Criticisms on B.S.

Childs Canonical Approach1:

1. Canonization of the scripture has long history. It had taken many centuries to complete or
to come to a conclusion. But still different churches follow different canon. Therefore,
was canonization as significant as significant a phenomenon as is claimed? Even without
being canonized, works may be accepted as authoritative or scripture and used as
sources for formulating and judging the faith. Since there are many canons exist within
the church, which canon is authoritative?
2. Since canonization was an action of the patristic age, the emphasis on the canon assigns
this period a special status in history which is not shared by earlier and biblical period.
Why must the end of a process be more important than earlier period?
3. Were not some portions of the biblical material being treated with just as much authority
at earlier stages as they were after the canonical stage? One may speak of several levels
of canonical authority-the tradition-history phase, the final author or final composition
level, and the ecclesiastical level. Thus it is difficult to assign authority strictly to the
canonical phase alone.
4. How does one adjudicate in those cases where the original meaning of the text appears to
have clash with final canonical form? According to Childs, one would have to stress the
final canonical form and where the NT interpretation differs from that of the OT then
presumably the former would have priority.
5. In his book Introduction Childs attempts to show how the collecting, editing, and
joining together of material was divinely controlled. If the final editorial process was
such a work of the Spirit but preliminary to the canonical stage, why should not the even
earlier stages of the tradition be seen as inspired and thus in some fashion as
authoritative?
6. In his program, the goal was not really to understand the text so much as encounter and
contact with the divine reality which is mediated by the text. If this is the case, then
where does the real authority and certainty lie in the canon or in the reality behind the
canon, and if the latter then why should the divine by so restricted to the canon? Here we
should remember that God is not sitting behind the texts waiting to be recognized at the
end of long and patient hermeneutic exercise. God can never be the object of human
knowledge, but God always remains the eternal subject.2
7. Does saying that the canon provides the context for biblical scripture really allow one any
vantage point for judging between various and diverse positions within the canon? E.g.,
both Isa 2: 4; and Joel 3: 7-10 are canonical but how would one judge the value of their
two positions?
8. If theology has to do with truth claims how can the appeal to canonical material really
settle the matter? Theological truths are not reached by deduction or dialectic or any form
of reasoning restricted to the canon or a deposit of faith. They are determined in
judgments which have reflected on what scripture says and also on whatever other clearly
relevant knowledge the theologian may possess. There is no single final norm.
Theological truths are discovered by open minds passionately hungry for a contemporary,
true understanding of God.

1
I have mainly depended on Hays and Prussner, OT Theology, 271-3.
2
S.J. Samartha, The search for New Hermeneutics in Asian Christian Theology
(Bangalore: BTESSC, 1987), 50.
9. If the canon is taken as the final boundary for doing biblical theology, is not a lost from
the inability to draw upon the insights and conclusions of the history of religion? One
cannot include either the prehistory of the traditions or their setting in a larger universe of
meaning.
10. John L. Mckenzie calls Childs works as how-to-do-it books. For him the OT has its
own entity. So there cannot be a biblical theology, but only theology of the OT and
theology of the NT. So there is no crisis biblical theology (referring Childs title:
Biblical theology in Crisis).3

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3
John L. Mckenzie, Old Testament Theology, 318-19.