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<p>This exercise in constructive Christian theology presents the relation between
the testaments as a critical problematic for the figural reading of the Old Testament.
The project consists of two parts, the first focusing on Augustine and Calvin, and
the second primarily on the Epistle to the Hebrews.</p>
<p>The first part provides a typological comparison between Augustine and Calvin on
the continuity and discontinuity of the testaments (chapters 1-2), the people of God
across the testaments (chapter 3), and the purpose of Scripture in redemptive history
(chapter 4). Augustine defines the unity of the testaments according to a sign-referent
framework whereby the Old Testament signifies the New. Calvin, on the other hand,
locates this unity in the one covenant, grounded in Christ across the testaments.
Since Augustine thinks the grace of the New Testament was veiled before the time of
Christ, he asserts the necessity of interpreting the Old Testament according to two
levels of meaning: the literal and the spiritual. Since Calvin thinks both the Old
and New Testaments reveal the knowledge of God, he restricts interpretation to the
literal sense, though this sense can have multiple referents: Israel, Christ, the
church, and the eschaton. Each figure struggles to account for Israel and the Old
Testament saints. For Augustine, the saints belonged to the New Testament as they
mediated the Old. Calvin alternately identifies Israel as the church during Old Testament
times, and the Old Testament saints as redemptive-historical aberrations.</p>
<p>The second part draws upon this typological comparison to consider the Epistle
to the Hebrews with reference to its depiction of redemptive history (chapter 5),
its appropriation of the Psalms (chapter 6), and its overarching vision of Scripture
(chapter 7). Hebrews locates the discontinuity between the testaments in the establishment
of Christ as high priest, and the continuity in a common people and a common hope
for an eternal inheritance. The author interprets the Psalms neither according to
two levels of meaning, nor within an expansive literal sense, but as a living word
of address whereby God speaks directly to his people. Old Testament locutions retain
their illocutionary force, but adopt new valence in light of Christ. The authority
of Scripture, then, rests not in some historically reconstructed sense, but in God's
self-communicative act in the redemptive-historical present.</p>
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