (Mark 1:13): A Christological Image for an Ecological Age,” in Jesus of Nazareth Lord and Christ: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology, ed. Joel B. Green and M. Turner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 17–19. 112 113

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conceptual overlap rather than direct quotation as seen in Rom 15.10.116 In other words, some intertextual spade work has to be done exegetically to make such a claim because of the lack of identifiable quotation or direct allusion to Isaiah 11 in the New Testament and the four-fold Gospels in particular. None of these are appealed to by Barth as warrant for the claim that the New Testament writers understand Jesus to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 11. Barth assumes the validity of this statement without any demonstrable warrant for such a claim. Our chiding of Barth, soft as it is, is probably indicative of the problems faced when Biblical scholars and theologians approach the Biblical text and its cross-referencing capabilities. Biblical scholars whose sensibilities tend toward the analytical need some sort of midrashic connection between texts by which to identify a legitimate intertextual appeal. What we observe with Barth’s appeal to Isa 11.1–2 in association with various New Testament texts speaking about Jesus’ unique relationship to the Spirit is more akin to figural or allegorical exegesis than intertextuality properly defined by today’s standards of intertextual referentiality. The latter has to do with older texts being somewhat identifiably embedded in newer texts to create some sort of theological resonance.117 Barth’s association of Isa 11.1–2 with the New Testament lacks the technical sophistication associated with the ‘intertextuality’ of, for example, the Richard Hays sort. Barth’s reading is not necessarily ruled out of court on this account. His reading is functioning on a different level of association than direct identification between two texts. Here, Barth’s reading of Isaiah 11 is case-in-point of Childs’s differentiation between midrash and allegory. Childs demonstrates the continuities between midrash and allegorical exegesis and then makes the following point regarding their substantial differences: While midrash works at discerning meaning through the interaction of two written texts, allegory—I am using the term in its broadest sense—finds meaning by moving to another level beyond the textual. It seeks to discern meaning by relating it referentially to a substance (res), a rule of faith, or a hidden eschatological event. Christian exegetical use of intertextuality moves along a trajectory between promise and fulfillment within a larger christological structure.118

Barth does associate texts together by means of a cross-referencing association around the concept of the Spirit but not necessarily in a midrashic sense where the 116

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Other possible allusions to Isa 11.1–2 are found in Act 13.23 and the possible association of ‫( נזר‬sprout, shoot) with Matt 2.23 where Jesus’ identity as a Nazarene is said to be prophesied to in Scripture. 117  ���������������������������� Most notably, Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 118  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Brevard S. Childs, “Critique of Recent Intertextual Canonical Interpretation,” ZAW 115 (2003): 182–3.

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semantic level remains on the textual. Rather, Barth is reading Isa 11.1–2 figurally and in association with its subject matter (res). The florilegium of New Testament texts appealed to by Barth as demonstration of Isa 11.1–2’s fulfillment may on the surface seem a case of special pleading simply because the intertextual referent by way of quotation or identifiable allusion is simply not present. If one, however, recognizes that Barth is reading Isa 11.1–2 allegorically or figurally in light of the text’s ultimate subject matter, namely, God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, then the litany of New Testament verses appealed to as explication of Isa 11.1–2 work. The association between the texts is taken place on the level of res or ontology rather than textual association in the midrashic sense. In Isaiah’s own discrete voice, Isa 11.1–2 witnesses eschatologically to the coming, Davidic King who will reign in righteousness and justice. This coming King will be marked primarily by his unique association with the Spirit of the Lord. When one turns to the New Testament, the unique relationship of Jesus to the Spirit is observed in many different texts and can now function as commentary on Isa 11.1–2 as the Old and the New Testament mutually inform one another’s common subject matter. They speak to a common subject matter and are thus ‘fulfillment’ of the anticipation created for the coming eschatological King of Isa 11.1–10. Barth’s reading is a figural reading of Isa 11.1–2 because its point of reference is beyond the textual as it relates in this particular instance to the wholeness of Jesus as soul and body indissolubly linked because of Jesus’ unique and abiding relation with the Holy Spirit. From Isaiah 11’s words of hope, our study now turns to the oracles against the nations in Isa 13–27.

Isaiah 13–27: Israel’s God of the Nations Barth’s substantial interaction with this corpus of Isaiah is admittedly thin. This is not to say Barth does not refer to the oracles against the nations (13–23) and what has been called the little apocalypse (24–27). A quick glance at the Scripture index of the CD will reveal his reference to every one of these chapters except 15, 16 and 23. It will be of interest to see the ways in which Barth does interact substantially with these chapters besides passing reference or cross reference in a litany of corresponding verses with no engagement of the text itself. The reason for this importance is that these chapters, more specifically Isaiah 13–23, have proven themselves elusive for the christological interpreter of the Old Testament. Their subject matter at first glance seems so related to the particularities of Israel’s existence and struggle against the surrounding nations as to be locked in this historical setting. Reflecting on Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on Isaiah, Robert Louis Wilken states that it was one thing for the Patristic exegetes to comment on more notable passages of the ‘fifth gospel’ like Isa 7.14 or 9.6. It was ‘quite another thing to interpret the book in its historical setting and as a book about Christ and

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the Church.’119 Cyril of Alexandria was one of the few Patristic exegetes to engage the entirety of Isaiah in a commentary. He joined the ranks of Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome. According to Wilken’s analysis, the chapters proving themselves most difficult for Patristic exegetes with little mention therein were the oracles to the nations in chapters 13–23. Wilkin makes this summarizing statement regarding the oracles to the nations in Cyril’s commentary: ‘It is not surprising that Cyril most often gives a historical interpretation to these oracles and only occasionally finds in them references to Christ.’120 In this regard, Isaiah 13–23 poses its own sorts of challenges for the Christian interpreter of the Old Testament because their christological referent is not readily accessible. The aporia of these texts within the Church’s history of interpretation, noted especially in the Patristic era, is worth pursuing in light of Barth’s engagement with them. Our interaction with Barth on these chapters will be somewhat piecemeal and selective. However, we should gain a sense of how Barth believed these ‘historically particular’ texts continue to witness to the one Word of God. Barth makes reference twice to Isaiah 13 in the context of the kingdom of heaven in CD III.3.121 In this dogmatic context, Barth sets the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven in ontological relation to one another. The kingdom of God come on earth is such because it is first and foremost the kingdom of heaven. The whence of God’s actions in the world is that creaturely place where Christ sits at the right hand of God. This ‘place’ is as real as our earthly sphere and is the source of God’s will on earth. Important in this context is the Lord’s prayer, and more specifically, the petition, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Barth’s reference to Isaiah 13 is located in Barth’s handling of this prayer as it relates to the kingdom of God. Within Isaiah’s final, canonical form, chapter 13 makes a distinct break from the preceding chapters. This is observed in the change of subject matter and the titular ascription of these oracles to Isaiah. The movement is one from the restoration of Israel and resultant praise in chapters 11–12 to the oracles of judgment against the

119  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Robert Louis Wilkin, “Cyril of Alexandria as Interpreter of the Old Testament,” in The Theology of St Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy and Daniel A. Keating (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 6. 120  ��������������������������������� Wilkin, “Cyril of Alexandria,” 6. 121  ������� Barth, CD III.3, 445. In his engagement with Yahweh as Yahweh Sabaoth, Barth refers again to Isa 13.4 on p. 449 of CD III.3. Here Barth speaks of the multiplicity in unity of the heavenly realm in their obedience to the Lord. The Lord is not alone in heaven. He is the sovereign of a multiplicity; he is the Lord of Hosts. In Isa 13.4, the army gathered together by the Lord of Hosts (one should observe the Hebrew play on words here—‫מלחמה‬ ‫—יהוה צבאוֹת צבא‬the Lord of Hosts or Armies is seeking or mustering an army for battle) seems to be an army of men. This verse is one of several that reveals the ambivalence between the heavenly hosts and the event of salvation on earth. The hosts of the Lord of Hosts is not always the heavenly realms, as in Isa 13.4.

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nations in 13–27.122 It has puzzled interpreters for some time why exactly these oracles against the nations are placed where they are. Any notion of a pure chronological arrangement of Isaiah is dispelled by the placement of these oracles. Their placement functions canonically for theological reasons that sound Pauline on the ear (or maybe we should say, Paul sounds Isaianic). The basic message is, as Israel comes under God’s judgment for their hubris, so too will the nations (the order is reversed, but the logic is the same in Rom 1.18–2.16). These oracles are not intended as a word of hope for the salvation of Israel. Rather, ‘they make clear that God’s sovereignty over human pride and arrogance reaches to every nation on earth.’123 The kingdom rule of God extends beyond the borders of Israel to the nations. As a counterpoint example of God’s judgment extending to the nations, one observes in the oracle against Egypt in Isaiah 19 that after God has smitten the Egyptians, they too will know Yahweh, worship him with sacrifices and grain offerings, make vows to Yahweh and pay them (Isa 19.21). Not only does the Lord’s judgment spill over the borders of Israel, so too does his gracious sovereignty extend even to the Egyptians. After their rejection by the Lord, they will be the recipients of his healing. By way of example, Barth refers to Isa 19.21 in CD III.4, where the active life is described as the life lived in free conformity to the obedience of Jesus Christ. According to the Old Testament, this free and obedient conformity is not only for Israel but for the nations as well.124 Thus the appeal to Isa 19.21. Returning to Isaiah 13, when Barth makes mention of Isa 13.13—‘Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts on the day of his fierce anger’—in the context of ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven’ from the Lord’s prayer, one can observe how Barth’s placement of Isaiah 13 fits within the theological rationale for the oracles against the nations in Isaiah. For Barth, the kingdom of heaven, which is ultimately mysterious and beyond our speculation, is genuinely revealed when the kingdom of heaven functions salvifically here on earth. Heaven, that creaturely reality suitable to the sphere where the Father and the Son are unified as Christ sits at the right hand of God (this is where Heaven is), is the whence of his Word and work in the earthy sphere.125 Heaven is the realm where God’s will 122

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������ For our purposes it is inconsequential that many interpreters, beginning with Duhm, have separated 13–23 from 24–27 based on historical-critical reasoning (that is the lateness of an apocalyptic genre). Thematically and canonically they are dealing with the same subject matter, namely, God’s judgment against the nations. Moreover, one can observe the material and substantial overlap between chapter 13 and 24–27’s depiction of cosmic judgment. See Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 118. 123  ���������������������� Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 122 See Rolf Rendtorff, The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament, trans. D.E. Orton (Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2005), 667–75, esp. 675. 124  ������� Barth, CD III.4, 476. 125  ������� Barth, CD III.3, 444.

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is always performed obediently and this is the ‘material presupposition’ of the aforementioned phrase from the Lord’s prayer.126 We pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it already is in heaven. When Barth turns to the Scriptures as warrant for his understanding of the differentiation and mutuality of the creaturely spheres of heaven and earth, he mentions Isa 13.13 first. The heavenly occurrences within the Old Testament have to do with God’s gracious and judicial Lordship over his covenant with Israel.127 And the correspondent of this heavenly occurrence is the earthly sphere which runs parallel to it. This is seen in the prophecy against (or ‘for’ for in Clements’ reading) Babylon in Isa 13.13. For here in the depiction of the coming day of the Lord, that is, the coming day of judgment, it is not only earth that shakes but heaven and earth. As God makes war against the pride and arrogance of the nations, the heavens and earth will feel its tumultuous power. We see elsewhere Barth referring to this corpus in his exposition of the fourth day of creation in CD III.1. God begins to furnish the cosmos with the mediators of light, the Sun, Moon and Stars.128 The luminary bodies are part of the living creatures. They are not only things; they are personalities according to the Old Testament (contra Gunkel). How else is one to make sense of personal nature given to these beings in the Old Testament. Called on for service is Isa 24.21–23: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in a pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed.’129 Barth treads carefully with his assertions here, not wishing to go further than the Scriptures will allow. Nevertheless, the luminary bodies are referred to as personalities in the Old Testament. Barth states that the difference between ANE cosmology and the Old Testament cosmology has to do with the divinity of the heavenly bodies, not their personality. Now, Barth could be chided in his reading of Isaiah 24 that he has not sufficiently taken into account or given heed to the apocalyptic nature of Isaiah 24.130 In other words, the moon’s dismay and the sun’s shame are hyperbolic images called on to illustrate the grandeur of the coming cosmic event, not indications of their personalities. One should also note the poetic terms used in the Hebrew text to describe the sun and moon rather than the astronomical terms one might anticipate  ������� Barth, CD III.3, 445.  ������� Barth, CD III.3, 445. 128  ������� Barth, CD III.1, 156 Barth makes the point that the naming of the Sun, Moon and Particular Stars does not occur in this passage. Giving them their names is humanity’s project, and as such, the heavenly bodies are in ‘the sphere of human knowledge and power.’ Barth, CD III.1, 158–9. 129  ������������� As quoted in CD III.1, 159. 130  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� On the negatives and positives of referring to Isaiah 24–7 as apocalyptic, see Childs, Isaiah, 173–4. 126

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when describing the luminary bodies.131 In other words, Barth runs rough-shod over the genre of this text. When, however, Barth’s exegesis is placed in the nexus of Scripture’s broader canonical voice on the subject, one can see how Isaiah 24 illustrates the point Barth is making. It may not have worked in isolation, and in fact it probably does not. But in accordance with the other verses called on, Isaiah 24 can serve to show, at least homiletically, the personality of the created heavenly bodies (though caution is called for). What is of seeming interest for our purposes is that Barth refers to this aspect of Isaiah 24 at all. A quick glance at some of the major commentaries on Isaiah will reveal very little discussion on the sun and moon in their abeyance and shame at the coming day of cosmic judgment. In retrospect, his appeal to Isa 24.23 in his larger exposition may be special pleading. At the same time, in association with other texts, one can see how the personification of the sun and moon in Isaiah 24 fits with the idea that the heavenly bodies are personalities of sorts in the Old Testament. These few examples from Barth’s engagement with Isaiah 13–27 reveal his ability to see these texts as witnesses to the one God of the Bible. They speak of the kingdom of heaven revealed in God’s action with both Israel and the nations here on earth. Barth can call on their imagery as depicting a biblical cosmology whose foundations were laid in the creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2. They can even speak of the death of death found in Revelation and pre-figured in the mocking funeral dirge of the King of Babylon in Isa 14.4–11.132 All to say, Barth was not hamstrung by these passages because they did not relate to a direct Christological referent. They can speak on their own accord of the being-in-act of Yahweh, and, as such, they are ultimately Christological. We cannot have Yahweh without the final exegesis of Yahweh for humankind in Jesus Christ. Here, one senses the difference between Christological exegesis of the Trinitarian kind and a flat-footed Christomonism. In fairness to the texts, one senses with Barth’s reading of this corpus, as attenuated as it is, something of a strain. This is observed with his appeal to Isa 24.23 and if pursued, would be sensed in his discussion of Isa 14.4–11 and the King of Babylon. In other words, this is not Barth at his finest as a reader of Isaiah. At the same time, his appeal to this section in various ways in the CD does exonerate him from the charge of an overly historicist reading. Isaiah 13–27 witness to the identity and actions of Yahweh and, as such, are not locked in the past, but opened in the present as a continuing word of the Lord. As we will see, Isaiah understands the word of the Lord to be such as well. But we jump ahead of ourselves.

131  ���������������� J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993), 206. 132  ������� Barth, CD III.2, 634.

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Isaiah 30.20–22: Conversion as Nostri non sumus, sed Domini Our final Isaianic text from Isaiah 1–39 in the CD is Isa 30.20–22. Barth is expounding the theme of ‘Awakening to Conversion’ in CD IV.2. Conversion is the continual reawakening of those who were once asleep. Barth defines this sleep as ‘the relentless downward movement consequent upon their sloth.’133 Conversion is the reversing of this downward movement. It is a compulsion coming upon the slothful sleeping to rise up and come after him. The two movements of God’s awakening of the person and the person’s proceeding to God from the opposite direction are indissolubly linked in the one act of conversion. The latter is grounded in the former, to be sure. At the same time, both acts are part of the ongoing dynamic of conversion.134 Barth refers to Calvin’s statement, Nostri non sumus, sed Domini, as paradigmatic for the Bible’s portrayal of conversion’s dynamic. We once belonged to ourselves, plunging downward along the path of the ‘old way.’135 ‘But we now belong to God as our Lord.’136 From this, Barth enlists the biblical canon to substantiate his claim. He moves from the penitential cry of Ps 51.10, to the language of the new covenant in Jer. 31.33, to Ezekiel and Romans. He returns to the prophet and speaks of the urgent cry of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea and Isaiah for Israel to return to Yahweh. The prophets’ role as covenant emissaries was to remind the people of God about the imperatives demanded from the covenantal relationship: I will be your God and you will be my people. In short, the prophets’ cry to Israel as the covenant people of God is a cry for their conversion, for their turning away from their idolatrous plunge into the ‘old ways.’ Isaiah’s voice is present in this discussion in several ways. Barth refers again to Isa 1.3 where the recalcitrance of Israel is displayed.137 ‘Ah sinful nation.’ Israel’s refusal to return to Yahweh is exhibited again in Isa 30.15–17 where the offer of peace and quiet rest found in the trust of Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, is defiantly refused. ‘No’ (Isa 30.16). What one observes with Isaiah and the other prophets alongside Isaiah is Israel’s refusal of conversion. Israel demands to stay asleep and, in fact, does remain asleep in her sloth. This is what makes the statement of hope found in Isa 30.20–22 such a stark contrast to the surrounding material. It states, ‘Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it”.’ Here, Israel is promised that her Teacher— 133  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.2, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 555. 134  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 560–61. 135  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 561. 136  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 561. 137  ��������������������������������������������������� See section above on ‘the recalcitrance of Israel.’

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an unusual name ascribed to Yahweh probably reflecting the wisdom context of Isaiah 28–30—will not hide himself any more but will open her eyes and make her ears hear. One of the themes of Isaiah that reveals its inherent unity is the theme of deafness and blindness. In the call of Isaiah in Isaiah 6, his mission is to a people who listen but do not comprehend; who look but do not understand. The people of Israel have ears and eyes, but they do not have real hearing and seeing.138 In Isa 30.20–22, which follows closely on the heels of the stubborn ‘No’ from Israel in Isa 30.16, Yahweh himself refuses to allow Israel’s ‘no’ to be the final word. His grace is the final ‘yes.’ The placement of Isa 30.20–22 as a word of hope in the midst of Isaiah’s ministry described in Isaiah 6 has troubled interpreters. Redaction-critical instincts see here the prophet of the post-exilic era juxtaposed to the more negative prophecy of Isaiah (for example Wilderberger). Barth actually makes mention of this in his comments on these verses. He states: [I]t may be suspected that what we have here is a voice from the later prophecy [assuming he means Deutero-Isaiah] which dared to speak of the new spirit and heart and conversation given to Israel, and therefore of a fulfilment of the unfulfillable demand of earlier prophecy which was not achieved by Israel itself but achieved on it, i.e., the actuality of the covenant as the truth revealed to man and forcefully changing his life; the dynamic principle: Nostri non sumus, sed Domini.’139

This is an interesting statement from Barth. It does not carry much force for the argument he is making. Whether or not Isa 30.20–22 is from Isaiah or that of a later prophet inserted here redactionally does not change the matter at hand, namely, conversion is that awakening of humankind by God that involves a prior act of God and a necessary response from humankind. The latter is grounded and made possible by the former. Isaiah 30.20–22 speaks of this future conversion where God achieves for Israel what Israel could not achieve for herself. Here we have the identity and the mission of the Servant of Isaiah 40–55 anticipated. It should also be added that words of hope are interspersed throughout much of Isaiah 1–39 (compare with: 5:25; 9:12, 17, 21; 10:4; 14:26). That all of these are later intrusions into the primarily negative ministry of Isaiah is contestable. It is mentioned in the beginning of this chapter that Barth affirmed the historical-critical distinction between First Isaiah and Second Isaiah. In this sense Barth is not a pre-critical interpreter. Rather, he is a post-critical interpreter as Rudolf Smend and Neil MacDonald in their respective ways affirm. Barth believes the book of Isaiah to be a unified whole despite its compositional history, and his interpretation of the book substantiates this claim. Moreover, the entirety of the Bible is a unified whole for Barth whose subject matter is God’s Triune revelation  ������������ Williamson, Book Called Isaiah.  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 562.

