Once again—the "center" of the Old Testament - Old Testament theology

The two German scholars differ in their understanding of what constitutes the "Old Testament." For Janowski, it is the Tanak; but Spieckermann argues for the Septuagint:

   Old Testament theology necessarily depends on New Testament theology and on
   the Bible in which the realization of Christ has been perceived, namely in
   the Greek version of the Old Testament, roughly speaking, in the Septuagint
   [307].

Presumably Spieckerman is concerned here with more than merely the canonical extent (the inclusion of the deutero-canonicals). At least implicitly he is presupposing the "inspiration" of the Septuagint, a position taken in modern times by the French Dominican school (D. Barthelemy, P Benoit). This is a kind of twentieth-century revival of Augustine's understanding, due to the extensive role played in the New Testament by the Septuagint. This is not the place to pursue that difficult topic, but it is certainly a minority view at the present time.

It is fairly obvious that in the past decades most scholars have at least implicitly identified the middle/center with some theme of biblical theology. The approaches of both Janowski and Spieckermann exemplify this tendency: the Shekinah approach, and the theme of God's steadfast love. The views of both scholars are welcome, for there is great value in their expositions. But the fundamental difficulty remains. They have presented analyses of certain themes, but they have not touched the ever-receding "center" of either or both Testaments. Let it not be thought that this is merely quibbling about the meaning of the term center. The extraordinary amount of literature on this subject demonstrates otherwise. And the search for the center has produced a wide range of profitable studies on key themes that appear in the Bible. All this is to the good. But the issue remains: is there a center? Is the question of the center rightly posed? Does biblical literature have a unity that can be described by a center? Or is the striving for center propelled by another factor, the use of a criterion or standard drawn from a different area of theology?

The key problem for both scholars is the illusion, a chimera, that the Bible has what could be realistically described as a middle, or even a central theme. The basic fact is that neither Testament, nor, consequently, both together, has a distinct middle or center. A Christian might urge Jesus Christ as the center of the New Testament at least. But this literature cannot be reduced to Jesus Christ as "center," without making a mockery of it. One might as well say that God is the center of the Bible, as has been claimed (Hasel: 168)--but this solves nothing. Literature is literature, and theology is thematic. The Old Testament in particular is far too diversified to be curtailed to an essential center/theme, no matter how broad (e.g., presence), or how important (e.g., covenant). The drive for the unity of the biblical writings fails because the literature has no middle, or unity. It was composed over a period of centuries, and reflects the most varied circumstances. It is rich in its diversity. The plan of God, the historical design of the God worshiped in both Testaments, is not the same thing as the literature spawned by the people of God. The unity of divine design is not the unity of the literature that gives witness--a variegated witness (Torah, Prophets, Wisdom) to the design itself (Murphy 2000: 81-83). The concern for center may be linked to the idea of the primacy of Scripture--Scriptura sola, even in the sense of David Steinmetz's Scriptura valde prima as final norm (Steinmetz: 462)--not simply because the majority of the biblical scholars gripped by the question come from a Reformation background, but because of a very human desire to unify what is considered to be the key source of revelation.