Reviewed Book: Lohfink, Norbert. The Covenant Never Revoked: Biblical Reflections on a Christian-Jewish Dialogue. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1991

Denef, Lawrence W.

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 20Issue 2 In Praise of Valiant Women Article 1511-1-1994The Covenant Never Revoked: Biblical Reflectionson a Christian-Jewish DialogueLawrence W. DenefFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationDenef, Lawrence W. (1994) "The Covenant Never Revoked: Biblical Reflections on a Christian-Jewish Dialogue," Consensus: Vol. 20 :Iss. 2 , Article 15.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol20/iss2/15158 ConsensusIf you strive to l:)e a, competent reader of the Bible, you will want to getyour hands on this volume. Gunn delivers a penetrating reading of the storyof Lot at Sodom (Genesis 19; pp. 178— 192). Surprise and delight await youwith insights for teaching and preaching generated by the varied methods.Students in my seminary classes have found this book both stimulating andchallenging, even though some chapters are not as helpful as others (e.g.Form Criticism).Errors are few. “Son of my father” should read “Son of my people” (p.186) and there is a typo on p. 178, (t)his daughter.The act of reading and the reader’s imagination are taking on a newprominence in biblical studies. Is reading the Bible like a picnic in which thel)iblical authors bring the words and you (the reader) bring the meaning?John H.C. NeebWaterloo Lutheran SeminaryThe Covenant Never Revoked: Biblical Reflections on Ia Christian-Jewish Dialogue INorbert LolifinkjNew York: Panlist Press, 1991j96 pp.Improvement in Jewish-Christian relations stands out as a bright spot yin a centui'}^ filled with unbelievable violence and suffering. But it was not :until Christians acknowledged the full horror of the mass extermination ofJews during the Nazi period that representative bodies of Christians beganto express strong and concrete interest in making amends for past wrongsjand offering assurances of a better future.jBeginning with the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches(in 1948, dozens of ecumenical and denominational statements concerningJewish-Christian relations have been issued. Among the most recent is ThejliijjDeclaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the JewishCommunity^adopted 18 April 1994, which repudiates “Luther’s anti-Judaicdiatribes arid violent recommendations of his later writings against theJews”. It also deplores the teaching of hatred toward Judaism or towardthe Jewish people in our day. “Grieving the complicity of our own traditionwithin this history of hatred, moreover, we express our urgent desire to livejout our faith in Jesus Christ with love arid respect for the Jewish people,”says the ELCA declaration.,This may seem like a long step for scmie Christians, but is it enough?Can one renounce the causes arid forms of anti-Scmiitism on moral grounds .without going on to a theological position whi(4i giv('s full recognition to |ithe realit}^ of Judaism as a, living ndigion? Is it possil)l(' to declare respectpBook Reviews 159[t\ite.ii»I|mifor Judaism and the Jewish people while at the same time maintaining atraditional theology of rejection and substitution which issues in a programof mission and conversion?This question has in recent years led many Christian scholars to a re-assessment of biblical sources. Central to their probings has been the bib-lical concept of covenant. Several theories have emerged: “one covenanttheories” in opposition to “two covenant theories”, and recently even “sev-eral covenant theories” . Lutherans may be most familiar with the “doublecovenant” views expressed by Krister Stendahl who believes “that we cannow see how Paul was the forerunner of Maimonides and Rosenzweig in theirrecognition of Christianity as a way of God to and for the Gentiles” (KristerStendahl, “Widening the Perspectives of Jewish Christian Relations,” Faceto Face, I [Winter/Spring 1976] p. 18, Anti-Defamation League of B’naiB’rith, New' York).Stimulated by the emerging debate, Norbert Lohfink, a Roman Catholicbiblical scholar in Old Testament Studies at the University of Frankfurt,Germany, argues that Christians and Jews are united in a single covenantthat is acknowledged and accepted in two distinctly different manners. Andif this is so, says Lohfink, Christians and Jews dare not speak in ways