138 139

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of himself in Jesus Christ. As such, it continues as the viva vox Dei into the current situation. It continues to speak of God’s identity and actions in the world in Jesus Christ. Therefore, and despite its compositional history, Isaiah 30.20–22 as a word of hope speaks of conversion which results in our being God’s and not our own. These prophetic words anticipate a coming time in which God will act on behalf of his people because of their inability to act for themselves. This act of God is humanity’s conversion and will ultimately have to do with Jesus Christ, for it is in and with Jesus Christ that we have God’s definitive action for humanity by a human agent. Isaiah presents the Gospel in figural fashion here in Isa 30.20–22. Not only does it prefigure the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it prefigures the redemptive movement that will take place in Isaiah 40–55 in the figure of the Servant. Our attention will turn to this corpus of the Isaianic witness in the next chapter.

Conclusion Not much by way of analysis will be offered here. Our attention will be given to this in our final chapter. Suffice it to say, Barth’s reading of Isaiah 1–39 reveals a deep awareness of these passages and utilization of them in various theological contexts. This is observed in the more theologically pregnant passages of Isa 7.14 and Isaiah 11, as well as passages that may seem more obscure like Isa 1.2–3, Isaiah 30 and even the oracle against Egypt. Barth’s reading is at times strained or homiletical, as we see in his appeal to the sun and moon in Isaiah 24. In this sense, Barth’s particular readings cannot always be followed. That the Old Testament is the voice of anticipation is patently revealed in Barth’s reading of Isaiah 1–39. The words of judgment as the divine ‘yes’ elides into the divine ‘no’ create the expectation and anticipation for the reversal of this fortune as the divine ‘no’ in turn becomes his ‘yes’ again. This is the voice of Isaiah 40–66, and to this corpus we now turn.

Chapter 4

Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Isaiah 40–66

We can and should say even more emphatically that knowledge in the biblical sense is the process in which the distant ‘object’ dissolves as it were, overcoming both its distance and its objectivity and coming to man as acting Subject, entering into the man who knows and subjecting him to this transformation.

Introduction The early church as especially embodied in the New Testament documents turned to the Scriptures of Israel both for warrant and exposition of the person and work of Jesus Christ. The New Testament’s actualization of the Old Testament by means of its various exegetical approaches is an integral part of the New Testament canon’s compositional history. As von Campenhausen has poignantly stated, ‘It is quite wrong to say that the Old Testament had no authority in its own right for the first Christians, and that it was taken over purely because people saw that it “treated Christ” or pointed toward him. The situation was in fact quite the reverse. Christ is certainly vindicated to unbelievers out of the Scripture; but the converse necessity, to justify Scripture on the authority of Christ, is as yet nowhere even envisaged.’ The Old Testament and its particular idiom understood via the rule of faith functioned as a continuing witness for the early church’s understanding of the significance and identity of Jesus Christ and their own identity as the people of God. To borrow a phrase from Paul van Buren, the early church turned to what we now call the Old Testament as their ‘ABC’s and grammar book’ for their discourse about God’s action in Jesus Christ.

 ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.3.1, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961), 184.   ����������������� Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minnepolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 76.   ����������������������� Hans von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible, trans. J.A. Baker (Mifflintown: Sigler Press, 1997), 63–4.   ����������������������������������������������������� Paul van Buren, “Authenticity Without Demonization,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 34 (1997): 342. 

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In their turning to the Old Testament, few portions of that witness served the early church as well as Isaiah 40–55 (66). In Isaiah 40–55 (66) one finds new life springing into Israel’s midst. Hope is defined as the return of Yahweh to Zion, as rough places are made smooth and crooked valleys straight. Israel, disillusioned and befuddled by her own sin and impoverishment, is met by the divine ‘yes.’ God’s covenant faithfulness to his people is exhibited in the figure of a servant who embodies all that Israel was called to be both for herself and the nations. And the servant who is the unique means of Yahweh’s salvific return to Zion accomplishes all of this in the surprising and paradoxical suffering he takes on himself as representative of and in the place of others. The guiltless becomes guilty and suffers for the many. In Isaiah 40–55 (66)’s figural movement from Israel to servant to servants, one finds the gospel in figural form, fully anticipating its embodiment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Moreover, Isaiah 40–55 sets the stage for the final chapters of Isaiah where Israel’s eschatological hope is defined as nothing other than new heavens and new earth as the suffering righteous await the coming day (Isaiah 65, 66). Little wonder the early church turned to this corpus of Isaiah’s witness as much as they did. Having examined the ways in which Barth appeals to various and sundry parts of Isaiah 1–39, our attention is now given to his engagement with key texts from Isaiah 40–55 (66). The bulk of the material will be given to Barth’s employing of Isaiah 40–55 in his exposition of the covenant in CD IV.1 and his interaction with Isaiah 53 in various quarters of the CD. Barth does give more detailed attention in the CD to Isaiah 40–55 than 56–66. In this regard, Barth by default falls in line with the tendency of New Testament authors who appeal to Isaiah 40–55 more than any other portion of Isaiah.



 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� I refer to Isaiah 40–55 (66) to avoid the impression that 40–55 is distinct from 56–66. This corpus is a unified whole, alongside Isaiah 1–39 as well. See especially, Christopher R. Seitz, Word with End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) and Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66, Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 187–95. That the material in Isaiah 40–55, commonly referred to as DeuteroIsaiah (so Barth), is especially pregnant for Christian reflection is observed in the New Testament’s preference for this corpus in the various author’s references or allusions to Isaiah. One observes this with a prima facie glance at the Old Testament quotation index in the NA27. Isaiah’s witness is Isaiah’s witness in its final, canonical form, that is, 66 chapters reflecting the intended and inspired word of the canonical prophet. That certain parts of Isaiah, namely, Isaiah 40–55, are referred to more often in early Christian literature is recognized while at the same time non-detrimental to Isaiah’s overarching unity.   ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Richard Bauckham states, ‘For the early Christians, these chapters of Isaiah, above all, were the God-given account of the significance of the events of eschatological salvation which they had witnessed and in which they were involved[.]’ Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament, The Didsbury Lectures (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1998), 47.

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Isaiah 40 and the Wisdom of God Isaiah 40 marks a turning point in the final form of canonical Isaiah. The Hezekiah narrative of chapters 36–9 sets the stage for the coming Babylonian conquest as the Assyrian crisis was averred. Now God moves toward his people as the double payment for their sin is over. The threat of judgment with which chapter 39 ends elides into the words of comfort— ‫( נחמוּ נחמוּ עמי יאמר אלהיכם‬Isa 40.1). The ‘former things’ have passed away and the ‘new things’ are breaking into Israel’s midst. Yahweh is returning to Zion (Isa 40. 9–10; 52.7). The central dramatis personae of this chapter within Isaiah’s prophecy is not the prophetic figure delineated in a so-called ‘call narrative’ of 40.1–11. In fact, the prophetic personality remains in the background for the sake of the central figure’s position at center stage. Who is the central figure? It is the continuing Word of the Lord. ‘The grass withers and flowers fade but the word of our God will stand forever’ (Isa 40.8). The comfort Israel is to find in the midst or on the far side of her calamity is the sure and steadfast character of God’s Word. The Deus dixit is Israel’s hope. Isaiah 40.12–31 rehearses for Israel in the form of a sapiential disputation the Word of God they have heard and known but seem to have forgotten. The God of Israel is sufficient unto himself as the source of enlightenment, power and wisdom. ‘To whom then will you liken God?’ (Isa 40.18). He is incomparable to the gods of the nations whose form is hammered out on the anvil of a blacksmith’s workshop or under the saw and knife of a carpenter (Isa 40.19–20). It is absurd to compare God who is, in Barth terms, ‘the Creator, Sustainer and Lord of all that is’ to anything in creation that is outside himself. Barth relies on the inner logic of Isa 40.12–31 in his reflection on the patience and wisdom of God in CD II.1. In his parsing out of the reality of God expressed in the profoundly simple phrase, ‘God is,’ Barth emphasizes God’s being as the One who has acted in Jesus Christ. This ‘being in act’ is centrally his love directed toward ‘all His children, in His children all men, and in men His whole creation.’10 As such, the divinity of the love of God in Christ is defined by his graciousness, mercy and patience which are exercised in such a way as to comport with His freedom, namely, his holiness, righteousness and wisdom.11 These all together and in an inextricable unity form the ocean that is found in the perfections of the divine love.

 ����������������������������������������� See Barth’s quotation of Isa 55.10–11 in CD I.1, 152. ‘Therefore we have to speak of its [the Word] power, its might, its effects, the changes its brings about. Because the Word of God makes history, as Word it is also act.’ The redemptive moment witnessed to in Isaiah 40 is God’s Word making history in Israel’s life.   ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.1, trans. �������������������������������������� T.H.L. Parker, et al. (Edinburgh: ���������������� T&T Clark, 1957), 406–39.   ������� Barth, CD II.1, 257, 351. 10  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 351. 11  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 352. 

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Our attention is given primarily to the wisdom of God because, as has been mentioned, this is where Isaiah’s witness is called on by Barth. At the same time, it is of significance that Barth’s discussion of the wisdom of God, an expression of his divine freedom, is found in the same section as his reflection on the patience of God which is associated with his graciousness and mercy. The grace and mercy of God without his patience could potentially swallow up humanity. It is in his patience ‘that he grants space to the sinful creature, thus giving Himself space further to speak and act with it[.]’12 Again, these perfections of the divine love are all part of the self-same, yet differentiated, divine reality, and this is observed in the biblical witness. From the story of Cain and Jonah especially, narrative substantiation is given to God’s claim in Isaiah: ‘In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer’ (Isa 54.8).13 The severity and judgment of God are not outside the purview of His patience. But is this so? Barth is willing to raise a difficult question elicited from the Old Testament’s rehearsal of Israel’s faith. In short, how is it that the long intermittent periods of supposed impatience and severity comport with God as patient? Is God really patient? What keeps the narratives of the Old Testament, which swing from patience to impatience and mercy to severity, nothing other than ‘a needlessly cruel game?’14 Barth’s answer, or one should say, the Bible’s answer is: ‘God upholds all things by the Word of His power.’15 Again, Barth refers to Isaiah: ‘For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it’ (Isa 55.10–11).’16 What keeps the narratives of the Old Testament something other than a cruel, cosmic game is God’s Word, the Word defined ultimately in the incarnation. In the incarnation God is leaving space and time for himself and for humanity’s justification. His patience, when expressed with his mercy and punishment, salvation and destruction, ‘means that God always, and continually, has time for Israel.’17 The fact that Israel is primarily defined by impenitence in the Old Testament reveals God’s grace, mercy, holiness and judgment as all markedly patient. God’s patience allows Israel time to hear his Word. Ultimately, this Word is heard in the cry of dereliction when the divine wrath is seen in its fullness, not in the bursts of anger observed in the patient dealings of God with his people in Isa 54.8.  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 413.  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 415 Cf. CD II.1, 373; CD IV.1, 537. 14  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 416. 15  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 416. 16  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 417. 17  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 417. 12 13

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God’s patience is not a whimsical act of caprice, according to Barth. It is grounded in his wisdom. ‘The wisdom of God is that God not only wills but knows what He wills. And He knows not only what He will, but why and wherefore He wills it.’ We are now coming closer to Barth’s engagement with Isa 40.12–31. Barth is heavily indebted to the Old Testament and especially its wisdom traditions in his exposition of the wisdom of God.18 God’s wisdom gives meaning to the world. God is not to be understood as the ‘immanent meaning of the world.’ Rather, ‘The world has meaning as it acquires meaning from Him who alone has and is meaning.’19 Barth’s canonical sensibilities are strong here as he claims that the Ketubim, or the third part of the Canon’s engagement with Hellenic ideas, is not to be understood primarily as an acceptance of foreign ideas. Rather, it is Israel’s confrontation with foreign thought via the revelation of her God. From this, Barth engages Proverbs’ call to personified wisdom with an insistence that the wisdom of the Ketubim is grounded in or begins with the fear of the Lord. If this is so, then the wisdom of the Old Testament is not an ‘abstract world principle’, a ‘wisdom’ that might as easily be found in the Stoics or Philo.20 For all the practical nature of the wisdom found in the Ketubim, it is a wisdom whose genesis and life consists in the covenant God of Israel who gives meaning and purpose to the world.21 Therefore, and in light of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, the inscrutable and ‘unfathomable wisdom of God’ is called on in a text like Isa 40.12–31 as warrant for ‘the impossibility, and therefore the utter folly, of all idolatry.’22 Barth quotes large portions of this Isaianic text as he breaks at verse 18  ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� It should be noted that Barth’s reference to ‫ חכמה‬as primary over the Greek σόφια ����� and L atin sapientia is overstated and faulty linguistically. Barth, CD II.1, 426–7. Barth states that the root meaning of the Hebrew ‫ חכמה‬is ‘firmness and steadfastness’, and that this definition grounds all others in our understanding of the wisdom of God, when in fact, ‫ חכמה‬has a semantic range from skill to experience to shrewdness, with nothing in the standard linguistic works about ‘firmness and steadfastness’ (for example KBL, 314). Also, to ground the concept of wisdom in the Old Testament on a ‘root definition’ is to breech James Barr’s ‘illegitimate totality transfer.’ Context determines usage linguistically when determining what the wisdom of God is. With this stated, Barth’s actual practice is better than his erroneous linguistic claims. When Barth turns to the wisdom literature and Isaiah, it is the sense of these passages that contribute to our understanding of what the wisdom of God is, rather than facile appeals to the root meaning of ‫חכמה‬. 19  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 427. 20  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 427,430. 21  �������������������� See John Goldingay, Israel’s Faith, Old Testament Theology (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), 581–3. 22  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 431 In CD I.2 Barth addresses idolatry in the Old Testament with special attention drawn to Isa 44.9–20 (an elongated Isaianic invective against idolatry expanding the ideas found in 40.19–20). Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 303. Here Barth draws the conclusion that it is not beyond the purview of the Biblical authors, the author of Isa 44.9–20 in particular, that these passages address

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27 for comment. The rich imagery and rhetoric of this sapiential disputation has a force of its own, and Barth respects this. He allows the text itself to create the necessary imagery for the point at hand. ‘Have you not known? Have you not heard ....’ Because God is incomparable, because he is in Barth’s synopsis of this passage ‘perfect Creator, Sustainer and Lord of all that is,’ the sheer folly of returning to idolatry is highlighted (Isa 40.19–20). But again, and in line with the wisdom literature of the Ketubim, he is known as Creator, Sustainer and Lord of all that is not from his creation in general, ‘but in His spiritual and merciful dealings with Israel.’23 It is here that Barth’s break in reading of Isaiah 40 is significant. Up to verse 26 the reader is left in suspense regarding the ‘therefore’ of this disputation.24 O n the heels of Isa 40.26: ‘Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing,’ follows 40.27: ‘Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right (mishpat) is disregarded by my God? Have you not known? ...’ Barth quotes Isa 40.27–31 in toto. Again, the straightforward sense of the passage speaks to what Barth has claimed about the wisdom of God tied to his patience. The Isaianic appeal to God’s wisdom (Isa 40.12–20) and his Lordship over his creation (Isa 40.21–26) has a redemptive motivation. It is not purely theoretical.25 It is, as Barth has stressed in his reading of wisdom in Proverbs, tied to God’s covenant engagement with his people. Isaiah is not witnessing to God as Wise Creator in abstraction from the way this confession from Israel’s past bears on God’s particular covenant relationship with Israel. His wisdom is proximate to his patience, and the knowledge of such takes place within the covenantal sphere of God’s engagement with Israel—note that Israel is not called on to recognize something new about her God; she is called on to remember what has already been revealed to her; ‘Have you not known?.’26 As Barth concludes, ‘The place where we discover the wisdom the Roman Catholic error of the veneration of images. In fact, the common defense of veneration—it is not the image worshipped but the Deity or spirituality beyond the image—is countered by such texts. It is, according to Barth, the spiritual idolatry of image making that draws the people of God away from the One who cannot be represented by any fashioning of the human hand. Resultantly, the invective against idolatry in the Old Testament has both the idolatry of the heathen religions and veneration of images of Yahweh equally in mind. 23  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 431. 24  ���������������� John Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55: A Literary-Theological Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 63. 25  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Commenting on Isa 40.27, Childs states, ‘The prophet’s disputation never was an attempt rationally and theoretically to convince Israel, but fully from the perspective of Israel’s tradition to dramatize the power and wisdom of Israel’s God, who was confessed from the beginning as creator’ (emphasis mine). Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, The Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001), 311. 26  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Similarly, Barth speaks of God’s holiness in the context of Scripture’s presentation of God as the Holy One of Israel. God’s holiness as the Holy One of Israel is related to his

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of God, the place where it really exists and is known in the fear of God, is, if we give due weight to the Old Testament witness in its context and specific utterances, the place where God gives Himself to be recognized as Creator, Sustainer and Lord of the world. And that place is his holy and righteous, gracious and merciful dealings with Israel.’27 Barth’s claims significantly concur with those found in Isa 40.12–31. In a different theological context, Barth substantially engages Isa 40.12–31 in his rehearsal of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the one Word of God.28 Here, Isaiah 40’s forceful statements about the uniqueness and sovereignty of Yahweh are understood as anticipation of the uniqueness of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Similarly to CD II.1, Barth allows Isaiah’s own voice to speak by quoting large portions of the text. Barth’s allows the text to speak for itself because with ‘supreme and joyous assurance’ the text itself represents the matter as if it is selfevident. At the same time and though it is self-evident, God’s supreme sovereignty is argued for in the text itself. It is on the basis of God as Creator of heaven and earth that his sovereignty is expounded with such verve. From this, Barth takes his cue from Isaiah 40 that even though Jesus Christ as the one Prophet, the one Word of God, is self-evident, it does not follow that argument, for such a claim is not necessary. If Isaiah argues for the self-evidence of the sovereignty of God as Creator, so also should Barth argue for the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the one Word of God. What is of importance for our study is the way Barth concludes his reflection on Isaiah 40: ‘And it is obvious that the comprehensive answer to the question of the uniqueness of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ can basically be no more than that which is so forcefully anticipated in Is. 40.’29 Admittedly, it would be desirous for Barth to expand his idea here. How is it that Isaiah 40 is related to the uniqueness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ? What is the relationship between the text and its figural anticipation of Jesus Christ? The fact that Barth does not expand his idea allows for a tentative reading of his intentions here. The relationship between the literal sense of Isaiah 40 and its figural relationship to Jesus Christ could be correlated to the major theme of the disputation taking place in 40.12–31. Again, Isaiah is not bringing something to graciousness. Here Barth refers to Isa 41.14; 43.3, 14; 47.4; 48.17; 49.7 and 54.5 where the Holy One of Israel is identified as Israel’s Redeemer (goel). ‘The Israelites will hold his name holy because he will see what his hands have done for them (Is. 29.23).’ Barth, CD II.1, 361. 27  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 432 As observed in the previous chapter, the language of creation in Isaiah serves Isaiah’s larger redemptive motifs. Again, see the programmatic, if overstated, article by Gerhard von Rad, “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” in From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology, trans. E.W.T. Dickens (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 177–86. 28  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 105. 29  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 105.

