Eichrodt and von Rad

1. THE REVIVAL OF OT THEOLOGY DURING EARLY 20TH CENTURY
Walther Eichrodt
Walther Eichrodt was born in 1890 in Germany. In Eichrodt’s Old Testament
Theology (1933-39) Old Testament material was synthesized around a central
concept. Eichrodt set biblical studies onto a new path in which the Bible’s message
rather than its religious history was most important.
Eichrodt made his contribution in the context of religionsgeschichte as a reflection
and a critique towards that. He began his scholarly career toward the end of World
War I. The massive destruction in the war raised large questions about the decades- a
long mood of optimism, an optimism fuelled by the belief in the inevitability of
progress. In biblical scholarship too evolution had been a basic assumption. Thus
according to Julius Wellhausen the Pentateuch itself was a product of an evolutionary
process in Israel (JEDP theory). Scholars had been alerted at the end of the 19th
century through archeological excavations to Babylonian creation myths such as
Enuma Elish. There was great interest in religious comparative studies. The question
was how was Israel’s religion similar to that of its neighbours? The net result of such
an exclusive approach was to ignore the message of the OT.
But Eichrodt was to focus on the message. He criticized Otto Eissfeldt who held that
while the study of the history of religion was scientific discipline, the study of OT
theology was not. In Eissfeldt’s view the confessional or dogmatic views are not
objective description of the Bible’s message. But Eichrodt disagreed with him.
Eichrodt maintained that one could use the historical- critical methods to get at the
essence of the Old Testament religion. It can be used not only for its history but also
for its message. He explained one way to study the Bible is to exegete it passage by
passage, a micro approach and the other way is to reach for its overall framework or
message, a macro approach. For him these two methods are complementary. Eicrodt
gave his energies to both approaches but is best known for his macro system.
Working more cross-sectionally than developmentally, Eichrodt concluded that
constant was the intersection of an Almighty God with man (Mensch) for the purpose
of establishing a close relationship. He said when one dips into the OT at any point,
he/she shall be met by God who desires a relational engagement with humankind.
Eichrodt used the term covenant to symbolize this reality of divinely initiated divine-
human engagement. He made a new framework that the message of the OT could be
captured in a central theme or construct, namely, covenant. By covenant Eichrodt
understood not a particularistic covenantal action by God with an individual or a
people but the broader overall engagement by God with humans.
Eichrodt’s three volumes developed the three dimensions of this engagement in turn:
God and Israel, God and World, and God and Man. The first volume, leaning heavily
on the Sinai covenant, with the thesis that God has set himself in a posture of
engagement with a people, Israel. Several chapters develop the theme of the nature of
the covenant God. Other topics of the first volume are the covenant statues the
instruments of covenant breaking and the consummation of the covenant. Part 2 and 3
(but in English only two volumes) are devoted to ‘God and world’ and ‘God and
man’. In part 2 the subject is God and the themes are God’s self manifestation, the
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2. spirit of God, the Word of God, cosmology, creation, the celestial world and the
underworld. While the interactive nature of God with humankind is in view
throughout, only one chapter is solely devoted to humanity.
In part three interaction of God with humanity is viewed from the anthropological
perspective such as : the individual and the community, fundamental forms of man’s
personal relationship with God , the effect of piety on conduct and sin and
forgiveness. His task and method is-how to understand the realm of OT belief in its
structural unity and how, by examining on the one hand its religious environment and
on the other its essential coherence with the NT, to illuminate its profoundest
meaning. According to him OT text is to be interpreted contextually, both culturally
and biblically.
The significance of Eichrodt is as a biblical interpreter who is linked to his view on
typology. His intention in his theology of the OT to connect with the NT was one of
Eichrodt’s major themes. That is, Eichrodt was more than and OT scholar he was a
biblical scholar. In emphasizing a central concept, such as covenant, as capturing the
structural unity of the OT, Eichrodt did not ignore the diversity others saw in the OT.
But he started with the notion of a theological unity. With the emphasis on the
transcendent God Eichrodt delivered a critique to humanism and a secularism that had
come as an after effect of Enlightenment. Moreover, Eichrodt pioneered the cross-
section method based on a unifying principle and he understood the importance of the
covenant idea in the religion of Israel.
Gerhard von Rad (October 21, 1901-October 31, 1971)
Gerhard von Rad was a famous OT scholar, whose papers fuelled interest and
research in Old Testament science. Henning Graf Reventlow of Ruhr University,
Germany in introducing a book of von Rad makes the following observations:
...a number of von Rad's innovative papers prepared the way for the blossoming of
Old Testament science in Germany during the first decade after the Second World
War.
Gerhard von Rad was born on October 21, 1901 in Nuremberg, a city in the southern
German state of Bavaria, to evangelical parents, and was educated at the University of
Erlangen and at the University of Tübingen. In 1925 he became a curate1
in the local
church in Bavaria. He taught at the University of Erlangen in 1929 as tutor. He was a
professor in the University of Jena from 1934 to 1945, at the University of Göttingen
from 1945 to 1949, and at Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg in the state of
Baden-Württemberg until his death in 1971. He received honorary doctorates from the
University of Lund, Sweden and the University of Wales, England.
The publication of OT theology of von Rad marked a fundamental reversal of the
historical focus of biblical theology by redirecting the biblical theologians’ attention
back to the narrative text or at least, back in the direction of the text. Von Rad’s major
works are The Problem of Hexateuch, Old Testament Theology (2 volumes) and
Wisdom in Israel.
