REVIEWS 619

nothing of Moses b u t seem to have an Enochic world view.

Genesis 6 seems to assume a knowledge of Enoch 6n,
as Milik suggested thirty years ago. T h e similarity between the
Pythagoreans and t h e Essenes was often noted, but if the Enoch
tradition was the lore of t h e earlier temple, and Pythagoras was
said to have spent part of his youth in Syria, learning in the
temples there, t h e 'forgotten connection' may lie centuries earlier
than has been suggested. T h e problem then becomes not the
origin of Enochic 'Judaism' but the origin of Mosaic Judaism.
It is all a question of hypothesis and context. Hypotheses
are not strengthened by repetition but by evidence. T h e y can
never be proved. Data without a context give no information.
Data in a different context give different information. T h e
context of Enoch studies has to be wider than the fascinating
questions raised by Q u m r a n . T h e myriad questions raised
by current theories about the formation and even the date of
much of the H e b r e w Bible have to be part of the Enoch context,
as does its place in early Christianity. T h e r e can be no fudge
that assumes an early date for the Hebrew Scriptures because
we have always t h o u g h t that, and a mid or late second-century
date for e.g. Enoch, on t h e grounds that that is the earliest
physical evidence for the texts. T h e critical question has to
be: why did the early C h u r c h use Enoch and post-70 Judaism
not? T h a t is hard evidence. All the rest is commentary.

doi:10.1093/jts/flm019 MARGARET BARKER

Advance Access publication 5 February 2007 Borroicash
bkmargaret@hotmail.com

The Scriptures and the LORD: Formation and Significance

of the Christian Biblical Canon: A Study in Text, Ritual
and Interpretation. By T O M A S B O K E D A L . P p . 3 7 4 . L u n d :
C e n t r e for T h e o l o g y a n d R e l i g i o u s Studies, 2005.
ISBN 91 6 2 8 6 6 0 7 9. N . p .