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mind that is a novum in Israel’s midst. The phrase ‘Have you not known? Have you not heard?’ is repeated consistently in the text. In other words, Isaiah is appealing to revelation. Isaiah is referring to the fact that Israel has forgotten the Word of God spoken in her midst. Yahweh is the Creator, Sustainer and Lord, and as such is totally unique from all that is not Himself. When one reads this passage christologically, or in light of God’s final word in Jesus Christ, one observes how the relationship between the uniqueness of God’s person grounded in revelation has the potential, theologically, to resonate with God’s final word, Jesus Christ. Here, in the terms of Hans Frei, the literal sense of Isa 40.12–31 is organically related by natural extension to its figural capacity to witness ultimately to God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ. With this stated, and we will observe this again, one should take note how Barth does this. It is not by obliterating the plain sense of Isaiah 40. He firstly allows it to speak on its own terms. He does not squeeze Jesus between verses 26 and 27. He allows the totality of the witness to speak with its own idiom, and then he proximates that fixity to the potentiality of hearing Isaiah 40 in light of the whole nexus of revelation witnessed to in Scripture. Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah is a multi-layered reading allowing the Old Testament’s own voice to speak and then bringing it to bear eschatologically on the telos and subject matter of all Scripture, namely, God’s triune action definitely revealed in Jesus Christ. In both of these appeals to Isaiah 40, Barth allows the plain sense of the text its due while different implications are drawn in different theological contexts. In CD II.1 Barth is seeking a full-orbed understanding of the divine perfection of love and hears Isa 40.12–31 speaking clearly about the wisdom of God and its connection to the patience of God. There is not much heavy-handed interpretation taking place. Barth allowed the text itself to do the lion’s share of the work. In this sense, Barth is more ‘reading’ the text than ‘interpreting’ it. As was noted in a previous footnote, when Barth engages the Hebrew text it is with two left feet. Nevertheless, Barth’s reading of Isaiah, marked as it is by what Jüngel refers to as a meta-critical posture, allows the text space to speak for itself.30 Its fixity canonically has the potentiality to speak straightforwardly about the wisdom and patience of God in the context of Yahweh’s covenantal engagement with Israel. At the same time, and in the context of CD IV.3, Isa 40.12–31 has the potentiality to present in figural fashion the uniqueness of the Word of God in Jesus Christ whose identity from the whole of the Biblical witness is bound up with the identity of the one God of Israel spoken of in Isaiah 40. Here, we observe Barth’s multi-leveled or figural reading of the text. We will see this take place again. Isaiah 40’s words of comfort grounded in the continuing validity of divine Word surface again with the words of comfort addressed to Israel in Isaiah 43. Our attention turns to this passage now in the CD.

30  ����������������� Eberhard Jüngel, Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy, trans. P.E. Garrett (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1986), 76.

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Isaiah 43.1–4: Divine Love as Sovereignly Electing Love Humanity’s ability to love has as its basis God’s love for humanity. In Barth’s language, Christians love because.31 Since this is the case, our love has its source and origin in the love of God. Resultantly, a theological exposition of what it looks like for Christians to love must come from the ‘being and nature of God Himself.’32 As one might anticipate, Barth turns firstly to God’s essence as a triune reciprocity of love before he turns to human agency of love. God is in himself both the O ne and the O ther; his love ad intra precedes his love ad extra. At the same time, because God is free and not a ‘prisoner of His own Godhead’, he exercises his love with humanity in view (opus Dei ad extra). His own eternal reciprocity of love for Himself as One and Other overflows and takes humanity as the object of his love.33 The context in which God’s love is operative is God’s covenant with Israel in the Old Testament, and the inauguration of the kingdom in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Both covenant and kingdom are flip-sides of the same coin. ‘The covenant is the promise of the kingdom. The kingdom is the fulfillment of the covenant.’34 It is beyond our scope here to take into account Barth’s handling of this matter, as important as these two terms are in understanding the Bible’s unified witness. What is of importance for us is Barth’s calling on ‘Deutero-Isaiah’ in his engagement with the love of God in the Old Testament covenant as a love that is ‘wholly an act and therefore not a feeling, disposition, attitude or fixation on the part of Yahweh.’35 Firstly, Barth turns to Hosea, and understandably so, for Hosea’s expression of God’s covenant with Israel as the action of his love is defining of the book as a whole. One also finds Hosea’s love language in Jeremiah. But it is with ‘Deutero-Isaiah’ that Barth makes the following statement: ‘In DeuteroIsaiah there is again a recollection of God’s judgments, but this time the positive note is predominant, and nowhere in the Old Testament do we have more eloquent mention of God’s love’ (emphasis mine).36 Barth culls together a pastiche of verses from Isaiah whose imagery reflects the ‘eloquent mention of God’s love’ found therein. As we have observed Barth doing before, he quotes large portions of Isaiah which, at least in this section of the CD, have no interpretive rhyme or reason other than the redemptive and loving imagery they all share. He moves from Isa 50.1, ‘Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement;’ to Isa 54.4–5a, ‘Fear not; for thou shalt not be put to shame ...’; to Isa 62.4–5, ‘Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken …’; back to Isa 49.15–16, 31  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.2, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1958), 751. 32  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 754. 33  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 759, 760. 34  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 760. 35  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 761. 36  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 761.

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‘Can a woman forget her sucking child ...’; back to Isa 43.4–5a, ‘Since thou was precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee ....’ These verses together function antiphonally to accentuate the love of God. Unfortunately, Barth’s first pericope of choice does not work. The query from the prophet regarding the whereabouts of the mother’s bill of divorce has troubled interpreters on several fronts.37 Whatever one finally does with the imagery of the misplaced bill of divorce, this passage is a sharp invective against Israel. Israel has been invited by God to the ‘New Exodus’ (Isa 48.20), yet she continues to resist this as is demonstrated in Isa 50.2: ‘Why was no one there when I came? Why did no one answer when I called? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?’ From this the prophet draws imagery from the first Exodus: drying up seas, fish dying, the heavens made black, the clothes of suffering and sorrow. Childs states, ‘The biblical imagery is of God’s judgment on Egypt at the exodus, but now it falls on Israel, who had just refused to share in the “new exodus” by being led through the wilderness without thirst and with an abundance of water and light.’38 What one observes contextually here is the juxtaposition of faithless and sinful Israel (Isa 50.1–3) with the faithfulness and obedience of another who is arguably none other than the servant (Isa 50.4–9; the third of the so-called ‘servant songs’). All to say, Isa 50.1–3 is an invective against Israel. Though Barth’s first example does not serve his purposes well upon second glance, the overarching point remains salient. The imagery of Isaiah 40–66 is effervescent in its description of the love of God for his covenant people, and its poignancy is sensed with the mere reading of the text. Little interpretation is needed, for the texts speak for themselves. Before we press on, an important side note is worthy of attention here in Barth’s rehearsal of the Old Testament as a covenant of love. It is indicative of Barth’s larger sensibilities regarding the canonical form of the Old Testament. Barth recognizes that from a literary standpoint, the linguistic term love (‫)אחב‬ is found in the biblical literature that can be characterized as late (at the hands of the exilic and post-exilic prophets and the Deuteronomist). ‘But,’ Barth insists, ‘there can be no doubt that it is not a kind of later explanation or interpretation— the embellishment of something which was originally very different.’39 T echnical Hebrew terms aside, how else can one conceptually describe the free movement of Yahweh toward Israel in the Exodus as their Liberator, even with the legal establishment therein, as anything other than ‘love’?40 Barth admits that these technical terms do dominate the later material (though it should be added that the synonyms related to ‫ אהב‬are not manifestly absent in the earlier literature [for example Gen 6.8; 19:19; Exod 33.12,16,19; compare with ‫ אהב‬in NIDOTTE]) but  ������������������������������������������������������� For an overview of these issues see Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, 393–4.  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, 394. 39  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 762. 40  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 763. 37

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the idea of God’s covenant relationship as one defined by the free love of God is no novum from the prophets. At this point, Barth enters into a linguistic debate with Eichrodt who surmises that the relative absence of ‫ אהב‬and its synonyms from Israel’s earlier period is due to the desire to avoid confusion between worship of Yahweh and the overly emotive/affective eroticism of the Canaanite cults.41 Barth resists this notion because it makes little sense to him why the guarding of Israel from the eroticism of the Canaanite cults was any more poignant in Israel’s earlier life than in their life attested to in the literature of the prophets. If anything, Israel’s propensity toward idolatry is more readily observed in the prophets. Barth offers a different reading that can be described as canonical without necessary recourse to religioushistorical reconstruction. In full recognition that ‘love’ language is more heavily peppered throughout the prophets, Barth supposes the reason for this is that what was self-evident in Israel’s pre-exilic existence, namely, Yahweh is their Liberator and as such he loves them, needs reinforcement in a time when Israel has met Yahweh primarily as a judge. Israel had met the divine ‘no’ in full force. Precisely at this juncture of the argument, ‘Deutero-Isaiah’ is called on again. ‘This was the situation of Deutero-Isaiah, in which prophecy could and had to become consolation—for there is plainly implied an affirmation of the judicial majesty of God under which the people found itself bowed and had still to bow—but real consolation; an affirmation of its election, and therefore of the love and loving promise of its fulfillment.’42 Illustratively, Barth quotes Isa 54.10: ‘For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.’ Why this evocative language and imagery now in Israel’s midst? The language of love in all its intensity found in ‘Deutero-Isaiah’ is the language of ‘crisis.’43 It is out of the exigency of Israel’s canonically presented life where she has met Yahweh under the blow of his judgmental ‘no’ that she must be reminded: weeping endures for the night but joy comes in the morning. Again, Barth’s reading of the love of God in the Old Testament covenantal relationship does not rest finally on facile linguistic appeals (which now have proven faulty under the biting scrutiny of James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language) or religious-historical reconstructions. It is a reading that seeks to do justice to the Biblical portrayal of Yahweh’s electing love of Israel that was more visible and conceivable in the pre-exilic period but had become eclipsed in the exilic and post-exilic period because of the divine ‘no.’ There is not a religious development in Israel’s life from a juridical view of her God to a loving one. Rather, all of Yahweh’s dealings with Israel in his covenant with her are loving, 41  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 763 See Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament I, trans. J.A. Baker (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 250–51. 42  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 764. 43  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 764.

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and there was an urgent need for the prophets to remind God’s people of this in the crisis of her judgment. How does Barth describe this love of God as attested to in the canonical documents? He does so with three connected concepts. God’s love is electing, purifying and creative. Our attention, in close concert with what has just preceded, will focus on the first of these. God’s love is electing love. God’s love is motivated by himself. There is no compulsion outside of God for his love. His diligere is his eligere.44 Again, Barth turns to the Scriptures for warrant, and the Old Testament is the first juncture. Unlike the gods of the surrounding nations whose source is the people themselves and their nationalism, and whose relationship is one of bi-lateral reciprocity, Israel’s God is recognized as the sovereign of all nations.45 As such, God was not constrained by any force of history or inherent worth drawing his divine attention in the election of Israel. He moved toward her and in free grace became her Creator. As Barth states, ‘Yahweh has created and formed Israel—and we have to give to this statement the strict sense that He has caused it to be made new’ (emphasis mine).46 From this statement, Barth cites Isa 43.1b–3a: ‘Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee; For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.’ Barth does not quote Isa 43.1a, which states, ‘But now thus says the Lord, he who created (participial form of ‫ )ברא‬you, O Jacob, he who formed (participial form of ‫ )יצר‬you, O Israel.’ It was alluded to in the sentence preceding his quotation (see italics above). Isaiah 43.1–4 is a locus classicus for Israel’s election rooted in the sovereign grace of Yahweh. To highlight the centrality of Yahweh in Israel’s election or its unilateral movement towards, Isaiah 43 deploys creation language. Now Barth does not elaborate on this passage. He does not draw attention to the linguistic echoes of Genesis found in Isaiah 43.1. ‘In the beginning God created (‫ )ברא‬the heavens and the earth’ (Gen 1.1). ‘Then the Lord God formed (‫ )יצר‬man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being’ (Gen 2.7). Both of these terms found in Isa 43.1 echo the double creation narratives. The first term, ‫ברא‬, is only predicated on Yahweh in the Old Testament and is never associated by means of an accusative or a preposition with the material God uses to create.47 So when Barth says, ‘The “I” must be taken in all its sovereignty,’ when referring to Isa 43.1–3, he is reflecting the sense conveyed with the creation language deployed.  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 768.  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 768. 46  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 768. 47  ����������������� Claus Westerman, Genesis 1–11: A Commentary, John J. Scullion, S.J. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1974), 98. 44

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The second term used in the Genesis creation context reveals the one-sidedness of Adam’s springing to life as Yahweh fashions a figure from clay.48 A s these terms are brought into a redemptive context so that creating and fashioning have to do with Israel’s genesis as Yahweh’s elect and their continued status as such, one observes both the fiat of Israel’s election and the dynamic status of Yahweh’s role as Creator and Sustainer of Israel. Israel’s creation and fashioning, her election, is not an event consigned to the past but is an event whose pastness continues into the present status of Israel’s life. Barth comments similarly, ‘It is He, Yahweh, who guarantees this promise, and the fact that Israel is the people which may receive it and live with it comes from Him, from above, and not from below, for Israel, which is only the creation and construct of His free good will.’49 Isaiah 43.1–4 serves Barth well in his description of the love of God as electing in nature. Again, it is the plain sense of Isaiah with laconic interpretive glossing that does the work for Barth. When read in the context of his engagement of ‘DeuteroIsaiah’ and the love of God addressed above, one senses Barth’s understanding of how Isa 43.1–4 fits within the larger theological issues attendant in Isaiah 40– 66. Israel’s existence is one of crisis having come under the divine ‘no’, and the prophet’s message within Deutero-Isaiah is to remind Israel of the love of God which is free and sovereign. He created Israel, and he is sustaining her. Therefore, ‘fear not.’

Isaiah and the Covenant as the Missio Dei One of Barth’s more significant and extended engagements with Isaiah is found at the beginning of CD IV.1 under the title, ‘The Covenant as the Presupposition of Reconciliation.’50 Our previous chapter dealt with another elongated engagement with Isaiah, that of the Emmanuel traditions, which is in close proximity within the CD to the current reading of Isaiah addressed. As a side-note, Isaiah’s witness is heavily weighted on the front end of Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation. In the current context, Isaiah, and especially Isaiah 40–66, serves Barth’s parsing out of the covenant’s centrifugal motion in the Old Testament. Dogmatically, Barth’s engagement with the Biblical notion of the covenant is important because his doctrine of reconciliation is understood as ‘the fulfillment of the covenant between God and man.’51 At the beginning of Barth’s small-print engagement with the covenant idea in the Old Testament, he deals with the linguistic and historical issues associated with the term. Barth does not offer a full-fledged engagement with scholarly problems  �������������������������������������������� On the technicalities of ‫ יצר‬see Westerman, Genesis 1–11, 203–4.  ������� Barth, CD IV.2, 768. 50  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 22. 51  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 22. 48 49

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associated with covenant. Wellhausen’s supposition of the lateness of the covenant idea is not rehearsed, for example. He cites approvingly and indiscriminately Noth’s ‘amphiktyonic’ language in conjunction with Israel’s national genesis. This could be an underhanded dismissal of Wellhausen’s understanding of the lateness and intrusitory character of the covenant idea on Israel’s history. But this cannot be proved and actually bears little weight for what Barth is seeking to do here. The etiology of Israel’s existence or her understanding of the covenant is not important for Barth.52 N either does Barth see one historical covenant in the O ld Testament as defining and basic to all others (for example Eichrodt’s understanding of Sinai as the foundational covenant). Rather, each covenantal address in the Old Testament from Noah to Abraham to Moses down the line is autonomous despite their mutual relationship in the one covenant of grace.53 Because this is the case, reconstructing a seamless historical progression of the covenantal idea is impossible along canonical lines. The theological significance of this is that in the Old Testament, the covenant between God and Israel is an event always at the disposal and governance of Israel’s King and Judge. Moreover, the covenant between God and Israel is unilateral, relational and indissoluble (here Barth takes a stated jab at Eichrodt’s sense that the covenant could be set aside).54 Barth also does not place much emphasis on the etymology of ‫ ברית‬and actually shows good linguistic instincts when he states that the relational idea associated with ‫ ברית‬in the Old Testament is as important as the technical term itself. So, for example, when the covenant formulation, ‘I will be your God and you will be my people,’ is registered in the canon, the covenant idea is present whether or not the term is used.55 Moreover, because the covenant is at core a relational term between Yahweh and Israel, it embraces everything in the Old Testament having to do with this relationship. Therefore, the implications of the covenant are far reaching within the canon of the Old Testament even if linguistic pegs are not as pervasive. The covenant, whatever the term itself actually means, is associated with the unique relationship of Yahweh to Israel, which is ultimately one-sided. It is a covenant of grace and as such is indissoluble. The pressing question from this account of the Old Testament’s covenantal makeup is as follows: if reconciliation in Jesus Christ is the restoration of the broken relationship between God and humanity, how then do these particular and eventful covenants of God with Israel relate to humanity at large, that is, the goyim? Firstly, Barth turns to the Noachic covenant in Gen 9.1–7. Here is a 52

 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For a theological sorting out of the thorny relationship between Israel’s etic and emic understanding of the covenant and its relationship to the final form of the canon, see Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology, 412–21. 53  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 24. 54  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 23. 55  ������������������������������������������������������������������������� On the relation of covenant to the covenant formula, see Rolf Rendtorff, The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation, trans. Margaret Kohl, Old Testament Studies (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998).

