Research Proposal on "Messiah Kaiser, Walter C. "

Research Proposal 5 pages (1741 words) Sources: 4 Style: Turabian

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Messiah

Kaiser, Walter C. The Messiah in the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995.

The question of how to 'read' the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures has proved vexing for Biblical scholars of all faiths, levels of orthodoxy, and persuasions. Should it be read as a tale in and of itself, or as a piecemeal patchwork of the different sects and mythologies of the early Hebrews? How many individuals had a hand in authoring it, or assembling it? And what is its relationship to the New Testament? According to Walter C. Kaiser, the most fruitful and fulfilling way to read the Old Testament is that of a tale of promises fulfilled.

Kaiser is an academic with an evangelical background, a former professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He currently holds the office of the Colman M. Mockler Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. This background or bias informs all of his critique and analysis of the Old Testament as essentially a 'lead up' to the New Testament. The coming promise of the Messiah, Kaiser alleges, is underlined in every book of the Old Testament, and the structure of promise and fulfillment is the architecture through which all of the Old Testament is framed.

Kaiser begins his overview by studying the Pentateuch, or the first five books of Moses, and then quickly moves through the rest of the Old Testament with an obvious focus on messianic prophecies. Besides the Pentateuch, Job, the books of Samuel and (unsurprisingly) David as well as the Psalms and the minor prophets are his focus of his analysis, an impressively wide swath of material, given the relative brevity of the book which is only 258 pages.

Obviously, Kaiser's view of Jesus as 'existing' between the lines of the Old Testament contradicts the way that someone of the Jewish faith might read the text -- but also the way many Christians might as well. Reading the Bible in a Midrash-style fashion is to read it sectionally and piecemeal while Kaiser has a clear, overarching aim in his interpretation that will allow for few detours from his thesis. The book concludes with Kaiser's analysis of how the Old Testament should be read in the future: rather than a replacement theology that replaces the Israel with Christian church in Jesus' new world and uses Christianity as God's sole vehicle of divine prophetic fulfillment, Kaiser stresses the need for dialogue between Christians and Jews. It is essential that Christians honor the role of the Old Testament scriptures and the history of the Jewish people in the development of their faith. Indeed, it should be viewed that both are one. Instead of believing that Jews are no longer God's chosen people, Kaiser calls for a "promise plan theology" and sees the construction of Israel today and its future as part of the hope for a new age.

However, much of Kaiser's actual exegetical work is in either direct or implied argument with people who dispute the predictive nature of the Old Testament of Jesus, and stress its specific location in the history and times of the Hebrew people. A particular area of interest of Kaiser is the titles given to the Messiah, and whether they are reference to Israel as a whole or an individual. It should be noted that although he clearly is reading the Bible from what might be called a conservative, theological, and somewhat ahistorical perspective, Kaiser is conversant in Biblical languages and Near Eastern history of the time enough to locate the books in some historical milieu. He analyzes the writers of Holy Scripture as a progression, and notes how the word and role of the Messiah was phrased in a different fashion, depending on the needs of an era, either as a Prophet, Priest, King, and Servant. In the Pentateuch alone the coming Messiah is called a seed of a new nation, a star, and a king as well as a prophet. This notion of a kingly Messiah is expanded upon in David, of course, as David provides one of the defenses for Christ's lineage later on in the Gospel of Matthew.

As well as specific passages, Kaiser attempts to 'teach' the reader how to 'read prophesy.' For example, he rejects what might be called goal-directed exegetical meanings, which focus on trying to go back in time and read a Biblical text in isolation, terms of how its original audience in its original historical setting is likely to have read the work. He also rejects the idea of a 'dual' meaning, that the Bible must be read 'of its time,' and in our time, stressing that the two cannot be separated. He also believes in the eternity of the Biblical message as always having been there, or developing in relation to the present day. Rather than a relativistic or shifting truth that places the interpreter in the driver's seat of interpretation, scripture alone must guide the reader -- one reason that the author places such a strong stress on interpreting the original meaning of the words in their language. Kaiser believes a great deal of misinterpretation has been caused simply by misreading the words through our own, contemporary lens and needs.

To the extent that Kaiser proves his point is somewhat impossible to say, given that he often uses a linguistic framework of knowledge that the lay reader does not have. Furthermore, his view is so totally all-encompassing and hermetically sealed that it is difficult to fully take issue with many of his points, other than to suggest that a more multifaceted or nuanced view of the events that are unfolding might be better. Furthermore, as he stresses he writes for all peoples it is worth adding that someone who was Jewish, for example, might appreciate his strong interest in the history of the Old Testament, and his stress that God still takes a great interest in the history of Israel and the Jewish people. On the other hand, feature of interest for Jews, such as God's relationship to the Jewish nature of Israel, and the Jewish quality of the Messiah is lost. Many Jews might simply be offended by reading their scriptures only as a kind of warm-up to the Old Testament. Of course, this critique might be made of many Christian authors on the subject of Old Testament theology, but Kaiser identifies his work specifically as a highly welcoming approach to the Old Testament scriptures, even while he reads every historical account of the history of Israel as a prefigurement of Jesus.

The strength of Kaiser's account is that it is a very clear viewpoint, with fairly linear if complex of argument. No book could hope to give a multifaceted exegetical account of all the possibilities inherent of the books of the Bible that he tackles, and by showing how a single point-of-view can illuminate so many scriptural texts is interesting. But the weaknesses of a singular viewpoint is perhaps reflected in the literature on Kaiser's work in general -- it was reviewed, not by Biblical scholars, despite Kaiser's amble credentials, but only by conservative, Christian readers. David C. Deuel, Associate Professor of Old Testament wrote in the 1995 edition of the Master's Seminary Journal: "Kaiser's most recent contribution to exegetical theology is a most welcome addition to the literature on Messiah. Rather than speculate on the nature of prophesy and its methods in isolation, he makes his point by allowing the passages to speak for themselves. Pastors and Bible instructors will appreciate this helpful book" although even Duel admitted "one can dispute his interpretation of individual passages" as "the NT posturing of OT passages as messianic as well as the 'natural' meaning of select passages themselves is a single gargantuan argument" (Deuel, 1995, p.127).

In the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in March 1997 Stanley Horton wrote approvingly: "I appreciate his [Kaiser's] conservative position reflecting plenary verbal inspiration and accepting the ninth-century date of Joel and the eighth-century date for the entire Book of Isaiah. He is well aware of the conclusions of liberals with respect to the Messiah in the OT and answers them from the context of the Bible itself" (Horton, 1997, p.161). This reviewer's assumption that the liberals are 'wrong' and that the conservative position is to be 'appreciated' rather than defended from every point-of-view reflects the likely intended readership of the document. The lack of interest of other reviewers demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of taking up a doctrinaire position, however thoroughly defended in a text.

For example, none of the reviews nor Kaiser himself takes on the 'Documentary Hypothesis' in any great depth, about the multiple authors of the different parts of the Bible, a viewpoint that sees the repetition of certain stories and themes 'with a difference,' for example, as evidence of multiple authors and redactors of the original text. Even if a theological, conservative view might be valid in its own right, Kaiser's inability to fully address multiple interpretations of… READ MORE

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