Book Review: Letter & Spirit, Volume 8: Promise and Fulfillment edited by Scott W. Hahn
Disclaimer: I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway on the premise that I would write a review of it. I am a Christian, but not a Catholic, so this may affect my reactions to this volume.
This is not actually a book, but a scholarly journal put out by the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. While I do not agree with the Catholic church on some of their dogma, they do have an impressive history of Biblical scholarship. This volume’s focus is on the connection between the Old Testament and New Testament, and how the latter fulfills the former.
I am sadly lacking a knowledge of Greek or Hebrew, which means that I am at a loss to fully appreciate some of the more esoteric papers, which focus on the precise meaning of individual words in the scriptural texts. All of these are extensively cited and footnoted, however, so the scholar can follow up with the sources.
The paper I found of most value was “The Tradition of Christian Allegory Yesterday and Today” by Leroy A. Huizenga. It’s a good introduction to the subject of using allegory to interpret Scripture, and just what is meant by the terms used in the field, including “allegory” itself. I would recommend this paper to any interested layman.
Also of interest was “Historical Criticism as Secular Allegorism: The Case of Spinoza” by Jeffrey L. Morrow. It argues that Spinoza’s approach to Biblical interpretation, which among other things seeks to know what was added to the manuscript when and by whom, reflects the political and religious struggles in his time. Thus it has its own subjective lens, and is not as objective as some of its adherents would claim.
The primary audience for this journal would be Biblical scholars; aside from the one paper mentioned above, I really cannot recommend it to anyone else. This is not to say that it is poorly written, merely that it’s esoteric.