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covenant of grace in the two-fold sense of its unmerited nature and promise of God’s long-suffering. The Noachic covenant has to do with humanity in general. Secondly, Barth turns to Isaiah. The covenant God made with Israel is, according to Barth, not an end unto itself. It is a covenant that extends itself to the nations. Israel’s election is an election for something. Barth believes Isaiah witnesses especially to this centrifugal motion of God’s covenant with Israel and is found especially in the latter portions of Isaiah (40–66), though it is found in the early portions as well (1–39). Barth understands the prophetic genre of Isaiah to answer the ‘Why?’ of Israel’s calling in ways that the early traditions did not.56 Israel’s future is laid out before her in this prophetic word of Isaiah. ‘It is given in the form of prophecy which arises out of the situation of Israel at the end of its historical independence, but which absolutely transcends every historical consideration, possibility or probability.’57 One could put the matter as follows: though Israel’s historical existence had tended toward self-preservation with an inward looking eye, now at the end of this independence Israel is forcefully shown by prophetic utterance that her existence never was an end to itself; Israel has a mission. Despite the historical contingencies of Israel’s national existence, Israel’s calling is one that elicits an outward looking eye in redemptive service to the nations. The covenant with Israel was meant to demonstrate ultimately God’s redemptive intentions for all humanity. One observes the centrifugal motion of Israel’s existence particularly so in the Ebed Yahweh (‫ ;עבד יהוה‬servant of the Lord) figure of Isaiah 40–55. Paradigmatic of Isaiah’s universal vision is the mission given to the servant in Isa 49.6: ‘It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.’ Across the contours of Isaiah, the prophetic portrayal of how this future restoration of the nations will take place is not uniform, according to Barth. To illustrate this diversity of portrayals he juxtaposes Isa 2.2–4 and 25.6–8, where the former portrays Zion going out, and the latter reveals Zion staying put with all coming to her. The future picture of restored Egypt in Isa 19.18–25, where Yahweh is known and worshipped in Egypt, presents another scenario of this future restoration of the nations. Barth does not synthesize the various portraits offered. One can surmise from his silence that the actual mechanics and provenance of this future restoration of the goyim with its multi-sided portrayals in Isaiah’s witness is not as significant as the fact that it will

56  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 28. Barth overstates the matter when he says the earlier traditions (canonically conceived) did not answer the ‘why’ of Israel’s calling. Surely, the Abrahamic covenant has a centrifugal motion to it. On the relationship between Genesis-Isaiah on Israel’s mission to the nations see especially, Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 145–57. 57  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 28.

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happen. God’s eschatological redemption has the nations in its purview. This is the point Barth seizes. Barth returns to the so-called servant songs of Isaiah at this point. Here he expands the idea of the universal mission of God in conjunction with God’s human partner in this eschatological endeavor. ‘In the texts so far quoted we may wonder whether the eschatological event described is not conceived too much as the onesided arrangement and miraculous operation of Yahweh. But in the Ebed-Yahweh songs of Deutero-Isaiah the emphasis is unmistakably on the active co-operation of the human partner of Yahweh.’58 At this point Barth makes a very interesting proposal regarding the identification of this elusive figure called the servant. I will defer discussing this until our detailed interaction with Barth’s reading of the fourth servant song, Isaiah 53. What is of significance here is Barth’s understanding of Israel as the servant of the Lord and, as such, Israel operates as the partner of Yahweh. Israel’s performance of her salvific role for the nations is the means by which God effects and actualizes his redemptive will. From this Barth quotes a litany of passages from the servant songs including Isa 42.1–8 with reference to the berith am (more of this anon); reference is made to the already quoted Isa 49.6; and above all the fourth and most revered of the servant songs, Isa 52.13– 53.12 (again, more of this below). After Barth reflects on Isaiah 53, he returns his attention to the berith am of Isa 42.8 (see also Isa 49.8). Barth limits his discussion of berith to the berith am (covenant of the people) of Isa 42.6.59 It is unfortunate that Barth does not expand his discussion of berith beyond the berith am of 42.6. Since the covenantal idea is so important for Barth at this juncture, his engagement with berith would have been served well if his attention had turned to the berith shalom of Isa 54.10—especially in light of the connection with Noah preceding 54.10, precisely the connection Barth himself has made here between the Noachic covenant and Isaiah—and the berith olam of Isa 55.3 (compare with Isa 56.4, 6; 59.21; 61.8)—here too, Barth’s exegetical sensibilities would have been bolstered, for the berith olam is associated with the Davidic promises which now entail the nations as well as Israel. Nevertheless, what the servant songs reveal is the eschatological significance of God’s covenant with Israel. God’s covenant with Israel is a berith am, that is, a covenant of or for the people. A dmittedly berith am is an obscure phrase which can be translated different ways.60 Is Israel the ‘covenant people’ or is berith am functioning in parallel to the following phrase: ‫ ?לאור גוים‬If the latter, the idea is as follows: Israel is a covenant for the people and a light for the nations. When one places Isa 42.6 alongside the reference to berith am in 49.8 where contextually the servant’s mission is

 ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 29.   Berith am is found in Isa 42.6 not 42.8 as is stated here in the CD. 60   Joel Kaminsky and Anne Stewart, “God of All the World: Universalism and Developing Monotheism in Isaiah 40–66,” Harvard Theological Review 99 (2006): 146–7. 58 59

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intentionally pressed beyond the confines of Israel to the nations (for example, is it too light a thing for you, Isa 49.6), the latter idea is preferable.61 Unfortunately, Barth does not make this connection and without much explanation or linguistic argumentation seems to define berith am as the covenant people. The irony of Barth’s reading—berith am as covenant people rather than covenant for the people in parallel to light for the nations—is that it actually undercuts the larger theological point Barth is making. Barth waxes eloquent here as he rehearses the current state of Israel in Isaiah as her national existence is coming or has come to an end. The am of berith am is the people of Israel who are under the judgment of God and whose existence depends solely on his unchangeable faithfulness. Because Barth is reading these covenant promises eschatologically, Israel’s future hope does not rest in what Barth terms ‘later historical developments.’62 Rather, ‘Its nerve and centre is the reference to an event which will terminate history and all times, a history of the end.’63 The final word of God’s berith am with am identified as Israel is Yes. In the last times, God’s covenant with Israel will transcend their historical development identified in retrospect as her unfaithfulness to Yahweh. The point Barth makes here is robust and revealing of the larger intention of Isaiah’s prophecy in 40–66. He cannot be charged with stating something erroneous. How he gets there in his exposition of berith am is problematical, however. The calling of the servant of Isaiah 42, who is without doubt at this juncture of Isaiah’s presentation univocally identified with Israel, is that Israel herself will be a covenant for the people, a light for the nations. On every side Barth is emphasizing this, from his rehearsal of the servant as the human partner of Yahweh to his comment that follows immediately after his exposition of berith am: ‘And it is particularly the teaching of the book of Isaiah which makes it clear that as such the last day which is the day of redemption for Israel will also be a day of redemption for the nations[.]’64 All to say, Barth misses the point of berith am itself as a phrase depicting Israel’s missional status, while at the same time on every side emphasizes the true import of the term berith am properly conceived. Israel’s covenantal status entails a missional role for the nations. Barth understands Isaiah 40–66 as operating eschatologically. These chapters witness to the restoration of Lady Zion who has been abandoned for a time. What is striking about Isaiah’s rehearsal of Israel’s restoration is that God’s dealings with her, his maintaining of his covenant with her despite Zion’s faithlessness, has within its scope the nations. For Barth, Isaiah’s witness creates an anticipation and understanding that Israel’s eschatological hope is the nations’ as well. This is not to obliterate the uniqueness and special role Israel’s covenantal status gives her. Barth makes passing mention of Jn 4.22, ‘salvation is of the Jews.’  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, 326.  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 31. 63  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 31. 64  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 31. 61 62

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At the same time, the aforementioned Isaianic texts ‘connect the salvation which is the final goal of the history of Israel with the salvation of the Assyrians and the Egyptians and all nations, and in such a way that the special existence of Israel is an instrument by which God finally manifests and accomplishes salvation for the nations.’65 For Barth, Israel’s primeval history in the Noachic covenant and eschatological history in Isaiah 40–66 both reveal the centrifugal motion of God’s covenantal dealings with Israel. Regarding the latter, Seitz states, ‘Central to understanding Isaiah is God’s dealing with Israel within the destinies of the nations at large. This is Isaiah’s unique and sustained contribution within the major prophets. The nations will eventually come to worship at Zion, not because of any moral or theological change of heart—on their part or on the part of Israel toward them—but only because God wills it.’66 The primeval and eschatological ‘borders of the Old Testament’, as Barth describes them, witness to the universal scope of God’s eschatological salvation. The covenant between Yahweh and Israel, with all its particularity and exclusiveness, has within its eschatological purview the inclusiveness of all humanity. God’s covenant of grace is salvation for all. A few lines of analysis are called for. Repeatedly in Barth’s engagement with Isaiah he comments on the eschatological nature of the prophecy. He uses terminology such as ‘future event’, ‘understood eschatologically’ and ‘the last day.’ Barth assumes this eschatological context when he reads Isaiah’s words of future hope from the beginning of the book to the end. Whether it is Isaiah 2, the oracle of salvation for Egypt in Isaiah 19 or the servant songs’ salvific language, all of these witness to the eschatological day. At least in this context, Barth assumes Isaiah’s words of hope are eschatological in orientation and Isaiah’s ‘forthtelling’  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 31.  ������� Seitz, Word Without End, 209 For a reading that espouses a non-universalistic outlook of Second Isaiah see Kaminsky and Stewart, “God of All the World”. Kaminsky and Stewart argue that Second Isaiah’s universalistic language has to do with the nations recognizing the sovereignty of Israel’s God and the implications of such for Israel’s return from exile and restoration, not necessarily their conversion or inclusion into the people of God. Admittedly, the servant’s role vis-a-vis the nations may be ‘indirect.’ Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher, eds, The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, trans. Daniel P. Bailey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 44. In other words, Israel’s restoration is primarily in view with the consequences thereof derivatively applied to the nations. Nevertheless, the exegesis becomes torturous when such a litany of universal texts in Isaiah 40–66 that witness to the universal implications of Israel’s salvation are stripped of their salvific overtones. Despite the compositional history of Isaiah (where Kaminski and Stewart see Trito-Isaiah’s universalistic language expanding the significance of the monotheistic claims of Second-Isaiah), the final form of the book, especially as it moves to the new creation of Isaiah 65–66, reveals the changing boundaries of defining the people of God along nationalistic lines. Especially helpful here is A. Gelston, “Universalism in Second Isaiah,” Journal of Theological Studies 43 (1992): 377–98. See also, Mark Gignilliat, Paul and Isaiah’s Servants: Paul’s Theological Reading of Isaiah 40–66 in 2 Corinthians 5.14– 6.10, Library of New Testament Studies (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 65–6, 73–6. 65

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has a significant ‘foretelling’ aspect to it. At the same time, Barth understands this ‘foretelling’ aspect of Isaiah’s eschatological word as diverse in depiction. It creates eschatological hope without defining the contours of how such things will actually occur. The actual shape of this eschatological fulfillment is in the hands of Israel’s God. Barth is not unsophisticated here, and is surely aware of the overly historicist tendencies in Old Testament scholarship either to locate texts or pericopae in their life setting, atomizing them from their current context (such as form-criticism) or the tendency among tradition-historical approaches to isolate and locate Israel’s traditions historically in Israel’s history of redemption. Barth does not do so. He reads the text in its final form along broad contextual lines. He reads the text canonically and as an overarching unity. As an examples of his canonical commitments, it is noteworthy that no mention is made anywhere in this extended reflection on Isaiah, and especially Isaiah 40–66, about the provenance of Babylonian exile. Barth hints at this when he speaks about the threat to Israel’s national existence and independence, but he does so only in the ways Isaiah itself does—cryptically and with a larger purpose in mind. He is reading Isaiah, to borrow from Childs here, with Isaiah’s canonical intentionality in mind and in this sense is anticipating Childs’ canonical approach to the prophetic literature in general and Isaiah in particular. He is reading Isaiah eschatologically. More is called for by way of explanation. Childs recognizes the theological deficiencies in the way the various Geschichtes of Old Testament criticism have been deployed. Childs’ approach brokers the positives to be gained from the various diachronic approaches to biblical criticism with an emphasis on the theological role canon plays in the final formulation of the literature. The community of faith receives the Scriptures of Israel as canonical and normative and, as such, recognizes that these various traditions now brought together in their final form have a life beyond the historical particularity out of which they arose. So, when we speak of Isaiah, it is without doubt scholarly consensus that Isaiah 40–55 is born out of the provenance of the Babylonian exile.67 It should be observed that this reading does not depend on one’s view of the authorship or compositional history of the book (for example Oswalt’s One Isaiah as clairvoyantly transported into the Babylonian exile). All to say, Duhm’s legacy of Babylonian exile as the provenance of Isaiah 40–55 continues. Childs does not wish to deny this probability (as in the assumption that the temple is already destroyed; Cyrus spoken of in ‘after the fact’ language), though he cautions the reader of Isaiah to take into account the strange silence about geographical location in Isaiah 40–66. The canonical sensibilities of Childs are that when the collection of prophetic material is relocated and sedimented in its final form, in Isaiah 1–66, the material is loosened from the moorings of the historical 67  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� C.C. Torrey in his own provocative way has spoken against this reading with verve. See also, Hans M. Barstad, The Babylonian Captivity and the Book of Isaiah: ‘Exilic’ Judah and the Provenance of Isaiah 40–55 (Oslo: Novus, 1997).

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particularity out of which it arose. It is now an eschatological word which is fit as a prophetic word for future generations. Childs states, ‘Moreover, the original historical background of the exilic prophet has been drained of its historical particularity—Cyrus has become a theological construct almost indistinguishable from Abraham (as in Kissane)—and the prophetic message has been rendered suitable for use by later generations by transmitting it as a purely eschatological word.’68 This is part and parcel of Isaiah’s canonical role as Scripture, as the living word of God. In his Introduction to Old Testament as Christian Scripture, Childs refers to later reading practices of both Jews and Christians of this material.69 T hey understood Isaiah as an eschatological word of hope, not as prophecy locked in the historical situation out of which it arose. The formation of Isaiah as canonical in both its compositional history and final formulation is organically linked to its role as Sacred Scripture, or, the creaturely vehicle by which the word of the Lord is guaranteed for future generations (contra Sundberg’s distinction between Scripture and Canon). To read Isaiah in such an eschatological way is to read it in line with Isaiah’s own canonical intentionality. Barth intuitively and without fanfare does so as well. One other point is worth drawing out here, and it is related to the preceding. Barth’s eschatological reading of Isaiah 40–66 with little to no recourse to ‘original setting’ is a case-in-point of Barth’s instinctual application of his principle discussed in chapter two, ‘Revelation is not a predicate of history, history is a predicate of revelation.’ Isaiah’s history is real history. It is not fiction, nor does it take place outside our own time and space: ‘In the year King Uzziah died.’ But what Isaiah’s final form reveals is the intrusion of eschatological time into our time. The two are not easily synthesized, as we have repeatedly observed in our listening to Barth’s reading of Isaiah. Again, Childs has made much use of this with his canonical approach, and one can observe the overlap between Barth and Childs here. Childs states in reference to Isaiah, ‘The brittle quality of the present literary structure only confirms the basic theological point that eschatological history, that is God’s time, cannot be smoothly combined with empirical history, nor can the two be cleanly separated.’70 There is no neo-Gnosticism for Childs here as the last phrase of the quote intimates. God is involved in our space and time and has freely chosen such for himself.71 Rather, Childs continues, ‘The hermeneutical point to emphasize is

 ���������������������������������������������������������������������� Brevard S. Childs, “The Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature,” Interpretation 32 (1978): 50. 69  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Christian Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 338. 70  �������������������������������������������������������������������������� Brevard S. Childs, “Retrospective Reading of the Old Testament Prophets,” Zeitschrift für die alten alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 108 (1996): 373. 71   See especially, Neil B. MacDonald, Metaphysics and the God of Israel: Systematic Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). 68

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that for Isaiah history is understood in the light of prophecy, not prophecy in the light of history.’72 One can easily hear the echo of Barth in Childs’ statement. This theologically loaded hermeneutic cuts against the grain of biblical scholarship’s infatuation with history stripped of its eschatological significance within the prophets. The sociology or psychology or Sitz im Leben of the prophet renders the prophetic word time-bound in such a way that their ‘Thus saith the Lord’ potentiality is undercut. Put another way, if one reads Isaiah with the understanding that its literal sense is conflated with a reconstructed historical sense, such as proximity to historical reality, one will miss the larger canonical intentionality of the book, which is eschatological.73 Revelation entails within it the ability for this sanctified text to continue to serve as a vehicle for God’s disclosure of himself to his people. Historical lenses alone without recourse to this theological dynamic of revelation suffer from atrophy, and ironically, miss the larger prophetic point. Barth does not argue for this type of canonical reading of the prophets in the way or with the sophistication Childs does (it can be argued that Childs has in effect taken much of Barth’s dogmatic concerns and applied them with brilliance to the field of biblical studies/theology; more of this in the final chapter).74 Barth simply does it. He allows Isaiah and its attendant imagery and message the eschatological force it intends. He does not do so with recourse to discovering the mind of the prophet, sorting out original oracles from non-original, nor does he allow a historically-critical reconstruction of the text a place of hermeneutical centrality. He reads the text and allows it to speak to the covenant between Yahweh and Israel with specific attention given to the eschatological future of the nations. When Israel is finally saved, the nations will be right alongside her.

Isaiah 53 It does not take a great deal of Christian imagination to read Isaiah 53 and think of the passion of Jesus. This reading is observed in the New Testament and is obvious in our liturgical and musical traditions as well (Handel’s Messiah comes to mind). This understanding in the church and the pew is often met with resistance in the academy, and Barth is aware of the tension between the witness to Christ in the Old Testament and the historical particularity of Old Testament texts. Barth can allow these tensions to surface in his reference and reading of Isaiah 53, as we will see, or he can pass over these issues ‘as if he could care less’, making a quick 72

 ������������������������������������������������ Brevard S. Childs, “Retrospective Reading,” 373.  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Childs affirms the relationship between eschatological and empirical history as a dialectical with no easy collation between the two Brevard S. Childs, “Retrospective Reading,” 374. 74  �������������������������������������������������������������������� See Charles J. Scalise, “Canonical Hermeneutics: Childs and Barth,” Scottish Journal of Theology 47 (1994): 61–88. 73

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move to Christian identification. We will look at three ways in particular where Barth engages Isaiah 53 in the CD. Our attention turns firstly to Barth’s appeal to Isaiah 53 in the latter part of CD II.1. In CD II.1 Barth reflects on the eternity and glory of God. Barth’s discussion of the eternality of God is a rather complex argument about God’s simultaneity and his being as pre-, supra- and post-temporal. It cannot be said that God is pure timelessness because God himself, without ceasing to be eternal, took time and made it his own both in Creation and the incarnation.75 From this, Barth enters into a discussion about God and his glory which moves, in Barth’s estimation, into a necessary reflection about the beauty of God. God’s glory is his overflowing self-communicating joy which also by its very nature gives joy.76 A nd Barth’s emphasis on the Trinity leads him to a discussion about the inner-triune dynamic (perichoresis) which emphasizes God as the source of all beauty especially in the person of Jesus Christ.77 Barth insists, however, that the beauty of Jesus Christ is not just any beauty, but the specific beauty of God.78 One can observe how Barth’s definition of beauty is christologically driven when juxtaposed to Aquinas’ definition, for example. Beauty is not, for Barth, defined by proportionality, brightness or that which pleases the eye (contra Aquinas, Summa Theologica Q. 5, art. 4; Q. 39, art 8).79 Rather, it is the beauty of what God concretely is and does in Jesus. And because of the paradoxical nature of Jesus’ beauty, the only way we can know his beauty as ultimate beauty is by the revelation of God himself, not by abstract appeals to a philosophical aesthetic. ‘In this respect, too, God cannot be known except by God.’80 From this discussion of Jesus’ beauty, Barth moves directly to a small print section dealing with Isaiah 53:2–3, and its guarding us from ‘going astray’ regarding the particular beauty of God in Jesus. ‘For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form or comeliness; 75  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 617 Neil MacDonald offers a sophisticated argument for God’s involvement in our space and time while still inhabiting space unique to himself, heaven. See MacDonald, God of Israel, 3–23. 76  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 653. 77  ������������������������������������������������������������ In a small print section, Barth reveals the overlap between doxa in the New T estament and kabod in the Old Testament, concluding, ‘Thus the New Testament is simply repeating the fulfilled testimony of the Old when in its decisive strand it describes the glory of God as the glory of Jesus Christ’ (CD II.1, 642). 78  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 665. In passing, Barth understands that the Old Testament prophets, and especially Isaiah (so says Barth), are increasingly given to joy, exultation and jubilation even in the midst of very somber situations. The object of this joy or the beauty eliciting these sorts of responses is never fully revealed in the Old Testament. It awaited the revelation of this beauty in the Messiah (CD II.1, 664). 79  ��������������������������� See Nicholas Wolterstorff, Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 161–3. 80  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 665.