thatdeny each other’s chosenness as God’s instruments for the salvation (rescue)of a w^orld which is not in order.In support of his thesis, Lohfink provides fresh insights into a number ofrelated scriptural “covenant texts”. Among them is 2 Corinthians 3:14, theonly direct mention of “old covenant” in the New Testament. Most readers,says Lohfink, assume that the old must yield to the new' and so they read 2Corinthians 3:14 in that light. But in this case Lohfink supports Luther’stranslation which does not assume that the old covenant is replaced, butthat it is the veil covering it “which discontinues in Christ” so that thesplendour of the “old covenant” is revealed anew^In the case of Jeremiah (31:31-34), Lohfink asserts that the promiseof a “new covenant” was “fulfilled with the return from exile and the riseof the new temple community around Jerusalem” and that the well knownpenitential Psalm (51:12), “Create a pure heart in me, O God” shows that“the new heart, loyal to the torah, as a new creation of God, w^as, atthe time, available on request to the sinner who repented” (p. 52). Inother words, Jeremiah’s “new^ covenant” is not another “covenant” but “thefidler and more lasting actualization of what was given of old” (p. 48); yetwhich “at the same time remains open for an eschatological-christologicalfulfilment” (p. 52).This little monograph is a gern. Biblical insights abound. But itsgrea.test contribution lies in Lohfink’s final challenge. In the future, Jewish-Christian dialogue ought to focus on torah rather than covenant, for it istorah that constitutes the “new covenant” ( “I will set my torah within themarid write it on their hearts”, Jeremiah 31:33). This, he maintains, is all themore crucial in our times because of how" Christians have often mistreatedthe Pauline teaching on law^ and gospel by pitting one against the other.160 ConsensusTorah is salvation in concrete form, its materialization, its penetra-tion into the density of society with all that means. Because torahin the “new covenant” is the same as in the covenant of the exodusfrom Egypt, it can, so far as it is present in our world in two ways,ultimately be only one torah, God’s world confronting the worldsocieties structured out of sin. ..(p. 96).This provocative paragraph alone is worth the cost of the book. Onecannot read it without recognizing the question it poses for those whowould make of Christianity something that concerns merely the individual,the interior life, and the beyond.If there is any criticism, it is only that everything is presented in anascent, almost naive manner without polemics. There are no footnotes, nosupporting references, no complete developments. Throughout, the readeris left with a host of surprises that call for further investigation. But isn’tthis capacit}^ to stimulate thought precisely what makes any theologicall:>ook good?Lawrence W. DenefEvangelical Lutheran Church in CanadaWinnipeg, ManitobaThe Oracles Against Babylon in Jeremiah 50-51. AHorror Among the NationsDavid J. ReimerSan Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1993This is a slightly revised version of Reimer’s 1989 doctoral thesis atOxford. It retains nagging features of the genre but is filled with interestingand provocative ideas.The Preface (pp. iii-vii) summarizes the drift of the book and is worthreading. The Introduction (pp. 1-10) retraces some of the same ground tosituate it in the history of research, but leaves the reader a little debated1)}^ stressing the limitations imposed on the thesis. The thesis itself hasfour parts that are divided into chapters, not for any thematic reasons, butmainly, it seems, to produce segments of proportionate length.The first part treats “Poetry and Structure in Jeremiah 50-51”. Thefirst chapter (“The Problem of Method in Hebrew Poetry”, pp. 13-26)points out that, since the structure is not marked by formulaic introduc-tions and conclusions, and since the text gives the impression of havinggrown 1)y accretion, the analysis will be limited to lines and the minimalunits composed of lines, where lines are defined by rhythm (sound pat-terns), syntax (word order) and semantics, and units by the coherence oflines. The second and third chapters are relatively detailed analyses of

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The Covenant Never Revoked: Biblical Reflections on a Christian-Jewish Dialogue

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