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...Origen sets out to demonstrate that the Old Testament belongs not to the Jews but to the Church...
This has been an issue that has confronted me a few times: To whom do the Scriptures belong?
In academia, I'm encouraged to use the politically-correct term "Hebrew Bible" for what Christians call the "Old Testament." I guess I don't mind "Hebrew Bible" because its writings were originally written by and for the Hebrews. But the term is problematic because those writings are Christian Scripture as well, so why should our terminology assume that they only belong to the Hebrews? Yet, the Christian term "Old Testament" is also exclusive because Jews accept the book as Scripture and think God's covenant with Israel still exists, meaning (contra supersessionist Christianity) it's not "old" in the sense of being replaced by a "new" covenant.
At Latin mass a few weeks ago, the priest said that it's pointless to debate with Protestants because two sides hurling proof-texts at each other accomplishes little. He then quoted Tertullian "before he became a heretic," who said that the Bible doesn't belong to heretics but to the Church. For the priest, why debate with Protestants, when the Bible doesn't even belong to them? Ironically, however, that didn't stop Tertullian from debating people on certain points of doctrine.
I heard this homily not long after I wrote a post that somewhat touched on this topic, Multiple Meanings and Control. There, I discussed how the rabbis believed that the Bible belonged to their community, so they wouldn't adopt Christian interpretations of Scripture that undermined their community's ideology or basis for existence, even if those interpretations could be supported by rabbinic exegetical methodology.
I guess what I'm getting at in all these ramblings is this: On a certain level, the interpretation of the Bible is subjective. As I read De Lange's book today, one issue that came up was how to interpret "Israel." Who are God's people in this day and age? For Origen, the Old Testament predicted that God would include the Gentiles as part of his people. Origen also holds that the Church is the new Israel, whereas God has rejected the old Israel, the Israel after the flesh, which rejected Jesus Christ. As far as Origen is concerned, the Church gets the blessings described in the Hebrew Bible, whereas the Jews get the curses! And what is a piece of evidence that such is the case? For Origen, it's that the Jews are a subjugated people, whereas the Church is thriving.
But Jews had a different interpretation of Scripture. They acknowledged that Jerusalem fell in 70 C.E. and that they were subjugated by the Romans on account of Israel's sins (e.g., strife). But they leaned heavily on biblical passages in which God promised to redeem his people after chastising them for their sins. As far as they were concerned, God hadn't left them, even though they were suffering.
When Origen looks at the Old Testament, he sees Christ all over the place. As De Lange states, Origen applies every piece of wood in the Old Testament to the cross of Jesus Christ. Jews also see a deeper meaning in Scripture, but they apply that deeper meaning to elements of their own religious ideology (e.g., God's covenant with Israel, the blessing of the Torah, God's promise to restore the nation), not to Jesus Christ.
So who's right? Is there a way to determine that either is right? Christians and Jews both claim that the Scriptures belong to them, and are for their edification. When Origen digs into the text to unearth Christological or allegorical meaning, that may look far-fetched to a lot of people. Many people might say, "Where's he pulling that from? Not the text!" But he had no problem approaching the text with Christian presuppositions, for he believed that the text was for Christians. The same goes for Jewish interpretation of the text, which supported Jewish ideologies.
At the same time, Origen did believe that Christianity could be objectively defended against Judaism. In his Against Celsus, he defends Christian exegesis of Scripture against the Jewish views that Celsus mentions. Origen looks at Isaiah 53 and sees an individual, not the nation of Israel (as many Jews argued), suffering for people's sins. He consults evidence (albeit weak) that Isaiah 7:14 refers to a virgin, not merely a young woman. He thinks that miracles aren't the best proof for the truth of Christianity, since other religions have miracles as well (a point I've raised in this blog more than once). Yet, he says that Christian miracles are different because they have a positive effect: they (especially the healings) help people. And, although his allegorical method may look pretty subjective, he's at least certain that it's deeper, richer, and more profound than the crass, "literal" approach that the Jews take to the text (though there are times when he applies Jewish midrash to his own purposes--he likes it that much!).
To whom do the Scriptures belong? I'm not sure if there's a way to objectively answer that. I think that Jewish emphasis on God's commitment to and restoration of national Israel, as well as the beauty of the Torah, is faithful to the literal meaning of the Hebrew Bible. Christians may point to things in the Old Testament that support their narrative, such as Israel's stubbornness, God's promise to welcome the Gentiles, etc., but the Jews can fit those things into their own story: Sure, they were sinful, but God is merciful to his people Israel. Yet, I'm not entirely sure what they do with the passages in which God dismisses an Old Testament law, such as God's promise in Isaiah 56 to welcome eunuchs into the covenant, which seems to contradict God's exclusion of the genitally-deformed in Deuteronomy 23.