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and when we shall see him, there is not beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.’ Setting the theological argumentation aside for the moment, Barth makes a move reminiscent of Calvin’s commentary on Isaiah 53. There is no apparent awareness of any historical problems or critical issues arising for Barth here, as there were not for Calvin. Commenting on the introduction of the servant in Isa 52.13, Calvin states, ‘After having spoken of the restoration of the Church, Isaiah passes on to Christ, in whom all things are gathered together ... He calls Christ “his Servant,” on account of the office committed to him.’81 Similarly for Barth, at least in this context, the question of the historical identity of the Servant is of no import. After quoting Isaiah 53:2–3, Barth makes this interesting statement, ‘Jesus Christ does present this aspect of himself, and He always presents this aspect first.’82 What one observes here, and again, similarly to Calvin, is Isaiah 53 speaking directly of Jesus Christ with Barth feeling no compulsion to justify such a claim. There is a direct referentiality to the person of Jesus Christ with no interference in between; whether this interference is typology or allegory or something akin to figural reading. The servant is Jesus. Barth’s theological reasoning is related to the fact that it takes revelation to recognize that in the suffering servant we actually find the exalted Christ. Jesus’ beauty is not abstract but is directly related to his humiliation as well. So there is an ugly side to the beauty of Jesus (recall Grünwald’s painting). We cannot know this biblical aesthetic and beauty on our own. ‘Who sees and believes that the One who has been abased is the One who is exalted, that this very man is very God? The glory and beauty of god shines out in this unity and differentiation’ (665). Barth’s theological point is: if you are looking for a beautiful Jesus without the ugliness of the totality of his self-abasing love, you have created a beauty of your own and not the one of revelation. The exegetical significance, in my estimation, is that for Barth there is no veil between Isaiah 53:2–3 and its direct referent to the person and work of Jesus Christ. We will notice later that Barth was definitely aware of the critical issues and could even use them to his advantage. But in this particular instance, Isaiah 53:2–3 witnesses cleanly to the beauty of Christ in his humiliation. Questions of historical referentiality, identification of the Servant, or hermeneutical questions about how one applies a particular passage like this one to Jesus are not explained or explored. It is simply: Isaiah 53 witnesses to Jesus Christ, full stop. Whether or not such a move is deemed legitimate will have to wait to the final chapter. We turn now to the second of Barth’s engagement with Isaiah 53 in CD IV.1. Barth begins his Doctrine of Reconciliation with what can best be described as a biblical theological engagement of God’s covenant with Israel and the nations. For 81  ������������� John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 106. 82  ������� Barth, CD II.1, 665.

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Barth, this covenant of grace is initiated in the Old Testament by God’s gracious election of Israel and is not an equilateral covenant between God and Israel. It is a covenant whose covenantal obligations fundamentally rest on the shoulders of God’s own self.83 Everything in the Old Testament’s witness to the history of Israel is related to this covenantal reality. So Barth raises this question: does the Old Testament’s own discrete voice (this is my language not Barth’s) provide warrant for the transference of this covenantal concept, which is the fundamental presupposition of the history of Israel, to the ‘relationship and occurrence between God and all men’?84 Using Barth’s own words, ‘Does the Old Testament allow or does it even perhaps command us to give to the concept of covenant the wider sense which obviously it will have to have in this context?’85 Barth gives three examples from the Old Testament that serve to reinforce the Old Testament’s own emphasis about the centrifugal motion of God’s particular covenant with Israel. The first of these is God’s covenant with Noah, which is universal in scope, the second is Isaiah and the third is the new covenant of Jeremiah 31, which is not a new covenant in the sense that it is disconnected from God’s covenant with Israel nor does it dissolve God’s old covenant with Israel. Rather, in light of the incarnation, it brings God’s unique covenant with Israel to its true moment of fulfillment. We gave detailed attention to this in the previous section deferring our discussion of Isaiah 53 to the present moment, the second of Barth’s examples. What we have here is quite significant because Barth is appealing to Isaiah 53 in a way that seeks to respect the discrete voice of the Old Testament in a more textured way than the previous example in CD II.1. Isaiah 53 witnesses to the fact that Yahweh has an active co-participant in the eschatologically redemptive event, which has an outward looking focus resulting in the reconciliation of the nations. Then he makes this rather interesting statement: ‘The question whether this partner, the servant of the Lord, is meant as collective Israel or as a single person—and if so, which? a historical? or an eschatological?—can never be settled, because probably it does not have to be answered either the one way or the other. This figure may well be both an individual and also the people, and both of them in a historical and also eschatological form.’86  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 25.  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 26. 85  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 26. It is worth noting here the significance of Barth’s sensed need to appeal to the Old Testament’s own voice on this matter. Does the Old Testament as time of expectation have within its own parameters, beyond the ways in which the New Testament hears it, an understanding of the one covenant of grace that reaches beyond Israel’s own borders to that of the nations or all humankind? That Barth felt this need does intimate the positive role the Old Testament’s own voice plays in Barth’s theological formulations on this issue. 86  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 29. One may observe the overlap of sentiments between Barth and Eichrodt regarding the ostensive referent of the servant to a historical figure. See Eichrodt, 83 84

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There is much going on in this little statement. First of all, Barth reveals his knowledge about the particular debate up and running for Old Testament scholars on the exact identification of this servant figure. Is the servant Israel? Is the servant an individual or the prophet? Is the servant an ideal figure who doesn’t exist except in some eschatological moment? If we turn to the commentary literature on this issue, the perspectives and arguments are vast. For example, Barth’s contemporary von Rad is very aware of this particular issue and argues that the servant is an ideal figure of the future who exists in the realm of the pure miracle of Yahweh.87 T he figure could not be the prophet per se nor could the figure be Israel as a nation in light of Israel’s failure. Although recognizing the historical-critical arguments and problems that exist in relationship to this particular question—Who is the servant?—Barth seems to transcend or relativize the issue on several fronts. First of all, and to repeat, he implicitly affirms the discrete witness of the Old Testament. That is, nowhere does Barth say in this particular passage, the Servant is Jesus. Now, we have seen that Barth can make this sort of move, but he does not do so here. Barth respects the unique voice of this particular text in its literary and contextual placement in the book of Isaiah. At the same time, the particular historical questions that tend to trouble biblical scholars—Who was this figure?—are also set aside because they tend to obscure the real matter of the text. The servant is God’s human partner in redemption. The figure could be an individual and also the people at the same time, according to Barth.88 Moreover, the servant can be both a historical figure, that is, Barth can show some level of respect for the historical particularity of the servant in the composition of the book of Isaiah, while at the same time affirming the unique canonical role the servant plays as witness to an eschatological event that transcends its historical phenomenon. Referring back to the language borrowed from Christopher Seitz in Isaiah 7, Barth affirms both the fixity of the text and its figural potentiality. So, Isaiah 53 can be born out of a historical situation for Barth (though, in my estimation, the text is not very clear about this). One could hypothetically argue that there was a real servant figure that the contemporaries of this particular biblical author could point to and say, yes, him, or yes, that is suffering Israel. Even if this were the case, we can surmise from Barth that this would not get to the real subject matter of this text. This text as a canonical document, understood Theology of the Old Testament I, 483–4 n. 4. Eichrodt states, ‘In the controversy over the relation of the Servant to a historical figure it is of less importance to decide which of the innumerable interpretations has hit upon the right figure, than in what way the connection of this figure with the world of eschatological ideas is to be made clear.’ Whether or not Barth is dependent on Eichrodt for the general structure of his thought here is difficult to say, though not without possibility. 87  ��������� Von Rad, Old Testament Theology II, 260. 88  ��������������������������������� Similarly see Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 385.

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most fully in the overarching framework of the time of expectation, transcends its historical origins and witnesses to an eschatological event that may only be properly understood in retrospect or in light of the two-testament canon’s true subject matter, namely, God’s unique action in Jesus.89 Again, what we note here is: 1) Barth’s respecting of Isaiah 53’s discrete voice in the OT canon and its contextual placement in Isaiah’s larger landscape; 2) an awareness of the critical issues with the removing of their sting when it comes to the real substance of the matter; and 3) an appreciation of the fact that the OT text can both refer to a historical situation (fixity) while at the same time canonically witness to an awaited eschatological moment of fulfillment (potentiality). Our final example of Barth’s appeal to Isaiah 53 is, in my estimation, the most interesting of the three. In CD IV.3.1 Barth reflects on the reality that Jesus lives. Jesus lives in an act of self-actualization.90 It is true to state that Jesus lived and that Jesus will live, but these statements teeter on the edge of abstraction when they do not take into account the full, dynamic reality that Jesus lives.91 T he acknowledgment of this reality takes place in the realm of faith.92 Interestingly enough, Jesus’ history and existence is the existence witnessed to in the Scriptural ‘history of salvation’ which is a witness to his revealed glory.93 This particular revealed glory is described as ‘the glory of the Lord who is a Servant and the Servant who is the Lord.’94 Barth moves quite naturally into reflection on the third office of Jesus, namely, that of prophet. Precisely at this point, Barth’s thought is interesting because Barth wants to affirm that there is genuine overlap between the role and tasks of OT prophets and Jesus—they witness to the same covenant—while at the same time, Barth points out four key areas of divergence where the life of Jesus ‘breaks through and transcends the Old Testament concept of a prophet, and is thus characterized as prophecy sui generis.’95 Jesus’ prophetic office is completely unique because he is: 1) the Revealer by his very existence and not on the basis of special election and calling; 2) the universal Prophet who does not speak merely to Israel; 3) the Proclaimer of the present kingdom of God and not of that which is to come; 4) no OT prophet is a mediator like Jesus who is both Yahweh and the Israelite. Resultantly, Barth states that ‘we do not have in the life of any of the Old

89  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Barth’s actions here do definitely coalesce with Child’s canonical approach. See Scalise, “Childs and Barth.” 61–88. 90  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 40. 91  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 44. 92  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 45. 93  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 46. Here Barth refers back to his section in CD II.1 on the glory of God. 94  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 48. 95  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 49.

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Testament prophets a true type or adequate prefiguration of the prophecy of Jesus Christ.’96 Barth then turns the corner to say something more positive about Jesus’ figuration in the Old Testament. It is not found in the life of individual prophets, be they Moses, Elijah or Jeremiah. Rather, it is found prefigured in the life of the history of Israel, particularly in ‘its character as an unbroken sequence of new events of divine faithfulness in their height and depth as contrasted with the great unfaithfulness of man.’97 Israel’s history is a prophetic one that prefigures Jesus being and acting more fully than the prophets themselves. Or, as Barth says, ‘The history of Israel in its totality and interconnexion is universal prophecy.’98 From this statement, Barth moves into a small print section where he seeks to proves textually from the Old Testament itself the reality of Israel’s history as ultimate prophecy. More specifically, Israel’s history, like that of Jesus’, is a city set on a hill which cannot be hidden, leading to the opening of blind eyes.99 Barth appeals firstly to the Psalter, then to the life of Abraham, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. All of these witness to the recognition of the glory of God by the nations in the history of Israel. From these, Barth quotes in full the first of the so-called servant songs in Isaiah 42, highlighting the role the servant plays for the nations. He then lists a catena of verses in Isaiah that are universalistic in focus with little comment given. Their force is self-understood. Then Barth makes this statement: Note should also be taken of the great passage in Is. 53:1–12 concerning the suffering Servant of the Lord, concerning rejected, humiliated, defeated and unattractive Israel. For it is he that ‘shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high … he shall sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider’ (Is. 52:13ff). The history of Israel as such is at work in this prophetic office (emphasis mine).100

We note here Barth’s clear identification of the servant of Isaiah 53 as Israel’s own history per se. To make matters more definitive, as Barth wraps this particular section up he refers again to the servant of Isaiah 53 in the context of his discussion that Israel’s history is a microcosm of what God wills, plans, has done, does and will do with the human world as a whole. Israel’s history is a prefiguration of humanity as a whole.

 ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 52.  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 53. 98  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 55. 99  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Barth’s movement here is to firstly show the unique role of Israel’s history as prophecy; secondly, to show the connection with Jesus, and thirdly, move to a small print exegesis to prove the matter from the OT itself. 100  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 58. 96

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The election and rejection of this people, the disclosure of its transgressions and forgiveness of its sins, the fullness of the benefits with which He provides for it and the severity of the judgments in which it is overtaken by His chastisement, the incomparable distinction yet also the contemptible littleness with which He causes it to exist among other nations, the whole doxa of the covenant which He invests it – these are in nuce, in compendious form, His action with all humanity.101

This history of Israel is the key to understanding all history. Barth’s final Scriptural appeal in this particular section about Israel’s history as humanity’s history is to the servant of Isaiah 53. But on the other hand it is equally inevitable that the particular should bring out the contours of the general. What it means is that Israel’s history is really a concentration of all history, and to that extent takes place in the stead, for it, as its recapitulation and prefiguration, and the way in which it does this, are brought out with startling clarity in Is 53:4f, where the Servant of the Lord is also Israel as such, if not only Israel’(emphasis mine).102

Following this statement, Barth quotes 53:4–6 and 12. ‘Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ....’ Admittedly, this ‘if not only Israel’ is a difficult statement with a certain throw-away character to it. Is Barth stating that the servant of the Lord who is an individual is actually Israel incarnate? Or is Barth stating that the servant is actually empirical Israel or idealized Israel (so von Rad)? Barth does not necessarily resolve this dilemma and it may actually reveal the fact that the question of historical referentiality is not that important at this time both for Barth and Isaiah. It can, again, be a ‘both and.’ Barth does not seem to be dodging the question as much as relativizing its significance. Because the point Barth is driving home in the paragraphs that follow his appeal to Isaiah 53 is that the history of Israel as a prophetic existence, embodied in all the contours found in Isaiah 53, uniquely prefigures Jesus Christ.103 Therefore, Isaiah 53 is actually foretelling in the format of messianic prophecy of the figural kind what the incarnate one would be and do  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 64.  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 64. 103  ������������������������������������������������������������������ Similar sentiments are found in Barth’s reference to Isaiah 53 in CD I.2, 89. Here, Barth emphasizes that Isaiah 53 is a recapitulation of what is to be found in every chapter of the Old Testament. Isaiah 53, like Jacob, Jeremiah, and Job, reveal the hiddenness of God and points to his real revelation. In this sense, it is a prefiguration of God’s dealings with the suffering and crucified Christ. Apart from this ultimate reality in Jesus, the Old Testament, in Barth’s estimation, remains a ‘Jewish abstraction.’ Christ was indeed suffering Israel, the suffering prophet, and the suffering righteous man as ultimate revelation of the hidden God of the OT. 101 102

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as the embodiment of all that Israel was, is and is to be. So, in this sense, Isaiah 53’s servant is genuinely Israel and in another sense, genuinely Messianic because of the larger figural pattern of Israel as the exact prefiguration of Jesus Christ and Israel’s own history of failure.104 ‘But we do say that in and with the prophecy of the history of Israel there takes place in all its historical autonomy and singularity the prophecy of Jesus Christ Himself in the form of exact prefiguration.’105 Jesus Christ incarnate is Israel incarnate embodying all of her hopes, frustrations, calling and failures in the faithfulness and obedience to the will of God never consistently found in Israel’s history of failure under the covenant but figurally presented in the form of Isaiah 53’s servant. The identity of Isaiah’s servant is a perennial problem for Old Testament scholars, coupled with an exorbitant amount of secondary literature on the subject. Referring to the so-called servant songs of Isaiah, Hans Barstad states: ‘Anyone interested in this particular field of human enterprise is faced, not with hundreds, but with literally thousands of scholarly (or less scholarly!) books and articles, the total amount of which no one person can ever have any hope of digesting in a lifetime.’106 There have been recent readings of the narrative movement of the servant in Isaiah 40–55 that emphasize the significant role Isaiah 49 plays in the transition from the servant as Israel per se to the servant as an individual who has a mission to both the nations and Judah (Isa 49.1–6).107 These readings are, of course, after Barth’s time and have much to commend them. But, for Barth, the question about parsing out the identity of the servant is 104

 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� Robert Jenson makes a similar statement regarding the servant of Isaiah 49.

S o much at least is clear: whatever may have been in the mind or minds of the author

or authors of this text…followers of the risen Jesus were only conforming to the actual statement of the text when they took it as applicable to their Lord. For the text presents an historically unfilled template, indeed a template unfulfillable by anyone who lives only within the parameters of this age, of history as it now proceeds. To fit that template to someone is to say that this particular Israelite brings Israel back to the Lord and that just so this person is Israel thus brought back, to take her final mission to the nations. (Robert Jenson, “The Bible and the Trinity,” in Pro Ecclesia vol. XI, no. 3 [2002]: 334–5). 105  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 65. 106  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� Hans M. Barstad, “The Future of the ‘Servant Songs’: Some Reflections on the Relationship of Biblical Scholarship to Its Own Tradition,” in Language, Theology, and the Bible: Essays in Honour of James Barr, ed. S.E. Balentine and John Barton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 261 Of notable significance are two relatively recent volumes devoted to Isaiah 53, namely, William H. Bellinger and William R. Farmer, eds, Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Harrisburg: Trinity International Press, 1998) and Janowski and Stuhlmacher, Suffering Servant. 107   Most notably, Peter Wilcox and David Paton-Williams, “The Servant Songs in Deutero-Isaiah,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 42 (1988): 79–102 and Christopher R. Seitz, “‘You Are My Servant, You Are the Israel in Whom I Will be Glorified’: The Servant Songs and the Effect of Literary Context in Isaiah’,” Calvin Theological Journal 39 (2004): 117–34.

