Canon and Creed, by Robert W. Jenson

When Westminster John Knox Press launched the Interpre­tation commentary series in 1982 with Walter Brueggemann's provocative volume on the book of Genesis, readers encountered the strange new world of the Bible in a forgotten old form—something now frequently called theological interpretation, a way of reading the Bible that many in academic biblical scholarship at the time were endeavoring to leave behind. Three decades later, theological exegesis, though still a disputed discipline, is no longer a practice at the margins.

Broadly construed, the commentaries in the Interpretation series might all be considered examples of theological interpretation because they affirm a unified Christian canon rather than opting for an arbitrary division between a Hebrew Bible and a New Testament. The writers and editors intentionally situate each individual canonical book within a larger narrative of God's saving action in Christ, as proclaimed and lived out by the historic church. Each commentator thus struggles to make some sense of the Augustinian maxim that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.

Robert Jenson's Canon and Creed is part of a second wave of volumes in the Interpretation series that aims to focus on vital themes for the preaching and teaching of scripture. Jenson, one of the most well-known and highly regarded contemporary Christian theologians, contributed to the first wave with a commentary on the Song of Songs. He now presents an account of theological interpretation that focuses on the mutuality of scripture and the creed (using the singular as shorthand to denote the historic creeds) of the church. On the basis of a reciprocal exchange between canon and creed, Jenson offers a modest proposal for ecumenical agreement: "The church is the community of a message, that the God of Israel has raised his servant Jesus from the dead." This, he argues, is a definitively Christian conviction. Jenson begins with a brief description of how the canon of scripture and the creed of the church developed together and a discussion of why neither one can be grasped without reference to the other. He suggests that the real question to struggle with is not "Why should the church adopt Israel's scripture?" but rather "Why does Israel's scripture need Jesus and his disciples?" He then examines how the rule of faith made it possible to understand the two Testaments as one canon and how the creed summarizes the trinitarian pattern of Christian scripture.