1
Priest’s assistant
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3. Gerhard Hasel2
writes about Prof. von Rad thus : A new methodological approach for
OT theology, one that deserves to be put in a class by itself, is that of Gerhard von
Rad. His OT theology needs to be understood as the theology of the historical and
prophetic traditions. John H. Hayes3
writes about von Rad: In his theology, with its
challenge of previous methodologies and with its new proposals, von Rad (1901-71)
inaugurated a new epoch in the study of Old Testament theology. He argued against
any organization of Old Testament theology along the lines of central concepts,
pervasive topics, assumed structures of Israelite thought or world of faith, or
systematic theological categories which had been characteristic, in one way or
another, of all the theologies of the twentieth century since this was to impose an alien
structure on the material. G. Henton Davies4
writes about Prof. von Rad: Gerhard Von
Rad has been a regular contributor to Old Testament studies since 1929, although his
main works were published between 1947 and 1960. His major writings include his
studies on Deuteronomy; his commentary on Genesis; his two volumes of Theology
of the Old Testament and a representative selection of his essays, extending from
1931 through 1964, which were translated and published as The Problem of the
Hexateuch and other Essays in 1966, though the bulk of these were written in the late
1940s. Victor Premasagar
5
writes about von Rad as: von Rad was a major contributor
to Old Testament studies following the literary-critical tradition of Julius Wellhausen
and the form-critical and the traditio-historical approach of Hermann Gunkel as
developed by Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth. The Bible for von Rad, in the final
analysis, is neither history nor literature, but rather the confessions of a community.
Von Rad proposed and applied diachronic method (through time) on the study of OT.
According to that, OT’s revelation of Yahweh is as a number of distinct and
heterogeneous revelatory acts. The diachronic method for OT theology is dependent
upon traditio-historical research which was developed in the 1930s. In 1957 and and
1961 he published his volumes of his OT theology. Von Rad seeks to‘re-tell’ the
kerygma or confession of the OT as uncovered by means of the diachronic tradition-
historical method. Gerhard von Rad developed the "tradition history" approach to the
Old Testament that has dominated the study of the Bible for nearly 40 years. He
sought to apply the category of Heilsgeschichte (salvation history) to the Hebrew
Bible and that he endeavored to link the different biblical traditions in a coherent
manner. The book of Deuteronomy provided the norm for virtually every discussion;
von Rad actually published three books about this central text, which he believed
represented early northern traditions arising among levitical priests, traditions that
were later presented in the form of a sermon placed in the mouth of Moses and used
in connection with King Josiah's reform in 621 B.C.
According to von Rad, the Hexateuch grew out of liturgical recitations (little credos)
that the people spoke in connection with the festival of Weeks at Gilgal. The original
credos consisted of Joshua 24:2-13 and Deuteronomy 6:20-24 and 26:5-9. These
2
He is from the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary of Andrews University, Michigan,
U.S.A.
3
Professor at Candler School of Theology of the Emory University in Atlanta, U.S.A.
4
Past President, Regent's Park College in Oxford University, Oxford, England
5
Cambridge graduate and past Principal of the Andhra Christian Theological College, Secunderabad,
India.
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4. confessions of faith allude to the essential traditions comprising Genesis through
Joshua (patriarchs, exodus, wilderness wandering, conquest), with two glaring
omissions (Sinai and the primeval history, Genesis 1-12). Von Rad argued that the
Sinai narrative about Moses' receipt of the law was a separate tradition from the four
complexes in the Hexateuch and that the author known to scholars as the Yahwist
wrote the primeval history as a preface to the story about divine promise and its
fulfillment, the settlement in Canaan by the people of God.
Von Rad's thesis depended on an understanding of ancient Israelite life prior to a
Solomonic "enlightenment" as entirely sacral. Furthermore, the proposed origin of the
Hexateuch assumed that the Bible arose out of the actual practice of worship.
Generation after generation adapted earlier liturgical traditions to new historical
circumstances, dropping some emphases and introducing new ones. Von Rad devoted
his efforts to charting the course of living traditions. In his view, Old Testament
theology derived its categories from ancient Israelite confessional statements rather
than from modern systematic thought. Therefore, he described several theologies,
those of the main sources of the Hexateuch (the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and
Priestly writer), as well as those represented by the prophetic traditions and wisdom
literature (Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon).
Naturally, this mode of presenting a theology of the Old Testament raised the issue of
unity, for the diversity in viewpoint came into focus at every point. Von Rad believed
in the unity of the Bible, which he described under the categories of promise and
fulfillment. In his view, Israel's God promised land, progeny, and blessing - promises
that were constantly being fulfilled. The result was eschatology, a looking to the
future for the full measure of divine promise. Such an approach was related to the
typology of early church Fathers, but von Rad insisted that the Old Testament
contained both promise and fulfillment.
When he turned to the wisdom literature, von Rad discovered that tradition history
was not all that useful as an interpretive device. This new interest prompted him to
acknowledge that too much emphasis had been put on history, for in wisdom literature
the deity's action was identified with creation and humans went on the initiative
against God in such works as Job and Ecclesiastes. His last three published works
concentrated on the silence of God (the doxology of judgment, Israelite wisdom, the
sacrifice of Abraham in Genesis 22). One dimension of his work, the exposition of the
Bible in sermons, proved that the most exhaustive study of the Scriptures need not
diminish religious commitment to the power of the word.
Von Rad's views were highly controversial, evoking considerable heat. Many of his
theories have not stood the test of time, but it would be difficult to find another person
who has contributed so much to the understanding of the Old Testament. It may be
that in truth he wrote a history of Israelite religion rather than an Old Testament
theology, but he insisted that the Hebrew Bible be understood in the context of the
religious life of ancient Israel. That is surely a correct insight.
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