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relativized to the point where the servant can be understood as Israel and as an individual, or both at the same time. With more penetrating insight into the actual exegesis of the text itself, Childs makes a similar claim to Barth’s regarding the relationship of the servant to Israel/individual. I am not suggesting that collective Israel has been replaced by an individual prophetic figure, say Second Isaiah himself. Such historical speculation misses the point of the text. The identity of the first person singular voice in 48:16 and 49:1–6 remains fully concealed. Rather, what is crucial to observe is the one, bearing all the marks of an individual historic figure, has been named servant, not to replace corporate Israel—the servant in Second Isaiah remains inseparable from Israel—but as a faithful embodiment of the nation Israel who has not performed its chosen role (48:1–2).108

One observes here the overlap between Barth and Childs especially regarding the inseparableness of the servant from Israel. Barth is reading Isaiah 53 with a robust theological exegesis in gear. He is allowing Isaiah 53’s own canonical placement alongside the attendant problems with this placement to have its own say. For instance, who is the first person speaking voice in Isaiah 49? Israel or individual? Barth’s answer, alongside Childs, is ‘both.’ Barth’s reading of Isaiah 53 moves from fixity—its discrete voice—to potentiality—its figural anticipation that the text creates in light of Israel’s long history of unfaithfulness—to actuality—in Jesus Christ we see the figuration of the suffering servant fulfilled. One must take special note, however, that Barth does not disjoint these three. He does not move to the New Testament or Jesus and strip the significance of the servant’s identity as wrapped up with that of Israel’s from his ‘fulfilled’, christological reading. Jesus’ fulfillment of the suffering servant has intimately to do with his being born a Jew. And not just any Jew: a Jew who is Israel embodied in the covenantal faithfulness she empirically could never perform. This incarnation of Israel suffers Israel’s guilt in her place (Stellvertretung). As such, the Old Testament’s entire witness to the life and history of Israel is a prefiguration of Jesus’ unique ministry and in this regard can be understood as ‘complete Messianic prophecy.’109 This leads to one final observation. The reason for Israel’s inability to perform her chosen role in Isaiah 40–55 is sin. This very basic observation tends to get lost in the historical-critical instinct to reconstruct Israel’s history along political, sociological or religious lines. Israel was wrapped up in sin, and the servant’s suffering in her place in Isaiah 53 has to do with the removal of sin by the place-taking of another (Stellvertretung: a term where both representation and  ������������������� Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, 385.  ������� Barth, CD IV.3, 65. On this score, much is offered from Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 108 109

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substitution come together), and, in Janowski’s terms, with the epistemological problem Israel has regarding how their sin/guilt was in fact dealt with (the ‘we’ voice of Isaiah 53).110 Barth recognizes Isaiah 53’s role in a biblical understanding of substitutionary atonement. He states, ‘The very heart of the atonement is the overcoming of sin ....’111 From here, Barth refers to Isaiah 53 and the idea of punishment associated with Isaiah 53. Now, Barth does not engage in detailed exegetical questions, of which Isaiah 53 raises plenty (for example how do we understand ‫ ;אשׂם‬representation vs. substitutionary understanding of Isaiah 53 [Whybray vs. Janowski]; not to mention the numerous textually difficulties?). Rather, he states that Isaiah 53’s own voice, apart from the New Testament’s relative silence regarding punishment or penal substitutionary ideas of the atonement, does elicit this type of understanding within its own idiom. Barth warns against reducing the atonement to the penal (like Anselm). Nevertheless, Jesus, like the suffering servant, went to the outer corners of darkness and suffered our punishment.112 What is of interest here exegetically and biblical theologically is Barth’s allowance of Isaiah 53’s own presentation of the suffering servant a say in a full-orbed, biblical understanding of the atonement; even if the New Testament does not pick up such a theme as central to its own understanding of the atonement. Here, Barth’s biblical theological sensibilities are contrary to vetus testamentum in novo receptum (the Old Testament as it is received in the New Testament). When we look at the ways in which Barth appealed to Isaiah 53 in the CD, we find a certain level of multi-functionality. Yes, all of the OT is Erwartung, and not just general Erwartungen but the specific anticipation of Jesus Christ as if he is knocking on the door ready to enter.113 Resultantly, Barth can refer to Isaiah 53 as directly relating to Jesus Christ with no comment in between. In the latter part of the CD we find Barth’s more robust figural reasoning. Isaiah 53 can completely refer to Israel in the discrete voice of Isaiah’s witness. In light of the subject matter of both testaments, the history of Israel is the most adequate and complete figural pattern for Jesus’ own unique existence. If Isaiah 53 in its historical situation referred completely to suffering Israel in exile or a prophet, then so be it for Barth. 110

 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Bernd Janowski, “He Bore Our Sins: Isaiah 53 and the Drama of Taking Another’s Place,” in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, ed. Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher, trans. D.P. Bailey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 69–70. For an extended discussion of Stellvertrung’s significance in recent biblical studies and the influence of Kantian moral philosophy on the question see Daniel P. Bailey, “Concepts of Stellvertretung in the Interpretation of Isaiah 53,” in Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, ed. W.H. Bellinger and William R. Farmer (Harrisburg: Trinity International Press, 1998), 223–50. 111  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 253. 112  ������� Barth, CD IV.1, 253. 113  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Again, see Barth’s comments about the OT as a ‘Jewish abstraction’ without the affirmation of the revealed God in Jesus Christ as the hidden God of the OT (CD I.2, 89).

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There is no sting in this theologically, and the fact remains that the text itself has kept this type of historical inquiry at bay. Moreover, Barth can take this historical aporia and turn it on its head as an ultimate prefiguration or prophecy of Jesus. How? Because Jesus is Israel incarnate and Isaiah 53 serves as a pattern of what God will do finally and completely in his covenant not only with Israel, but with the nations of the world, with humanity. Isaiah 53 can refer both to Israel’s own history and, at the same time, witness to the wonder of God’s final eschatological action in Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53’s own lack of direct ostensive identification creates the space for this type of figural reasoning Barth applies to this text. Here we find a theologian who is not flat-footed in his appeal to the witness of the Old Testament to Christ. He recognizes what Brevard Childs will later call the multiple level interpretation of the Old Testament. The witness of the OT to Israel’s history is real and particular but it is not, as many OT scholars may tend to lean, sealed off from God’s larger eschatological work in the person and work of Jesus. The Scriptures require a multi-level reading that respects both the discrete witness of the Old Testament while at the same time affirms that the central subject matter of Scripture is God’s triune action seen most concretely in the person and work of Jesus. Barth’s approach to a text like Isaiah 53 is, to borrow from Childs again, ‘confessional not apologetics, its function is worship not disputation, its content is eschatology not time-conditioned history, and its truth is self-affirming not analytical demonstration.’114 One senses in the theological exegesis of Barth the way in which Isaiah as Christian Scripture witnesses theologically to the one covenant of grace God has made with humanity. Barth’s reading is a way forward for those wishing to affirm the positive role historical-criticism plays in the exegetical task while at the same time sensing that something grand is missing if we keep to that realm alone with no recourse made to categories such as canon, inspiration, and two testaments with a single subject matter.

Isaiah 56.1–8 and the Male-Female Relationship Barth’s engagement with Isaiah 56–66 is surprisingly thin in comparison to his engagement with 1–39 and 40–55. As was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, Barth is in good company here as the New Testament authors were given to quoting or alluding to Isaiah 40–55 more than any of the other chapters of Isaiah. Isaiah 40–55 is pregnant with the figural anticipation of the coming one who would be, for Israel and the nations, all that Israel was to be and could not be on account of her sin. Before drawing our investigation to a conclusion, it behooves us to engage at least one of Barth’s references to Isaiah 56–66. Our text comes from the beginning of this literary demarcater, namely, Isaiah 56.1–8.

114

 ��������������������������������������������������������������������� Brevard Childs, “Does the Old Testament Witness to Jesus Christ?” 63.

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This portion of Isaiah is situated in Barth’s larger biblical theological explanation for why the male-female relationship cannot be summed up in marriage alone.115 As is typical of Barth, he moves from the Old Testament to the New Testament; this is after some engagement with the tendency of the Reformers and their heirs to place marriage at the center with celibacy at the circumference. Barth locates these sensibilities in human tradition grounded in a natural theology and not the Bible. Resultantly, Barth turns to the Bible. Within the Old Testament, it is the case that remaining in an unmarried state for either male or female was a ‘terrible disgrace.’116 The issue in the Old Testament, however, does not turn on a general principle regarding the necessity of procreation. Rather, it has to do with ‘the very special one that the holy seed of Abraham and therefore the hope of Israel must be carried forward from one generation to another.’117 T he emphasis on marriage and procreation in the O ld Testament has covenantal implications for the furthering of the salvation of God’s people. What Barth is guarding against is making the Old Testament complicit with a general theory based on natural observation regarding the necessity and centrality of marriage. The Old Testament’s emphasis on marriage and progeny was soterically motivated. One can expect, according to Barth, that once the Messiah has come (that is, the expected child) the rules of the game may change. This is the biblical theological rationale for the different emphasis on marriage and procreation found between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The former has a single vision for marriage and procreation; the latter allows what Barth calls the possibility of ‘another verdict’ where marriage is a relative as opposed to absolute necessity (see I Cor 6–7).118 Isaiah 56.1–8 is called on to support the notion that this eschatological hope where the unmarried are not disgraced but are actually given something ‘better than sons and daughters’ is embedded within the Old Testament witness as well. As we have seen Barth do before, his appeal to Isa 56.1–8 is not heavily interpreted or glossed. He simply gives an introductory statement having to do with Gentiles and especially eunuchs worshipping Israel’s God and then allows the text to speak for itself by quoting it. It is brought into a larger network of readings as he juxtaposes Isa 56.1–8 to Gen 2.18–25 with an emphasis on the relationship between Yahweh and his bride eliding into the New Testament as Christ and his Church. As one might expect, the interpretive difficulties of this text are bypassed (and there are plenty) as its plain sense is allowed to speak. So Barth is not interpreting here, he is simply reading, seizing a particular point salient to his larger theological concern and moving on. Is the point Barth lights on germane to the Isaianic context or is Barth falling prey to all the problems associated with a dicta probantia approach to dogmatic theology?   Karl Barth, CD III.4, trans. A.T. Mackay, et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961), 141–9.  ������� Barth, CD III.4, 142. 117  ������� Barth, CD III.4, 142. 118  ������� Barth, CD III.4, 142. 115

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In fairness, Barth’s reading or quoting is not a sustained exegesis. We should not ask too much of him here. At the same time, the issue of the eunuchs worshipping in the Temple is an important and central aspect of this text, and Barth picks up on this even as he moving along the way quickly. The concern of the Gentiles mentioned in 56.1–8 is their admittance to Temple worship and their resultant fear that they may be finally dismissed. They are promised this will not happen. On the other hand, the concern of the eunuch is not admittance to the T emple per se but their lack of progeny. Here, we see the association in Israel’s cultic life that singleness alongside barrenness was a difficult disgrace to bear. The prophet portrays the eschatological day of Israel’s ultimate and final restoration where foreigners and eunuchs inhabit and participate in the worship of Yahweh. Particularly these eunuchs (‫ )סריסים‬who have no hope for progeny will be given a monument (‫יד‬, perhaps a euphemism for ‘penis’) and a name (that which has been lost because of their inability to procreate). What is profoundly poignant about the grace of God in the eschatological day for these eunuchs is not only that they will be given a name; they will be given a name greater than sons and daughters. God’s gracious intervening in the reconstitution of his people, both Israel and the nations, transcends the centrality of marriage and progeny in Israel’s life as concomitant with their salvific possession and progression. Centrally to Isa 56.1–8 is the universal implications of Yahweh’s eschatological day. Both Israel and those foreigners who seek the righteousness of God and keep his covenant will be admitted to worship in Yahweh’s temple. Barth’s deploying of Isa 56.1–8 reveals the ability of biblical texts to function on multiple levels of theological interpretation. He does not engage the overarching theme of the universal implications of the day of the Lord; he allows a secondary, though important, point of the text to be situated alongside other texts of the canonical witness as he wrestles with what the Bible has to say about marriage and singleness. The promise to the eunuchs is a promise that witnesses within the confines of the Old Testament’s own discrete voice that the eschatological day of the Lord will entail promises and blessings for those who are married or celibate. Even eunuchs will be given a name better than sons and daughters.

Conclusion Our engagement of Barth’s reading of Isaiah is by no means exhaustive, though it does engage the places where, in the estimation of this author, Barth is most attentive to Isaiah in his theological constructions. Having observed a spattering of these readings, our final chapter will pursue a few lines of analysis followed by the hermeneutical implications of Barth’s Isaianic reading for Christian readers of Isaiah. All of this is pursued in light of our overarching concern regarding theological exegesis of the Old Testament in light of a two-testament canon.

Chapter 5

Theological Exegetical Implications of Barth’s Isaianic Exegesis

All Christian use of the Old Testament seems to depend on the belief that the One God who is the God of Israel is also the God and Father of Jesus Christ. All our use of the Old Testament goes back to this belief. What is said there that relates to ‘God’ relates to our God. Consequently, that which can be known of our God is known only when we consider the Old Testament as a place in which he is known.  Brevard Childs Gressman is not a theologian, not in any sense; as a self-confessedly ‘heathen’ historian he gets exercised about my exegesis, and with just the same ‘righteous anger’ I have to confess that I do not believe in his bona fides as a clamant to the title ‘theologian.’ It is a lie to call oneself a theologian and to sit in a theological faculty if one has no understanding of theological questions and no interest in theological tasks, but on the contrary has one’s entire love as a scholar only for historical study. Sunt certi denique fines, and in Gressman’s case these have certainly been transgressed. One might as well hold discussions with a wooden peg as with this man, who has never thought it necessary to devote even five minutes’ thought to the question ‘What is theology?’ Where this man is concerned my dearest wish would be that he would leave us in peace and just talk to the philologists about their problems. Karl Barth

Introduction Karl Barth’s exegesis of Isaiah in the CD is rich and variegated. His ability to engage the text of Isaiah in different theological contexts reveals a reading of Isaiah as at times purposive and specific and at times ad hoc and homiletical resulting in diverse readings that betray simple codification. It is right to say that Barth had no uniform methodology in his reading of the Old Testament as a witness to the



 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Christopher Seitz, “Christological Interpretation of Texts and Trinitarian Claims to Truth: An Engagement with Francis Watson’s Text and Truth,” Scottish Journal of Theology 52 (1999): 222.   ����������������������� Quoted in John Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 32.

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Triune God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ. And it may be the case that, as McGlasson has stated, Barth’s Old Testament exegesis is unstable enough to provide any clear approach to understanding the Old Testament witness to Christ. Or to put the matter more positively, what we may see in Barth’s reading of Isaiah, and again, our claims are modest and related specifically to Isaiah rather than the Old Testament as a whole, is a reading of Isaiah that understands the relationship between its literal sense and figural witness as organically related and on a sliding scale of mutual reciprocity. Depending on the theological contexts and aims of Barth’s particular exegesis, he can locate his reading of Isaiah in Die Zeit der Erwartung and, in Higton’s terminology, read Isaiah firstly remoto Christo (removed from Christ) before turning to its christological witness. This is the case with Barth’s reading of Isaiah 1 in association with Isaiah 30. The dogmatic context is broadly speaking the atonement and the particular issue Barth is unpacking is the implication of Jesus’ title, Son of God. The canonical instinct Barth brings to bear on this matter is the role the Old Testament plays in filling out the implications of the title. Jesus was born of Jewish flesh and this Jewish flesh is rooted in the soil of the Old Testament. Again, the theological context is christological. At the same time, Barth allows Isaiah’s own voice to contribute to the filling out of this christological title without overly reading assumed christological conclusions into the text. Barth allows Isaiah’s discrete voice to witness directly to the fuller christological issue at hand. More will be said about this in the following section, but it is worth emphasizing at this juncture two matters. Firstly, Barth does believe the subject matter of the Old Testament to be christological, or more broadly, Trinitarian in scope. At the same time, this christological subject matter does not force Barth into transgressing the plain sense of the text in unnatural readings of Jesus back into the Old Testament. Rather, the text is in effect allowed to speak on its own terms and contribute to the theological formulation of the issue from within its own idiom. In this particular instance, Isaiah 1 and 30 together witness to Israel’s status as a disobedient and recalcitrant son. This is the way Isaiah speaks of Israel’s sonship. From this firstreading, the plain sense of the text is naturally extended by figuration to address the larger christological issue being addressed. Because this is the way Isaiah construes Israel’s sonship, a fully informed biblical theology of the title ‘Son of God’ must take into account this aspect of Jesus’ sonship as well. Secondly, Barth more often than not allows the text itself to do the lion’s share of explanation. Barth allows himself to ‘get out of the way’ of the text so that the text’s own verbal sense in association with other texts is afforded much of   �������������������� See Paul McGlasson, Jesus and Judas: Biblical Exegesis in Barth, American Academy of Religion Academy Series (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1991), 53.   ����������� McGlasson, Jesus and Judas, 53–4.   ������������� Mike Higton, Christ, Providence and History: Hans W. Frei’s Public Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 165.

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the explanatory power. Barth will tie the strings together, but his exegesis is not typically heavy-handed. In addressing Barth’s Shorter Commentary on Romans, Reno praises Barth’s theological exegesis as more in line with early patristic exegesis than with his contemporaries. Instead of doing theological exegesis one or two steps removed from the actual engagement of the text, Barth’s theological exegesis and theology in general tends toward ‘a dense act of exegetical “showing” rather than exegesis that draws theological conclusions at a remove from the text.’ Though wanting to avoid an overly schematized approach to the matter, Reno’s description of Barth’s engagement of Romans is aptly applied to his reading of Isaiah as well. On the other hand, Barth can equally read Isaiah’s witness non remoto Christo (not removed from Christ) and in light of the fulfillment of its anticipation with little recourse to figuration, typology or promise/fulfillment paradigms. For example, Isaiah 53 speaks of the ugly-beauty of Jesus Christ, full stop. Or, Isaiah 11 witnesses to the Spirit’s relationship to Jesus Christ in light of the wholeness of Jesus’ humanity. In other words, the fulfillment of Isaiah’s eschatological hopes can be read back into Isaiah without much fan-fare. Barth’s exegetical flexibility as he moves between remoto Christo and non remoto Christo may prove McGlasson’s point that Barth’s Christian reading of the Old Testament is unstable enough to provide a transferable method for the issue at hand (if such a transferable method is desirable). In light of the different types of Isaianic readings Barth attempts, it seems fair to describe Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah as multi-layered and multifunctional. At the same time, Barth can move between these layers without much exegetical strain or explanation. It is also plausible that Barth understood his reading of Isaiah to be a reading of the plain sense of the text. R esponding to the overly historicist tendencies of much biblical scholarship, Barth reacts negatively by stating, ‘No, I am more sympathetic towards keeping to what the texts themselves say as they are, as distinct from, what comes before them or after them. They say something of their own. What the texts themselves want to say has my “sympathy”.’ This bears further reflection and parsing out as will be attempted in the next section. In this chapter, Barth will be brought into conversation with Brevard Childs’ multi-layered approach to reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. It is hoped that Childs’ approach may offer insight into what Barth is actually doing, even if Barth is not programmatic about the way he executes this multi-layered  ������������������������������������������������������������ R.R. Reno, “Biblical Theology and Theological Exegesis,” in Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation, Scripture and Hermeneutics Series 5, ed. C. Bartholomew, M. Healy, K. Möller, R. Parry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 392.   ������������������ George Hunsinger, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 214 n.6.   ���������������� Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 349. 

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reading. Childs offers an important heuristic for understanding the theological witness of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. In the context of issues raised by Childs, we will seek to learn from Barth the theological warrant for moving seamlessly between figuration and fulfillment in various contexts dealing with the same text. Again, a static method is not being sought here. Rather, we are seeking to learn from Barth’s theological exegetical instincts.

