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The Way of the Lord: Essays in Old Testament Theology
Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2008 by Robert Gnuse
The Way of the Lord: Essays in Old Testament Theology. By Patrick D. Miller. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004. Pp. x + 341. Paper, $30.00.
Within this volume Miller offers us twenty-one essays in biblical theology, separated into three sections: The Commandments, The Prophets, and Old Testament Theology. Sixteen of these essays have appeared in journals or Festschriften, two were conference papers, and only three are listed as previously unpublished. Unlike most anthologies of this ilk, all but two of these essays come from a short six-year period (2000-06) and thus have theological coherence, unlike some collections that contain dated essays that no longer reflect the author's thought.
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The titles are as follows: "The Place of the Decalogue in the Old Testament and Its Law" (3-16), "The Sufficiency and Insufficiency of the Commandments" (17-36), "Metaphors for the Moral" (37-50), "The Good Neighborhood: Identity and Community through the Commandments" (51-67), "The Story of the First Commandment: The Book of Exodus" (68-79), "The Story of the First Commandment: The Book of Joshua" (80-90), "The Psalms as a Meditation on the First Commandment" (91-122), "The Commandments in the Reformed Perspective" (123-35), "The Ruler in Zion and the Hope of the Poor: Psalms 9-10 in the Context of the Psalter" (167-77), "The Poetry of Creation: Psalm 104" (178-92), "The Hermeneutics of Imprecation" (193-202), "Prayer and Worship" (203-13), "The Psalter as a Book of Theology" (214-25), "What is a Human Being? The Anthropology of the Psalter I" (226-36), "The Sinful and Trusting Creature: The Anthropology of the Psalter II" (237-49), "Constitution or Instruction? The Purpose of Deuteronomy" (253-68), '"Slow to Anger': The God of the Prophets" (269-85), "What the Scriptures Principally Teach" (286-96), "Theology from Below: The Theological Interpretation of Scripture" (297-309), and "Man and Woman: Towards a Theological Anthropology" (310-19).
Miller has diverse agenda in these various essays. At times he seeks to understand what the biblical text meant to ancient Israelites, at times he attempts to articulate what the text might say to all modern Christians, and occasionally he addresses how the biblical message particularly affects his own Reformed tradition and the Presbyterian Church, which he serves. Most of the essays demonstrate a Christian mind theologizing from the First Testament without squeezing the text into exclusively Christian categories. On this issue alone the essays provide valuable insight for other Christian theologians on how to approach the First Testament. Miller often articulates insightful observations, and he frequently says things in clever fashion, as when he speaks of "the portrayal of Leviathan as God's rubber duck in the great ocean bathtub" (188) in reference to biblical imagery about creation.
The essays I found to be most fascinating, are the following: In "The Sufficiency and Insufficiency of the Commandments" Miller suggests that in the biblical text, the Decalogue performs the role of being a "constitution" relative to the other legal corpora. Thus, Jesus did not overturn, but extended the actions "initiated and guided" by the Ten Commandments. In "Metaphors for the Moral" Miller declares that the Decalogue creates a "trajectory" or an "arc" of evolving, dynamic, and flexible imperatives, which develop into deeper moral guidelines in the New Testament and still continue to evolve in new directions for us today. (This image of "trajectory" is one that I often use in my own writings.) "The Commandments in the Reformed Perspective" provides an insightful evaluation of how Luther and Calvin especially appropriated the Ten Commandments in their writings.
"Prayer and Worship" contains Miller's argument that Lament Hymns were not used in public worship, but were created only for individual, private use, as illustrated by Hannah's prayers in 1 Samuel I. Only Thanksgiving Hymns were used in public worship. I disagree. I believe that Lament and Thanksgiving Hymns could be used both publicly and privately. Miller evaluates the thesis of McBride concerning the purpose of the book of Deuteronomy in "Constitution or Instruction? The Purpose of Deuteronomy." McBride declares that this book is Israel's "constitution," whereas von Rad had described the book as "instruction." Miller thinks that Deuteronomy performs both functions; it provides both "hortatory"/"constitutional" and "instructional"/"catechetical" rhetoric. Miller discusses how we can apply the Bible to modern controversial issues, such as homosexuality, in "What the Scriptures Principally Teach." Finally, "Man and Woman: Towards a Theological Anthropology" provides an excellent brief analysis of Genesis 1-3.
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