Theology and Reading
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 52, No. 2 – Spring 2010
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Ronald E. Heine. Evangelical Ressourcement. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007. 204 pages. Paperback, $18.99.
Ronald Heine, professor of Bible and Christian ministry at Northwest Christian College in Oregon, draws upon a wealth of knowledge of the Church Fathers to write this rich yet readable book. His overarching goal is to present the Church Fathers as an underappreciated model for us in our approach to the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. He has some supporting goals as well. Two of these deserve special mention. One basic goal is to show that the Fathers provide a model for us in terms of their attentiveness to teaching and preaching from the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. Heine compares their attentiveness to our neglect of the Old Testament. The second goal is to demonstrate how helpful the Fathers can be to our study of the Old Testament as Christian Scripture. Heine makes it look easy to find insightful, helpful treatments of Old Testament passages in the works of the Fathers. This is not as easy as he makes it look. As a result, Heine’s book is a great resource for the Christian who wants to understand some of the rich history of Christian interpretation of the Old Testament.
To accomplish his goals, Heine presents several topics that the Church Fathers address in their teaching on the Old Testament. He devotes a chapter to each main topic. Chapter two looks at their struggle to interpret the Law of Moses as Christian Scripture. Chapter three provides several examples of the importance of the Exodus events as predictive and symbolic in the Bible. In chapter four, Heine presents numerous instances where the Fathers turn to the Old Testament to find prophecies related to various aspects of the work of Christ. Chapter five is a real gem that one should not miss. Its focus is the approaches to the Psalms in the Fathers. The Fathers are shown to provide rich engagement with the Psalms for prayer and worship. They also struggled to interpret the Psalms as prophecies of Christ. As they looked for prophecies of Christ in the Psalms, they thought it was important to find those places where Christ is speaking prophetically through the inspired words of David (on this, see also 131–32 in chapter 4). Finally, in chapter six, Heine reminds us that the Fathers did more than just study the Old Testament; they sought to live it as well.
Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church is surely a helpful guide for finding good examples of the Fathers’ teaching from the Old Testament. A significant, perhaps intentional oversight will trouble some readers, especially those who have taken hermeneutics in seminary or college. In my reading, Heine never mentions that the Fathers, especially Origen whom he presents quite positively, are often presented as providing a wealth of bad examples in terms of their interpretations of the Old Testament. Heine does not address or counter this common presentation. All of his examples of the Fathers’ teaching from the Old Testament are positive. Like other teachers great and small, the Fathers are not always excellent guides for interpreting the Old Testament.
Similarly, Heine does not clarify important hermeneutical categories. He uses terms like “symbolism,” “types,” and “allegory,” but does not orient the reader as to the meaning or significance of these terms. As a result, his book does not help informed readers to relate his presentation to what they have heard about the interpretive approaches of the Fathers. Even so, Heine is to be commended for guiding us to many instructive examples of the Church Fathers’ teaching on and from the Old Testament.