Barth’s Multi-Leveled Reading In a festschrift article for Peter Stuhlmacher, Brevard Childs engages the Old Testament’s capacity as a witness to Christ (Christuszeugnis). Childs places his discussion in the context of Vischer’s Christuszeugnis and the critical response to Vischer’s work from Eichrodt, von Rad, Zimmerli and Wolff. Whereas Vischer’s work sought to find Jesus Christ as ‘actually present in Israel’s history,’ for example, in the confrontation with Abraham, Jacob’s wrestling match and various other theophonies in the Old Testament, Vischer’s detractors, all in their various ways, insisted that theological exegesis had to ride on the back of historical critical analysis that took into account the complex development of these Old Testament books and the concerns attendant to this reality. Again, it is worth recalling that Vischer believed himself to be doing historical-philological exegesis of the Old Testament. It was a certain type of historical inquiry that his detractors found wanting in Vischer. The other concern Childs addresses before moving to his own positive formulations regarding a multi-layered reading, and these issues are pertinently germane to Barth, is his understanding of: 1) the role ontology plays in the exegesis of Holy Scripture’s theological claims and 2) the relationship between exegesis and theology as a dialectical one. Childs understands the Scriptures of Israel, and the New Testament for that matter, to have been born in the context of real human history. Even the New Testament interprets the arrival of Jesus as something that occurs in ‘a given historical moment in the life of Israel.’10 Nevertheless, ‘this temporal orientation does not rule out at the same time moving the discourse to an ontological plane.’11 Childs refers to John’s prologue and the claims in Col 1.15f. as examples of the ontological claims of the Scriptures and then Childs gives the following definition: ‘The term ontological refers to a mode of speech in relation to a subject matter which disregards or transcends temporal sequence.’12   Brevard S. Childs, “Does the Old Testament Witness to Jesus Christ,” in Evangelium Schriftauslegung Kirche: Festschrift für Peter Stuhlmacher zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Jostein Adna, Scott J. Hafemann, and Otfried Hofius (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 57. 10  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 60. 11  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 60. 12  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 60. 

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Childs does not claim the New Testament’s ontological orientation as the sole warrant for this biblical theological move, but he does cite the New Testament as an example of ontological readings of historical realities. The New Testament witness does call into question biblical scholars’ squeamishness about ontological readings of the Scripture’s subject matter as ‘an illegitimate intrusion from the side of philosophy.’13 The role of ontology in the exegesis of Holy Scripture is of significant consequence when one observes Barth’s reading of Isaiah. The Scriptures are the unique means by which God reveals his own Triune identity to us. This is our confession about the nature and role of Scripture in the divine economy. When one engages the question of context, surely an axiomatic term in biblical studies, the issues tend to deal with literary and historical questions. For theological exegetes such as Barth, however, the confession about Scripture’s own nature and role in the divine economy is surely a ‘contextual’ question as well. It is in this theological locale that ontological questions come into play in the interface between Scripture and Canon. Barth’s ontological reading of Isaiah cannot be called abstract ontological readings that are not the product of close readings of the text, but it is this theological context that is primary for Barth (though the other ‘contextual’ issues are not always dismissed). So, for example, Isaiah 40 as the literary and historical turning point of God’s divine ‘no’ to his divine ‘yes’ for the people of Israel is more than a rehearsal of Israel’s historical exile and return from exile. Isaiah 40 is an everlasting canonical witness to the ontological claim that Israel’s God is both patient and wise. The Scriptures, again though born out of historically particular occasions in the life of Israel and the Church, witness beyond these historically particular occasions and make enduring ontological claims about the nature and identity of our Triune God. As we will see, it is the ontological instinct in Barth’s exegesis that allows him to slide between the literal and figural senses of Scripture. The second point Childs addresses is the relationship between exegesis and theology. Childs speaks of the ‘common caricature’ of this relationship as follows: exegesis is an objective task, solidly located in ‘independent historical and philological’ work seeking to understand what the text says, and theology is a subsequent and subjective task that is ultimately speculative in nature.14 Childs calls this understanding of the relationship between theology and exegesis ‘mischief’ with roots as far back as Gabler and even present in the theologically sympathetic work of Rendtorff.15 The primary issue at which Childs takes aim is the linear relationship between exegesis and theology. Exegesis comes first because it is manageable and static (of course, this is a bit of caricature as well) and then one moves on to theology. Childs counters, ‘Rather, I would argue that the relationship between exegesis and theology is a far more complex and subtle one 13

 ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 60.  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 60. 15  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 60. 14

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which is basically dialectical in nature.’16 The picture Childs paints is the exegete coming to Scripture with theological assumptions who then engages in the task of exegesis itself so deeply that the subject matter of Scripture either affirms or calls into question the exegete’s assumptions. Following from the previous ontological point, Childs stresses that exegetes of Holy Scripture cannot be content to deal with the verbal sense alone but must press on to the subject matter of Scripture, or to what the verbal sense witnesses to beyond itself. For example, whatever one makes of Barth’s doctrine of election in CD II.2, one must grant that Barth’s conclusions and his challenging of the traditional Reformed position is a product of his understanding of the biblical witnesses own claims regarding the matter. Here certain theological assumptions were called into question by Barth’s engagement with the Scriptures. The same could be said about Barth’s change of mind regarding the non-sacramental character of baptism and the Lord’s supper (whether or not Barth is found persuasive on this score).17 Or, in the context of Isaiah, Barth understands Isaiah 53’s witness as contributing to the overall biblical portrayal of the atonement. Resultantly, a penal idea is in view within the Bible’s construal of the atonement, even if it is not the dominating New Testament motif. One’s theological assumptions and exegesis work in a dialectical relationship and mutually inform one another. In John Barton’s recent work, The Nature of Biblical Criticism, he seeks to right what he deems as wrong-headed portrayals of biblical criticism. Barton challenges the portrayal of biblical criticism as a rigidly scientific enterprise that is overly historicist in orientation and positivistic in philosophical disposition. There are indeed aspects of Barton’s work that are commendable. It is good, for example, to be reminded that the Documentary Hypothesis was in fact a hypothesis and not an empirical finding based on solidly positivistic evidences. And it is also good to be reminded that most biblical criticism is literary in orientation and not historically excavating in disposition (though I think this is worthy of fuller discussion and challenge; for surely most biblical scholars in the guild today consider themselves historians first and foremost). Much of this, however, seems besides the point when brought into contact with the task of theological exegesis. For Barton describes the task of biblical criticism—notice, not historical-criticism—as three-fold: 1) ‘attention to semantics, to the meaning of words, phrases, sentences, chapters, whole books’; 2) ‘awareness of genre’; and 3) ‘bracketing out questions of truth.’18 My assumption is that most theological exegetes or confessing exegetes would consider points one and two as important tasks in the reading of Scripture. It is, after all, a creaturely reality.

16

 ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 60.  �������������������������������������������� Trevor Hart, “Systematic—In What Sense?” in Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation; Scripture and Hermeneutics Series 5, ed. C. Bartholomew, et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 343–4. 18  �������� Barton, Biblical Criticism, 58. 17

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It is the third point that continues to bring life to the caricature painted by Childs about the linear relationship between exegesis and theology (or truth-claims). Barton believes that it is merely a procedural matter to bracket out questions of truth or theology from one’s exegesis of a text, because ‘[o]ne must establish what it means; one may then ask whether what it means is true.’19 Barton claims this is neither Enlightenment principles revitalized nor skepticism at work. It is simply the necessary posture of a biblical critic when coming to the text. Fully imbibing Jowett’s claim to read the Bible as any other book—admitting that one might be surprised to find it is not like any other book after reading this way—Barton resists the notion of applying a special hermeneutic to the Bible and requires biblical criticism to be nonconfessional.20 Barton’s proposal is a sophisticated way of saying, we need to read what is there and let the text’s own sense be established. To do this, bracketing out truth claims is essential. Barton takes aim at theological exegetes who are confessing from the outset, namely, Childs, Seitz, Moberly and Watson. Again, how can one come to understand the text’s own claims if one does not begin with criticism ‘but with a commitment to the Bible as divine communication with the Christian community.’21 T he following reveals the tensions between a Barton, a self-defined biblical critic, and a theological exegete, who sees biblical-critical tools as necessary and important to the exegetical task but cannot go down the path of ‘bracketing out’: They [Seitz and Moberly] argue that a ‘ruled’ reading of Scripture provides an access to its true meaning, the meaning that a responsible interpreter should feel constrained to adopt. Their position is not compatible with a pluralistic approach in which one may use the Bible for any purposes one likes, including critical ones, but rather makes claims to normativity. And in that respect it comes into genuine conflict with a critical approach, if a critical approach is as I have proposed.22

One can surmise that Seitz and Moberly in their respective ways would respond to Barton with, ‘quite so.’ A confessional approach does come into difficulty with the biblical criticism proffered by Barton because one’s confession about the nature and role of Scripture as both humanly and divinely authored brings it into conflict with Jowett’s claim to read it as any other book. And despite Barton’s claims, such an approach is the product of the Enlightenment project’s insistence on intellectual autonomy and the priority of reason, even if biblical criticism is located in the humanities and not the sciences.23 Barth’s theological reading of the  �������� Barton, Biblical Criticism, 171.  �������� Barton, Biblical Criticism, 179. 21  �������� Barton, Biblical Criticism, 146. 22  �������� Barton, Biblical Criticism, 147. 23  ����������������� Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 386. 19

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Scriptures in general, and Isaiah in particular, is in radical contradistinction from this ‘bracketing out’ approach.24 John Webster describes the situation well when he locates Christian reading of the Bible primarily in a theological context with the need for theological description rather than the language adopted from various hermeneutical theories.25 Barton raises the stakes as he claims that the neutral bracketing out approach is actually more honoring to the text than theological approaches.26 But this can only be the case if one understands the Bible as a literary artifact to be examined in the context of the humanities per se. The history of reception in the church, the confession about the ontological status of Scripture and, as Childs has demonstrated, the ‘canon consciousness’ embedded within the Scriptures themselves (the texts themselves attest to being something more than a literary artifact) speak against the reductionistic tendencies of the bracketing-out models. In this respect, theological approaches to exegesis are more respective of the text’s own claims about themselves as they take into account the primary theological context for engaging the task of exegesis. This is not to deny the literary character of Scripture and the importance of biblical criticism. Again, it is a creaturely reality. But it is not only a creaturely reality and from a Christian dogmatic standpoint, it is our understanding of the Scriptures in the context of divine action that is theologically prior to our understanding of their creaturely reality. The former grounds the latter. This properly basic confession about the ontological status of Scripture requires a ‘ruled’ reading because this confession is an integral aspect of the context of Scripture. When all is said and done, the debate between biblical-criticism per se and theological exegesis that takes into account the Bible’s creaturely reality and its divine inspiration amounts to a clashing of worldviews and prioritizing principles.27 How does one engage questions about the unity of the canon, or, for that matter, the material form of the canon at all without a confession regarding God’s providential ordering of creaturely events as a prioritizing principle? Credo ut intelligum (I believe in order to understand). The point emphasized here, however, is the necessary dialectical relationship between exegesis and theology. It is this dialectic and confession about the canonical status of Scripture that seeks to keep ‘wax nose’ approaches to exegesis at bay. In other words, Scripture 24  �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� See Burnett’s portrayal of Barth’s hermeneutic as requiring a loving participation in the subject matter of Scripture, Richard Burnett, Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis, WUNT 2 145 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). 25  �������������� John Webster, Word and Church: Essays in Christian Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), 47 Webster states, ‘That is to say, a Christian description of the Christian reading of the Bible will be the kind of description which talks of God and therefore talks of all other realities sub species divinitatis.’ 26  �������� Barton, Biblical Criticism, 27. 27  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� For a detailed philosophical account of the epistemological issues at play see Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 386–421.

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does not lose its’ ‘over-against’ status in this dialectical relationship. Moreover, theological exegesis does not believe the Scripture’s ‘over-against’ status is protected by general theories of hermeneutics borrowed from the humanities or by historical-criticism’s objective distancing of the exegete from the subject matter (‘bracketing out’). One wrestles with semantics and genre, along with other exegetical tasks, but must press beyond them to the subject matter witnessed to through these creaturely means. This is a theological task in need of theological description. Another consequence of the necessary dialectical relationship between exegesis and theology is the continuing role exegesis plays as a dynamic aspect of the church’s life coram Deo. Returning to Childs’ argument, he recognizes the concern registered against such a dialectic between exegesis and theology as the potential for uncontrolled allegory. Barton in his own way and Childs’ interlocutor, Rendtorff, both believe the text is protected from allegorical flights of fancy by rooting one’s exegesis in historical-critical exegesis (or what Barton calls simply ‘biblical criticism’). Childs is sympathetic with this concern and recognizes that the four-fold interpretive model of the Medieval period is ultimately problematic because the relationship between the text itself and the subject matter witnessed to were often ‘seriously blurred through clever interpretive techniques.’28 Childs continues: ‘Rather I am suggesting a single method of interpretation which takes seriously both the different dimensions constituting the text as well as distinct contexts in which the text functions’ (emphasis mine).29 Before actually delving into the multiple layers Childs proposes, it is important to observe that he is offering a single method of reading. In other words, the various layers are related to one another in an organic fashion and the different dimensions and contexts for reading are all part of the one act of reading the texts faithfully. By way of analogy in the CD, Barth rehearses the three-fold exegetical method as explicatio, meditatio and applicatio (what Barth refers to as ‘assimilation’). Barth insists that the application or assimilation of Scripture into the current situatedness of the church’s life is constitutive of the exegetical task.30 One does have exposition or exegesis if step three is abstracted from steps one and two. The figural layer proffered by Childs falls under the category of applicatio in the broad sense in that it presses beyond semantics, genre and historical particularity (explicatio) to the subject-matter attested to in all of Scripture (meditatio and applicatio). There is not a fixed temporal order here for Childs in the sense that one must move linearly from layer ‘1’ to layer ‘2’ to layer ‘3.’ In fact, there is freedom to operate between these different layers of reading (something in fact Barth does quite intuitively). But for heuristic reasons, Childs presents the layers in ‘1’ ‘2’ ‘3’ fashion. Our attention will be given to the 28

 ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 61.  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 61. 30  ������������ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.T. Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 736. 29

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description of these layers and then we will turn to Barth’s reading of Isaiah to see how they shed light on the flexibility of Barth’s exegesis. The first layer rehearsed by Childs is the interpretation of Old Testament texts within their own ‘historical, literary, and canonical contexts.’31 T o read the person of Jesus Christ back into the stories of the Old Testament or in the theophonies recorded there is, in the estimation of Childs, to flatten out the Old Testament’s own voice. Vischer’s tendency to find Jesus Christ present in the Old Testament is to confuse promise and fulfillment. In Barth’s language, this particular concern would be characterized as respecting the Old Testament’s witness to revelation as Erwartung. The Old Testament is anticipation not fulfillment, and to respect its discrete voice is to take into account its canonical role and placement. As Childs states elsewhere, something has to end before something begins. A very simplistic example of the early church’s reflection of this impulse is its reception of the Scriptures of Israel as a canonical witness to Jesus Christ without recourse to redactional editing. Isaiah 52.13 does not say, ‘Behold, my servant Jesus’ in any Septuagintal recensions. The early church understood that the text as it stood functioned as Christian Scripture in its own right. Childs insistence on reading the Old Testament in its literary, historical and canonical context is related to the concerns raised by Barton that biblical criticism takes into account verbal semantics and genre. Where Childs’ understanding of the literal sense differs from Barton’s is Childs’ notion that the verbal sense does not turn in on itself. ‘However, even when restricting oneself to the Hebrew Bible according to its canonical shape, the serious interpreter is still constrained to relate the text’s verbal sense to the theological reality which confronted historic Israel in evoking this witness.’32 T he O ld T estament in its basic verbal and literary sense witnesses to theological realities beyond these basic senses. Again, issues of ontology come into play here. A second level of reading is an extension of the literary/historical that seeks to ‘to analyze structural similarities and dissimilarities between the witnesses of both testaments, Old and New.’33 Childs carefully points out that this dimension of reading is not phenomenologically oriented to a comparison of various writings in the history of religions nor is it merely descriptive. ‘Rather, it is an exegetical and theological enterprise which seeks to pursue a relationship of content.’34 Childs gives the example of the doctrine of God. Both testaments witness to the identity and nature of the one God of the Bible. The two testaments contents should not be fused together; they each have a discrete witness. But in their discreteness they share a theological relationship regarding the identity of God and must both be taken into account. 31

 ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 61.  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 61. 33  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 61. 34  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 61. 32

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The third layer is related to the second in such a way that it is in effect the flip side of the same coin. This approach flows from the Christian confession regarding the theological unity of both testaments. Once one wrestles with both testaments and their discrete witness to the same subject matter, a ‘fuller knowledge’ of that subject matter is then grasped. Biblical interpreters can then move from this knowledge of the reality of the subject matter of Scripture back to the text of Scripture itself. Childs is quick to point out that this is not merely a homiletical move related to the subjective conjoining of the Old and New Testaments. It is, on the other hand, a necessary exegetical move that takes into account the material form of the Christian canon as both Old and New Testaments. Childs states, ‘The central point to emphasize is that the biblical text exerts theological pressure on the reader which demands that the reality which under girds the two voices not be held apart and left fragmented, but critically reunited.’35 It is important to observe Childs’ handling of this matter. He does not root the unity of the testaments in a common history of religions, growth of tradition or Heilsgeschichte. It is a thoroughly theological move that understands the final form of both parts of the canon as continuing in their own ways as witnesses to the self-same subject matter. The more serious claim Childs makes is that once one wrestles on the level of the subject matter of Scripture, then the Christian exegete necessarily must read back into the Old Testament the full reality of the subject matter attested in both testaments. This third layer of reading or re-reading is the figural dimension of Scripture and commits the unpardonable sin of historical-criticism, namely, anachronism.36 Figural reading can commit this sin because it recognizes the relational and associative dimension that connects figures, events, themes across large swaths of the canon on the basis of the theological confession that one is dealing with the same divine economy across both testaments.37 Childs gives two examples to illustrate the point. The first is the example of the Trinity. Is it legitimate to read the doctrine of the Trinity back into the Scriptures? Neither testament speaks explicitly about the doctrine of the Trinity, but as David Yeago has demonstrated, the doctrine of the Trinity is a product of the early church’s wrestling with the Bible’s claims about the identity of God who is a ‘dynamic divine reality in constant inner-communication.’38 Though the doctrine is not explicit in the Scriptures, it is not only legitimate but necessary to read the Scriptures in a Trinitarian fashion because of the subject matter witnessed to in the 35

 ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 62.  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Barton would see this figural dimension of reading back into the text as a breech of its ‘plain sense’ as he defines it. Barton, Biblical Criticism, 71. 37  ����������������������������������� See especially, John David Dawson, Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); and John J. O’Keefe and R.R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2005). 38  ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 62; David Yeago, “The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma,” Pro Ecclesia III (1994): 152–78. 36