T H I S T h . D . dissertation from the University of L u n d makes a

significant contribution to the current debate about the biblical
canon, from both a historical and a theological/hermeneutical
standpoint. T h e central thesis as defined by the author is this:
'Integral to the life of the church, in particular the ecclesial
practice of proclamation and prayer, the formation and
continuous usage of the Christian biblical canon is an act of
c
The Author 2006 Published b\ Oxford rrmer<it\ Press All neht* reer\rd
' r>T Permisin, please email jnurmU permi^ionsfa oxfordjnurnaU nru
620 REVIEWS
literary preservation and actualization of the church's apostolic
normative tradition"The Scriptures and the L o r d " , by which
the church is and remains church, appealing to a variety of
textual, ritual and doctrinal materials' (pp. 3478).
On the historical side, Bokedal argues that the N e w Testament
canon was accepted as a finished whole m u c h earlier than is
granted by the prevailing consensus at the m o m e n t . In this
he follows T h e o d o r Zahn rather than Adolf von Harnack, and
builds a good deal on the recent work of David Trobisch.
In support of this early dating he deploys two types of evidence
that are certainly being discussed a lot at present but which
have not been thought of as evidence for an early canon.
One of these is the nomina sacra. If it is true, as seems widely
agreed, that these were almost universal in Christian biblical
manuscripts from the very beginning, then they indicate that
these texts were already seen in the sub-apostolic age as both
special and as forming a unity among themselves. T h e major
early nomina sacra, G O D , JESUS, and SPIRIT, amount to a kind
of summary of the Rule of Faith, and indicate that these texts
were read within the contours of a developing credal confession.
T h e other evidence is the early and typically Christian use of
the codex. Surveying recent discussions (and he is always very
thoroughly informed about the current state of scholarship),
Bokedal proposes that the main advantage of the codex was
its capacity to hold more than a single book. W h a t explains
the argument, as early as Irenaeus, that there are exactly four
Gospels, is the existence of four-Gospel codices. T h e other major
sections of the New Testament, the Pauline corpus and the
Praxapostolos (Acts -f Catholic Epistles) similarly existed from
very early times in the form of compendious codices, and so each
was treated as forming an internal unity. It is not the case that
the New Testament writings acquired their canonical status
slowly and fitfully. On the contrary, they achieved the character
of Scripture almost as soon as they were written, and indeed
in some cases they were probably intended to be quasi-scriptural
even by their authors. Here Bokedal builds on Richard
Bauckham's argument that the Gospels were always intended
for a wide Christian readership, reversing the common idea
of them as texts each initially possessed by only one local church.
In further support of an early New T e s t a m e n t canon there
is the evidence of liturgical use, which must, Bokedal argues,
have made the Christian writings seem to have the same kind
of status as the Old Testament scriptures had in the synagogue.
If the Christian assemblies Justin knew read from the 'writings
 REVIEWS 621
of the apostles' and from the prophets, then even as early as
that these must have been seen as very much on a par. T h e facts
that New T e s t a m e n t texts are not cited with formulae such as
'it is written' for some years after Justin, and that it is only in the
fourth century that finalized lists of books appear, are essentially
irrelevant. T h e N e w Testament writings already functioned as
canonical Scripture from the early second century onwards.
On the theological side Bokedal argues that if the New
Testament was accepted as Scripture in something like its present
form from such an early date, that is bound to have implications for
its interpretation today. Making extensive use of Gadamer and of
Francis Watson, he adopts an approach similar to that of Brevard
Childs, in which the final form of the New Testament text has
authority for the Church and calls for an exposition determined by
the Church's Rule of Faith. T h e Wirkungsgeschichte of the text is
vital to its correct understanding. T h e Church never intended the
Pauline letters to be understood as discrete entities, but always as
a collection. T h e Gospels were always meant to be read as four
versions of the one gospel, never as separate and conflicting
accounts. T h e historical-critical reading of these texts travesties
their original intention, which has scripturality already built into
it: 'the interpreter, in order to understand at all, must be part
of the historical continuum which he or she shares with the
phenomenon being studied, in this case the biblical canon. For it is
only when this defacto sharing of a common historical continuum
is not denied that the concept of the canon can be taken seriously
namely, when the canonical form and function of a biblical text, is
understood to mediate, between its circumstances of origin and its
later usage' (p. 53; punctuation as reproduced here).
In developing the special hermeneutic that such a view of
Scripture requires, Bokedal adopts the five hermeneutical rules
developed by Robert Jenson: 1) Scripture is a whole. 2) Scripture
is a whole only because it is one long narrative. 3) T o be able to
follow the single story and grasp Scripture whole, the interpreter
needs to know the story's general plot and dramatis personae. 4)
It is the church that knows this plot and dramatis personae
of the scriptural narrative, since the church is one continuous
community with the story's action and narrators. And 5) T h e
church's antecedent knowledge of Scripture's plot and dramatis
personae, enabling a reading of the Bible as a whole, is contained
in the Rule of Faiththe canon that the church propounds
and teaches to her members regarding how to think and talk
as Christians, (p. 226)
622 REVIEWS
T h u s Christians were a 'people of the book' almost from the
Church's inception, and to read the N e w T e s t a m e n t critically is
always a n d necessarily to read it against t h e grainand hence
undesirable.
Bokedal's work provides t h e kind of historical, empirical
foundation that 'canonical criticism' has never h a d before: most
canonical critics argue a priori about t h e characteristics of
Christian Scripture. I doubt whether he will convince many
scholars that the N e w T e s t a m e n t in fact emerged as a canonical
text quite so early as he thinks. Liturgical use does not
necessarily imply scriptural status: exactly what kind of status
it does imply is precisely t h e point at issue. Bokedal is correct,
I believe, in thinking that the contents of the N e w Testament
came to be crucial for Christians sooner than on Harnack's
model, b u t I a m n o t convinced that t h e texts enshrining that
content were immediately seen as holy books. T h e apostolic age
itself was surely pre-canonical, and it is that age that most
critical biblical scholars try to study. Nevertheless Bokedal's
work will require sustained attention from students of both New
T e s t a m e n t and patristics, as well as from systematic theologians.
T h e English, while always comprehensible, is not always
idiomatic, and there are recurring infelicities such as 'princi-
pally', intended to mean 'in principle', a n d 'except for' used
to mean 'apart from', which cause momentary disorientation.
T h e structure is clear a n d well planned, a n d t h e range of
scholarly knowledge the work demonstrates is highly impressive:
equal acquaintance with N e w Testament papyrology and
theoretical hermeneutics is a rare accomplishment. I hope this
book will be widely read and pondered.

doi:10.1093/jts/fll094 J O H N BARTON
Advance Access publication 29 September 2006 Oriel College, Oxford
john.barton@oriel.ox.ac.uk

Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile: Restoration

Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement. By BRANT
P I T R E . P p . xii-f-586. ( W i s s e n s c h a f t l i c h e U n t e r s u c h u n g e n
zum Neuen Testament, 2.204.) T b i n g e n : Mohr
S i e b e c k / G r a n d R a p i d s : B a k e r A c a d e m i c , 2 0 0 5 . ISBN
3 16 148751 6. N . p .

T U E subtitle helps to indicate the direction of this study, towards

the eschatological ideas, from tribulation to restoration, and the
C The Author 2006 Published b\ Oxford l*ni\crsit\ Pres AU rights reserved
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