For the last three centuries, conservative Christians have attempted to defend traditional Christianity against the rising trend of biblical criticism. Biblical critics argued that Christian theology was layered on top of the Bible. So they wanted to get what the Bible meant before Christians added their theological biases to the text.
But does classical Christianity actually add a layer of meaning to the text that is not there? Does the Old Testament truly speak of Christ, or do we see Christ in the Old Testament by reading him into it? Should we read the Old Testament as part of a unified and inspired message about God, or is this an imposition upon the text?
These are the sorts of questions that Craig Carter attempts to answer in Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition. His basic argument is that we need to return to a uniquely Christian way of reading the Bible, which has been replaced (especially in the academy) by a naturalistic way of reading the Bible. [Read more…] about Review of Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition by Craig Carter