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Scriptures. The second illustration is the primary issue dealt with in this volume, the Christuszeugnis of the Old Testament. When one comes to the Old Testament as a Christian reader, the multiple dimensions of Scripture should be taken into account. One recognizes that the Old Testament’s witness to revelation is as a time of expectation. The fusing of promise and fulfillment is to confuse the particular witnessing function the Old Testament plays. But this is only one level of reading. Childs uses the example of the prophets of the Old Testament’s testimony regarding a coming royal figure.39 The first layer of reading recognizes the promissory and anticipatory function of the eschatological hope for a coming, royal figure. The second layer of reading takes into account the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which in turn brings ‘fresh life’ to these Old Testament passages.40 Childs states, ‘Thus, when the interpreter moves from the reality of God manifest in action back to the Scriptures themselves for further illumination, he or she is constrained to listen for a new song to break forth from the same ancient, sacred texts.’41 The example Childs gives is Isaiah 53, where the morphological fit between Jesus and Isaiah 53 is acutely observed, despite scholarly denunciation. Childs asks how it is that Isaiah can serve both as the voice of historic Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures and as a witness to Jesus Christ. His response to this question is important for it reveals the necessary posture of reading the Old Testament as a multi-layered witness. ‘It is not only possible, but actually mandatory for any serious Christian theological reflection. Because Scripture performs different functions according to distinct contexts, a multi-level reading is required even to begin to grapple with the full range of Scripture’s role as the intentional medium of continuing divine revelation.’42 Of significance here is Childs’ use of the term ‘mandatory.’ Recalling the debate between Barth and Baumgartner discussed in chapter one, one is reminded of Baumgartner’s allowance of a Christian reading of the Old Testament as a final, homiletical move that can be made by theologians and pastors. Such a procedure, however, is not the task of the Old Testament scholar. Barth was unhappy with such a concession because it construed a Christian reading of the Old Testament as inauthentic or an alien imposition. It is important at this point to notice that figural reading of Scripture, whether it be construed as Christological or, more broadly, Trinitarian, is in the theological constructions of Barth and Childs a necessary enterprise in the engagement of the Old Testament. It is a constitutive part of the one act of reading. The first layer of reading, which may be called its literal or plain sense, seeks to hear the Old Testament’s own construal of the matter in the midst of her own disastrous experience. It allows the Old Testament’s own idiom and voice to create the contours and shape of Israel’s expectation. The second layer of reading, the figural 39

 ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 62.  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 62. 41  �������������������������������������� Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 62–3. 42  ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 63. 40

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dimension, does not flatten out the Old Testament’s witness but connects its voice by natural extension with the full reality witnessed to by the entire Christian Bible. One understands this figural relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament as a dialectical one. The Old informs our reading of the New and the New informs our reading of the Old. This dialectical relationship of mutual informing resists sedimentation into a clearly defined hermeneutical theory or method. Moreover, such a figural reading of the Old Testament differs from apologetic impulses to read the Old Testament Christianly in order to prove Christ’s messianic character. Rather, such a reading is confessional in nature and follows from one’s understanding of the common subject matter shared by the two testaments. This type of reading is not neutral or bracketing out. As Childs states, ‘[I]ts truth is self-affirming not analytical demonstration.’43 The church’s understanding of the Scriptures as the ongoing vehicle for divine communication requires a pneumatic context for interpretation that takes into account the dynamic ‘aliveness’ of the Scriptural text. And returning to the point made above, the figural dimension of Scripture is a necessary aspect of the one multi-layered act of reading. ‘The sweetest and most sublime occupation for the theologian is to search for Jesus Christ amid the sacred books [of Scripture].’44 Childs’ very helpful heuristic construal of the multiple layers of reading or multiple contexts of Scripture provides a framework for our understanding of what Barth does in his multi-leveled reading of Isaiah. If the applicatio of the biblical text is a constituent aspect of the exegesis of Scripture, as Barth insists in CD I.2, then the meaning of Scripture expands to meet various theological and pastoral issues in the life of the church. Lessing’s ugly ditch is overcome by the pneumatic presence of Christ in the life of the church and the church’s reading practices of the Bible. Moreover, Isaiah is from the outset Christian Scripture, and its verbal sense must be calibrated to the ultimate subject matter of Scripture as history and prophecy in the divine economy are related to eschatology or fulfillment. Barth can allow the literal sense or the discrete voice of the Old Testament its own say without relegating it too quickly to Jesus Christ. As we have seen, Barth can allow Isaiah to speak about the identity and nature of Yahweh without a flatfooted christomonistic reading. The oracles against the nations in Isaiah 13–27 are difficult passages to extend figurally to Jesus Christ, but for Barth, they can speak of the being-in-act of Yahweh in the history of Israel and the surrounding nations despite this. The christological witness is not sought here, necessarily, as Barth allows the oracles to the nations to say something about God. This, of course, ultimately has to do with Jesus Christ, but Barth is not always constrained to show this (though this is definitely his tendency). 43

 ������������������������������������ Childs, “Old Testament Witness,” 63.  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Ephraim Radner relays these words from the eighteenth-century Jansenist Catholic Duguet who lectured on the Old and New Testaments in Paris. Ephraim Radner, Hope Among the Fragments: The Broken Church and Its Engagement with Scripture (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004), 93. 44

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Returning to the example of Isaiah 40, Barth reads Isaiah 40 in the context of Israel’s history as a witness to the patience of God. Barth does not refer to Jesus Christ in this section, but he allows the Old Testament’s own construal or verbal sense in the context of Israel’s canonical history its say. After reflecting on Isaiah 40’s literal sense or literary/contextual sense (layer ‘1’ of Childs’ approach), Barth then moves to Jesus Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s patience with Israel and humanity. In Jesus Christ, God’s patience is defined to the fullest as Barth moves Isaiah 40 from its literal sense to its figural sense. This theological exegetical move is not done at the expense of the wording of Isaiah, or the akoloutheia of the text (narrative movement or the way the words go), as the fathers would say, but the verbal sense of Isaiah’s literary/contextual placement is then figurally brought into an association with the full subject matter of the two testament canon by way of natural extension. One of the more interesting and rich aspects of Barth’s Isaianic reading is his engagement with Isaiah 53. Observe the various layers of Barth’s reading of this passage in different quadrants of the CD. In CD II.1, Barth understands Isaiah 53 to speak of the ugly beauty of Jesus Christ. In CD IV.1, he wrestles with the servant’s identity, concluding that the material of Isaiah 53 demands to be read as an eschatological witness concerning the human partner of God in redemption. T hen in CD IV.3, Barth engages the prophetic role of Jesus Christ and argues for the centrality of the history of Israel as the one true type of Jesus Christ. This is Barth’s figural exegesis at its best. Barth clearly identifies the servant of Isaiah 53 with Israel, as one could safely argue is the Isaianic construal of the matter, and figurally extends this reading to Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all of Israel’s hope, frustration, failure and calling to restore Zion and be a light to the nations. Jesus is Israel incarnate. Barth allows Isaiah 53’s idiom and canonical placement to create the theological space for his ontological association of this passage with the person and work of Jesus Christ. In these examples, we see Barth reading the same text of Scripture in its various layers with the freedom to move between these layers without much effort, or explanation, for that matter. Barth does not allow us to see the sawdust from his exegetical wood-shop. Were that it was so. Rather, Barth intuits his way through the text of Isaiah as he wrestles with its verbal sense as a theological witness to the One God with whom we have to do. Barth slides between the various layers of Scripture and is not constrained to provide warrant for why he is reading a particular text the way he is reading it in this or that context. Moreover, Barth can read the Scriptures on their figural plain without tracing out the ‘how to’ or ‘may I’ of this reading. He allows the various senses of Scriptures from the literal sense to their figural witness to slide between each other as Barth follows the way the words go. Like Irenaeus before him, Barth believed the whole of Scripture is a mosaic whose various pieces could be fit together on the confessional basis that Scripture’s subject matter is God’s triune revelation of himself in Jesus Christ.45 In this sense, Barth’s reading is a ruled reading.   Haer. 1.8.1.

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Conclusion This is not to say all of Barth’s readings are found persuasive. They are not. His reading of Isaiah 24 is interesting but wanting. Also, there are aspects of Isaiah one can only wish Barth would have paid more attention to such as Isa 48.6ff and the calling to forget the former things because God is about to do something new in Israel’s midst. This is surely a central text in the explication of Isaiah’s larger literary and theological movement. Again, Barth reads with a purpose and can be unprogrammatically selective. But this is not really the point. For Barth’s exegesis of various portions of Isaiah was not examined for final formulations on the matter. This would betray the canonical point made here that the Scriptures have a life in the divine economy and their subject matter is never exhausted. Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah was examined in the anticipation that many of us would go and do likewise in the hopes that God’s word may break forth in the church and the world by his own good pleasure.

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Noth, Martin. The History of Israel. Second ed. Translated by P.R. Ackroyd. San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1958. O’Keefe, John J., and R.R. Reno. Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 2005. Paddison, Angus. “Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Romans 9–11 in the Light of Jewish-Christian Understanding.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28 (2006): 469–88. Parker, T.H.L. Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries. Louisville: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1986. Pelikan, Jaroslav. Luther the Expositor: Introduction to the Reformer’s Exegetical Writings. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959. Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Procksch, Otto. Theologie des Alten Testaments. Gütersloh, 1950. Puckett, David L. John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament. Columbia Series in Reformed Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995. Rad, Gerhard von. “Das Christuszeugnis des Alten Testaments: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Wilhelm Vischers gleichnamigen Buch.” Theologische Blätter 14 (1935): 250–54. ———. “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation.” In From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology, translated by E.W.T. Dickens. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005, 177–86. Radner, Ephraim. Hope Among the Fragments: The Broken Church and Its Engagement with Scripture. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004. Rendtorff, Rolf. Canon and Theology: Overtures to an Old Testament Theology. Translated by Margaret Kohl. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993. ———. “Martin Noth and Tradition Criticism.” In The History of Israel’s Traditions: The Heritage of Martin Noth; JSOTSupp 182, edited by S.L. McKenzie and M.P. Graham. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994. ———. The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation. Translated by Margaret Kohl. Old Testament Studies. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998. ———. The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament. Translated by D.E. Orton. Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2005. Reventlow, Henning Graf. Problems of Old Testament Theology in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. Ridderbos, Herman. Paul: An Outline of His Theology. Translated by John Richard De Witt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975. Rogerson, John. Old Testament Criticism in Nineteenth Century German and England. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985. Scalise, Charles J. “Canonical Hermeneutics: Childs and Barth.” Scottish Journal of Theology 47 (1994): 61–88.

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Schleiermacher, Friedrich. The Christian Faith. Translated by H.R. Mackintosh and J.S. Stewart. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989. Seitz, C.R. “Fixity and Potential in Isaiah.” In The Multivalence of Biblical Texts and Theological Meanings, SBL Symposium Series 37, edited by Christine Helmer, 37–45. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006. Seitz, Christopher R. Isaiah 1–39. Interpretation. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993. ———. Word with End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. ———. Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. ———. “‘You Are My Servant, You Are the Israel in Whom I Will be Glorified’: The Servant Songs and the Effect of Literary Context in Isaiah’” Calvin Theological Journal 39 (2004): 117–34. Seitz, Christopher. “Christological Interpretation of Texts and Trinitarian Claims to Truth: An Engagement with Francis Watson’s Text and Truth.” Scottish Journal of Theology 52 (1999): 209–26. Simonetti, Manlio. Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis. Translated by John A. Hughes. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994. Smend, Rudolf, ed. Die Mitte des Alten Testaments. Theologische Studien. Zürich: EVZ-Verlag, 1970. ———. “Karl Barth and Walter Baumgartner: Ein Briefwechsel über das Alte Testament.” In Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Beiheft 6: Zur Theologie Karl Barths Beiträge aus Anlass seines 100. Geburstags, edited by Eberhard Jüngel. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986, 240–71. ———. From Astruc to Zimmerli: Old Testament Scholarship in Three Centuries. Translated by M. Kohl. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Sommer, Benjamin D. A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Sonderegger, Katherine. That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s “Doctrine of Israel”. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. Soulen, Kendall R. “Karl Barth and the Future of the God of Israel.” Pro Ecclesia 6 (1997): 413–28. Spriggs, D. G. Two Old Testament Theologies: A Comparative Evaluation of the Contributions of Eichrodt and von Rad to Our Understanding of the Nature of Old Testament Theology. Studies in Biblical Theology. London: SCM Press, 1974. Sweeney, Marvin A. Isaiah 1–39 with an Introduction to the Prophetic Literature. The Forms of the Old Testament Literature. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996. Torrance, Alan J. Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation with Special Reference to Volume One of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996.

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General Index

allegory 12, 15, 18, 20–22, 94–5, 125, 145 Alt, Albrecht 83–4 A nselm 30, 133 atonement 65–6, 79, 133, 142 Augustine 4, 43–4, 76, 86 Bächli, Otto 5 Barr, James 18, 20, 21, 113 Barstad, Hans 131 Barton, John 142–4, 145, 146 Bauckham, Richard 93 Baumgartner, Walter 3, 5, 8, 10–16, 17, 20, 23–4, 148 beauty of God 11, 124–5 Bengel, Johann Albrecht 33 Beuken, Willem 90 biblical criticism 121, 142–45 biblical theology 3, 38, 138 Bultmann, Rudolf 30 Burnett, Richard 3 Büttner, Matthias 5 calling 68, 75–6, 77–8, 117 Calvin, John 2, 4, 44–6, 48, 59, 100, 125 Childs, Brevard vii–viii, 1–2, 3, 7, 8–9, 13, 18, 20, 47, 48, 64, 65, 69, 84, 87, 89–90, 94, 112, 121–3, 132, 134, 139–49 christology 8–9, 16–23, 91–2 Cocceius, Johannes 29, 33 conversion 76, 100–102 covenant breaking of 54 doctrine of 45, 48–52, 56, 57, 60, 111, 115–20, 126 fulfillment of 53, 58–9 creation 4, 79, 86–8, 98, 99, 114–15 cross 30–32, 54–5 crucifixion. See cross Cyril of Alexandria 95–6

Die Zeit der Erwartung 5, 6, 27, 35–6, 46, 50, 59, 128, 133, 138, 148 D ocetism 66 Eichrodt, Walther 8, 40, 50–51, 78, 89, 113, 116 , 140 election 49, 58, 60, 66–8, 114–15 Emmanuel 79–85 eschatology 31–2, 56–7, 58–9, 76, 89, 119–23, 136 exegesis theological exegesis vii–ix, 3–5, 8, 13, 17, 22, 38, 64–5, 103–4, 121–3, 137–51 family resemblance 7, 13, 48 Felber, Stefan 17 figural sense. See figuration figuration 4, 22, 51, 53, 54, 58, 60–61, 67, 68, 85, 94–5, 102, 104, 109–10, 129, 131–4, 138, 139, 141, 147, 148–50 Frei, Hans 7, 51, 110 Green-McCreight, Kathryn 4 Gunkel, Herman 5, 37, 39, 86, 98 Heilsgeschichte. See redemptive history Hengstenberg, Ernst 9–10, 11, 38, 60, 61 hermeneutics. See interpretation historical criticism form criticism 12, 37, 69, 70, 80, 86, 121 redaction criticism 12, 69, 78, 80, 89–90, 101, 146 religionsgeschichtliche Schule 10, 16, 27, 37, 38–40, 41, 59, 146, 147 historical criticism vii, 2–3, 4, 5, 7–11 18, 20–21, 50–51, 55, 64, 63, 78, 80, 89, 101, 127, 132, 134, 140, 142, 145, 147

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history historical particularity 12, 16, 46, 57, 70–71, 121–2, 123, 127, 145 historicality 30 historicity 30 of redemption. See redemptive history of religions. See religionsgeschichtliche Schule holiness of God 74–5 homiletics. See preaching interpretation confessional approach to 9–10, 22, 30, 48, 51, 59–61, 143, 149, 150 history of vii, 20, 42–8, 96 intertextuality 70–71, 87, 90, 94–5 Irenaeus 42–3, 59, 150 Kant, Immanuel 30, 48, 73, 76 kingdom of God 34, 96–7, 97–8, 99, 111, 128 kingdom of heaven. See kingdom of God Kraus, Hans-Joachim 26 Krötke, Wolf 91 literal sense 4, 15–16, 20, 58, 68, 78, 81, 87, 109–10, 115, 123, 135, 138, 139, 146, 148–50 love of God 111–15 Luther, Martin15, 46–7, 48, 59, 76 MacDonald, Neil 75, 101 Marcion 25, 41, 42, 60 marriage 135–6 McCormack, Bruce 3–4, 21, 33 McGlasson, Paul 2–3, 138–9 Messiah 11, 31, 58, 89, 90–93, 135 midrash 94–5 multiple layers/levels 23, 51, 57, 61, 65, 90, 110, 133, 134, 136, 139–50 natural sense. See literal sense Noth, Martin20, 80, 82, 116 pietism 76–7, 78 plainsense. See literal sense

preaching 15, 16, 17, 23, 70, 72, 99, 102, 148 Procksch, Otto 8–9, 78 prophet Israel as 129–32 Jesus as 128–31 redemption 67, 87–8, 118, 119, 127 redemptive history 32–3, 147 Religionsgeschichte. See religionsgeschichtliche Schule religious-historical 8, 13, 20, 23, 37–8, 48, 75, 113. See also religionsgeschichtliche Schule Rendtorff, Rolf 141, 145 revelation. See also Word of God as an act of God 73–4 expectation of 21, 36–7, 40, 41, 43, 60 inhistory 29–34 time of 28–9, 36 Römerbrief 3 salvation history. See redemptive history Schleiermacher, Friedrich 3, 25, 38–9 Seitz, Christopher xi, 64, 83–4, 90, 120, 127, 143 Servant of the Lord 101, 112, 117–19, 125, 126–7, 128, 129–33 Smend, Rudolf 101 Son of God Israel as 65–8, 71 Jesus as 66–7, 71 Suffering Servant. See Servant of the Lord Thurneysen, Rudolf 16–17 time God’s versus humanity’s 34–5 of expectation. See Die Zeit der Erwartung T rinity 71–3, 147 typology 2, 20, 53, 58, 125, 139, 4 unity between the Old and New Testament 19, 22, 42, 44, 45, 48–59, 66, 121, 144, 147 van Buren, Paul 103

Index Vischer, Wilhelm 5, 8–10, 14, 16–23, 40, 50, 140, 146 vocation. See calling von Campenhausen, Hans 103 von Harnack, Adolf 25–6, 37, 38 von Hofman, Johann 29, 32 von Rad, Gerhard 1–2, 8, 20, 23, 82, 87, 127, 130, 140

Watson, Francis 3–4, 143 Webster, John xi, 144 Wellhausen, Julius 8, 10, 40, 116 Wilken, Robert Louis 95–6 Williamson, H.G.M. 89, 93 wisdom of God 105–8 Word of God 23, 86, 105, 109–10 Wright. N.T. 93–4

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Scripture Index

Genesis 1.9–10 86, 88 1–2 86–7, 99 2.12–25 135 3.15 48 9.1–7 116–17 1 Kings 3:6–9 92 Psalm 51:10 100 Isaiah 1.2–4 65–71, 100 1.4–9 69 2.2–4 117 6 71–9 7.14 79–85, 95 8.5–8 86, 88 8.6–10 82–5 8.11 81 9 83–5, 95 11 89–95, 139 13–27 95–9, 149 13 96, 97–8 14.4–11 99 17.12–14 88 19 97, 117 24 151

24.21–23 98–9 25.6–8 117 30.1,9 65–7 30.11–17 69, 100 30.20–22 100–102 40 105–10, 141, 150 42 119, 129 42.6 118 43.1–4 114–15 43.4–5a 112 43.18–19 59 48.6ff 151 49.6 117 49.8 118–19 49.15–16 111–12 49 132 50.1–3 111–12 53 123–34, 139, 142, 148, 150 54.4–5a 111 54.8 106 56.1–8 134–6 62.4–5 111 Jeremiah 31:33 100 Romans 13.11 47 15.10 93–4